Author: Bryan Walker

Inhofe’s “Hoax”: foolish and dangerous

I decided to take a look at Senator Inhofe’s newly published book The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future, thinking I might get a better understanding of what impels a politician like him into aggressive denial of climate science and opposition to any moves to tackle the climate crisis. It wasn’t difficult to find out. He is a virulent opponent of what he regards as government over-regulation.  He describes earlier in life working “long hard hours” as a developer, and finding the chief obstacle to “living out my American dream” was the government. Bureaucrats, “pseudo-intellectuals in Washington who think they know best”, are holding back the enterprising spirit on which the American economy depends.

It’s not my purpose in this post to discuss Inhofe’s politics per se. It’s how they impinge on the challenge of climate change that concerns me. So far as I could see in reading his book climate change is denied in the name of free enterprise, the lifeblood of the American economy.

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Reinventing Fire

Is there movement already under way in the world of industry which will outstrip the painfully slow progress of the political world in facing up to the challenge of climate change?  Amory Lovins certainly thinks so and his recent book, Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era, explains why. Lovins is the co-founder, chairman and chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute(RMI), a well-staffed non-profit organisation established thirty years ago and active in research and consultation on issues relating to energy and the efficient use of resources. The book is the product of some years of work by many RMI staff. It focuses the Institute’s current initiative to map and drive the transition from coal and oil to efficiency and renewables.

Can the US realistically stop using coal and oil by 2050? And can such a vast transition toward efficient use and renewable energy be led by business?  The answer the book gives to both questions is yes, based on painstaking exploration of existing renewable technologies and an assessment that they are already competitive with fossil-fuel-based industry for those who have eyes to see. The book is directed to the business world. It presents the energy transition as a major shift for a civilisation which has benefited greatly from fossil fuels but must now move from the old fire dug from below to the new fire which flows from above and works without combustion (save for a small amount of sustainable biofuel). It is a time of exceptional business opportunity for those prepared to recognise it and take it. The costs of oil and coal are rising as the price of renewables keeps on dropping. “The curves are already crossing. The endgames of oil and coal have already begun.” Lovins reminds readers that inattentive whalers in the 19th century were astounded to find they had run out of whale-oil customers before they ran out of whales.

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The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars

It was clearly never Michael Mann’s wish to be embroiled in the public controversy that has been manufactured by the denial industry around his and his co-authors’ work. He’s a scientist first and foremost, the nine-year-old who wanted to know what it meant to go faster than the speed of light, the high school student whose idea of a fun Friday night was hanging out with his computer buddies writing programmes to solve challenging problems, the Ph.D candidate looking for a big-picture problem to which he could apply his maths and physics interests, the post-doctoral researcher wanting to pursue curiosity-driven science. “When we first published our hockey stick work in the late 1990s,” he explains, “I was of the belief that the role of a scientist was, simply put, to do science.”

In support of that belief he eschewed the notion of taking any position regarding climate change policy. But merely doing the science, resulting in the hockey stick graph which showed a rapid and unprecedented global warming in recent time by comparison with the proxy temperature records of the last thousand years, meant that he was catapulted willy-nilly into public attention. And not just attention, but attack and vilification by the denial campaign. The title of his book The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines is no overstatement. He has battle scars.  However it’s not a conflict he is prepared to retire from.  He no longer thinks he should avoid communicating the societal implications of climate science. Quite the opposite. He points out that scientists who study climate science and its potential impacts understand better than anyone the nature of the climate change threat. It would be irresponsible in the extreme for scientists to leave the field to industry-funded climate change deniers to confuse and mislead the public and dissuade policy makers from taking appropriate action.

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The Benefits of Soil Carbon

The UN Environment Programme’s just released Year Book 2012 includes a report The Benefits of Soil Carbon which looks at the vital role played by soil carbon in regulating climate, water supplies and biodiversity, and maintaining the ecosystem services that we depend on. The report is 15 pages long and well presented for general reading. I thought it well worth drawing attention to. I’ll point to a few of the report’s highlights here, in particular those that relate to climate change.

First, it offers a reminder of how important a carbon storehouse the soil is.  The top metre of the world’s soils stores more than three times the amount of carbon held in the atmosphere (approximately 2200 billion tonnes of carbon, two-thirds of it in the form of organic matter). This sequestration gives soils an essential role in climate regulation. However, soils are vulnerable to carbon losses through degradation. They also release greenhouse gases to the atmosphere as a result of accelerated decomposition due to land use change or unsustainable land management practices. Continue reading “The Benefits of Soil Carbon”

Europe’s renewable power continues to increase

Some encouraging renewable energy news in a recent press release from the European Wind Energy Association.  Their analysis of the 27 National Renewable Energy Action Plans shows that the EU-27 will meet 20.7 % of its 2020 energy consumption from renewables, exceeding the 20% target.

The National Action Plans show that one third (34%) of EU electricity demand will be supplied from renewables by 2020. Wind energy will be the largest contributor, generating 14% of Europe’s total electricity demand in 2020 (494 TWh from 213 GW installed capacity). Other renewables are expected to contribute as follows: 10.5% from hydro, 6.6% from biomass, 2.4% from solar photovoltaic, 0.5% from CSP, 0.3% from geothermal and 0.1% from ocean. Continue reading “Europe’s renewable power continues to increase”