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Climate Change Slowdown is Due to Warming of Deep Oceans, Say Scientists

by Myrna Posted on July 24, 2013

Climate sceptics have seized on a pause in warming over the past five years, but the long-term trend is still upwards. Redeo/Flickr A recent slowdown in the upward march of global temperatures is likely to be the result of the slow warming of the deep oceans, British scientists said on Monday. Oceans are some of the Earth’s biggest absorbers of heat, which can be seen in effects such as sea level rises, caused by the expansion of large bodies of water as they warm. The absorption goes on over long periods, as heat from the surface is gradually circulated to the lower reaches of the seas. Temperatures around the world have been broadly static over the past five years, though they were still significantly above historic norms, and the years from 2000 to 2012 comprise most of the 14 hottest years ever recorded. The scientists said the evidence still clearly pointed to a continuation of global warming in the coming decades as greenhouse gases in the atmosphere contribute to climate change. To keep reading, click here. This article – Climate Change Slowdown is Due to Warming of Deep Oceans, Say Scientists Related Articles The Alberta Oil Sands Have Been Leaking for 9 Weeks CIA Backs $630,000 Scientific Study on Controlling Global Climate Reach for the Sun

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Climate Change Slowdown is Due to Warming of Deep Oceans, Say Scientists

Posted in ATTRA, eco-friendly, FF, G & F, GE, Monterey, ONA, PUR, solar, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Climate Change Slowdown is Due to Warming of Deep Oceans, Say Scientists

Here Comes the Son: Barry Goldwater Jr. Fights for Solar Power in Arizona

by 0dyqe2k7 Posted on July 11, 2013

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A fight over net-metering policy in the Grand Canyon State reveals some rifts among conservatives. Gage Skidmore/Flickr The name Barry Goldwater is practically synonymous with conservatism in America. That’s even more true in the late politician’s home state of Arizona, which he represented for five terms in the US Senate. Now his son, Barry Goldwater Jr., is putting the family name behind an effort to protect solar energy’s growing share of the electricity market—a struggle that has pitted him against entrenched utility interests and a right-wing dark-money group. Goldwater, 74, is the chairman of Tell Utilities Solar Won’t Be Killed (or TUSK, for short), a group launched in March to fight the state’s largest electric utility, Arizona Public Service, on solar power. APS has been campaigning to get the state utility commission to change regulations dealing with net metering, a policy that allows homes and businesses with their own solar power systems to send excess energy they generate back to the grid and make money off of it. Forty-three states and the District of Columbia have a net-metering policy in place. Arizona has had net metering since 2009, which has helped make it the second-ranked state in the country in installed solar capacity. But APS has called for an overhaul of the state’s net-metering policy and plans to unveil its proposal to the regulators on the Arizona Corporation Commission this Friday. APS argues that under the current arrangement, the 18,000 Arizonans with rooftop solar aren’t paying enough to cover the cost of maintaining the grid. Even if a house has a solar system, it still uses the utility’s infrastructure. It pulls energy from the grid when the sun is not shining and feeds energy back into the grid when the solar unit is generating more power than the house needs. The utility wants to lower the rate that it pays for solar power produced by these rooftop solar generators, or otherwise recoup the costs. “Our only point is that anybody who uses the grid should pay their fair share of the grid,” said APS spokesman Jim McDonald. Opponents, however, say reducing the incentives for rooftop solar will make it a less appealing investment. They argue that APS is going after net metering because it is worried that solar might start to cut into its profit margins, as fewer homeowners are buying from the grid and more are selling to it. McDonald said net metering has “zero impact” on the utility’s profit margins right now—but it could down the line. “Eventually would it become a business issue? It probably would,” he said. Enter Goldwater. TUSK’s sole concern is protecting net metering, and it has brought together solar industry and other business groups to push back against APS. If APS is successful, said Goldwater, “they may very well kill rooftop solar in Arizona, and that would be a tragedy.” A politician in his own right, Goldwater represented California in the US House of Representatives from 1969 to 1983. (He still lives in California, though he is active in Arizona-based conservative organizations like the Goldwater Institute, named after his father.) His support for solar, he said, comes from conservative, free-market principles rooted in “creating choices for the American consumer.” “Choice means competition. Competition drives prices down and the quality up,” Goldwater told Mother Jones. “The utilities are monopolies. They’re not used to competition. That’s what rooftop solar represents to them.” TUSK’s campaign to date has been creative, to say the least. It includes a web video of a large gorilla beating up a smaller one as a booming voice condemns the utility monopoly for “trying to kill the independent solar industry in Arizona,” before Goldwater comes on screen to say that it’s “not the American way, it’s not the conservative way.” Another ad features a song about APS sung to the tune of “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” (Chorus: “They don’t think consumers are that smart.”) The group has also been running ads on the Drudge Report and conservative radio in the state. The public relations company behind the campaign is Phoenix-based Rose + Moser + Allyn, led by Jason Rose, a well-connected member of the state’s Republican establishment. Rose’s wife, Jordan, is the founder of Rose Law Group, which represents California-based SolarCity, the county’s largest installer of rooftop solar. One environmentalist in the state described Rose, 42, to me as “a hip, young, ultra-right-wing PR guy.” I asked Rose whether he thought the description fit. “I will gladly accept that moniker,” he replied. The group hired a Republican polling firm in March to survey likely voters on solar and found that 88 percent of all voters in the state—and 76 percent of Republicans—supported net metering. “I think solar has just relied on the left for so long, and it hasn’t made a strong intellectual effort to the right. And it should,” Rose said. “Because it’s entirely consistent with that more libertarian, free-market strand of the Republican Party.” Rose thinks that Arizona is the leading edge of a solar renaissance among conservatives. “Arizona might be the key focus group on this, and might be a leading indicator of a future shift in Republican attitudes not just in Arizona, but across the country,” he argued. But his group is getting push-back from APS and its allies—most of which are also conservative. The utility is a major donor to Republican causes in the state, giving $25,000 to the Republican Victory Fund in the 2012 election, according to the Arizona Department of State records. Republicans have long held the majority in the state Legislature. The two renewable-friendly Democrats on the Corporation Commission, which will ultimately decide whether or not to approve APS’s net-metering plan, lost reelection bids last fall, leaving an entirely Republican commission. APS has pretty entrenched supporters in the state. “APS wields a lot of power,” said Tom Mackin, president of the Arizona Wildlife Federation, which isn’t involved in the net-metering fight but has worked on renewable energy issues in the state. “They pretty much get what they want.” Last week, the national conservative group 60 Plus Association entered the Arizona fight as well, with a website and web ads decrying “corporate welfare” for solar energy and raising the specter of Solyndra, the solar panel company that went bankrupt in 2011. 60 Plus bills itself as the conservative group representing senior citizens (the anti-AARP, if you will). As a 501(c)(4), the group does not have to disclose its donors. It made big outside expenditures on Republicans in 2012. While 60 Plus has weighed in on a federal renewable energy standard in the past, claiming it would be bad for senior citizens, this appears to be the first state issue the group has taken on. Renewable advocates have accused APS of funding the 60 Plus campaign, a charge that APS flatly denied in an interview with Mother Jones. But the group’s involvement is perhaps a sign of just how much attention is being paid to the net-metering fight in Arizona. Bryan Miller, president of the advocacy group Alliance for Solar Choice, recently deemed it “the most significant fight for solar in the country.” That’s why renewable energy advocates in the state say that having a voice like Goldwater’s involved is changing the game. “It really does make a big difference when a group like TUSK comes out and they say directly, ‘Look, the utilities are trying to kill solar,’” said Nancy LaPlaca, a Phoenix-based energy consultant. Goldwater paints the fight to keep net metering as going to the very heart of Republican values. “Conservatives believe in individual freedom, in choice, in competition,” he said. “We believe all of those things allow people to live a better life—to be able to choose what they want to do and not have a monopoly, or in the case of government, big government, telling them how to live their life. So it’s a very natural place for a conservative to be. I think as time goes buy you’ll see more and more Republicans vocalize this.”

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Here Comes the Son: Barry Goldwater Jr. Fights for Solar Power in Arizona

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Here Comes the Son: Barry Goldwater Jr. Fights for Solar Power in Arizona

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Al Gore says Obama Must Veto ‘Atrocity’ of Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline

by Myrna Posted on June 20, 2013

Former vice-president says oil pipeline is ‘really a losing proposition’ and demands climate plan promised at inauguration. Al Gore has called on Barack Obama to veto the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, describing it as “an atrocity”. The former vice-president said in an interview on Friday that he hoped Obama would follow the example of British Columbia, which last week rejected a similar pipeline project, and shut down the Keystone XL. “I certainly hope that he will veto that now that the Canadians have publicly concluded that it is not safe to take a pipeline across British Columbia to ports on the Pacific,” he told the Guardian. “I really can’t imagine that our country would say: ‘Oh well. Take it right over parts of the Ogallala aquifer’, our largest and most important source of ground water in the US. It’s really a losing proposition.” To keep reading, click here. Continue reading – Al Gore says Obama Must Veto ‘Atrocity’ of Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline Related Articles A Clear View of Alaska Occupy Sandy, Once Welcomed, Now Questioned Are Fungus-Farming Ants the Key to Better Biofuel?

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Al Gore says Obama Must Veto ‘Atrocity’ of Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline

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United Airlines Buys Big Into Biofuels

by Myrna Posted on June 6, 2013

Could the move help clean up a notoriously dirty industry? UnfinishedPortraitmaker/Flickr United Airlines is taking a significant step forward in its use of biofuel with a plan to buy 15 million gallons of the stuff during the next three years. The airline signed an agreement with AltAir Fuels to buy fuel it will use on flights departing Los Angeles beginning next year. United says the renewable jet fuel is “price competitive” with the fuel now used by airlines and should, on a lifecycle basis, reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent. “This is a great day for United and the aviation biofuels industry,” Jimmy Samartzis, the airline’s director of environmental issues, said in a statement. The news comes after a period of relative quiet about the use of aviation biofuel. There was a flurry of activity in the time between 2009 and 2011 as airlines around the world announced demonstration flights and passenger flights using a variety of biofuels. Even the military was burning biofuel in fighter jets. But the high cost of alternative fuels at the time made it unlikely cost-conscious airlines would embrace them for the long term. To keep reading, click here. Read the article –  United Airlines Buys Big Into Biofuels ; ;Related ArticlesMethane Leaks Could Negate Climate Benefits of US Natural Gas Boom: ReportGulf Oil Wells Have Been Leaking Since 2004 HurricaneSlicing Open Stalagmites to Reveal Climate Secrets ;

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United Airlines Buys Big Into Biofuels

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The Most Controversial Chart in History, Explained

by Myrna Posted on May 9, 2013

Climate deniers threw all their might at disproving the famous “hockey stick” climate change graph. Here’s why they failed. Back in 1998, a little known  climate scientist named Michael Mann and two colleagues published a paper that sought to reconstruct the planet’s past temperatures going back half a millennium before the era of thermometers—thereby showing just how out of whack recent warming has been. The finding: Recent northern hemisphere temperatures had been “warmer than any other year since (at least) AD 1400.” The graph depicting this result looked rather like a hockey stick: After a long period of relatively minor temperature variations (the “shaft”), it showed a sharp mercury upswing during the last century or so (“the blade”). The report moved quickly through climate science circles. Mann and a colleague soon lengthened the shaft of the hockey stick back to the year 1000 AD—and then, in 2001, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change prominently featured the hockey stick in its Third Assessment Report. Based on this evidence, the IPCC proclaimed that “the increase in temperature in the 20th century is likely to have been the largest of any century during the past 1,000 years.” And then all hell broke loose. IPCC Third Assessment Report / Wikipedia Mann tells the full story of the hockey stick—and the myriad unsuccessful attacks on it—in his 2012 book The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines; Mann will appear at a Climate Desk Live event on May 15 to discuss this saga. But to summarize a very complex history of scientific and political skirmishes in a few paragraphs: The hockey stick was repeatedly attacked, and so was Mann himself. Congress got involved, with demands for Mann’s data and other information, including a computer code used in his research. Then the National Academy of Sciences weighed in in 2006, vindicating the hockey stick as good science and noting: “The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes both additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and pronounced changes in a variety of local proxy indicators, such as melting on ice caps and the retreat of glaciers around the world.” It didn’t change the minds of the deniers, though—and soon Mann and his colleagues were drawn into the 2009 “Climategate” pseudo-scandal, which purported to reveal internal emails that (among other things) seemingly undermined the hockey stick. Only, they didn’t. In the meantime, those wacky scientists kept doing what they do best—finding out what’s true. As Mann relates, over the years other researchers were able to test his work using “more extensive datasets, and more sophisticated methods. And the bottom line conclusion doesn’t change.” Thus the single hockey stick gradually became what Mann calls a “hockey team.” “If you look at all the different groups, there are literally about two dozen” hockey sticks now, he says. Mother Jones‘ Jaeah Lee traced the strange evolution of the hockey stick story in this video: Indeed, two just-published studies support the hockey stick more powerfully than ever. One, just out in Nature Geoscience, featuring more than 80 authors, showed with extensive global data on past temperatures that the hockey stick’s shaft seems to extend back reliably for at least 1,400 years. Recently in Science, meanwhile, Shaun Marcott of Oregon State University and his colleagues extended the original hockey stick shaft back 11,000 years. “There’s now at least tentative evidence that the warming is unprecedented over the entire period of the Holocene, the entire period since the last ice age,” says Mann. So what does it all mean? Well, here’s the millennial scale irony: Climate deniers threw everything they had at the hockey stick. They focused immense resources on what they thought was the Achilles Heel of global warming research—and even then, they couldn’t hobble it. (Though they certainly sowed plenty of doubt in the mind of the public.) What’s more, even if they’d succeeded, in a scientific sense it wouldn’t have even mattered. “Climate deniers like to make it seem like the entire weight of evidence for climate change rests on the hockey stick,” explains Mann. “And that’s not the case. We could get rid of all these reconstructions, and we could still know that climate change is a threat, and that we’re causing it.” The basic case for global warming caused by humans rests on basic physics—and, basic thermometer readings from around the globe. The hockey stick, in contrast, is the result of a field of research called paleoclimatology (the study of past climates) that, while fascinating, only provides one thread of evidence among many for what we’re doing to the planet. Center for American Progress Meanwhile, the hockey stick’s blade doesn’t just stop rising of its own accord. It’s just going to go up, and up, and up, as the image above, combining the Marcott hockey stick with projections of where temperatures are headed by 2100, plainly shows. When he shows that graph to audiences, says Mann, “I often hear an audible gasp.” In this sense, the hockey stick does indeed matter—for it dramatizes just how much human irresponsibility, in a relatively short period of time, can devastate the only home we have. View original post here: The Most Controversial Chart in History, Explained ; ;Related ArticlesFinally, Some Not-Terrible Climate News: Greenland Not Melting Any FasterThis Town Took On Fracking and WonScientist at Work Blog: Empty Nets on the Mekong ;

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The Most Controversial Chart in History, Explained

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Views Differ on Fracking’s Impact

by Myrna Posted on April 26, 2013

Do the economic benefits outweigh the environmental risks? CREDO.fracking/Flickr The practice of hydraulic fracturing is under debate across the country in areas impacted by America’s ongoing natural gas boom. In the town of Findlay, Ohio, an increase in manufacturing in recent years has been accompanied by expanded natural gas drilling. That has Greg Auburn, professor of International Business at the University of Findlay feeling optimistic about Ohio’s future employment prospects. “The estimates (for jobs in the natural gas industry) range anywhere from 20,000 to 200,000 over the next 3 years,” he said. Along with employment projections, researchers have explored other possible costs and benefits of hydraulic fracturing, known colloquially as “fracking.” Studies conducted on the counties above the Marcellus and Barnett Shale for example — where extensive drilling has already taken place — present mixed economic results. Tim Kelsey is a Professor of Agricultural Economics at Penn State and author of “Economic Impacts of the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania: Employment and Income 2009.” He argues that possible benefits from increased drilling will impact different towns in different ways. “The potential benefits from hydraulic fracturing are tightly linked to the local labor force and infrastructure conditions as well as the structure and capacity of local governance.” Back in Findlay, Marathon Petroleum company headquarters sit directly on the town’s main street. According to Kelsey, the Midwest has a historical tradition entrenched in resource extraction through coal mining and oil drilling. Therefore the skilled labor and equipment necessary for hydraulic fracturing already exists in towns such as Findlay. However, the context is quite different in other communities open to shale plays across Ohio. To keep reading, click here. Link: Views Differ on Fracking’s Impact Related ArticlesObama Campaign Launches Plan to Shame Climate Sceptics in CongressRestoring the RockawaysClimate Desk Live 06/06/13: The Alarming Science Behind Climate Change’s Increasingly Wild Weather

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Views Differ on Fracking’s Impact

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The Drought-Stricken Midwest’s Floods: Is This What Climate Change Looks Like?

by Myrna Posted on April 26, 2013

Dire predictions have already been realized over the course of the last six months. U.S. Army fills sandbags to help with flood relief efforts in Dutchtown, Mo., April 22, 2013. U.S. Department of Defense/Flickr The dramatic images resulting from this week’s floods in the Midwest are, in a way, a welcome sight. Six months ago, the region was wracked by drought. While the sudden drought-to-flood transition may not be due to climate change, it’s close to what some models predict. For more, read the whole article here. Continue reading here –  The Drought-Stricken Midwest’s Floods: Is This What Climate Change Looks Like? Related ArticlesObama Campaign Launches Plan to Shame Climate Sceptics in CongressRestoring the RockawaysClimate Desk Live 06/06/13: The Alarming Science Behind Climate Change’s Increasingly Wild Weather

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The Drought-Stricken Midwest’s Floods: Is This What Climate Change Looks Like?

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Carbon Bubble Will Plunge the World Into Another Financial Crisis – Report

by Myrna Posted on April 19, 2013

Trillions of dollars at risk as stock markets inflate value of fossil fuels that may have to remain buried forever, experts warn. ezioman/Flickr The world could be heading for a major economic crisis as stock markets inflate an investment bubble in fossil fuels to the tune of trillions of dollars, according to leading economists. “The financial crisis has shown what happens when risks accumulate unnoticed,” said Lord (Nicholas) Stern, a professor at the London School of Economics. He said the risk was “very big indeed” and that almost all investors and regulators were failing to address it. The so-called “carbon bubble” is the result of an over-valuation of oil, coal and gas reserves held by fossil fuel companies. According to a report published on Friday, at least two-thirds of these reserves will have to remain underground if the world is to meet existing internationally agreed targets to avoid the threshold for “dangerous” climate change. If the agreements hold, these reserves will be in effect unburnable and so worthless – leading to massive market losses. But the stock markets are betting on countries’ inaction on climate change. To keep reading, click here. Original link:  Carbon Bubble Will Plunge the World Into Another Financial Crisis – Report Related ArticlesThe First—And Last—Hearing on Keystone XL Environmental ImpactGOP Goes Hunting For EPA Emails About TurduckenAustralia Urged to Formally Recognise Climate Change Refugee Status

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Carbon Bubble Will Plunge the World Into Another Financial Crisis – Report

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Are Fuel Exports Driving Up the Price of Gas?

by Gustavo Stanfield Posted on April 4, 2013

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Yes, they probably are. But here’s why that’s OK. raindog/Flickr The U.S. fossil fuel renaissance has sparked job booms in the oil fields of North Dakota and Texas, shrunk our national import tab, and led to a whole lot of talk about energy independence. But, as BloombergBusinessweek noted recently, one thing it hasn’t done is lower the price of gasoline for American motorists, who are still paying $3.71 a gallon. Why not? There are a lot of ways to answer that question, the simplest being that despite all our drilling, oil is remains expensive. Worldwide, demand still beats supply. And since the cost of crude accounts for 72 percent of the cost of gasoline,* pump prices have stayed high. But that doesn’t quite put the issue to bed. After all, Americans are driving and fueling up less, which should theoretically encourage the oil refiners that produce our gasoline and diesel to cut their prices. Businessweek points to a few reasons why that hasn’t happened, but I want to focus on just one of them: exports. To keep reading, click here.

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Are Fuel Exports Driving Up the Price of Gas?

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Are Fuel Exports Driving Up the Price of Gas?

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Selling Solar Power in India’s Slums

by neogrom Posted on April 2, 2013

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The country is fast outgrowing its electric grid. Are small-scale solar projects the solution? Honza Soukup/Flickr Bangalore, INDIA — It’s a little after sundown, and Arun Kumar is hawking his wares in the neighborhood for the first time. He’s selling a light, just a small half-circle tied to a three-inch wide solar panel. An older man tests it in his home, a tiny hut of tarp and tin built like the 30 others in this far north side slum settlement. A kerosene lamp flickers inside. At a second home, Arun wields his 1,600 rupee ($29.48) gizmo for a woman seated with nine children. He points out the small cell phone charger in the light’s rear. The woman turns inside, pulling out her phone to consult her husband. She is one of millions in India and worldwide in a surreal contemporary fix: she owns a cell phone, but her home has no toilet or power line. The country’s mobile users mushroomed in a few short years, reaching some 900 million. Cheap phones have not suddenly lifted owners out of poverty. But they have given them access to resources and economic ladders once unreachable. To keep reading, click here.

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Selling Solar Power in India’s Slums

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Selling Solar Power in India’s Slums

Posted in alo, eco-friendly, FF, G & F, GE, Monterey, ONA, PUR, solar, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Selling Solar Power in India’s Slums