TCN Interview
James Hansen:
NASA climatologist
December 11, 2009
James Hansen is perhaps the world's best-known climate scientist, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, and the man who dramatically propelled the subject of global warming to public prominence with his congressional testimony in the late 1980s.
He was going to speak to Houston's Progressive Forum on Oct. 29, but had to postpone the engagement until this week because of health matters. As things turned out, Hansen's rescheduled talk could hardly have come at a more appropriate time.
On Monday, the day of his Houston appearance, the 12-day United Nations Conference on Climate Change had just gotten started in Copenhagen. Negotiators there are trying to forge a binding interntional agreement on reducing greenhouse gases to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which was signed in 1997 and expires in 2012.
On the same day, the Environmental Protection Agency announced its formal conclusion that greenhouse pollutants threaten public health and the environment – a necessary step for regulation of those gases under the federal Clean Air Act. Members of Congress, meanwhile, continue to work on a separate law that would address manmade climate change.
The day after Hansen's Houston speech, his first book was published – Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth about the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity. The title reflects his growing concern about global warming.
In a June 29 profile of Hansen in The New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert wrote: "Hansen has now concluded, partly on the basis of his latest modelling efforts and partly on the basis of observations made by other scientists, that the threat of global warming is far greater than he expected."
The 68-year-old climatologist's outspoken political activism makes him "an outlier" among climate scientists, Kolbert wrote, and also has "increasingly isolated" him from climate activists who endorse a cap-and-trade policy to reduce emissions. Hansen opposes such an approach, which is central to bills pending in Congress. It would set a cap on carbon dioxide emissions and establish a market for trading emission permits.
In a conversation with Texas Climate News editor Bill Dawson on Monday, prior to his Progressive Forum talk, Hansen explained why he supports a direct carbon tax to reduce greenhouse emissions; described the "climate catastrophe" he expects to unfold without major emission cuts; commented on the disclosure of controversial emails of climate researchers at a British university, and offered a forecast of next year's global temperature.
Q: You're perhaps the world's best-known climate scientist and you've been spotlighting the dangers posed by climate change and calling for action to address it for a couple of decades or more now. Recently, you were in the news yet again when you told The Guardian that you hope the Copenhagen conference fails to produce a major, definitive agreement. Could you explain why you feel that way?
A: Of course if they produced an effective one that would be great, but they're not talking about an effective one, they're talking about the same old story. They're talking about the Kyoto Protocol approach, where the core idea is cap and trade with offsets, which practically eliminates the value of any agreements. What they do is set targets, targets that they know in many cases will not be met, and when they are, it will be in terms of offsets, which mean they don't really reduce their emissions, at least not much, and they buy their way out of it by paying some developing countries to do something that is supposedly useful like preserving a forest or reducing some of their pollution.
But these actually are counter. First of all, it doesn't reduce the demand. For example, in the case of forests, it does not reduce the demand for wood or for land where you can grow cattle or other foods, or grow foods. Therefore, if you preserve one area of forest, the deforestation and wood harvesting just moves somewhere else. So these things are not really effective. More►
CO2 emissions dropped in Texas
before recession, groups report
By Bill Dawson | November 13, 2009
Emissions of carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas, fell in Texas from 2004 to 2007, even before the recession of 2008-09 suppressed economic activity and CO2 emissions.
That was one of the conclusions in an environmental group's analysis of what it called the latest data from the U.S. Department of Energy.
In terms of volume, Texas had the second-largest CO2 reduction among the states from 2004-07, while New York had the largest, according to the report, released Thursday by Environment America and its state affiliates.
Texas remained the state with the greatest CO2 emissions at the end of the study period, but had recorded a per capita decline in those emissions of 8 percent and an absolute decline of 2 percent since 2004.
The report authors considered emissions from the use of three fossil fuels – oil, coal and natural gas – in their calculations. They attributed Texas' falling emissions to a couple of factors – mainly, reduced industrial use of natural gas, but also the rapid growth of the state's wind-power industry:
In Texas, the emission decline since 2004 has largely been the result of declining emissions from the industrial sector – more specifically, a reduction in industrial natural gas consumption. However, the state has also succeeded in holding the line on growth of emissions from its electricity sector. On a per capita basis, emissions from electric generators in Texas fell by 4 percent between 2004 and 2007 – the result of reduced reliance on coal and an increase in the share of power produced by natural gas and wind. Since 2005, the amount of power produced by renewables (other than hydroelectric power) in Texas has more than doubled. By 2007, Texas was getting 2.5 percent of its power from these clean sources of energy compared with just 0.5 percent in 1997. Texas – which is now America’s number one producer of wind power – has been able to use its growing wind power portfolio to reduce the need for additional fossil fuel generation, keeping emission growth from the electricity sector at bay.
Texas was one of 17 states that reduced their CO2 emissions from 2004-07, according to the Environment America report.
Texas' top ranking for total emissions in 2007 meant it had held that position since 1990, the authors said. The state ranked considerably lower – in 14th place – for per capita emissions, however.
Texas was one of 20 states to record per capita declines in CO2 since 1990. The state had a 17 percent reduction from 1990-2007, compared to a national drop of 2 percent.
Along with that per capita decline, however, Texas' population grew significantly since 1990. In absolute terms, the state's emissions of CO2 grew by 16 percent from 1990-2007. In that last year, they totaled 675 million metric tons (MMT) – 11 percent of the national total, according to the report. More►
TCN Interview
Alyssa Burgin:
Director, Texas Drought Project
September 29, 2009
As parts of Texas endured severe drought conditions this summer, the Austin-based Texas Harambe Foundation launched a new venture, the Texas Drought Project. The organization's stated mission includes "recognition of indicators of climate change, recommendations for modifications to policies governing water, methods of conservation, and solutions to the overall problem."
The Texas Drought Project's director is Alyssa Burgin of San Antonio, a media consultant and veteran of various progressive causes and campaigns. Burgin, who has served as outreach and media director of Texans for Peace since 2002, recently worked for congressional action against global warming as a representative of the Harambe-funded Texas Climate Emergency Campaign, a state affiliate of the national 1Sky organization.
Burgin described herself this way in a blog profile: "I grew up in a home where Franklin Delano Roosevelt was revered, women's rights were treasured, and every lecture ended with the same reminder – 'always question authority.' If my Dad could see me now, I believe he'd think I was doing okay in that category."
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Alyssa Burgin
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She recently answered questions posed by Texas Climate News editor Bill Dawson about the Texas Drought Project.
Q: First, please tell me some basics about your organization – how, when and why it got started.
A: Well, I saw a need for this while I was doing some support work on a grassroots level regarding climate change. And I was approached by many people who said that there seemed to be a lack of information on drought. So earlier this summer, I concluded that this would be a good project to undertake and officially we kicked off Aug. 1.
The funding and origins come from a couple of different sources. One of the main backers is the Texas Harambe Foundation out of Austin. Harambe means "let us work together" in Swahili and they are an international funding organization. I also have a great deal of support, in kind, from Texans for Peace as well as the Center for Progressive Studies in Corpus Christi.
Q: What issues are you going to be engaging under this umbrella of drought, and what are the key messages you're bringing to the public and to policy makers?
A: Well, in terms of issues, foremost is the dire situation that we're in, and trying to inform people that we need to take action now to preserve water for the next generations in Texas. That can be done by a variety of ways, all of which involve correcting mistakes of past. We have to find better ways to regulate groundwater pumping. We have to keep the water that we have clean and potable. We have to utilize different agricultural processes so that we can preserve water in agricultural sectors.
But we have to do all this keeping in mind that climate change is going to shake up the entire ball, and it's going to make the situation very cloudy for us in terms of trying to find the right solutions because we don't have a lot of time before climate change takes effect in Texas and we're going to be met with a much more serious situation.
Q: What kind of activities is your group engaging in now? Will it be engaging in advocacy work, educational activities, lobbying? Any or all of those? Other things?
A: Well we're connected with 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations so we will not be engaging in issue advocacy or lobbying but we do hope to inspire Texans to do some of that on their own, as we say, to take back their own future into their own hands. And we'll be doing a lot of that by the educational process of bringing forums and workshops to their cities around the state, by having various venues that fit right in with their everyday lives, going to civic organizations, speaking at churches, bringing in environmental films that specifically focus on water so they can see what the water issue looks like, not just in Texas but around the world. More►
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