I have been writing this blog for a journalism class at Northwestern University.  The class comes to an end today, and I am about to graduate and enter the currently uninviting job market.  

While I have enjoyed writing about climate change this fall, it is time for a few weeks of reading fiction, taking walks and the other simple pleasures that get laid to the side during graduate school programs.   

I hope you have enjoyed my blog while it has been active.  I may start it up again in January if I can find the time.  If I do, however, I think I would change a few things.  For one I’m not a big fan of simple news aggregation, and a number of my posts were just that.  

And I guess I’m still a sucker for original reporting, too.  So, I think if I make AcClimate live again I would like to write more posts about interviews with scientists and others.

In any case, thanks for reading.  And if you sent me a positive comment that I did not respond to, please accept my apologies for not getting back to you personally.

Happy Holidays!

Coal, cars and climate. Photo by Marcin Wichery.

This week delegates from more than 190 countries will meet in Poland to discuss climate change and a successor treaty for the expiring Kyoto Protocol.

In a sign of the challenges associated with forging any international agreement about how to act, they will find a country – and a region – that are torn by internal quibbles over climate change policies.

The Poznan meeting has been organized by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and takes place in preparation for a planned climate change conference in Copenhagen in 2009.  At the Copenhagen meeting, a new international climate change treaty may be ratified to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012.  

Bridging the differences of opinion about how to respond to climate change, however, could take at least another year or longer.

On the eve of next week’s Poznan conference, The New York Times’ blog Green Inc. has reported a squabble in Poland over the economic costs of implementing an emissions permitting system proposed for the European Union.  

The tiff began with the release of a September report that argued the permitting system would curb the country’s economic growth.  

Along with Italy, Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk campaigned at a EU meeting in October against a new package of climate change policies, including the more stringent permitting platform.

This month, though, another report was released that found the proposed changes in climate policy could result in economic gains for Poland.  The new report’s findings, according to Green Inc., have been rejected by a number of Polish politicians, but embraced by The Polish Climate Coalition, an organization of environmental groups.

Meanwhile, the battle over climate policy literally spilled onto the streets of Poznan last week, as miners and Greenpeace activists scuffled near a bulldozer used for coal transport, according to Softpedia.

At the EU’s October meeting to discuss climate policies, criticism from Poland and Italy led the regional body to delay a final decision on the proposed 2020 goals for emissions reductions until the union’s next meeting in December.    

Unlike many other EU member states, Poland depends heavily on coal, using it to meet more than 90 percent of its energy needs.   

Poland, of course, is not the only EU country with industries that could lose out in a new climate change policy regime.  Greece, Hungary, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Bulgaria all joined Poland’s campaign against the EU’s 2020 goals at the October meeting.

And, just last week, Germany began its own dissent, demonstrating that policy arguments about climate change defy any clean split between old and new, or wealthy and less wealthy, EU members.

Although Germany has traditionally been one of the EU’s economic powerhouses, its automobile industry would be hit hard by the proposed “polluter pay” principle.  Unlike in France or Italy, which manufacture compact cars, Germany’s carmakers are saddled with production lines that are geared to build larger vehicles.

All of these different positions – between Polish report writers, miners and Greenpeace activists on the one hand and between EU members on the other – are illustrative of what awaits delegates in both Poznan and Copenhagen.

As developed and developing nations endeavor to draft a new international treaty with binding emissions commitments, they will have to confront how their differing policy positions reflect the different challenges they each face in a competitive world market.     

It’s been another busy week for pronouncements and announcements about climate change.  Indeed, it seems with each passing day since Senator Barack Obama was declared President-elect, the Google alert lists for ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ grow longer.

At the start of the week, President-elect Obama signaled that climate change is a priority issue for his administration by addressing via video message an international conference on global warming hosted by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in California. 

In his message, Obama reiterated his plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and pave the way for deeper reductions by 2050 with investments in clean energy. 

According to The Boston Globe, Obama said in his message:

“Few challenges facing America – and the world – are more urgent than combating climate change,” he said in the video. “Climate change and our dependence on foreign oil, if left unaddressed, will continue to weaken our economy and threaten our national security.”

Obama continued that “too often, Washington has failed to show the same kind of leadership. That will change when I take office. My presidency will mark a new chapter in America’s leadership on climate change that will strengthen our security and create millions of new jobs in the process.”

He also told the conference participants he has asked members of Congress to attend the upcoming meeting of world leaders in Poland to discuss a new climate-change treaty and report back to him. 

Meanwhile, five major U.S. companies – Nike, Starbucks, Levi Strauss, Sun Microsystems and Timberland – called for congressional action on climate and energy policies in 2009.  The companies are working in partnership with Ceres, a national network of investors and environmental organizations. 

With the Ceres network, they have launched a new business coalition to lobby for clean energy legislation, according to The Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch. 

To top it all off, on the same day that the U.S. Senate said farewell to its longest serving Republican, and oil industry favorite, Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, a shakeup in the power structure of the U.S. House of Representatives took place that could speed passage of such legislation. 

In the shakeup, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) wrested the committee chairmanship position for the House Energy and Commerce Commitee from long-time chairman Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), who has frequently stalled action on climate change in the past.  For background on Rep. Dingell’s actions in the House, check out Frank O’Donnell’s post on Grist.

The groups involved include the Environmental Defense Fund, the League of Conservation Voters, the National Audubon Society, and the National Wildlife Federation, among others.

According to the groups, the policy changes proposed are necessary to stem increases in the earth’s average surface temperature to 2 degrees Fahrenheit, a threshold that many scientists think it would be dangerous to cross.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said that temperatures can likely be held below a 2-degree rise if developed countries cut their emissions by 25 percent to 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020, and by 80 percent by 2050.

The green group’s recommendations follow:

1. Work with Congress to pass legislation in 2009 that revitalizes our economy and delivers energy and climate security –

• Set mandatory limits that reduce US global warming pollution consistent with keeping further warming below 2° F, including ambitious domestic reductions targets for 2020 and 2050, a cap and auction program and other policies to make additional reductions at home and abroad, and a prompt science-based review to accelerate reductions if necessary.

• Auction the carbon permits and use the revenue for investing in a massive clean energy transition, creating green jobs, protecting vulnerable communities and natural resources, and providing consumer relief, especially to those most in need.

• Move America towards a 100% clean electricity future by maximizing energy efficiency, modernizing the grid, and greatly expanding power generation from renewable energy resources.

• Get America moving by investing in clean transportation infrastructure that cuts global warming pollution.

2. Tackle global warming using the executive branch’s powers under existing laws –

• Grant the California waiver, allowing California and 13 other states to enforce their standards for global warming pollution from vehicles.

• Use the Clean Air Act to declare that global warming pollution endangers public health and welfare and to set standards for power plants, vehicles, and fuels.

• Use our energy laws to strengthen fuel economy and appliance efficiency standards.

• Order every agency to consider global warming in its actions affecting energy use and managing natural resources and to develop a coordinated, interagency natural resources adaptation strategy.

3. Restore America’s global leadership on global warming –

• Demonstrate US action by setting mandatory limits on our own global warming pollution through new legislation and implementation of existing laws.

• Work with other nations to reach a new climate treaty that keeps further warming below 2° F at the Copenhagen climate summit at the end of 2009.

• Lead a worldwide effort to finance clean energy deployment, forest conservation, and adaptation to unavoidable climate impacts.

“The global financial crisis is most immediate; the more existential is climate change. The urgency of the first is no excuse for neglecting the second. To the contrary, it is an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone,” reads the op-ed written by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

At the same time, Philippines President Gloria Macapapagal-Arroyo issued an independent call for a new climate change summit later this month.

The summit – The Carbon Cutting Congress versus Climate Change – will bring together 350 stake holders from throughout the Philippines. The group is expected to draft a declaration representing the country’s position on how to respond to climate change.

“Global warming and climate change perhaps is the most engaging and the most dangerous problem of the human community today,” a presidential advisor told a news conference at the Palace.

The declaration created at the summit will then be carried by a Philippine delegation to the next United Nations climate change conference, which is scheduled to take place in Poland in December.

The December conference is expected to bring together around 8,000 representatives from all over the world to discuss an international response to global warming.

Photo by Nick Russill, Flickr Creative Commons.

People who are skeptical that global warming is something to worry about like to point out that the earth’s climate has gone through many warmings and coolings.  Hence, the term ‘ice age.’

Most scientists, however, agree that today’s climate change is different.  In the first place, it’s human-caused, brought on by increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels.  And, as far as we know, it’s happening faster than has occurred in the past. 

A new study from Cornell University gives further proof for this point.  As reported by Agence France-Presse, the study found that the current rate of warming is more dramatic than in any other period over the last 5,000 years.  

For the study, researchers looked at temperatures, oceanic circulation and changes in migration patterns, and then compared their findings to the paleoclimate record. 

Scientists are able to understand paleoclimate, dating back to millions of years ago, by studying ice cores, lake levels, and cave deposits, among other natural records. 

The Cornell research team found that the melting of Arctic ice has brought on significant shifts in the location of plants and animals in the North Atlantic.  Of particular note, the researchers found that microscopic algae have moved from the Pacific to the Atlantic for the first time in 800,000 years. 

By sending more freshwater into the Atlantic, melting Arctic ice can change ocean salinity and circulation, which can in turn alter habitats and species ranges. 

The study comes on the heels of a report that changes in climate are now being detected on every continent.  For that report, scientists at the University of East Anglia looked at climate data from dozens of weather stations in the Arctic and Antarctic, according to the Independent.  They then asked four different computer models to reproduce the observed data. 

The models were only able to do so if human impacts were included in the set of factors, enabling the scientists to draw a direct link between human activities and warming at both of the poles. 

So, climate scientists are clearly busy double-checking their work against both past records and models run on supercomputers.  What more will it take for more non-scientists to take climate change seriously?

After two long years of electioneering, the American political climate seemed to change in a moment on Tuesday night when Barack Obama became the next president-elect of the United States. 

And although he won’t officially take the reins until January, world leaders are already calling for him to act fast on climate change. 

On Wednesday, The Globe and Mail reported that Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper is “proposing to strike a joint climate-change pact” with Obama.  Such a pact could establish common standards for carbon emissions trading systems, and meet some of U.S. energy demand with supplies from oil sands in Ottawa. 

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Germany’s Foreign Minister called for Obama to work closely with Europe to tackle climate change at a conference today. 

http://envirovote.us/

While international cooperation will be critical to deal with climate change, cooperation between the White House and Congress, as well as with state-level officials across the country, will be equally important.

So, now that America will soon have a president who is likely to act on climate change, will it have a Congress and state leaders who are ready to do the same?

It’s not a question with an easy answer.  But a new Web site, Envirovote, takes a first step toward assessing what the new political climate will mean for the world’s natural climate. 

The site is tracking gubernatorial and U.S. congressional races across the nation, and as the results continue to come in from Tuesday’s votes, rating what they mean for the environment on a “green meter.”

It’s the work of two journalism students – Ryan Mark and Brian Boyer – at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.  To create the meter, which currently tabulates that 248 of Tuesday’s 458 winners have green credentials, the pair tallied how many of the winning candidates were endorsed by environmental groups. 

Then, they compared the numbers of greenies elected to previous election years.  Currently, it sits at an 18 percent increase over the last election cycle, with 23 races still outstanding. 

The site also has a stand-alone green meter for each of the states, and highlights the results for a few key races. 

All in all, it’s a great way to aggregate the environmental impact of the election. 

Once again it’s been a week of numbers.  The Dow Jones stock index rallied 11.3 percent over the last week, along with other stock measures around the world.  The Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan cut interest rates to grease lending and spending.  Consumer spending declined in the U.S. for the first time in 17 years, and a bailout’s now being considered for Detroit’s Big Three automakers. 

Courtesy of thisbluedot.net.

Despite – and perhaps because of – the maelstrom of mostly dark economic news over the last few weeks, there is now more and more talk about how dealing with climate change should figure into economic planning. 

On Monday former World Bank economist Nicholas Stern issued a warning that ignoring the risks posed by climate change could result in far greater consequences than ignoring risks in the financial system. 

Stern is famous for a 700-page economic report he released in 2006, which claimed inaction on climate change could result in disasters on the scale of the Great Depression or World Wars I and II. 

According to Reuters:

As countries around the world move from deploying monetary and financial stabilization measures, to boosting fiscal spending to mend real economies, Stern said the opportunity was there to bring about a new, greener, carbon-reducing world order.

“The lesson that we can draw out from this recession, is that you can boost demand in the best way possible by focusing on low carbon growth in future.”

Stern, who has estimated it would cost 2 percent of GDP to tackle climate change, spoke at a conference in Hong Kong. 

Courtesy of Oxfam International.

Today United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon also added his voice to calls for action despite the global economic crisis.  During a visit to Bangladesh, which is extremely vulnerable to sea level rise and an increase in extreme weather events, Ban said:

“The leaders of the developed countries should not neglect the issue of global warming. A one-metre rise in sea levels would displace 30 million Bangladeshis and deal a catastrophic blow to economic growth and development.” (Reuters)

Meanwhile, according to a new survey, 63 percent of Americans think that addressing climate change will actually benefit the economy.  The survey was released by The Climate Group, a London-based non-profit working to create a coalition of governments and businesses committed to forging a path to a low-carbon future.  

If temperatures increase and ice sheets continue to melt, it’s certain sea level will rise.  What’s less certain is by how much and how much fast.

Answering those number questions will take more study of the ice sheets that sit atop Greenland and the Antarctic.

And lots of math.    

A new supercomputer being deployed in Wales is about to be set to work running the many numbers involved. 

The computer – called Blue Ice – will be used to study the behavior of melting polar ice sheets. 

Currently, global climate models, which are run on computers to make projections about future climate, are not able to see all of the important aspects of ice.  While they recognize that a loss of ice means a loss of white areas on the earth’s surface that reflect sunlight, the models are not as smart about assessing ice sheet’s internal physics. 

Blue Ice, which was turned on at Swansea University in Wales on Oct. 31, will be used to study just how glaciers and ice sheets behave in the face of warming. 

According to WalesOnline.co.uk, Tavi Murray, professor at Swansea University, said:

“With many glaciers experiencing rapid thinning, time is of the essence in discovering the effects of these drastic changes. 

“This is where Blue Ice can help.  Its main system has 640 cores and a peak performance of 6.8 Teraflops [an industry-recognized measure of high performance computing where ‘Tera’ equals 1,012 and ‘flops’ stands for floating point operations per second], while its neighboring cell based development platform provides an additional 3.6 Teraflops performance.”

Knowing a good range for how much sea level could rise as ice melts and the ocean’s waters warm and expand is critical for policymakers trying to plan for climate change.  The possible range, however, has been controversial.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s most recent report projects a rise between 18 centimeters and 59 centimeters by 2100.  But others have called that projection far too cautious. 

Photo by Bombardier, Creative Commons.

It’s been common to blame the media and global-warming “deniers” for the public’s confusion about climate change.  

The media, it has been said, feel they must always represent opposite sides of opinion. It’s a laudable goal, but not if it results in a distorted picture of scientific consensus.

I.e. two “experts” presented as equals, one whose statements represent a position a hypothetical 90 percent of the scientific community would agree with, and another whose statements represent the thoughts of a spare 5 percent.   

In such cases, media efforts to produce balance lead to accidental misrepresentations. The “denialists,” on the other hand, are accused of deliberate distortions. 

A new article in the most recent issue of Science, however, suggests there may be more to blame for public confusion about climate change than inaccurate portrayals of scientific opinion. 

The article – “Risk Communication on Climate: Mental Models and Mass Balance” – links a failure to perceive the urgency of reducing carbon emissions to a poor understanding of stocks and flows.

Stocks and flows, as the author John D. Sterman points out, are all about the concept of accumulation, which is a common everyday experience:

“Our bathtubs accumulate the inflow of water through the faucet less the outflow through the drain, our bank accounts accumulate deposits less withdrawals … Yet, despite their ubiquity, research shows that people have difficulty relating into and out of a stock to the level of a stock …,” Sterman writes.

Sterman, along with colleague Booth Sweeney, tested a group of highly educated MIT students’ understanding of stocks and flows as it relates to climate change. 

To do so, they presented the students with a description of the relationship between greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and GHG concentrations in the atmosphere.  The students were then asked to outline the emissions path needed to stabilize GHG levels in the atmosphere. 

An astounding 84 percent, however, came up with emissions plans that would fail to stabilize GHG levels.  By controlling the flow of emissions, the students mistakenly thought they could have an immediate effect on the stock of atmospheric CO2. In reality, the effect of emissions reductions would take years to show up.

Sterman suggests it’s this kind of faulty reasoning that leads people to support a “wait and see” or “go slow” approach to emissions reductions.  Such an approach, he notes, is a mistake when dealing with a complex, dynamic system, such as the climate, where a cause can take quite some time to produce an effect.