Seafoam Hits Fan Over Hurricane Research
Kerry Emanuel, MIT professor of meteorology, ignited a storm of worldwide media attention in 2005, when he published a paper in Nature linking global warming with increased hurricane intensity. The paper appeared just three weeks before hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, and the reported connection with climate change spawned big headlines.
In the years since, a number of scientific papers have appeared on the subject, some supporting Emanuel’s original findings, some disputing them, and a vigorous debate has raged on. So it’s no surprise that when Emanuel published another paper on the subject earlier this month, it quickly attracted attention.
While the first paper looked at the record of actual hurricanes for the last 30 years, the new one used computer models to look both backward in time and ahead at what could happen two centuries from now. The results were a bit more complex than the earlier ones. Below is an interview with him about the subject and the media coverage.
Q: How did the new results differ from your 2005 paper?
A: I got results with a mixed message. On the one hand, it pretty much backed up the conclusions from what had happened earlier: There was a big increase in storm power. On the other hand, when that technique was used to go forward in time, the increase in hurricane power was much more modest. Although we get variations from one model to another [of the seven global circulation models used in this study], even the greatest increases were no more than what we’ve already seen. So there’s a dichotomy — what you see going into the future is not nearly as dramatic as what you would get if you just extrapolate from the past.
Q: How do you interpret that discrepancy?
A: First, it might be because the past had little to do with climate change. Second, it might be because there’s a discrepancy in the model. Or third, less likely, the climate may be different in a rapidly changing world than in one that has equilibrated. I don’t have a strong bias as to which one of these is responsible.
Q: What does this say about the connection between global warming and hurricane power?
A: Often these increases in hurricane power, thanks largely to my paper, are seen as directly related to global warming. But it should be seen as more complex than that.
Q: How much confidence do you have in the new method used in this paper?
A: The technique pretty much verifies what we see in nature. It checks out well when we apply past data — it predicts hurricane activity that’s pretty consonant with what we see. We get about the right number and magnitude of hurricanes. We’re inferring the hurricanes from the climate data. That means that the technique works.
Q: How do you feel about the media coverage of the new paper?
A: I thought [the Houston Chronicle story] wasn’t bad except for the title [which was "Hurricane expert reconsiders global warming's impact"]. The actual content was okay. In other cases, the people you expect to put a spin on it, put a spin on it. Skeptics’ blogs reported that I’d reversed my position. Other blogs latched onto the fact that we’re still predicting a very substantial increase. There’s a lot to spin.
How do you write a paper that you know could be spun both ways? You just put out a paper that lays it out as best you can.
Q: Were you surprised by the reaction?
A: It is treacherous. Most of what I publish is not subject to public scrutiny; I’m writing for fellow scientists. But in this charged atmosphere [on global warming], most of what you write gets dissected by people outside the community.
[The Chronicle story] was clever to point out that people who are crowing [over the claim of a reversal] are in effect crowing over the same climate models that they spend most of their time criticizing.
When Fox News called me up, they started from the premise that I’d reversed myself. I said that’s really not true, it’s just that things are more complicated. It was a very short interview. I guess that’s what happens when people don’t spin things the way they think.
Q: Where does this research go from here?
A: The first thing we’re going to try to do is to try to figure out why the simulation of the last 25 years did what it did. Was it the temperature changing, the wind shear changing, the humidity changing — what was it that caused the increase? Then, we can run the models forward [with different conditions] to see what’s responsible for what. I think we will be able to figure out why the future effects differ from what’s happened in the recent past. That’s what everyone wants to know — the ‘why.’
Also, we can look at more regional effects. All we looked at was basin-wide effects. There could be differences — for example, hurricanes could be more easily steered offshore, or more preferentially steered onshore. Even if the basin-wide effects are the same, you can get regional differences that could be important. The technique can do that, but we haven’t looked at that yet.
Why It Pays To Build Efficiently
One of the things I hear a lot in my new position is that people want to build their new homes energy efficiently but think that they cannot afford to. Whenever I hear this I always say without hesitation “You can’t afford NOT to build you home energy efficiently!”. There are huge misconceptions out there about the costs, methods and effectiveness of building new homes efficiently. Most new home builders do not help the situation and will tell prospective customers that adding more insulation to their house, installing a geothermal or solar heating system or building to take advantage of passive solar gains will add an unreasonable amount of cost and time delay to the building process.
Fortunately there are free resources out there for anyone to dispel these myths. A free software package from Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) can be downloaded called HOT2000 and it allows anyone to do energy modeling on their home and actually forecast what various changes will do to the energy consumption of there homes! It has a fairly shallow learning curve, with a windows interface, drop down menus and check boxes, and comes with a good help file and example files to build on.
Based on three common home plans (a 1600sf rancher, a 2400sf two story executive and a 1500sf split entry) I modelled what the difference was in energy consumption between standard construction (2×6 walls w/ fibreglass batts, blown-in attic insulation to 9″ and uninsulated basements) and minimal energy efficient upgrades (addition 1-1/2″ rigid foam to walls, 5 more inches of attic insulation and 2″ rigid foam to foundation walls and slabs) and found that in almost all cases the additional costs of the upgrades to the mortgage payment was offset by almost double in monthly energy savings! The bottom line was the cost of ownership (mortgage AND energy bills) was always lower with the energy efficient home over the standard construction home. It broke down like this:
2 Story executive style home:
$1355 in energy savings per year or $112 per month
$6983 added to mortgage or $45 per month
1 Story ranch style home:
$1327 in energy savings per year or $110 per month
$8110 added to mortgage or $52 per month
Split entry home:
$700 in energy savings per year or $58 per month
$6875 added to mortgage or $45 per month
*savings are using Hot2000 with PEI energy costs per April 1, 2008; mortgage costs are estimates.
This makes sense intuitively as split entries are fundamentally a more efficient style home and thus the savings, while still worth while, aren’t as great as the bigger less efficient plans. I also ran the numbers using a standard slab on grade (outside perimeter of slab only insulated) for the rancher and executive homes and going to a fully insulated slab on grade and the savings are still substantial. We are in the process of running numbers on the costs and savings of super insulated buildings and on alternative forms of building but the message seems to be consistant:
INSULATION IS ONE OF THE BEST METHOD OF SAVING ENERGY!!!
Related and perhaps more important is the correlation between home size and energy costs. For every cubic foot you reduce the size of your home you lower your mortgage AND reduce you energy costs!
These savings are all BEFORE you look at heating/cooling/ventilation equipment. It’s important to eliminate the waste before looking at efficiency of equipment. If you can make your home as well insulated and tight as possible you may be able to go with a smaller capacity heating system which adds another level of energy savings to the mix before you even look at the efficiency rating!
If you are building a new home soon or are considering renovationg your existing home to make it more efficient, I hope you consider insulation home size as much or more than efficient appliances and equipment, it really is the right place to start.
Read more tips at greenspree.ca or http://thesietch.org/mysietch/greenspree
Why The Public Can Change (Conditions Apply)
This is an extract from a new essay published on The Earth Blog, which addresses the vital question, “How can we ever hope to change enough people’s minds so that catastrophic environmental change can be prevented?”
On March 11, 2006 – just over two years ago as I write these words – I published an article on The Earth Blog called, “Why The Public Won’t Change”, opening with the words:
Watch the streets around you - do you see a concerned populace, driving little, walking lots, happily queuing for buses, fighting for renewable electricity, demanding local produce?
Of course not - the general public really don’t care about the climate. Campaigners can try and make themselves feel like they (we) are in touch with the population, but this will not happen unless they feel like the population - like they feel they don’t need to care. Campaigners are, and always will be, in the minority - the public look after number 1, occasionally numbers 2, 3, 4 etc. in the form of family (although the numbers driving their kids around smog ridden streets, unsecured, chatting on their mobile phones, or slumped in front of the TV while the kids learn about the wonders of the XBox, make me doubt this) - they are not interested in saving the planet.
It’s two years on and, as much as we hear of a great raising of consciousness across the globe towards the dangers of climatic change and global environmental degradation, the picture as far as public action goes is identical. Environmental campaigners are trying to turn around an ocean going oil tanker by offering it small inducements and little taps on the sides of its vast metallic bulk – but the tanker keeps gliding onwards. I realise now, that when the article first came out I was spot on about one key thing: the public, as a body, simply don’t want to change. This applies to the vast majority of people in industrial civilization – through a combination of lifelong brainwashing and a general apathy about the condition they are in – but it doesn’t apply to everyone. As I learnt from a social analyst friend of mine, the biggest mistake campaigners and reformers have made in approaching the problem is change is that they have assumed we behave the same – as though the population really is an oil tanker. It is far better to assume that the population is like a shoal of fish, a swarm of bees or a flock of birds.
In 2006 I thought that we could take the “oil tanker” approach, by changing the systems that are causing the problems from the inside out, through government lobbying, mass consciousness raising, corporate improvement and so many other fruitless methods. It became clear that I was hopelessly wrong; and so were (and still are) the vast majority of campaigners.
The full essay can be found by following this link.
Racing Industry And Air Industry Fight It Out: Hilarity Ensues
There are few things more entertaining than when two different businesses, both loaded with money, battle it out for supremacy , with the only losers being one or other industry. This particular battle is taking place between the multi-millionaire (billionaire) stable owners of Newmarket, in the English Midlands, and the air industry, led by National Air Traffic Services, a recently privatised air infrastructure business. It has become a turf war…literally.
From the point of view of the avid greenwash spotter, anything that promises to dent the imperialism of the air industry has got to be good news; yet the racing industry is run by people who spend their lives dashing from one international stable to another — by plane, of course — only interspersed by journeys in their leather and burnished walnut lined Range Rovers to and from large lunches where they discuss how much more money they can make.
Surprisingly, I don’t have any sympathy for either side.
[Read the rest at The Unsuitablog]
Palm Oil Labeling Legislation - Personal Story Of Taking Action
I was just a normal, everyday mother of three living a good life in Australia, minding my own business, when a public tragedy occurred that changed my perspective. The famous Crocodile Hunter and passionate conservationist, Steve Irwin, died suddenly in a stingray barb accident. Reeling from news of his death, I decided that more ‘little people’ like myself needed to take environmental action in order to fill his big shoes.
I decided to concentrate on orangutans because if we can’t prevent the extinction of the great apes, what hope do we have of saving any creature? I learned that the development of palm oil plantations is the single greatest threat to the survival of the wild orangutan. These plantations not only take over their homes, but orangutans are killed when they wander, displaced and starving, onto the plantations looking for food.
There is already much deforested and idle land in Indonesia where palm oil could be grown but companies choose to continue logging and reaping the immediate profits from the sale of the timber. These companies are usually owned by rich multi-nationals from Malaysia and China.
Incredible animals like the Sumatran tiger, Sumatran rhino, clouded leopard, Asian elephant, sun bear, gibbon and many species of primates live in these forests. They are not taken into care when their forest homes are logged and then burnt to the ground; they are killed and eaten or sold into the pet trade or used in Asian medicines.
I was shocked and outraged and determined not to purchase or consume any more palm oil. I went to my supermarket intent on reading labels and choosing alternative vegetable oils. And then I discovered that palm oil was labeled under the umbrella of “vegetable oil” and that there was no easy way of identifying this ingredient. Frustrated, I decided to take the professional approach; I made a formal application to the Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) to label palm oil.
In March 2008, eighteen months later, the FSANZ Board met and reviewed my application. Their preliminary opinion, subject to my response, was to reject my application on the grounds that it did not fall within the scope of the FSANZ’s legislative capabilities. Using the domestic market to regulate international environmental affairs was not their job. Also, my application was not relevant to public health issues and this is the main domain of the FSANZ.
In my response to the FSANZ, I have pointed out that in 2000 they saw fit to label genetically modified food (GM food) while taking pains to reassure the public that there were no safety concerns. I have also argued that palm oil is high in saturated fat which is very unhealthy and that the public has a right to try to avoid it. I have argued that the nutritional information panel (NIP), which is mandatory for food in Australia and New Zealand, is inadequate for informing the public about their saturated fat intake because it requires them to add up every gram of fat in their diet. It would be much easier to simply avoid palm oil.
I am also writing letters to the Australian Federal government asking them to expand the FSANZ Act to include ethical and environmental concerns. With the reality of climate change upon us, I believe that every government needs to reform legislation to recognise environmental priorities and accomodate urgent environmental needs. There will be a need to label foods or products that contribute significantly to climate change to enable the public to take responsibility and affect supply through reduced demand.
I am a member of the Palm Oil Action Group (POAG), which is a coalition of non governmental organisations (NGO’s) in Australia who have banded together for a common aim, to find solutions to the palm oil issues. Every NGO in this group has written a letter to FSANZ in support of my application to label palm oil. The POAG’s website is: www.palmoilaction.org.au
I would encourage every concerned individual to write to their government and Food Standards Body and request that environmental laws be strengthened and palm oil be labeled. I would be especially grateful if Australian and New Zealand citizens wrote to FSANZ and governments asking for the labeling of palm oil.
With palm oil labeling, a level of transparency will be introduced to the market which will give consumers the opportunity to use their purchasing power to influence the practices of these multinational companies. It is my hope that the conscious consumer can play an integral part in finding a solution to the tragedy that is unfolding in South East Asia. We need to do everything we can to save the magic of our rainforest biodiversity, combat deforestation-driven climate change and save ourselves from ourselves.
The Dying Arctic: Could Be Ice Free By 2008 (Thats This Year By The Way)
This goes well with this.
More here.
Roundtable On Sustainable Palm Oil: Snake Oil!
Ever get the feeling you’ve been had? It’s an iconic quote from a punk legend, but as with all great sayings, it can be applied in many different places. This is one example: the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, an industry talking shop if ever there was one and, like the ineffectual light-green environmental groups who “fight” for changes to government policy and send out gleeful press releases whenever a corporation promises to behave itself, the RSPO are actually making things far worse than if the public were left to their own devices. Sustainable palm oil is simply snake oil in a clever diguise: it doesn’t exist and it never will do.
Here’s how it works.
1) As a group of big businesses whose primary interest is to ensure the expansion of the lucrative palm oil industry – retailers, traders, processors, growers, investors; that sort of thing — set up a shell organisation that claims it is going to make the industry “sustainable”.
2) Call in some gullible (yes, I said “gullible”) NGOs and environmentalists and say that they can have a seat on this august, influential body if they allow business to continue as before — but they will be allowed to suggest changes to the industry providing it doesn’t affect the business model.
3) Repeatedly announce to the world, through member companies such as Sainsburys and Unilever, that agreements are being reached and work is moving on swiftly to make plantations sustainable, but that we have to give them time because this is a tough job, and there are so many products that contain this oil it is just “impossible” to do this any other way.
4) Do almost nothing for years while counting the massive profit that has been made from cheap oil being grown on recently deforested land using cheap labour.
5) After a few years say that the there are so many plantations that no more deforestation has to take place. Meanwhile the South East Asian rainforest has ceased to exist, carbon levels through wood and peat burning have boosted the greenhouse effect, and people have still not realised they have been well and truly greenwashed.
[Read the rest at The Unsuitablog]
Backyard Permaculture
Governor Patrick Trying To Make Massachusetts Into Green Energy Hub
Deval Patrick (my governor), making his second appearance at MIT this month, told an enthusiastic crowd at Kresge Auditorium on Tuesday–the 39th anniversary of the first Earth Day–that clean energy has the potential to bring about an economic bonanza for the commonwealth at the same time that it improves the planet’s well-being.
“If we get this right, the whole world will be our customer,” Patrick said of his plans to make Massachusetts a hotbed of both innovation and implementation in solar, wind and other clean energy alternatives.
Patrick said state regulations must be updated to give renewable energy projects a fair shake. At present, he said, there are “built-in biases” that favor fossil fuel. For example, a provision that allows the state to override local objections and permit the construction of new power plants only applies to large plants, and thus almost exclusively affects fossil-fuel plants. “Ironically,” he said, “the only [renewable] plant large enough to be affected by this law is the most controversial–Cape Wind, which I enthusiastically support.”
Despite strong opposition to that offshore wind project from most of Massachusetts’ political leaders, Patrick said that if it does get built as the nation’s first major offshore wind installation, it would be a powerful symbol of a new direction in energy policy.
A new energy reform bill now being hammered out in a state legislature conference committee, Patrick said, “will revolutionize energy policy in this state.” One of the reforms he wants to see incorporated in the bill is a restructuring of electric utility regulation to promote energy efficiency–”the cleanest energy of all,” he said.
Currently, rate structures “reward our utilities for selling as much as they can,” but that must be changed in order to reap the enormous benefits of efficiency. Changing that policy will be “good news for consumers, and good news for renewable energy,” he said.
In addition, to promote the development of solar energy, Massachusetts has forged “the first alliance of utilities and solar manufacturers in the whole country,” Patrick said. One sign of that alliance is the recent announcement of Evergreen Solar–a manufacturer of solar panels that was a spin-off of MIT research–to triple its manufacturing capacity in the state, creating 1,000 jobs. In addition, state rebates will pay up to 60 percent of homeowners’ costs for installing photovoltaic panels.
“Thanks to places like MIT, with its Energy Initiative, Massachusetts is becoming a center of solar research,” he said. Noting an overall U.S. trend away from manufacturing jobs and toward information-based work, he said that “Clean energy is one knowledge-based technology that produces jobs across the spectrum”–everything from construction trade work to manufacturing, managerial, academic and research positions.
Patrick said that while some might find it odd to spend Earth Day talking about the building of a new industry, it really isn’t. “I hope everyone will help us build, right here in Massachusetts, a clean energy industry that saves the world,” he said, to a resounding standing ovation.
Arctic Melting Faster Than Even The Doomsday Scenarios
In yet another series of crappy news coming from the poles of this planet global warming is having a greater and faster impact on the Arctic than previously thought, according to a new study by the global conservation organization WWF (pdf).
The new report, called Arctic Climate Impact Science – An Update Since ACIA, represents the most wide-ranging reviews of arctic climate impact science since the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) was published in 2005.
The new study found that change was occurring in all arctic systems, impacting on the atmosphere and oceans, sea ice and ice sheets, snow and permafrost, as well as species and populations, food webs, ecosystems and human societies. In essence fucking up everything.
Melting of arctic sea ice and the Greenland Ice Sheet was found to be severely accelerated, now even prompting the expert scientists to discuss whether both may be close to their “tipping point” (the point where, because of climate change, natural systems may experience sudden, rapid and possibly irreversible change).
“The magnitude of the physical and ecological changes in the Arctic creates an unprecedented challenge for governments, the corporate sector, community leaders and conservationists to create the conditions under which arctic natural systems have the best chance to adapt,” said Dr Martin Sommerkorn, one of the report’s authors and Senior Climate Change Adviser at WWF International’s Arctic Program. “The debate can no longer focus only on creating protected areas and allowing arctic ecosystems to find their balance. At the same time, we need to simultaneously reduce the vulnerability of social and environmental systems of the Arctic by reducing threats from human activity and building ecosystem resilience — the ability of ecosystems to remain stable when under a lot of pressure.”
According to last year’s reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, if the entire Greenland Ice Sheet were to melt, sea levels would rise 7.3 metres, making its status a global concern. While it is currently impossible to accurately predict how much of the ice sheet will be melting, and over which time, the new report shows there has been a far greater loss of ice mass in the past few years, much more than had been predicted by scientific models.
Likewise, the loss of summer arctic sea ice has increased dramatically, with record lows reached in 2005 and — way more dramatic — in 2007. In September 2007, the sea ice shrank to 39 per cent below its 1979-2000 mean, the lowest since satellite monitoring began in 1979 and also the lowest for the entire 20th century based on monitoring from ships and aircraft.
“When you look in detail at the science behind the recent arctic changes it becomes painfully clear how our understanding of climate impacts lags behind the changes that we are already seeing in the Arctic,” said Sommerkorn. “This is extremely dangerous, as some of these arctic changes have the potential to substantially warm the Earth beyond what models currently forecast. That is because climate models don’t currently adequately incorporate important underlying drivers of the arctic changes we are already observing, such as the interaction between sea ice thickness and water temperature.”
The Arctic is not only one of the places on Earth most vulnerable to climate change, but also a place where vulnerability is of urgent global relevance. WWF calls for a two-pronged strategy to minimize the impacts of climate change. “We need to reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases to levels that will avoid the continued warming of the Arctic and the anticipated resulting disruption of the global climate system,” said Sommerkorn.
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