A version of this blog post can be found on the David Suzuki Foundation website.

© 22avril.org http://www.22avril.org

Montreal held the largest environmental demonstration in the history of Canada on Sunday, April 22. At 2 p.m., bells rang in 1200 churches across the province. In downtown Montreal, people gathered and you could not see the end of this massive human wave. Apparently, there were so many people that the Metro system could not handle the traffic and some people could not even make it to the demonstration!

We were 250,000 strong when I went onstage to speak to the crowd. I said, “The future of our children cannot go through a pipeline. It cannot be captured in a barrel of oil. It cannot be bought or sold at the stock market. Protecting our future does not belong to the right or the left. It is not a partisan issue. It is a fundamental right. A moral imperative. Stop intimidating environmental groups, first nations and human rights groups! We are 250,000 and we are taking back our rights.”

Their response was like thunder.

Buses came from 50 different cities throughout Quebec. Dozens of artists were with us, along with the three major unions. We created the largest human tree ever made.

You can read our demands in the declaration that is hosted on the David Suzuki Foundation’s website, and signed by over 50,000 people.

DSF along with Equiterre, Greenpeace, AQLPA, Earth Day Quebec and many other groups were the organizers for the event. Cirque du Soleil, major Montreal festivals, the city of Montreal, churches, unions, student associations and so many others helped us. There were more than 1,000 volunteers. People demonstrated peacefully, but the message was strong: We are the citizens and this is our land. We get to decide what to do.

Don’t let anyone tell you that people in this country can’t rise when it’s important.

Related articles

• ‘Biggest Act of Civil Disobedience in Canadian History’ (commondreams.org)
• Canadian Student Protest Erupt Into Political Crisis With Mass Arrests (freeinternetpress.com)

• Canadian Green Power
• The Buenos Aires-Rosario-Cordoba Line
• More Muzzling of Scientific Concern over Global Climate Change
• Canadian Biodiesel
• Oh, hey, did we say that we would stop doing that?

by Daniel J. Weiss

Fossil fuel companies and their political allies have spent millions of dollars on advertising to persuade Americans that drilling and mining are the best solutions to our energy problems. Despite their spending, these polluters haven’t convinced most Americans – including many Republicans — to support their proposals.

A brand new United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll found overwhelming public support for renewable energy tax credits, a clean energy standard, and increased regulation of hydraulic fracking for oil and gas production.

The nationwide poll of 1,004 adults was conducted from May 17-20. It asked respondents about whether tax credits for renewable energy — such as the Production Tax Credit for wind set to expire the end of this year — should be extended:

Supporters of these tax credits say they should be extended because they create jobs and encourage the development of cleaner sources of energy. Opponents say they should end because they cost too much and have not been effective at encouraging the use of renewable energy. Do you think Congress should extend these energy credits, OR allow them to expire?

By better than a two to one margin, respondents wanted to extend the incentives. Independents favored such an extension by 64 to 29 percent, as did 48 percent of Republicans. Only 43 percent of Republicans opposed the PTC extension.

Today, President Obama plans to visit TPI Composites, a manufacturer of wind turbine blades in Newton, Iowa that employs 700 people. He is expected to again urge Congress to extend the PTC because it is vital for job creation and maintaining competitiveness in the wind energy industry. The National Journal poll suggests that most Americans agree with him.

Poll respondents demonstrated additional strong support for clean energy when they were asked about whether they favored a Clean Energy Standard that would require utilities to generate 80 percent of their electricity with low- or no carbon resources by 2035.

Legislation recently introduced in the U.S. Senate would create a national clean-energy standard that requires the country to generate an increasingly large percentage of its electricity from cleaner sources of energy, including renewable energy, natural gas, and nuclear power. Supporters of this policy say it would promote cleaner energy and not add an undue cost onto consumers. Opponents say imposing a national clean-energy standard would cost jobs and create higher electricity costs. What is your opinion – do you think the country should or should NOT create a national clean-energy standard?

The National Journal poll found that supporters outnumbered opponents by nearly 40 percent. This included independents who favored it by 64 to 23 percent. Even Republicans favored a Clean Energy Standard by one percent.

Fossil fuel interests are spending millions of dollars advertising and lobbying to convince Congress to leave hydraulic fracturing unregulated — despite its production of large amounts of air, water, and climate pollution. So far, it appears Big Oil has made little progress convincing the public to support their position. Respondents were asked:

Hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” is a process used to develop deposits of natural gas recently discovered in many regions of America. Environmentalists and some residents living near drilling operations worry that fracking can contaminate drinking water sources and worsen climate change. The oil and natural gas industry maintains the process is safe and can create jobs and promote energy independence. Which of the following comes closest to your view of what the federal government should do on this issue?

One of six respondents wanted to “ban fracking altogether because it’s not safe for the environment.” A majority supported an “increase in regulation of fracking to protect the environment, but NOT ban it.” A total of sixty eight percent wanted either a ban or more safeguards from fracking. Only one quarter of poll subjects wanted to “reduce regulation of fracking to encourage more natural gas production.”

Some 68 percent of independents wanted to ban or regulate fracking. A clear majority of Republicans wanted either a ban or more regulation. Only 41 percent of GOPers wanted to reduce regulation.

The National Journal poll is independent of both political parties, and provided respondents with arguments for and against each position. By overwhelming margins – including a majority or plurality of Republicans – respondents supported clean energy investments, clean energy targets, and cleaning up hydraulic fracking.

The poll suggests that people are disregarding the tens of millions of dollars in attack ads against clean energy spent by Big Oil, the dirty coal lobby, the Koch Brothers, and Mitt Romney’s oil-funded super PAC. Perhaps it’s because these ads had little credibility. The Washington Post concluded that “there is no excuse for these kinds of ads, which take facts out of context or simply invent them.”

This latest poll is another signal that 2012 candidates running for president, city council, or any other office should support clean energy and cleaner oil and gas production knowing that the public strongly favors these measures too.

Daniel J. Weiss is a Senior Fellow and Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Related articles

• May 24 News: Emissions Gap To Meet 2°C Target Is Widening Due To Slow International Climate Action(thinkprogress.org)

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• Pew Poll: Clean Energy Is A Political Wedge Among Republicans (thinkprogress.org)

• David Says Way-O
• Atmospheric and Watershed Degradation
• About to be fracked over
• The International Repercussions of the BP Oil Disaster
• Big Oil wants to keep the Tax Subsidy

Congress passed a law – by unanimous consent in the Senate and by a suspension of rules in the House – to permit the Federal government to arbitrarily arrest and imprison for up to ten years members of the serf class (formerly known as “American citizens”)

Only three members of Congress voted against this Orwellian obscenity and all of them are Republicans (one was Ron Paul.) Not a single Democrat voted against it, not one.

We have reached the point where we as Americans need to stop, step back from moment by moment fixation on nonsensical, “white noise” fake political issues like “contraception” ginned up to keep the partisans distracted and become seriously involved in determining the direction in which our nation is headed. Our elite are telegraphing their strong preference for a “soft dictatorship” but we still have time to check their ambitions and rein in their looting.

Sure, social issues can be important. But issues like freedom of speech, enforcing the rule of law, and not letting banksters run the government and loot the middle class are vastly more important. Plus, social issues are cynically and deliberately used as distractions by both parties to keep the populace from focusing on the real problem, which is criminality in high places aided and abetted by the government.

Yes, we do still have time. As a leftie who currently lives in southern Utah, I’m struck by how much in agreement the various political sides are once you get past social issues. There are plenty of Utah cowboys who agree with Zenpundit, as well as many lefties too. (Not liberals though, who generally are wed to the corporate state and are mostly useless anyway.)

I think the run-up to the elections could be something like Chicago ’68 but on both sides. The White House just moved the G8 summit from Chicago to Camp David. People are increasingly pissed and the White House knows it.

It is almost quaint these days to pick up Friedrich von Hayek’s classic, The Road to Serfdom and thumb through it. The libertarian antistatists of the 20th century were so focused on the clear and present dangers of totalitarianism that the idea of a weak state that endangered liberty through a mixture of corruption and regulatory capture eluded them.

The Creepy-state is not there to protect you or give you a higher standard of living or ensure justice or democracy, but to maintain a hierarchical public order from “disruption” (formerly known as “politics” or “democracy”

Related articles

• The rise of the creepy state (infocult.typepad.com)
• First Amendment Illegal (nalonmit.wordpress.com)
• H.R 347 Could Be Making the First Amendment Illegal(the2012scenario.com)

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• We will be sorry later, Nancy
• Science through a Political Screen
• Just Another Oily Day in Congress
• Semiotic Democracy
• Class Action Suits

Image via Wikipedia

Speaking about Life on the Planet as We Know It, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation tells us about

Mike Drewry is a blueberry farmer and lawyer who lives in Surry County, Virginia, south of historic Jamestown.  He owns 400 beautiful acres in an area where his family has been farming since the 1600s. He bought a more than two-century-old farmhouse once owned by his grandfather, and raised three children there.

But his life changed in 2009, when a power company called the Old Dominion Electric Cooperative (ODEC) proposed to build a 1,500 megawatt coal-fired power plant -– the largest ever in Virginia — down the road in the tiny town of Dendron.  The plant’s smokestacks would rise higher than the Washington Monument, towering over the community’s church steeples, houses, and white picket fences.

Drewry and many others in the local community worried about the air and water pollution that would rise from that plant’s smokestacks, including mercury (which can cause brain damage) and microscopic soot particles (which can cause asthma and heart attacks).

Morever, Drewry said he was frustrated with what he perceived as ODEC’s attempts to work behind the scenes with local government to push for a rezoning for the $5 billion proposal, without legal notification for public hearing.

So Drewry sued to have the power plant’s rezoning overturned. And after a year and a half of battles in Circuit Court, he and his allies won in November.  But the struggle is far from over.

The fight against the coal plant has been draining financially and emotionally for Drewry and several other local residents who have been leading the charge against the coal plant. At one point in Drewry’s legal battle, for example, the power company went after him personally, trying to force him pay all their legal expenses.

“They filed motion after motion, brief after brief -– and I’m only one guy on a farm,” Drewry said.  “They knew this, and they tried to tire us out. They tried to chase us away with a motion for monetary sanctions, claiming our lawsuit was frivolous.”

Far from frivolous, Drewry’s claim was that the town and county did not let local citizens know -– with a legal advertisement — when they were going to vote to approve the rezoning for the plant.  Without such notification and transparency, citizens don’t know what’s going on and democracy can’t work.

Drewry was determined that the power company would have to follow the legal process, and not bulldoze local residents.

“Maybe it’s a good thing, but when you live in a farming community, you want to farm, you want to be left alone, you enjoy nature, and it’s not in your blood to go out and fight things in the public arena,” Drewry said.  “This was one of those times we had to fight.”

Drewry’s victory in November  -– impressive as it was, over the power company and local government — was not a permanent one.  The result of Circuit Court decision in his favor was that Dendron and Surry County were forced to start from scratch and hold a new round of public hearings.

Outside the Surry County Planning Commission re-hearing last week, protesters chanted, “What do we want? Clean air!  When do we want it? Now!” More than 75 percent of the residents who testified opposed the plant.  But in the end the planning commission voted 10-1 to re-endorse the zoning Drewry had convinced the courts to overturn.

And then, on Monday, the town of Dendron voted 6-0 to approve the zoning to allow the plant.   This was despite the fact that -– again — more than three quarters of the local residents voiced their opposition to the massive project.

Afterwards, despite the setbacks, Drewry reflected:  “It was not unexpected….We will take this battle onward.”

His heroic campaign for clean air and water continues. There are people like Mike Drewry at the center of all environmental struggles.  Often, it would be easier for them to quit, to shut up, to go with the flow, and cave in to what the powerful interests want.

But if people like him didn’t stand up and fight -– while others remains silent – our democracy would be weakened, and our skies, waters, and lungs more polluted.

West

Stephen Lacey tells us about how they are Destroying Life on the Planet as We know It from their Montana hideout.

Powder River Basin coal is used for roughly 40% of coal-generated electricity  in the U.S., and accounts for 14% of our greenhouse gas emissions.

Related articles

• Why Does the World Bank Say it Cares About Climate Change, But Continue to Aggressively Push Coal? (thinkprogress.org)
• Utilities Blowing Smoke on Coal-Plant Retirements (thinkprogress.org)

• Friends of the Chattahoochee are watching Dynergy
• Coal Plants Must Limit C02
• Environmental Integrity
• The True Burden will be upon Future Generations
• Hansen Heeds the Call of Our Story

The following is a reprint of a post by Joseph Romm that cites and comments upon a recent report appearing in Science.

The world’s oceans may be turning acidic faster today from human carbon emissions than they did during four major extinctions in the last 300 million years, when natural pulses of carbon sent global temperatures soaring, says a new study in Science. The study is the first of its kind to survey the geologic record for evidence of ocean acidification over this vast time period.

“What we’re doing today really stands out,” said lead author Bärbel Hönisch, a paleoceanographer at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “We know that life during past ocean acidification events was not wiped out—new species evolved to replace those that died off. But if industrial carbon emissions continue at the current pace, we may lose organisms we care about—coral reefs, oysters, salmon.”

That’s the news release from a major 21-author Science paper, “The Geological Record of Ocean Acidification” (subs. req’d).

We knew from a 2010 Nature Geoscience study that the oceans are now acidifying 10 times faster today than 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred. But this study looked back over 300 million and found that “the unprecedented rapidity of CO₂ release currently taking place” has put marine life at risk in a frighteningly unique way:

… the current rate of (mainly fossil fuel) CO₂ release stands out as capable of driving a combination and magnitude of ocean geochemical changes potentially unparalleled in at least the last ~300 My of Earth history, raising the possibility that we are entering an unknown territory of marine ecosystem change.

That is to say, it’s not just that acidifying oceans spell marine biological meltdown “by end of century” as a 2010 Geological Society study put it. We are also warming the ocean and decreasing dissolved oxygen concentration. That is a recipe for mass extinction. A 2009 Nature Geoscience study found that ocean dead zones “devoid of fish and seafood” are poised to expand and “remain for thousands of years.“

And remember, we just learned from a 2012 new Nature Climate Change study that carbon dioxide is “driving fish crazy” and threatening their survival.

Here’s more on the new study:

The oceans act like a sponge to draw down excess carbon dioxide from the air; the gas reacts with seawater to form carbonic acid, which over time is neutralized by fossil carbonate shells on the seafloor. But if CO₂ goes into the oceans too quickly, it can deplete the carbonate ions that corals, mollusks and some plankton need for reef and shell-building.

That is what is happening now. In a review of hundreds of paleoceanographic studies, a team of researchers from five countries found evidence for only one period in the last 300 million years when the oceans changed even remotely as fast as today: the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM, some 56 million years ago. In the early 1990s, scientists extracting sediments from the seafloor off Antarctica found a layer of mud from this period wedged between thick deposits of white plankton fossils. In a span of about 5,000 years, they estimated, a mysterious surge of carbon doubled atmospheric concentrations, pushed average global temperatures up by about 6 degrees C, and dramatically changed the ecological landscape.

The result: carbonate plankton shells littering the seafloor dissolved, leaving the brown layer of mud. As many as half of all species of benthic foraminifers, a group of single-celled organisms that live at the ocean bottom, went extinct, suggesting that organisms higher in the food chain may have also disappeared, said study co-author Ellen Thomas, a paleoceanographer at Yale University who was on that pivotal Antarctic cruise. “It’s really unusual that you lose more than 5 to 10 percent of species over less than 20,000 years,” she said. “It’s usually on the order of a few percent over a million years.” During this time, scientists estimate, ocean pH—a measure of acidity–may have fallen as much as 0.45 units. (As pH falls, acidity rises.)

In the last hundred years, atmospheric CO₂ has risen about 30 percent, to 393 parts per million, and ocean pH has fallen by 0.1 unit, to 8.1–an acidification rate at least 10 times faster than 56 million years ago, says Hönisch. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that pH may fall another 0.3 units by the end of the century,to 7.8, raising the possibility that we may soon see ocean changes similar to those observed during the PETM.

More catastrophic events have shaken earth before, but perhaps not as quickly. The study finds two other times of potential ocean acidification: the extinctions triggered by massive volcanism at the end of the Permian and Triassic eras, about 252 million and 201 million years ago respectively. But the authors caution that the timing and chemical changes of these events is less certain. Because most ocean sediments older than 180 million years have been recycled back into the deep earth, scientists have fewer records to work with.

During the end of the Permian, about 252 million years ago, massive volcanic eruptions in present-day Russia led to a rise in atmospheric carbon, and the extinction of 96 percent of marine life. Scientists have found evidence for ocean dead zones and the survival of organisms able to withstand carbonate-poor seawater and high blood-carbon levels, but so far they have been unable to reconstruct changes in ocean pH or carbonate.

At the end of the Triassic, about 201 million years ago, a second burst of mass volcanism doubled atmospheric carbon. Coral reefs collapsed and many sea creatures vanished. Noting that tropical species fared the worst, some scientists question if global warming rather than ocean acidification was the main killer at this time.

The effects of ocean acidification today are overshadowed for now by other problems, ranging from sewage pollution and hotter summer temperatures that threaten corals with disease and bleaching. However, scientists trying to isolate the effects of acidic water in the lab have shown that lower pH levels can harm a range of marine life, from reef and shell-building organisms to the tiny snails favored by salmon. In a recent study, scientists from Stony Brook University found that the larvae of bay scallops and hard clams grow best at pre-industrial pH levels, while their shells corrode at the levels projected for 2100. Off the U.S. Pacific Northwest, the death of oyster larvae has recently been linked to the upwelling of acidic water there.

In parts of the ocean acidified by underwater volcanoes venting carbon dioxide, scientists have seen alarming signs of what the oceans could be like by 2100. In a 2011 study of coral reefs off Papua New Guinea, scientists writing in the journal Nature Climate Change found that when pH dropped to 7.8, reef diversity declined by as much as 40 percent. Other studies have found that clownfish larvae raised in the lab lose their ability to sniff out predators and find their way home when pH drops below 7.8.

“It’s not a problem that can be quickly reversed,” said Christopher Langdon, a biological oceanographer at the University of Miami who co-authored the study on Papua New Guinea reefs. “Once a species goes extinct it’s gone forever. We’re playing a very dangerous game.”

It may take decades before ocean acidification’s effect on marine life shows itself. Until then, the past is a good way to foresee the future, says Richard Feely, an oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who was not involved in the study. “These studies give you a sense of the timing involved in past ocean acidification events—they did not happen quickly,” he said. “The decisions we make over the next few decades could have significant implications on a geologic timescale.”

This is all on top of the “Climate Story of the Year: Warming-Driven Drought and Extreme Weather Emerge as Key Threat to Global Food Security.” As my recent piece for the journal Nature concluded, “Feeding some 9 billion people by mid-century in the face of a rapidly worsening climate may well be the greatest challenge the human race has ever faced.”

Related Post:

• Bad Acid Trip: USGS Study Finds Humans Are Acidifying ‘The Air, Oceans, Freshwaters And Soils’
• The Great Oyster Crash and Why Ocean Acidification Is “A Ticking Time Bomb” for Both Marine Life and Humanity:

Related articles

• Ocean acidification rate may be unprecedented, study says (junkscience.com)
• Oceans acidifying faster today than in past 300 million years (energybulletin.net)
• Global Extinction: Gradual Doom as Bad as Abrupt (thinkprogress.org)
• 10 Marine Species on the Brink of Mass Extinction Due to Ocean Acidification (treehugger.com)

• Ocean Chemistry Changing at Unprecedented Rate
• Mommy, what does “toxic” mean?
• Ocean Acidity could increase by 150% by 2050
• And, that is just a conservative estimate
• A Retrospective of Anthropogenic CO2 Concentrations

O.K., recently I went on about the Arctic situation. Well, I still agree with the commentary; it’s the post title that is worrisome. It says Shared Concern.

Steven Mann says, “people need to become aware of the potential catastrophe brewing in the Arctic.”

There should be far more effort monitoring methane releases in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf area to ensure that we can react if emissions continue to increase. I say react because there currently appears to be no action being taken by any government to deal with the possibility of dramatic increases in Arctic methane emissions.

Image via Wikipedia

I agree with the Google+ warnings from Sam Carana and Steven Mann. Methane from East Siberia alone is quickly making a bad forecast much worse. Time to say Hello and Goodbye to the Anthropocene, Gracie.

Related articles

• Shock as retreat of Arctic sea ice releases greenhouse gas (peakenergy.blogspot.com)
• Arctic Methane Outgassing On The East Siberian Shelf: A Primer Plus an Interview with Dr. Natalia Shakhova (thinkprogress.org)
• Sheer Scale and High Density of the Plumes(jcwinnie.biz)

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• Time To Sign Up For An End Times Cult? – Arctic Permafrost Gushing Massive Plumes Of Methane. (treehugger.com)
• Carbon Time Bomb in the Arctic: New York Times Print Edition Gets the Story Right (thinkprogress.org)

• Sheer Scale and High Density of the Plumes
• Environmental World Review 2011
• Methane from East Siberia
• Evidence Builds
• Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble

ForestEthics/Screen capture ; text from from The Globe and Mail

As leader of the opposition, Stephen Harper was clear on the vital role of dissent in a democracy: “When a government starts trying to cancel dissent or avoid dissent is frankly when it’s rapidly losing its moral authority to govern.”

In power, however, Mr. Harper’s Conservatives seem to have taken a page out of a U.S. election campaign: Smear your opponents early and often to avoid dealing with the substance of their arguments. Think of the advertising campaigns against Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff, “Taliban Jack,” or more recently, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews’s demand that the opposition “either stand with us, or with the child pornographers.”

What should alarm those concerned about Canada’s democracy, however, is how the Conservatives have brought this election war-room mentality into government itself. Rather than engaging with citizens or organizations who disagree with their policies, Mr. Harper’s government has sought to attack, even criminalize them.

One example is the government’s recent revision of its anti-terrorism legislation to include environmental groups as a potential threat, even though there is no evidence of any Canadian environmental group ever employing violence. And recently, this paper revealed that assessments by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have labelled Greenpeace an “extremist” organization.

The academic who uncovered this evidence made the link back to Greenpeace’s opposition to the expansion of the Alberta tar sands. Prof. Jeff Monaghan of Queen’s University noted that government rhetoric around Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline and “the frequent use of words like ‘radicalism’ and ‘extremism’ to characterize opposition” is being used to legitimize taxpayer-funded surveillance of vocal political opponents, such as environmental groups. Other published reports indicate that the security services are reporting on their findings from such surveillance operations to private-sector corporations, including a presentation to “energy sector stakeholders” in November, 2011.

This attack on Greenpeace is simply one part of a broader, well-orchestratedcampaign against anyone who questions the wisdom of tripling the size of the tar sands or building the new pipelines this requires.

We have seen this building over the past few years, but the campaign began to roll out in earnest in early January, when Mr. Harper expressed his concern about “foreign money” influencing Canadian energy policy. He was not referring to the foreign money represented by multinational oil companies or state-owned Chinese firms, but rather to U.S. charitable foundations supporting Canadian environmental groups’ efforts to protect globally significant ecosystems.

Three days later, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver accused environmental groups of being foreign-funded puppets looking to “hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda.” Their crime was to participate, according to the rules established by federal law, in the environmental assessment of a new pipeline that would stretch from the Edmonton area across the Rockies and through the Great Bear Rainforest, bringing more than 200 oil tankers a year along B.C.’s pristine coast.

Next, there were the behind-the-scenes threats to change the legislation governing charities. This has already had a chilling effect, as groups have been weighing the loss of their charitable status as retaliation for speaking out against the tar sands or the Enbridge pipeline. Then, a Conservative MP publicly announced his intent to bring in a private member’s bill that would prevent environmental groups from receiving foreign financial support, even as the Prime Minister went to China to try to encourage foreign investment in the tar sands.

Digging deeper, Greenpeace obtained internal government documents under the Access to Information Act that detailed how Ottawa actively works with oil companies to attack environmental laws in Europe and the United States, laws that would force tar-sands companies to clean up their act. Rather than introducing measures to reduce pollution, thefederal government has chosen to join – at the invitation of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers – a public-relations campaign to “turn up the volume” in support of the tar sands at home and abroad.

The federal government’s own “Pan-European Oil Sands Advocacy Strategy” document divides Canadians into two camps. “Allies” include the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, business groups and the National Energy Board. Environmental and aboriginal groups are identified as “adversaries.”

What’s good for oil companies isn’t always what is good for the country. Canadians need to send a clear message to Mr. Harper’s government: Building and governing a nation differs from running an election campaign. It requires, at minimum, an acknowledgment that those who disagree with you are still part of the community.

As Rachel Cernansky puts it the debate heats up. Perhaps, as Brian Merchant reminds us, it is because construction that President Obama approved is underway. And, speaking of attacks upon Greenpeace, Sarah Lasklow has all you need to know about TransCanada’s new plan for Keystone XL.

Related articles

• Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline: Splitting the Project Means Double the Trouble (thinkprogress.org)
• Must-See Video Reveals What’s at Risk With Canada’s Northern Gateway Tar Sands Pipeline (thinkprogress.org)
• Canadian Government On Attack: Tar Sands Pipeline Debate Heats Up(treehugger.com)

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• Honey, Does Fort Chipewyan Have a Chinese Restaurant?
• Global Devastation, eh?
• Levels of toxins rising rapidly
• Shell – Chevron – Marathon, Game Over
• Oh, hey, did we say that we would stop doing that?

A transition from the global system of coal-based electricity generation to low greenhouse-gas-emission energy technologies is required to mitigate climate change in the long-term. The use of current infrastructure to build this new low-emission system necessitates additional emissions of greenhouse gases, and the coal-based infrastructure will continue to emit substantial amounts of greenhouse gases as it is phased out. Furthermore, ocean thermal inertia delays the climate benefits of emissions reductions. By constructing a quantitative model of energy system transitions that includes life-cycle emissions and the central physics of greenhouse warming, we estimate the global warming expected to occur as a result of build-outs of new energy technologies ranging from 100 GW_e to 10 TW_e in size and 1–100 yr in duration. We show that rapid deployment of low-emission energy systems can do little to diminish the climate impacts in the first half of this century. Conservation, wind, solar, nuclear power, and possibly carbon capture and storage appear to be able to achieve substantial climate benefits in the second half of this century; however, natural gas cannot.

Thanks to David Roberts for calling my attention to Nathan Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures teaming up with Carnegie Institution’s Ken Caldeira. And, while applauding their effort to “calculate the expected climate effects of replacing the world’s supply of electricity from coal plants with any of eight cleaner options,” the Carnegie Institution for Science Newsletter notes, “Only the lowest CO2 emitting technologies can avoid a hot end-of-century.”

The Carnegie Institution for Science is not one of your fly-by-night climate change radical organizations. Indeed, Treehuggers refer to them as GOP scientists, which does seem an oxymoron these days. Its Department of Global Ecology  – established in 2002 to help build the scientific foundations for a sustainable future it is on another major scientific campus, that of Stanford University — is an independent research organization funded by the Carnegie Institution. “Its scientists conduct basic research on a wide range of large-scale environmental issues, including climate change, ocean acidification, biological invasions, and changes in biodiversity.”

Reference:

Greenhouse gases, climate change and the transition from coal to low-carbon electricity

N P Myhrvold and K Caldeira 2012 Environ. Res. Lett. 7 014019

Related articles

• Climate Sensitivity Higher Than We Thought, Researchers Find (thinkprogress.org)
• Must-See Hansen and Caldeira on Sensitivity: Paleoclimate Record Points Toward Potential Rapid Climate Changes (thinkprogress.org)

• Ecological (And Not Republican or Exxon Mobil) Sensitivity
• Evidence Builds
• Good News or Very, Very Bad News?
• Environmental World Review 2011
• Renewable portfolio standards insufficient to meet 2030 GHG emission targets

Alaska’s been coasting on its stores of easy-access oil, but a new report from the U.S. Geological Survey shows that the state has a motherlode of shale oil and natural gas. You know what (that) means — here come the frackers.

The numbers are impressive: as much as 80 trillion cubic feet of frackable natural gas and up to 2 billion barrels of shale oil. To put that in perspective, the natural gas resources are smaller than the Marcellus Shale, which underlays Pennsylvania and New York, and smaller than Texas’ Haynesville and Eagle Ford shale formations — but it’s still the fourth biggest parcel in the U.S. The oil shale is the second biggest deposit in the country; only North Dakota’s Bakken Formation has more.

If you’re inclined to look on the bright side about oil and gas fracking, there are a couple of positives here. These resources aren’t in developed areas, which minimizes the health risks that come with fracking. And for the most part, these resources are also outside of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, so fracking would be better for the local ecology than drilling for conventional oil in ANWR.

But oil and gas development always carries risks. Plus, if these natural gas resources are developed, Alaska will likely have to liquify the gas in order to ship it off and sell it. Creating liquified natural gas takes a ton of energy and helps wipe out natural gas’ carbon advantage over fuels like coal and oil.

by Sarah Laskow, original title was “Alaska is about to get fracked up”

Related articles

• USGS releases first shale-oil and shale-gas resource potential assessment for the Alaska North Slope (greencarcongress.com)
• The Alaska Oil Compromise? (lezgetreal.com)
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• Feds Link Water Contamination to Fracking for the First Time (peakenergy.blogspot.com)
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Reposting of Mike Millikin repost of Robert Saunders from UC Berkeley News Center:

The least expensive way for the Western US to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to help prevent the worst consequences of global warming is to replace coal with renewable and other sources of energy that may include nuclear power, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, researchers. Their paper is in press in the journal Energy Policy.

The researchers used a mixed-integer linear programming model—SWITCH (a loose acronym for Solar, Wind, Hydro and Conventional generators and Transmission)—to analyze least-cost generation, storage, and transmission capacity expansion for western North America under various policy and cost scenarios. Their analysis also found that current renewable portfolio standards (RPS) are insufficient to meet emission reduction targets by 2030 without new policy.

With a stronger carbon policy consistent with a 450 ppm climate stabilization scenario, power sector emissions can be reduced to 54% of 1990 levels by 2030 using different portfolios of existing generation technologies, they found. Under a range of resource cost scenarios, most coal power plants would be replaced by solar, wind, gas, and/or nuclear generation, with intermittent renewable sources providing at least 17% and as much as 29% of total power by 2030.

Although the carbon price to induce these deep carbon emission reductions is high, if the carbon price revenues are reinvested in the power sector, the cost of power is found to increase by at most 20% relative to business-as-usual projections.

Decarbonization of the electric power sector is critical to achieving greenhouse gas reductions that are needed for a sustainable future. To meet these carbon goals, coal has to go away from the region.

—Daniel Kammen, Distinguished Professor of Energy in UC Berkeley’s Energy and Resources Group

To achieve this level of decarbonization, policy changes are needed to cap or tax carbon emissions to provide an incentive to move toward low-carbon electricity sources, Kammen and the other study authors said.

While some previous studies have emphasized the high cost of carbon taxes or caps, the new study shows that replacing coal with more gas generation, as well as renewable sources like wind, solar and geothermal energy, would result in only a moderate increase to consumers in the cost of electric power—at most, 20%. They estimate a lower ratepayer cost, Kammen said, because the evolution of the electrical grid over the next 20 years—with coordinated construction of new power plants and transmission lines—would substantially reduce the actual consumer cost of meeting carbon emission targets.

While the carbon price required to induce these deep carbon emission reductions is high—between $59 and $87 per ton of CO₂ emitted—the cost of power is predicted to increase by at most 20%, because the electricity system will redesign itself around a price or cap on carbon emissions. That is a modest cost considering that the future of the planet is at stake.

—Daniel Kammen

Burning coal, a non-renewable resource, produces about 20% of the world’s greenhouse gases, but also releases harmful chemicals into the environment such as mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and sulfuric acid, responsible in some areas for acid rain and respiratory illness.

California has few coal-fired power plants, but gets about 20% of its electricity from coal-burning plants in neighboring states. About 46% of the state’s power comes from gas-burning plants, 11% from hydroelectric, 14% from nuclear and 11% from other renewables: geothermal energy, wind and solar.

While California has a relatively high RPS target of 33% renewable sources by 2020, other Western states have less ambitious targets. Additional policy action throughout Western North America will be required to meet climate targets, Kammen said.

Coauthors of the study are Josiah Johnston, Ana Mileva, Ian Hoffman, Autumn Petros-Good and Christian Blanco of UC Berkeley’s RAEL lab and the Energy and Resources Group; and Matthias Fripp of the Environmental Change Group at Oxford University in the United Kingdom.

Funding for the Energy Policy study was provided by the National Science Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency, NextEra Energy Resources, the Karsten Family Foundation, Vestas Wind LLC, the UC Berkeley Class of 1935, the CPV Consortium, the Berkeley Nerds Fellowship and the Link Energy Fellowship.

Resources

• James Nelson, Josiah Johnston, Ana Mileva, Matthias Fripp, Ian Hoffman, Autumn Petros-Good, Christian Blanco, Daniel M. Kammen (2012) High-resolution modeling of the western North American power system demonstrates low-cost and low-carbon futures, Energy Policy doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2012.01.031

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