Group items tagged

I don't know if you saw the John Tierney's piece in the New York Times on Barack Obama's pick of John Holdren to be presidential science advisor, but its a doozy. Structured around quotes from climate change deniers (or as Joe Romm calls them denier-equivalents) it tries to paint Holdren as a flawed choice. This quote by Romm from Climate Progress sums up the absurdity of this idea:

John Holdren, science advisor to President Barack Obama, swung by Blighty today for some tea and crumpets with the Brits. But before embarking on a who's who tour of UK science policymakers, he joined the press in the basement of the US embassy for some all-American cookies and black coffee. Most of his hour-long round table was spent discussing climate change. He expressed some disappointment with the climate change legislation winding its way through the US Congress, but sees it as a make-or-break step for getting an effective international accord out of the UN's Copenhagen conference, which will take place in December. Some of the reporters expressed scepticism that a bill could be passed in time, but Holdren was optimistic, noting that the administration only needed around 12-15 additional votes in the Senate to pass the legislation. "I would still bet that it will happen, but I have to admit that it's going to be a challenge," he said.

Here is a list of energy news items that the WattzOn team found most interesting in 2008: * CO2 is officially a pollutant (maybe) - In a ruling by the Environmental Appeals Board (a panel within the EPA), it was decided that the EPA has no valid reason to not limit CO2 emissions from coal plants. Confusingly, the EPA has recently overruled itself by stating that officials cannot consider greenhouse gas outputs in judging applications to build new coal-fired power plants. So, it's back up in the "air." * We need to be at 350 PPM of CO2 - James Hansen of Columbia University, and NASA's head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, published a landmark paper: "Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?" in which he argues for an atmospheric CO2 concentration of 350 parts per million (PPM) for humanity to be safe on this planet. As some background, pre-industrial Earth had a CO2 concentration of around 275 PPM, and for years policy makers have set a target regulatory goal of 550 PM - twice that number. More recently, 450 PPM has been proposed as a better goal by the EU and a few others. Unfortunately, recent evidence has shown that the Arctic sea is melting at an alarming rate and a giant ice sheet in Greenland is starting to slide into the ocean. This is the reality with the world today at 383 PPM. Hansen points out that this means we set overly lax targets and proposes the 350 PPM goal with tons of paleo-climatic data to back him up. We need to bring the CO2 in our atmosphere back down to this concentration. * Energy scientists primed to enter government - US President-Elect Obama has nominated Steven Chu to be the Secretary of Energy, and named John Holdren as the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology / Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy / Co-Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. As the President-Elect puts it, "Today, more than