As many of you will be aware, a large number of emails from the University of East Anglia webmail server were hacked recently (Despite some confusion generated by Anthony Watts, this has absolutely nothing to do with the Hadley Centre which is a completely separate institution).

So begins the RealClimate post on this hack-heard-round-the-blogosphere.   At the end, I’ll excerpt that post, which makes clear this is much ado about not bloody much.

UPDATE:  The predictable FoxNews take is here (screen capture of their front page is above).  At the end, I’ll post some truly amazing quotes from the anti-scientific side of the blogosphere, from Brad Johnson’s post, “ClimateGate: Hacked Emails Reveal Global Warming Deniers Are Crazed Conspiracy Theorists.”

Whatever smoke the anti-scientific disinformers are able to blow into people’s faces over this bunch of emails dating back over a decade, it doesn’t change the basic facts about human-caused warming:

• Very warm 2008 makes this the hottest decade in recorded history by far
• World’s Glaciers Shrink for 18th Year
• Skeptical Science explains how we know global warming is happening: It’s the oceans, stupid!

Figure: Time series of global mean heat storage (0–2000 m), measured in 10⁸ Jm^-2.

Here’s most of the rest of the post from the scientists at RealClimate :

As people are also no doubt aware the breaking into of computers and releasing private information is illegal, and regardless of how they were obtained, posting private correspondence without permission is unethical. We therefore aren’t going to post any of the emails here. We were made aware of the existence of this archive last Tuesday morning when the hackers attempted to upload it to RealClimate, and we notified CRU of their possible security breach later that day.Nonetheless, these emails (a presumably careful selection of (possibly edited?) correspondence dating back to 1996 and as recently as Nov 12) are being widely circulated, and therefore require some comment. Some of them involve people here (and the archive includes the first RealClimate email we ever sent out to colleagues) and include discussions we’ve had with the CRU folk on topics related to the surface temperature record and some paleo-related issues, mainly to ensure that posting were accurate.

Since emails are normally intended to be private, people writing them are, shall we say, somewhat freer in expressing themselves than they would in a public statement. For instance, we are sure it comes as no shock to know that many scientists do not hold Steve McIntyre in high regard. Nor that a large group of them thought that the Soon and Baliunas (2003), Douglass et al (2008) or McClean et al (2009) papers were not very good (to say the least) and should not have been published. These sentiments have been made abundantly clear in the literature (though possibly less bluntly).

More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though.

Instead, there is a peek into how scientists actually interact and the conflicts show that the community is a far cry from the monolith that is sometimes imagined. People working constructively to improve joint publications; scientists who are friendly and agree on many of the big picture issues, disagreeing at times about details and engaging in ‘robust’ discussions; Scientists expressing frustration at the misrepresentation of their work in politicized arenas and complaining when media reports get it wrong; Scientists resenting the time they have to take out of their research to deal with over-hyped nonsense. None of this should be shocking.

It’s obvious that the noise-generating components of the blogosphere will generate a lot of noise about this. but it’s important to remember that science doesn’t work because people are polite at all times. Gravity isn’t a useful theory because Newton was a nice person. QED isn’t powerful because Feynman was respectful of other people around him. Science works because different groups go about trying to find the best approximations of the truth, and are generally very competitive about that. That the same scientists can still all agree on the wording of an IPCC chapter for instance is thus even more remarkable.

No doubt, instances of cherry-picked and poorly-worded “gotcha” phrases will be pulled out of context. One example is worth mentioning quickly. Phil Jones in discussing the presentation of temperature reconstructions stated that “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.” The paper in question is the Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) Nature paper on the original multiproxy temperature reconstruction, and the ‘trick’ is just to plot the instrumental records along with reconstruction so that the context of the recent warming is clear. Scientists often use the term “trick” to refer to a “a good way to deal with a problem”, rather than something that is “secret”, and so there is nothing problematic in this at all. As for the ‘decline’, it is well known that Keith Briffa’s maximum latewood tree ring density proxy diverges from the temperature records after 1960 (this is more commonly known as the “divergence problem”–see e.g. the recent discussion in this paper) and has been discussed in the literature since Briffa et al in Nature in 1998 (Nature, 391, 678-682). Those authors have always recommend not using the post 1960 part of their reconstruction, and so while ‘hiding’ is probably a poor choice of words (since it is ‘hidden’ in plain sight), not using the data in the plot is completely appropriate, as is further research to understand why this happens.

The timing of this particular episode is probably not coincidental. But if cherry-picked out-of-context phrases from stolen personal emails is the only response to the weight of the scientific evidence for the human influence on climate change, then there probably isn’t much to it.

There are of course lessons to be learned. Clearly no-one would have gone to this trouble if the academic object of study was the mating habits of European butterflies. That community’s internal discussions are probably safe from the public eye. But it is important to remember that emails do seem to exist forever, and that there is always a chance that they will be inadvertently released. Most people do not act as if this is true, but they probably should.

It is tempting to point fingers and declare that people should not have been so open with their thoughts, but who amongst us would really be happy to have all of their email made public?

Who indeed?

UPDATE:  Brad Johnson from Wonk Room notes the disinformers are “sifting through the illegally obtained letters of private correspondence for “proof” that the scientific consensus on climate change is actually a global conspiracy“:

— “If you own any shares in alternative energy companies I should start dumping them NOW,” says the Telegraph’s James Delingpole.

– Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey claims the emails discuss “repetitive, false data of higher temperatures.”

– The National Review’s Chris Horner salivates, “The blue-dress moment may have arrived.”

– “The crimes revealed in the e-mails promise to be the global warming scandal of the century,” blares Michelle Malkin.

– The Australia Herald-Sun’s Andrew Bolt claims the emails are “proof of a conspiracy which is one of the largest, most extraordinary and most disgraceful in moderrn [sic] science.”

Related Post:

• Must-read AP story: Statisticians reject global cooling; Caldeira — “To talk about global cooling at the end of the hottest decade the planet has experienced in many thousands of years is ridiculous.”

Russia toughened on Wednesday its goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions, saying it would target a 25 percent reduction from 1990 levels by 2020 compared with a 10-15 percent pledge previously.

Following are the negotiating positions of the top greenhouse gas emitters before a U.N. meeting in Copenhagen in December due to agree a new global climate deal.

1) CHINA (annual emissions of greenhouse gases: 6.8 billion tonnes, 5.5 tonnes per capita)

* Emissions – President Hu Jintao promised that China would cut its carbon dioxide emissions per dollar of economic output by a “notable margin” by 2020 compared with 2005.. The “carbon intensity” goal is the first measurable curb on national emissions in China. Hu reiterated a promise that China would try to raise the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to 15 percent by 2020.

* Demands – China wants developed nations to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 and to promise far more aid and green technology.

2) UNITED STATES (6.4 billion tonnes, 21.2 tonnes per capita)

* Emissions – President Barack Obama wants to cut U.S. emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020, a 17 percent cut from 2005 levels, and to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

* Obama says he wants an accord in Copenhagen that covers all the issues and that has “immediate operational effect.”.

Legislation to cut emissions by 20 percent from 2005 levels had been approved by a Senate Committee but people few think it can become law before the Copenhagen talks.

* Finance – The United States says a “dramatic increase” is needed in funds to help developing nations.

* Demands – “We cannot meet this challenge unless all the largest emitters of greenhouse gas pollution act together,” Obama said.

3) EUROPEAN UNION (5.03 billion tonnes, 10.2 tonnes per capita)

* Emissions – EU leaders agreed in December 2008 to cut emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and by 30 percent if other developed nations follow suit.

* Finance – EU leaders have agreed that developing nations will need about 100 billion euros ($147 billion) a year by 2020 to help them curb emissions and adapt to changes such as floods or heatwaves. As an advance payment, they suggest 5-7 billion a year between 2010 and 2012.

* Demands – The EU wants developing nations to curb the rise of their emissions by 15 to 30 percent below a trajectory of “business as usual” by 2020.

5) INDIA (1.4 billion tonnes, 1.2 tonnes per capita)

* Emissions – India is prepared to quantify the amount of greenhouse gas emissions it could cut with domestic actions, but will not accept internationally binding targets, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said.. India has said its per capita emissions will never rise to match those of developed nations.

* Demands – Like China, India wants rich nations to cut emissions by at least 40 percent by 2020. But Ramesh signalled room to compromise: “It’s a negotiation. We’ve given a number of 40 percent but one has to be realistic.”

6) JAPAN (1.4 billion tonnes, 11.0 tonnes per capita)

* Emissions – Cut Japan’s emissions by 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 if Copenhagen agrees an ambitious deal.

* Finance – Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama told the UN that Tokyo would also step up aid.

7) SOUTH KOREA (142 million tonnes, 2.9 tonnes per capita)

* Emissions – Cut emissions by 30 percent below “business as usual” levels by 2020, which is equivalent to a 4 percent cut from 2005 levels.

BRAZIL (111 million tonnes, 0.6 tonnes per capita)

* Emissions – Will cut its emissions by between 36.1 percent and 38.9 percent from projected 2020 levels, representing a 20 percent cut below 2005 levels.

9) INDONESIA (100 million tonnes, 0.4 tonnes per capita)

* Emissions – Aims to cut emissions by 26 percent by 2020 below “business as usual” levels.

Taking CO2 from deforestation into account, Indonesia is the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

Waxman schedules hearing on derivatives legislation

The House Energy and Commerce Committee next month will hold a hearing to examine how the proposed financial reform bill will affect energy markets, the panel announced yesterday.

Last month, the House Agriculture Committee passed H.R. 3795, which would expand federal regulatory authority over currently unregulated over-the-counter derivatives markets, which include energy commodities such as natural gas, electricity and oil. The bill would require clearing for standard derivatives, a limit as to how many contracts or positions one participant could own, additional data requirements and an increase in the margins participants need to post for trades. The House intends to take up the financial reform later next month.

End-users, such as utilities and natural gas suppliers, have protested loudly over the increased margin requirements. They say the additional financial burden will tie up needed capital for investment and will increase costs to consumers. H.R. 3795 does allow for some exemptions for end-users (E&E Daily, Oct. 22).

But the committee said there could still be “unintended impacts” and plans to hold a hearing on Dec. 2 to examine the issue.

“I am concerned that H.R. 3795 was not developed with adequate regard to how the nation’s energy markets actually function,” Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said in a statement. “We need to hear from stakeholders about this legislation in order to ensure that Congress avoids making any grave mistakes.”

Energy and Environment Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said energy markets are already regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and additional commodities regulations would disrupt the markets.

“The derivatives legislation that has been under consideration in the House needs to be fixed in order to prevent it from interfering with our nation’s electricity and natural gas markets,” Markey said.

The Senate Agriculture Committee heard similar complaints from end-users at a hearing earlier this week (E&E Daily, Nov. 19).

Companies to probe ’symbiotic’ link between algae, coal-fired power plants

An algae-based biofuels startup and an industrial gas company announced a partnership yesterday aimed at developing a symbiotic relationship between coal-fired power plants and algae biofuel production.

Florida-based Algenol Biofuels and Germany’s Linde Group plan to develop cost-efficient technologies to capture, store, transport and supply CO2 for photobioreactors — troughs filled with CO2-saturated water and algae — whose photosynthesis would yield oxygen that could be used in oxy-fuel coal-combustion power stations.

“We see a symbiotic possibility between coal-fired power plants and the photosynthetic thing,” Algenol CEO Paul Woods said.

There are dozens of startups and researchers investigating the possibility of growing algae near power plants and using CO2 emissions as a feedstock. But Algenol and Linde want to take that a step further, placing the photobioreactors at oxy-fuel combustion plants.

Industrialized Nations Unveil Plans to Rein in Emissions

With less than three weeks remaining before negotiators gather in Copenhagen to hammer out a global response to climate change, a rapid-fire succession of countries are unveiling national plans that serve as opening bids for reining in heat-trapping emissions.

“The list of what is on the table is rather long,” said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the sponsor of the meeting, which runs from Dec. 7 to 18 in Copenhagen.

But, speaking at the United Nations headquarters on Thursday, he seized on the latest pledges to take aim at the United States, which has not yet played its hand.

“We now have offers of targets from all industrialized countries except the United States,” Mr. de Boer said. He emphasized that he was looking to the United States for “a numerical midterm target and commitment to financial support.”

“This is essential, and I believe this can be done,” he said.

Greenpeace says Europe smart power grid affordable

Revving up European power transmission networks to transport 90 percent of renewable energy by the year 2050 could be achieved at affordable sums, pressure group Greenpeace said in a study published on Friday.

European policymakers dream of getting away from fossil fuels but even if these were replaced with wind or solar generation systems, sceptics say the bloc’s decades-old grid systems would effectively hamper shipping the volatile power.

Greenpeace said the cost of strenghtening cross-border lines and building new interconnections to create so-called smart or supergrids would be small if it was spread over 40 years and split between hundreds of million of Europeans.

“All together, the proposal would cost around 209 billion euros ($310.9 billion),” it said in a press release issued to accompany the report’s unveiling in Berlin.

“This would increase the costs of every kilowatt hour by 0.15 cents over 40 years which means for a European household less than five euros a year or 40 cents a month,” it said.

Apart from the cost of preparing grids for new tasks to better manage erratic supplies, there is also concern that over reliance on wind or solar could leave consumers short of power when the wind does not blow or the sun does not shine.

Peak Oil Files: Why Is Saudi Aramco Building Supercomputers?

Saudi Aramco pumps about 10 million barrels of oil a day, about four times as much as Exxon Mobil Corp. How much oil Aramco, the national oil company of Saudi Arabia, can pump has an enormous impact on oil prices – and therefore the global economy.

So, what to make then of Aramco’s recent interest in supercomputers?

The biannual list of the world’s 500 fastest computers was released on Tuesday and Aramco had two new entries at No. 119 and No. 134. Both are Dell clusters, running Intel processors and both are very, very fast.

The oil industry uses Concorde-jet speed computing to aid it understanding underground reservoirs and to look for new sources of oil and gas. Aramco used another computer cluster to build a “full field model” of the Safaniya oilfield in 2008.

Clearly, Aramco is taking a sophisticated approach to understanding its remaining oil resources. And peak oilers will likely argue that Aramco’s interest in teraflops is a sign that it needs all the help it can get to ensure oil keep flowing out of its once mighty fields. After all, why bother throwing so much muscle into understanding the reservoir if there were no worries about its future performance.

Senate duo forms pact on climate

Senate Democratic leaders are resting their hopes for bipartisan climate change legislation on the unlikely partnership of Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

The revelation this fall that the two lawmakers shared a strong bond and a commitment to work together on one of the biggest policy issues facing Congress shocked many of their Senate colleagues.

They do not serve on any of the same committees, which is where many Senate friendships begin.

They are ideological opposites who took very public, antagonist roles in the past two presidential contests.

Kerry, a Massachusetts liberal, challenged President George W. Bush with an anti-war campaign in 2004 and strongly backed President Barack Obama during the 2008 campaign.

Graham, a South Carolina Republican who served as a prosecutor in former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial, was an enthusiastic Bush supporter in 2004 and served as Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) close confidant during last year’s presidential election.

Kerry is tall and somber-looking with a deep voice. Graham is shorter, softer-spoken and possesses a Southern drawl.

But none of that stopped the two men from teaming up last month on an op-ed that announced their plans to work together on a comprehensive climate change bill and a declaration that their partnership could net 60 votes in the Senate.

U.S. President Barack Obama tours the Great Wall in Badaling, China on Wednesday, November 18.  This is a CAP repost by Julian L. Wong and Andrew Light.

The United States and China announced on Tuesday a package of cooperative agreements on clean energy and climate change that are remarkable in both breadth and ambition. The cluster of seven initiatives, partnerships, action plans, and research centers covers a range of low-carbon energy strategies from electric cars to energy efficiency technologies.

These agreements follow on the heels of last Sunday’s announcement at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting that the United States has embraced the Danish proposal for finalizing an interim international climate agreement in Copenhagen in December. The U.S.-China summit help further signal a positive shift in expectations for Copenhagen between the two countries responsible for 40 percent of the planet’s anthropogenic carbon emissions.

Perhaps the most important, and most overlooked, achievement at this week’s summit was the commitment to promote greater transparency on efforts to reduce emissions. This should increase confidence for the prospects of creating a robust international agreement on climate change.

Transparency, accountability, and verification

It is now clear that China is signaling its increasing willingness to meet the standards of transparency, accountability, and verification that will be necessary to create an acceptable global agreement on climate change. This will be critical to reassure skeptics of domestic climate pollution legislation in the United States that China will keep any promises it makes to reduce its carbon emissions.

China pledged to cooperate with the International Energy Agency to establish “principles for improving data transparency” and continue to “strengthen China’s energy statistical system.” The U.S.-China Joint Statement released at the end of the presidential summit builds on that previous initiative by committing both sides to “provide for full transparency with respect to the implementation of mitigation measures.” In addition both sides “resolve to take significant mitigation actions” and “resolve to stand by these actions.” This is bold language for China, and demonstrates its willingness to be held accountable for commitments on climate pollution reduction, including targets on energy efficiency, renewable energy, forest coverage, and now carbon intensity.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also signed a memorandum of cooperation in connection with the summit with China’s National Development and Reform Commission to help China develop a robust, transparent, and accurate inventory of its greenhouse gas emissions. President Obama had already announced a commitment to such an inventory for the United States at the U.N. leaders summit on climate change in September. And previously the International Capacity Building Branch of EPA’s Climate Change Division had provided a relatively small amount of money to help Chinese provinces take first steps toward creating a carbon inventory in 2008. This new joint program however allows for more ambitious levels of cooperation moving jointly toward a common regime, which should build greater international confidence that these two hold outs from previous similar initiatives will catch up with the rest of the world.

The significance of these developments cannot be overstated. It is a common worry in American policy circles that we should not trust China’s commitments on mandatory emissions reductions to be “measurable, reportable, and verifiable.” A standard for measuring emissions is an absolutely necessary condition for any effective reporting regime. And establishing this carbon inventory in China and the United States provides just such a standard.

Broad scope of clean energy technology cooperation

China and the United States once again formalized their joint belief that a “transition to a green and low-carbon economy is essential and that the clean-energy industry will provide vast opportunities for citizens of both countries in the years ahead.” The focus articulated here for cooperation on on-the-ground, bottom-up clean-energy projects—including those in electric vehicles, energy efficiency, renewable energy, and cleaner combustion of coal and shale gas—demonstrates the beginning of a positive, cooperative, and comprehensive relationship on clean energy. The newly established U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center will see real money to the tune of $150 million over the next five years committed equally by both sides. Public-private partnerships involving 22 U.S. companies in the newly formed Energy Cooperation Partnership will have the opportunity to co-develop technologies and markets with Chinese partners.

Such measures move beyond the now-tired narrative of developed versus developing country responsibilities on climate action, which has dominated the history of the Kyoto Protocol. The world cannot hope to hit the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s goal of cutting global emissions in half by 2050 if reductions only come from developed countries. In that respect, these new joint initiatives are evidence that the driver toward a low-carbon future will not be a political compromise, but a reconciliation of sustained and meaningful international collaboration in the deployment of clean-energy solutions with the realities of atmospheric physics and chemistry.

All of the world’s major emitters, both developed and developing, must make significant contributions to hitting IPCC’s “50 by 50” goal, and that can best be accomplished through cooperation and healthy competition in the race for the best alternatives to our carbon loaded energy economy. As we argued in our recent report with Asia Society, we can develop low- and zero-carbon technologies more quickly through cooperation. And in the short run, such cooperation can create millions of jobs and save consumers millions of dollars.

Noticeable shift in expectations for Copenhagen

Prospects had been diminishing until this past weekend that the next U.N. meeting on climate change in Copenhagen would result in a positive outcome. It is now clear that the U.S. Senate will not finish a climate bill before the meeting to pair with the American Clean Energy and Security Act passed last July by the House of Representatives. And it was widely expected that the Obama administration would not be willing to negotiate a new international climate treaty in December without such a bill.

But the surprise announcement this past Sunday at the APEC meeting in Singapore dramatically increased the prospects of a good outcome in Copenhagen. The United States announced at that meeting its intention to seek an interim agreement at Copenhagen and commit to turning that into a fully fleshed out legally binding agreement at a later date in 2010. This interim agreement will likely include everything from midterm emissions targets, to short-term financing for developing countries to transition to a low-carbon pathway, to substantive progress on provisions for technology transfer and taking on global deforestation.

It was clear this week in Beijing that China will stand with the United States in being “committed to working together and with other countries in the weeks ahead for a successful outcome at Copenhagen.” President Obama was unambiguous when he declared at the joint press conference in the Great Hall of the People that both countries’ goal at Copenhagen is not just “a partial accord or a political declaration, but rather an accord that covers all of the issues in the negotiations, and one that has immediate operational effect” even while a full and final agreement will take some months to complete. The agreement to stand by their mitigation actions, and the acknowledgment in their joint communiqué that developing countries should take “nationally appropriate mitigation actions,” reiterated that China is more willing than ever before to reflect its domestic actions in an international agreement.

Altogether these declarations suggest that Copenhagen is still very much alive contrary to media reports that an agreement has been dead for some time. Heading into the Denmark meeting in only a few weeks, the Beijing summit provides a sound basis of hope for a strong outcome.

Global warming is melting 18,000 Himalayan glaciers — the largest concentration of glaciers outside the great polar ice sheets. If the present melt rate continues, many of these glaciers will be gone by the middle of this century, disrupting the perennial water supply to hundreds of millions of people.

To explore this growing collection of glacier images from the “roof of the world” — including a must-see video made by mountaineer and filmmaker David Breashears, Founder and Project Leader of Glacier Research Imaging Project (GRIP) — go to the Asia Society’s “On Thinner Ice” website.

For some of the underlying science, see my November 2008 post, Another climate impact comes faster than predicted: Himalayan glaciers “decapitated.” It discussed an important paper by leading international cryosphere scientists, including American’s own Lonnie Thompson, “Mass loss on Himalayan glacier endangers water resources,” which concluded ominously:

If Naimona’nyi is characteristic of other glaciers in the region, alpine glacier meltwater surpluses are likely to shrink much faster than currently predicted with substantial consequences for approximately half a billion people.

The study notes that Naimona’nyi is the highest glacier (6 kilometers above sea level) “documented to be losing mass annually.” MSNBC reported:

Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University and a team of researchers traveled to central Himalayas in 2006 to study the Naimona’nyi glacier, expecting to find some melting…. But when the team analyzed samples of glacier, what they found stunned them….

In fact, the glacier had melted so much that the exposed surface of the glacier dated to 1944….

“At the highest elevations, we’re seeing something like an average of 0.3 degrees Centigrade warming per decade,” Thompson said….

“I have not seen much as compelling as this to demonstrate how some glaciers are just being decapitated,” Shawn Marshall of the University of Calgary said….

“You can think of glaciers kind of like water towers, ” he said. “They collect water from the monsoon in the wet season, and release it in the dry season. But how effective they are depends on how much water is in the towers.”

The time to act is now.

Thanks to the Asia Society for providing me that awesome sliding “then and now” photograph of Mount Everest.

Related Posts:

• Lost Horizons: Melting glaciers in Kashmir causing regional chaos over water shortages
• World’s Glaciers Shrink for 18th Year

A top White House adviser yesterday pushed back against the idea of paring down Senate legislation on energy and global warming and frowned upon emerging talk among some moderates to limit legislative efforts to capping greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

“Our position is, let’s do it all,” said Carol Browner, President Obama’s senior aide on climate and energy issues. “Slicing and dicing isn’t going to work. It’s time to finally have comprehensive energy legislation in this country.”

That’s Greenwire (subs. req’d) reporting today on a panel discussion that included Browner.  She still has her (globally) warm sense of humor:

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) earlier this week confirmed he plans to bring up the energy and climate bill on the floor next spring after work is done on both health care and financial regulatory reform. Asked about that timing, Browner said she expects to see Senate action in March or April. “The good news is spring comes early in Washington, earlier and earlier with climate change,” she joked.

I’ve been traveling, so I haven’t had time to dive into the idea floated by some, including Sen. Lugar’s office, of “combining power plant-only cap-and-trade legislation with building efficiency standards and stronger fuel efficiency requirements for the transportation sector.”  I doubt that will be the endgame, since the more one looks into the idea, the less sense it makes.

After all, Obama already announced he will raise new car fuel efficiency standards to 35.5 mpg by 2015, and I find it hard to believe Lugar or any of those who oppose an economy-wide cap are prepared to go significantly farther than that.  Strong building efficiency standards are great — that’s why Waxman and Markey put them in the House’s bipartisan climate and clean energy bill (see “Better buildings soon? Energy and climate bill would set national energy codes“).  They belong in any comprehensive legislation.  Funny how they aren’t in the Senate Energy Committee’s bill, though….

A power-plant only cap-and-trade is, of course, what George Bush campaigned on in 2000 and then abandoned shortly after taking office under the influence of Dick Cheney.  I think it loses more votes than it gets because right now the compromise involves everybody, and that’s a key reason the utility industry supported the House bill and continues to support action in the Senate.  If the entire burden of emissions reductions were placed on that one sector, I think many utilities will jump ship, and that undermines the whole political deal.

But Browner argued that U.S. industries would prefer a combined effort all at once.

“If you only get a little piece of the problem, if we deal with some of our production issues, breaking our dependence on foreign oil, or if we do only a renewable electricity standard, then you’re not going to give industry the predictability and certainty they need to start making the large capital investments they’re eager to make,” Browner said.

Browner, a former EPA administrator during the Clinton administration, said she has been a regular visitor on Capitol Hill to meet with Senate Democrats and Republicans on the legislation. Based on those conversations, she said she has reason to think a final bill can overcome a threatened Senate filibuster and make it to Obama’s desk despite the looming midterm elections next November.

“What we’re seeing is, the conversation is not, ‘Well, if there is a bill,’” she said. “The conversation has become, ‘Well, a bill will have to do these things.’ Now that doesn’t mean you automatically get to 60. Sixty is always a tough number. But I, having worked on the Hill [as an aide to then Sen. Al Gore], having helped to pass legislation, having done so when I was at EPA, it’s a different tone. And I think that is cause for optimism. It won’t be easy. But I think there’s a pathway. I think there is a way to put together the components of what we want and meet the needs of enough senators to get a 60-vote margin.”

I remain optimistic that an economy wide bill will become law next year, as do folks who have far more Hill experience, including my colleague at CAP:

“There is a myth in Washington, perpetrated by politicians and journalists, that in an election year you don’t pass any kind of legislation,” said former Rep. Phil Sharp (D-Ind.), now the head of the nonpartisan think tank Resources for the Future. “The history is the opposite. I defy you to find a major piece of complex environmental legislation that did not pass except near the very tail-end of the session.”

Sharp cited the 1990 Clean Air Act and energy bills enacted during the Carter administration. “All of them came literally in the last hours of the session almost,” Sharp added. “I think that’s a myth we should just get rid of right now.”

Dan Weiss, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, questioned why so many are quick to rule out the bill’s passage in 2010.

“The obituary for this bill is going to be written repeatedly between now and when the president signs it next year,” Weiss said. “More time is always better than less time. But if you look at other pieces of complex legislation. We’re far ahead of where they were.”

When we last left the Chamber of Commerce, Apple was leaving over their ‘frustrating’ global warming denialism.  NRDC’s Pete Altman has the latest on the incredible shrinking Chamber in a piece first published here.

John Broder has an illuminating story in today’s New York Times “Storm Over the Chamber” discussing the US Chamber of Commerce’s climate crisis and how Mr. Donohue’s style exacerbates it.

Tellingly, the story begins with an anecdote that suggests where the US Chamber gets its tin ear.

BACK in the 1990s when Thomas J. Donohue was president of the American Trucking Associations, a subordinate raised a question at a staff meeting.

Some of the association’s members, the aide said, wondered whether it was really necessary for the group’s president to fly on a private jet.

Mr. Donohue, a scrappy Irish-American born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island, turned to his chief of staff and asked how many seats his jet had. “Well, eight, sir,” the aide said. “Tomorrow morning I want you to call and get a 12-seater,” Mr. Donohue shot back. The subject never came up again.

The US Chamber has demonstrated a similar lack of interest in exploring the concerns of its members when it comes to climate change.

Although it has at least made an effort – schizophrenic though it might be – to at least sound as though it isn’t as out of step as it really is. We’ve been keeping a close watch on the Chamber’s rhetoric, through our ad this week and our “WhoDoestheChamberRepresent.org” website and in recent blog posts (here and here.)

Alas, despite the Chamber’s change of tone, it has yet to change the tune. As the New York Times reported

Mr. Donohue would not agree to an interview for this article but provided written answers by e-mail to a number of questions about the chamber’s climate change position. . .

Mr. Donohue said that the chamber had a series of basic principles by which it would judge any legislation on climate change. It supports new nuclear plants, increased domestic oil and gas exploration, research on capturing and storing carbon dioxide emissions, new efficiency measures and provisions to control cost increases associated with emissions reductions. It has not expressed support for any proposals to impose a mandatory cap on greenhouse gas emissions. (emphasis added.)

Aside from wondering why Mr. Donohue suddenly got so shy about talking to a reporter, I couldn’t help but notice the last sentence, which gets to the heart of the questions we’ve been raising about the US Chamber position.

Does this mean that the US Chamber won’t support a mandatory cap?

Or is the US Chamber keeping the door open to the possibility it will at some point support a cap?

Or is the US Chamber just really never going to support serious climate policy, but is trying to avoid saying so?

While we wait for answers, in light of the fact the US Chamber has “not expressed support for any proposals to impose a mandatory cap on green house gas emissions,” how does the Chamber explain its agreement “that the objectives outlined in [Senator Kerry and Graham's NYT] editorial can serve as a solid, workable, commonsense foundation on which to craft a bill,” considering that the Senators stated their main purpose is “advocating aggressive reductions in our emissions of the carbon gases that cause climate change”?

UPDATE: Marc Gunther names Tom Donohue “America’s Worst CEO.” Find out why

From a sharp-eyed reader comes this ad for Humble Oil (which later merged with Standard to become, yes, Exxon). It may win the All Time Millenial Award for Maximal Irony. It’s from a 1962 edition of Life Magazine, available on Google Books (click for larger version):

Hmm, in December 2008, I blogged on an AP story about data presented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union:

More than 2 trillion tons of land ice in Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska have melted since 2003, according to new NASA satellite data that show the latest signs of what scientists say is global warming.

[Note to AP -- "what scientists say is global warming???  I missed that uber-lame construction the first time around.]

And remember that over its lifetime,  “the burning of organic carbon warms the Earth about 100,000 times more from climate effects than it does through the release of chemical energy in combustion,” as climatologist Ken Caldeira and NYU’s Martin Hoffert calculate in an analysis first published on Climate Progress!  Yes, not all the cumulative warming from CO2 occurs right away nor does it all go into melting ice, but the point is we’re just at the very beginning of the mega-melting to come.

I’m filing this under greenwashing because I don’t have a category for unintentional anti-greenwashing — see “Shell’s ironic vision of carbon capture.”

Related Posts:

• Large Antarctic glacier thinning 4 times faster than it was 10 years ago: “Nothing in the natural world is lost at an accelerating exponential rate like this glacier.”
• World’s Glaciers Shrink for 18th Year
• De-Icer: USGS report details “recent dramatic shrinkage” in U.S. glaciers, matching global decline
• Stabilize at 350 ppm or risk ice-free planet, warn NASA, Yale, Sheffield, Versailles, Boston et al

E.U. to Mandate ‘Nearly Zero’ Power Use by Buildings

European legislators and countries struck a deal last night to introduce tough new energy-efficiency regulations for all electricity-using appliances and buildings within the next decade.

Most significantly, the European Union directive will require that nearly all buildings, including large houses, constructed after 2020 include stark efficiency improvements or generate most of their energy from renewable sources, coming close to “nearly zero” energy use.

European countries will also be required to establish a certification system to measure buildings’ energy efficiency. These certificates will be required for any new construction or buildings that are sold or rented to new tenants. Existing buildings will also have to, during any major renovation, improve their efficiency if at all feasible.

Buildings are responsible for about 36 percent of Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions, and stricter efficiency requirements have been sought for the past several years as absolutely necessary for the bloc to meets its goal of cutting emissions 20 percent from 1990 levels by 2020. Other regions should take note, said Andris Piebalgs, the E.U. energy commissioner, in a statement.

“By this agreement, the E.U. is sending a strong message to the forthcoming climate negotiations in Copenhagen,” Piebalgs said. “Improving the energy performance of buildings is a cost effective way of fighting against climate change and improving energy security, while also boosting the building sector and the E.U. economy as a whole.”

A second directive agreed on yesterday will expand the scope of efficiency labeling to all consumer products that use energy, eventually covering everything from hot water taps to vending machines.

U.S. and China reach accord on data collection

The United States and China have agreed to cooperate on developing an inventory of China’s greenhouse gas emissions, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday, an initiative that appears be a response to criticism of Beijing’s data collection.

Several senators whose votes are key to passage of domestic climate legislation, including Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), have questioned whether they will be able to trust any greenhouse gas reductions China reports to the international community. China has surpassed the United States as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases; together they account for roughly 40 percent of the world’s output.

The memorandum of cooperation between China’s National Development and Reform Commission and the EPA calls on the two countries to collaborate in several areas, including “capacity building for developing greenhouse gas inventories.” The two nations have already worked together on monitoring other industrial emissions, such as sulfur dioxide.

“I have to imagine this represents an increased and intensified effort to get China on the path of measuring and reporting its greenhouse gas emissions in a way that’s internationally acceptable,” said Julian L. Wong, a senior policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.

California Requires TVs To Be More Energy Efficient

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California regulators adopted the nation’s first energy-efficiency standards for televisions Wednesday in hopes of reducing electricity use at a time when millions of American households are switching to power-hungry, wide-view, flat-screen, high-definition sets.

The 5-0 vote by the California Energy Commission is just the latest effort by the state to secure its place in the forefront of the environmental movement.

California represents such a big consumer market that environmental groups hope the new standards will lead manufacturers to make energy-saving TVs for the rest of the nation, just as California’s stringent fuel standards for cars and trucks forced automakers to produce more efficient models for all of the U.S.

“Once again, California is leading the way, and we hope others will follow,” said Noah Horowitz, senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The commission estimates that TVs account for about 10 percent of a home’s electricity use. The fear is that energy use will rise as people buy bigger, more elaborate TVs, put more of them in their homes, and watch them longer.

Governors say a clean energy answer is blowing in the wind

The governors of Virginia, Maryland and Delaware have announced a partnership designed to promote and coordinate the development of wind energy off the mid-Atlantic coast.

Officials in the three states said that by working together, they hope to advance the construction of power lines and advocate jointly for federal legislation that would help pave the way for what many expect will become a critical source of electricity for coastal communities.

In a joint statement last week, the three governors said offshore wind energy would help meet the region’s electricity needs while doing the least harm to the environment. They also highlighted its potential to create jobs. In Virginia, officials estimate, construction of wind farms offshore and on land would create more than 3,000 jobs over the next two decades.

“With our extensive coastline and highly educated workforce, Virginia is particularly well suited to explore offshore wind energy opportunities,” Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) said in the statement. “In these tough economic times, it’s more important than ever that we invest in renewable energy sources that will create jobs and provide cleaner, more affordable energy for our families and communities.”

Portuguese wind developer plans $4B U.S. investment

Portugal’s EDP Renewables plans to invest up to $4 billion in U.S. wind farms through 2012 — projects that would generate up to 2 gigawatts and create 5,000 direct jobs, company officials said today.

“We have an ambitious target, and we have a strong commitment to economic development and environmental improvement in the U.S.,” said Antonio Mexia, chairman of EDP Renewables and CEO of its Lisbon-based parent company Energias de Portugal SA.

Key factors driving EDP’s investment decision are state renewable electricity portfolio targets and federal tax incentives, Mexia and other company officials said during a Washington news conference. To date, EDP has received $109 million via Section 1603 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which provides a cash payment in lieu of a tax credit totaling 30 percent of the qualifying cost of a project.

EDP, which owns Houston-based Horizon Wind Energy LLC, has invested all of its Section 1603 money into two U.S. wind farms. EDP plans to apply for additional stimulus grants, as well as utilize a federal production tax credit, as the company develops new wind farms, Mexia said.

How better land-use planning might ‘green’ your wallet

Changing America’s car culture will save citizens money, says a new report that makes the financial case for smart growth policies.

Since the majority of transportation costs are privately borne, the potential to save money is commensurately high, the report says. It analyzed neighborhoods around Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento and San Diego and found that residents of the San Francisco Bay Area saved the most in transportation costs because of their good public transportation system.

Within the Bay Area, residents of the best-connected neighborhoods spent $7,200 less on transportation per year than the residents of the worst-served neighborhoods. In the region, individuals spend $34 billion on overall transportation per year, compared to $4.6 billion spent by public agencies. Of that, most spending is on private transportation — operating and owning vehicles — by a factor of 7-to-1.

Affordable transportation can also offset high housing costs, the report found. While San Francisco has high housing prices, its proximity to public transportation puts it in 11th place in the overall affordability rankings.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, public transportation is also good for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In the Bay Area, households in areas with good transportation and job prospects drive 11,000 fewer miles per year than households in areas with fewer jobs and transportation options.

Seeking Wind Energy, Some Consider the Sea

LAST June in a fjord in southwestern Norway, a 213-foot-tall wind turbine did something large wind turbines normally don’t do: it headed out to sea.

Towed by tugboats, the newly built turbine, with three 139-foot rotor blades and a 2.3-megawatt generator atop the tower, which itself was bolted to a ballasted steel cylinder extending more than 300 feet below the waterline, made its way to a spot six miles off the coast. Once in position it was moored with cables to the seafloor, about 700 feet below.

The project, called Hywind and owned by Statoil, the giant oil and gas company based in Stavanger, Norway, is the world’s first full-scale floating wind turbine. After being hooked up to a transmission cable, it began supplying electricity to the Norwegian power grid on Sept. 21.

“We’ve been baby-sitting the turbine so far,” said Sjur Bratland, asset manager for the project. “The main point for us is not to produce as much power as possible.”

Rather, Mr. Bratland said, over the next two years Hywind will test the feasibility of what some people think may be the next big idea in alternative energy: generating power from the winds over the open ocean, far from land.

“Our real opportunity for ocean energy is deepwater wind,” said Habib J. Dagher, director of the Advanced Structures and Composites Center at the University of Maine, who with an $8 million grant from the federal Department of Energy is organizing a consortium of universities, companies, government agencies and nonprofit groups to develop floating wind turbines in the United States.

Browner: U.S. in ‘good standing’ heading into Copenhagen talks

White House climate czar Carol Browner downplayed the idea that the absence of a domestic emissions law would hinder U.S. leverage in Copenhagen and said the U.S. could tout major accomplishments heading into next month’s international climate talks.

In wide-ranging remarks at a climate conference in Washington, D.C., Wednesday, she also said President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao made substantial progress in their Beijing discussions this week.

Browner, the senior White House energy and climate adviser, pointed to tens of billions of dollars in “clean energy” financing in the stimulus law, as well as House passage of broad energy and climate legislation. A slow-moving Senate bill has been put off until next year.

She also cited several steps the administration has taken using its existing power, such as EPA and Transportation Department work to create joint vehicle mileage and greenhouse gas standards, as well as Energy Department appliance efficiency standards.

“We think we are in very, very good standing that this president has clearly demonstrated incredible leadership,” she said at a conference hosted by The Economist.

Image Credit:  Jetson Green.

Rest comfortably knowing that NYHOTEL drinking cups are 100% sanitary and are completely GREEN compliant.

Hmm.

First, I had thought glass was a clear winner life-cycle-wise last night, but the jury appears to be out and you have to reuse the glass cups a lot to break even — all things being equal.

Second, however, all things aren’t quite equal.  These paper cups were individually wrapped in plastic, no doubt to be persuasive about the sanitary claim.  That’s a lot of waste.

Third, even if it’s a wash, so to speak, what the heck is this claim of “completely GREEN compliant” designed to reassure the user?  It seemed pretty bogus at the time, and I found nothing on Google today.

In any case, I didn’t rest comfortably.  [Note to self:  What else is new?]  I’d have been happier without the note.

As Kate Sheppard wrote in Mother Jones:

Oliver North is using climate change denialism to fundraise for his non-profit group Freedom Alliance. In a six-page stream-of-consciousness fundraising letter, North warns of the “liberty killing ‘Cap and Trade’ boondoggle” that socialists are plotting in response to the “phony climate ‘crisis.’ ” The solution? Write him a check.

Climate change would appear to have little connection to Freedom Alliance’s stated mission, which is “to advance the American heritage of freedom by honoring and encouraging military service, defending the sovereignty of the United States and promoting a strong national defense.” And it’s not clear which roles on North’s resume—his past notoriety in the Iran-Contra scandal or his current gig as a Fox News host and commentator—best qualify him to weigh in on climate science.

Nevertheless, in his letter and a petition sent to supporters, North mashes together all manner of wacky climate change denier talking points.

UPDATE:  Below is a repost of Brad Johnson’s analysis on Think Progress, which notes that at one point, North attacks wind farms as “virtual bird eating machines”:

Lt. Col. Oliver North (Ret.) has launched a new war against the “cap and tax” plans of President Barack Obama and the “socialists in Congress.” North — when not serving as a Fox News correspondent — runs the Freedom Alliance, an organization supposedly dedicated to “defending the sovereignty of the United States and promoting a strong national defense.” In a mailing acquired by ThinkProgress, North pleads for “your most-special and generous donation” to fight the “‘cap and tax’ scheme and the myth of global warming.” North warns that if “Barack Obama and the socialists in Congress” establish a system to limit global warming pollution, it will be “at our nation’s peril!”

Never mind the fact that there is no proof of man-made global warming.

Never mind the fact that Europe's "Cap and Tax" policies have failed to lower greenhouse gases.

Never mind the fact that the world has actually been cooling for the last ten years.

And never mind that there is no evidence that greenhouse gases have anything to do with global warming in the first place.

No sir! None of this matters to Barack Obama and the socialists in Congress.

Because what they really want is to control your life and mine . . .

. . . and we allow them to succeed at our nation's peril!

North goes on to attack windmill farms as “virtual bird eating machines.” The attached “petition to President Barack Obama” claims that the “dirty little secret” of global warming “is that it is a scam designed at increasing the wealth of frauds like Al Gore and nations like Red China at America’s expense.”

In reality, the “scientific evidence is clear,” as the American Association for the Advancement of Science said in 2006, that “global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society.” In reality, the European Trading System has worked, and Europe is on track to easily beat its 2012 Kyoto Protocol commitments. In reality, the last ten years are the hottest decade in history. In reality, as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has said, climate legislation will allow us to “help this planet” that “is in peril, create millions of new jobs for Americans that need them, and to become energy independent to make us safer.”

But none of this matters to Ollie North and his conservative compatriots.

In the mailing, North notes that he “served in the United States Marine Corps for 22 years.” He does not, however, mention that he was convicted by a jury for illegally selling weapons to Iran during the Reagan administration.

Download the Freedom Alliance mailing and petition.

JR:  At the end of the fundraising letter, North adds this P.S. at the end:

Again, ever wonder why the liberals now always try to use the new term “catastrophic climate change” rather than “global warming.” It’s because it allows them to blame EVERY weather event (heat waves, blizzards, floods, draughts, hurricanes, etc.) on you, me, and our current use of fossil fuels. The goal? To destroy our way of life and con us into giving away billions of dollars to solve a non-crisis we have no power to prevent, even if it were real! I hope and pray that you understand – and that you will sign our PETITION TO PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA and rush it and your gift of $20, $25, $35, $50, $75, $100, or more back to me here at Freedom Alliance today.

JR:  Hmm.  I still use the term “global warming” all the time — guess I didn’t get the memo.  Ironically, many liberals are using the term “catastrophic climate change” and “global warming” less these days, but that’s another story.