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Climate change is gonna be rough on farmers and eaters

by ghd12australia Posted on November 20, 2015

Climate change is gonna be rough on farmers and eaters

By on 20 Nov 2015commentsShare

When the apocalypse comes, it’ll be every man and woman for themselves. If zombies attack, then your once friendly neighbor will try to kill you for your food supply. If an epidemic sweeps the nation, then everyone with a sniffle will start to look like satan incarnate. If — god forbid — the internet goes down, then billions of people around the world will suddenly devolve into complete lunatics incapable of functioning without GPS, emojis, and the morphine drip that is social media likes.

And now, according to economists at MIT and Stanford, if IPCC projections for climate change come true, then it’ll be every nation for itself — at least, when it comes to farming. Here’s the scoop from MIT News:

If one country suffers a decline in, say, wheat production but can still grow as much rice as ever, then — in theory — it might grow more rice and trade for its usual amount of wheat instead.

But a new study co-authored by an MIT economist suggests that international trade will do little to alleviate climate-induced farming problems. Instead, the report indicates that countries will have to alter their own patterns of crop production to lessen farming problems — and even then, there will be significant net losses in production under the basic scenarios projected by climate scientists.

“The key is the response within a country, in terms of what those farmers produce, rather than between countries,” says Arnaud Costinot, a professor in the Department of Economics at MIT and expert on international trade issues, who is one of the authors of a paper detailing the study’s results.

Constinot and his coauthors looked at the future farming and trade practices of 50 countries under 11 climate change scenarios proposed by the IPCC. They focused on 10 major crops, including wheat and rice, and in the forthcoming issue of the Journal of Political Economy, report that, all-in-all, damage to those crops could lower global GDP by about 0.26 percent. But that’s nothing compared to what happens when one accounts for the climate change impacts on all crops, Constinot told MIT News — in that frightening hypothetical, global GDP stands to decrease by about one-sixth.

And, of course, the burden on individual nations won’t be evenly distributed:

As with many aspects of climate change, the effects on agriculture could vary widely by region and country. In the study’s model — under the baseline IPCC scenario, and given farming and trade adjustments — agricultural productivity declined by over 10 percent in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, and Myanmar, and a whopping 49 percent in Malawi. In other countries, including Germany and the United States, the expected effects in the model were very modest.

Right — so as if we weren’t already huge dicks for causing this mess in the first place, it’s like we just accidentally released a deadly virus from a top secret research lab and then decided to hunker down in the fully equipped government facility to wait out the chaos while the rest of the world burns.

Source:

Grow Your Own Way

, MIT News.

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Climate change is gonna be rough on farmers and eaters

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Here, China — let this algorithm tell you how to control your pollution

by MarlaTranter Posted on August 31, 2015

The Desolation of Smog

Here, China — let this algorithm tell you how to control your pollution

By on 31 Aug 2015commentsShare

For those of you who aren’t constantly plundering the trenches of Meteorology Monthly* for the latest weather models, the general badassery of predicting the evolution of massively complex meteorological and climatic systems can perhaps slip your mind. (I assume.) If so, you’re in luck: Grist is here for you in a way that Meteorology Monthly never will be.** In a move that has artificial-intelligence and machine-learning enthusiasts tapping their keyboards slightly more rambunctiously than baseline, IBM has entered the air-systems prediction space — but not with respect to the weather. Instead, the computing giant has aimed its algorithmic cannons at China’s air quality.

By sampling data from the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau and combining several existing air-quality models, the research group hopes to build a high-resolution model of Beijing’s pollution levels. Advanced statistical techniques mine the troves of data for predictive insights that would otherwise get lost in the smog.

You might be thinking to yourself, OK, ozone cowboy, what can IBM actually do with an air-quality model? To which this sleep-deprived reporter responds, How did you know my AIM screen name? And to answer your question, quite a lot.

MIT Technology Review spoke with one of the research group’s leaders:

“We have built a prototype system which is able to generate high-resolution air quality forecasts, 72 hours ahead of time,” says Xiaowei Shen, director of IBM Research China. “Our researchers are currently expanding the capability of the system to provide medium- and long-term (up to 10 days ahead) as well as pollutant source tracking, ‘what-if’ scenario analysis, and decision support on emission reduction actions.”

The project, dubbed Green Horizon, is an example of how broadly IBM hopes to apply its research on using advanced machine learning to extract insights from huge amounts of data—something the company calls “cognitive computing.” The project also highlights an application of the technology that IBM would like to export to other countries where pollution is a growing problem.

Machine learning is more or less statistical inference on steroids. The artificial intelligence per se enters the picture in the “decision support” arena. It’s one thing to build a predictive model of air quality, but quite another to build a reactive model: one that can suggest actions the city could take to reduce daily air pollution in a localized, preemptive manner to respond to public health concerns. These actions could include “closing certain factories or temporarily restricting the number of drivers on the road,” writes MIT Technology Review.

The models (and accompanying predictions), which have a resolution close to a kilometer, are likely the most precise predictive pollution models in existence. Of course, it’s a niche field, but it’s a field that promises to expand as smokestacks continue to pump those delicious particulates into the atmosphere. IBM is already developing another version of the software in Hebei province, home to China’s most polluted city.

* Unfortunately/fortunately, not a thing.

** Insofar as it’s still not a real magazine.

Source:

How Artificial Intelligence Can Fight Air Pollution in China

, MIT Technology Review.

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Meet Ernest Moniz, who may or may not be the next secretary of energy

by LeannqOsborn Posted on February 22, 2013

Meet Ernest Moniz, who may or may not be the next secretary of energy

By Philip Bump

Everyone is excited about rumors that President Obama will name Ernest Moniz to run the Department of Energy. Reactions range from “Who is Ernest Moniz?” to “What happened to the other guy?” to “Who was the other guy?”

Well, we are here to answer those questions! (The first one, anyway; we’ve answered the other two before.) Since you live a fast-paced lifestyle, always on the go, we’ve broken it up into bite-sized pieces, one bit of info at a time. You are welcome in advance.

Who is Ernest Moniz?

Well, he might be the next secretary of energy — if Obama nominates him and if the Senate approves him. It is possible that in two months time he will be of very little interest to you, having not been confirmed. Or he will be of very little interest to you because he was confirmed, but you, like most Americans, are fairly indifferent to the office of secretary of energy.

But you knew that. So here’s who he is, as articulated by Reuters, which appears to have been first with rumors of his imminent nomination.

Moniz, a former undersecretary of energy during the Clinton administration, is director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Energy Initiative, a research group that gets funding from industry heavyweights including BP, Chevron, and Saudi Aramco for academic work on projects aimed at reducing greenhouse gases.

Ha ha. Sounds great! We will come back to this part, obviously.

At MIT, Moniz led intensive studies about the future of coal, nuclear energy and natural gas, and he helped attract funding and research momentum to energy projects on campus.

People familiar with Moniz’s work said, if chosen, he would bring his own energy and pragmatism to the job. …

Moniz earned kudos for a pragmatic approach toward using research to find ways to reduce carbon pollution from fossil fuels and transition to cleaner forms of energy.

We’ll come back to this, too.

What does he look like?

Well, he looks like this:

MIT

But more evocatively, he kind of looks like a Founding Father who teaches high-school English in New Hampshire.

Has he ever been in any movies?

No. According to IMDB, he’s only ever been on Frontline. Put those autograph books away!

What’s his actual, non-summarized background?

Here’s part of his bio at MIT:

Professor Moniz received a Bachelor of Science degree summa cum laude in physics from Boston College, a doctorate in theoretical physics from Stanford University, and honorary doctorates from the University of Athens, the University of Erlangen-Nurenburg, and Michigan State University. He was a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at Saclay, France, and at the University of Pennsylvania. Professor Moniz is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Humboldt Foundation, and the American Physical Society and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He received the 1998 Seymour Cray HPCC Industry Recognition Award for vision and leadership in advancing scientific simulation and, in 2008, the Grand Cross of the Order of Makarios III for contributions to development of research, technology and education in Cyprus and the wider region.

(Honestly, “the Grand Cross of the Order of Makarios III” sounds made up.)

I would like to hear him in his own words, please.

Fine. Here you go, via Switch Energy Project, as pointed out to us by D. Ray Long.

How do environmental groups feel about his possible nomination?

A charitable way to describe how they feel would be: mixed.

As noted above, his program at MIT receives a lot of money from fossil fuel interests. And Moniz has been unabashed in his advocacy of the use of natural gas as a “bridge” fuel and even for some expansion of nuclear power. (You can read his thoughts on the latter here.)

The Hill has a small collection of quotes from disaffected greens, but the better overview comes from Inside Climate News, which has a good article on Moniz’s background. It starts with his thoughts on natural gas.

In December, while speaking at the University of Texas at Austin, Moniz warned that while natural gas could reduce carbon emissions by displacing coal-fired electricity, its increasing use could also slow growth in the clean energy sector.

“When it comes to carbon, [natural] gas is part of our solution at least for some time,” said Moniz, who served as undersecretary of energy during the Clinton administration. “And we should take advantage of the time to innovate and bring down the cost of renewables. The worst thing w[ould] be is to get time and not use it. And that I’m afraid is where we are.”

This isn’t incorrect, mind you — natural gas has spurred a drop in carbon emissions and is certainly going to be part of the mix. But it’s not something that most environmental organizations are currently championing, especially given the process usually used to extract that gas: fracking.

Moniz has accepted fracking as a necessary-but-unnecessarily-polluting evil. In 2011, Moniz presented a report from his MIT group to the Senate, saying:

“Regulation of shale (and other oil and gas) activity is generally controlled at the state level, meaning that acceptable practices can vary between shale plays,” Moniz wrote in his prepared testimony. “The MIT study recommends that in order to minimize environmental impacts, current best practice regulation and oversight should be applied uniformly to all shales.”

Moniz didn’t elaborate on how to standardize regulations and oversight …

“Prior to carrying out our analysis, we had an open mind as to whether natural gas would indeed be a ‘bridge’ to a low-carbon future,” he told the committee. “In broad terms, we find that, given the large amounts of natural gas available in the U.S. at moderate cost … natural gas can indeed play an important role over the next couple of decades (together with demand management) in economically advancing a clean energy system.”

At the same time, however, the report projected that natural gas will “eventually become too carbon intensive” and should be phased out around 2050.

Moniz’s record also demonstrates commitment to renewable energy development.

As a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, he helped write a 2010 report that recommended a federal investment of $16 billion per year for clean energy innovation — about triple the 2010 investment. Some of that money could come from the private sector, the report said. For example, “we use about 200 billion gallons of transportation fuel annually, so a two cents per gallon charge would … generate about $4 billion per year.” It said the same amount of money could be raised by charging a fee for the electricity used nationwide — a suggestion Moniz reiterated at the Texas conference.

Expect this to come up during confirmation hearings.

So, will he be confirmed by the Senate?

Well, given the drawn-out, ridiculous path Republican Chuck Hagel has been forced to crawl in his bid to be secretary of defense, God only knows. Granted, defense is a more high-profile Cabinet position, but it seems clear that his nomination happened under the belief that confirmation would be easier than it has been.

And, of course, Moniz would first have to be nominated.

OK. So, will he be nominated?

As before: God only knows. Well, God and Obama.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Fracking may release less methane than thought

by Myrna Posted on November 28, 2012

Fracking may release less methane than thought

By Philip Bump

How much methane leaks out of the ground during the fracking process? There’s a long-running debate over that question, and the answer could determine the role of natural gas in a climate-changed world. Natural gas burns more cleanly than coal and oil, but that benefit could be outweighed if fracking causes significant releases of methane, a greenhouse gas that is orders of magnitude more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide.

Last year, researchers from Cornell reported that fracked natural-gas wells leak 40 to 60 percent more methane than conventional natural-gas wells – making fracking a more dangerous source of greenhouse gas emissions than coal.

Citizen Action NY

But today, a team from MIT suggested the Cornell report may be incorrect — that fracking doesn’t result in much more methane emission than standard natural-gas drilling.

From E&E News:

[A]bout 216 gigagrams of methane [emitted] in 2010 … was due to hydraulic fracturing, a technique in which drillers inject pressurized water, sand and chemicals to fracture shale rock and release trapped gas. Fracking accounted for 3.6 percent of the 6,002 gigagrams of methane emitted overall by natural gas operations in 2010.

The implication is that shale gas drilling operations leak most of their methane from much of the same points as conventional gas drilling operations: pipelines, compressor stations, valves and other point sources. These account for about 96.4 percent of the emissions from a gas production site, the study finds.

There are a few caveats. The first is that the methodology for the calculations is based on different assumptions than those used by the EPA.

Depending on who is asked, companies either almost completely capture or flare their methane during completions, or almost completely vent the gas to the atmosphere. U.S. EPA assumes that half the gas is flared and half is vented.

In the MIT study, the authors assume that 70 percent is captured, 15 percent is flared and 15 percent is vented. They term this “current field practice” and say it is based on “extensive discussions with industry, EPA and other relevant groups regarding actual field practice.”

If those assumptions are off, it means that the study’s calculations on methane release are also incorrect. But we’ll defer to MIT.

Another caveat: It’s difficult to tell from this study how much more methane is released from fracked wells than traditional wells. The Energy Information Administration doesn’t have data for 2010, oddly, so it’s hard to compare. (The MIT study itself [PDF] doesn’t seem to have that data either.)

And the third (and most important) caveat: MIT’s research suggests that 3.1 percent of the nation’s entire 2010 greenhouse gas output in 2010 came from leaks in the natural gas production and distribution chain. Reducing that massive waste — some 10,259 gigagrams — could do much more to reduce warming than banning fracking. (We could start in Boston.)

It seems safe to assume that this research is not the final word on emissions related to fracking. But it can actually be considered good news: The negative effects of a controversial process may be lower than thought.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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