America Can Break Its Coal Addiction! (Or: no, coal isn’t necessary)

by A Siegel

Too many people think that coal is an inevitable part of our energy future ... indefinitely.

This is not just reckless in global warming terms, the statements of inevitability are false -- we have a choice and can eliminate coal from our electricity equation if we wish to ...

Just a very simple outline of how the United States could, without Herculean efforts, eliminate coal-fired electricity from the electrical system by 2030.

And, do so while improving the economy.

Very simply, about 45 percent of US electricity comes from coal at this time. This is a serious portion of the overall US carbon load. It is also a major source of mercury and other pollutants worsening our lives. And, just remember, clean coal is like dry water -- it simply doesn't exist other than in advertising slogans.

So, how can we eliminate the US dependency on coal-fired electricity while improving the economy and not increasing dependency on foreign energy sources?

continued at Daily Kos...

As temperatures soar, crickets from the right

by Dante Atkins

I remember the evening distinctly. It was early in 2007, on a night in late January, or perhaps early February. I was just on my way home from a political event that had run a little late, and the temperature was unseasonably cold. Bear in mind that by the standards of a Los Angeles winter, temperatures in the lower or middle forties count as unseasonably cold.

My path home took me through a canyon cutting across the Hollywood Hills that separate the San Fernando Valley from the greater Los Angeles basin. As my elevation rose, the outside temperature dropped. It was an overcast night with a hint of moisture in the air, and when I got to the top of the canyon, I saw something that will likely not be seen again around these parts for a few more years: snow flurries. An extremely light and fine dusting, to be sure, and not something that would count for anything by the harsh standards of an East Coast winter. But then, that's why people like to live in Los Angeles, precisely because that sort of thing is indeed such a rarity.

I happened to be waging an online argument with a climate denier conservative at the time--for some reason, it seemed like a worthwhile idea back then. And yes, he loved to bring up the fact that it had recently snowed in Laurel Canyon as evidence of the fact that global warming was bunk. Every single graph in the universe showing record average temperatures across the entire world meant nothing--because for one night, in one small portion of one city, something rare and unexpected had happened.

We went through the same thing on a national level just a few short months ago when the so-called "snowpocalypse" struck DC. Conservatives mocked Al Gore and crooned about the hoax that was global warming. And it didn't matter that climate science expressly indicated that extreme temperature fluctuations in both directions and uncharacteristic weather patterns in local areas were expected consequences of an average increase in global temperatures. The mockery continued unabated.

But now we're faced with a different set of statistics. Let's take a look at a small sample:

Iraq had its hottest day in history on June 14, 2010, when the mercury hit 52.0°C (125.6°F) in Basra. Iraq's previous record was 51.7°C (125.1°F) set August 8, 1937, in Ash Shu'aybah.

Pakistan had its hottest temperature in history on May 26, when the mercury hit an astonishing 53.5°C (128.3°F) at the town of MohenjuDaro, according to the Pakistani Meteorological Department. While this temperature reading must be reviewed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) for authenticity, not only is the 128.3°F reading the hottest temperature ever recorded in Pakistan, it is the hottest reliably measured temperature ever recorded on the continent of Asia.

Myanmar (Burma) had its hottest temperature in its recorded history on May 12, when the mercury hit 47°C (116.6°F) in Myinmu, according to the Myanmar Department of Meteorology and Hydrology. Myanmar's previous hottest temperature was 45.8°C (114.4°F) at Minbu, Magwe division on May 9, 1998. According to Chris Burt, author of the authoritative weather records book Extreme Weather, the 47°C measured this year is the hottest temperature in Southeast Asia history.

Ascention Island (St. Helena, a U.K. Territory) had its hottest temperature in history on March 25, 2010, when the mercury hit 34.9°C (94.8°C) at Georgetown. The previous record was 34.0°C (93.2°F) at Georgetown in April 2003, exact day unknown.

Just to name a few. Heck, it was even sweltering in DC this past week. And from the climate deniers on the right who mock us with every increasingly extreme winter? Not a word. No surprise there, of course. Hard to come up with anything when you have no integrity or respect for the truth, as long as it serves your personal and political agenda.

continued at Daily Kos...

Houston, We got a New Problem -- BP's Oil has ALL Disappeared!?

by jamess

OH  NOES!

Just when you thought the worse was over ...

BP to scale back some oil response units, new leader pledges to stay for long haul
by Doug Mouton / Northshore Bureau Chief
wwltv.com -- July 30, 2010

How much oil is in the Gulf now is up for debate.  Several Louisiana leaders, including St. Tammany Parish President Kevin Davis have argued that million of gallons of oil are underwater, waiting to surface.

"We haven't found that," [Bob] Dudley [new BP CEO] said.

Dudley said six ships and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are working to locate underwater oil.

"It's a big hunt going on right now," Dudley said. "It's going to keep going on."

Hey BOB! -- MAYBE you haven't "found it" because of 1.8 Million Gallons of Toxic Dispersants you managed to spray -- Kept much of it Underwater, eh?

They'll find ALL that missing Oil -- just give them some more time ... that's all they ask ...

continued at Daily Kos...

We were warned it would happen.

by hold tight

We've been warned that the inability of the U.S. Senate to pass the American Power Act (APA), or something (anything) to address greenhouse gas emissions, would have consequences.

But now that it appears that a climate and energy bill will not pass in the near term, the waiting is over for some. For example, wind energy development is likely to face trouble in getting enough investment money to expand. And in the case of coal, it's 'business as usual', at least for mining in Montana.

continued at Daily Kos...

Clean the Oceans for Lily the Gray Whale, Please Help the California Gray Whale

by Ellinorianne

And for everyone else that lives and breathes on this beautiful planet of ours.  When I advocate for oceans, for the cetaceans that live in them, it's advocacy for us all.  The phrase too big to fail has become a bit overused but for me, the ocean is not too big to fail, and yet I bet so many people think, it's so vast, the oceans are so big, how can we, a few billion human beings have such an impact?

We can.

But we can chose to have positive impacts.  We can chose to take the events that happen in our lives to inspire or to create despair.  When Lily the Gray whale entered Dana Point Harbor in Orange County, Ca it caused so much hope and despair. Her death impacted me immensely and writing about it also managed to reach out to others who were touched by her passing.

continued at Daily Kos...

Studies show dramatic decrease in plankton as planet warms

by DarkSyde

New studies show that as much as 40 percent of the ocean's critical phytoplankton have disappeared. Who wants to guess why that might be?

But in the long-term, nothing predicted the numbers of phytoplankton better than the surface temperature of the seas. Phytoplankton need sunlight to grow, so they’re constrained to the upper layers of the ocean and depends on nutrients welling up from below. But warmer waters are less likely to mix in this way, which starves the phytoplankton and limits their growth.

No doubt our crack media will either not report theses alarming trends. Or they'll resort to industry shills like Junkman Steve Milloy, one of many energy funded rentboys who regularly carpet bombs newspaper editorial pages with climate change disinformation, to present a 'balanced' approach. Speaking of skeptics and assorted ignoramuses, whatever became of all those clowns yelling about global cooling last winter? Oh, yeah:

An in-depth analysis of ten climate indicators all point to a marked warming over the past three decades, with the most recent decade being the hottest on record, according to the latest of the U.S. National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration's annual "State of the Climate" reports.

If the first studies are borne out, put them together with the latter and do the arithmetic. Hint: Soylent Green is people.

continued at Daily Kos...

Fasten your seatbelts

by Laurence Lewis

In a reality-based nation in a reality-based world, scientific reality would be deemed important. This kind of scientific reality:

The report emphasizes that human society has developed for thousands of years under one climatic state, and now a new set of climatic conditions are taking shape. These conditions are consistently warmer, and some areas are likely to see more extreme events like severe drought, torrential rain and violent storms.

“Despite the variability caused by short-term changes, the analysis conducted for this report illustrates why we are so confident the world is warming,” said Peter Stott, Ph.D., contributor to the report and head of Climate Monitoring and Attribution of the United Kingdom Met Office Hadley Centre. “When we look at air temperature and other indicators of climate, we see highs and lows in the data from year to year because of natural variability. Understanding climate change requires looking at the longer-term record. When we follow decade-to-decade trends using multiple data sets and independent analyses from around the world, we see clear and unmistakable signs of a warming world.”

While year-to-year changes in temperature often reflect natural climatic variations such as El Niño/La Niña events, changes in average temperature from decade-to-decade reveal long-term trends such as global warming. Each of the last three decades has been much warmer than the decade before. At the time, the 1980s was the hottest decade on record. In the 1990s, every year was warmer than the average of the previous decade. The 2000s were warmer still.

This kind of scientific reality:

Global temperatures in the first half of the year were the hottest since records began more than a century ago, according to two of the world's leading climate research centres.

Scientists have also released what they described as the "best evidence yet" of rising long-term temperatures. The report is the first to collate 11 different indicators – from air and sea temperatures to melting ice – each one based on between three and seven data sets, dating back to between 1850 and the 1970s.

This kind of scientific reality:

Scientists at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies reported recently that the average global temperature was higher over the past 12 months than during any other 12-month period in history. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released corroborating data, adding that the past four months, including June, have each individually been the hottest on record as well.

This kind of scientific reality:

Marine phytoplankton have a crucial role in Earth's biogeochemical cycles, and form the basis of marine ecosystems. Data from satellite remote sensing — available since 1979 — have provided evidence that phytoplankton biomass has fluctuated on the decadal scale, linked to climate forcing, but a few decades of data are insufficient to indicate long-term trends. Daniel Boyce and colleagues now put these results in a long-term context by estimating local, regional and global trends in phytoplankton biomass since 1899, based on a range of sources including measurements of ocean transparency with a device known as a Secchi disk, and shipboard analyses of various types. What emerges from the records is a century of decline of global phytoplankton biomass. The authors estimate that the decline of phytoplankton standing stock has been greatest at high latitudes, in equatorial regions, in oceanic areas and in more recent years. Trends in most areas are correlated significantly to increasing ocean warming, and leading climate indices.

But this was last week's political reality:

Conceding that they can't find enough votes for the legislation, Senate Democrats on Thursday abandoned efforts to put together a comprehensive energy bill that would seek to curb greenhouse gas emissions, delivering a potentially fatal blow to a proposal the party has long touted and President Obama campaigned on.

Instead, Democrats will push for a more limited measure that would seek to increase liability costs that oil companies would pay following spills such as the one in the Gulf of Mexico. It also would create additional incentives for the development of natural gas vehicles and would provide rebates for products that reduce home energy use. Senate Democrats said they expected to find GOP support for the bill and pass it in the next two weeks.

Which led to this week's political reality:

Senate Democrats and Republicans appear on a collision course that would sink chances of passing oil-spill and energy legislation amid disagreements over both substance and process.  

Democratic leaders Wednesday foretold the likely failure of the package and blamed Republicans for obstructing it and other legislation.

But when political realities fail to meet the demands of such scientific realities the blame must be shared by all. Just as the scientific realities that will result from the failures of the political realities will be shared by all.

Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy future.

continued at Daily Kos...

EPA to the rescue!

by tomasyn

EPA has issued a strongly worded rebuttal of climate change deniers' desperate attacks on science. In the "Denial of Petitions for Reconsideration of the Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act", the EPA has rejected the arguments against regulating greenhouse gasses and affirmed its intention to do so. Congress has failed us, but the EPA appears to be stepping up to the plate and swinging hard.

But EPA did more than simply deny the petitions of the states of Texas and Virgina, the US Chamber of Commerce and several fossil fuel industry front groups. The Denial of Petitions is a thorough, point-by-point debunking of the specious, cherry-picked arguments used by deniers to spread doubt and smear the reputation of scientists. It will serve as a valuable resource and support for fighting the lies and misinformation spread by the denialist community.

Well done, EPA! Up next: the fossil fuel industry's minions in Congress will attempt to murder the Clean Air Act and cripple the EPA.

continued at Daily Kos...

BP Catastrophe Liveblog Mothership: 67

by Gulf Watchers

The current ROV DIARY: Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV # 255 BP's Gulf Catastrophe - gchaucer2

Rules of the Road

• We take volunteers for subsequent diaries in the sub diaries or ROV's as we have playfully coined them.
• Please rec this mothership diary, not the ROVs.
• Please be kind to fellow kossacks who may have limited bandwidth and refrain from posting images or videos.

PLEASE visit Pam LaPier's diary to find out how you can help the Gulf now and in the future. We don't have to be idle! And thanks to Crashing Vor and Pam LaPier for working on this!

continued at Daily Kos...