Planet DFW

More evidence linking greenhouse gases to global warming

At the risk of focusing too much on the topic of global warming (a controversial subject that some believe is a figment of Al Gore's imagination), I wanted to to alert you to a new study published in the journal Nature. It reports on an analysis of trace gases trapped in Antarctic ice cores, which researchers report now provide a reasonable view of greenhouse gas concentrations as long ago as 800,000 years, and are further confirming the link between greenhouse gas levels and global warming. These ice-core samples show that during that 800,000-year period, there have never been concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane as high as the current levels.

The latest research, done by members of the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica, extend the data on trace gases back another 150,000 years beyond any studies done prior to this, said Edward Brook, an associate professor of geosciences at Oregon State University, and author of a Nature commentary on the new studies.

Along those same lines, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne has decided to accept the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's recommendation to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. What does this have to do with global warming? The decision to list the polar bear is based, in part, on the loss of sea ice that threatens and will likely continue to threaten polar bear habitat. Last year, Arctic sea ice fell to the lowest level ever recorded by satellite, 39 percent below the long-term average from 1979 to 2000, according to Department of the Interior statistics. The amount of sea ice loss in years 2002-2007 exceeded all previous record lows. This loss of habitat puts polar bears at risk of becoming endangered in the foreseeable future.

Still, The New York Times' Andrew Revkin in his blog Dot Earth writes that the federal government "shaped its decision in a way that does not force restrictions on emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, even though scientists have said the building greenhouse effect is the main influence driving up global temperatures." So it remains to be seen whether this decision will help the polar bear at all.

-- Scott Streater

Slashing greenhouse gases, the voluntary way

What do you get when 533 big corporations and small companies agree to take steps to reduce emissions that contribute to global warming? The federal Environmental Protection Agency reports that its National Environmental Performance Track program has had great success.

Since it began in 2000, the EPA reports the volunteering companies -- including the Lockheed Martin Aeronautics and Motorola plants in Fort Worth, and the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport -- have collectively saved enough energy to power 46,000 homes for one year, enough greenhouse gases to offset the annual emissions of 57,000 cars, and prevented solid waste equivalent to that produced by 553,000 households yearly.

In an agency news release, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said, "Take that Al Gore!" No, of course he did not. Actually he said something really boring. He said: ""EPA applauds our Performance Track partners who are achieving environmental results beyond mandated requirements. By committing to conservation, these leading companies are proving that what's good for the environment is also good for the bottom line."

Inspiring. Anyway, the Performance Track is actually interesting. It works with "members", according to the EPA, to improve performance among a variety of environmental activities -- such as water and energy use, land and habitat protection, air emissions, waste reduction -- throughout the product lifecycle, rather than focusing on just one specific pollutant or environmental issue.

Now, if we could get the thousands of other companies out there to sign on.

-- Scott Streater

The kids think we're doing a lousy job addressing global warming

Surveys, surveys, surveys, everybody it seems has a survey or poll or questionnaire these days. But this one by Scholastic Corp., the world's largest publisher and distributor of children's books, caught my eye. They surveyed 17,000 kids and found that more than one out of every three would give the country a grade of "F:Awful" for its reaction to the environmental challenges posed by global climate change.

Children can be so cruel.

This grade is part of the Kids' Environmental Report Card. Among the other findings is that 54 percent of kids said that “global climate change” is the most important environmental issue facing the world today, and that 85 percent of kids say that responsibility for the environment belongs to everyone (not just the government, scientists or adults).

“Earth Day is the perfect time to share what kids are thinking about environmental issues,” said David Goddy, Vice President of Education at e-Scholastic, in a press release.

The Kids' Environmental Report Card is part of the Science Explorations program, a collaboration of Scholastic, the global children’s publishing, education and media company, and the American Museum of Natural History, one of the world’s preeminent scientific, educational, and cultural institutions.

-- Scott Streater

Power plants help drive one North Texas county near the top of the CO2 charts

A new carbon dioxide inventory ranks three Texas counties among the nation's biggest carbon polluters.

Harris County (i.e. the Houston area) is tops in the nation for carbon emissions. The Los Angeles and Chicago areas are next on the list. No surprise there.

But coming in at No. 11 is Titus County, northeast of Fort Worth, according to research led by Purdue University to accurately measure the amount of man-made carbon in the air. The inventory is called Vulcan, and it's based on 2002 data (a bit dated, but they are working to obtain more recent data).

What in Titus County could produce this much carbon? One source is coal-fired power plants. Specifically the Monticello power plant operated by Luminant Power (formerly TXU Corp.), which ranked No. 11 in the country for carbon emissions in a July study conducted by Environmental Integrity Project. Power plants account for more than a quarter of the carbon emissions in the U.S.

-- Scott Streater

President Bush pushes a global warming emission reduction goal

This just in: The Associated Press reports that President Bush has announced his new policy shift to address greenhouse gases, and like most everyone thought, they're only goals for the U.S. to stop the growth of greenhouse-gas emissions by 2025.

The early consensus is that it's a move to head off more stringent measures being debated by Congress and in international negotiations.

"These principles are almost laughable," said Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, in an e-mail.

Others said Bush's statement is irrelevant.

“President Bush's announcement will be soon forgotten,” David Sandalow, an energy and global warming expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, is quoted by the AP in an e-mailed statement. “The most important decisions in the international global-warming negotiations will be made once President Bush leaves office.”

According to the AP story, Bush said he won't embrace any plan that would raise taxes. He also opposes measures that would penalize the use of coal or nuclear power, or set standards that could hurt the economy. He said power plant emissions should be slowed so they peak over the next 10 to 15 years and decline thereafter. Coal-fired power plants are responsible for 27 percent of U.S. global-warming emissions, according to the Energy Department.

-- Scott Streater

Bush set to discuss global warming initiative on Wednesday

The Associated Press is reporting that President Bush on Wednesday plans to outline the way he thinks the U.S. can cut greenhouse gas emissions. In a Rose Garden speech, he is expected to lay out a strategy rather than a specific proposal for "long-term" and "realistic" goals for curbing emissions, according to the story. Bush wants every major economy, including fast-growing nations like China and India, to establish a national goal for cutting the emissions scientists say are responsible for global warming, according to the story.

As I blogged earlier, that would be a smart move. China, according to this BBC story, has passed the U.S. as the top carbon polluter. Researchers at the University of California, in a study to be published next month in the Journal of Environment Economics and Management, suggest China's greenhouse gas emissions have been underestimated, and probably passed those of the U.S. last year, according to the story. On Tuesday, the federal Environmental Protection Agency released a report that found U.S. emissions of the six major greenhouse gases -- including carbon dioxide -- decreased slightly in 2006 from the previous year. The drop, according to the EPA, was due primarily to a decrease in carbon emissions associated with fuel and electricity consumption.

There's an excellent post on the issue at Dot Earth, The New York Times' environmental blog. Reporter Andrew Revkin notes that Bush during his 2000 campaign pledged to restrict carbon dioxide along with other pollutants from power plants. In March 2001, under strong pressure from oil, coal, and car companies, Bush abandoned that pledge, Revkin writes. Click here to read Revkin's 2004 story detailing why Bush backed away from that promise.

-- Scott Streater

Researchers: China, not the U.S., is the world's biggest carbon polluter

No confetti will stream down, and balloons will not drop from the ceiling, but the U.S. is apparently no longer the world's top carbon polluter. That's the good news. The bad news is that somebody else is an even bigger polluter than we are.

China, according to this BBC story, has passed the U.S. at the top of that particularly dark (as in coal) list we have occupied for decades, back when global warming really was a legitimate issue of debate in the scientific community. Researchers at the University of California, in a study to be published next month in the Journal of Environment Economics and Management, suggests China's greenhouse gas emissions have been underestimated, and probably passed those of the U.S. last year. You'll note that the Environmental Protection Agency map above (included in the BBC story) only tracks carbon emissions in the two countries to 2004.

So what does this mean? It shows that addressing emissions of greenhouse gases is going to require a global effort. That's a given. In other ways, it kind of justifies this country's reluctance to take aggressive actions to slash carbon emissions. More specifically, it would seem to justify not signing onto the Kyoto protocol that would have mandated sharp reductions in greenhouse gases here, but not in China and another emerging economy -- India, which is already a huge source of carbon emissions. But I would also argue that it means we here in the U.S. need to take aggressive action now. Despite the fact we make up less than 5 percent of the world's population, we still account for a quarter of its carbon emissions. And, as I said earlier, we have long been the biggest carbon polluter in the world, so we need to do our part. Americans' everyday activities produce more carbon emissions, per capita, than any other country. But we also need to understand this is a global issue. The Bush administration, to its credit, has set up a program that will provide billions to developing countries to purchase technology that limits pollution. That's a good step. We'll see if the White House develops regulations to limit greenhouse gases, as has been reported.

-- Scott Streater

Are high school students getting good information about global warming?

The enviros are up in arms over a school textbook taught in advanced placement high school government classes that contains wording that appears to cast doubt on global warming. Or at least strongly suggests man's contributions minimal.

The textbook in question is called "American Government", and it is published by Houghton Mifflin. The enviros are upset because the latest edition of the book contains a chapter on "Environmental Policy" that, according to the group Friends of the Earth, "contains a discussion of global warming so biased and misleading it would humble a tobacco industry PR man."

Well, the textbook is used in government classes. And certainly the ambivalence on the issue expressed in the textbook mirrors the views of our government leaders.

Here are the "offending" passages:

* "It is a foolish politician who today opposes environmentalism. And that creates a problem, because not all environmental issues are equally deserving of support. Take the case of global warming." (p. 559)

* "The earth has become warmer, but is this mostly the result of natural climate changes, or is it heavily influenced by humans putting greenhouse gases into the air?" (p.559)

* "On the one hand, a warmer globe will cause sea levels to rise, threatening coastal communities; on the other hand, greater warmth will make it easier and cheaper to grow crops and avoid high heating bills." (p. 559)

* "But many other problems are much less clear-cut. Science doesn't know how bad the green-house effect is." (p. 566)

The group has organized a petition asking Houghton Mifflin to revise the chapter. Click here to sign on to the petition.

"Chapter 21 on Environmental Policy is a disgrace," the petition reads. "We trust the textbook authors to be fair and speak the truth. To address global warming as 'enmeshed in scientific uncertainty' is to dismiss the work of our nation's and the world's top climate scientists."

-- Scott Streater

Is President Bush set to act on global warming?

Is President Bush set to reverse nearly eight years of indifference to global warming by outlining legislation that would address what many feel is the top environmental concern of our time?

The Washington Times reports that Bush administration officials last week briefed Republicans in Congress on such a plan, the details of which "are are still being fiercely debated," according to the story. White House officials told the congressional leaders that they feel pressure to act now because they know that global warming regulations are on the way, according to the story.

This is a potentially significant development on the issue. It comes as Congress continues crafting legislation that would reduce carbon dioxide emissions, much to the concern of business and industry leaders who fear the costs could be devastating. This would be the first time Bush has called for statutory authority on the global warming issue.

The reaction from Republican leaders? Not too enthusiastic, according to the story.

Even if the Bush administration proposes global warming legislation, not everyone is convinced it will amount to much.

Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, said in an e-mail that he believes this is merely a trial balloon and that it may not go anywhere. He also says another rumor that's floating around Washington is that the White House proposal will apply only to the power sector.

Stayed tuned. This could get interesting.

-- Scott Streater

D/FW to be the focus of an anti-Al Gore TV ad campaign

One of the largest and most influential anti-global warming groups beginning today will target D/FW (and four other metropolitan areas) for a television ad that rips Al Gore, everyone's favorite Nobel Peace Prize winner, for what the group calls "the threat to affordable energy posed by Al Gore’s global warming agenda." It seems the Competitive Enterprise Institute doesn't like the We ad campaign devised by Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection.

Click here to view the group's ad.

The ad is slick, but laughably political. It has little to do with global warming itself, and everything to do with Gore, the former vice president. For example, the ad starts with the image of a single light bulb, illustrating the amount of energy that "we," the everyday slob, uses at his home. "Al Gore uses 20 times as much," a somber voice intones, at his Nashville mansion. The ad goes on to state that cutting our energy use "puts our jobs and our future in jeopardy" for some reason.   

The Competitive Enterprise Institute bills itself as a "free-market" group that, among other things, advocates against government action to address global warming. Basically, the group does so because it denies the volumes of evidence supporting the fact the planet is warming. But it's hardly an independent group, having reported receiving funding from such sources as Texaco Inc., Ford Motor Co. and Philip Morris, according to this report in SourceWatch. Last month, the group launched what it calls a "national ad campaign" focusing on what it calls Gore's global warming agenda.

The group has said the TV ads are meant to contrast Gore’s "energy-consuming lifestyle with the life-and-death need for energy in developing countries." The group's ads follow those in 2006 that attacked so-called global warming alarmism, and carried the tagline "CO2: They Call It Pollution; We Call It Life."

-- Scott Streater