Must-Have High-Resolution Charts: ‘Carbon Pollution Set To End Era Of Stable Climate’

Many folks asked for high-resolution and Celsius versions of the chart I posted 10 days ago:

Temperature change over past 11,300 years (in blue, via Science, 2013) plus projected warming this century on humanity’s current emissions path (in red, via recent literature).

The high-resolution F version is here and the high-resolution C version is here.

As an aside, readers know I have scaled back my coverage of the denier blogs for two reasons. First, their traffic has flat-lined or declined since Climategate, and despite their best efforts, they can’t get any real traction on social media. Second, and no doubt related to the first, they are so darn monotonous. Pretty much every story is, “The latest piece of peer-reviewed science about climate science and/or the danger of unrestricted carbon pollution is false because….”

Science put 12 men on the moon and got them back, science eliminated smallpox, science put massive computing power in the palm of your hand, and science saved the ozone layer with its just-in-time warnings of the dangers of CFCs (that people heeded). Science builds a beautiful edifice on a solid foundation.

Anti-science delayed action on smoking regulations, delayed or rolled back environmental standards, and, now, is working over-time to stop or slow action on carbon reductions needed to prevent needless suffering for billions of people and countless future generations. Anti-science destroys life, by suffocating it in a “foundation” of quick-sand.

For those who read the deniers blogs, you probably know that they have come up with a truly inane way to try to undermine the 2013 Science paper, “A Reconstruction of Regional and Global Temperature for the Past 11,300 Years” by Shaun Marcott et al that is the source of most of the data for the chart above.

They are arguing that the warming of the past century the authors found in their proxy records is in error. What makes this so head-exploding is that the uptick just happens to match the uptick in the heavily documented and independently verified instrumental record. So the disinformers are spending most of their time attacking the one part of the paper we know is unequivocally is true. That is the quintessence of anti-science.

The fact is Marcott et al doesn’t have findings that are a big surprise to anyone who follows temperature reconstructions. Indeed, as the NY Times pointed out in its post on the paper, “a graph produced by Robert Rohde for his Global Warming Art Web site years ago nicely captures the general picture.” Here it is:

Look familiar? What Marcott et al added to the already imposing edifice of climate science was the most comprehensive reconstruction to date.

And, yes, that chart is by the same Robert Rohde who led the statistical analysis of the Koch-funded BEST (Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature) study that confirmed for the umpteenth time the accuracy of the instrumental record — indeed confirmed that “Global Warming Is Real” and “On The High End” and “Essentially All” Due To Carbon Pollution.

You might recall the disinformers said they would abide by whatever that skeptic-led study found. Until it confirmed climate science. Then they would have none of it. Such is the monotonous, flat-lining nature of anti-science.

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Latest Polling Finds Strong Support For Clean Energy And Stricter Carbon Pollution Standards

Evidence of a striking shift in public opinion has begun to crystalize over the last few months: Poll after poll is finding staunch majorities of Americans view global warming as a “serious problem” and that human activity is a major driving cause.

In defiance of received Beltway wisdom, voters even told a recent Yale poll that a candidate’s views on global warming will affect their vote, and that the issue should be a top priority for the President and the Congress. Majorities have even stated that when it comes to deficit reduction, they prefer a tax on carbon emissions to cuts in education, Social Security, Medicare, or environmental protection.

Yesterday, Pew Research released new poll research that re-confirms the trend. When asked to choose between developing “alternative sources such as wind, solar and hydrogen” and expanding “exploration and production of oil, coal and natural” gas as their preferred priority for addressing America’s energy needs, 54 percent of Americans went with alternative energy. Only 34 percent chose continued prioritization of fossil fuels. That’s a drop from the 63 percent high in 2011, but an uptick over the 52 percent response last year.

Furthermore, Independents and Democrats were largely in concert, preferring alternative energy sources by 64 and 59 percent, respectively. Only 33 percent of Republicans went with solar and wind, in contrast to the 54 percent who preferred expanded fossil fuel use. But the distance between the two positions within the Republican group was smaller than the distance in the other two collections of voters.

And that wasn’t all. 62 percent of overall voters favored “setting stricter emission limits on power plants to address climate change,” with Democrats once again taking that position by a wide margin of 72 percent, and Independents coming in at a lower-but-still-impressive 64 percent. Republicans opposed the stricter standards by a 48 percent majority, but were again much more evenly split — the minority of GOP voters who favored the emissions limits close at the majority’s heels with 42 percent.

The age divide also stood out: Voters 18 to 29 supported alternative energy by a whopping 71 percent, and it wasn’t until voters crossed the age 65 that majorities flipped in favor of coal, oil and natural gas expansion.

And if the recent behavior and pronouncements of top lawmakers are any indication, this shift in the national mood is being felt. Newly minted Secretary of State John Kerry, who will shortly decide the fate of the Keystone XL pipeline, declared in his first big speech since his confirmation that, “We as a nation must have the foresight and courage to make the investments necessary to safeguard the most sacred trust we keep for our children and grandchildren: an environment not ravaged by rising seas, deadly superstorms, devastating droughts, and the other hallmarks of a dramatically changing climate.” President Obama came out swinging on the issue of climate change in both his Second Inaugural address and the State of the Union speech calling for new renewable electricity and energy efficiency targets, and warming that “if Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations [from climate change] I will.”

The latest signs from the White House are that Obama may very well use his executive authority to limit the carbon existing power plants may emit, on top of the regulations the Environmental Protection Agency is finalizing for new power plants.

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Obama Makes Case For Curbing Carbon Pollution From Existing Power Plants, Also Vows To Use ‘Bully Pulpit’

The President has (finally) been talking hawkish on climate. Turns out he now realizes that is part of his job! (Duh?)

In his second inaugural address, Obama said failing to respond to the threat of climate change “would betray our children and future generations.” In his State of the Union, Obama vowed to take executive action if Congress fails to pass a climate bill.

The most important action he can take without further Congressional approval is restricting emissions from existing coal-fired power plants using his authority under the Clean Air Act.

While he didn’t announce specific plans for such regulations in the SOTU, he did make the case for them during a recent Google+ hangout:

“The truth is if you produce power using old power plants, you’re going to be emitting more carbon — but to upgrade those plants, energy’s going to be a little bit more expensive, at least on the front end. At the core, we have to do something that’s really difficult for any society to do, and that is to take actions now where the benefits are coming down the road, or at least we’re avoiding big problems down the road,”

Watch it:

During the online video chat, he also said that speaking out on climate change is part of his job:

“Part of my job is to use the bully pulpit to help raise people’s awareness, because if the public cares about it, eventually Congress acts. If the public doesn’t care about it, it’s very hard to get big stuff done because legislators respond to their constituents sooner or later.”

That is quite a reversal from the climate silence Obama has practiced for much of the past years — a flawed strategy that team Obama actually pushed others to adopt starting back in March 2009. Let’s hope this is all more than rhetoric, something we will find out relatively soon — when he makes the final Keystone XL tar sands pipeline decision.

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Washington Post On Climate: Obama Must ‘Discuss The Science, The Real Reason To Cut Carbon Emissions’

Obama surprised almost everyone when he channeled his inner climate hawk in his powerful second inaugural address. Now everyone is wondering what he will say in his State of the Union address Tuesday.

This weekend, the Washington Post editorial board weighed in:

President Obama will deliver his 2013 State of the Union address on Tuesday, and expectations are high that he will devote significant time to climate change. We hope that he adopts a different approach to explaining the need for action than he did in much of his first term.

In past addresses, talking about green jobs didn’t work, nor did talking about energy independence. The credible way to justify fighting climate change is to discuss the science, the real reason to cut carbon emissions. There is overwhelming evidence that the planet is warming. The widespread burning of fossil fuels, meanwhile, pumps heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every second….

It is certainly nice to see the Washington Post opinion page — home to George Will and other deniers — acknowledge that those of us who have been urging blunt talk on climate science for years have been right all along (see Brulle [1/11]: “By failing to even rhetorically address climate change, Obama is mortgaging our future and further delaying the necessary work to build a political consensus for real action).

Let me say that while I think talking about green jobs and energy independence was — and is — a good idea, those who urged only talking about those things were clearly wrong in retrospect. That’s because the oil and gas folks have been able to make a rhetorically strong (albeit flawed) case that they are the ones who can deliver jobs and reduced oil imports. Only one set of technologies can deliver jobs, energy independence, and preserve a livable climate. So only one set of technologies can avoid betraying our children and future generations. Game, set, and match.

Certainly team Obama worked hard to make sure that when he and other political and environmental leaders did talk about the need for action, the science was left out (see “Team Obama Launched The Inane Strategy Of Downplaying Climate Change Back In 2009“).

To remind you of how much the President has muzzled himself in recent years, recall what he said about the “never seen before” Fargo flooding in March 2009:

“I actually think the science around climate change is real. It is potentially devastating,” Obama told reporters Monday. “If you look at the flooding that’s going on right now in North Dakota and you say to yourself, ‘If you see an increase of two degrees, what does that do, in terms of the situation there?’ That indicates the degree to which we have to take this seriously.“

Precisely. Yet for nearly four years of record heat, record drought, record wildfires — and record-shattering frankenstorms, Obama had little to offer but climate silence.

That’s why it was so surprising he said last month:

We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.  Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms.

Now it’s time for him to spell out the threat even more clearly — as well as the technologies and policies needed to address it.

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Obama Likely To Push Curbs On Carbon Pollution From Existing Power Plants In State Of The Union

The Wall Street Journal reports the President will continue his push on climate action in his State Of The Union address next week.

The GOP-dominated House in particular is against passing any policies to curb greenhouse gas emissions. But even without Congress’s cooperation, the Executive Branch has a wide array of regulatory tools at its disposal to tackle the problem, particularly the Clean Air Act.

The President surprised almost everyone by devoting so much of his second inaugural address to climate, framing the issue in moral terms, “We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.” This raised expectations for the SOTU address.

Now the Wall Street Journal reports:

President Barack Obama in next week’s State of the Union speech will lay out a renewed effort to combat climate change that is expected to include using his authority to curb emissions from existing power plants, people who have talked to the administration about its plans said.

The Environmental Protection Agency has already proposed rules, set to be finalized this spring, to limit carbon pollution emitted from new power plants to 1,000 pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour of electricity. This would make the construction of new coal-fired power plants effectively impossible.

Mr. Obama is likely to signal he wants to move beyond proposed Environmental Protection Agency rules on emissions from new power plants and tackle existing coal-fired plants, people familiar with the administration’s plans said….

“You will ultimately see a proposal from EPA to regulate existing power plants,” one person familiar with the matter said. “How he talks about it in the State of the Union could be anything from, ‘We’ve taken important steps and we need to take more,’ to ‘We need to make more [progress] and the next one on the chopping block is existing sources’” of carbon emissions.

No final decisions about what the president will propose next Tuesday appear to have been made.

President Obama has already committed to reducing carbon emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, and the Energy Information Administration recently concluded we’re already at 9 percent below today. But further aggressive steps will be needed to prevent losing those gains and to close the rest of the gap.

In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled the EPA would be required to regulate carbon dioxide emissions under the Clean Air Act if it found that those emissions endangered public health and the environment. The agency came to that exact conclusion in 2009 — indeed, they did so in 2008 under President Bush, but he blocked making the endangerment finding.

EPA scientists noted that the climate change associated with carbon emissions will, for instance, increase the dangers posed by extreme weather, such as drought and floods, will worsen air pollution, and will boost the frequency, intensity, and duration of heat waves, with all the attendant threats to the health and welfare of Americans.

That in turn led to the EPA’s proposal to regulate carbon pollution from new power plants, and during the comment period for the proposal the agency received more than 3 million comments in favor of reducing carbon pollution from both new and existing power plants — a record for an EPA rule proposal. But up until now, the EPA hasn’t moved to reduce emissions from power plants already in operation.

Other steps the Executive Branch could take unilaterally to protect the environment and public health include adopting the “Tier 3? standard the EPA is working on to further reduce smog, using public lands and waters to promote clean energy projects, establishing more stringent renewable energy standards for utilities, and nixing the Keystone XL pipeline.

According to a former administration official who spoke with the Wall Street Journal, the President has been “pushing the team to get very specific about how to achieve the goals he set on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.” Obama will deliver the State of the Union speech next Tuesday, February 12.

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Can Sea Urchins Show Scientists How To Capture Carbon Affordably?

According to a story in Gizmag yesterday, a group of researchers at Newcastle University in the U.K. may have accidentally stumbled on a solution to the problems that have bedeviled carbon capture and sequestration — by studying sea urchins.

“We had set out to understand in detail the carbonic acid reaction, which is what happens when CO2 reacts with water, and needed a catalyst to speed up the process,” Dr. Lidija Šiller, the leader of the team, said in a press release. “At the same time, I was looking at how organisms absorb CO2 into their skeletons and in particular the sea urchin which converts the CO2 to calcium carbonate.”

The use of calcium carbonate to grow shells and other bony parts is a trait urchins share with other marine animals. And when the team examined the urchin larvae, they found a high concentrations of nickel on their exoskeleton. Working off that discovery, they added nickel nanoparticles to their carbonic acid test. The result was the complete removal of the CO2 as it was converted into calcium carbonate.

According to Gaurav Bhaduri, a PhD student in Newcastle University and the lead author of the team’s paper, the methodology they derived — and have now patented — is simpler and much cheaper than the traditional enzyme-based approaches:

“The beauty of a Nickel catalyst is that it carries on working regardless of the pH and because of its magnetic properties it can be re-captured and re-used time and time again. It’s also very cheap – 1,000 times cheaper than the enzyme. And the by-product – the carbonate – is useful and not damaging to the environment.”

The research team developed a process to capture CO2 from waste gas by passing it directly from a chimney top through a water column rich in nickel nanoparticles. The solid calcium carbonate can then be recovered at the bottom of the column.

The researchers say their discovery could provide big CO2 emitters, such as power stations and chemical processing plants, with a cheap way to capture and store their waste CO2 before it is released into the atmosphere.

Every method invented so far to capture or sequester carbon from emitters before it can enter the atmosphere has suffered from difficulties regarding cost, feasibility, and side-effects. Pumping CO2 into the ground, for instance, is difficult, expensive, and carries risks of leakage, water contamination, and even earthquakes. Other processes, like the ones mentioned by Bhaduri, also convert CO2 into calcium carbonate or magnesium carbonate through the use of enzymes like carbonic anhydrase. But because of the chemical complexities they’re inefficient and expensive.

Calcium carbonate, which is essentially chalk, is widely used in the building industry to make cement and other materials. It’s even used by hospitals to make plaster casts. So once removed from the Newcastle team’s carbon capture process, the calcium carbonate could potentially be put to other uses.

The discovery certainly isn’t a cure all. The process can’t be fitted to car, so its use is limited to power plants and other major emitters. But Dr. Šiller believes it could someday have a big impact: “It is an effective, cheap solution that could be available world-wide to some of our most polluting industries and have a significant impact on the reduction of atmospheric CO2.”

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