What could prove to be a critical component in the effort to successfully confront the climate crisis was launched today by Hillary Clinton at the State Department in Washington.  Secretary Clinton announced the formation of the “Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants.”  What are these short-lived climate pollutants?  Methane, black carbon and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).  I’ve written a few times here about the effort to bring the critical importance of these pollutants into sharper focus.

One of the leading scientists in this effort, Dr. Drew Shindell at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has done groundbreaking work in highlighting the climate forcing of both black carbon and of methane.  An even more prominent scientist, Dr. Mario Molina, a Nobel laureate for his work on identifying the influence of chlorofluorocarbons and other ozone-depleting chemicals (ODCs) on the stratospheric ozone layer, which led directly to the successful international conventions to phase these ODCs out of production and use, has been working in recent years on the fluorinated gases, or F-gases.  HFCs are F-gases.  Another leader in the campaign to address these short-lived climate pollutants is Durwood Zaelke, President of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development (IGSD).  A release today from the IGSD describes the importance of this work, and also includes an op-ed from Molina and Zaelke.

Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environment Program, was at the launch today too.  In his remarks, he said “…that swift action on the multiple sources of black carbon, HFCs, and methane can deliver extraordinary benefits in terms of public health, food security and near term climate protection.”  Nature News covered the story noting that this new effort targets “‘short-lived climate forcers’ in order to minimize global warming’s immediate impacts and buy time on the most troublesome greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide.”  The Coalition is not in business, the speakers at the launch made plain, to avoid responsibility for dealing with the heart of the problem:  carbon loading to the atmosphere from fossil fuel combustion and the pernicious impacts of land-use changes and pollution from deforestation and many of our industrial farming practices.

What to do?  Provide better cookstoves for the developing world is one thing.  Manage our waste much more efficiently, to minimize black carbon and methane production, is another.  Phasing out HFCs is still another, along with capturing and destroying ODCs.  For more on these strategies and others, see the IGSD’s web pages for its Fast-Action Climate Mitigation Campaign.

Here’s a transcript of the remarks from Secretary Clinton, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, Achim Steiner and others from today, and a video of the event.

Leave it to Gary Trudeau to distill something to its basics.  God love him.  As Daniel Patrick Moynihan noted some time back, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”  The science is settled.  And no, my Denialist friends, I am not going to enter into yet-another long hassle.  You can take that elsewhere.  I’m here to confront the reality of the climate crisis, to shine some light where I can (as best I can) on the lies and the political chicanery that are so persistent, and to highlight and promote best practices that are fostering our progress toward sustainability.  If you want to debate the science, I’m happy, yet again, for you to splatter your biases and ignorance at the folks who deal with this every day at Skeptical Science and RealClimate.  Also, pick up Merchants of Doubt to see how and why the attempts to deny science take place in the first place.  (Hint:  It’s about the money.)

]]> http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2012/02/06/facts/feed/ 8 http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2012/02/04/black-helicopters/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=black-helicopters http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2012/02/04/black-helicopters/#comments Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:13:17 +0000 Bill Hewitt http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/?p=54158 A comment came in recently asking me if I characterized American voters of being fanatics if they voted for and supported those politicians who fight, tooth and nail, against progress on confronting the climate crisis and fostering our transition to clean tech.  I said, “Um, yes.” Here’s ...]]>

A comment came in recently asking me if I characterized American voters of being fanatics if they voted for and supported those politicians who fight, tooth and nail, against progress on confronting the climate crisis and fostering our transition to clean tech.  I said, “Um, yes.”

Here’s an article from today’s NY Times, secular socialist internationalist freedom-hating jack-booted thugs that they are, describing Tea Party people who think that fighting sprawl is a UN plot.  Agenda 21, a set of sustainability principles that was fostered at the Earth Summit in Rio 20 years ago, it seems, is quietly undermining American freedom.  Did you know that?

For more on this sort of – what the hell else would you call it but fanaticism?! – see my paper on the American right wing, or the work of folks like Chris Mooney or George Lakoff.

How can you not love California if you’re an environmentalist?  I’ve lauded the Golden State a few times here for its forward-thinking, smart, and economically advantageous approach to power, transportation, planning, building and curtailing greenhouse gases.  The federal government has so many times taken California’s lead, most recently in pumping up the Corporate Average Fuel Economy required for cars sold in the U.S.  We were talking in one of my classes the other day too about how California has made energy efficiency a priority and controlled its electricity consumption since the mid-1970s far beyond what has happened in the rest of the country.

California has taken another giant leap for mankind with the adoption of its new Advanced Clean Cars program.  The LA Times reports here that “By 2025, one in seven new autos sold in California, or roughly 1.4 million, must be ultra-clean, moving what is now a driving novelty into the mainstream.”  What is ultra-clean?  Electric vehicles, cars powered by fuel cells, and plug-in hybrid vehicles.  Californians will be once again setting the pace.

Meanwhile, the state has also tried to move forward with a low carbon fuel standard (LCFS).  The Washington Post explains here that “The new standards assign carbon intensity values to roughly 250 types of crude (higher carbon) along with other fuels — including ethanol, electricity and hydrogen, all lower carbon— that power cars and trucks.”  The aim is to reduce the carbon content of the fuel over time.  U.S. law, not incidentally, takes it a step further in barring all purchases by the federal government of any fuel that exceeds the greenhouse gas footprint of conventionally sourced oil.  This is embodied in Section 526 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.  The Sierra Club is pursuing a case in court now to enforce this rule.  The European Union is taking a similar approach with its Fuel Quality Directive which would, if fully implemented and enforced, bar Canadian tar sands oil from use.

California is being held up because of a court case in which a federal judge has barred the rule from coming into effect.  However, the WaPo article notes that Mary Nichols, head of the California Air Resources Board, has said that amendments that the Board has made recently will satisfy the court’s concerns.  See a video on the program at the LCFS web page and how it is integrated into the overall approach the good people of California are taking to maximize health and prosperity while minimizing the costs, environmental and economic, of business as usual.

GDTV is back on the air with a series of eight programs that encapsulate the issues rolled out this year for the Foreign Policy Association’s annual Great Decisions discussions.  These discussions take place in the many and far-flung FPA groups and also in classrooms across the country.  There is a bonus TV program in the series this year too, on the New Global Economy.

In my area of inquiry, there are two subject areas and TV programs that pertain:  “Living Planet: State of the Seas” and “Energy and Geopolitics.”  I’ve screened these segments and can recommend them to you highly.  The programs center on a dialogue between the venerable GDTV host, CNN World Affairs Correspondent Ralph Begleiter, and two principal guests, with commentary cut in from a number of other experts in the field.

I found the program on the state of our world ocean particularly compelling.  The two experts in the studio, David Helvarg, President of the Blue Frontier Campaign, and Carl Safina, President & Founder of the Blue Ocean Institute, were articulate and vastly knowledgeable.  (I noted Safina’s strong voice here in talking about public interest and involvement in issues relative to climate change.)  Both of these men and their organizations are doing critical work.  (For more on the state of the world’s oceans, see this excellent, concise report from the Plymouth Marine Laboratory and its partners.)

As to the “Energy and Geopolitics” show, both David Goldwyn, head of Goldwyn Global Strategies, and Frank Verrastro, Director of the Energy and National Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, hit the key point, for my money, that we are in a necessary transition away from fossil fuels and that how we get there and how fast is critical to the health of the planet.

Paul Collier, a world-class economist and the author of The Plundered Planet, appears in both programs, and has any number of valuable observations to add to the discussion.

Here’s a trailer for the Energy and Geopolitics program.  All good stuff.  It’s worth it to have all nine programs, for yourself, your classroom and/or your discussion group.

I went to an interesting event last week, the first of a four-part series:  Discourses on Nature and Society.  The discussion by a star panel of energy and environment experts was titled Energy for the Next 20 Years: Protecting the Environment and Meeting Our Demands.  The series is being cosponsored by the venerable NY Academy of Sciences and the Nature Conservancy.  The NY Academy of Sciences has been around since 1817.

The panelists were led by David Roberts, the top environmental blog Grist’s top writer.  (If, for some reason, you’ve not checked out Grist, please get on it right away.)  Roberts is as smart in person as he is in his writing.  (I have had, to toot my own horn for a sec, an article at Grist:  Biochar as the new black gold.)

Roberts laid out the premise that we are dealing with three fundamental problems:  (a) rising energy demand, much of it coming from the rapidly emerging economies of Asia and elsewhere, (b) stress thereby on limited traditional energy resources and on the environment from which they are being extracted, and (c) climate change.  He posited that our energy therefore needs to be plentiful, low carbon and not requiring a lot of land or pressuring the environment.

Each of the panelists then jumped in, covering an area of their expertise, before launching into a more extended cross discussion and the Q&A.  Jesse Jenkins, the Director of Energy and Climate Policy at the Breakthrough Institute, fleshed out some of the issues relative to energy demand, talked about energy poverty – that billions in the developing world lack access to electricity – and that as we bring power to the rural populations that lack it, and as the burgeoning global middle classes start buying cars, air conditioners and plasma TVs for the first time, we must also be reducing our energy intensity.  (This is defined by the IPCC as “…the ratio of energy use to economic or physical output.  At the national level, energy intensity is the ratio of total primary energy use or final energy use to Gross Domestic Product. At the activity level, one can also use physical quantities in the denominator, e.g. litre fuel/vehicle km.”)  In simpler terms:  bang for the buck.  Jenkins underscored the idea that fossil fuels need to be made obsolete, but that energy needs to be cheap.

Jeff Opperman is the Senior Freshwater Scientist for the Nature Conservancy.  His principal brief has been to look at improving hydropower’s sustainability.  He echoed the need for cheap, decarbonized energy but with an eye to protecting natural resources.  He reminded us that even though the perception on hydro’s negative environmental impact is generally that it floods lands upstream from the dams, that there are also very serious concerns regarding its downstream effects on fisheries and agriculture.  To optimize, then, the environmental benefits of traditional hydropower, planning and siting are fundamental.

Another Nature Conservancy leader, Joe Fargione, their  Lead Scientist for North America, had some noteworthy things to say about biofuels.  (In my classes, I cite Dr. Fargione’s critical work on how biofuel production exacerbates climate change through the land-use changes that it engenders.)  He noted the other night that 35% of American corn goes to offset 6% of our oil for transportation – not a good tradeoff.  (I mentioned Amory Lovins’s new project and book, Reinventing Fire, here recently.  Lovins and his team at the Rocky Mountain Institute have a lot to say about the role of biofuels in transportation going forward.  I’m using Reinventing Fire in my Clean Tech class this Spring.  Lovins, for my money, has the answers to the panel’s questions regarding how best to optimize energy while reducing environmental impacts – with nearly maximum bang for the buck it turns out.)

Now Stewart Brand is a whole ‘nother kettle of fish.  Here’s a guy, a visionary, who founded the Whole Earth Catalogue, a project that “…pushed grassroots direct power—tools and skills.”  Brand himself said famously:  “We are as gods and might as well get good at it.”  So how do you get from that to shilling for nuclear power?  Damned if I know.  As I have noted here many times, and told Brand during the Q&A at the event, nuclear power is the least godlike activity going.  In any event, the presentation that Brand gave was rife with the inaccuracies that Amory Lovins so thoroughly debunked in his paper, “Four Nuclear Myths,” among them that solar and wind use too much land.  Brand, talking with me later, mentioned the “nuclear renaissance,” yet another myth.  Nuclear power is running on fumes.

Brand trotted out a new bit of nonsense:  that storage of spent nuclear fuel rods is safe in the U.S. because we use dry storage in casks.  First, that’s not even close to true.  If it were, as it is in Germany, I’d feel safer.  However, as we saw in Japan, most spent fuel rods are stored in pools of water where, if you have a loss of that water, very bad things happen quickly.  In the U.S., the Union of Concerned Scientists reports, “Spent fuel pools contain more highly radioactive fuel than the reactor cores. And the spent fuel pools at all U.S. nuclear plants are located outside the reactor containment structure.”  Or, as the veteran nuclear policy analyst, Robert Alvarez, notes here:  “Even though they contain some of the largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet, U.S. spent nuclear fuel pools are mostly contained in ordinary industrial structures designed to merely protect them against the elements. Some are made from materials commonly used to house big-box stores and car dealerships.”

Another myth is that renewable energy can’t get the job done.  Actually, that’s nothing better than a Big Lie.  But the bottom line, as I tried to point out during the Q&A, is that the embrace of nuclear power materially slows down our efforts to stop climate change and achieve sustainability because it drains resources, energy, expertise, and focus from building out the renewably powered distributed generation infrastructure that will give us at least a chance of overcoming the climate crisis.  Amory Lovins makes this point abundantly in his blockbuster paper and another panelist, Arne Jungjohann, articulated this beautifully during the Q&A.

Jungjohann, Director for the Environment and Global Dialogue Program in the Washington office of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, had plenty of useful things to say about renewables and DG, particularly in Germany.  The Germans really get it, not only on shuttering their nuclear power plants, but on promoting clean tech:  they have the technology, the industry, the policy, the political will and the track record to show that clean tech means jobs.  The Green Party and the Social Democrats, powerful forces in German politics, want to see a 100% renewable energy economy by 2050.  Germany, has had visionaries like the late Hermann Scheer, and has canny businessmen like Peter Löscher, the head of Siemens, one of the world’s industrial powerhouses, leading the way.  I quoted Löscher here:  “The green revolution has started and by 2020, green technology will have surpassed the car industry as well as the engineering sector in Germany.”  As Jungjohann pointed out at the event, Germany installed nearly double the amount of solar PV in December as the U.S. did in all of 2011.

We’ve simply got to accelerate some of the breathtaking progress that has been taking place, not only in Germany, but throughout the world, on renewables, DG, green building, and as a number of panelists noted, smart urban planning and mass transit, and, at the end of the day, reduce our consumption to sustainable levels.  Eat a salad today and turn out the damn lights when you leave the room.

I’ve written a good number of times here about how I admire what the Obama Administration has achieved in the teeth of vigorous – some might say fanatical – opposition from Republicans on the Hill and elsewhere, as well as from Democrats too, mostly those beholden to the fossil fuel special interests.  (Here are some observations along the way:   Obama’s Team, The White House Keeps Driving to the Hoop, Money Where Your Mouth Is Department, Obama and Copenhagen, Cars and Greenhouse Gases, and Taking the Bull by the Horns.)  As sincerely as I respect Joe Romm, I did not and do not subscribe to his contention that Barack Obama will have a failed presidency without having effected comprehensive climate and energy legislation.  (See comment #83.)

Barack Obama has taken at least one well-deserved hit from the environmental community in the past year:  when he quashed EPA’s tightening of the ozone standard.  I don’t have much use for John Broder at the NY Times – I think he takes every opportunity to take a hatchet to Obama and, for that matter, to environmental concerns – but he did tell a compelling story here on how the ozone rule failed for political reasons, cloaked as economic concerns.  (Never mind that a Supreme Court ruling expressly forbids the consideration of economic costs in determining National Ambient Air Quality Standards as the White House maintained in its ruling.  Antonin Scalia, for pity’s sake, wrote the opinion that included this conclusion:  “The EPA may not consider implementation costs in setting primary and secondary NAAQS under §109(b) of the CAA.”)

But the architect of that odd and unwelcome decision by the White House, Bill Daley, has resigned “to spend more time with his family.”  That is, of course, the tried and true euphemism for being forced out.  Politico puts it this way:   Bill Daley resignation: Greens say ‘good riddance’.  So that’s a good signal.

Another plus is that the President has banned uranium mining near the Grand Canyon.  As PlanetArk reports “The Pew group, the League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club, Earthjustice, the Center for American Progress and other environmental and progressive groups applauded the decision as protecting the Colorado River watershed, which supplies drinking water for 25 million people.”  The right-wing Institute for Energy Research, funded by Koch Industries and ExxonMobil, among others, was outraged:  “This latest power-grab by federal regulators is another example of the Obama administration’s willingness to use ideologically driven energy policies as a means to control the U.S. economy.”  Oh dear!

I think you can so often gauge the quality of your decisions by who dislikes them.  This is true as well in the now-epic struggle over the Keystone XL project.  In the wake of the President’s decision in November to postpone a decision until 2013, the Republicans in the Congress held a gun to the nation’s head in pushing a rider to the payroll tax deal in December:  The President has until February 21^st to say yes or no to the pipeline.  The upshot, according to the White House?  “The House bill simply shortens the review process in a way that virtually guarantees that the pipeline will NOT be approved.”  Here’s another perspective from the excellent David Roberts at Grist that supports the Keystone XL is dead scenario.

Well, “The Hill” reports that business groups that environmentalists (like me) love to hate are lining up to try to intimidate the White House:  Business groups, Republicans launch onslaught on president over Keystone.  The ever-gracious Jack Gerard, head of the American Petroleum Institute, said Obama had to approve the pipeline or deal with “huge political consequences.”  There’s plenty of political cover available to the President, however, from venerable groups like the National Wildlife Federation:  “In our view, the national Chamber of Commerce’s support for the Keystone pipeline scam demonstrates once again that the Chamber is a pay-to-play operation that has been taken over by big oil companies.”  The Guardian goes farther in its reporting:  Oil lobby’s financial pressure on Obama over Keystone XL pipeline revealed.

Meanwhile, up in Canada, the Guardian also reports, a battle over another tar sands pipeline “turns ugly.”  The Canadian natural resources minister, Joe Oliver, has gone a bit bonkers it seems.  He “…let loose an extraordinary rant against opponents of a controversial project to pump tar sands crude to Pacific Coast ports on Monday, accusing campaigners of colluding with foreign ‘radicals’ and ‘jet-setting celebrities’ to hijack the government.”  Shades of Spiro Agnew.   What the worthy minister doesn’t wish to acknowledge is that there’s a broad-based, intense and growing opposition within Canada to the exploitation of the Alberta tar sands.  The First Nations, for example, are opposed.  See this from PlanetArk.

Joe Oliver accuses opponents of the Pacific pipeline and of the tar sands of  trying “…to undermine Canada’s national economic interest.”  How dare he make such an accusation is my reaction.  It is precisely the oil industry and their myrmidons in Ottawa that are undermining Canada’s national economic interest.  I wrote here in April of 2011 about an important series at The Vancouver Observer detailing how as “…Canadians dig deep to ease their carbon footprint, Alberta’s oil-sands pollution wipes out their sacrifice.”  Economic well being depends on diversity and sustainability, Mr. Oliver.  I guess you didn’t get the memo.

I believe the present administration in the White House did get it.           

You can’t miss with Grist and the World Resources Institute.  Here’s WRI’s Top 6 U.S. climate-policy happenings of 2011 posted at Grist.  Of the 6, 3½ are positive.  That Congress didn’t act and that emissions continue to climb are clearly on the debit side, but that national rules for increasing vehicle efficiency, that California’s ambitious cap-and-trade program progressed toward starting up this year, and that the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative continued to make money for its members are all real pluses.  EPA’s GHG regime also moved forward, in spite of rabid Republican opposition.  (This is the half and half item, as the program is moving forward slowly but, folks, it is moving.  Tortoise and hare?  Sure.  Good lesson for all of us.)

The excellent folks at CERES have noted that 111 climate, energy and sustainability resolutions were filed with 81 American and Canadian companies last year.  As Bernie Sanders would say, “That’s yooge.”  Clean Edge lists their top ten stories in clean tech finance.  There’s more and more money just flowing to clean tech.   (See also GigaOm’s story here about clean tech finance that was prompted by my weighing in on an earlier story.)

Speaking of the good people at GigaOm, see the excellent Katie Fehrenbacher’s top 10 green stories of 2011.  She includes some excellent insights on things ranging from battery technology breakthroughs to cloud computing.  Her colleague, Ucilia Wang, has this compilation of 10 solar trends to watch for in 2012.  What’s ahead?  Among other things, things are taking off in the really rapidly emerging markets for solar in China and India, but elsewhere too, like Latin America and the MENA region.  (For more on the exciting developments there, see also the visionary work by Desertec.)

RenewableEnergyWorld.com has interesting coverage here:  Top 10 Most-read News Stories of 2011.  Two particularly intriguing stories:  The Rise of Concentrating Solar Thermal Power and Solar Energy Becoming Cheaper than Gas in California?  (Too cheap to meter?  Not quite yet.  Still $1 per watt is on the near horizon.)  Meanwhile, the Smart Grid guru, Jesse Berst, has his Top 9 predictions for 2012.  (I had the pleasure of interviewing Jesse for my article for the American Planning Association a few years back on the Smart Grid.)  For one thing, he’s predicting demand will flatten – see the Rosenfeld Effect in which smart policy promoting energy efficiency = less demand.  Jesse is also saying smart buildings will become integral to the goal in many states of reducing energy demand and that lithium-ion battery prices will plunge, a development critical for furthering our mobile and stationary storage needs.

Let me leave you with the 2011 Climate B.S.* of the Year Awards from Dr. Peter H. Gleick via the always superb Climate Progress.

The final paper assignment for my class on energy and the environment at NYU’s MS in Global Affairs program this semester was to “…provide for all the energy needs of the world in the year 2050.”  I said “In the next 40 years, we will need to transition to safe, secure, affordable, clean and abundant energy sources and systems.”  Then I asked:  “How do we get there?”

A good number of the papers reflected what Amory Lovins and his team at the Rocky Mountain Institute have said in their new report, Reinventing Fire.  Their report is comprehensive, bold, and eminently do-able.  It’s not a coincidence that Fortune 50 companies go the Rocky Mountain Institute to get advice on how to do business.  Lovins and his people are on it.  (If you read this blog, you know that I regard Amory Lovins as The Man.)

It is so absurd at this point to believe the Big Lie that efficiency and renewables can’t do the job.  They are doing it now, for the love of Mike.  The imperative for all of us is to continue to build the newer world of clean tech.  To reinvent fire.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) came into being at the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992.  The 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) to the convention got underway yesterday in Durban, South Africa.  There are 194 countries that are party to the convention, plus the European Union.  There are also over 1,400 NGOs and 86 IGOs that are observers to the convention.  Add the journalists and all the other interested stakeholders, and you get thousands and thousands of folks gathered through December 9th to talk, learn, network, negotiate and generally advance the goals of the world community to successfully confront the climate crisis.

The South Africans are doing their bit to support the conference that is being held in a particularly lovely part of the continent.  What can we expect?  We can expect significant progress on a number of fronts:  adaptation, a Green Climate Fund and other financial mechanisms, technology transfer, and mitigation.

The UNFCCC bimonthly newsletter has an excellent rundown in all these areas, plus messages from South African President Jacob Zuma and this from UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres.

As you undoubtedly know, thousands of people, young and old, descended on Washington on November 6th, ringed the White House and told the President that the Keystone XL pipeline was not in the best interests of either the US or the planet.  The fact of the turnout was great news in itself, but even better news was to come:  President Obama announced a few days later that the decision on the pipeline was going to be delayed until 2013.  Here’s coverage from PBS on the decision and some of the swirling politics.  Jeff Goodell, the author of the superb Big Coal, said in Rolling Stone, “….the Keystone XL is dead in its tracks.”  ‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.

For a really excellent insight into how the demonstrations on November 6th came off, preceded last summer by the civil disobedience tied to the Keystone XL project, and how the resulting political pressure has been building, read “Taking it to the Streets” in this week’s New Yorker by Jane Mayer.  She cites the historian Michael Kazin who noted “…that the environmentalists grasped the famous point made by Dr. King’s political forebear, Frederick Douglass: ‘Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.’”

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has produced four comprehensive Assessment Reports since 1990 detailing the science behind climate change, the impacts, ways to mitigate our radical forcing of the climate system, and ways to adapt to the clear, present, and intensifying dangers that this crisis engenders.  The IPCC has also produced some extremely useful complementary reports along the way such as the Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation, out this past May.  The IPCC shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for its work.  In accepting the prize on behalf of the IPCC, its chairman, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, paid “…tribute to the thousands of experts and scientists who have contributed to the work of the Panel over almost two decades of exciting evolution and service to humanity.”  That critical work is ongoing.

The IPCC has just announced its newest product:  the Special Report for Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX).  The full report of nine chapters won’t be released until February, but the Summary for Policymakers sums up the work of the panel.  (More than 80 authors, 19 review editors, and more than 100 contributing authors from all over the world contributed to the preparation of SREX.)  Climate change means more frequent droughts and floods, U.N. panel says in report is the headline from the Washington Post.  The report covers a range of disaster risks and, as the WaPo notes:  “…the new analysis also speaks to a broader trend:  The world is facing a new reality of more extreme weather, and policymakers and business alike are beginning to adjust.”  Thankfully.

Go to the SREX website for more, including this fact sheet which enumerates a number of key themes, including that climate extremes have been well documented, along with various kinds of attendant weather anomalies, and that these are going to get worse.  See also this summary presentation from the SREX.

Dr. Heidi Cullen had a terrific book out last year, The Weather of the Future.  Its subtitle?  “Heat Waves, Extreme Storms, and Other Scenes from a Climate-Changed Planet.”  Here’s Dr. Cullen illustrating her perspective.