Midway in the Beltway

We've had the Rumble in the Jungle. We've had the Thrilla' in Manila. Now we've got the Midway in the Beltway.

Things seemed to be simmering down on Monday after Sen. Graham's (R-SC) announcement that he would be pulling his support for a comprehensive climate change and energy bill.

But what a difference another day makes. While Sens. Kerry (D-MA) and Lieberman (I-CT) remain optimistic, Graham has dug in his heels and doesn't appear willing to move unless immigration is dropped entirely from the legislative calendar.

Who knows how this is all going to play out but take a look at this great Politico article to give you a sense of what Graham's dealing with.

Putting a price on what now?

This is an excellent article on what it means to put a price on carbon. I don't necessarily agree with everything Mr. Ackerman says but it's a great intro piece for the casual reader. But be warned, he gets into the weeds pretty quickly.

The critical takeaway is this - you need a strong price on carbon in order to make a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) and create a market for new, clean energy sources.

Climate legislation on the ropes or down for the count?

Yesterday's announcement from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) can only be described as a savage blow to the solar plexus. Everyone was all set for a big press conference unveiling the legislation tomorrow but now nothing, at least for the time being.

Is this the end of climate legislation in 2010? Too early to tell of course but the calendar is getting busy - financial reform, immigration (zero legislative text in either the House or the Senate), and a Supreme Court nomination. Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) have said they will continue to pursue the introduction and passage of a bill with or without Sen. Graham. My guess is they would be happier to have him on board.

Graham had, over the past several months, pushed hard for a comprehensive bill. Many in Washington thought he could bring a handful of other Republicans into the fold because of his pro-nuclear, pro-domestic oil and gas production, and pro-business point of view. To date, there's been no physical manifestation of that theory but a number of other Republican names have been included in the mix (e.g., Gregg (NH), Voinovich (OH), Corker (TN)). Without Graham, the likelihood of these Republicans jumping into the fray is slim to none.

So what now? It appears Kerry is hopeful that Graham will reconsider once the heat of the immigration announcement simmers down. I'm not in a position to judge whether that will happen but things are definitely looking dicey right now. Especially when you consider that Graham not only had the potential to bring Republicans on board but he also provided political cover for moderate Democrats wavering in their support of a comprehensive bill.

I'm not ready to label this latest development as apocalyptic. That said, Graham came close to walking the plank on a climate and energy bill and is obviously frustrated by the shift in policy priorities. If I were a betting man, I'd say the odds of him coming back to the tri-partisan fold are 5-1. But I'm not so don't take me up on it. Better to spend your time trying to figure out how we get climate legislation off the mat.

Fact or Fiction Friday

Welcome back to the latest installment of Fact or Fiction Friday. Get your face paint on, pull out your favorite team jersey, and let's get stuck in. But before we do, as always, check out this important disclaimer.

Alright, here we go. Fact or fiction: Global warming stopped in 1998. This is one of my favorites. It's almost as good as the argument that the world is cooling.

And the answer is . . . FICTION! At the time 1998 was the record holder for hottest year, due in large part to the strongest El Nino of the century. Choosing 1998 as your starting point on which to compare all the following years is a perfect example of cherry picking the data to suit your argument. But once you take a look at the trend lines you can see, despite the 1998 anomaly, global temperatures have been on the rise.

Head over to Grist's How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic or SkepticalScience to learn more about this issue, and other arguments often rolled out to refute the existence of global warming and resulting changes in climate.

Chu, China, and the need for progress

Great article from Wired earlier this week on Energy Secretary Steven Chu's perspective on US-China climate change policy. A bit long but well worth the read. And you may want to have a look at The Climate Desk, which is where I came across the article. I'm all about the one stop shop for finding information.

Here are some of the key messages from the article if you're short on time:
- China is spending $100 billion (that's with a "b") on clean energy every year
- The US should view China as a partner in this arena as opposed to an adversary
- The size of China's market could provide US companies an opportunity to test their clean tech products at scale, especially in the building sector

In keeping with the one stop shop theme, I highly recommend checking out the ChinaFAQs website to learn more about what China is doing on climate change and energy policy. Some of the content can be pretty techy but it's broken down into manageable bites for the casual reader. For those one of you who are avid readers of the GreenMachine, you'll remember that my very first post was on ChinaFAQs. Ahh, the memories. I'm getting misty eyed.

Fact or Fiction Tuesday!

Folks, I know you've missed me. Especially Steve. Apologies for the big gap between this and my last post. Last week was brutal and this week I'm on vacation, but feeling the insatiable desire to blog out like it's 1999.

Let's get back in the swing of things with a Fact or Fiction Friday, even though it's Tuesday. Are you ready? Take a deep breath and read this important disclaimer before you enter the abyss.

Fact or fiction: climate models are unreliable. Shall we rock out to the Jeopardy theme song while you're pondering this one? Wow, my kingdom for a synthesizer.

But I digress. The answer is . . . FICTION! "While there are uncertainties with climate models, they successfully reproduce the past and have made predictions that have been subsequently confirmed by observations."

There are really three critical issues highlighted in SkepticalScience on this point. The first is fairly straightforward and that is, no one has created a model that can explain climate's behavior over the past century without factoring in CO2 warming. The second is the distinction between weather and climate. I'll let SkepticalScience do all the talking on this one.

A common argument heard is "scientists can't even predict the weather next week - how can they predict the climate years from now". This betrays a misunderstanding of the difference between weather, which is chaotic and unpredictable, and climate which is weather averaged out over time. While you can't predict with certainty whether a coin will land heads or tails, you can predict the statistical results of a large number of coin tosses. In weather terms, you can't predict the exact route a storm will take but the average temperature and precipitation will result the same for the region over a period of time.

The last point is one I hope will stick with you if nothing else does. It deals with uncertainty. Do we know enough to act? Yes, we do. We will never have 100% certainty but no one in their right mind waits to act until they do. Many of the impacts highlighted in the 2007 report conducted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have a 95% chance of happening. Do we really need 96%, 99%, or 100% to take action? If 95 doctors said you were sick, would you believe the 5 who said you weren't?

As always, please check out SkepticalScience to learn more about this and other arguments regularly touted by those who reject the science of climate change.

Communicating risk and uncertainty

Excellent op-ed in today's Guardian. Key quote comes at the end:

. . . despite the climate scientists' best efforts at scepticism, it simply has not been possible to rule out the risk of the sort of climate changes discussed above.

Handling uncertainty is key to the scientific method, but, conversely, the existence of uncertainty is not itself cause for inaction.

This is a critical point. There is no way we can have 100% certainty about what the world will look like in 2050. But there is an enormous body of evidence, reinforced by a recent Met Office study, that suggests the need to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is more urgent than ever. By the time we have 100% certainty, it'll likely be too late.