And they also say that Elvis is not dead. But alas… the answer is no, we are not saved. Things are actually getting worse because of the so-called “flattening emissions.” This needs to be said over and over: the only way to treat the vast amount of long-lived warming pollutants already emitted into our sky…
First published on Truthout December 26, 3015, by Bruce Melton. Climate science is way out in front of climate policy. Commitments at the United Nations Climate Conference in Paris pale in comparison to those from the Kyoto Protocol with its beginnings in the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. The cheap and unambiguous solution of removing CO2…
In the run up to the Paris climate talks, current policy is far behind. Virtually unknown is science stating that the solutions to treating climate pollution are simple, cheap and radically change a generation of policy we are currently trying to implement. Legacy climate policy being enacted today, and proposed at the Paris climate talks is…
First published on Truthout.org April 24, 2015. “The best estimate of the human-induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming [from 1951 through 2010].” IPCC 2013, Summary for Policy Makers.(1) This statement differs radically from the almost ubiquitous understanding that part of global warming has been caused by humanity and part is natural. In…
Coal definitely creates less net warming in the short-term because of aerosols. Aerosols pollution emitted from coal is basically smog. The sulfates in smog rom burning fossil fuels are global cooling pollutants. Coal has far more sulfate pollution than oil and oil has far more sulfates than natural gas. Though natural gas emits less CO2…
First published on Truthout, December 26, 2014. As we move into 2015, the latest climate science continues to diverge from policy. New science tells us that, because of short-lived climate pollutants, current policies dealing with carbon dioxide pollution alone will likely produce more warming than doing nothing at all. Complete Article
First Published on Truthout, August 27, 2014 (link) The fundamental climate change policy question today is not how much we should reduce carbon dioxide emissions by when, but what will currently proposed carbon dioxide emissions reductions do to our climate in the near-term? In addition, what are the ramifications of short-lived climate pollutants that are…
For a generation we have proposed climate pollution control policy based on the 100-year time frame and simple “test tube” lab evaluation of the warming potential of individual greenhouse gases (also called “global warming potential” or GWP). This was once enough to prevent dangerous climate change, but the times have changed. Not only do we…
(First published on Truthout April 2, 2014) America’s emissions are not falling, as suggested by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). The two main reasons are offshored goods and services and fracked natural gas. The EIA does two things that obscure reality when evaluating emissions. One is that it counts only emissions made in the…
Even though global emissions are way up, US carbon dioxide emissions appear to be way down; down 16 percent since the peak in 2007. This would be good, but it’s a mirage. In 2011, 1.5 gigatons of CO2 were offshored in China (mostly) through goods produced there and shipped to the US. This leaves the…
CO2 Emissions Rise a Whopping 6 Percent! Emissions in the U.S. rose 3.2 percent from 2009 to 2010, but they were still 3.7 percent below 2008 levels. This was not the case across large parts of the developing world. While many areas in Europe were mirroring U.S. emissions, many developing nations saw emissions skyrocket. When…
ebruary 5, 2011 – The 2009 data have been crunched at the U.S. Energy Information Agency. They have tallied the world’s CO2 emissions for us. You can see the raw data at the link below. U.S emissions have fallen 10 percent during the recession, China’s emissions, after being ranked number 2 behind the U.S. in…
January 1, 2011 CO2 A researcher at the University of Exeter in the UK leads a team that has published a paper in Nature Geoscience about projections for 2011 CO2 emissions. Based on emissions declines during the recession and projections of economic out put for 2011, the team has found that CO2 emissions will likely…
The science has changed again. This time, things are really upside down. How are we supposed to know which target to shoot? We live, we learn. Science goes on, especially climate science. There is an extreme need for more knowledge about our climate. This has been obvious to the climate scientists for years. The titles in…
Transportation (On-road in the chart) produces more warming than coal, and in fact, all power generation combined. A study from Columbia University in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science has been the first to look at the big picture. Burning fossil fuels, or clearing forest, landfills or agriculture – all create both positive…
Traditional methods of determining CO2 emissions are based on energy production. The obvious drawback to this method is that the producing country can export the goods produced from the energy that causes the emissions. The exported goods are then consumed, or used in other countries. This is the final depository for "outsourced" manufacturing or other…
Northern forest soils, unlike tropical forest soils, are immense storehouses of carbon. It has always been understood that a warming planet will dry the forests of most of the world. This dryness will cause the liberation, or oxidation of much of the northern forests soils carbon. This carbon has been placed there over the millennia…
This is about complex atmospheric chemistry. Our previously simple understanding of the concentration of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere does not do justice to the complex atmospheric chemistry that goes on 24/7. The explanation is not so complex though. Methane reacts differently with different things in the atmosphere at different times. These different reactions tell…
It’s the Laptev Sea again. This is the part of the Arctic Ocean that is just north of Siberia (see here). The springtime air temperature across the region in the period 2000-2007 was an average of 4C higher than during 1970-1999, likely the highest temperature rise on the planet. The estimate of carbon locked up…
The report says: "This idealized emissions scenario is based on emissions peaking in 2015 and quickly changing from an increase of 2–3% per year to a decrease of 3% per year. For every 10 years we delay action another 0.5 °C will be added to the most likely temperature rise." http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/policymakers/policy/temperaturerises.html
