Greenland is Not a Museum

Global warming, due to our burning of fossil fuel, is causing the Greenland ice sheet to shed massive amounts of ice. In effect, Greenland is melting. As it does so, the white ice that reflected sunlight is being replaced by blue water that absorbs it, thus accelerating warming and further melting. This is what's called "positive feedback," and it's one of the most alarming aspects of global warming.

Northeast Greenland ice was considered stable until 2003, when summer temperatures spiked. Within a few years, the main outlet glacier draining the region -- Zachariae Isstrom -- retreated about 20 kilometers, and regional ice mass loss jumped from zero to roughly 10 metric gigatons a year. Today, ice mass loss from northeast Greenland into the Fram Strait abutting the Arctic Ocean is now closer to 15 to 20 metric gigatons a year and is still increasing.

A cubic meter of water weighs one metric ton (2,200 lbs). "Giga" is the prefix for billion.

We also learned recently that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is collapsing and its disintegration is unstoppable. Combined with what we've discovered about the Greenland Ice Sheet, the estimates of sea level rise in the latest (5th) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report -- between one and three feet this century -- appear extremely conservative.

If we don't reduce CO2 emissions immediately to near zero -- that's right, ZERO -- sea level rise between now and say 2200 could result in this (visualizations by Nickolay Lamm. Data: Climate Central).

AT&T Park, San Francisco

or this

Back Bay, Boston

 or this

Jefferson Memorial

So, how are we addressing the devastating impact of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) on the Greenland Ice Sheet? The government of Greenland has opened up oil exploration in the Greenland Sea, and already awarded leases to a conglomeration of companies from around the world. When questioned about the decision by environmental organizations concerned with AGW, Greenland officials, who are already planning on how to dole out the proceeds from the leases, stated, "Greenland is not a museum."

For more on the opening up of Greenland to exploration/exploitation, see: The Grab for Greenland, by Phillip Stephens.

Pricing carbon-based products will help reduce emissions

Guest Commentary in the Cheney Free Press
May 15, 2014 | Vol. 118 -- No. 4
Richard Badalamente

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee recently signed an executive order creating a task force to design a “carbon emission limits and market mechanisms program” that establishes a cap on emissions, and includes “measures to help offset any cost impacts to consumers and workers, protect low-income households and assist energy intensive, trade-exposed businesses in their transition from carbon-based fuels.” Inslee’s “emissions limits and markets” program is, like a rose by any other name, a cap and trade program.

The Western Climate Initiative, of which Washington is a member, has established a regional target for reducing heat-trapping emissions of 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. WCI’s main focus is developing a regional cap-and-trade program, so Inslee’s executive order is congruent with this goal and focus. Inslee is doing all he can at the state level. Unfortunately, cap and trade won’t do enough to reduce emissions. It’s a little like dusting your house with a feather duster. It just moves the dust from one place to another.

The best way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to price carbon-based products, like coal, such that the price reflects the damage those products cause to the environment and, in turn, our quality of life (the so-called "Social Cost of Carbon"). To do this we must put a surcharge, or fee on carbon to be assessed at its source. This fee must be imposed at the national level in order to avoid a patchwork of policies that confuses markets and pits one state against another.

The fee on carbon would start low and increase annually in a predictable manner until emissions goals were reached. Now, there’s no getting around semantics on this —conservatives will call the fee a “tax” and will oppose it on principle, shouting slogans about, “tax and spend liberals!” But here’s the kicker; 100 percent of revenues collected from the carbon fee world be returned to households as a monthly dividend. This is what’s termed a “revenue-neutral carbon tax,” or in economic terms, a Pigouvian Tax, and it is considered by most economists to be the most effective way of reducing emissions, while minimizing the impact on the economy.

Under cap and trade, bankers and market traders get rich, and administrators go nuts. A carbon fee and dividend system is far more effective in reducing emissions, and it is immensely simpler to administer. And because the fee (and in turn, the price of fossil fuel) goes up predictably over time, it sends a clear price signal to industry. That predictability allows intelligent investments in low/no emissions technologies. Carbon fee and dividend proponents, such as the Citizens’ Climate Lobby, also propose placing a border adjustment levy on all imports from countries that do not price carbon similarly, leveling the playing field for U.S. companies.

For consumers, the rising cost of fossil fuels increases the demand for low/no emissions products, making them even less expensive as they reach mass production. Research and development of emissions mitigation technologies, and production of clean energy alternatives also creates jobs, and drives our nation’s economy into a clean energy future — a future in which we have stabilized our climate and ensured a livable planet for our children, and their children after them.

Cap-and-Trade Programs to Cut Global Warming Emissions

From the Union of Concerned Scientists, Center for Science and Democracy

1. European Union's Trading Scheme
2. The Northeast Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative
3. The Western Climate Initiative
4. Midwestern Regional Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord

Existing cap-and-trade programs provide important lessons about the need for robust design features. A brief review of real-world experience will illustrate two of these lessons. First, a cap must be tight enough to achieve significant cuts in emissions. Second, the method regulators select for distributing emission allowances to firms is critical, and auctioning is gaining favor as the preferred approach.

Cap and Trade in Practice. The European Union’s Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) is the first cap-and-trade program for reducing heat-trapping emissions, and is designed to help European nations meet their commitments to the Kyoto Protocol. This program includes 27 countries and all large industrial facilities, including those that generate electricity, refine petroleum, and produce iron, steel, cement, glass, and paper.

The first phase of the EU ETS—from 2005 to 2007—drew criticism for not achieving substantial cuts in emissions, and for giving firms windfall profits by distributing carbon allowances for free. These criticisms are valid. However, the EU viewed Phase 1 as a trial learning period. The extent to which Phase 2—which runs from 2008 to 2012—helps Europe fulfill its Kyoto commitments will be a better test of the program.

Phase 1 allowed countries to auction up to only 5 percent of allowances—and only Denmark chose to auction that amount. The result was billions of dollars in windfall profits for electricity producers. Phase 2 allows slightly more auctioning, which is expected to occur.

The rules for Phase 3—which extends from 2012 to 2020—were published in December 2008, and unfortunately they are not as ambitious as expected, given the EU’s stated commitment to tackling global warming. This phase targets a 20 percent reduction in emissions from 1990 levels by 2020; climate experts had hoped for 30 percent. Even this target is considerably watered down because of the large amount of offsets allowed from outside the capped region. Auctioning of allowances is still not likely to play a major role. This experience reinforces the fact that the United States would be much more likely to win stronger commitments from the EU and elsewhere if it fulfilled its responsibility to lead on climate policy.

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is a cap-and-trade program that covers a single sector—electricity generation—in 10 northeastern and mid-Atlantic states. The program aims to achieve a 10 percent reduction in emissions from power plants by 2018.

The program’s most notable aspect is that states unanimously chose auctioning to distribute the vast majority of emission allowances. Six of the ten states will auction nearly 100 percent of their allowances. The auctions of the other four states include fairly small portions of fixed-price sales or direct allocations.

The program's initial three-year compliance period begins in 2009, but the first multistate auctions occurred on September 25 and December 17, 2008. The first auction, which included allowances from only six states, raised $38.5 million, while the second raised $106.5 million. States and electric utilities will invest the vast majority of those funds in energy efficiency and renewable technologies, with an emphasis on reducing demand for fossil fuel–based electricity and saving consumers money.
The RGGI auction includes a reserve price, to ensure that CO2 emissions will always carry a minimum cost, and that the auctions will yield a minimum amount of revenue for these important programs. Some analysts fear that the states may have set the cap too high, because emissions have not grown at the rate expected when the cap was set in 2005. However, there is a possibility that the states could revisit the cap.

Cap and Trade on the Horizon

The Western Climate Initiative (WCI)—which includes seven western states and four Canadian provinces—has established a regional target for reducing heat-trapping emissions of 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. WCI’s main focus is developing a regional cap-and-trade program. The WCI also requires participants to implement California’s Clean Car Standard, and recommends other policies and best practices that states and provinces can adopt to achieve regional goals for cutting emissions.

The first phase of WCI development culminated on September 23, 2008, with the release of its Design Recommendations. These sketch out a very broad cap-and-trade program that would cover 85–90 percent of all heat-trapping emissions from participating states and provinces. The only parts of the economy that would remain uncapped are agriculture, forestry, and waste management. However, some sectors, such as transportation fuels, would be brought in at the start of the second compliance period, in 2015.

California is the largest single entity in the WCI, and it has the most detailed action plan of any state in the nation. In 2006 the legislature passed, and Governor Schwarzenegger signed, a law to reduce emissions economy-wide. The California Air Resources Board has created a blueprint for achieving the required reductions. The plan includes a strong set of sector-specific policies forecast to provide about 80 percent of the needed reductions, as well as a broad cap-and-trade program linking to the WCI. The California and WCI cap-and-trade programs are scheduled to go into effect in 2012.

Another nascent regional effort is occurring in the Midwest. On November 15, 2007, the governors of Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, as well as the premier of the Canadian province of Manitoba, signed the Midwestern Regional Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord. Participants agreed to establish regional targets for reducing global warming emissions, including a long-term target of 60–80 percent below today’s levels, and to develop a multisector cap-and-trade system to help meet the targets.

Participants will also establish a system for tracking global warming emissions, and implement other policies to help reduce them. The governors of Indiana, Ohio, and South Dakota joined the agreement as observers. The regional accord for reducing such emissions is the first in the Midwest.

The governors and premier assembled an Advisory Group of more than 40 stakeholders to advise them, and their final recommendations are due in May 2009. As now conceived, the cap would take effect January 1, 2012.

Last Revised: 11/09/07

The Antarctic's Ice Paradox

The Rundown | PBS NewsHour

The Antarctic's Ice Paradox | The Rundown | PBS NewsHour

Unexpected Teleconnections in Noctilucent Clouds

From Climate Change: The Next Generation
NASA, April 16, 2014

New data from NASA's AIM spacecraft have revealed "teleconnections" in Earth's atmosphere that stretch all the way from the North Pole to the South Pole and back again, linking weather and climate more closely than simple geography would suggest.

Addressing the Impacts of Climate Change is a Risk Management Problem

The following video of the late Stephen Schneider speaking before the Commonwealth Club is from Schneider's web site, Understanding and Solving the Climate Change Problem, Stanford University.

Schneider talks about the intersection of science and politics, and the difficulty of tackling a complex scientific subject like climate change in the charged atmosphere of today’s ideologically divided nation. He discusses such difficult questions as how uncertainty comes with the territory, what risks the changing climate poses to the global economy, and ways to approach solving the problem, especially in light of the well-funded disinformation campaign being waged by special interests.

Schneider says that policymakers should fund more research to invent our way to a cleaner future rather than betting so much on a cap-and-trade or carbon tax regime for carbon pollution. He believes the price of carbon should ultimately reflect the impact of spewing millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, but recommends a realistic sequence for enacting climate policy. Schneider stresses that policy formulation is a risk management problem in which value judgements play a key role. As always, Schneider’s talk is alive with clarity and humor.

McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission

The FEC loses 5 to 4, and so does government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Justice Breyer, summarized dissent for himself and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.

“Today the Court overrules Buckley and strikes down a similar ceiling [on overall contributions] as unconstitutional,” Breyer says. “The Court substitutes for the current two-year overall contribution ceiling of $123,000, the number infinity.”

“If the Court in Citizens United opened a door, today’s decision may well open a floodgate,” he says.
“Taken together with Citizens United, today’s holding, we fear, eviscerates our nation’s campaign finance laws, leaving a remnant incapable of dealing with the grave problems of democratic legitimacy that those laws were intended to support.”
Quid pro quo corruption is not the only danger, Breyer says. “The appearance of corruption accompanying multi-million dollar contributions can make matters worse. The public may come to believe that its efforts to communicate with its representatives or to help sway public opinion have little purpose. And a cynical public can lose interest in political participation altogether.”

“We believe,” Breyer concludes, “that today’s decision substitutes judges’ understandings of how the political process works for the understanding of Congress, fails to recognize the difference between influence resting upon public opinion and influence bought by money alone, overturns key precedent, creates serious loophole in the law, and undermines, perhaps devastates, what remains of campaign finance reform.”

“With respect, we dissent,” he adds.


And so do we, but without the qualifier.