As I stated in my previous blog post, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide continues to increase year after year. In order to sustain the Earth’s climate, we need the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to drop. Fast. Amongst the bad news and urgency of the problem, there is, however, a glimpse of good news. The Environmental Protection Agency recently updated its National Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data. The update reveals that the level of greenhouse gas emissions in 2012 was actually 3.4% lower than the previous year. In fact, America’s annual level of greenhouse gas emissions has been on the decline since 2007. Current levels of emissions are roughly 10% lower than 2005 emissions. Not too shabby (well, relatively speaking, anyway).

This news is, however, bittersweet. Much of the decrease in greenhouse gas emissions is attributed to increased natural gas use. In translation, we’re substituting methane for carbon dioxide, and methane is a far more potent warmer than carbon is. Luckily, methane has a very short lifespan in the atmosphere, meaning that it does not realize its full potential to trap heat. Hence, why it is considered to be “cleaner” than carbon dioxide. Some recent studies from places like Cornell and Stanford, however, have indicated that methane may be doing more damage than is being accounted for. Based on these studies, the new report by the EPA may be invalidated. But at this point there is not enough evidence to determine with certainty one way or the other.

So, since this is the last blog post of the year, I’d just like to throw in my last two cents…              It was cold yesterday. It even flurried a little bit. This blip in the weather that we’ve been having lately prompted about 5-10 people on my Facebook news feed to declare global warming a hoax. That being said, I want to make sure everyone understands that there is a difference between weather and climate. Weather changes daily; it even changes by the minute; (remember that big storm that came out of nowhere the other day)? Climate, on the other hand, is a summation of weather events over a long period of time. When we’re talking about “climate change,” we’re speaking in the context of hundreds or thousands of years. A cold day (or even a cold year or two) here and there does not invalidate the peer-reviewed climate science of some of the smartest people on Earth.

I hope that this blog has encouraged and enabled everyone to speak about climate and other environmental issues in their daily lives. There is a lot of misinformation out there, and word of mouth can be an extremely effective form correcting that misinformation. In rhetorical terms, you most likely have more ethos to your friends and loved ones than some news pundit or politician does. I hope you’ll take advantage of it in speaking of environmental issues and spreading awareness.

Sources:

http://epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/usinventoryreport.html

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/16/3427285/ghg-emissions-down-2012/

As I am sure that we are all aware, the natural phenomenon that causes global warming is the greenhouse effect–gases in our atmosphere trap heat within the Earth. Without it, the Earth would be entirely uninhabitable; it would be far too cold. The problem with the greenhouse effect is when humans get involved. The fuel type that is most widely used to generate energy, fossil fuels, emit carbon dioxide when they are burned. The anthropogenic (i.e. human emitted) carbon dioxide builds up in the atmosphere, adding to the already existent layer of gases, and raising the potency of the greenhouse effect. All of this, in turn, traps more heat within the atmosphere, hence, warming the Earth.

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is measured in terms of parts per million. Scientists believe that in order to maintain a sustainable climate on the Earth, we must get to the point where carbon dioxide makes up 350 parts per million of the atmosphere, which explains the name of the website founded environmental writer, Bill McKibben, 350.org. The latest records obtained from NOAA’s Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii indicates that carbon dioxide levels have now risen to 402 parts per million. That’s the highest carbon dioxide concentration in the Earth’s atmosphere in at least 800,000 years, because that’s as far back as our records can see, and at no point do they indicate that CO2 levels have ever been this high. That is to say, we really don’t know when the last time was that there was this much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Although carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere fluctuate, there has never been an increase as rapidly as the one that we have witnessed since the onslaught of the industrial revolution. According to the director of NOAA’s global monitoring division, “humans have caused carbon dioxide levels to rise 120 pars per million since pre-industrial times, with over 90 percent of that in the past century alone.”

This graph shows the rapid increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere since 1960

If we hope to meaningfully confront the civilization-challenging problem that is climate change, it is not enough to simply reduce fossil fuel consumption; even to reduce consumption to zero wouldn’t get the job done. That is because we’ve already done the damage. Carbon dioxide has a very long lifespan in the air, and it’s concentration won’t suddenly drop to 350 ppm overnight. But what we can do to combat climate change head-on is, first and foremost, stop digging ourselves into a deeper whole by continuing to increase CO2 emissions. That must be coupled with updating infrastructure for transportation, housing, and food in order to provide necessities in lieu of extreme weather occurrences growing ever more frequent and flooding our cities, damaging our roads and homes, and threatening food supply. 

It is unlikely that, within our lifetimes, we revert the Earth’s climate to that which previous generations experienced not so long ago. But the climate that we have been dealt (by those previous generations) is still manageable with the correct infrastructure in place, so long as we stop exacerbating the problem by emitting more and more carbon dioxide.

Sources:

http://research.noaa.gov/News/NewsArchive/LatestNews/TabId/684/ArtMID/1768/ArticleID/10490/Heat-trapping-gas-concentrations-top-400-ppm-two-months-earlier-than-last-year.aspx

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/09/3424704/carbon-dioxide-highest-level/

Throughout this blog and my civic issues blog, I have mentioned the IPCC on multiple occasions. But, for those who aren’t familiar, IPCC stands for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It’s the United Nations’ climate task force, and they release a report on the state of Earth, in terms of climate change, yearly. The IPCC’s 2014 report was released on March 31st, and it contains the most dire predictions and urgent warnings that the IPCC has ever issued. The statement released by the IPCC following the report says, “the effects of climate change are already occurring on all continents and across the oceans. The world, in many cases, is ill-prepared for the risks of climate change.”

The new bone-chilling predictions by IPCC suggest that, at our current pace, the Earth’s warming will continue to accelerate, and the results of that warming will become even more evident. That is not to say that effects are not already observable; the Arctic is already melting, and oceans have already become 30% more acidic, the report states. While these predictions are frightening, even more alarming is the response of the industry that is largely responsible for the carbon emissions that cause global warming.

On the same day as the IPCC report was released, ExxonMobil released a Carbon Asset Risk report in response to investor concerns about how environmental regulations may impact production of some of the company’s reserves. Although the report is disguised as an actual environmental assessment of the company’s practices, it is really an attempt by the company to ensure investors that it will not stop its climate-disrupting practices. The report states that company has “negligible concern” that the world’s governments will stop it from producing all of the fuel from its reserves, regardless of the catastrophic consequences for society of doing so. In other words, ExxonMobil seems to have gone rogue.

The response of the fossil fuel industry is cause for concern, and it necessitates a response. (Prepare yourself for a plug). Penn State students are responding everyday in their studies of environmental science, engineering, economics, politics, and communications, but April 9th will be a day of special response to the fossil fuel industry and threats of climate change. Onward on Climate will be a forum featuring speakers like Bill McKibben and Michael Mann, among others. It will provide an opportunity for environmentally conscientious students to come together and learn about the importance of environmental activism on campus, as well as how they can be become involved. The event has been organized jointly by OFA’s Penn State chapter, and Fossil Free PSU, Penn State’s student group for fossil fuel divestment.

Hope to see you there!

Sources:

Click to access 140330_pr_wgII_spm_en.pdf

Click to access WG1AR5_Headlines.pdf

http://corporate.exxonmobil.com/en/environment/climate-change/managing-climate-change-risks/carbon-asset-risk

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/01/3421417/exxon-mobil-climate-risk-report/

In a previous blog post, I talked about the political climate (no pun intended) surrounding environmental issues. That climate is largely neglectful; concern over the environment has generally been shelved, and economic issues have been paid more heed by our legislators in lieu of the Great Recession. As it turns out though, that sequence of prioritization may, in fact, be out sync with the beliefs of the American people. As I had previously pointed out, President Obama attempted to bring environmental issues back to the forefront of the national agenda in his State of the Union Address this year. Now, Gallup has a released a new poll that indicates his efforts, along with efforts of the generally environmentally conscience, have come to fruition.

The new poll released by Gallup shows that 50 percent of Americans believe that environmental protection should be given priority over economic growth, and 41 percent of Americans belief the opposite.

I know this image is small. You can click on it to view a larger version.

This poll question is actually an ongoing one that Gallup has been surveying since 1984. And the results that have generally been found may be surprising to some people. Over the past 30 years, Gallup has actually found that Americans have been generally more likely to prioritize environmental protection over economic growth. The greatest differences between the two preferences was in 1990, when Earth Day and the environmental movement underwent revitalization efforts in commemoration of their 20th anniversary. At this time 71 percent of Americans prioritized protection of the environment over economic growth, while only 19 percent prioritized economic growth. In fact, the survey indicates that 2008 was the first time during the surveyed period that Americans valued economic success over environmental health. This was presumably the result of the onslaught on the Great Recession. This trend had been maintained for the past 6 years, save for a jump in the preference for environmental protection that occurred in the weeks following the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which spewed over 11 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Now, without the consequent spike of a major environmental disaster, public opinion has shifted back to concern for the environment, a value that is empirically proven to be historically American.

The cause for the change in public opinion cannot be stated with certainty. Many have speculated that the shift has occurred as the result of recent economic growth and a relatively stable economic climate. Such a climate does not necessitate as much concern as an unstable one does. Others speculate that the shift has resulted from increased awareness of the severity of the environmental issues that our society faces. In actuality, it is likely that both of these ideas have some merit. Whatever the cause, we can hope that public opinion continues to move in the direction that it currently is, and that our elected officials represent it.

Sources:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/168017/americans-again-pick-environment-economic-growth.aspx

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/03/20/292035544/gallup-americans-put-the-environment-over-economic-growth-again

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/bp-oil-spill

I stumbled across an article on NPR tonight that was reporting on a new website launched by the White House. This new website is geared toward provided reliable data on climate change. The goal is to make said information more easily obtained for researchers and others. For anyone who wants to check out the website (which is sort of a work in progress at this point) here it is. Originally, I had planned to simply blog about the launching of the website and the important implications that our federal government making such visible recognition of the science behind climate change. But then I found myself in the comments section. I know, the comments section is generally not worth anyone’s time, but I couldn’t help myself. On NPR, comments are usually at least somewhat civil and informed (relatively speaking, of course). Additionally, the commenters tend to be a bit left of center. But the comments on this particular article were riddled with climate change denial. In fact, the majority of comments were pitted against basic science. I was, to say the least, irritated.

This all got my thinking about the wide disparity between the views experts in the field of climate science, and the general public. Currently, 44% of the American public agrees that global warming is occurring and that it is the result of human activity. This number is far below the 97% percent of climate scientists who agree that the Earth is warming as a result of human activity. This stark difference is unacceptable. I got to thinking, what if 97% of experts in some other field had a consensus agree on an issue? For instance, if 97% of neurologists agreed that some activity caused brain cancer, would people simply disagree with them? I think not. Such a fallout in public perception does not simply occur without effort. There has been a systematic effort on the part of multiple parties ranging from Big Oil, to Koch Industries, to government officials to muddle public opinion and to hide truth.

Fortunately, there are those fighting to make factual scientific data known to the public. Recently, a group of 31 senators pulled an all-nighter where they discussed climate change in order to draw attention to the issue. Another effort was made on the part of OFA, and this one was particularly creative. The group went around “awarding” congressional climate change deniers for “exceptional extremism and ignoring the overwhelming judgement of science.” The awards were actually little trophies which featured unicorns on top. I thought it was just brilliant.

Sources:

http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus

http://www.pewresearch.org/key-data-points/climate-change-key-data-points-from-pew-research/

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2014/03/19/291420186/white-house-launches-climate-change-data-website

http://www.barackobama.com/news/ofa-presents-climate-denier-awards/

http://www.daggerpress.com/wp-content/uploads/climatedenieraward.jpg

In a previous post, I gave a brief synopsis of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline–the controversial pipeline that would carry Canadian tar sands oil from Northern Canada to refineries on the American coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Environmentalists and many members the scientific community have warned of the potentially catastrophic environmental consequences the pipeline would wreak. To assess the environmental impact, the State Department commissioned an outside group to investigate. The only problem was that the report was commissioned to a group that is a dues-paying member of the American Petroleum Institute and has worked for the likes of Chevron and Shell. As one might expect, this report found that the Pipeline would not have a major negative environmental impact, contrary to warnings of activists and scientists. The conflict of interests has had environmentalists up in arms since the report was released, but now all of us annoying activists can pipe-down, because the State Department has released a new report ensuring us that the conflict of interests does not affect the integrity of its report. I, of course, am speaking facetiously.

Truth be told, environmental activists did not take this new report kindly, perhaps even less kindly than the original report. To show their distaste for the State Departments dismal attempt at an explanation, and for the KXL in general, a crowd of roughly 1000 (composed mainly of college students) took to the streets in Washington, D.C. on March 2nd. An estimated 400 protesters were arrested. That’s 40 percent of the protesters. That’s a lot. One of the arrestees was actually a friend of mine (!), a student at American University. She was interviewed by the news outlet Democracy Now! following the protest. Here’s the video if anyone interested. This protest was one of the largest exclusively youth protests for the environment in a very long time. This shows the degree to which those who will be forced to deal with the consequences of the pipeline (the younger generation–our generation) are in opposition to it. It is time for President Obama to permanently close the door on this project and not leave it up to some future administration. But I’m curious, is there anyone in class who favors the Pipeline and would like to argue for it from the perspective of a young person? I am yet to stumble across any such argument.

Check out these great shots from the protest!

Sources:

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/03/02/3350081/photos-keystone-protest-arrests/

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/02/26/3337221/keystone-state-oig-report/

Hopefully by now, everyone is beginning to become familiar with the practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. If you aren’t, then you’re in the right spot; I’ve posted about it twice in this blog.

ExxonMobil is the third largest company in the world, in terms of revenues (behind only Wal-Mart and Shell, respectively). It is also the largest natural gas producer in the U.S. To extract this natural gas, the company is heavily reliant on fracking techniques. The only things standing in the way of the company’s unbridled expansion of fracking are those pesky stories of flamboyant drinking water, land use controversies, and requirements to disclose the contents of fracking fluids and dispose of fracking waste properly. Of course, those problems that I’ve just mentioned are only minor setbacks for ExxonMobil– they’re known to simply ignore them anyway. In fact, the company was recently charged with illegally dumping waste from a fracking site right here in Pennsylvania. The illegal waste was discovered during an unannounced visit from the DEP; funny how that works. Actions such as this show the company’s lack of regard for those who reside near its operations. But when the person who is being affected is ExxonMobil’s head-hauncho, the story changes.

ExxonMobil’s CEO, Rex Tillerson, a man who has individually spoken out against regulation of fracking, “This type of regulation is holding back the American economic recovery, growth, and global competitiveness,” is currently filing a lawsuit to block the construction of a water tower near his home that is being built to supply water for a nearby fracking operation. The blatant hypocrisy is nauseating.

You see, transporting water and other supplies to fracking rigs necessitates the use of heavy trucks. This, in turn, brings about lots of heavy truck traffic, which creates noise and air pollution. The lawsuit states that water tower will lead to “traffic with heavy trucks… creating a noise nuisance and traffic hazards.” Areas with heavy traffic and noise and air pollution are not desirable to live in, and property value in such areas tend to be low. This explains why the CEO, who was paid $40.3 million by his employer in 2012, does not want any part of a fracking operation near his home; it would damage his currently $5 million property value.

Actions like this by someone in the position of Rex Tillerson show that Big Oil does not only damage people’s property, it is entirely aware when it is doing so. Big Oil knowingly damages the property and livelihood of folks. The behavior of the fossil fuel industry is, by definition, sociopathic. ExxonMobil’s CEO constantly lobbies for less stringent restrictions on energy production without regard for the livelihood of everyday folks, but when it’s his property that is being threatened, he’s suddenly anti-fracking. The level of hypocrisy and immorality in that act is nearly incomprehensible. 

Sources:

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/02/21/3316881/exxon-ceo-protests-fracking/

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-11/exxon-charged-with-illegally-dumping-waste-water-in-pennsylvania.html

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/index.html

By now all of us here at Penn State are painfully aware of just how frigid this winter has been, what with the long walks from East Halls to just about anywhere on campus. But would you believe me if I said that the outrageously cold temperatures of the past few weeks are probably the result of global warming? Outlandish, right? Well, hear me out.

The phrase “polar vortex” has been in the news a lot lately along with the subzero temperatures in areas that are generally relatively temperate. This “polar vortex” is actually just a jet stream of extremely cold air that originates in the arctic, and, although the extreme temperatures in Pennsylvania that this winter has brought seem abnormal, the effects of the polar vortex are routine just a bit north of us (think Minnesota, Michigan, New England, Canada, etc.). The only difference is that, this year, the jet stream from the North has deviated from its normal loop and traveled further south for a longer period of time than it normally would. So the question is, how has global warming caused the occurrence of this phenomenon? 

As it turns out, according to Rutgers University scientist, Jennifer Francis, “The temperature difference between the Arctic and lower latitudes is one of the main sources of fuel for the jet stream; it’s what drives the winds. And because the Arctic is warming so fast, that temperature difference is getting smaller, and so the fuel for the jet stream is getting weaker.” Ok, so to explain this, I’m going to refer to the below picture; take a look at it… Those waves that oscillate up and down around the Northern Hemisphere are the jet stream of arctic winds. As the arctic warms and temperature difference between the sub-tropics and the arctic grows larger, the jet stream becomes weaker and the waves become elongated (they stretch further north and south) and their current slows. This means that the jet stream will deviate from its normal pattern of travel and linger in places longer. Hence, why such cold air has traveled to our area and stayed around much longer than it normally would or than any of us would like. This case really goes to show how climate change can have diverse and unpredictable impacts. 

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/02/16/277911739/warming-arctic-may-be-causing-jet-stream-to-lose-its-way

The environmental movement is often viewed as a faceless one, and let’s face it; it sort of is. For a while there, many people may have pegged Al Gore as the face of the environmental movement, but he has largely receded in recent years. Today, Bill McKibben, an environmental writer who regularly writes pieces for RollingStone Magazine and founded 350.org, is one of the most prominent environmental activists in the movement, and I bet that most people reading this post haven’t heard of him. But that’s not the way that it’s always been. The environmental movement used to have a face, a leader who drove the national movement and made an impression on it forever. That leader is John Muir.

Pictured above, circa 1907, John Muir was born in 1838 in Scotland, and he’s got a pretty interesting story. Muir immigrated to the U.S. with his family as a boy; they moved to Wisconsin. As a young adult, Muir studied at the University of Wisconsin, but did not graduate as a result of his oddball course selection habits. After leaving college, Muir spent nearly a year wandering the wilderness of Canada. When he returned to the States, Muir undertook a journey halfway across the country; he walked from Indiana to Florida. That’s a long walk. Muir’s travels eventually took west, specifically, to California and the Sierra Nevada Mountains. He fell in love with the wilderness there and made it his life’s mission to protect and preserve it. To that end, Muir founded the Sierra Club, one of the most influential environmental advocacy groups still today (I hope that you’ve heard of it). Muir and his Sierra Club quickly became a powerful political force on behalf of the environment. Muir is pictured below with President Theodore Roosevelt at Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park, whom he took on a private camping trip at which the two “roughed it,” traveling far off the beaten path and sleeping under the stars.

Muir’s relationship with political leaders and his writings allowed him to influence the formation of public policy in regards to the environment. Muir focused this influence on the creation of the  national park system. His efforts were directly responsible for the establishment of Yosemite National Park, the first National Park in the U.S. He is known as the “Father of the National Parks.”

For a long time, John Muir was the face of the environmental movement, and he is still likely the most famous environmentalist of all time.

Sources:

http://books.google.com/books?id=FDsOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA25&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://action.sierraclub.org/site/PageServer#.UvHR_Hl-9FI

“But the debate is settled. Climate change is a fact. And when our children’s children look us in the eye and ask if we did all we could to leave them a safer, more stable world, with new sources of energy, I want us to be able to say yes, we did.” -Barack Obama, 2014 State of the Union

Those words from President Obama last night are important. They’re important because they brought the issue of climate change, which has largely been pushed aside by economic issues, back to the forefront of the national conservation. And not only was it put back on a national stage, it was done so in a definitive, unapologetic manner. This type of manner is necessary considering that only 44% of Americans believe that there is “solid evidence” for global warming as a result of human activity, and 97% of climate scientists say that global warming is occurring as a result of human activity. Clearly, there has been a fallout in communication between the scientific community and the general public, hence why definitive word choice is so necessary when speaking on the issue of climate change.

Although I applaud the President’s effort to bring climate change into the national conversation, I take issue with comments he made preceding the quote at the beginning of this post. If you watched the address, then you know that the President boasted about America’s domestic production of oil and natural gas. He said that natural gas is the “bridge fuel that can power our economy with less of the carbon pollution that causes climate change,” that he would, “cut the red tape to help…get…(natural gas) factories built.” Say it ain’t so.

President Obama has consistently favored utilizing natural gas a “bridge” to the clean energy economy of the future, as is reflected in his comments in last night’s speech. There are a few very important flaws in this theory. First and foremost, the validity of the necessity of a bridge fuel at all. The esteemed scientific journal “Scientific American” published a report by two Stanford University professors which claims that we currently have the capacity to produce energy exclusively from non-polluting renewable resources by 2030 and outlines a plan for how to do so. Now, ignoring the fact the fact that clean energy sources already have the potential to power 100% of Earth’s energy needs and assuming that a “bridge fuel” from fossil fuels to renewables is necessary at all, natural gas is still not the answer. A recent report released by the International Energy Agency indicates that switching all coal-powered operations to natural would result in warming of 3.5 degrees Celsius by 2035–significantly higher than the 2 degrees of warming that the U.N.’s climate conference concluded is tolerable. This is because, although natural gas does burn cleaner than fossil fuels in terms of carbon dioxide, methane (which is more potent than carbon dioxide) is often leaked during the extraction process of natural gas. Another contributing factor is all the energy that would be necessary to convert energy production institutions from coal to natural gas. Regardless of the causes, the report indicates 3.5 degrees of warming, and that is not tolerable if we hope to sustain civilization as we know it.

Although President Obama has been relatively strong on the environment, he simply has not done quite enough. His views on natural gas are out of touch with his vision of doing as much as possible to leave our posterity with a stable Earth.

Sources:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/full-text-of-obamas-2014-state-of-the-union-address/2014/01/28/e0c93358-887f-11e3-a5bd-844629433ba3_story.html

Click to access sad1109Jaco5p.indd.pdf

http://www.pewresearch.org/key-data-points/climate-change-key-data-points-from-pew-research/

http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus

http://content.sierraclub.org/naturalgas/protect-our-climate