Hurricane Sandy's enormous $65 billion price tag put that great storm in third place for the most expensive weather-related disaster in U.S. (and world) history. Indeed, when we look at the list of most expensive U.S. weather-related disasters since 1980, hurricanes dominate, claiming six of the top ten spots. Drought is also a formidable presence, accounting for three of the other top-ten budget-busting disasters. Thus, a critical question for society is: how will our dangerous uncontrolled experiment of dumping massive amounts of heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the air affect droughts and hurricanes? For droughts, the answer is relatively straightforward--in general, dry parts of the world like the Southwest U.S. and Southern Europe are predicted to get drier. The worst droughts will get more extreme, wherever they occur, since it will be hotter. But for hurricanes, the uncertainties are greater. Since hurricanes are heat engines that extract heat energy from the oceans to power themselves, hurricane scientists are confident that the very strongest storms will get stronger by the end of the century, when Earth's land and ocean temperatures are expected to warm to levels unmatched since the Eemian Era, 115,000 years ago. Computer modelling work consistently indicates that greenhouse warming will cause the globally averaged intensity of tropical cyclones to shift towards stronger storms, with intensity increases of 2–11% by 2100. But hurricanes are fussy creations, and are sensitive to wind shear and dry air. Although the strongest storms should get stronger when "perfect storm" conditions are present, these "perfect storm" conditions may become less frequent in the future, due to the presence of higher wind shear and/or more dry air. Indeed, the climate models used to formulate the 2007 IPCC report suggested that we might see the strongest hurricanes getting stronger, but a decrease in the total number of hurricanes in the Atlantic (and worldwide) later this century. However, the latest set of models used to formulate the 2013 IPCC report, due out in September, show that the total number of hurricanes both globally and in the Atlantic may increase in both number and intensity, according to a paper published in July 2013 by one of our top hurricane scientists, Dr. Kerry Emanuel of MIT. Hurricane intensity may also increase, leading to a global increase of 40% of Category 3 and stronger hurricanes by 2100. However, the uncertainties in this research are great. We really don't know how global warming will affect the number of hurricanes and their intensity.
Figure 1. The list of most expensive U.S. weather-related disasters since 1980 is dominated by hurricanes.
Climate models and hurricane frequency Hurricane scientists are in agreement that we have not been able to positively detect changes in the frequency of hurricanes in the Atlantic since reliable storm records began in 1944, when the Hurricane Hunters began collecting data. A landmark 2010 review paper, "Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change", authored by ten top hurricane scientists, including Dr. Emanuel, concluded that the U.S. has not seen any long-term increase in landfalling tropical storms and hurricanes, and that "it remains uncertain whether past changes in tropical cyclone frequency have exceeded the variability expected through natural causes." Based in part on modeling studies using climate models run for the 2007 IPCC report, the scientists concluded that "it is likely that global mean tropical cyclone frequency will either decrease or remain unchanged owing to greenhouse warming." For example, one of the modeling studies the review paper quoted, Knutson et al. (2008), "Simulated reduction in Atlantic hurricane frequency under twenty-first-century warming conditions", projected a decrease in Atlantic tropical storms by 27% and hurricanes by 18% by the end of the century. An important reason that their model predicted these decreases was due to a predicted increase in wind shear. As I explain in my wind shear tutorial, a large change of wind speed with height over a hurricane creates a shearing force that tends to tear the storm apart. The amount of wind shear is critical in determining whether a hurricane can form or survive.
But a July 2013 study by Dr. Emanuel, "Downscaling CMIP5 climate models shows increased tropical cyclone activity over the 21st century", challenges this result. Dr. Emanuel argues that tropical cyclones are likely to become both stronger and more frequent as the climate continues to warm. This increase is most likely to occur in Western North Pacific, with smaller increases in the Atlantic. Dr. Emanuel took output from six newer higher-resolution climate models used to formulate the 2013 IPCC report, and used the output to drive a high-resolution hurricane model. The simulations found that the global frequency of tropical cyclones will increase by 11% to 40% by 2100, with intensity increases as well. The combined effects produced a global increase in Category 3 and stronger hurricanes of 40%. The behavior of these strongest hurricanes is critical, since they do most of the damage we observe. Over the past century, Category 4 and 5 hurricanes made up only 6% of all U.S. landfalls, but accounted for 48% of all U.S. damage (if normalized to account for increases in U.S. population and wealth, see Pielke et al., 2008.)
Figure 2. Projected changes in tropical cyclone track density during the 2006-2100 period compared to the 1950-2005 period, using output from six climate models included in the 2013 IPCC report. The global frequency of tropical cyclones is predicted to increase by 11% to 40%, with the largest changes occurring in the Northwest Pacific off the coast of Japan. Smaller increases are predicted for the Atlantic and near Australia. Image credit: Kerry Emanuel, "Downscaling CMIP5 climate models shows increased tropical cyclone activity over the 21st century", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, July 8, 2013, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1301293110.
However, a study by Knutson et al. (2013), using the same latest-generation climate models as used by Emanuel (2013), but using the output from the models to drive a different high-resolution hurricane model, found a 20% decrease in Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes by 2100. Two other 2013 studies by Villarini et al. and Camargo, also using output from the 2013 IPCC models, found essentially no change in Atlantic tropical cyclones. The reason for the differences, lies, in part, with how much global warming is assumed in the studies. Dr. Emanuel's study, which found an increase in tropical cyclone activity, assumed a worst-case warming situation (RCP 8.5), following the emissions path humanity is currently on. The Knutson et al. study, which found a decrease of 20% in Atlantic tropical cyclones, used a scenario (RCP 4.5) where it was assumed humans will wise up and cause about half of the worst-case greenhouse warming. The study found found "marginally significant" increases in Atlantic Category 4 and 5 hurricanes of 39% - 45% by 2100. Dr. Emanuel ends his paper with the statement, "the response of tropical cyclones to projected climate change will remain uncertain for some time to come."
Commentary Keep in mind that hurricane damages are currently doubling every ten years without the effect of climate change, according to Pielke et al., 2008. This is primarily due to the increasing population along the coast and increased wealth of the population. The authors theorize that the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926, a Category 4 monster that made a direct hit on Miami Beach, would have caused about $150 billion in damage had it hit in 2005. Thus, by 2015, the same hurricane would do $300 billion in damage, and $600 billion by 2025. This is without considering the impact that accelerating sea level rise will have on storm surge damages. Global sea level rise over the past decade has been about double what it was in the 20th century, and the rate of sea level rise is expected to increase further in the coming decades. Storm surge does the majority of damage in major hurricanes, and storm surges riding on top of higher sea levels are going to do a lot more damage than we are used to seeing in the coming decades. If we toss in the (controversial) increases in Category 3 and stronger storms like Dr. Emanuel suggests may occur, the hurricane damage math gets very impressive. We can also add onto that the relatively non-controversial increase in tropical cyclone rainfall of 20% expected by 2100, which will sharply increase damages due to fresh water river flooding. There is evidence we may already be seeing an increase in heavy precipitation events associated with tropical cyclones in the U.S. A 2010 study by Kunkel et al., "Recent increases in U.S. heavy precipitation associated with tropical cyclones", found that the number of Southeast U.S. tropical cyclone heavy precipitation events, defined as 1-in-5-year events, more than doubled between 1994 - 2008, compared to the long-term average from 1895 - 2008.
Figure 4. Time series of the 15-year running average (plotted at the end point of the 15-yr blocks) of a Tropical Cyclone Heavy Precipitation Index (red) and 15-year running average of U.S. landfalling hurricanes (blue). Note that there has been no long-term increase in U.S. landfalling hurricanes, but there has been a sharp increase in extreme rainfall events associated with landfalling tropical cyclones--the kind of rainfall events most likely to cause damaging flooding. Image credit: Kunkel et al. (2010), "Recent increases in U.S. heavy precipitation associated with tropical cyclones", Geophysical Research Letters.
It is essential that we limit coastal development in vulnerable coastal areas, particularly along barrier islands, to reduce some of the astronomical price tags hurricanes are going to be causing in the future. Adoption and enforcement of strict building standards is also a must, as well as more reforms to the government's National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which subsidizes development in high-risk coastal regions that private insurers won't touch. NFIP is now $25 - 30 billion in the red, thanks to Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy. Reform of NFIP is already underway. In 2012, before Sandy hit, Congress passed the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act, which requires people with NFIP policies to pay large premium increases of about 25% per year over the next five years. Naturally, this move has caused major controversy.
References Camargo, S., (2013), "Global and regional aspects of tropical cyclone activity in the CMIP5 models," J. Climate.
Villarini, G, and G.A. Vecchi, 2012, "Twenty-first-century projections of North Atlantic tropical storms from CMIP5 models," Nature Clim. Change 2:604–607.
Goodbye, Miami: Jeff Goodell's sobering 2013 article in Rolling Stone on the challenges Miami faces due to sea level rise and hurricanes.
Quiet in the Atlantic There are no tropical cyclone threat areas in the Atlantic to discuss today, and none of the reliable models for tropical cyclone formation is predicting development during the coming seven days.
In the last blog there was a comment by peregrinepickle on the emissions from agriculture. It started:
“It sounds like they may be putting the cart before the workhorse with this study. A 2010 survey of the literature found that too few studies on GHG emissions and the impact of various alternative farming practices have been done in US agricultural regions, including the Great plains Ironically, more research is being done in this vein in China. So it seems premature to appeal to US farmers re: willingness to adopt certain practices before knowing exactly where you are going with it.
Agriculture, compared to other sources, is not a huge contributor to GHGs, relative to the contributions by industry, transportation, and utilities. In the US farming is responsible for 6% of the overall emissions of the six major GHGs. However, farming does contribute about 25% of all CH4 emissions in the US, which is major, as this gas is 21-33 times more potent in warming potential than CO2.”
Back in April and May I wrote two entries on the emissions from agriculture (first entry, second entry). These two entries highlighted both the complexity of calculating the greenhouse emissions related to agriculture as well as suggested some of the controversy associated with the calculation. The controversy is especially high in the calculation associated with livestock.
The amount of direct fossil fuel emissions from use of fuels in machinery and pumps for agriculture is modest, as stated in peregrinepickle’s comment. Those numbers are based on a 2010 inventory by the Environmental Protection Agency. Here is a link to the chapter that details the agricultural inventory. The greenhouse gas emissions compiled in the chapter on agriculture are for greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide, especially methane and nitrous oxide. For the EPA inventory, the carbon dioxide associated with agriculture is accounted for in the energy inventory. Additional emissions and removal of greenhouse gasses are calculated with land use, land change and forestry. The national forests are part of the Department of Agriculture.
The accounting with soils and forests influences, greatly, the budget of emissions associated with agriculture. Based on soil management agriculture can remove and store substantial amounts of greenhouse gases. In the U.S. agriculture is a mature and extensive enterprise, and we are not aggressively converting forest to agricultural land. In fact, the amount of forest is increasing and, therefore, can be accounted as an agricultural removal of carbon dioxide. This fact of increasing forest land is not the case in much of the world. World-wide, deforestation as forest is converted to agricultural use, especially rangeland, accounts for much of the carbon footprint of agriculture. Phil Robertson in an article to appear in the Encyclopedia of Agriculture estimates the total greenhouse gas footprint of agriculture is between 26 and 36 percent (thank you Professor Robertson). This range seems soundly based in the synthesis of research, and the number I would quote based on the current state of knowledge.
As detailed in Livestock’s Long Shadow and stated in the entirety of peregrinepickle’s comment, the impact of agriculture reaches far beyond the relevance to climate change. Notably there are impacts on water quality and land quality, and, in my opinion, the impact of nitrogen (fertilizer) pollution is one of the most under appreciated sources of environmental degradation. Management of this whole portfolio of environmental impacts is one of the special challenges of the agricultural sector of human activities.
The mix of greenhouse gas emissions, the details of the practice of land use, the role of biological processes, and the potential to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and store them in soil and biomass characterize the climate impact of agriculture. Agriculture is also vulnerable to climate change. Since agriculture is a highly competitive, market-dependent undertaking, market response to weather and climate can amplify weather-related impacts. Agriculture becomes more entangled with the climate problem, when we consider the possibility of biofuels to replace some of our fossil fuels. This complexity complicates the accounting of climate impacts, but also offers some of our best opportunities to improve our management of the environment. Agriculture is no doubt an important player in our management of climate change, and notably absent in President Obama recent speech on climate change.
Soil Greenhouse Gas Emissions and their Mitigation, G. Philip Robertson, W.K. Kellogg Biological Station and the Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences, Michigan State University, Hickory Corners, MI 49060
In the entry before President Obama’s speech, I wrote about farmers and climate change. I referred to a survey of farmer’s opinions on climate change performed by Iowa State University professor, J. Gordon Arbuckle and colleagues. In a 2013 paper in Climatic Change, Arbuckle and colleagues reported that 68% of farmers he surveyed in Iowa believed that the climate was changing. 28% were uncertain and only 5% believed that the climate was not changing. With regard to attribution, 10% felt that climate change was caused by humans, 23% felt it was natural, and about 35% felt it was caused by both human and natural causes. (Summary Article and Press Coverage )
In this blog I want to explore the results of the poll of the farmer’s some more.
Arbuckle’s work is in the standard protocol of social science studies focused on the acceptance and use of science-based knowledge by society. It utilizes the basic framework of how the responses to climate change are organized, specifically, mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation is the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, perhaps, coupled with enhancement of processes that remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, such as storage of carbon dioxide in forests and soils. Adaptation is modification of how we do and build things in response to climate change.
First a little about social science research – In the past 5 years I have worked with several social scientists. The practice of social science has strict protocols. Interview-based research, such as discussed here, poses questions to be explored and answered by input from a set of interviewees. As in natural science, it is required that the research questions can be tested and evaluated. Not only does this require careful design of the research questions, but it also requires design, review and testing of the questions to be asked in the interview. The design of a robust experiment to disentangle questions where there is a strong element of human preference and decision is exceedingly difficult. This includes picking the group of people who are asked to respond to the interview.
The design of Arbuckle’s research had two research questions: “(1) do Iowa farmers support actions aimed at climate change adaptation and mitigation; and, (2) are beliefs and concerns about climate change associated with support for or opposition to those activities."
The interview questions that were designed to unravel the issues of the two research questions focused first on precipitation. As I wrote in the earlier blog, there is already a perceived change in precipitation, especially in the springtime during planting. There is too much water. It is worth noting that this part of the country is a part of the country that has seen less warming than the regions surrounding it – the Midwest warming hole (excellent paper by Kunkel et al. and Rood blog with unfilled promises). Therefore climate change is felt more in this region by changes in precipitation than by warming.
The interview questions were anchored around protecting the land, draining the land, and whether or not there should be mitigation to counter the climate change that is causing the increased precipitation. There was strong support for protecting the land through conservation practices. The support for draining the land was less strong, with more people uncertain about this option. An interesting aside, much of the Midwest corn land has extensive drainage infrastructure, which made what was historically a too wet environment into viable and excellent corn and soybean land. There was far less support for mitigation. However, looking at the mitigation numbers it was about equally split between opposing mitigation, uncertain about mitigation and supporting mitigation. Those opposing was about 3 percentage points higher than those supporting. This suggests that many recognize the changing climate and believe that more resiliency should be built into their land and practices – that is, they are interested in adaptation. They are less convinced of mitigation, which makes sense from many perspectives – but I assert because it is far less easy to see the benefit of mitigation whether or not there is acceptance that greenhouse gas emissions are the primary cause of the warming planet.
Arbuckle’s research then uses a set of questions to investigate farmer’s perception of vulnerability to farming due to climate change and extreme weather. As in the mitigation question those unsure, concerned and unconcerned were split, but in this case the largest group was always in the concerned group with numbers of about 40 percent to 20 percent. About a third of the farmers were uncertain in each category. The largest difference was in the group concerned about the impact of more extreme weather, with 45 percent expressing concern. The farmers were split on whether or not we would find technological or other methods to address climate change.
When all of these questions were put together and analyzed a set of conclusions, some surprising, emerge. Farmers interested in more protection of the land in anticipation of climate change had a high level of concern of increased risk and were older. Farmers interested in improved drainage had a high level of concern, large farms, higher education and felt that climate change was not a major issue because farmers would develop innovative solutions. Interestingly, support for taking adaptive measures did not correlate with whether or not the farmers perceived climate change was attributable to humans. Finally farmers interested in mitigation felt that the climate change was real and had an important contribution from humans, a high level of concern and did not feel that we would innovate our way to solutions.
One of the more robust conclusions from this research is that perceptions of vulnerability due to weather and increased vulnerability due to changes in precipitation and severe weather were a major motivation to take steps to prepare for climate change. This was true whether or not farmers “believed” in climate change. This recognition of vulnerability and increased risk is consistent with my (our) experience in the Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Applications Center – people engage when they perceive vulnerability. Surprisingly, older farmers were more concerned than younger farmers about adaptation. With regard to mitigation, those who accepted a human contribution to the changing climate were more supportive of mitigation – makes sense. And worth a mention the combination of those who think that climate change has a human component or is primarily caused by humans is almost 45 percent, and that’s not as low as one might take away from the political and public record.
The president pulled together many of the challenges of climate change into the most unified position statement on climate change I have seen on the national level. He invoked the Clean Air Act and its bipartisan history as well as relying on statements about the legacy that one generation leaves for the next. He pointed out environmental actions by Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush and John McCain. He even took climate change back to the Founding Fathers with a call for acting as caretakers of the future. (It’s like he has been sitting in on my class. Perhaps, he’s one of the people leaving comments on the blog? Come forth!)
A thread throughout the speech was carbon dioxide as a pollutant. Carbon dioxide was legally affirmed as a pollutant by the April 2, 2007, decision by the Supreme Court (at climatepolicy.org). This ruling provided a path to start dealing with climate change through regulatory means. Since the 2007 ruling, efforts to have the Environmental Protection Agency regulate carbon dioxide have waxed and waned. There have been pushes at times, always stymied by bipartisan concerns about damaging the recovering economy.
Obama made the point that the tension between the economy and the environment in general is not always a matter where it comes at the detriment of the economy. Again, he made numerous references to past policy and regulation decisions, for example, on acid rain, and pointed out that they did not lead to the demise of industry, commerce and the economy. Obama advocated the ability of American business to innovate and expose opportunity. Going further, he noted that a number of major businesses have declared climate change one of America’s greatest economic opportunities. This line of argument reveals the normally exploited environment-economy tradeoff as too simplistic, if not fundamentally spurious. Obama injected the welfare of our children into the environment-economic tradeoff.
With regard to concrete action, the most direct target to reduce carbon dioxide emissions was power plants. Power plants, notably coal-fired power plants, are the source of about 40 percent of current U.S. emissions. Many other power-plant pollutants are regulated, for example, mercury and sulfur. Power plants are relatively easy to target because they don’t move around like cars and trucks. Regulation of power plants is already occurring in some states and regions, and Obama framed this point as the federal government catching up.
Our move to natural gas was counted as a success and posed as a bridge between today’s coal and oil and future carbon-free energy sources. The need for an integrated energy policy was implied, with Obama noting that energy policy was greater than drilling for oil and and a single pipeline crossing the U.S. from Canada. Queuing up the Keystone Pipeline decision, Obama stated that the pipeline had to be in our national interest and cannot significantly enhance carbon pollution.
With regard to renewable energy, Obama emphasized wind energy. Wind energy is taking root in both politically liberal and conservative parts of the U.S. and through its local economic presence, gaining bipartisan support. He also emphasized the need to become players with Germany and China, both of which are investing heavily in renewables. This German and Chinese investment is my reason for speculating that if we don’t play in this field we will be left at economic and policy disadvantage by 2020. The president committed the government to having 20 percent of its energy from renewables. He pointed out the aggressive efforts of the Department of Defense to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to climate change.
With regard to what is happening now, Obama talked about how states are already responding to climate-related challenges and, therefore, are building responses to climate change. There is climate change that we cannot avoid, and globally, our emissions are on an upward trajectory. He specifically noted that Miami is trying to mitigate salt-water intrusion and that the Texas Water Development Board is developing strategies for dealing with extended and extreme drought. Obama also talked about rebuilding of the New York City coastline with smarter, more resilient infrastructure.
As the final leg in the proposed action plan, Obama committed to increasing the nation’s presence in international efforts to address climate change. He lauded the climate benefits of U.S.-China agreement to reduce hydrochlorofluorocarbons, alarmingly powerful greenhouse gases. He challenged the old argument that less developed countries would for some reason have to evolve through the same phases of energy use and pollution as the developed countries, calling for free trade in environmental technologies to leap past that historical polluting phase of development. He called for ambitious, inclusive and flexible approaches to addressing greenhouse gas emissions.
What was missing from the speech? We have to get a handle on agriculture and its role in climate change. It’s even more complex than greenhouse gas emissions – land-use, livestock, deforestation and emissions. And a more subtle issue, which will be relevant to Keystone Pipeline decision. If we sell our coal and facilitate the use of tar sands, are we exporting emissions? How will this national jobs issue play with the The President’s Climate Action Plan?
I expect that many will label the speech as too pragmatic, without the dramatic flare than the global warming might warrant. During the speech, one of my former students wrote me that it was amazing to hear a U.S. president talking about climate adaptation. In my earlier blog today, I wrote about language. My student’s amazement reflects the power of language. In 2007 adaptation was essentially a forbidden word in government circles; it had been for many years. I do not want to diminish or exaggerate the potential of this speech to bring climate change back into the political quagmire. The speech pulls together the climate change problem better than it has ever been pulled together at the national level, and these words of climate change, global warming, adaptation, mitigation, resilience, etc. have to be in our vocabulary if we are to take a responsible position on a sustainable future. What matters after a speech like this is follow up – the hard management that leads to real action and the initiation of policies and programs to make our response to climate change as unified as the problem is stated in Obama’s speech.
Published earlier on June 25, 2013:
Anticipating President Obama Speech: A U.S. Climate Action Plan?
Today President Obama is planning a major speech that will reintroduce climate change as a spoken-of issue into U.S. politics. There has been a lot of pre-speech publicity, for example Youtube and the speech will be broadcast live, currently scheduled at 1:55 PM Eastern. There has already been some information released including The President’s Climate Action Plan and a shorter Fact Sheet.
Prepare the United States for the Impacts of Climate Change
Lead International Efforts to Combat Global Climate Change and Prepare for its Impacts
The outline covers mitigation, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and adaptation, anticipating and responding to the impacts of climate change. Looking more deeply into the plan, Obama is resetting some of the political battles that have proved and will be most contentious, for example, reduction of subsidies for fossil fuels (conservative support), and public sector financing of clean energy. This will queue up the issues of the Keystone Pipeline, which will remain a complex and difficult decision for the near future. The Keystone Pipeline will be viewed as a measure of the seriousness of administration’s commitment.
Before the speech, I expect its most important aspect will be reintroducing the language of climate change into the political process ( earlier blog on language barriers). To continue to avoid the words climate, climate change and adaptation is damaging to our country’s credibility, economic well-being, technological development, our environment and our future. If we do not take a leadership position, I suspect that by 2020 we will be put into a distinct policy disadvantage as emerging use of renewables in other large economies becomes both economical and influential in the development of trade policy. We are living in a world where the words climate and climate change are scrubbed from documents and they are the legislative targets in the disruptive and destructive ongoing political tribalism. Though a single speech will not end this tribalism, it will start to break down the language barriers, especially as the impacts of weather, climate, climate variability and climate change become more apparent to more and more people.
The last long piece I wrote on policy was just prior to the 2012 election. I reproduce some of this below in anticipation of examining the speech after it is delivered.
Climate change was thrown prominently into the headlines, when Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City endorsed President Obama, citing at the top of the list Hurricane Sandy and the need to address climate change. Though to my knowledge New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has not made any recent statements about climate change, his tour of the hurricane damage with President Obama has ignited a number of anti-climate change pieces and suggestions that the governor has strayed from the conservative mantra. Hurricane Sandy has put climate change into the headlines, and perhaps made it a small issue for the election, but it is not back as a substantive political issue.
After COP15 I felt that the U.S. had lost any leadership potential that it might have had on the global stage of climate policy. I also felt that we were squandering technological and economic advantage. I made a prediction prior to COP15: “I imagine that the machinations of legislation and lobbying will push climate change legislation close enough to the mid-term election that it will languish next to health care and Afghanistan and the economy. I think that there will be climate legislation, but I bet that it will be early in year 4 of the Obama administration, with its passage dependent on what Obama’s re-election looks like.”
So that prediction was wrong. What I did not anticipate was the sweeping change in the mid-term election that amplified the political attack on climate change, as well as an attack in general on the use of scientific information in policy and regulation. This attack on the use of knowledge in policy, which is complemented by assaults on very small parts of the U.S. federal budget in the name of budget cutting, only amplifies my concern that the U.S. is placing itself at technological, economic, and, now, research disadvantage. I would insert into the argument about, for instance, the bankruptcy of Solyndra, that our unstable policy on technological investment delayed U.S. development while foreign competitors built effective and market-friendly alternatives. We simply came to the game too late. The fragmented up-and-down nature of both energy and climate policy hurts us every day. For example, we are currently enamored of cheap natural gas and its potential to revitalize industry. This is a great local and short-term benefit. As far as climate policy, it does not serve as convincing reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, there are other environmental challenges with the acquisition of natural gas that will emerge rapidly in the next few years. Therefore, as far as energy policy, it is only short-term opportunism.
Despite the flurry of chatter of climate change as an issue that has followed Superstorm (nee Hurricane) Sandy, it is difficult to look across such a close election and see climate change emerging as a substantive issue on a national scale. To make progress on this issue requires support in the legislative branch. I expect that tribal partisanship will continue, and I hope that we spend our first quota of bipartisan behavior on stabilizing the federal budget, dealing with political-economic sequestration, and reconciling continuing resolutions. Thinking about voting, more than climate change in particular, the continued assault on science and the use of science-derived knowledge is, fundamentally, part of the threat to our thriving. This notion of American exceptionalism takes on the hollow boosterism of Dust Bowl towns, which looked knowledge in the eyes and denied its existence. The world is changing in ways that we do not control, and it will not be good if we are the ones reliant on burning stuff for our way of life.
Anticipating President Obama: A U.S. Climate Action Plan?
Today President Obama is planning a major speech that will reintroduce climate change as a spoken-of issue into U.S. politics. There has been a lot of pre-speech publicity, for example Youtube and the speech will be broadcast live, currently scheduled at 1:55 PM Eastern. There has already been some information released including The President’s Climate Action Plan and a shorter Fact Sheet.
Prepare the United States for the Impacts of Climate Change
Lead International Efforts to Combat Global Climate Change and Prepare for its Impacts
The outline covers mitigation, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and adaptation, anticipating and responding to the impacts of climate change. Looking more deeply into the plan, President Obama is resetting some of the political battles that have proved and will be most contentious, for example, reduction of subsidies for fossil fuels (conservative support), and public sector financing of clean energy. This will queue up the issues of the Keystone Pipeline, which will remain a complex and difficult decision for the near future. The Keystone Pipeline will be viewed as a measure of the seriousness of Administration’s commitment.
Prior to the speech, I think the most important aspect of the speech is re-introducing the language of climate change into the political process (earlier blog on language barriers). To continue to avoid the words climate, climate change and adaptation is damaging to our country’s credibility, economic well being, technological development, our environment and our future. If we do not take a leadership position, I suspect that by 2020 we will be put into a distinct policy disadvantage as emerging use of renewables in other large economies become both economical and influential in the development of trade policy. We are living in a world where the words “climate” and “climate change” are scrubbed from documents and legislative targets in disruptive and destructive ongoing political tribalism. Though a single speech will not end this tribalism, it will start to break down the language barriers, especially as the impacts of weather, climate, climate variability and climate change become more apparent to more and more people.
The last long piece I wrote on policy was just prior to the 2012 election. I reproduce some of this below in anticipation of examining the speech after it is delivered.
Climate change was thrown prominently into the headlines, when Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City endorsed President Obama, citing at the top of the list Hurricane Sandy and the need to address climate change. Though to my knowledge New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has not made any recent statements about climate change, his tour of the hurricane damage with President Obama has ignited a number of anti-climate change pieces and suggestions that the governor has strayed from the conservative mantra. Hurricane Sandy has put climate change into the headlines, and perhaps made it a small issue for the election, but it is not back as a substantive political issue.
After COP15 I felt that the U.S. had lost any leadership potential that it might have had on the global stage of climate policy. I also felt that we were squandering technological and economic advantage. I made a prediction prior to COP15: “I imagine that the machinations of legislation and lobbying will push climate change legislation close enough to the mid-term election that it will languish next to health care and Afghanistan and the economy. I think that there will be climate legislation, but I bet that it will be early in year 4 of the Obama administration, with its passage dependent on what Obama’s re-election looks like.”
So that prediction was wrong. What I did not anticipate was the sweeping change in the mid-term election that amplified the political attack on climate change, as well as an attack in general on the use of scientific information in policy and regulation. This attack on the use of knowledge in policy, which is complemented by assaults on very small parts of the U.S. federal budget in the name of budget cutting, only amplifies my concern that the U.S. is placing itself at technological, economic, and, now, research disadvantage. I would insert into the argument about, for instance, the bankruptcy of Solyndra, that our unstable policy on technological investment delayed U.S. development while foreign competitors built effective and market-friendly alternatives. We simply came to the game too late. The fragmented, up and down nature of both energy and climate policy hurt us everyday. For example, we are currently enamored of cheap natural gas and its potential to revitalize industry. This is a great local and short-term benefit. As far as climate policy, it does not serve as convincing reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, there are other environmental challenges with the acquisition of natural gas that will emerge rapidly in the next few years. Therefore, as far as energy policy, it is only short-term opportunism.
Despite the flurry of chatter of climate change as an issue that has followed Superstorm (nee Hurricane) Sandy, it is difficult to look across such a close election and see climate change emerging as a substantive issue on a national scale. To make progress on this issue requires support in the Legislative Branch. I expect that tribal partisanship will continue, and I hope that we spend our first quota of bipartisan behavior on stabilizing the federal budget, dealing with political-economic sequestration, and reconciling continuing resolutions. Thinking about voting, more than climate change in particular, the continued assault on science and the use of science-derived knowledge is, fundamentally, part of the threat to our thriving. This notion of American Exceptionalism takes on the hollow boosterism of Dust Bowl towns, which looked knowledge in the eyes and denied its existence. The world is changing in ways that we do not control, and it will not be good if we are the ones reliant on burning stuff for our way of life.
These blogs are a compilation of Dr. Jeff Masters, Dr. Ricky Rood, and Angela Fritz on the topic of climate change, including science, events, politics and policy, and opinion.