It's long been known that El Niño variability affects the global mean temperature anomalies. 1998 was so warm in part because of the big El Niño event over the winter of 1997-1998 which directly warmed a large part of the Pacific, and indirectly warmed (via the large increase in water vapour) an even larger region. [...]

When a team of volunteers with the Blue Iguana Recovery Program arrived to work at their Grand Cayman Island breeding center last month, they were shocked by what they found: someone had savagely attacked the program's endangered reptiles, eventually killing seven. Investigators have found no suspects.

The killings were a major blow to the recovery of the rare blue iguana, found only on Grand Cayman, a 262-square-kilometer limestone outcropping in the western Caribbean. As few as 10 of the animals existed in 2002, but the breeding program has since increased the population to about 340.

The brutal attack, however, has brought considerable attention to the plight of the iguana. Donations have poured in from across the island and around the world. "We can't put value on the death of seven iguanas-that's infinite-but since it's happened we are managing benefits from it," said Fred Burton, director of the recovery program.

While the increased awareness is helping Burton improve security at the breeding center, the major threat to the iguanas may be a more difficult fix: human population growth. The rising number of human residents is a problem that is challenging the recovery of island species not just in the Caribbean, but around the world.

An influx of immigrants to Grand Cayman, which has among the world's highest living standards, has led population size to jump 32.5 percent since 2000, according to Caribbean Community Secretariat statistics. In recent decades, the iguanas were nearly driven to extinction with the construction of highways and the expansion of residential areas. As the number of residents continues to grow, these habitat pressures will likely continue.

Other island nations are facing similar challenges. Human populations in the Caribbean and Pacific are averaging a 1 percent annual growth, due in part to persistent high fertility rates and poor access to reproductive health services. On the Marshall Islands, Samoa, and the Solomon Islands in the Pacific, more than 40 percent of the population is younger than 15 years, according to Secretariat of the Pacific Community statistics.

The land and natural resources required by rising human populations, coupled with the pressures of global climate change and the spread of invasive species, have made island species among the most threatened in the world. Of the 724 recorded animal extinctions over the past 400 years, about half were island species, according to the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Recent conservation drives are beginning to preserve more island territory. Through the Global Island Partnership, a government-led initiative launched in 2006, Micronesia, Grenada, and Jamaica have promised that at least 20 percent of their terrestrial and marine areas will be protected by 2020.

In Grand Cayman, a new conservation law to be debated in the legislative assembly in August could lay the groundwork for a system of protected areas on the island. Meanwhile, the government has been negotiating an agreement that may set aside shrubland for the blue iguana. "What we need is an area of shrubland large enough to accommodate an estimated 1,000 animals to have a self-sustaining wild population," said Gina Petrie, director of the island's Department of Environment.

As the memory of the iguana attacks continues to resonate in the minds of Grand Cayman residents, support for iguana conservation remains high, Burton said. But he acknowledges that steady population growth leaves him with only a short window of opportunity. "We don't have a lot of time to secure the protected areas," he said. "If we lose a couple of years, we'll find the options we're looking at now won't be options anymore."

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

This entry was originally posted to the Island Press blog, Island Interactive, at www.islandpress.org/blog. Robert has posted periodic updates on population as he promotes his new book, More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want.

"Denial," Al Gore used to say, "ain't just a river in Egypt."

The word, in fact, defines an entire approach to governance that characterizes the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush: Deny that global warming justifies any significant U.S. action. Deny government scientists access to the public when their views conflict with those of the administration.

And, as illustrated on Thursday of last week, deny the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) any financial help to improve the health and lives of women around the world and ultimately slow population growth.

It's a toxic brew of denial that pushes people and the planet closer to catastrophe.

Each year during Bush's two presidential terms, Congress has authorized a bit less than $40 million to support UNFPA's work in some 154 developing and former Soviet bloc countries to improve basic reproductive health care and family planning for women and men who want it. The agency works to prevent violence against women and to support emergency obstetric care, a deadly threat to women in rural areas where hospitals are few and far between. And UNFPA supplies a variety of contraceptive methods appropriate to individual needs in many countries where family planning services are, to be generous, "works in progress."

One of these countries, of course, is China, which is attempting to shift the focus of its infamous one-child policy away from ham-fisted and sometimes coercive pressure on parents. What makes much more sense is simply to improve the reach of reproductive health services that women and men want, regardless of the one-child policy. UNFPA is helping the "good guys" within China's family planning bureaucracy-offering technical assistance with higher-quality condoms and other contraceptives, for example.

It's pretty hard to coerce people to use condoms. By denying funding to UNFPA, the Bush administration is simply punishing the agency in what amounts to a no-risk "photo op" to buff up its anti-abortion rights credentials.

The irony, of course, is that by taking money away from contraceptive services, the policy boosts the number of abortions all over the world. By undermining the many other reproductive health services that UNFPA helps expand, the policy pushes women further into potential harm and second-class citizenship. And the world's estimated 80 million annual unintended pregnancies continue to power population growth at a time of soaring environmental and social risk.

It's an old story, one I document in my new book More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want. Sadly, some leaders want to make sure the old story never catches up with the times in which we live.

Postscript: These blogs will become a bit less frequent over the next couple of months as I return to book writing-in this case a chapter for the upcoming Worldwatch Institute publication State of the World 2009. The theme of that book will be how the world can best cope with climate change while preventing climate catastrophe over the coming century.

Occasional future blogs may take on the population-climate connection as a result of my new research and writing. And I still owe readers a promised post on whether "Pop" Malthus's 200-year-old views on population have any wisdom to offer us today. Please stay tuned for further updates.

 

China's recent plastic bag ban has been immediately accepted by consumers. In a country where billions of plastic bags are used each day, the government's top-down policy move will likely benefit the country's environment and energy security well before market forces or consumer-led efforts are able to achieve similar impact.

The ban prohibits shops, supermarkets, and sales outlets from handing out free plastic bags and bans the production, sale, and use of ultra-thin plastic bags under 0.025 millimeters thick. It took effect nationwide on June 1.

Plastic bags, a seemingly minor commodity, have mobilized four powerful government departments in China. The State Council, China's cabinet, issued the bag ban earlier this year, and in May, shortly before its implementation, three other departments stepped in and imposed an auxiliary ruling to enforce the directive. The Ministry of Commerce, National Development and Reform Commission, and State Administration for Industry and Commerce set forth detailed stipulations on implementation and enforcement in the ruling, known as Administrative Measures for the Paid Use of Plastic Bags at Commodity Retailing Places.

China's central government dealt this heavy blow to plastic bags out of concern for the environment and a desire for greater energy savings. People in China use up to 3 billion plastic bags daily and dispose of more than 3 million tons of them annually. Most of the carriers end up in unofficial dumping sites, landfills, or the environment. Urban dumping centers and open fields alongside railways and expressways are littered with the discarded bags, mostly whitish ultra-thin varieties. Such scenes have generated a special term in China: "the white pollution."

Plastic bags consume a huge quantity of oil, an energy source that in recent months has hovered at more than $100 per barrel on international markets. Experts estimate that China refines nearly 5 million tons (37 million barrels) of crude oil each year, or one-third of its imported oil, to make plastics used for packaging.

The twin pressures of environment protection and energy security have galvanized China's policymakers to take a strong stance, with an immediate initial result. Reports note that use of plastic bags in supermarkets in southern Guangzou City has dropped by nearly half since June 1, and some supermarkets in Beijing use as few as one-tenth the number of bags as before the ban.

Shoppers have embraced the ban without significant complaint, despite sacrificing some degree of shopping convenience. Older generations have reminiscently turned back to the woven baskets or plain cloth bags they used before plastic alternatives entered the Chinese market in the 1980s. Younger people are busy checking out online shops for more fashionable "eco-friendly" bags. Those who do pay for plastic bags are trying to buy as few as possible, foregoing the long-engrained perspective of "better more than fewer" prevalent before the ban.

China's plastic bag policy is instilling a proactive attitude toward energy savings and environmental protection in a country where public environmental awareness is chronically weak. Price is still the paramount factor guiding people's purchases nationwide, and the consumer "green" movement remains a novel phenomenon, often regarded as a pet project of idealistic environmentalists.

The consumer mentality takes time to change. But as pressures on the environment and natural resources continue to rise, it is better to have smart government policies that guide consumer habits, rather than waiting for the market to force these changes. Simply relying on the market and on individual behavior may bring too little too late.

Yingling Liu is manager of the China Program at the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington-D.C. based environmental research organization.

I always find it interesting as to why some stories get traction in the mainstream media and why some don't. In online science discussions, the fate of this years summer sea ice has been the focus of a significant betting pool, a test of expert prediction skills, and a week-by-week (almost) running commentary. However, [...]

Years of industrial and agricultural growth have left an indelible imprint on many formerly vibrant U.S. ecosystems. While nature is adept at resilience, the depletion and contamination of natural resources, especially water, may affect human health and wellbeing, a new report suggests.

Released last week by the federally funded environmental think tank The Heinz Center, The State of the Nation's Ecosystems offers what the authors consider the most comprehensive look at countrywide ecosystem health.

Following a similar report the center published in 2002, the new analysis was expanded to include additional indicators, such as invasive species, carbon storage, and stream flows. Yet the report's authors do not hide the fact that data gaps prevent an even more detailed assessment. "We don't have the entire environmental picture," said Thomas Lovejoy, president of the Heinz Center. Authors called for federal and state action that would strengthen and integrate environmental monitoring.

Among the findings, U.S. freshwater resources are being continually depleted and polluted. Between 1960 and 2000, freshwater withdrawn for consumption increased 46 percent. Meanwhile, drought and melting glaciers have reduced the flow of many water sources.

Contaminants, such as pesticides, fertilizers, and medications, have been detected in "virtually all" freshwater streambeds, the report said. Streams are contaminated above benchmarks set to protect aquatic life in 57 percent of farmland and 83 percent of urban and suburban areas. These pollutants have contributed to growing "dead zones" where aquatic life cannot survive.

Contaminants at concentrations above the benchmark for human health are found in 7 percent of urban and suburban streams. Nitrate, a runoff of agricultural fertilizers, exceeds federal drinking water standards in 20 percent of farmland groundwater wells.

"When we find barren lands and depleted water, it's a bad sign of our job as stewards," said Larry Schweiger, president of the National Wildlife Federation. "What happens to nature, happens to humans."

On a more positive note, many ecosystems, especially forests, have remained intact due to conservation and sustainable management. Timber growth has exceeded harvest - half of U.S. timberland is younger than 60 years old - which has allowed forests to store more of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in recent years than a decade ago.

However, wildlife within those ecosystems faces widespread threats. One-third of native plant and animal species, excluding marine species, are at risk of extinction. Global warming is shifting the climate outside the threshold that many native species can tolerate, which provides an advantage to invasive species that have more general survival requirements.

Invasive species are also out-competing native species for resources. More than half of U.S. freshwater watersheds contain at least 10 non-native fish species, and only two watersheds have no reported invasives, the report says.

Data gaps mentioned throughout the report include area measurements of several ecosystems, such as wetlands, seagrasses, and lakes, and of the rate that various ecosystems are being converted into other uses. The report also says that biodiversity and pollution data are inadequate for marine ecosystems. "The field of environmental research is fraught by extremes of political advocacy and inadequacy of scientific data," said William Clark, the chair of the project design committee and an ecology professor at Harvard University.

To address the lack in data, which will be an ongoing challenge as climate change continues to alter habitats worldwide, the White House announced a plan to develop a new set of national environmental indicators. After several attempts to impede climate change reports throughout the current Bush administration, executive offices plan to consolidate water quantity and quality indicators, which would measure the effect of climate change.

A report published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday expressed similar support for environmental indicators. In this case, the agency said climate change thresholds should be established for individual ecosystems to improve climate adaptation plans. "Understanding where thresholds have been exceeded in the past and where (and how likely) they may be exceeded in the future allows managers to plan accordingly and avoid tipping points where possible," the report said.

The Heinz Center recommended that Congress establish a national system of exhaustive environmental and natural resources indicators. "Once we have a decent system of monitoring what the current system is, we can become much better at predicting what the future is," said Robin O'Malley, director of the center's environmental reporting program.

Tim Keeney, deputy assistant secretary of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, represented the administration at the report's launch. "I didn't come to endorse the recommendations wholesale, but a lot of the recommendations make sense," he said.

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

It's a familiar story: An interesting paper gets published, there is a careless throwaway line in the press release, and a whole series of misleading headlines ensues. This week, it's a paper on bromine- and iodine-mediated ozone loss in marine boundary layer environments (see a good commentary here). This is important for the light that [...]

This entry was originally posted to the Island Press blog, Island Interactive, at www.islandpress.org/blog. Robert will post periodic updates on population as he promotes his new book, More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want.

Keeping a book short is no easy task, especially on a set of topics as complex and controversial as population and the reproductive intentions of women. Now that I'm discussing my latest book, More, widely, and the publication is gaining some reviews (such as this one in the Washington Post), I'm developing a list of topics I hope to develop further if I ever write the sequel. The title could be More More, or maybe even Longer More.

Many points that some readers feel I've missed are actually in the book, though perhaps not highlighted or explored in depth as much as people would like. That's the case with the topic of individual consumption of natural resources, which I discussed in an earlier blog ("All Consuming Question," June 6). And I do make the point clearly (as have some reviewers and questioners) that many women aren't able to use contraception at all because of social pressure from their partners and others in their lives.

By contrast, some topics could use more attention in a future treatment of this linkage. Among those I'm making notes on are:

• The desire of many women to have large families, and the need some have felt throughout history to enhance their fertility, not suppress it. I acknowledge in More the diversity of childbearing intentions among women, and point out that what matters to overall population outcomes is average fertility, not that of any particular woman or group. But the persistence of reported high desired fertility among many women is worth exploring in more detail. I'd like to try to tease out what is personal and what is social (and possibly socially pressured) in women's frequently expressed hopes for having many children in some societies.

• The related issue of infecundity-the inability to bear or father a child (commonly called infertility, though technically this term means simply having no children). Should couples or individual women who would like to conceive and bear a child, but who have had difficulty doing so, get help from societies and governments (a measure that I support for women who want to postpone and prevent pregnancy)?

• The ways that men often support rather than undermine women's reproductive intentions and strategies. An earlier draft of More had a longer section on contemporary male involvement in reproduction and its importance, and I'd like to dig further into that topic.

• The importance of sexuality education. This is a critical component of healthy and intentional reproduction that deserves much more attention. The recent news story about a spate of teen pregnancies in Gloucester, Massachusetts, serves as a sad reminder of the high cost of blindness to young people's need for sound information about sex and reproduction as well as access to safe and effective contraceptive options.

I may deal with some of these points in future blog posts. It's hard to say, after all, whether or when More More will ever see the light of day.

Statement on the 20th Anniversary of Dr. James E. Hansen's Historic
Testimony to the Senate Energy Committee on Climate Change

Washington, D.C. - Exactly 20 years have passed since Dr. James E. Hansen of NASA first testified to Congress on June 23, 1988 that global temperatures had risen beyond the range of natural variability. Waiting another 20 years before taking decisive action is not an option.

Since 1988, mainstream scientific thinking has caught up with Dr. Hansen's declaration that our climate is being adversely affected by human activities, primarily the burning of fossil fuels-and the forecasts of climate change in the coming decades are increasingly dire.

But political action has fallen well behind the pace of scientific progress, and despite growing public support to limit greenhouse gas emissions, the U.S. Senate failed early this month to approve landmark legislation that would have begun to do so.

Dr. Hansen's latest research indicates that greenhouse gas concentrations have already reached damaging levels and the climate is nearing a dangerous tipping point that will unleash far-reaching changes in the atmosphere and oceans that could take millennia to reverse. In his latest paper, Dr. Hansen calls for deep reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, beginning almost immediately, with a focus on phasing out the uncontrolled combustion of coal by 2030.1  

As the world moves toward a new climate agreement in 2009, decision makers must understand the tremendous risks we face and the urgency of action in the year ahead.

Although many still argue that such a transition to a low-carbon energy system will be enormously expensive and difficult, our research has shown that it would open up vast economic opportunities, spur innovation and job creation, assist efforts to reduce poverty, and increase energy security.

The transition to a low-carbon economy should be based on sustainable use of renewable sources of energy, including wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass, together with major advances in energy efficiency. The world can achieve a tipping point at which renewables are less expensive than fossil energy-allowing economic momentum to accelerate the transition.

The United States and other industrial nations must work collaboratively with developing countries to increase their capacity to respond to the challenges presented by climate change and to pursue a more viable energy development path. Brazil, China, Europe, India, and the United States together account for 60 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Following Dr. Hansen's recommendations, policymakers should adopt a policy that puts a price on carbon dioxide emissions, halts the construction of uncontrolled coal-fired power plants, and promotes agriculture and forestry practices that will sequester large amounts of carbon.

Achieving the needed energy transformation will require profound changes in government policies, strengthened global governance in the form of a new international climate agreement, and the mobilization of the private sector to develop and deploy a host of new technologies.

"We applaud Jim Hansen for his leadership on this critical issue," said Worldwatch President Christopher Flavin. "His warnings show how essential it is that 2008 become a turning point for climate policy as well as climate science-launching the post-fossil fuel economy the world so desperately needs."

 

-END-

 

1. J. Hansen et al., "Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?" revised 18 June 2008. See http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126 and http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1135.

Tipping Points Near

Today, I will testify to Congress about global warming, 20 years after my June 23, 1988 testimony, which alerted the public that global warming was under way. There are striking similarities between then and now, but one big difference.

Again a wide gap has developed between what is understood about global warming by the relevant scientific community and what is known by policymakers and the public. Now, as then, frank assessment of scientific data yields conclusions that are shocking to the body politic. Now, as then, I can assert that these conclusions have a certainty exceeding 99 percent.

The difference is that now we have used up all slack in the schedule for actions needed to defuse the global warming time bomb. The next President and Congress must define a course next year in which the United States exerts leadership commensurate with our responsibility for the present dangerous situation.

Otherwise, it will become impractical to constrain atmospheric carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas produced in burning fossil fuels, to a level that prevents the climate system from passing tipping points that lead to disastrous climate changes that spiral dynamically out of humanity's control.

Changes needed to preserve creation, the planet on which civilization developed, are clear. But the changes have been blocked by special interests, focused on short-term profits, who hold sway in Washington and other capitals.

I argue that a path yielding energy independence and a healthier environment is, barely, still possible. It requires a transformative change of direction in Washington in the next year.

Then: Time to "Stop Waffling"

On June 23, 1988, I testified to a hearing chaired by Senator Tim Wirth of Colorado that the Earth had entered a long-term warming trend, and that human-made greenhouse gases almost surely were responsible. I noted that global warming enhanced both extremes of the water cycle, meaning stronger droughts and forest fires, on the one hand, but also heavier rains and floods.

My testimony two decades ago was greeted with skepticism. But while skepticism is the lifeblood of science, it can confuse the public. As scientists examine a topic from all perspectives, it may appear that nothing is known with confidence. But from such broad open-minded study of all data, valid conclusions can be drawn.

My conclusions in 1988 were built on a wide range of inputs from basic physics, planetary studies, observations of ongoing changes, and climate models. The evidence was strong enough that I could say it was time to "stop waffling." I was sure that time would bring the scientific community to a similar consensus, as it has.

While international recognition of global warming was swift, actions have faltered. The United States refused to place limits on its emissions, and developing countries such as China and India rapidly increased their emissions.

The Coming Storm

What is at stake? Warming so far, about two degrees Fahrenheit over land areas, seems almost innocuous, being less than day-to-day weather fluctuations. But more warming is already "in-the-pipeline," delayed only by the great inertia of the world ocean. And climate is nearing dangerous tipping points. Elements of a "perfect storm," a global cataclysm, are assembled.

Climate can reach points such that amplifying feedbacks spur large rapid changes. Arctic sea ice is a current example. Global warming initiated sea ice melt, exposing darker ocean that absorbs more sunlight, melting more ice. As a result, without any additional greenhouse gases, the Arctic soon will be ice-free in the summer.

More ominous tipping points loom. West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are vulnerable to even small additional warming. These two-mile-thick behemoths respond slowly at first, but if disintegration gets well under way it will become unstoppable. Debate among scientists is only about how much sea level would rise by a given date. In my opinion, if emissions follow a business-as-usual scenario, sea level rise of at least two meters is likely this century. Hundreds of millions of people would become refugees. No stable shoreline would be reestablished in any time frame that humanity can conceive.

Animal and plant species are already stressed by climate change. Polar and alpine species will be pushed off the planet, if warming continues. Other species attempt to migrate, but as some are extinguished, their interdependencies can cause ecosystem collapse. Mass extinctions, of more than half the species on the planet, have occurred several times when the Earth warmed as much as expected if greenhouse gases continue to increase. Biodiversity recovered, but it required hundreds of thousands of years.

Getting to 350 ppm

The disturbing conclusion, documented in a paper[1] I have written with several of the world's leading climate experts, is that the safe level of atmospheric carbon dioxide is no more than 350 ppm (parts per million), and it may be less. Carbon dioxide amount is already 385 ppm and rising by about 2 ppm per year. Stunning corollary: the oft-stated goal to keep global warming less than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is a recipe for global disaster, not salvation.

These conclusions are based on paleoclimate data showing how the Earth responded to past levels of greenhouse gases and on observations showing how the world is responding to today's carbon dioxide amount. The consequences of continued increase of greenhouse gases extend far beyond extermination of species and future sea level rise.

Arid subtropical climate zones are expanding poleward. Already an average expansion of about 250 miles has occurred, affecting the southern United States, the Mediterranean region, Australia, and southern Africa. Forest fires and drying-up of lakes will increase further unless carbon dioxide growth is halted and reversed.

Mountain glaciers are the source of fresh water for hundreds of millions of people. These glaciers are receding worldwide, in the Himalayas, Andes, and Rocky Mountains. They will disappear, leaving their rivers as trickles in late summer and fall, unless the growth of carbon dioxide is reversed.

Coral reefs, the rainforests of the ocean, are home for one-third of the species in the sea. Coral reefs are under stress for several reasons, including warming of the ocean, but especially because of ocean acidification, a direct effect of added carbon dioxide. Ocean life dependent on carbonate shells and skeletons is threatened by dissolution as the ocean becomes more acid.

Such phenomena, including the instability of Arctic sea ice and the great ice sheets at today's carbon dioxide amount, show that we have already gone too far. We must draw down atmospheric carbon dioxide to preserve the planet we know. A level of no more than 350 ppm is still feasible, with the help of reforestation and improved agricultural practices, but just barely - time is running out.

Moving Away from Fossil Fuels

Requirements to halt carbon dioxide growth follow from the size of fossil carbon reservoirs. Coal towers over oil and gas. Phasing out the use of coal except where the carbon is captured and stored below ground is the primary requirement for solving global warming.

Oil is used in vehicles, where it is impractical to capture the carbon. But oil is running out. To preserve our planet we must ensure that the next mobile energy source is not obtained by squeezing oil from coal, tar shale, or other fossil fuels.

Fossil fuel reservoirs are finite, which is the main reason that prices are rising. We must move beyond fossil fuels eventually. Solution of the climate problem requires that we move to carbon-free energy promptly.

Special interests have blocked the transition to our renewable energy future. Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil fuel companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, just as tobacco companies discredited the link between smoking and cancer. Methods are sophisticated, including funding to help shape school textbook discussions of global warming.

CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of the long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.

But the conviction of ExxonMobil and Peabody Coal CEOs will be no consolation if we pass on a runaway climate to our children. Humanity would be impoverished by ravages of continually shifting shorelines and intensification of regional climate extremes. Loss of countless species would leave a more desolate planet.

If politicians remain at loggerheads, citizens must lead. We must demand a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants. We must block fossil fuel interests who aim to squeeze every last drop of oil from public lands, off-shore, and wilderness areas. Those last drops are no solution. They yield continued exorbitant profits for a short-sighted, self-serving industry, but no alleviation of our addiction or long-term energy source.

Pricing Carbon Emissions

Moving from fossil fuels to clean energy is challenging, yet it is also transformative in ways that will be welcomed. Cheap, subsidized fossil fuels engendered bad habits. We import food from halfway around the world, for example, even with healthier products available from nearby fields. Local produce would be competitive were it not for fossil fuel subsidies and the fact that climate change damages and costs, due to fossil fuels, are also borne by the public.

A price on emissions that cause harm is essential. Yes, a carbon tax. A carbon tax with a 100 percent dividend[2] is needed to wean us off of our fossil fuel addiction. A tax and dividend allows the marketplace, not politicians, to make investment decisions.

A carbon tax on coal, oil, and gas is simple, applied at the first point of sale or port of entry. The entire tax must be returned to the public-an equal amount to each adult, a half-share for children. This dividend can be deposited monthly in an individual's bank account.

A carbon tax with a 100 percent dividend is non-regressive. On the contrary, you can bet that low- and middle-income people will find ways to limit their carbon tax and come out ahead. Profligate energy users will have to pay for their excesses.

Demand for low-carbon, high-efficiency products will spur innovation, making U.S. products more competitive on international markets. Carbon emissions will plummet as energy efficiency and renewable energies grow rapidly. Black soot, mercury, and other fossil fuel emissions will decline. A brighter, cleaner future, with energy independence, is possible.

America's Role

Washington likes to spend our tax money line-by-line. Swarms of high-priced lobbyists in alligator shoes help Congress decide where to spend, and in turn the lobbyists' clients provide "campaign" money.

The public must send a message to Washington. Preserve our planet, and creation, for our children and grandchildren, but do not use that as an excuse for more tax-and-spend. Let this be our motto: "One hundred percent dividend or fight!"

The next President must make a national low-loss electric grid an imperative. It will allow dispersed renewable energies to supplant fossil fuels for power generation. Technology exists for direct-current high-voltage buried transmission lines. Trunk lines can be completed in less than a decade and expanded, in a way analogous to interstate highways.

Government must also change utility regulations so that profits do not depend on selling ever more energy, but instead increase with efficiency. Building-code and vehicle-efficiency requirements must be improved and put on a path toward carbon neutrality.

The fossil fuel industry maintains its stranglehold on Washington via demagoguery, using China and other developing nations as scapegoats to rationalize inaction. In fact, the United States produced most of the excess carbon in the air today, and it is to our advantage as a nation to move smartly in finding ways to reduce emissions. As with the ozone problem, developing countries can be allowed limited extra time to reduce emissions. They will cooperate: they have much to lose from climate change and much to gain from clean air and reduced dependence on fossil fuels.

The United States must establish fair agreements with other countries. However, our own tax and dividend should start immediately. We have much to gain from it as a nation, and other countries will copy our success. If necessary, import duties on products from uncooperative countries can level the playing field, with the import tax added to the dividend pool.

Democracy works, but sometimes it churns slowly. Time is short. The 2008 election is critical for the planet. If Americans turn out to pasture the most brontosaurian congressmen, and if Washington adapts to address climate change, our children and grandchildren can still hold great expectations.

Dr. James E. Hansen, a physicist by training, directs the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, a laboratory of the Goddard Space Flight Center and a unit of the Columbia University Earth Institute, but he testifies here as a private citizen.

 

[1] J. Hansen et al., "Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?" submitted 18 June 2008. See http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126 and http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1135.

[2] The proposed "tax and 100% dividend" is based largely on the cap-and-dividend approach described by Peter Barnes in Who Owns the Sky: Our Common Assets and the Future of Capitalism (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2001). See http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=116&subsecID=149&contentID=3867.

Washington, D.C.-Global nuclear power capacity grew by less than 2,000 megawatts in 2007, a figure equivalent to just one-tenth of the new wind power installed globally last year, according to the latest Vital Signs Update from the Worldwatch Institute.  Global nuclear capacity stands at 372,000 megawatts, but ranks as the slowest growing energy source-just 0.5 percent in 2007, compared to wind at 27 percent.  

By the end of 2007, some 34 nuclear reactors were being built worldwide, 12 of which had been under construction for 20 years or more. Asia accounts for the most nuclear power plant construction, with 20 new reactors currently under way. India and China each have six reactors under construction, accounting for 8,130 megawatts, or more than a quarter of the nuclear capacity currently being built worldwide. More than 124 reactors have been retired by the commercial nuclear industry since 1964, amounting to a total of 36,800 megawatts of generating capacity.

Construction delays and cost overruns continue to plague the nuclear industry. Cost estimates for identical Westinghouse-designed nuclear plants more than doubled in 2007, to $12-18 billion, raising questions about the plants' economic viability and doubts as to how many electric utilities would be willing to add liabilities of that scale to their balance sheets.

In Japan, a 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck the largest nuclear complex in the world in 2007, shutting down the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant's seven reactors, which account for 8,000 megawatts of Japan's nuclear capacity. The quake was two and a half times more powerful than the reactors were designed to withstand, raising questions about whether they should ever be returned to service.

The United States saw no nuclear construction starts for the 29th straight year in 2007, though one reactor was restarted after a 22-year shutdown, and construction resumed on another reactor that had been stalled since 1988. While electric utilities submitted applications for seven new reactors, and government regulators expect additional applications in 2008, industry officials are seeking additional federal loan guarantees as a prerequisite to starting plant construction. The U.S. credit rating agency Moody's has cautioned that many utilities are underestimating the cost of new plants and that nuclear investment could damage their credit ratings.

To obtain the text of the full Update, visit http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5447.

Worldwatch Institute is partnering with Grist to bring you this three-part series commemorating the 20-year anniversary of NASA scientist James Hansen's groundbreaking testimony on global climate change next week. Read parts one and two.

In May 1989, a few months after NASA scientist James Hansen declared that global warming had arrived, he would provide another testimony to clarify the risks of future climate change.

But before Hansen could make his presentation to Senator Al Gore's subcommittee, the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) intercepted the testimony and rewrote its conclusion. According to the revised copy, the cause of climate change was still unknown. NASA Headquarters said Hansen could accept the changes or not testify, he later recalled.

It was not the first OMB revision of a Hansen testimony. This time, he decided, would be different. Hansen notified Gore that his testimony did not reflect his actual opinion, which led Gore to frame the hearing's questions to reveal the OMB edits. It was the lead story on all major television networks that night.

Twenty years after Hansen's 1988 landmark testimony, the U.S. government remains largely in a state of denial about the urgency of global climate change. Yet Hansen remains a source of reason, despite government efforts to silence him and industry campaigns to obscure his research.

"Hansen has a real intense inner light," says Rafe Pomerance, president of Clean Air Cool Planet. "What's someone who sees the future to do? Keep his mouth shut? Hansen's not going to do that."

While Hansen espoused confidence about the science of climate change, few other scientists were willing to make such clear predictions. In its initial 1990 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), composed of leading climate scientists from around the world, merely questioned whether anthropogenic climate change was occurring. Meanwhile, the coal, oil, and automotive industries unleashed a propaganda campaign to dispute the science of climate change.

The industry-funded Global Climate Coalition spent tens of millions of dollars to raise doubts about the evidence for climate change and to minimize the potential consequences. During the 1990s, the group managed to reshape media coverage of human-induced climate change from fact into theory by recruiting a handful of skeptical scientists who were paid to speak with the press and public. "It sowed confusion and doubt into the public that is now irremediable," says Spencer Weart, a climate change historian at the American Institute of Physics.

These efforts helped derail U.S. climate legislation in the 1990s and complicated efforts to negotiate the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty that most industrial countries adopted to limit their greenhouse gas emissions. When George W. Bush became president in 2001, he quickly rejected the Kyoto Protocol and brought to a halt serious discussion of climate policy in the United States.

Hansen remained relatively quiet during those years and instead focused on his research. That quickly changed when he delivered a speech to the American Geophysical Union in December 2005. In addition to announcing that the year would prove to be the hottest on record, Hansen warned that the rise in sea levels was evidence that humans were causing global climate instability. "Jim took a step beyond that usual dissonance in the scientific community. He said ‘six to eight feet increase in sea level, I call that dangerous, don't you?'" says Rick Piltz, director of Climate Science Watch, a watchdog program of the Government Accountability Project.

The speech, which received widespread media attention, led White House-appointed NASA administrators to silence Hansen and other scientists. The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), influenced by ExxonMobil lobbyists, singled out Clinton administration-appointed federal scientists who could be "removed from their positions of influence," according to a released memo. Among the "removed" scientists was former IPCC chair Robert Watson. American Petroleum Institute attorney Philip Cooney was appointed chief-of-staff of the CEQ. He would repeatedly edit government reports on climate change in an effort to lessen the certainty of the science.

At NASA, orders authorized by administration-appointed public relations officers "reduced, marginalized, or mischaracterized climate change science," an agency investigation stated recently. Climate scientists were not allowed to conduct media interviews without prior approval. Hansen had to remove the 2005 temperature data from NASA's website. Even Hansen's daily schedule suddenly required prior consent.

Hansen decided he had seen enough. He sent an e-mail in January 2006 about the NASA constraints to New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin, who first uncovered the restrictions. During an interview on the CBS program 60 Minutes, Hansen said, "In my more than three decades in the government I've never witnessed such restrictions on the ability of scientists to communicate with the public."

Federal scientists, from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and other agencies, have since acknowledged that their climate findings were also being repressed. "[Hansen] did a great deal to help unmask the Bush administration's collusion with the global warming disinformation campaign," said Piltz, who helped expose the White House when he publicly resigned from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. "He's a bit like a lone wolf. Nobody can tell him what to say or what to do. They made a mistake when they tried to mess with him."

Today Hansen rallies openly for drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. He writes personal letters to governors urging them not to approve new coal-fired power plants in their states. He decries the increased role of fossil fuel lobbyists in American politics - once testifying to Congress that NASA's mission had apparently become to "protect special interests' backside."

Above all, Hansen has continued to produce groundbreaking research. He and eight of the world's leading climate scientists will soon publish a paper arguing that total atmospheric greenhouse gases must be reduced to 350 parts per million - not 450, which many scientists have long stated - to avoid "irreversible catastrophic effects."

Over the past 20 years, supporters have lauded Hansen as a visionary scientist and a brave public servant. At a time when the United States has refused to act on climate change, Hansen has jolted the nation awake. Will the country - and its new leader - heed his advice? He says the world cannot wait another 20 years.

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

Hot on the heels of last months reporting of a discrepancy in the ocean surface temperatures, a new paper in Nature (by Domingues et al, 2008) reports on the revisions of the ocean heat content (OHC) data - a correction required because of other discrepancies in measuring systems found last year. Before we get to [...]

Worldwatch Institute is partnering with Grist to bring you this three-part series commemorating the 20-year anniversary of NASA scientist James Hansen's groundbreaking testimony on global climate change next week. Read part one here.

An unprecedented heat wave gripped the United States in the summer of 1988. Droughts destroyed crops. Forests were in flames. The Mississippi River was so dry that barges could not pass. Nearly half the nation was declared a disaster area.

The record-high temperatures led growing numbers of people to wonder whether the climate was in some way being unnaturally altered.

Meanwhile, NASA scientist James Hansen was wrapping up a study that found that climate change, caused by the burning of fossil fuels, appeared inevitable even with dramatic reductions in greenhouse gases. After a decade of studying the so-called greenhouse effect on global climate, Hansen was prepared to make a bold statement.

Hansen found his opportunity through Colorado Senator Tim Wirth, who chose to showcase the scientist at a Congressional hearing. Twenty years later, the hearing is regarded as a turning point in climate science history.

To build upon Hansen's announcement, Wirth used the summer's record heat to his advantage. "We did agree that we should figure out when it'd be really hot in Washington," says David Harwood, a legislative aide for Wirth. "People might be thinking of things like what's the climate like."

They agreed upon June 28. When the day of the hearing arrived, the temperature in the nation's capital peaked at 101 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius). The stage was set.

Seated before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, 15 television cameras, and a roomful of reporters, Hansen wiped the sweat from his brow and presented his findings. The charts of global climate all pointed upward. "The Earth is warmer in 1988 than at any time in the history of instrumental measurements," he said. "There is only a 1 percent chance of an accidental warming of this magnitude.... The greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now."

Hotter-than-usual summers in cities like Washington, D.C., or Omaha, Nebraska, were becoming more frequent each year, Hansen told the committee. Between 1950 and 1980, the likelihood of such heat waves was 33 percent. In the late 1980s, the probability was somewhere between 40 and 60 percent. By the 1990s, it was as much as 70 percent.

Hansen also presented maps of estimated global temperatures for years between 1986 and 2029. "In any given month, there is almost as much area that is cooler than normal as there is area warmer than normal," he said, pointing to maps of the 1980s. "A few decades in the future, as shown on the right, it is warm almost everywhere."

Until Hansen's testimony, the science of climate change was considered tentative at best. But, "the scientific evidence is compelling," Wirth announced at the hearing. "The global climate is changing as the Earth's atmosphere gets warmer."

Other senators also reacted with calls for action. Senator Dale Bumpers of Arkansas said there was an "obligation to take very dramatic action." The committee chairman, Louisiana Senator Bennett Johnston, recalls that he was struck by Hansen's confidence. "There was a real kindling of curiosity and desire to learn more about this issue," Bennett says.

The next day, The New York Times published a story about Hansen's statements on its front page. "Global Warming Has Begun," the headline read.

Climate change awareness had shifted. Surveys conducted in the months after Hansen's testimony found that 68 percent of respondents had heard about the greenhouse effect, a big jump from the 38 percent who said the same in 1981. Politicians reacted, too. By the end of 1988, 32 climate-related bills had been introduced in Congress.

But Hansen was not the only predictor of the future that day. Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico entered the hearing late and admitted he had not read the testimonies. Yet as the meeting wrapped up, he accurately forecasted the future of climate change politics. "It seems that we as a people, and probably peoples all over the world, are very skeptical to move in areas such as this until we either have a disaster or we have absolute concrete proof," he said.

All the climate bills introduced that year went nowhere. In the coming decades, an unprecedented industry-led campaign to smear climate science would confuse much of the public and stall a U.S. climate solution.

While Hansen would later find more - and stronger - proof that his testimony's predictions were true, attempts from the White House to silence his results would also intensify.

Hansen refused to remain silent.

Friday: An Outspoken Truth

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

Some people think policies aimed at slowing population growth are foisted on the developing world by heavy-handed industrialized countries. Actually, most population policies are home grown, and sometimes none the better for this. I have a hunch there's not much gender diversity in the circles that develop them. And those who write about them often fall into the same trap.

Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak recently endorsed a new $80 million campaign that reportedly focuses on the slogan "Two children per family - a chance for a better life." Mubarak took office in 1981 in a country with about 45 million people. Egypt today grapples with food scarcity and riotous bread lines in one with 78 million.

Almost all the country's arable land lies along thin strips on either bank of the Nile River, whose waters traverse nine other countries, all with growing populations, before reaching Egypt. So it's not hard to understand Mubarak's concerns about the future of human numbers in the ancient nation. And, as he pointed out, Egypt built the pyramids and evolved one of the world's first civilizations with a slowly growing population that never exceeded a few million people.

But there's no evidence that slogans about two-child families slow population growth. You get the impression that a small group of men sat around a table and came up with the slogan idea because it was easier than asking women what might make for smaller families. Many would respond that it takes decent family planning and reproductive services offering a range of healthy contraceptive choices.

Actually, I couldn't tell in reading the Washington Post story what Mubarak's campaign involved, because the reporter didn't relay anything beyond the slogan. Instead, she went on to interview men-and only men, so far I can tell-about why they don't have smaller families. The journalistic enterprise left a lot to be desired.

One source was a 71-year-old merchant of baby products. He said he had five children and wished for a dozen. "God will feed us," he added. Other men blamed the government for "not providing," and suggested children were economically valuable because they often work and earn money-when they can find a job, at least.

Absent from the story were the voices of women (aside from the reporter herself), who bear all Egyptian children. Why not seek out women and ask them: Are you satisfied with the choices you have about childbearing? Do you have good access to contraceptive advice and services that allow you to safely prevent a pregnancy when you want to do so? Are you hoping to become pregnant soon or, if not, are you taking steps you're comfortable with to avoid doing so?

It's not every day that heads of state speak up about their population worries, but the topic is on more and more presidential minds these days as food and energy prices soar with no end in sight. When population does emerge as a public issue, journalists can ask the people bearing children what it is they want. The answers might lead to populations that grow more slowly for the best of reasons, because more women became pregnant when they wanted to do so, and only then.

Worldwatch Institute is partnering with Grist to bring you this three-part series commemorating the 20-year anniversary of NASA scientist James Hansen's groundbreaking testimony on global climate change next week. Part 1 of 3.

The speakers at a Washington, D.C., climate rally this past Earth Day, April 22, showcased the range of the modern environmental movement. They included an activist who engaged in a hunger strike, an outspoken preacher from the Hip Hop Caucus, and a folk duo that performed "Unsustainable," a remake of Frank Sinatra's "Unforgettable."

Yet it was a comparatively dry, 20-minute scientific presentation that brought the crowd to its feet. The speaker, introduced as a "climate hero," was James Hansen, a long-time scientist with the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Hansen is not a revolutionary by character. He is a mild-natured man who speaks with a soft, Midwestern tone. Raised in southwest Iowa, the fifth child of tenant farmers, Hansen would later commit his life to studying computerized climate models. With human-induced climate change now widely regarded as the greatest challenge of this generation, Hansen is considered a visionary pioneer.

Theories of climate change first surfaced more than a century ago. But it was Hansen who forever altered the debate on climate change, 20 years ago this month.

On June 23, 1988, in sweltering heat, Hansen told a U.S. Senate committee he was 99 percent certain that the year's record temperatures were not the result of natural variation. It was the first time a lead scientist drew a connection between human activities, the growing concentration of atmospheric pollutants, and a warming climate.

"It's time to stop waffling so much and say that the evidence is pretty strong that the greenhouse effect is here," Hansen told reporters.

Scientists first expressed concern about possible climate change more than a decade before Hansen's testimony. The most-publicized report came from the National Academy of Sciences in 1977. It warned that average temperatures may rise 6 degrees Celsius by 2050 due to the burning of coal.

Around the same time, Hansen, a space scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, began studying the effect of greenhouse gases on climate. His first paper on the subject, published in the journal Science in 1981, predicted that burning fossil fuels would increase global temperatures by 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.5 degrees Celsius) by the end of the 21st century.

The incoming Reagan administration responded to Hansen's predictions by cutting funding for GISS. But Hansen, encouraged by former Friends of the Earth president Rafe Pomerance, continued to raise the issue. "It was truly important for him to be heard. The issue had no traction at that point," says Pomerance, now president of Clean Air Cool Planet.

Al Gore, then a young Congressman, began organizing some of the first Congressional hearings on climate change in the early 1980s, which featured Hansen's input. As more studies suggested a link between burning fossil fuels and climate change, the media gave the issue greater coverage throughout the decade. But in 1986, two separate polls found that most Americans (55 percent) still had not heard about the greenhouse effect.

U.S. Senator Tim Wirth was aware of the growing evidence of climate change, in part from his constituents at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration's Aeronomy Laboratory, both based in Colorado.

Meanwhile, the United States in 1988 was suffering from a terrible drought. Wirth knew that if he arranged a hearing that drew a link between the present weather conditions and a trend of global warming, it would generate considerable media attention.

Wirth's legislative assistant, David Harwood, called Hansen for his input. Hansen responded that the observed temperatures were warmer beyond the range of natural variability. The year 1988 was on pace to be the warmest on record. "I didn't know much, but I knew that was significant," Harwood recalls.

Plans for a groundbreaking hearing were under way. Hansen would soon become the leader of climate science in a warming world.

Wednesday: The Testimony

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

Many of our tech-savvy friends — the kind of folks who nurse along the beowulf clusters our climate models run on — are scratching their heads over some cheeky shrieking that recently appeared in a WIRED magazine article on Rethinking What it Means to be Green . Crank up the A/C! Kill the [...]

Editor's Note: If any single event can be said to have put climate change on the world's policy radar, it was the testimony of NASA scientist James Hansen before Senator Tim Wirth's committee in Congress on June 23, 1988. On the eve of the twentieth anniversary of that event, World Watch's Ben Block talked with Hansen about its impact. Hansen will be honored at a Worldwatch Institute sponsored symposium in Washington, D.C., on June 23, 2008. For more information, go to www.worldwatch.org/events/hansenhearing.

World Watch: What led you to your 1988 testimony?

James Hansen: This was the culmination of years of work, going back at least to three papers between 1981 and 1982, [discussing] carbon dioxide and climate change in the journal Science, other trace gases in Geophysical Research Letters, and sea level, also published in Science. What was different in 1988 was that I had a more comprehensive paper completed and in press at Journal of Geographical Research, which was the attachment to my 1988 testimony.

WW: What did you expect the impact of your testimony would be?

JH: Well, the intention was to get some public exposure. Rafe Pomerance [founder of the Climate Policy Center, who was then aWorld Resources Institute senior fellow] visited me after reading our 1981 Science paper [on carbon dioxide] and encouraged me to testify to Congress, which I did a few times in the 1980s without much effect. The hope was to get more attention this time, which seemed possible given the extreme U.S. climate [hot weather] in 1988.

WW: Looking back, how did it go?

JH: It certainly got the desired attention. My regret, shortly thereafter, was that I had not discussed the impact of global warming on the hydrologic cycle in a more general way. Global warming means more moisture in the atmosphere, so heavy rain events and floods will increase. But, at times and places when it is dry, drought intensity will increase. Because of the emphasis on drought in 1988, I decided to testify again in 1989. That testimony got a lot of attention also, because I complained about [the White House's Office of Management and Budget] changing my testimony, but that hullabaloo caused the message about the hydrologic cycle to be lost.

WW: When many scientists responded to the '88 testimony that you were "ahead of the science," how did you react?

JH: I was not too concerned about that, I knew that within not many years it would become obvious whether or not I was right. Since I was very confident that I was, I thought there was some value of, in effect,making a prediction.

WW: Since you told the press that your climate-change observations were being censored by the Bush administration around 2005, how did it change your role in shaping the public discourse on climate change?

JH: It probably has given more attention to the matter. The New York Times press coverage did not do a good job of tracking the censorship to its source, instead attributing it to a 24-yearold renegade. Mark Bowen's book, Censoring Science, tracks the problem to the top.

WW: Over the past 20 years, what developments in science, policy, or public perceptions-or lack thereof-have surprised you the most?

JH: I have to admit that I am surprised and disappointed at the lack of substantial action to mitigate climate change. I am impressed by many of the people, senators et cetera, that I met in Washington, yet Washington seems to be under the heavy thumb of special interests, especially fossil fuel special interests. Clearly they have not succeeded in doing what is best for the people; rather they are doing what is best for big business.

WW: How often do you think the government is attempting to distort results of scientific research?

JH: Almost all scientists in the Environmental Protection Agency say that they cannot say what they believe if it goes against the [Bush] administration's preference. In NASA it was the same (if policy-relevance was involved) until the administrator gave a green light. My impression is that things have improved, but they are still not good. My information is based on hearsay from a small number of scientists, but also on broader studies such as the last one conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists. This attitude of the administration is idiotic, not just because it violates basic principles of democracy, but because it leads to lousy policymaking. Why do you need advice of scientists, if you know that you are only going to accept results that fit predetermined policy decisions?

WW: Numerous governments and NGOs around the world are calling to limit the atmosphere's temperature increase to 2 degrees C. Do you believe this to be a safe limit, and do you think this target is achievable?

JH: That target is easily achievable with sensible policies. Unfortunately, warming that large is a guarantee of global disasters. We are already within a fraction of one degree of the warmest interglacial periods. Two degrees C would put us into the range of the Middle Pliocene [the last period of geological time, 3.5 to 2.5 million years ago, of greater global warmth]. Unfortunately, based on polar temperature maxima, we overestimated the warmth of prior interglacial periods.

WW: Some scientists have argued that we have already reached tipping points in some regions of the world. Do you agree? If so, what are they and can we avoid them?

JH: We need to distinguish tipping level and the point of no return, as explained in our new "Target CO2" paper. The tipping level is the level of greenhouse gases that will lead to large, undesirable, even disastrous, effects. We have reached the tipping level for several important effects. That is why we must go back in CO2 amounts at least to 350 ppm and possibly lower. The point of no return is when the dynamics of the process take over and it is out of our control, we cannot stop it, e.g., the ice sheet from disintegrating, because of positive feedback and warming in the pipeline. Some phenomena have enough inertia that we can afford some overshoot of the safe CO2 level, provided that we get back to a lower amount fast enough. The ice sheets and sea level may be in that category. Unfortunately, Arctic sea ice has reached the point where we are going to lose all of the warm season ice within the next few decades.

WW: Often the more you know about the hard realities of climate change, the more depressing it becomes.What inspires you to be hopeful?

JH: It becomes readily solvable if we do just a few things that make enormous sense for other reasons. By far the most important is a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants (unless they capture CO2) and a phase-out over the next two decades of existing ones.We will also need a high enough price on carbon emissions to avert substantial use of unconventional fossil fuels (tar shale, tar sands). Moving beyond fossil fuels sooner (we would have to do it within several decades anyhow) makes enormous sense for many reasons (cleaner air and water, energy independence, et cetera) for everybody except a handful of fossil fuel executives, but, unfortunately, they wield enormous power in our governments, and not just in the United States. I still believe that our democracy can work, but it requires overcoming the undue influence of money in politics.

WW: You have repeatedly called for a moratorium on coal power plants and have even written to leaders of U.S. states and countries that are considering new coal plants.What reactions have you received to these letters?

JH: Perhaps it helped in the United Kingdom, but it remains to be seen. At least the opposition leader has come out with a position in favor of a moratorium. But [a conventional coal-fired power plant in] Kingsnorth [Kent, UK] is still up in the air. Germany [is] unclear. I have been invited to come over and talk with the minister of the environment. The governor of Nevada is in the hip pocket of the coal industry. I am afraid that the same is true in Minnesota (despite the greenwashing of him) and Virginia. Perhaps utility CEOs are more important. [International investor] Jim Rogers has been greenwashing, but maybe he is open minded. I am having dinner with him soon. I had a very good meeting with the CEO of [energy service company] Public Service Enterprise Group.

WW: After a long career of achievements, what would you like to accomplish before you leave NASA?

JH: There are several papers that I am working on that I believe to be significant. And, somehow, I need to be able to write more clearly, so that the implications are understood and believed.

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Guest contribution from Mauri S. Pelto Ice shelves are floating platforms of ice fed by mountain glaciers and ice sheets flowing from the land onto the ocean. The ice flows from the grounding line where it becomes floating to the seaward front, where icebergs calve. For a typical glacier when the climate warms the [...]

A review of environmental skepticism literature from the past 30 years has found that the vast majority of skeptics, often identified as independent, are directly linked to politically oriented, conservative think tanks.

The study, published in this month's issue of Environmental Politics, analyzed books written between 1972 and 2005 that deny the authenticity of environmental problems. The researchers found that more than 92 percent of the skeptical authors were in some way affiliated to conservative think tanks - non-profit research and advocacy organizations that promote core conservative ideals.  

While many environmental skeptics are known to work for these think tanks, the study is the first to provide a quantitative analysis of the relationship. The popular media often regard environmental skeptics as independent experts, despite their connection to industry-funded campaigns that seek to de-legitimize sound environmental science reports, especially on climate change, says lead author Peter Jacques, an environmental politics professor at the University of Central Florida.

"A lot of skeptics might say they are independent voices, but it's clear there is an organization behind the skeptical discourse," Jacques said. "If not for conservative think tanks, we wouldn't be having this same discussion; we wouldn't be hung up on whether climate change is real."

The review analyzed 141 books, which the authors consider the largest compilation of the environmental skepticism genre and the majority of all English-language skepticism books. An author was "affiliated" to a think tank if the organization published the book or if the author ever - before or after the book was published - held a position with the organization, wrote for an organization's publications, or delivered lectures sponsored by the organization.

The U.S. conservative movement has lead opposition to international environmental regulation since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. In the years since, the movement has succeeded in undermining the credibility of many environmental issues, said Riley Dunlap, a sociology professor at Oklahoma State University, who co-authored the study. "From the [political] right, there's no longer a sense of neutral, objective science - only liberal or conservative - and that's an unfortunate trend," Dunlap said.

Many skeptics say that they form their opinion despite their affiliation to think tanks or industry. For instance, Ronald Bailey, a correspondent for the ExxonMobil-funded Reason Foundation and former fellow for the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute, recently reversed his stance as a climate change denier. His original skepticism was the result of inconsistent temperature datasets. He was not "passing along misinformation supplied to me during expensive lunches," he wrote in the article Confessions of an Alleged ExxonMobil Whore.

The authors say skeptics like Bailey have every right to voice their opinion. But the statements of a few think tank-supported experts should not be regarded as equal to scientific findings that have been vetted through an intense peer-review process, they say. "We want to allow a cacophony of voices in public policy," Jacques said. "Where we get into problems is where we fail to evaluate the voices; we fail to evaluate the merit of the claim."

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.