Yet another reason why leasing more territory for offshore drilling is a ridiculous idea: 30 million acres of land already leased for oil and gas drilling has gone unused.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...

Call me an optimist.  Coal is king, tar sands oil is booming, the arctic is melting, tropical cyclones keep setting new records, and my own city is still flooded.  Yet, in these times, a revolution in both energy and electrified transportation is taking place right beneath our noses, and perhaps nowhere are we seeing the seeds of this being planted more than on the island of Oahu.

Read on to learn more about the world you may be leaving to your grandchildren and the role Hawaii's third largest island may play in bringing it about.

The NYT and WSL (paid) have both reported in the past week on the White House's efforts to bury an EPA analysis showing that cutting greenhouse gases would generate between $500 billion and $2 trillion in net benefits over the next three decades.  This is another episode in a long and sad history of the Bush Administration -- ostensibly committed to cost-benefit analysis -- abusing or ignoring this tool to push through its agenda.  

For example, under President Bush, the EPA supported the centerpiece of the long defunct Bush environmental plan – the "Clear Skies Act" – with a cost-benefit analysis that was roundly criticized for devaluing the lives of senior citizens, leading to unjustifiably weak caps on important air pollutants.  

As books go, this one is very short. That, however, is one of it's strengths. By leaving out the details of climate change, which one can find in many other books and reports, and focusing instead on a synthesis of our current knowledge of climate science, Dr. Emanuel has written an extremely useful summary.

I have read many books on global warming, climate change, or, to use the term that I prefer, Climaticide. This volume is one of the most useful for the non-scientist because it presents all the major concepts in a concise, clearly written, yet comprehensive account.

Although there have been a couple of exceptions recently (see here and here), the Traditional Media continues to report on extreme weather events: flooding, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes and drought, etc. as if they were isolated occurrences, without any context. This, despite the facts that the IPCC (see Table 3.2 in the 2007 Summary Report) and most recently NOAA (see Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate), foresee an increase in precisely these kinds of extreme weather as a result of our continuing Climaticide.

Given that it is vitally important for the public to know both the context and the details of the relationship between Climaticide and extreme weather I have started a petition (sign here) demanding that the Traditional Media provide that context in its reporting.

If you didn't see the Harry Reid "coal is making us sick" video yet, check it out - its only 30 seconds or so, but its definitely tapped into public sentiment, if over 360,000 hits on Youtube means anything.

The new poll released today by Pew Research Center shows what a tough road we have ahead of us in the fight against climate change:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...

The poll released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center shows nearly half of those surveyed — or 47 percent — now rate energy exploration, drilling and building new power plants as the top priority, compared with 35 percent who believed that five months earlier.

The Pew poll, conducted in late June, showed the number of people who consider energy conservation as more important declined by 10 percentage points since February from a clear majority to 45 percent. People are now about evenly split on which is more important.

Cross posted from Vietnam Sustainable Climate Change Adaptation Network

This excellent article in the UK Independent takes a very human look at the climate change impacts already ravaging Bangladesh, and at the nation's uncertain future.   Especially relevant to Vietnam--the reporter's ground-check of the claims of scientists who believe the IPCC's predictions on sea-level rise in their 2007 report were far too conservative.

Harry Reid spoke bluntly on energy issues.  Looking the Faux and Balanced cameras square on, he spoke truth:  

Coal makes us sick ...

This is an important statement.  Reid is speaking truth to an audience that isn't used to hearing it.

Pushed from center stage by the expected record arctic ice and permafrost melt, tropical rain forest destruction has been elbowing it's way back through the smoke and into view.      

Papua New Guinea's rain forests disappearing faster than thought is one such look:

Previously, the article states, the forest loss was estimated at 139,000 hectares per year between 1990 and 2005.  But now?

Using satellite images to reveal changes in forest cover between 1972 and 2002...Papua New Guinea (PNG) lost more than 5 million hectares of forest over the past three decades...Worse, deforestation rates may be accelerating, with the pace of forest clearing reaching 362,000 hectares (895,000 acres) per year in 2001. The study warns that at current rates 53 percent of the country's forests could be lost or seriously degraded by 2021.

That's an enormous increase.

An article by Dee Boersma in this month's edition of BioScience details an alarming decline in the populations of different species of penguins.  The journal, referenced at EurekAlert, tells the story of how not just climate change, but also "oil pollution, depletion of fisheries and rampant coastline development" has led to massive drops in penguin populations.  The population of Adelie and Chinstrap penguins, which reside on the Antarctic peninsula, has been cut in half since 1970.  The colonies of Magellanic penguins on the coast of Argentina has also been cut in half.  African penguins suffered a much larger hit, over time, dropping from 1.5 million pairs one hundred years ago to just 63,000 pairs today.  Boersma indicates "penguins are sounding the alarm for potentially catastrophic changes in the world's oceans."

UPDATE: I know that some of this has been covered before but I want to provide an overview of the entire boondoggle. I do need to apologize to mnemosyne9 however for the similarity to the title of his/her diary. I did not discover it until after having published this one.  Mea culpa.

Let's start with some background:

In April 2003, in a move consistent with the hostile approach that the Bush Administration has taken toward public health, the environment and environmental regulation, the US Environmental Protection Agency denied a petition from the International Center for Technology Assessment and a number of other organizations to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles.

As a result, 12 states, three cities and 13 environmental groups filed suit against the EPA to force it to comply with its obligations under the Clean Air Act.

We are all familiar with the common arguments made as to why we should act to slow and stop climate change: sea levels are rising, species are dying, millions of people will suffer.  I have spent the last few years studying these effects.  Though the science is there (and becoming evermore concrete by the day) and the ethical arguments are strong, they will never be enough to convince everyone.  Too many people have been made skeptical by the disinformation campaign of the right, to ever "fall for" the scientific evidence and moral arguments.  Furthermore, our reliance on these arguments can only get us so far and win over only so many people.  In order to act or call for action, many people need to realize the direct benefits action on climate change will have for them, and sadly, for too many Americans the greatest direct benefit to be realized is purely monetary.

Therefore, it might be in the best interest of the progressive movement to reframe the debate on climate change to focus on some of the glanced over benefits of climate change action.  Here are three arguments that may go a long way achieving our goals both on climate change and to further progressive movement, while convincing voters to act on climate change.

Yes, you read that right. First covered only by foreign media it has now been picked up by US media, CBS and CNN. They are saying that for the first time in recorded history the North Pole may be completely free of Ice by the end of the Summer.

This seems like a staggering development and although they are saying that it won't have any immediate significant effects, I for one find that hard to believe. For example what happens to the arctic wildlife such as Polar bears? And what about world sea levels?

Video below the fold

Mike Davis, the author of Planet of Slums, has a new piece up at The Nation about the science, economics, and politics of global climate change.  If you haven’t yet read it, you should.  But be warned: he paints a bleak portrait.  

It was heartening news from Kos that a recent poll shows Obama ahead in South Florida, thereby putting the state truly into play.   But given the utter insanity that is Florida electoral politics - not too heartening.  If we want to ensure an Obama victory in Florida we need a paradigm shift away from Cuba, away from immigration and the drug war and health care - and even energy for that matter.  Obama should clear the deck in Florida for a new "single issue".  

That issue, I dare say, will be/can be: Global Warming, or Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW).    

It is time to start planning how you will get around after the Oil Age, kossacks.

The rest of the world knows this is the end of The Age Of Oil.

Our planes are dropping from the skies. Truck drivers are striking on the highways. Our oil-based agriculture is going belly-up. We are scraping the bottom of the barrel. Gas prices will not  be going down.

I'm an old radical who raised her kids on the following meme (long ago, when the drug war began), "If you want to see people give away freedom, make them scared.  Make them feel threatened."

We're about to get a helluva scare.  Are you doing your bit to minimize it?  Or are you just waiting for the government to deal with it?  Because if you're waiting, you can probably flush the Constitution.

There's an elephant in the room, and we're busy picking at its toes.