http://grist.org/coal/u-s-coal-lobbies-frantically-to-save-its-doomed-ass-self/

http://grist.org/politics/science-alone-cant-tell-us-how-bad-climate-change-will-be/

Prof Jim Hansen to use lecture at Edinburgh International Science Festival to call for worldwide tax on all carbon emissions

Averting the worst consequences of human-induced climate change is a “great moral issue” on a par with slavery, according to the leading Nasa climate scientist Prof Jim Hansen.

He argues that storing up expensive and destructive consequences for society in future is an “injustice of one generation to others”.

Hansen, who will next Tuesday be awarded the prestigious Edinburgh Medal for his contribution to science, will also in his acceptance speech call for a worldwide tax on all carbon emissions.

In his lecture, Hansen will argue that the challenge facing future generations from climate change is so urgent that a flat-rate global tax is needed to force immediate cuts in fossil fuel use. Ahead of receiving the award – which has previously been given to Sir David Attenborough, the ecologist James Lovelock, and the economist Amartya Sen – Hansen told the Guardian that the latest climate models had shown the planet was on the brink of an emergency. He said humanity faces repeated natural disasters from extreme weather events which would affect large areas of the planet.

The world will face a 50 per cent increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050 without aggressive and effective policy changes, said an OECD expert on Wednesday.

Deputy director of the Environment Directorate for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Helen Mountford, told reporters at an on-line media briefing that an OECD assessment of social and economic trends – outlined in its new OECD Environmental Outlook 2050 report – found that atmospheric levels of GHGs could reach nearly 685 parts per million, far above the target level needed to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius.

The increase in emissions will be driven by rising emissions from fossil fuel energy sources, whose percentage of the global energy mix will maintain its current level of about 85 per cent.

Unlike previous versions of the OECD report, the 350+ page report released on Thursday provided in-depth analysis of four areas relating to the environment – climate change, biodiversity, water and the health impacts of pollution

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Rising concern on climate change

RISING SEA levels threaten to inundate low-lying roads in Louisiana, costing billions in port activity, The Post’s Juliet Eilperin reports. Northrop Grumman sees potential damage to billions in shoreline defense infrastructure, such as the imperiled drydock in Hampton Roads built to construct the next generation of aircraft carriers. Other factors are also at work in these examples of rapid coastline loss. But Louisiana and Virginia offer a picture of how further sea-level rise and higher storm surges — just one set of climate-related risks — could seriously disrupt human activity.

America, meanwhile, is fixated on . . . paying an extra buck per gallon at the gas pump.

A recent report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) underscores how myopic the country’s energy debate is — and, consequently, how delinquent the United States has been in leading the world. The organization calculated that the world is on course to increase its carbon emissions by 50 percent by 2050. That’s because global energy use will increase by 80 percent by mid-century, with 85 percent of the energy mix coming from fossil fuels. That would likely raise global temperatures well past the target of 2 degrees Celsius, beyond which scientists say climate change could be extremely dangerous. It would also produce lethal amounts of air pollution, manifested in more heart attacks, asthma and other maladies.

Gardiner, Stephen. A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change. p. xii (hardcover)

But every year, they produce the same answer: Action must begin immediately, rich countries must go first and poorer, lower emission countries must soon follow, even if tariffs are required to ensure compliance. And given current emission levels, they point out, emissions must be falling now in all sectors of the economy, although this may happen faster in some sectors than others, depending on relative costs of decarbonizing.

I also ask the students to address CAPP’s argument that tar sands development doesn’t matter. Since some of the students have studied philosophy, they say this argument is a variation of the “fallacy of composition.” This fallacy involves inferring that, since an individual component on its own is not a problem, then it isn’t part of a problem that exists when all components are added together.

Dr. Weaver and Mr. Swart are climate modellers. If they had consulted any of the world-leading independent energy-economy modellers at MIT, University of Maryland, Berlin, Vienna or Stanford, they would have done a different study by looking at combined sets of reductions around the world, and recognizing that all components currently or potentially in use are part of the solution.

What researchers who do this consistently find is that it’s already too late to prevent a two-degree increase because of the inertia in our global energy system, which is 85 per cent based on burning coal, oil and natural gas. We would have to blow up our factories, electricity plants and vehicles to achieve that goal.

They also show that, even if we just hope to keep the increase below four degrees, then we can’t allow any expansion of the tar sands, and certainly no new pipelines such as Keystone and Northern Gateway to support any expanded use of fossil fuels. An example is the recent 20-page report from MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, Canada’s Bitumen Industry Under CO2 Constraints (http://globalchange.mit.edu). The report shows how and why the Canadian tar sands must contract immediately as part of a global effort to prevent a four-degree increase in temperature and catastrophic climate change.

That being said, the phaseout of coal is a positive and necessary development for the world as a whole. Climate change is a real threat, and we have better energy options.