Inauguration day and climate change politics

Inauguration day 2005: 35 °F Mostly cloudy with some sunny breaks.
Northwest wind 14 mph. Around 1″ of snow lay on the ground.
More inauguration day weather history is available here

There is much speculation about the weather on Tuesday, January 20th, which is the inauguration day of president Obama. Particularly it is being conjectured widely on the blogosphere that a colder than normal day might have some chilling effect on climate change thinking in Washington. After all, it is not unlike politicians to grasp onto ancillary topics and use them as the focal point for forming opinions.

For example, as reported here, The last time Dr. Roy Spencer testified before Congress, committee chair Barbara Boxer appeared more interested in discussing Rush Limbaugh than she did in discussing science. That is not necessarily a sensible way to weigh trillion dollar policy decisions.

Here is another example. When Dr. James Hansen testified before Congress in June, 1988, on the topic of global warming, Senator Timothy Wirth took several deliberate steps to make sure that the room was oppressively hot. This excerpt below is from a PBS Frontline interview:

TIMOTHY WIRTH: We called the Weather Bureau and found out what historically was the hottest day of the summer. Well, it was June 6th or June 9th or whatever it was. So we scheduled the hearing that day, and bingo, it was the hottest day on record in Washington, or close to it.DEBORAH AMOS: [on camera] Did you also alter the temperature in the hearing room that day? TIMOTHY WIRTH: What we did is that we went in the night before and opened all the windows, I will admit, right, so that the air conditioning wasn’t working inside the room. And so when the- when the hearing occurred, there was not only bliss, which is television cameras and double figures, but it was really hot.

That is going to be a lot tougher now, after two more decades of unprecedented global warming.

As of Saturday morning, NCEP is forecasting severe cold along the East Coast for the end of the month, and well below normal temperatures for the inauguration of president Obama. Perhaps the chill will freeze out some the early political rhetoric in Washington? Some prominent members of Congress now claim that they can legislate the climate, which requires that they also are able to control volcanoes, ocean circulation patterns, and solar activity.

Here is the NCEP CONUS temperature forecast for now to election day:

Click for a larger image

One wonders though, it the weather patterns were shifted west to east in the anomaly graph below, and we had a warmer than normal inauguration day in Washington, would it provide lawmakers with a personal confirmation bias much like that day in June, 1988?

Thanks to wattsupwiththat

EU leaders agree on climate change deal

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- European leaders agreed Friday to stick to an ambitious plan to fight global warming through emissions cuts and renewable energy, and on ways to share the hefty costs of setting a global example.

The plan includes concessions to heavy industry and countries in Eastern Europe worried that the cost of curbing pollution would impede economic growth. The expense of the plan had caused uproar among many countries as the continent grapples with economic downturn.

The plan, agreed at an EU summit, lays out how the 27 member countries will cut carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2020.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who holds the bloc's rotating leadership, called the agreement historic and urged global partners to follow Europe's example at U.N. climate change talks in Poznan, Poland.

The French president says the 27-nation bloc has "now delivered" and it was "now the time" for others, including the United States and China, to follow suit.

"People will not follow Europe unless we set the example," he said.

EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso called the plans "the most ambitious proposals anywhere in the world."

"Europe has passed its credibility test," he said.

An EU deal could breathe new life into the U.N. climate talks, which were expected to wrap up Friday with a work plan for talks over the next year on a new global warming treaty. But that plan needs worldwide support.

The eyes of Europe's economic rivals were on the EU talks to see how the bloc manages to balance economic growth while keeping intact promises to rein in emissions.

"The overall political message that we have sent to the rest of the world is that Europe is taking the lead," Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said at a news conference after the talks, confirming that the leaders agreed on the climate package.

European diplomats haggled through the night on complex plans to fulfill promises made last year to meet so-called 20-20-20 targets: reducing greenhouse emissions by 20 percent and ensuring that 20 percent of energy comes from wind, sun and other renewable sources by 2020.

Desperate to get a deal, France backed several opt-outs to the strict reductions it wants industries to make. The opt-outs are aimed at heavy industry that might flee abroad to regions with looser environmental rules.

France also proposed leeway for countries very dependent on coal and oil for power generation -- but the EU plan that this must be temporary.

The leaders also agreed on a euro200 billion ($258 billion) Europe-wide economic stimulus package to ease the effects of a recession. The downturn overshadowed talks on the costly climate deal.

Soot reduction 'could help to stop global warming'

Cutting one of humanity's most common pollutants would have immediate cooling effect, Nasa claims

Governments could slow global warming dramatically, and buy time to avert disastrous climate change, by slashing emissions of one of humanity's most familiar pollutants – soot – according to Nasa scientists. A study by the space agency shows that cutting down on the pollutant, which has so far been largely ignored by climate scientists, can have an immediate cooling effect – and prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths from air pollution at the same time.

At the beginning of the make-or-break year in international attempts to negotiate a treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, the soot removal proposal – which is being taken seriously by experts close to the Obama administration – offers hope of a rapid new way of tackling global warming. Governments have long experience in acting against soot.

Cutting its emissions has a virtually instantaneous effect, because it rapidly falls out of the atmosphere, unlike carbon dioxide which remains there for over a hundred years. And because soot is one of the worst killers among all pollutants, radical reductions save lives and so should command popular and political support.

The study – from Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics – concludes that tackling the pollution provides "substantial benefits for air quality while simultaneously contributing to climate change mitigation" and "may present a unique opportunity to engage parties and nations not yet fully committed to climate change mitigation for its own sake."

Black carbon, the component of soot that gives it its colour, is thought to be the second largest cause of global warming after carbon dioxide. Formed through incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, wood and vegetation, it delivers a double whammy.

While in the air, it is spread around the globe by the wind, and helps to heat the atmosphere by absorbing and releasing solar radiation. And when it falls out it darkens snow and ice, at the poles or high in mountains, reducing its ability to reflect sunlight. As a result it melts more quickly, and exposes more dark land or water which absorbs even more energy, and so increases warming.

The bad news – as the Washington-based Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development points out – is that soot is causing global warming to happen much faster than expected. Its president, Durwood Zaelke, says "black carbon is exacerbating the climate situation": "Taking quick action is quite simply our only near-term option."

Rich countries have already reduced their emissions of black carbon from burning fossil fuels dramatically since the 1950s. The health benefits of a worldwide cut could be massive. Soot contains up to 40 different cancer-causing chemicals and can also cause respiratory and heart diseases. It is estimated to cause two million deaths in the developing world each year – mainly among children – when emitted from wood-burning stoves in poorly ventilated houses. In Britain, research has shown that people are twice as likely to die from respiratory disease when heavily exposed to soot emitted from vehicle exhausts.

Tackling these two health crises, the Nasa study concludes, would also be the most effective short-term way of slowing climate change. Its research shows that the "strongest leverage" on reducing global warming would be achieved by "reducing emissions from domestic fuel burning" in developing countries, particularly in Asia, and by "reduction in surface transport emissions in North America", especially from diesel engines.

In both cases solutions are known. Cookers using solar energy or biogas, for example, eliminate smoke. And last month California brought in measures to force trucks to fit filters to reduce diesel soot emissions by 85 per cent, estimating that they would save 9,400 lives over the next 16 years.

New California Cars Display Smog, Global Warming Scores

SACRAMENTO, California, January 2, 2009 (ENS) - As of January 1, every 2009 model year and newer car built for sale in California will be required to carry a label that clearly ranks the vehicle's environmental impact. A vehicle's certification level can be found under the hood on the vehicle emissions control information label.

The label will show a simple ranking system that provides consumers with practical information that can help them choose the most environmentally friendly vehicle that still meets their transportation needs.

"This label will arm consumers with the information they need to choose a vehicle that saves gas, reduces greenhouse gas emissions and helps fight smog all at once," said California Air Resources Board Chairman Mary Nichols. "Consumer choice is an especially powerful tool in our fight against climate change."

The environmental performance label will have two scores on a scale of 1-10, a global warming score and a smog score.

The higher the score the more environmentally friendly the car is. The average new car will score five on both scales.

Electric cars earn the highest ratings on both scores. One car rating 10 on both scores is the GEM electric car from Global Electric Motors, a Chrysler company. Priced at $12,495, the GEM is 100 percent battery-electric and does not use any gasoline.

A GEM electric car is the highest rated car for both the smog and the global warming scores.

Greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere, creating global warming. Scientists are certain that human activities such as burning gasoline for transportation are changing the composition of the atmosphere and warming the planet's climate.

Greenhouse gases emitted from vehicles include carbon dioxide, CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, and hydroflurocarbons from air conditioner refrigerant. Greenhouse gas emissions are identified as the CO2-equivalent value.

The California global warming score is based on the sum of a vehicle's greenhouse gas emissions, which are identified as the CO2-equivalent value.

The global warming score ranks each vehicle's CO2-equivalent value on a scale of one to 10 relative to all other vehicles within the current model year.

A score of 10 is the cleanest a vehicle can rate and indicates that the vehicle emits less than 200 grams of CO2-equivalent per mile driven.

A score of one is the dirtiest a vehicle can rate and indicates that the vehicle emits more than 520 grams of CO2-equivalent per mile driven.

The global warming scores are adjusted to reflect the contribution of greenhouse gas emissions from the production and distribution of the fuel used to power the vehicle.

Smog is hazy air pollution produced by the photochemical reaction of sunlight with volatile organic compounds and oxides of nitrogen released into the atmosphere, especially by automobile operation.

California's new smog score ranks each vehicle's pollutant levels of non-methane organic gases and oxides of nitrogen relative to all other vehicles within the current model year.

Smog scores will be on a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the cleanest. The average vehicle available in California today will get a smog score of 5. Many pre-2004 vehicles fall below a smog score of one. This is because, over time, there have been significant advances in air pollution control technologies and the Air Resources Board has established more stringent pollution standards for vehicles.

Michigan press offers online read of its Santa book about global warming

A children's book author hopes that her new Christmas story will help kids realize that they can have an impact on global warming.


"Santa Goes Green" (Mackinac Island Press, $15.95) is the story of a boy, Finn, who writes Santa and asks him to help raise awareness about global warming. Finn is interested in the issue because he has adopted a polar bear, and polar bears are losing their habitat.

Finn tells Santa he does not need any toys for Christmas, but instead he wants the jolly old elf's help. "Santa can do anything in (Finn's) mind," says author and publisher Anne Margaret Lewis.

The book has sold about 13,000 copies since the small Traverse City children's books publisher put a previewable version of the entire book online last month (at mackinacislandpress.com). Now in its second printing, it's a runaway hit.

Success has come without the embrace of mass-market booksellers, although Borders Books bought some for its Great Lakes-area stores. Librarians across the country are ordering "Santa" and other books, too, says associate publisher Brian Lewis. "It's really word-of-mouth people buying copies," he says. "It's this organic growth that we love."

ExtraordinaryMommy.com blogger Danielle Smith, bought "Santa" and other titles after looking at them online. She began touting the books. "People get to see every single page and every single detail," she says.

The "Santa Goes Green" "artistry is so rich, and the story is so sweet and well-told," Smith says. "I think that it resonates this time of year. And green is something we try to do in little bits and pieces, and when you have it in front of you, it's tangible on a child's level."

The project is a Lewis family affair. Anne, who has written 10 children's books, has been married to Brian for 22 years. And their son, Cameron, who is 6, gave Anne the idea for the book.

The Lewises married several years after they met in northern Michigan while windsurfing. She worked part time, then full time at Sleeping Bear Press, a small publishing firm that Brian started and sold six years ago. Before that, he also sold Lewis Publishers, an environmental publishing company started with his father in 1984. Then in 2004, Anne started Mackinac Island Press.

Theirs is not the only new, green Santa book. Another is "When Santa Turned Green" (Thomas Nelson Publishers, $15.99), but what makes the Lewises' book different is that you can see the whole book online before committing to buy it. "This mechanism has opened the door," says Brian Lewis. "We don't have to rely entirely on someone in New York City" to decide the fate of their product.

Early last summer, Anne and Cameron were reading a "National Geographic" article about how global warming has melted glaciers, which in turn reduced places for bears to live and hunt. "He asked how we could help the polar bears, so we started going around the house every time we left a room and shut the lights off. Then we would say, "We just saved another polar bear,' " she says. "I was trying to convince him that you can make a difference, and it worked."

That got Lewis to wondering whether she could write a book that would pass along the feeling. "I wanted it to be about polar bears because of how it came to be," she says. "And then I thought, who would a child think is the most powerful person who could help him do that? Santa. The story just started evolving."

Such a story of self-sacrifice fit into her writing style. "I tend to hide messages in books because I want (children) to learn through characters and the actions of characters that they can have fun or be a loyal friend," Lewis says. "My message is that kids can make a difference."

Plans like Corzine's to create 'green jobs' won't help in N.J. -or anywhere else

Last month, Gov. Jon S. Corzine became the latest politician to drink the "green jobs" Kool-Aid when he unveiled an "energy master plan," that he says can make the clean-energy industry "the cornerstone of New Jersey's economy." In fact, Corzine's master plan is doomed to failure for the same reason communism failed in Russia: Government is incapable of successfully planning any industry.

Corzine says his plan would create thousands of "green jobs," but the only jobs government can create are those for bureaucrats and regulators. Consider the Corzine plan's No. 1 goal-reducing energy consumption by auditing 3.7 million residential and commercial buildings in New Jersey for energy efficiency. Achieving this target would require an entire new bureaucracy of government inspectors to tell New Jersey homeowners and entrepreneurs what energy-efficiency improvements they have to make. In short, green jobs mean big government.

Corzine announced his energy plan at the YouthBuild Institute, a vocational school for teenagers, to highlight his plan to teach people to install solar panels and light bulbs. Demand for these goods and services would come from laws that force consumers to increase energy efficiency, rather than market forces.

But history demonstrates that government is likely to do more harm than good whenever it tries to control an industry by establishing demand and creating supply. Taxpayer money spent on "green job" training comes out of the market economy, which otherwise would have allocated those resources more efficiently to produce goods and services that consumers actually want.

Corzine's wants to create demand for clean-energy jobs with a requirement that New Jersey get 30 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Yet alternative energy is also expensive energy. According to the energy master plan, "renewable generation is currently more expensive to build than conventional generation." By forcing renewables on New Jersey, Corzine would create some jobs constructing wind turbines, but it would also drive away employers by making electricity more expensive.

Corzine argues that investing in clean-energy technologies will make New Jersey an industry leader. But that's unlikely, because government has never been good at choosing the most promising emerging technologies. Government is run by bureaucrats and regulators, not venture capitalists. That's why the federal government has wasted so much money in the past on failed energy initiatives, like hydrogen fuel cells and synfuels. Rather than produce a technology breakthrough, Corzine's clean-energy initiative is more likely to become a pork barrel fund for legislators to have at their disposal to reward constituent schools and companies.

If New Jersey voters want to pay more for energy to create a few green jobs at a net loss to their economy, they are free to do so. But they should have all the facts on the table before they decide. To that end, Corzine needs to come clean about the true costs of the green jobs he proposes to create.