Curtis Moore’s Recent Comments

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  The Obama budget will kill us--literally

  The Obama budget proposal is stark, raving insanity--not because global warming is fiction, but because it is hard cold fact and neither he nor his advisors seem to understand our perilous situation.

  First, the budget proposal addresses--unless I missed something--only carbon dioxide.  CO2 has a lifetime of 50 to 3,000 years, so slashing emissions--even if the Obama plan would have that result, which is a pipe dream--would have no near-term benefit. As Susan Solomon, one of America's most talented and experienced atmospheric scientists, explained recently "We have to think about it much more like nuclear waste than, like say, smog or acid rain," Solomon, a senior scientist for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, added "What we're doing with carbon dioxide is forever."

  The result of the Obama budget will not be a safer future, but instead one that is vastly more dangerous. Indeed, a case can be made that enactment of a U.S. global warming law based on the Obama approach could prove to be a death warrant for the world's inhabitants, because as happens so often environmental matters, the first victim of politics has been science. Carbon dioxide is not the squirrel humanity should be chasing right now.

  There are other causes of global warming with lifetimes of a few minutes to a few years. Black carbon, or soot, emitted in vast quantities by diesels and coal-fired power plants, lasts one or two weeks. Ozone, or smog, lasts two to three weeks and carbon monoxide, which indirectly causes warming, a few minutes. Other causes of warming last longer--methane, or natural gas, emitted by refineries, landfills, sewage plants--lasts 8 to 9 years. HFC-134a, used in the air conditioners of cars and trucks, lasts for about 14 years (its use in new vehicles is banned in Europe starting in 2011).

  These pollutants are, in the aggregate, the cause of most warming currently being experienced, though carbon dioxide will be the dominant cause in the future. What is required is not a strategy that targets a single cause of global warming or, even six, as the Kyoto Protocol does, because global warming has not only arrived, its pace is accelerating.

  Reducing these non-CO2 causes of global warming will yield immense benefits in addition to cooling. Black carbon, an extremely fine particle, kills people. Globally, indoor exposures to black carbon from cooking and other fires, kill an estimated 5 million children a year. Ozone causes and aggravates asthma, while increases in carbon monoxide are linked to death from congestive heart failure.

  The need for immediate and substantial cuts in short-lived causes of global warming is urgent because the planet is racing toward so-called "tipping points," beyond which recovering the natural climate will be impossible. The air, ocean and soils are warmer (and the stratosphere cooler, because heat is being trapped at lower levels).

  The Arctic and Antarctic are warming and melting, as are as glaciers and winter snow packs throughout the world. Animal and plant populations are shifting, coral is dying and so are planktons, tiny oceanic animals that are the base of the world's food chain. As tundra thaws, it releases methane and carbon dioxide, which causes even more warming. When ice or snow melt, dark soils or water are exposed, which absorb more solar energy, causing additional warming. As oceans acidify because of the carbon dioxide they absorb, the ability of small animals to turn it into shells--coral and sea urchins, for example--declines, make the waters even more acid.

  The true danger of global warming, certainly in the near term, is not that the earth will warm gradually, but that it will fall over a cliff. Change in nature is rarely gradual. Snow crashes down a mountainside in an avalanche, lighting thunders through the air at the speed of light and the Twin Towers--some object to this comparison in poor taste, but I find that it causes a knot of fear in the stomach of listeners, which is what they should feel when discussing global warming--stood, stood and stood, then collapsed on themselves as some small tipping point was passed.

  Attacking only carbon dioxide, or even principally carbon dioxide to the exclusion of black carbon, ozone, methane, HFC-134a, leaves humanity unnecessarily exposed to the dangers of tipping points and prolongs warming at a time when it could be slowed and perhaps even reversed. It also means that millions of people are being killed unnecessarily.

  Auctioning emissions is not necessarily a bad idea, but rebating the money to individuals is.  The dough should be given to those who are generating electricity with less or even no air pollution.  This would provide not only a negative incentive for polluters, but a positive incentive to non-polluters.  Not a single cent should stick to the hands of the government--at least that is the majority view in the Scandinavian countries where feebates have been enormously successful.

  Is there anybody out there who is paying attention to science?
  On What percentage of auction revenue is rebated? posted 8 months, 2 weeks ago 10 Responses

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  Not mutually exclusive, but feebate all GHGs

  In this day and age, it is possible to do both, and we should.  The emissions of specific vehicles can be readily identified according to vehicle identification number, and the price at the pump changed accordingly. The feebate can apply at both places, the car dealership and the gas station.

  However, a feebate should not be based solely on CO2 emissions.  On the contrary, the emissions of black carbon by a fuel efficient diesel can--and, I am convinced do--have a greater warming effect than carbon dioxide from a gas guzzler.  Plus the diesel particles kill people and cause a life-long reduction in lung function in children (see issue 10 of my Health & Clean Air Newsletter at http://healthandcleanair.org/).On A price signal in the vehicle market is best applied to the vehicle posted 8 months, 3 weeks ago 14 Responses

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  Wow, you folks sure don't have a memory.

  What has been happening to Jim Hansen since his testimony before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in 1987 is exactly par for the course, and illustrates some important points:

  One scientist willing to speak out can have an immense impact.  Hansen's testimony alerted the entire world to what is now recognized as a grave and imminent threat to human survival.  Before Hansen, F. Sherwood Rowland had the courage to say publicly that the industrial chemicals, chlorofluorocarbons--better known by the name given them by their developer, DuPont, as Freons--were destroying stratospheric ozone.

  Before Rowland, Clair Patterson of CalTech had the courage and tenacity to review the history of lead dating back to Roman times, to demonstrate that all of humanity, indeed, the entire planet, had been irrevocably contaminated by lead, principally due to its use as a gasoline additive.

  (One of the great ironies of history is that the same DuPont scientist who developed CFCs, Thomas Midgely, also developed the ethyl additive.  At the time, DuPont effectively owned General Motors, which later dismantled over 500 rail and streetcar systems in the United States. The company also managed the projects to develop the fission and fusion nuclear bombs, generating immense amounts of still dangerous waste in the process. For an exhaustive review of these and other DuPont-related events, go to my book, Saving Ourselves at www.saving-ourselves.com/.)

  When Patterson was awarded the Tyler Price in 1995, he was lauded for "His systematic and far reaching research on the pathways by which lead finds its way into the environment and into living organisms is a paean to the impact of one person's persistence and precision."

    One of those lethal pollutants, by the way, is black carbon, a cause of global warming second by some estimates only to CO2.

  Each of the four was viciously attacked by industry in attempts to destroy their credibility, and each managed to survive.  Patterson, sadly, was hurt most by the fact that the assault on him was led by a former student Jack Schmitt, a former NASA astronaut and U.S. Senator.

  What makes Hansen's case different from those of Rowland, Patterson, Dockery and Schwartz is the persistence of the critics and the remarkable success they have had in creating an appearance of uncertainty where.  Industry has employed tactics developed by the tobacco industry and, especially, its public relations firm APCO, a subsidiary of the Washington, D.C. law firm, Arnold & Porter.  In an attempt to deflect growing public concerns over the effects of passive smoking, the industry--especially Altria, the owner of Phillip Morris--founded The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC).  Knowing that TASSC efforts would be less credible if it were a single-issue group, the global warming naysayers were recruited.  (Again, if you want to know more about this, see my book, Saving Ourselves.)

  The result was a critical difference: in the cases of leaded gasoline, CFCs and fine particles the attacks were transparently mounted by the industry with a vested interest in the outcome.  In the case of global warming here is no such transparency, and TASSC appears to be a group merely seeking outcomes driven by "sound science."

  The point is that these people had the courage to speak out.  Their science was good and their conclusions have been vindicated over time, despite industry-funded assaults on their credibility.

  With respect specifically to Hansen, another climatologist has concluded--

  "My assessment is that the model results were as consistent with the real world over this period as could possibly be expected and are therefore a useful demonstration of the model's consistency with the real world. Thus when asked whether any climate model forecasts ahead of time have proven accurate, this comes as close as you get."
  http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/han ...

  My suggestion is that everybody who reads this get off of Hansen's case and starting heeding his warnings.  There is not, nor can there be, any credible dispute that global warming has not only begun, but is racing toward a dozen or so tipping points, or positive feedbacks.  Thankfully, the world heeded Patterson, Rowland, Dockery and Schwarz, and we would do well to do the same with Hansen.On Will U.K.'s prime minister act to address the biggest threat to Britain's youth? posted 8 months, 3 weeks ago 36 Responses

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  Why?

  There are too many incorrect understandings of how the Clean Air Act works and what the best solutions to the current predicament are for me to respond.  One question, however:

  Why are you and virtually everybody else who visits this blog so CO2 crazy?

  Yes, CO2 has to be reduced.  But since CO2 has a lifetime of 50 to 3,000 years, cutting emissions today will do nothing to save us from Arctic melting, tundra thawing, oceans acidifying and the other dozen or so tipping points.  To avoid them, emissions of black carbon, methane, carbon monoxide, F-gases and other non-CO2 causes of warming must be reduced, preferably eliminated altogether.

  Although never at EPA, I have been at ground zero on the Clean Air Act for nearly 30 years, and the characterization of CO2 as an air pollutant is not a panacea.  It's a tar baby.  In my judgment, the best solution would be to impose a CO2 feebate making relatively higher emitters to pay into a fund and relatively low polluters receiving money from the fund. It should be absolutely revenue-neutral, with not one penny staying with the government.

  This would provide both push and pull incentives, shifting cash from, say, American Electric Power to generators using wind, solar, conservation, etc.  Handle the rest of the pollutants in ways that have worked well in he past: outright bans (leaded gasoline, CFCs); bans on releases (PCBs); mandated emission limits (tailpipe emissions); technology-based emission limits (Oregon climate law).

  It should all be done by Congress because if the political will to enact such legislation does not exist, an EPA-based effort would be doomed anyway.

  As Susan Solomon said a few weeks ago concerning CO2, think of it as nuclear waste, not acid rain.
  On The game plan: regulating CO2 under the Clean Air Act posted 8 months, 3 weeks ago 7 Responses

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  Guest post?

  I have no idea how to do that.

  I started responding to posts here on the recommendation of my son, who does some of this as part of his job.  I've been so frustrated by my inability to place the book and get people to listen to my fundamental message--we're in big, big trouble, but if we will get off our collective butts this is easy to solve--that I'm grasping at straws.On How awful does a bill have to get to lose your support? posted 9 months, 1 week ago 32 Responses