Study shows fossil fuels, nukes unnecessary to provide the world with energy

PhysOrg: New research has shown that it is possible and affordable for the world to achieve 100 percent renewable energy by 2030, if there is the political will to strive for this goal.

Achieving 100 percent renewable energy would mean the building of about four million 5 MW wind turbines, 1.7 billion 3 kW roof-mounted solar photovoltaic systems, and around 90,000 300 MW solar power plants.

Mark Delucchi, one of the authors of the report, which was published in the journal Energy Policy, said the researchers had aimed to show enough renewable energy is available and could be harnessed to meet demand indefinitely by 2030.

Delucchi and colleague Mark Jacobson left all fossil fuel sources of energy out of their calculations and concentrated only on wind, solar, waves and geothermal sources. Fossil fuels currently provide over 80 percent of the world’s energy supply. They also left out biomass, currently the most widely used renewable energy source, because of concerns about pollution and land-use issues. Their calculations also left out nuclear power generation, which currently supplies around six percent of the world’s electricity.

I wasn’t extremely surprised that we could get by without fossil fuels. What got my attention was that nuclear power was left out of the equation as well. A lot of people have been trying to paint nuclear as a necessary evil, saying we’d have to use “clean” nuclear power to reduce carbon emissions. This study proves them wrong.

Turns out we can power the whole planet without using energy from an industry that produces what may be the most dangerous toxic waste known to humanity. Good to know.

[photo via Wikimedia Commons]

"Cold owt. Climitt chang not reel!"

Mike Luckovich.

Learning from the master

Joel Pett, Lexington Herald-Leader.

Climate ‘skeptics’ fail to understand that ‘global’ and ‘local’ have very different meanings

AlJazeera America: Meteorologists predict record-low temperatures for large swaths of the United States on Sunday and Monday.

The cold snap, which comes after snow blanketed much of the northeastern United States last week, has also led to confusion surrounding how weather relates to global warming.

[…]

That skepticism could be seen in full force recently as snow covered the New York City headquarters of Fox News, from where the station broadcast several reports suggesting that recent cold weather conflicted with scientists’ assessments of climate change, or even suggested the globe may be cooling.

Fox News hosts weren’t the only ones taken aback by the cool weather. Donald Trump tweeted that the ship of scientists that was until recently trapped in antarctic ice was proof that climate change is a lie. And U.S. Rep. John Fleming, R-La., wrapped up the confusion between weather and climate succinctly when he tweeted, “‘Global warming’ isn’t so warm these days.”

Here’s the thing: the US isn’t the world. Global warming means global warming — not just warming in your neck of the woods. And when did any climate scientist ever argue that climate change meant it there would never be ice, cold, or snow again? If they didn’t, then the appearance of ice, cold, or snow proves jack.

Right now, Australia and New Zealand are experiencing a heat wave and drought, driving wildfires. And it’s not even the entire US that’s freezing right now; the west coast is experiencing an abnormally warm winter. Further, snow and cold was late to Scandinavia.

But if you really want to fully grasp how little sense these statements make, consider them in the context of another common climate flatearther argument. For years, they’ve argued that a long term warming trend is just natural variation in global temperature. But then they turn around and insist that every heavy snow or exceptionally cold few days is supposed to be proof positive that global warming is a hoax. So big changes over time are just fluctuations — while fluctuations are PROOF THAT THIS ‘CLIMATE CHANGE’ HOAX IS A COMMUNIST PLOT TO DESTROY AMERICA!! GAH!! PANIC!!!

In order to be a climate denier, you either have to have no idea what you’re talking about or pretending to be that ignorant. So the question, as it so often is when dealing with wingnut extremists, is whether they're lying or stupid.

Either way, there’s no reason to give them the time of day.

Global warming denial driven mostly by the Tea Party

Greg Sargent: Some fascinating new findings from Pew Research suggest deep divisions among Republicans over whether global warming is happening:

Two-thirds of Americans (67%) say there is solid evidence that the earth has been getting warmer over the last few decades, a figure that has changed little in the past few years. While partisan differences over climate change remain substantial, Republicans face greater internal divisions over this issue than do Democrats.

Just 25% of Tea Party Republicans say there is solid evidence of global warming, compared with 61%of non-Tea Party Republicans.

Republican voters overall are evenly divided, 46-46, over whether global warming is happening, but this divide is driven by the lopsided difference between Tea Party and non-Tea Party Republicans on the question, with a solid majority of the latter in the global warming camp. “It’s not Democrat versus Republican, it’s Democrat and Republican versus the Tea Party,” Jeff Gohringer, spokesman for the League of Conservation Voters, tells me.

Just another example of how a shrill minority of nutjobs is driving our national conversation in completely self-destructive ways. Gerrymandering isn’t just a cheat, it’s a cancer.

[photo via Wikimedia Commons]

You'd have to be in a coma to miss all the wake up calls

Jim Morin, Miami Herald.

Suicidal: Ice thaw leads to Arctic drilling rush

Brian Merchant: Today, federal scientists confirmed that for the first time in millions of years, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere had reached 400 parts per million. The pre-industrial level was 280 ppm, and the amount that top climatologists say is advisable for maintaining a stable environment is 350 ppm. The new carbon concentration signals that planetary warming will continue to accelerate—and that the rapidly melting Arctic will continue to thaw.

“It symbolizes that so far we have failed miserably in tackling this problem,” Pieter P. Tans, who runs the chief carbon-monitoring program for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told The New York Times, in a front-page story headlined “Carbon Dioxide Level Is at Highest in Human History.”

At about the same time that NOAA released its numbers, the White House—which has thus far not commented on the carbon milestone—published a press release called “Protecting Our Interests in the Arctic.” The release heralds the administration’s newly forged National Strategy for the Arctic Region, a document that contains the recommendations of military advisers, scientists, and policy analysts on how to cope with and exploit a slushier Arctic.

[…]

The strategy document notes that “dense, multi-year ice is giving way to thin layers of seasonal ice, making more of the region navigable year-round. Scientific estimates of technically recoverable conventional oil and gas resources north of the Arctic Circle total approximately 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil and 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered gas deposits, as well as vast quantities of mineral resources, including rare earth elements, iron ore, and nickel. These estimates have inspired fresh ideas for commercial initiatives and infrastructure development in the region.”

Sometimes I worry we’re too stupid not to go extinct.

GOP Rep. “Smoky Joe” Barton: climate change isn’t real, because the Bible

Buzzfeed: A Republican Congressman cited the biblical flood as an example of climate change that had not been caused by humans. Texas Rep. Joe Barton made those remarks Wednesday at the Subcommittee on Energy and Power hearing on H.R. 3, the Northern Route Approval Act, a bill that would give Congress the authority approve the Keystone pipeline.

“I don’t think it’s a secret that I’m a proponent and supporter of the Keystone pipeline,” Barton said.

Barton continued to say he didn’t deny the climate was changing, but argued that the change was due to natural causes, as he has in the past.

[…]

“I would point out that if you’re a believer in in the Bible, one would have to say the Great Flood is an example of climate change and that certainly wasn’t because mankind had overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy.”

First off, no. The Great Flood would not be climate change, it would be a flood (an impossible flood, by the way, since there isn’t enough water on Earth to submerge all land). That’s why it’s called “the Great Flood.” Second, what “natural causes” are you talking about? You actually have to be specific about this stuff, because the continued existence of the human species is kind of important. It’s a real crappy time to be vague.

The fact is that Joe Barton has earned the nickname “Smoky Joe” by being a trained monkey for polluters — the oil industry in particular. You might remember him as the guy who apologized to BP’s Tony Hayward after the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Seems that turning the Gulf of Mexico into a toxic waste dump is no reason to be unpleasant to hapless oil execs.

Who keeps voting for these obvious clowns?

[photo by Gage Skidmore]

Top Pacific commander sees climate as biggest concern

Boston Globe:

America’s top military officer in charge of monitoring hostile actions by North Korea, escalating tensions between China and Japan, and a spike in computer attacks traced to China provides an unexpected answer when asked what is the biggest long-term security threat in the Pacific region: climate change.

Navy Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III, in an interview at a Cambridge hotel Friday after he met with scholars at Harvard and Tufts universities, said significant upheaval related to the warming planet “is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen . . . that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about.’’

“People are surprised sometimes,” he added, describing the reaction to his assessment. “You have the real potential here in the not-too-distant future of nations displaced by rising sea level. Certainly weather patterns are more severe than they have been in the past. We are on super typhoon 27 or 28 this year in the Western Pacific. The average is about 17.”

This is a trend that hasn’t been getting a lot of attention. It began with the pentagon informing George W, Bush that climate was a major defense concern and continues today with the Navy leading the rest of the military in a green revolution. This sort of thing isn’t small potatoes, either. The US military is by far the largest energy consumer in the US government and they’re given quite a bit of autonomy on how that energy is produced. If top Pentagon brass say that green energy is a matter of national defense, they get to go as green as they’re able.

It always strikes me how willing Republicans are to go to insane (and often unnecessary) lengths to protect the nation from people looking to harm us — but once the threat isn’t human, that interest in national defense just evaporates. We’ll shake government to its foundations if some nut fails to light his exploding diaper on a plane. But rising sea levels, record droughts, more intense and frequent storms, etc?

Yawns.

[photo via Dept. of Defense]

Climate warming faster than any time in human history

NBC News:

Temperatures are rising faster today than they have at any point since at least the end of the last ice age, about 11,000 years ago, according to a new study.

The finding is based on a global reconstruction of temperature records inferred from ice cores, fossils in ocean sediments and other sources. While previous studies reached similar conclusions, they covered only about 2,000 years. The new reconstruction extends the global record through the Holocene, the most recent geologic epoch.

“Another way to think of it is the period where human civilization was born, created, and developed and then progressed to where we are now,” Shuan Marcott, a climate scientist at Oregon State University who led the study, told NBC News.

If you’re one of those who still think global warming is hooey, let me ask you a question: do you really believe we can literally spend a century pumping tons of chemicals into the atmosphere and have nothing happen? Poof! It all just disappears like crap down a toilet because… Well, because why, exactly? Does that really make any sense at all to you? As always, conservative positions seem reasonable — until you fucking think about them for a fraction of a second.

This is it, people. We’re standing at the edge of the cliff without a lot of room left between us and the open air. We can turn back or we can jump.
Think we’re spending money now? Wait until you see how much we have to spend to hold the seas back, to irrigate deserts, to fight wars over water. That’s spending money. In comparison, stopping the warming trend would be chump change.

World Bank to increase focus on climate

The Hill:

The World Bank’s chief told Bloomberg in an interview published Thursday that he hopes to elevate the international development institution’s climate change role.

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, who took office in July, said the lender’s November climate change report already has had an effect on its 188 member countries.

“The response was quite surprising,” Kim told Bloomberg. “It was as if ‘we’ve heard this all from the environmental groups, but my goodness, if the World Bank tells us this is an issue, then there must be something different to the story.’ “

That report warned of “cataclysmic changes” resulting from heat waves, rising sea levels, decreased food supplies and a possible 4-degree Celsius temperature increase this century.

According to the report, the World Bank is “helping finance renewable energy projects, assisting with climate change mitigation plans and awarding funds to discourage deforestation and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Increasingly, climate denialism is becoming a strictly American conservative religion.

[image source]

If global warming is a hoax, it’s the most convincing hoax ever

ThinkProgress:

Last year was officially the hottest ever recorded for the lower-48 states. Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric tallied weather and temperature data for 2012, and found that the year was both the warmest and the second-most extreme for weather ever recorded for the contiguous U.S.

According to NOAA’s latest “State of the Climate” report, the average temperature for the lower-48 states was 55.3°, which is 3.2°F above the 20^th century average, and 1.0°F above the previous record-year of 1998.

Last year was marked by an historic drought, above-average wildfires, multiple freak storms that wiped out power to millions, and multiple severe heat waves. According to the U.S. Climate Extremes Index, 2012 was the second most extreme year on record — coming in below 1998, the previous hottest year on record.

Precipitation was also down significantly in 2012. Average rainfall for the lower-48 states was 2.57 inches below average, contributing to the severe drought that gripped the nation and helping make the wildfire season the third most destructive on record.

The previous year, 2011, had the hottest summer on record. It’d be a lot easier to believe climate change was a massive conspiracy if it weren’t so conspicuously happening all around us year after year. At this point, you can’t call the deniers “skeptics,” since the skeptical mind can be changed by evidence. They’re fanatics deeply invested in the religion of Climate Denial — nothing will ever change their minds.

[image source]

'I don't believe this data...'

Nick Anderson, via Truthdig.

Poll: Americans see climate change as ‘serious’

ThinkProgress:

Polls have consistently shown that Americans’ understanding of global warming grows with an increase in extreme weather events. In the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, that number continues to grow.

According to a new Rasmussen poll conducted a day before the election and released this morning, 68 percent of American voters said that global warming is either a “very serious” or “somewhat serious” problem. This represents a major increase over the last few years. In 2009, Rasmussen reported that only 46 percent of Americans believed that global warming is a problem.

The Rasmussen poll backs up others showing an increase in awareness of the problem. An October poll from George Mason University and the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication showed that 74 percent of Americans understand that “global warming is affecting weather in the United States” — an increase of 5 points from a March 2012 survey. The Yale/George Mason poll also found that a majority of respondents said global warming made the summer heat wave and Midwest drought worse.

In February, a poll released by the Brookings Institute showed a 7 percent increase in the number of Americans who say that the planet is warming — with that increase influenced by extreme weather events.

Sadly, we’re right.

Not fighting global warming is really expensive

New York Times:

Jeff Rothschild’s machines at Facebook had a problem he knew he had to solve immediately. They were about to melt.

The company had been packing a 40-by-60-foot rental space here with racks of computer servers that were needed to store and process information from members’ accounts. The electricity pouring into the computers was overheating Ethernet sockets and other crucial components.

Thinking fast, Mr. Rothschild, the company’s engineering chief, took some employees on an expedition to buy every fan they could find — “We cleaned out all of the Walgreens in the area,” he said — to blast cool air at the equipment and prevent the Web site from going down.

That was in early 2006, when Facebook had a quaint 10 million or so users and the one main server site. Today, the information generated by nearly one billion people requires outsize versions of these facilities, called data centers, with rows and rows of servers spread over hundreds of thousands of square feet, and all with industrial cooling systems.

In a yearlong investigation into the energy usage by online companies, NYT found “the information industry is sharply at odds with its image of sleek efficiency and environmental friendliness.”

The problem seems to be one of sheer laziness: “Online companies typically run their facilities at maximum capacity around the clock, whatever the demand. As a result, data centers can waste 90 percent or more of the electricity they pull off the grid, The Times found.” Rather than monitor demand and adjust capacity accordingly — like a utility — data centers just run everything at full blast all the damned time.

And it’s here that the argument that reducing our dependency on fossil fuels means economic disaster dies. That’s why this argument is made mainly by energy producers — oil and coal companies, for example. If everyone cut back on energy usage, coal companies would make less money, sure. But everyone else would make more. If we put real effort — I’m talking Apollo project effort — into reducing energy consumption, we’d have energy for dirt cheap (not only because we use less, but because supply and demand would drop the price at the same time) and a cleaner environment. Meanwhile, all this new technology would give birth to entire new economic sectors.

New technologies, new industries, new markets — yup, sounds like a real economic nighmare, huh? Much better to keep shoveling coal and money into 20th century furnaces to keep the 21st century world running full-freakin’-throttle, 24-7 — whether we need it to or not.

What If A TV Weather Forecaster Told The Truth?

Via ThinkProgress.

News Roundup for 7/29/11

Bill Nye reacts to a question on Fox News

-Headline of the Day-
"Bill Nye Explains To Fox News Moon Volcanoes Don't Cause Global Warming."

You might think that's one of Wonkette's typical comically hyperbolic headlines, but it's actually pretty damned close to the mark. See, Bill Nye the Science Guy was on Fox to talk about a rare volcano found on the moon. During the interview, the foxbot asked this deeply penetrating question; "Does it go, you know, anywhere close to the climate change debate that's underway here on earth? I mean, you know, if the moon had erupting volcanoes, a few years, well, a few million years ago, however you want to put it...
you know, it's not like we've been up there burning fossil fuels."

At which point, Bill blinks and answers with what the report describes as a "blank stare."

You can understand Nye's problem here -- where the fuck do you even begin? Do you start by explaining that burning fossil fuels doesn't cause volcanoes or by saying that volcanoes aren't causing global warming? And, while you're making this decision, you're also distracted by the astonishing stupidity of it all. Regardless of where you start, is Copernicus over here even capable of understanding it?

"That's the last time Fox News tries to invite an actual children's science teacher on the program," the report surmises. Yeah well, science was invented by commies to launch sputnik and fluoridate water with zombie serum.

Patriots don't do science. (Wonkette, with video)


-The GOP position on the debt ceiling explained-
See, it works like this:



Hope that clears up any questions you might have. (Whip or Will)


-Bonus HotD-
"More Top Democrats Come Out in Support of 14th Amendment Solution."

If you haven't heard of it, it basically involves the President declaring the debt ceiling hereby raised, getting taken to the Supreme Court, and winning.

Not the worst plan ever. (Firedoglake)

Stories to Watch: 6/3/11

Weekend ahead! Now here's the news...


Mittens says that global warming is real and that humans contribute to it. Expect this embrace of reality to be called a "gaffe" more than once.


It was not a good day for John Edwards.


RIP James Arness.


John Huntsman says he'll make an announcement soon.


Gallup asks, "Do you think our government should or should not redistribute wealth by heavy taxes on the rich?" and finds that Americans are split. Imagine what the results would've been if they hadn't have used the language of Limbaugh. Seriously awful, awful wording there.


Apparently, Paul Ryan believes the military is exempt from math.


Finally, is Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett -- who lost the Wisconsin gubernatorial race to Scott Walker -- up for a recall election rematch? The last poll I saw on the match-up had Barrett winning by seven.

Related articles

• James Arness has died: Why he was the greatest TV law-man - Entertainment Weekly (news.google.com)
• Reports: John Edwards to be indicted for affair cover up - USA Today (news.google.com)
• Wisconsin Government Accountability Board approved recall elections for 6 Republicans (politicore.wordpress.com)
• John Edwards Sees Little Chance To Rehabilitate Image (huffingtonpost.com)

Climate and Weather for Idiots

Over at the Seattle Post Intelligencer, staff writer Joel Connelly writes that global warming deniers don't pop their heads out of their little holes to take a look at the world around them. "Global warming skeptics tend to be a sarcastic, sedentary lot," he writes. "They send out screeds, question the work of scientists, but rarely if ever venture out to look at visual evidence around them." In short, they're sure they're right, they can't be bothered with facts outside their little hate club, and they're real pricks about the whole thing. A bunch of smug -- yet ignorant -- assholes. to be blunt (and when am I anything other than blunt?)

Yet, this isn't entirely true. They do pop their head out occassionally and take a gander around -- but only when it serves their argument. A new screed has been issued from the hole in the ground and this one is making the rounds of the wingnutosphere. Seems that, despite what scientists are saying, weather and climate are the same thing and, if there's an especially cold day, it proves conclusively that there's no such thing as global warming.

Who's the genius who came up with this? "Professional statistician" William M. Briggs. Once again, we have someone who's not a climate scientist bloviating about the topic of climate science. Briggs is, in fact, a corporate whore for the Heartland Institute -- one of the many PR firms masquerading as a think tank. Prior to working on climate change denial, Heartland was involved in the sound and solid science of proving that smoking is harmless. Why anyone listens to these frauds is beyond me.

Anyway, let me take a whack at this whole weather v. climate argument and demonstrate the absurdity of what these morons call "logic." All but the completely loony agree that, in 2008, Barack Obama won the presidential election. He won with an overwhelming number of total votes -- not in dispute. And it's the word "total" that we need to concentrate on here. What deniers are doing when they look at one area and see a drop in temperature is like looking at Alabama's vote total and saying that it's rock-solid proof that Obama didn't win at all.

"Haha, you libtard!" some wingnut troll might say. "McCain took 61% in Alabama, while Obama only got 39%! And you're saying Obama won the election? Get a brain, moran!"

Obviously, the vote count in Alabama doesn't prove that Obama lost the election, any more than a cold week in America proves that global temperatures aren't on the increase. The argument is idiotic on its face.

The fact of the matter is that the years 2000-2009 were the the hottest decade in the recorded history of mankind. In fact, the 20 warmest years on record have all been between 1983 and today. Pointing to a cold snap in one area of the world as proof that global warming isn't happening is just laughable in its absurdity. It's the total we need to concentrate on, not the one example.

Despite Alabama, Obama won. Despite that day you had to get your battery jumped, you just lived through the warmest decade in history. Global warming is happening and anyone who argues otherwise is just throwing logic out the window.

The Real Climate Lie -- That There's a Scientific Debate on the Subject

To listen to the media, you'd believe that scientists are pretty much split on whether or not humans cause global warming. But a graph that comes to us from Information is Beautiful (via Grist), shows that opinions are a lot more lopsided than you've been led to believe (click image for larger chart):



Roughly 90% of all published scientists, regardless of their field, believe that humans cause global warming. To make things even worse for deniers, 99% of published climatologists -- the experts in this field -- believe the same thing.

Of course, the media -- obsessed with a phony "objectivity" -- gives equal time to nutjobs. So the next time you see a talking head show, you'll see one reality-based head and one denier head arguing, creating the impression that the scientific community is split on the question along a 50/50 line.

But to accurately represent the scientific community in general, there would have to be nine reality-based heads to one denier. Among climate scientists, the breakdown would be ninety-nine scientists who believe in human caused warming to one lone nutjob who thinks it's all a crock.

I feel pretty safe in concluding that the opinion of 99% of all climatologists represents the consensus position. It's not the science behind global warming that's a crock, it's the idea that there's a serious debate about it; that's just a lie. Among climate scientists, the percentage is high enough to legitimately call the debate over.