This is a bit nuanced but important, and I want to make clear what is going on here.

Normally, environmental impact assessments are done by private contractors ultimately hired by the entity that is building the project that could have the impacts. I often hear people complain that Trans Canada, the group that wants to build the Keystone XL pipeline across the United States to allow the export of it’s bitumen (a kind of soft coal like oily thing) overseas to places like China and Europe, “hired the contractor” that did the environmental impact assessment, and therefore they are corrupt and evil and so on and so forth. But this is how it works. The entity doing the work is responsible to pay for and supply support for the review. There is nothing wrong with that.

Also, there is a more specific allegation that individuals who work for the contractor that did the Keystone XL Pipeline review have worked previously for Trans Canada and other oil interests and therefore the are corrupt and evil and so on and so forth. This, in itself, is also incorrect. Yes, those individuals have worked for Trans Canada and other oil interests, but this is normal, expected, and in fact, a good thing. You really don’t want to have individuals with zero experience working on these important jobs, and you really don’t want to have an industry where people get trained up, with advanced degrees and apprenticeship, to work in a given sub sector of environmental management, then allow them to have one contract then put them on an ice flow.

Having said all that, which is true and must be kept in mind when complaining about Trans Canada and Keystone XL, there is a problem. The system where corporations hire contractors to look into environmental effects is corruptible. This isn’t the most corruptible way to do this. If government agencies did the work themselves, or hired subcontractors, that would be corruptible too. There is no way to do this that is not corruptible.

For this reason, regulatory agencies are supposed to keep a close eye on what happens. There are forms that must be filled out honestly that might reveal potential conflicts of interest, for example. Once these forms are in the hands of the appropriate regulatory agencies, their veracity must be checked, and if there is any problem, that must be very closely looked into.

From the information I’ve seen, it seems almost 100% likely that the process of arranging for the second Keystone XL environmental impact assessment involved some serious mistakes, and there is almost as good of a chance that those mistakes involved purposeful manipulation of information by the environmental contractor as well as by the State Department itself.

I’m not going to try to prove this to you or even summarize the information because it is all well laid out in THIS PDF of a letter from Bold Nebraska, Center for Biological Diversity, Environment America, Friends of the Earth, League of Conservation Voters, National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council, Nebraska Farmers’ Union, Public Citizen, Sierra Club and 350.org. It would appear that the contractor, ERM, failed to disclose its ties to the American Petroleum Institute, TransCanada and other companies that stand to benefit from Keystone. There may be nothing wrong with having those ties but they must be disclosed so they can be looked into and monitored. Also, the State Department employees attempted to cover these ties up during the review process, which implies collusion between the regulatory agency and the contractor.

Go read the letter and learn all the details.

Then, you might want to sign this petition from Friends of the Earth to “Tell Secretary of State John Kerry: Investigate Big Oil’s Influence on the Keystone XL Review.”

Private contractors hire other private contractors to do environmental review, and this process is overseen by regulatory agencies, with the State Department in this case being a regulatory agency. But who oversees that process, to makes sure it stays clean, fair, and legal? Well, you, the citizen. And who helps you do that? Organizations created by citizens, such as those noted above.

So that’s what is happening now. Time to act. Your move…..

NEW YORK and COLORADO SPRINGS, May 16, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Over half of sustainable, responsible, impact (SRI) investment industry professionals say that retail investors (65 percent) and institutional investors (53 percent) are currently expressing interest in fossil fuel-free portfolios in the face of growing signs of climate change, according to First Affirmative Financial Network’s Fossil Fuels Divestment Survey.

Read the rest here.

See also this:

Securities of fossil fuels firms, as an economic sector, may soon be on the decline.

Predictions as to when oil and gas will become a smaller part of the investment society makes into its total energy mix, in favor of renewables such as solar, wind and ocean energies, vary, ranging from 2060 on the long side (this prediction from oil industry powerhouse Shell) to 2030 or even sooner on the shorter side (as reported by Bloomberg). But so far, markets appear to be mispricing the risk this presents to fossil fuels companies, and their share prices for now remain high. In our opinion, it’s not too soon to consider divesting from fossil fuels while one might still recover significant value.

The rest of that story is here.

On Saturday, May 18, the second international “

Check out this interactive map that shows all of the participating countries.

Here at the University of California, Davis, the renowned Botanical Conservatory will be open from 10am – 1pm on the 18^th of May to celebrate Fascination of Plants Day 2013. The conservatory is home to the titan, or Amorphophallus titanium, a truly fascinating plant that takes 15 years to bloom, and has only been known to flower about 100 times around the world, including 7 times at UC-Davis!

Two more exciting events are plants in California, one at the Plant Biology Department at the Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford and the other at the Livermore Art Association. At Stanford, middle school students from East Palo Alto will use advanced imaging technologies to observe fluorescence and luminescence in plant materials. Further details about this event can be found here on the Fascination of Plants Day website. At the second event in Livermore, local artists and children will celebrate the impact of plants on our lives by decorating bicycle wheels with creative plant themes. On May 18th the wheels will be displayed by participating businesses in downtown Livermore along the path of the Amgen Tour of California. Details about this event can be found here.

The Fascination of Plants Day has attracted a lot of attention all over the world, with the Ministers of Agriculture in the Czech Republic, Norway and Slovakia officially serving as national patrons. The nearly 1000 events internationally will showcase about 250,000 plant species! Details about the various events and lots of fun facts and information can be found on Twitter.

Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous. Read more: OFA.BO/gJsdFp

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) May 16, 2013

The residents’ quest for answers took the form of a petition delivered in late 2009 to the Board of County Commissioners of Garfield County, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, and the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission.  The residents’ group, called Battlement Concerned Citizens, urged the government officials:

“to defer any permitting decisions related to natural gas exploration and/or production within the Planned Unit Development of Battlement Mesa until a thorough study of public health, safety and welfare concerns associated with urban natural gas development has been completed.”

BCC specifically asked County and State officials to conduct a Health Impact Assessment (HIA) before any special use permit for natural gas exploration and development was approved within the Battlement Mesa community.  BCC had done their research on HIAs, knowing they are a systematic tool for assessing the potential health consequences of a proposed policy, program, or project.  Some of the gas wells would be about 500 feet from homes.

Within a few months, the Garfield County Department of Public Health was collaborating with the Colorado School of Public Health (CSPH) to develop the HIA.   Funding was provided by Garfield County and a $150,000 grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts.  A forthcoming paper in the American Journal of Public Health written by the CSPH team reports the findings of the assessment, and then the fallout.

First the findings.  Based on extensive input from the community and other stakeholders, eight major areas of public health concern were identified:

• health effects from air emissions
• water contamination
• truck traffic
• noise and light pollution
• accidents and malfunctions
• strain on healthcare system
• psychosocial stress associated with community changes, and
• housing value depression

Based on the research team’s review of the available data, they concluded that

“air pollutant levels were likely to increase in Battlement Mesa as a result of the natural gas development project.”

They noted that residents in an adjacent community with current gas-well development have reported short-term symptoms (e.g., headaches, upper respiratory irritation) during “odor events” that occur with gas well operations.  In addition, they projected a substantial increase in vehicle traffic.  Based on information provided by the gas developer, residents could expect an additional 40 to 280 truck trips per day to each gas well pad.  In addition, about 120 to 150 workers would commute into the community.  The authors write:

“Because Battlement Mesa does not house other industrial activities and commercial activities are minimal, this change in traffic patterns would represent a consequential change.”

The CSPH researchers also projected that noise levels would increase during the well-development period and could result in health impacts, such as sleep disturbances, fatigue, mood changes, and impaired condition.  Residents’ concerns about property value declines were found to be grounded in fact.  The researchers referred to a Garfield County specific study which reported an average 15% decline in property values during well development, which persisted for two years after completion of the wells.  “Declining land values,” the CSPH authors wrote, “could cause residents psychosocial stress,” and its health effects “should not be discounted.”

In contrast, they did not think exposure to contaminated drinking water was likely given the community’s source water is located upstream of the project.  The researchers concluded that industry-related chemical or waste spills would be unlikely, as would fires and explosions.  They did not project measurable increases in crime, sexually-transmitted diseases, or school enrollment that could be attributed alone to the gas development project.

Second, the fallout.

A first draft of the HIA was available for stakeholder input in Fall 2010.   Interest in the document was intense, not just from the Battlement Concerned Citizens’ group or residents of Garfield County, but nationwide.   The HIA was the first of its kind related to natural gas development.  A broader group of interests, including an industry trade group, “caused the focus of the HIA to shift from addressing possible exposures to parties sparring over risk assessment methods,” as the CSPH authors write in their paper.  A process and document that was supposed to help local officials make an informed decision turned into a battle before the Garfield County Commission.

NPR’s Elizabeth Shogren reported in May 2012 on the HIA fallout.  The West Slope Colorado Oil & Gas Association said the CSPH researchers “used what we believe was questionable data, at best.”  A long-time Garfield County Commissioner told Shogren:

“this is a football in the arena of global warming and anti-oil and gas, or anti-environment. We said enough is enough, people.”

The County Commission voted to leave the HIA as an unfinished document and to end the project.  Regardless, the information contained in the draft HAI is valuable.  It illustrates a site-specific and systematic way to evaluate potential health impacts of a proposed policy.  I’ve no doubt that the residents of Battlement Mesa are better informed about the magnitude and severity of the likely health impacts related to natural gas development in their community, than they were before the HIA was developed.  To their credit, the Garfield County Department of Environmental Health has the draft HIA and other project documents on its website.

Here is recent coverage on The Weather Channel.

Click here to find out more and, hopefully, donate a few bucks to help save the planet.

The usual scheme of things that we see so often is that bad things happen (the Assad regime in Syria); it goes on and on and people wring their hands, or ignore it, and anyway whilst bad the people are useful anti-commies or somesuch; and then it gets bad enough that the locals start revolting. At this point, its very much a “which way are you going to jump” issue for everyone in the country. Do they throw in their lot with a pile of untested rebels? Or do they sit on the fence quietly? Or do they take this as a chance to ingratiate themselves with the regime by demonstrating loyalty? If you’re such a person, what the international “community” is going to do matters a lot. If you expect the “community” to intervene actively on the side of Justice and Freedom, to vigourously hunt down war criminals and prosecute them and confiscate their assets, then you have a strong incentive to jump onto the rebel side. But if you expect the West to be a useless shower like usual you have an incentive to hang on in and loot the country for as long as possible, meanwhile doing your best to be as nasty as possible and polarise the fight in order to commit people onto your side, by making it impossible for them to live under a changed regime. After not very long it becomes clear that attempting to talk about regime change is a waste of time, and so the people on the rebel side that come to the forefront are those with the least to lose, those most deeply committed to violence – in short, we do our best to marginalise those who we’re pretending to favour. And pretty well inevitably this is a chance for the Al-Quaeda types to step in; at which point the idiots who argue for nothing but talks chirp up brightly with “see! We told you so! Violence just encourages Al Quaeda”. Whereas its really the do-nothing-but-talk people who are recruiting for Al Quaeda. And don’t get me started on the Russian govt, whose role in this is so utterly stinkingly amorally sadistic.

The issue at hand is this: What is the level of agreement in the scientific community about the reality of climate change and about the human role in climate change? The new paper, Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature, address this question and the answer is very clear. The number of climate scientists who question the reality of global warming or the human role in global warming is vanishingly small.

This is not the first study to look at this question, but it is the most thorough effort. This should, however, be the last paper to report this kind of research because, really, we’re there; climate scientists are in very strong agreement about this issue and with this landmark study further demonstration of this fact is superfluous. (John Keegan discusses the merits of this paper relative to other similar efforts and closely examines issues such as sample size and bias here.)

How do we know there a consensus among scientists about human-caused climate change?

The research team, John Cook, Dana Nuccitelli, Sarah Green, Mark Richardson, Barbel Winkler, Rob Painting, Robert Way, Peter Jacobs and Andrew Skuce, examined 11,944 abstracts published in peer reviewed scientific journals from 1991–2011 that covered the topics “Global Climate Change” or “Global Warming.” They coded the abstracts to signify the apparent position on Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) and found that 66.4% expressed no position, 32.4% indicated acceptance of AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% expressed uncertainty as to the cause of warming.

Removing those papers that did not express an opinion, 97.1% “endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.”

The paper also looks at change over time in scientific consensus. The bottom line is that there isn’t much; consensus is not especially new. But there is a small trend, discussed by lead author John Cook in the video I provide below. Also, a look at the “reject AGW” papers shows that there are some patterns. Most are looking at large scale (known) change or cosmic sources of climate change, and they tend to be dated to the earlier part of the time range. Rabbet Run lists them here.

Consensus is often implied and not stated in peer reviewed papers

The researchers then invited the authors to rate the papers they had published. When this was done, the number of papers indicating no position on AGW dropped precipitously to 35.5%. In this rating system, 97.2% of papers endorse the consensus on AGW.

This is important for a couple of reasons. For one, it is an indication that the original coding was conservative, and did not involve assumptions about what the authors may have been thinking. It also shows something about how the scientific process works. If you look at any major scientific concept in the literature, you may find very little explicit endorsement of the overarching theoretical construct or model (like “Natural Selection” or “Germ Theory”) if that concept is fully established. Early writings on a particular major concept often refer to the concept itself and may cite early authors. For example one might see something like “Darwin’s concept of Natural Selection is being increasingly applied to understand the physical features of butterflies” with a reference to The Origin of Species. But after a while scientists stop mentioning the no-longer-novel overarching consensus and stop citing the seminal works. Climate science has moved into this state with respect to the human-caused warming of the earth because of the preponderance of evidence of AGW.

The Climate Change Consensus Gap

Depending on which poll you look at, and when the poll was taken, somewhat more than half of Americans either reject global warming as even being real, reject the human role, or simply don’t know about it. Given the scientific consensus, this is a little like saying that over half of Americans don’t accept Evolution as a valid set of theories and observations, despite the preponderance of evidence for that! (Hey, wait a minute…)

The point is, the gap between scientific consensus and public opinion is real, and very important. The consensus gap causes bad things to happen. For instance, it is quite reasonable for a government agency to fund or support public service announcements on drunk driving. There is a consensus that drunk driving causes deaths, injuries, and accidents. There is not a consensus gap in that area. But global warming also causes misery and mayhem. Shouldn’t there be public service announcements on saving energy and using alternative sources? The consensus gap means that there can’t be.

This of course has a direct effect on public policy, as noted by Naomi Oreskes writing for Science Magazine:

Policy-makers and the media, particularly in the United States, frequently assert that climate science is highly uncertain. Some have used this as an argument against adopting strong measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For example, while discussing a major U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report on the risks of climate change, then-EPA administrator Christine Whitman argued, “As [the report] went through review, there was less consensus on the science and conclusions on climate change”. Some corporations whose revenues might be adversely affected by controls on carbon dioxide emissions have also alleged major uncertainties in the science (2). Such statements suggest that there might be substantive disagreement in the scientific community about the reality of anthropogenic climate change. This is not the case.

Leadership is when those with influence head directly for the truth, talk about the right thing to do, and help other people to do the right thing. Main Stream Media does not have that … that leadership thing. Main Stream Media does not look at the scientific consensus and then make judgements about what stories to cover and how to cover them on that basis. Rather, Main Stream Media looks at the range of public opinion and treats that as consensus (or lack of) and acts accordingly. Which, in turn, reinforces or even sometimes widens the gap.

This also causes problems in the liminal area of media commentary. Opinion editorials in major outlets like the Wall Street Journal often exploit the Consensus Gap, manufacturing uncertainty or attracting readers from among the misinformed part of the public, and again, reinforcing or even widening the gap and enhancing the level of public misunderstanding or just plain old ignorance. With respect to global warming, it is time for that to stop. As noted by Brendan DeMelle:

It does not get any clearer than this. It should finally put to rest the claims of climate deniers that there is a scientific debate about global warming. Of course, this bunch isn’t known for being reasonable or susceptible to facts. But maybe the mainstream media outlets that have given deniers a megaphone will finally stop.

Global Warming, Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster

Editorials in Main Stream Media that exploit the consensus gap could be compared to editorials at the New York Times or in the Scientific American or your local newspaper that demand more attention be given to the plight of Big Foot or the Loch Ness Monster. The degree of scientific consensus that those creatures do not exist is about the same as the degree of consensus that AGW is real, though the public “belief” in crypto-critters is less than the public “belief” that AGW is not real. Why? Because Main Stream Media has not taken Big Foot or the Loch Ness Monster seriously in quite some time.

Ten years from now it will be interesting to look back and see how Main Stream Media’s editorial writers who today are sticking with “the jury is still out” on AGW managed their reputations as they looked more and more like they belonged at the National Enquirer rather than a respected news outlet.

John Cook, the study’s lead author, has also blogged about it here and also has a video summarizing the paper, which he discusses some of the earlier research as well:

Dana Nuccitelli, another co-author, blogged about the research here and here.

This work was also covered by The Weather Channel.

____________________
¹The embargo ended overnight last night, even though several climate science denialists failed to respect the embargo, thus, seemingly on purpose, violating a pretty standard ethical rule in academia.

The Consensus Project has a web site HERE and the twitter tag is #TCP

This is the paper:
Cook, J., Nuccitelli, D., Green, S., Richardson, M., Winkler, B., Painting, R., Way, R., Jacobs, P., & Skuce, A. (2013). Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature Environmental Research Letters, 8 (2) DOI: 10.1088/1748–9326/8/2/024024

Oh, and a corollary of all this is that I’m far less careful than I used to be about wading through “comment requires moderation” emails. If you’ve got one that’s stuck, mail me separately.

Refs

* Cashpoint morons warned to plan ahead

My friend Sharon Sund passed me an email this morning about an Organizing for Action meeting in South Minneapolis to discuss climate change activism. Sharon and I had been talking about local climate change activism earlier in the week so she thought I’d liked to go to this meeting and see what they are up to.

Organizing for Action(OFA) is an offshoot of the Obama campaign, a grassroots non profit that is separate from any campaign committee (so they don’t support or run candidates) that organizes in favor of Obama’s issues like getting some sensible gun regulation or immigration reform passed in Congress, or keeping Obama care intact.

The organizer of the event described OFA’s structure and purpose, gave a bit of a pep talk, and then opened it up for discussion.

I was the first person to speak up, and after making a brief remark about some interesting climate science related news I won’t bother you with here, I brought up Keystone XL pipeline. I noted that it would be awful nice and a lot easier to get a climate change component of OFA going if Obama would just come out and say “no” to Keystone. The official OFA response, blew me away. Keystone XL might be someone’s personal issue, and that was fine, but since the President was neutral on it at the moment, OFA was as well.

Now, I don’t want to take credit or breaking the meeting. Had I not said something about Keystone, the guy next to me, or the woman behind me, or the guy two seats down, or the woman across the room, or any one of the 30 hard core activists attending the meeting, would have. I know this because once Keystone was brought up, and the need for Obama to take a stand, and in particular, oppose the pipeline was mentioned, everybody in the room had something to say, clearly indicating that they had all thought about it quite a bit.

Keystone is not a personal issue. It is the key, urgent, not-to-be-ignored grassroots issue that OFA and Obama should be all over.

I kinda feel bad for the organizer because he was swamped. I think we stayed on keystone for about an hour. He would say, “OK, let’s move on to a different issue. Sally, did you have something, I saw your hand up?” and Sally would say something very brief not about keystone, and then, “Well, I was in Nebraska last month chaining myself to construction equipment to stop the pipeline …” and then it would be back to the Keystone XL Pipeline. Or the organizer would say, “Oh, Bill, I see you’ve had your hand up,” and Bill would say, “Yeah, that idea of having house meetings to discuss climate would be good. This way we can get together and plan an organized push to get the President to do the right thing on the Keystone Pipeline..” and so on and so forth.¹

There are two things that I now know for certain. The first, which I learned tonight, is that Obama for America will not have an effective climate change component if Obama does not come out in opposition to Keystone. Every single one of those activists is involved in a half dozen different projects, some focused on one issue, other on many, that they devote considerable time to, and that they regard, quite rightly, as very important. Many of the individuals in the room are heavily involved already in climate change activism and are already working with existing political groups, churches, or other organizations on climate change (our local 350.org guy was there for example). These climate change activists don’t need the OFA, though the OFA needs them. In fact, the meeting organizer had noted how great it was when OFA engaged in a new issue, and brought new volunteers into the fold in so doing. Most importantly, this little meeting tonight was a microcosm of the larger political landscape. Obama has to lead on climate change. He’s taken a few steps in that direction. And we’re all waiting around for the next couple of steps. Right now, Obama has not moved forward enough for us to find any space behind him so that he can actually lead us.

The consensus at tonight’s meeting was this: The local Minneapolis OFA has to take a message back to Obama and OFA headquarters: Yes, of course we’ll help. But first you need to get your head out of the sand. In particular, the Alberta tar sands. And then we will do more than help. We’ll carry you.

The second thing I know for certain, but that I didn’t learn from this meeting because I already knew it is this: The people of South Minneapolis (and adjoining inner ring suburbs) are awesome.²

_____________

See also: Obama’s decision on the Keystone Pipeline IS a legacy making or breaking thing.
Added: See also OFA Refuses To Push On Keystone

and

OFA Refuses To Push On Keystone
_____________
¹Those were not the actual names of participants or what they said. Since I’m not prepared to report those things exactly, I’m just wildly paraphrasing to make the point.

²A word I’ve probably used four times in my entire life. Just so you know.