Earlier this week, there were two illuminating explorations of the opportunities and problems attending the extraction of natural gas from shale using the hydraulic fracturing technique known as fracking. One was a forum at Pace University, which I tracked live on Twitter. The other was “The Perils and Promise of Fracking,” a panel discussion conducted as part of the “Investigate This” series organized by ProPublica and the Tenement Museum. Here’s video:
Late in 2010, Jonathan Foley, who directs the Institute of the Environment at the University of Minnesota, wrote “Becoming a Climate Pragmatist,” an essay published online then and the following spring in the institute’s magazine, Momentum. You can get a feel for his work and views in the video above in which he explains 2009 research on “planetary boundaries.” I also encourage you to read his 2011 paper, “Solutions for a Cultivated Planet.”
I’ve mentioned his essay a couple of times but am overdue to draw direct attention to it, in part because as others have adopted or bashed the term “climate pragmatism,” Foley’s own views have largely been missed.
He is a scientist on the leading edge of climate change analysis who proposes an end run around paralyzing climate disputes by focusing on energy and forest policies with multiple benefits and on fostering resilience to climate extremes. Yes, there is “selection bias” here, but I’m posting as a counterweight to the broader selection bias in climate discourse, which focuses on the loudest voices in the room. Here’s the core of Foley’s pitch: Read more…
There’s been a fresh development in a prolonged intellectual tussle among researchers at Cornell University over the climate benefits of moving from coal to natural gas, including gas extracted from shale using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
Lawrence M. Cathles of the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, with three colleagues, has offered a fresh rebuttal to the conclusions of a team led by Robert Howarth, a biogeochemist at the university.
Here’s the conclusion from Cathles et al. and a link to their long reply: Read more…
Andrew C. RevkinA message from the Rev. Tim Greco at a church in Philipstown, N.Y.
Here’s a request for this weekend (and beyond) inspired by the sign above, which was placed outside the “Church on the Hill” near my home by the Rev. Tim Greco, a good friend and creative, fun-loving pastor.
I’d love it if you could point to a worthwhile idea or finding presented here (or elsewhere) by someone whose views on climate science and environmental policy generally clash with yours. There are clear instances of overlap among Dot Earth regulars.
In pushing passionately for aggressive action to cut carbon dioxide emissions, “Asteroid Miner” is a staunch defender of nuclear power as a non-polluting energy option, a stance that’s in sync with quite a few commenters who reject his view of risk from accumulating greenhouse gases.
And of course there’s enormous concordance on taking steps, including regulatory moves, to cut America’s oil addiction among factions that are deeply split on global warming, as shown convincingly by the “Six Americas” surveys done periodically under the Climate Change and the American Mind project at Yale University.
If you disagree with the views of a prominent climate scientist, one approach might be to attend his forthcoming lecture at his home campus, Pennsylvania State University, and engage in civil debate when he’s done.
Did you know that Penn State is having Michael Mann – the professor behind Climategate – speak on campus? Join us in calling on the administration to disinvite the disgraced academic.
3:05 p.m. | Updated |
Given the flurryofattention this week around what two batches of scientists of various stripes think of evidence that humans are exerting a growing and disruptive influence on climate, it’s worth checking in with two Nobel laureates who’ve long been focused on the atmosphere and climate.
As I’ve written before, whatever your view of the science and policy choices related to global warming, you can probably find a Nobelist with matching views. But Mario Molina and Burton Richter deserve a prominent place at this table given their sustained attention to relevant issues.
Mario MolinaMario Molina, a Nobel laureate in chemistry, uses this image representing a partially completed jigsaw puzzle to convey the state of understanding of human-driven climate change. CLICK TO ENLARGE
While participating in a November conference connected with the International Year of Chemistry, I spent time talking with Molina of the University of California, San Diego, a 1995 laureate in chemistry for his work (with others) on the atmospheric impact of ozone-destroying refrigerants and related chemicals. In a talk at the event, he conveyed his view of the incomplete, but compelling, picture of greenhouse-driven climate change with this photo illustration (right).
[3:05 p.m. | Updated | In a comment below, Laurie Dougherty helpfully pointed to 2010 congressional testimony by Molina in which he described his jigsaw analogy this way:
There appears to be a gross misunderstanding of the nature of climate change science among those that have attempted to discredit it. They convey the idea that the science in question behaves like a house of cards: if you remove just one of them, the whole structure falls apart. However, this is certainly not the way the science of complex systems has evolved. A much better analogy is a jigsaw puzzle: many pieces are missing, and some might even be in the wrong place, but there is little doubt that the overall image is clear, namely that climate change is a serious threat that needs to be urgently addressed. It is also clear that modest amounts of warming will have both positive and negative impacts, but above about 4 or 5 degrees Fahrenheit most impacts turn negative for many ecological systems, and for most nations. (Read the rest.)]
I’ve posted a lot on contrasting climate manifestos published in the past week by The Wall Street Journal, but it’s worth adding the perspective of Richter, a physics Nobelist who’s been deeply focused on humanity’s energy challenge, including the climate impact of greenhouse gases. As I’ve noted before, he’s the author of “Beyond Smoke and Mirrors,” a cogent road map for facing the daunting long-term challenge of cutting emissions of greenhouse gases even as humanity’s growth spurt crests in the next few decades.
Here’s a note Richter sent in reaction to the initial 16-author op-ed article in the Journal, which challenged the need for prompt action to stem emissions: Read more…
The comments are not publicly viewable at this point. (You can submit a Freedom of Information Law request for an eventual CD, I was told.) But any quick sift of the Web provides a pretty solid sense of the range of views — from environmentalists pursuing an outright ban on hydraulic fracturing and related processes, widely called fracking, to landowners seeking the freedom to benefit from their mineral rights. There was a fresh anti-gas rally in Albany this morning, focused on passing bills (sponsored by lawmakers representing New York City constituents far from the resource) that would limit the governor’s ability to move ahead.
Here’s some background behind the shouting: Read more…
Tonight, the PBS program Frontline is running “Nuclear Aftershocks,” a 50-minute documentary examining the implications of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear calamity for the future of nuclear power in the United States and elsewhere.
Over the weekend I watched a near-final version of the program, and I found it a powerful, fair and – given the time constraints — comprehensive report on the benefits and risks of one of the handful of energy technologies that can provide electric power in bulk without greenhouse gases.
He examines Japan’s difficult and costly cleanup, the resulting pulse of public fears about radiation there (and elsewhere) and corporate and government decisions that resulted in the construction of such a vulnerable power plant complex in a tsunami zone.
He shifts to Germany, which abruptly pulled the plug on its nuclear program and now faces a looming power gap that analysts say, despite growth in solar and other renewable power sources there, can only be filled with fossil fuels (mainly coal) – raising concerns of climate scientists. The program contains a fresh interview with James Hansen, the NASA climate scientist who’s become an energetic advocate for new nuclear technologies, splitting on this issue with some other climate campaigners focused on solar and other renewable energy technologies.
Kelly Shimoda for The New York TimesThe Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan, N.Y., about 35 miles north of Midtown Manhattan.
Then O’Brien travels up the Hudson to the Indian Point nuclear power plant to examine the debate over efforts by its owner, Entergy, to renew the plant’s license for another 20 years. O’Brien visits the building housing the pool for spent nuclear fuel that I toured last year).
Toward the end of the film, he gets stuck in a routine traffic jam on a village road that is theoretically an official evacuation route.
Public concerns about the plant are addressed through that scene and at other points — including an interview with Lynn Sykes, an emeritus geology professor at Columbia University who insists the earthquake risk to the plant is greater than Entergy or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have calculated.
For example, an interview with David Lochbaum, the lead nuclear analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists, includes his longstanding concerns about the tendency of nuclear regulators to routinely approve exemptions to some longstanding safety rules (this is also a big concern of Richard Brodsky, a former state legislator from the region).
But the interview includes important nuances (a rare thing). One is Lochbaum crediting the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and industry with at least a couple of proactive decisions – including the commission insisting on flood protections that had been fought by the owners of the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant north of Omaha, Neb. – and that proved critical in limiting risk from last year’s floods.
“Fort Calhoun was a stellar example of the NRC taking proactive action to protect people living in Nebraska,” Lochbaum says. What is lacking at the commission, he stresses, is consistency.
I encourage you to watch the show (a trailer is above). Here’s a brief exchange I had with O’Brien (with a few bits of e-mail shorthand cleaned up): Read more…
Here we go again. This time, the issue is the hydraulic fracturing of shale and similar rock to extract natural gas (and oil, as well). This technique, widely known as fracking, has raised environmental concerns while opening a vast new resource that is reshaping energy menus from the United States to China.
Newly published research led by Cornell University scientists challenges the core calculations and conclusions of a paper by another Cornell researcher, Robert Howarth, that became a potent talking point for opponents of hydraulic fracturing last year. Here’s a link to the new paper, which was just published in Climatic Change.
The Howarth paper, “Methane and the greenhouse-gas footprint of natural gas from shale formations,” had estimated that leakage of gas from hydraulic fracturing operations (given that natural gas is mainly methane, a potent heat-trapping substance) and other factors made the climate impact of gas from such wells substantially worse than that of coal, measured per unit of energy. The abstract was bluntly worded: Read more…
The real-time demand for energy and economic vigor continues to trump long-term climate concerns, as has been clear in the climate talks for years.* So a focus on finding ways to boost energy access in places that lack it, while working to cut energy waste and the costs of non-polluting energy choices, is spreading. You can see this in the grudging Tweets from green-energy proponents acknowledging some of the merits of Bjorn Lomborg’s reaction to the climate talks, as with Tom Randhere and Lisa Vickershere.
You can also see a shift toward energy action in the latest thinking from William R. Moomaw, a scholar and professor at Tufts University who for decades has assessed international environmental diplomacy. Moomaw and Mihaela Papa, a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard Law School, sent me a short piece proposing ways to invigorate the faltering climate treaty process by shifting the focus from confrontations over emissions to collaborative work encouraging access to modern energy choices while limiting environmental harms.
Here’s an excerpt and link to the Moomaw-Papa essay, which I encourage you to read in full: Read more…
By 2050 or so, the human population is expected to reach nine billion, essentially adding two Chinas to the number of people alive today. Those billions will be seeking food, water and other resources on a planet where, scientists say, humans are already shaping climate and the web of life. In Dot Earth, which recently moved from the news side of The Times to the Opinion section, Andrew C. Revkin examines efforts to balance human affairs with the planet’s limits. Conceived in part with support from a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, Dot Earth tracks relevant developments from suburbia to Siberia. The blog is an interactive exploration of trends and ideas with readers and experts.
Access to cheap energy underpins modern societies. Finding enough to fuel industrialized economies and pull developing countries out of poverty without overheating the climate is a central challenge of the 21st century.
Enshrined in history as an untouchable frontier, the Arctic is being transformed by significant warming, a rising thirst for oil and gas, and international tussles over shipping routes and seabed resources.
Human advancement can be aided by curbing everyday losses like the millions of avoidable deaths from indoor smoke and tainted water, and by increasing resilience in the face of predictable calamities like earthquakes and drought.
Earth’s veneer of millions of plant and animal species is a vital resource that will need careful tending as human populations and their demands for land, protein and fuels grow.
Andrew C. Revkin began exploring the human impact on the environment nearly 30 years ago. An early stop was Papeete, Tahiti. This narrated slide show describes his extensive travels.
How are climate change, scarcer resources, population growth and other challenges reshaping society? From science to business to politics to living, reporters track the high-stakes pursuit of a greener globe in a dialogue with experts and readers. Join the discussion at Green.
