Tag: change

Interview: Dr. James Hansen, Part 2

  • Dr. James Hansen's book, 'Storms Of My Grandchildren: The Truth About The Coming Climate Catastrophe And Our Last Chance To Save Humanity' (Photo courtesy of Bloomsbury USA)

James Hansen is the author of
‘The Storms of My Grandchildren:
The Truth About The Coming Climate
Catastrophe And Our Last Chance To
Save Humanity.’ This is the second
half of our interview with Dr. Hansen.
He’s a climate scientist for NASA
and was the first scientist to testify
before Congress about climate change.
He stresses, he’s not speaking for
the government, but only for himself:

Transcript

James Hansen is the author of
‘The Storms of My Grandchildren:
The Truth About The Coming Climate
Catastrophe And Our Last Chance To
Save Humanity.’ This is the second
half of our interview with Dr. Hansen.
He’s a climate scientist for NASA
and was the first scientist to testify
before Congress about climate change.
He stresses, he’s not speaking for
the government, but only for himself:

Lester Graham: Doctor Hansen, in the book you say we should scrap the cap and trade system to reduce greenhouse gases, and instead go with a fee on fossil fuels and then give that money to the people directly to help them adapt to higher energy costs. How would that work?

Dr. James Hansen: The fee would be charged at the mine or the oil head or the port of entry for imported fossil fuels. It’d be collected from the fossil fuel companies and then they money should be distributed to the public on a uniform basis. You’d introduce this gradually so that people can change their habits, the technology that they use, the vehicles that they use, for example. So, you introduce it gradually, but by the time it’s reached a dollar of gallon on gasoline, at the rate of fossil fuel use last year, that would be generating $3,000 per legal resident of the country with to half a share to each child, up to two children per family. So a family with two or more children would be getting $9,000 a year in this dividend, which should be sent to them monthly just automatically, electronically, to their bank account or their debit card if they don’t have a bank account.

Lester: We’re talking about getting that through Washington D.C, where special interests drive the agenda often. I don’t want to accuse you of being naïve, but I believe many in Washington would.

Dr. Hansen: Yes, they do, however, there is a growing realization, environmental groups, like Friends of the Earth, which now recognize this is exactly what’s needed and they’re beginning to promote that. I think that’s why it’s a good thing that we’re kinda taking, probably taking, a year off dropping this cap and trade and give us a chance to discuss this because it’s what’s in the interest of the public as opposed to the lobbyists.

Lester: Since you first made congress aware of climate change as a pressing issue, the Clinton-Gore administration did nothing. President George W. Bush indicated he would deal with the emissions causing climate change, and then evidently Dick Cheney worked to kill that effort and Bush reversed his position. Now President Barak Obama has indicated we must do something, but legislation in Congress is stalled right now. What do you this is stopping this effort if this is such a serious threat?

Dr. Hansen: It is the role of money in Washington and other capitals around the world. Special interests have more influence on these policies than the public’s interest and that’s why, you know, we had hoped with the election of the new president things were really going to change, but I think he hasn’t really looked at this issue closely enough to really understand what’s in the people’s interest. And I hope that over the next year we can convince them that we need to move in a direction that is in the people’s interest rather than in the big businesses interest.

Lester: James Hansen is the author of The Storms of My Grandchildren, the truth about the upcoming climate catastrophe and the last chance to save humanity. Dr. Hansen, thank you very much for your time!

Dr. Hansen: Uh huh, thank you!

Related Links

Interview: Dr. James Hansen, Part 1

  • Dr. James Hansen is a climate scientist for NASA and the author of the book, 'Storms Of My Grandchildren.' (Photo courtesy of Bloomsbury USA)

James Hansen is the author of ‘The Storms
Of My Grandchildren: The Truth About
The Coming Climate Catastrophe And
Our Last Chance To Save Humanity.’
He’s been a climate scientist for NASA
and was the first scientist to testify before
Congress about climate change. In the
book, Hansen wrote about climate change,
‘We seem oblivious to the danger, unaware
how close we may be… to our demise.’
Lester Graham talked to Hansen and noted
that we don’t often hear strong language
like that from scientists:

Transcript

James Hansen is the author of ‘The Storms
Of My Grandchildren: The Truth About
The Coming Climate Catastrophe And
Our Last Chance To Save Humanity.’
He’s been a climate scientist for NASA
and was the first scientist to testify before
Congress about climate change. In the
book, Hansen wrote about climate change,
‘We seem oblivious to the danger, unaware
how close we may be… to our demise.’
Lester Graham talked to Hansen and noted
that we don’t often hear strong language
like that from scientists:

Dr. James Hansen: Well, the public is unaware of the situation, and that’s partly because of the way nature works. You know, weather is highly variable – 10 or 20 or 30 degree variations are common – while the global warming, so far, is about 1 degree Celsius, which is about 2 degrees Fahrenheit. So, people have a hard time seeing it. But the consequences are already becoming apparent, as we see with the melting sea ice in the arctic. The Northwest Passage is now actually open. Mountain glaciers melting around the world, sub-tropics expanding – which is affecting the Southwest United States and the Mediterranean region and Australia. And the problem is that those things are going to grow, and we’re going to pass tipping points, which will have disastrous consequences if we pass them. We don’t have to pass them though. And that’s why it’s appropriate for us to try to communicate the situation to the public, because the kinds of things that we need to do with our energy systems make sense anyway for different reasons.

Lester Graham: The evidence for climate change is growing – almost every week more studies are released, often indicating the future will be worse than first thought. What do you think we need to do to minimize the effects of climate change?

Dr. Hansen: Well, it’s very clear what we need to do. The carbon dioxide is increasing because of the burning of fossil fuels. If you look at how much carbon there is in oil, gas, and coal, you see that coal is, by far, the biggest reservoir. And then there’s the unconventional fossil fuels, like tar shale and tar sands. What we need to do is phase out the coal use and prohibit the use of these unconventional, dirty fossil fuels – and we could solve the problem. But to get there, there’s a very practical requirement, and that is that we begin to put a price on carbon emissions. The reason that people use fossil fuels as their main source of energy is that it’s the cheapest energy. And, as long as that’s the case, we’re going to keep using more and more. But the reason that they’re the cheapest is that we subsidize them – our government subsidizes them – and they don’t make them pay for the costs that they cause for society. The human health problems due to air pollution and water pollution, the mercury and the arsenic that comes from coal, and the costs of future climate change for our children and grandchildren – all of these are free for the fossil fuel companies. They don’t have to worry about those at all. The way we would solve that is to put a gradually rising price on carbon emissions. And there’s actually some good news in the newspaper, and that is that Senators Kerry, a Democrat, and Lindsey Graham, a Republican, announced that they’re not going to push cap-and-trade – which had been the big banks’ proposed solution to put a ‘cap’ on carbon emissions, and then they, you would (chuckles) – it was a complicated system where you could trade the rights to pollute. But the big winners would be the traders and the losers would be the public.

James Hansen is a climate
scientist for NASA and the author of the
book, ‘Storms Of My Grandchildren.’ He
spoke with The Environment Report’s
Lester Graham. We’ll hear
more from Dr. Hansen tomorrow, including
his idea on how to reduce using fossil fuels.

Related Links

Massachusetts Election and Climate Bill

  • The Massachusetts election puts the passage of a climate change bill in doubt. (Photo courtesy of the Architect of the Capitol)

The Republican party gained
one seat in the Senate. But
Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts
is apparently having a dramatic
effect on the Senate’s agenda.
Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

The Republican party gained
one seat in the Senate. But
Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts
is apparently having a dramatic
effect on the Senate’s agenda.
Lester Graham reports:

For one, forget a climate change bill.

“Things are not looking good for this bill.”

Darren Samuelson is a reporter with GreenWire. He spent the day yesterday talking with Senators of every stripe.

A vote this year on a climate bill that included a cap-and-trade plan to reduce greenhouse gases was already in doubt. Now Senators say Massachusetts taught them it’s all about jobs and the economy.

So the climate change bill will become an energy bill – more drilling, offshore, in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, more natural gas leases.

Samuelson says, judging on what he’s hearing in the Senate, any chance for a climate change bill comes down to just a couple of things.

“It depends on how much of an emphasis President Obama puts on it in his State of the Union address and just how much the Democrats are willing to give the Republicans.”

But since the Republicans had already decided the climate bill was a jobs killer, the win in Massachusetts makes it unlikely the Democrats can give enough to the Republicans to get it passed.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Interview: Amory Lovins

  • Amory Lovins is the Cofounder, Chairman, and Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute. (Photo courtesy of the Rocky Mountain Institute)

There’s a lot of talk about
conserving energy, but many
homeowners are not taking
advantage of the tax credits
being offered to tighten up
their homes. Many are more
intrigued about solar panels
and generating their own power.
Amory Lovins is an inventor,
author, and the chief scientist
at the Rocky Mountain Institute.
Lester Graham talked with him
about conserving energy at home:

Transcript

There’s a lot of talk about
conserving energy, but many
homeowners are not taking
advantage of the tax credits
being offered to tighten up
their homes. Many are more
intrigued about solar panels
and generating their own power.
Amory Lovins is an inventor,
author, and the chief scientist
at the Rocky Mountain Institute.
Lester Graham talked with him
about conserving energy at home:

Lester: When I talk to some of my friends about energy consumption, they immediately jump to installing backyard wind turbines or solar panels; just getting off the grid. And I always ask, well, have you added insulation your attic? It seems like some of us are really into those gee-whiz aspects of renewable but we tend to overlook conservation, that’s something you’ve stressed. Why?

Lovins: Well, efficiency, which I use instead of conservation cause it unambiguously, means doing more with less is faster, cheaper, easier, than any kind of supply. Look, if you can’t keep your bathtub full of hot water because it keeps running down the drain the first thing you do is get a plug before you go looking for a bigger water heater. Then when you get a water heater, it will be a lot smaller and cheaper and work better. So efficiency first is a wonderful adage, most people live in houses with a square yard of holes in them. Of course if you live in a sieve, it’s hard to stay warm. So, first, you start with stuff like weather stripping and caulk, and if you can you get a house doctor to come do a house call with diagnostic equipment and diagnose you houses chills and fevers. But uh, even in our house which is one of the most efficient in the world, uh, we still need to the blower door test and caulking every few years because with changes in humidity the wood works in and out and you have to renew this stuff occasionally. But the benefits are huge.

Lester: How far can we really go in saving energy at home?

Lovins: If you’re really conscientious about it, most people can save around half to two-thirds of their energy. That’s partly by draft proofing, insulation, and perhaps, although they’re often costlier, uh window improvements. I’m sitting under some windows now that insulate like fourteen sheets of glass but look like two and cost less than three. Then also it means whenever you get lights or appliances, you get the most efficient you can, so after some years you’ve turned over the stock and if you’re ever going to buy an appliance, go to aceee.org. The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy posts their list of the most energy efficient appliances. Of course, a minimum, you should get energy star, that at least knocks the worst stuff off the market. But within the energy star category, there is quite a lot of variation and it is worth shopping for the best ones.

Lester: What about the upfront costs of new appliances, new windows, new furnaces, things like that?

Lovins: For many kinds of appliances, there isn’t even any correlation between efficiency and price, but if there is, it’s probably still a very good deal; a much better return than you can get in any other form of investment and with much less risk. Think of it as money very well spent and of course, if you had first done the very cheap stuff like stopping up that square yard of holes in your house, the wind doesn’t whistle through, it saves so much upfront that it helps pay for everything else. The whole package is really quite an enticing return.

Lester: Amory Lovins consults on energy issues and he’s the chairman of the Rocky Mountain Institute. Thank you for your time.

Lovins: Thank you.

Related Links

Contrails and Warming

  • Researchers say preliminary results suggest contrails can warm the atmosphere - maybe above and beyond airplane's carbon emissions. (Photo courtesy of NOAA)

It’s the tail end of the holiday
air travel season, and, if you’re
flying, you might not be thinking
about your impact on climate
change. But Shawn Allee reports, some scientists are:

Transcript

It’s the tail end of the holiday
air travel season, and, if you’re
flying, you might not be thinking
about your impact on climate
change. But Shawn Allee reports, some scientists are:

Mark Jacobson studies atmospheric science at Stanford University.

He’s just finished research on airplane emissions, including contrails. Those’re the streaming vapor clouds you see coming out of high-flying airplanes.

Jacobson wants to see if contrails contribute to global warming.

“And we’re trying to find out what’s the relative contribution of aircraft to that warming.”

Jacobson says preliminary results suggest contrails can warm the atmosphere – maybe above and beyond airplane’s carbon emissions.

He says his upcoming paper will likely stir a lot of debate next year, since flying’s becoming more common and there hasn’t been much research on its impact yet.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Climate Change and Caribou

  • Some want the government to put caribou on the endangered species list. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

Santa’s reindeer are not doing
so well. Rebecca Williams reports
one group wants to get them on
the endangered species list:

Transcript

Santa’s reindeer are not doing
so well. Rebecca Williams reports
one group wants to get them on
the endangered species list:

Caribou, also known as reindeer, are declining all over the globe. The group International Fund for Animal Welfare says two subspecies of caribou are in especially bad shape.

Nathan Herschler is with the group. He says these caribou live in the Arctic. And climate change is making their lives miserable.

“Instead of soft snow that’s falling on the ground, we’re getting freezing rain. That’s encasing the land in ice and the caribou are literally starving to death.”

Herschler’s group wants the US government to put the caribou on the endangered species list. Even though the caribou live in Canada, he says the listing would help by banning the import of caribou or caribou meat into the US.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Interview: Lester Brown

  • Lester Brown founded the Earth Policy Institute in 2001. (Photo courtesy of the Earth Policy Institute)

One environmental leader says if
we keep doing what we’re doing,
the world will continue on a path
toward economic decline and eventual
collapse. Lester Brown heads up the
Earth Policy Institute. He’s written
a series of books on changes that need
to be made. The most recent book is
‘Plan B 4.0.’ Lester Graham
talked with him about the complexities
involved in a few commodities we take
for granted:

Transcript

One environmental leader says if
we keep doing what we’re doing,
the world will continue on a path
toward economic decline and eventual
collapse. Lester Brown heads up the
Earth Policy Institute. He’s written
a series of books on changes that need
to be made. The most recent book is
‘Plan B 4.0.’ Lester Graham
talked with him about the complexities
involved in a few commodities we take
for granted:

[text of the interview will be posted shortly]

Related Links

A New Climate Conference

  • President Barack Obama meeting with former Vice President Al Gore in the Oval Office on December 7, 2009 regarding Copenhagen. (Photo by Pete Souza, courtesy of the White House)

With no legally-binding agreement in
Copenhagen, there’s now talk of another global
warming conference next summer in Mexico
City. Lester Graham has more on that:

Transcript

With no legally-binding agreement in
Copenhagen, there’s now talk of another global
warming conference next summer in Mexico
City. Lester Graham has more on that:

When the U.S. House passed a climate bill this summer, the Senate was expected to pick it up and vote on it by the end of the year—maybe before the U.N. summit on climate change in Copenhagen.

That didn’t happen.

In Copenhagen last week, former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore looked ahead to another conference next year.

“I believe that we are capable of resolving the remaining issues to the point we can meet in Mexico City this July in the aftermath of a successful action by the United States Senate in April and conclude a binding international treaty.”

Al Gore wants the Senate to pass the legislation by April 22 to be exact – Earth Day. With business concerned about coming greenhouse gas regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Senate might feel more pressure to by then.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

How Much Will Copenhagen Cost?

  • Talks begin in Copenhagen on December 7th. (Photo Source: Thue at Wikimedia Commons)

This week, world leaders are talking
about how to tackle climate change.
Most experts agree that’ll mean
fossil fuels will become more expensive.
Rebecca Williams has been talking
with one climate expert who says we
might not really notice it, at least
at first:

Transcript

This week, world leaders are talking
about how to tackle climate change.
Most experts agree that’ll mean
fossil fuels will become more expensive.
Rebecca Williams has been talking
with one climate expert who says we
might not really notice it, at least
at first:

There’s been a lot of debate about how much our energy bills might go up.

Energy companies and some Republicans have been warning that bills will skyrocket – going up by hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year. The Congressional Budget Office estimates it’ll be a lot less – something between $100 and $200 a year.

Michael Oppenheimer is a professor at Princeton University. He says we will have to make a lot of changes in our lives – but they’ll be little changes and they’ll be really gradual.

“They’ll probably wind up buying appliances which are more energy efficient and that may cost them some money at the outset but it’ll save them money in terms of lower electricity bills. They may be driving cars that look somewhat different than their current vehicles but save them money with less gasoline use in the long term.”

Oppenheimer says higher energy costs will eventually be offset by energy savings – and probably, government rebates – until the economy adjusts.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Interview: Pew Center President

  • Eileen Claussen is the president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. (Photo courtesy of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change)

Beginning December 7,
world leaders – including President
Obama – will gather in Copenhagen,
Denmark to talk about cutting the
greenhouse gas emissions causing
climate change. Eileen Claussen is
the President of the non-profit Pew
Center on Global Climate Change.
Lester Graham talked with her about
what will be accomplished at Copenhagen:

Transcript

Beginning December 7,
world leaders – including President
Obama – will gather in Copenhagen,
Denmark to talk about cutting the
greenhouse gas emissions causing
climate change. Eileen Claussen is
the President of the non-profit Pew
Center on Global Climate Change.
Lester Graham talked with her about
what will be accomplished at Copenhagen:

Lester Graham: We’ve been hearing about this United Nations summit in Copenhagen in the news for months now, but it’s not really clear what the world’s nations will accomplish there. It’s been downgraded from a conference to hammer out a treaty to a conference to come up with some kind of a framework for a treaty. So what can we really expect from Copenhagen?

Eileen Claussen: I think there are three things that are likely to be agreed in Copenhagen. All the developed countries in the world will make political commitments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by significant amounts, I think, across the board. I also think the major emitting developing countries will pledge to reduce their emissions from where they would otherwise go. And I think we will see some amount of money – maybe 5 to 10 billion dollars – collected from the developed countries to help developing countries adapt to climate change and build up their capacity to actually reduce their emissions.

Graham: And perhaps preserve some of the forests that store CO2.

Claussen: Absolutely. I think forestry is something where you actually might see some real progress.

Graham: President Obama is expected to tell the gathering that the US intends to cut greenhouse gas emissions to about 17% below the levels we emitted in 2005. And cut them by 83% by the year 2050. But, as it stands right now, there’s no legislation to accomplish that. It’s not clear that there’s enough support in Congress to pass climate change legislation that would accomplish that. Is the president making offers not within his power to give?

Claussen: Well, I think there’s no question that absent action in the Senate and a conference that merges the bill that passed in the House this summer, he can’t deliver on the 17%. There are many things he can do. And, in fact, he’s actually tried to do many of them. To increase the efficiency of automobiles which will reduce greenhouse gas emissions; to put stimulus money into clean energy projects; to get the EPA geared up to start regulating under the Clean Air Act. But I think none of those add up to the 17%. So we will need legislation that establishes a cap on emissions.

Graham: This Copenhagen agreement is supposed to replace the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012. The US did not ratify that treaty. But, of the nations that did, many of them failed to meet their obligations to reduce emissions. So will a treaty really mean anything?

Claussen: Well, I’m not sure that I agree that most countries or many countries have failed to reduce their emissions sufficiently. There are some countries that are not on track at the moment to get to their objectives, but others are. And I think it is still possible that most of those countries – not all – but most of them will actually get to where they said they would go.

Graham: Well, we’ll cal l that the optimistic view. I think in Canada they’re probably not going to make it.

Claussen: Well, Canada is the clear example of a country that won’t make it.

Graham: So we won’t have a sort of Copenhagen Protocol, Copenhagen appears to be now just another stop along the way to drafting a treaty.

Claussen: It’s not everything that many were hoping for, and there’s a fair amount of disappointment about that. But, quite honestly, there are a lot of very difficult issues for different countries to face here. And there actually had not been any real negotiation over the two years since the negotiation started.

Graham: Eileen Claussen is the President of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. Thanks very much for talking with us.

Claussen: Well, thank you.

Related Links