
Audit, newspaper retraction undermine
AG's argument in Texas' EPA petition
Aug. 26, 2010
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Rajendra K. Pachauri
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An independent investigation by a prominent international audit firm has undercut one of Texas' arguments in a petition against federal regulation of climate-changing greenhouse gases.
And a related British newspaper article, which Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott cited as evidence that such regulation is unwarranted, has been retracted by that newspaper with an apology.
Abbott's petition earlier this year challenged the Environmental Protection Agency's finding that climate-changing greenhouse gases are dangerous, a legal prerequisite for the regulation of industrial emissions that the EPA is now planning to phase in.
One of the attorney general's arguments was that the EPA's "endangerment finding" was based largely on the conclusions of the U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC's chairman, Rajendra K. Pachauri, "has, and certainly appears to have, several conflicts of interest," Abbott asserted.
Abbott's petition, rejected last month by the EPA, alleged that these conflicts of interest "indicate that the IPCC is being led toward a conclusion that climate change is a dire threat to the planet that must be reversed; a conclusion that would enrich Dr. Pachauri and the entities that employ him."
One of the Texas petition's footnoted sources for this claim was an article published by Britain's Daily Telegraph last December, which dealt with Pachauri and The Energy and Resources Institute, a non-profit research organization focusing on energy, environment and sustainable development where he is director general. More►
From "green fees" to "Aggie Energy,"
Texas colleges embracing sustainability
Aug. 25, 2010
Texas universities and colleges have been in the news lately because of assorted developments related to cleaner energy, energy conservation and associated subjects.
Taken together, they suggest that interest in sustainability concerns – particularly regarding energy – is becoming a more prominent, more routine part of the higher-education experience in a state where fossil fuels still famously reign.
Here's a sampling.
“Renewable” branding for the fans
Alums and other supporters of both the Longhorns and Aggies now have the opportunity to help programs at the University of Texas and Texas A&M while they simultaneously boost the state's renewable energy industries.
Athletic programs at the two universities both recently entered agreements that will market electricity from renewable sources to residential and business customers in parts of the state with deregulated power markets.
Both programs involve partnerships with the same pair of companies – Dallas-based Branded Retail Energy and Houston-based Champion Energy Services. The plans are being marketed via the Texas Longhorns Energy and Aggie Energy brands. More►
Heat, fires, floods and an ice island:
Signs of manmade climate change?
August 12, 2010
It's hot these days in Texas – Dallas had its thirteenth straight day of triple-digit temperatures today, for instance, and the state's AC-driven electricity demand hit a new record high on Wednesday.
Still, there's nothing unusual about a hot summer in the Lone Star State, and nothing so far suggests the summer of 2010 will be jaw-droppingly memorable here.
Following a June with above-normal temperatures "across the state," July temperatures were "slightly above normal" in the eastern half of the state and "below normal" in the western half, the Office of the Texas State Climatologist at Texas A&M University concluded in the latest monthly reports.
Weather extremes and related events are attracting enough notice in other parts of the U.S. and around the world, however, that an unsurprising question is being asked in some quarters: Could they be evidence of manmade global warming and climate change? More►
What are the Texas implications
if there's no federal climate bill?
July 28, 2010
Majority Leader Harry Reid’s decision last week to delay – at least – Senate action on a comprehensive energy-climate bill carried a variety of implications for Texas.
Those potential impacts extend from Congress and the federal courts to energy companies and the state Legislature.
On Tuesday, President Barack Obama and his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, insisted that despite the setback posed by Reid’s action, such a measure still might win passage later this year. That hope was also expressed last week by Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, a co-author of the bill that Reid said doesn’t have enough votes now to overcome a filibuster.
Many media reports, however, portrayed the chances of a broad energy-climate bill becoming law in this Congress as slim, at best. The Associated Press described “bleak prospects.” Reuters, meanwhile, reported that Reid’s decision to press instead for passage of a much narrower energy bill without climate provisions was a “potentially fatal blow” to a comprehensive bill with a cap on carbon dioxide emissions.
Last summer, the House narrowly passed an energy-climate bill with a broad cap-and-trade system that would cap industries’ greenhouse emissions and set up a system for trading emission permits. Despite considerable pressure in their home state to vote no, nine of the 12 Democratic House members from Texas supported the bill. More►
Science roundup: Butterflies, BP and more
July 3, 2010
Butterflies. Religion. Undersea methane from the BP spill. Solar technology. Capturing carbon dioxide.
Texas scientists and engineers have been in the news lately because of their work in a variety of areas involving climate change and related energy subjects.
Here’s a roundup of some of that coverage.
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Journalist and author Seth Shulman profiled Camille Parmesan, a biologist and butterfly expert at the University of Texas, in an article in Grist, “Are butterflies the silent harbingers of global warming?”
Her interest in the subject dates to her research on the Edith’s checkerspot butterfly as a graduate student in the early 1990s. She “realized that the butterflies could be sensitive indicators of global warming” and continued to study the checkerspot for another four and a half years:
The work paid off. Parmesan's landmark 1996 paper in the British science journal Nature was one of the first definitive looks at the effects of climate change on a living species. When she started out tracking checkerspots, Parmesan wasn't sure she'd be able to discern any effects of climate change. But even discounting sites where urban sprawl or other human interference might have impinged upon the butterflies' habitat, Parmesan was startled to find that at the southern edge of their range, in Mexico and southern California, populations of Edith's checkerspots had declined by 80 percent. More►
More TCN Journal
Climate change in Texas classrooms:
Curriculum assessment, science-fair hoax
Climate science, climate action, energy choices
AG "overreached" in anti-EPA rhetoric,
newspaper's PolitiFact Texas concludes
Different paths to reducing CO2
in the production of electricity
Moving ahead on building efficiency
Texas cities fall in EPA ranking
for energy-efficient buildings
More petitions, health care law
complicate climate policy outlook

Satellite image of the Texas coast:
Courtesy of MODIS Rapid Response Project at NASA/GSFC