Global Climate Change

During the last decade, global warming and climate variability have become major policy issues worldwide. In the United States, the transportation sector alone is currently responsible for approximately 28 percent of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions—the largest source after electricity generation. This percentage is forecast to remain high given the continued demand for gasoline, diesel fuel, and jet fuel (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/hep/climatechange/chapter_one.htm = source).

With a new Administration in the White House and transportation reauthorization discussions underway, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is focusing new attention on coordinating its policies, programs, and funding related to transportation, land use, and climate change to meet the agency's goal of reducing GHG emissions and vehicle miles traveled (VMT).

In Fiscal Year 2009, FHWA and the US Department of Transportation (USDOT) introduced several new initiatives to address climate change and created a new Sustainable Transport and Climate Change team within the FHWA Office of Planning, Environment, and Realty. This issue of Successes in Stewardship highlights some of the exciting activities currently taking place at FHWA and USDOT.

Transportation and Climate Change Clearinghouse Introduced at TRB

In light of the Transportation, Energy, and Climate Change spotlight theme for the Transportation Research Board (TRB) 88th Annual Meeting in January 2009, the USDOT Center for Climate Change and Environmental Forecasting selected TRB to introduce the Center's new Transportation and Climate Change Clearinghouse.

Designed to be a one-stop resource for information on transportation and climate change issues, the Clearinghouse facilitates peer-to-peer information-sharing and technical capacity-building among local, State, and Federal transportation practitioners, researchers, industry, and nongovernmental organizations. It also provides the transportation community with information related to:

• GHG inventories and forecasts.
• Methods and tools for analyzing transportation GHG impacts.
• Strategies for reducing transportation-related GHG.
• Potential impacts of climate change on transportation infrastructure.
• Approaches for integrating climate change considerations into transportation decision-making.

The Clearinghouse was funded by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) and USDOT's Center for Climate Change and Environmental Forecasting. For more details, go to http://climate.dot.gov/index.html.

New Interagency Working Group Focuses on GHG Emissions and Lower VMT

In June 2008, representatives from over 10 Federal agencies met to discuss partnership opportunities to reduce GHG emissions from transportation sources, specifically by coordinating Federal programs that influence land-use decisions to decrease VMT.

At this meeting, the agencies agreed to form an interagency working group with the mission of aligning Federal programs and resources to support stakeholders in achieving GHG reductions though land-use and transportation decisions. The working group has been meeting monthly since its inception to identify interagency activities that will support its mission and ultimately result in reduced VMT of cars and trucks. A potential area of opportunity is the next highway reauthorization bill, which will be enacted once the current transportation funding bill, SAFETEA-LU (the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act) expires September 30, 2009.

In December 2008, participants in the initial interagency meeting as well as new attendees reconvened for a briefing on the working group's activities and preliminary recommendations. Participants presented four focus areas for future work: integrated regional planning, intermodal gateway mobility planning, and two research areas, "green grid" energy systems and sustainable carbon reserve. They also provided other feedback to help guide the future work of the group.

Over the next several months, the working group will develop an interagency action plan to identify priority recommendations. The group and its member agency managers will meet again in the spring to discuss these priorities and future action.

Assessing Climate Change Impacts on Transportation: Gulf Coast Study, Phase 2

In early 2008, USDOT released a report, The Impacts of Climate Change and Variability on Transportation Systems and Infrastructure Gulf Coast Study, Phase 1. Phase 1 assessed the vulnerabilities of transportation systems in the region in relation to potential changes in weather patterns and related impacts as well as the effect of natural land subsidence and other environmental factors. The geographic area that was covered included 48 contiguous counties in four states, running from Galveston, Texas, to Mobile, Alabama.

Phase 2 will begin later in 2009. USDOT will examine climate impacts on specific infrastructure within a selected area of the Gulf Coast region and will develop more definitive information and precise tools and guides for planners and engineers working at the State, regional, and local levels. Ultimately, the study will provide an engineering assessment, including the infrastructure's ability to withstand the impacts of climate change. This evaluation will help regional planners in preparing to adapt to potential climate impacts.

The study will also develop risk-assessment tools to assist Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) and other infrastructure investment decision-makers prioritize which resources and facilities need protection, accommodation, or relocation. As part of the study, USDOT is planning to work with one MPO in the Gulf Coast region to test and evaluate these tools.

Using Models to Anticipate Climate Impacts on Transportation

The Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) is an MPO with jurisdiction over the four Washington State counties of King, Pierce, Snohomish, and Kitsap. In April 2008, in partnership with local government, business, and citizens, PSRC developed VISION 2040, a long-range growth-management, environmental, economic, and transportation strategy. A working group advises the PSRC Transportation Policy Board on implementing VISION 2040 and on updating the region's transportation plan, Transportation 2040, by 2010. These two plans are critical, since the regional population is forecast to increase by 1.7 million, with a corresponding influx of 1.2 million new jobs, by the year 2040.

PSRC developed criteria to evaluate metrics for VISION 2040 and Transportation 2040. Developing the data for these metrics requires a new set of modeling tools. PSRC is already integrating and testing several new models

• PSEF (Puget Sound Economic Forcaster), updated in 2006, forecasts the regional and county economy across 21 industrial sectors. It factors in labor force and unemployment rates and measures populations by age and household type. Revenue is integrated into this forecast to improve consistency and reduce duplication of effort.
• Geodatabase coordinates plans, programs, and projects to improve the accuracy of regional data and reduce duplication of effort.
• UrbanSim forecasts land use. It analyzes planning and urban development by incorporating the interactions among land use, transportation, and public policy.
• Activity-based models capture user decisions linked to mode, destination, time of day, and number of trips. New models will better test solutions by incorporating data about climate change, tolling, freight, operations, and demand management.
• EPA MOVES is a critical tool that will consider potential climate impacts for the Transportation 2040 plan. Emissions modeling will allow PSRC to analyze speed variations, changes in vehicle/fuel mix, corridor/subarea, and transportation and land-use strategies.

PSRC is currently working with FHWA to uncover other travel model improvements that PSRC could use to identify potential climate impacts in the region. Use of these models will guide PSRC in preparing a response to anticipated regional climate changes over the next 30 years.

Contact Information

Click Here for IPCC Climate Change 2007 Summary for Policymakers document

Myths About Climate Change

Highway Expansion - Creating Tomorrows Problems Today

“The overwhelming majority of scientific experts, while recognizing that scientific uncertainties exist, nonetheless believe that human-induced climate change is already occurring.” (Source: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2001.)

The 2006 Colorado College State of the Rockies Report Card, released in April 2006, cites a climate-trend model that shows that snow pack levels in Colorado could decline by as much as 82 percent in San Miguel County; 57 percent in Eagle County; 54 percent in Grand County; 50 percent in Summit, Routt and Gunnison counties; and 43 percent in Pitkin County by 2085 if the current global warming trend is not reversed.  This would create such a short ski season, that ski areas couldn’t stay open long enough each year to be profitable.

It is ironic that CDOT leadership under the Owens Administration pushed for additional I-70 highway capacity over more energy efficient and lower greenhouse gas emitting electric mass transit alternatives that could help reverse the current global warming trend and protect Colorado's tourism economy.  The Owens/Norton Regime motto of "CDOT doesn't do transit" is an example of the poor vision and lack of concern for global warming implications due to greenhouse gas emissions demonstrated by the Owens Administration in Colorado and the Bush Administration nationally. 

Fortunately under the leadership of the Ritter Administration in Colorado and the Obama Administration nationally, all of this is likely to change!

WHOOPS!

Climate Change Forum Follow up

Enviro leader speaks to House subcommittee about global warming

By Scott Condon in Aspen, Colorado
March 20, 2007

The Aspen Skiing Co. gets a chance Tuesday to spread its message in the U.S. Congress about the potential effects of global warming on the ski industry.

Auden Schendler, the Skico's executive director of community and environmental affairs, is scheduled to testify before the House Committee on Natural Resources, Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources. The subcommittee is holding a hearing to explore, in part, how climate change could affect management of public lands.

Schendler said his opportunity to testify before Congress fits well with the Skico's strategy of using Aspen's high profile to draw attention to global warming.

"Using Aspen as a lever, that's what we want to do," he said.

Schendler has five minutes to testify. He is uncertain how many subcommittee members will be present during his presentation. However, he has a separate appointment with subcommittee chairman Rep. Jim Costa, D-Calif., to press his points.

"The mountain resort economy in the West is as endangered as the polar bear but a heck of a lot more valuable," Schendler's presentation begins, according to a copy he provided.

Schendler will draw heavily in his testimony on studies that show Aspen will warm by 6 to 14 degrees by 2100, depending on whether the world reduces its greenhouse gas emissions.

Warmer temperatures threaten to eat away at the beginning and end of the ski season, Schendler said. If Mother Nature provides less snow early in the season, the ski industry will depend even more on snowmaking.

Even that option is questionable: Schendler's prepared information noted that December was so warm that the Skico had trouble making snow.

Schendler said an analysis by Colorado College of potential effects on the state's snowpack from 1976 to 2085 showed Aspen could see a 43 percent loss in the amount of snow on April 1.

This month could be a sign of things to come: March is usually one of the snowiest months, but this year conditions are warm and dry. Instead of building the snowpack, the weather is gobbling it. As of Monday, the snowpack in the Roaring Fork basin was only 81 percent of average.

Schendler cautioned against saying this March could be normal. Scientists say global warming will bring unpredictable weather, he said, equating future March weather to a roll of the dice.

"You could have some great powder Marches. You could have those really warm March meltdowns," he said in an interview.

Business in March is vitally important to many ski area operators because it takes that long to reach the break-even point. March determines the size of profits.

"If you shorten our season on either end - take away March, for example - we go out of business," Schendler's prepared testimony said.

In the best-case scenario, global warming will increase the cost of doing business for the ski industry and drop profit margins, he continued.

"Aspen Skiing Company, along with the rest of the ski industry, is a reluctant warrior on the climate issue," Schendler wrote. "Our entire business model is threatened by the problem."

In energy news (courtesy New West Network):

-- Ethanol has become a big element of Colorado Gov. Ritter’s plan to create a world center of renewable energy in the state. And Colorado farmers grow lots of corn. But the ethanol boom could create a conflict between growing demand for corn, and water and land to grow it, and current agriculture and water interests, reports Cathy Proctor of the Denver Business Journal. “Ethanol consumed about 20 percent of the corn crop in 2006 and is expected to take 25 percent of the 2007 harvest, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.” And higher prices for corn means “soaring costs for the livestock industry.”

Denver Post

Tropical diseases like malaria will spread. By 2050, polar bears will mostly be found in zoos, their habitats gone. Pests like fire ants will thrive.

For a time, food will be plentiful because of the longer growing season in northern regions. But by 2080, hundreds of millions of people could face starvation, according to the report, which is still being revised.

The draft document by the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change focuses on global warming's effects and is the second in a series of four being issued this year. Written and reviewed by more than 1,000 scientists from dozens of countries, it still must be edited by government officials.

But some scientists said the overall message is not likely to change when it's issued in early April in Brussels. The report offers some hope if nations slow and then reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, but it notes that what's happening now isn't encouraging.

"Changes in climate are now affecting physical and biological systems on every continent," the report says, in marked contrast to a 2001 report by the same international group that said the effects of global warming were coming.

"Things are happening and happening faster than we expected," said Patricia Romero Lankao of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, one of the many co-authors of the new report.

The draft document says scientists are confident that many current problems - change in species' habitats, loss of wetlands, bleaching of coral reefs, and increases in allergy-inducing pollen - can be blamed on global warming. But the present is nothing compared to the future. "We truly are standing at the edge of mass extinction" of species, said co-author Terry Root of Stanford University.

Climate report on deadline

By Kevin Trenberth

Article Last Updated: 02/18/2007 01:28:28 AM MST

The work of science is sometimes done late at night in crowded conference rooms.

But the last step leading up to the recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was just that sort of conference-room science.

"Warming of the climate system is unequivocal" and is "very likely" due to human activities - the key conclusions of the Summary for Policy Makers - were approved by the 300-some representatives from 113 nations in Working Group I, which studies the science of climate change and the role of humans in it.

The summary was approved in the early-morning hours of Feb. 2 after four days of intense negotiations in Paris.

A full report that's the basis for the summary was drafted by 154 lead authors and more than 450 contributing authors and runs to about 900 pages.

As one of about 30 lead authors attending the meeting, I found the experience both exhilarating and grueling.

We assembled on Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 27 and 28, to go over the written comments by governments on the draft summary. We prepared possible responses and text to update the report. The approval process is very demanding, as it requires unanimous consensus on the text, which is approved line by line. The rationale is that the scientists determine what can be said, but the governments help determine how it can best be said. There are detailed negotiations over wording to ensure accuracy, balance, clarity of message and relevance.

The meeting began Monday in a relaxed fashion, but unnecessary wordsmithing and some long- winded speeches quickly meant we were running way behind. Coffee breaks disappeared, and after two days we'd completed only a quarter of the report.

By Wednesday, lunch breaks were reduced to a minimum as sandwiches were brought in, and the dinner break disappeared as breakout groups met to negotiate text. Wednesday evening at 9 p.m., the six-language translation was lost, as the translators quit for the day. Fortunately, the delegates allowed the meeting to continue in English. The session adjourned for the day at 12:20 a.m.

On Thursday, the final day, the pace picked up under more rigid control of the chair, Dr. Susan Solomon of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder. Wordsmithing was largely behind us, but some contentious issues slowed progress, and we finally approved the text and figures in the report at 10:40 p.m. The report was quickly assembled, copied and handed out for final approval Friday morning at 12:40 a.m.

Aside from a small staff, the IPCC is mostly a body of scientists from around the world convened by the United Nations and initiated in 1988. Its mandate is to provide policymakers with an objective assessment of the scientific and technical information available about climate change, its environmental and socio-economic impacts and possible responses. Previous major assessments were made in 1990, 1995 and 2001.

The IPCC process is very open. Two major reviews were carried out in producing the latest report, and climate "skeptics" can and do participate, some as authors. There were more than 30,000 comments by about 600 reviewers. The process is overseen by two editors for each of the 11 chapters. The strength is that it is a consensus report.

The new report is impressive in assessing a huge volume of scientific literature, and it assembles a vast body of evidence that indicates warming. The report documents the agents of change of the climate and found that by far the dominant influence is human activities, through increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The main source of carbon dioxide is fossil-fuel use.

The report finds warming of the climate system is "unequivocal" as the vital signs of the planet are responding in well-understood ways. These include increases in global average air temperature, atmospheric temperatures above the surface, surface and sub-surface ocean water temperatures, widespread melting of snow, decreases in the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice, decreases in glacier and land ice extent and mass; and rising global mean sea level.

The observed surface warming is also consistent with reduced duration of freeze seasons, increased heat waves, increased atmospheric water vapor and heavier rain storms, changes in patterns of precipitation, increased drought, increases in hurricane intensity and changes in atmospheric winds.

Moreover, these changes are now reasonably simulated in climate models for the past 100 years. The wide variety of observations gives a very high degree of confidence to the overall findings.

Twenty-three climate models from 11 nations were applied to simulate the past century or so, and to make projections for the future. Running the climate models with and without human-induced changes in atmospheric composition convincingly shows that it is humans who have very likely been responsible for the warming in the last 50 years.

Uncertainties remain, but the 2007 report definitively reaffirms in much stronger language that the climate is changing in ways that cannot be accounted for by natural variability.

The prognosis from the models is for continued warming and much larger but similar changes to those that are already apparent. Sea level rise is inexorable, although uncertainty exists over risk of major ice sheet collapse. Confidence has strengthened in projections of decreased rainfall in subtropical land areas (which are already trending dry), including the southwestern U.S., but with increases in more northern regions.

Later on Friday, news conferences were held and more than 400 journalists were there in force. The recognition of the importance of the report was gratifying. My colleague, Phil Jones from the University of East Anglia in England, was asked if he felt a sense of history about completion of the report. He told the Guardian newspaper, "Mainly what I am feeling is knackered." Seems about right.

Read the Summary for Policy Makers at http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/.

Kevin Trenberth is a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder

Don't wait for global warming

By Gail Schoettler

Article Last Updated: 01/13/2007 08:21:14 PM MST 

Snowshoeing across the hills by my house last week, I pondered global warming once again. So much snow has been a rarity over the last decade. Was this just an aberration of a rapidly warming global climate or a sign that things might be returning to "normal"?

Two recent stories came to mind. One was about the huge Arctic ice shelf that broke away from Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic, alarming climate scientists. The other was an interview with a British skeptic who insists rising temperatures are part of just another climate cycle and no cause for worry.

It made me wonder how we would react if we knew we were experiencing a mere weather cycle, not the dramatic change most scientists fear. Should we act on the ecological problems facing us regardless of whether or not they result from climate change? Can we reach some consensus about how we should treat our environment, no matter what we believe about warming?

For example, auto emissions are clear culprits in ozone depletion and increased greenhouse gases. But our dependence on the automobile damages us in other ways. It requires us to rely on countries we don't trust, and who often don't like us, for a major strategic resource essential to our economy and our lives.

Even if global warming doesn't alarm you, our vulnerability to often-hostile countries should. That concern argues for cutting our foreign oil consumption through conservation, development of alternative fuels and energy sources and investing in research to create new technologies that put our future back in our own hands.

Traffic congestion is another negative effect of relying on oil-dependent cars. The "extreme commute" is all too common, not so much because of the distance between home and job but because the huge volume of cars on the road. Believe in climate change or not, reducing the number of cars on our highways by investing in public transit will improve our lives, and reduce emissions into the atmosphere.

Here in Colorado, the pine beetle is destroying vast areas of forest. Extreme cold, such as we used to experience in winter, kills beetle larvae. With the warmer winters of the last decade, summer beetle hatches are more frequent, greatly increasing the volume of insects attacking trees. Even those who don't believe in global warming are worried about the rapidly advancing beetle devastation.

Whether this is just a weather cycle or a permanent climate change, the voracious beetle is damaging to Colorado. Millions of acres of dead pine trees can fuel huge forest fires, destroying homes and wildlife habitat, hunting and fishing, hiking and forestry, all key to our economy. Finding solutions to this scourge matters to all of us. If changing our habits slows the pace of warming and the beetles' reproductive cycle, we all benefit, whatever our beliefs.

As we move into 2007, with many threats to our way of life, it makes sense to focus on how we solve problems we all recognize, whatever we believe the cause to be. Strategies such as energy conservation, research into alternative energy sources, public transit and telecommuting solve vexing problems and reduce greenhouse gases.

For example, Brazil has become energy self-sufficient by building its bio-fuel technology and capacity. Figuring out how to turn cooking oil and agricultural products into bio-fuels efficiently will reduce our own dependence on foreign oil, eliminate waste and create jobs. We should all be able to commit to this.

While it's important to understand the reasons for threats and calamities, it's equally important to focus on solving those problems rather than just arguing about their causes. Most of us can agree that many problems resulting from weather change, whether natural or human- made, require immediate action. We can't afford to fight and wait.

Gail Schoettler (gailschoettler@ email.msn.com) is a former U.S. ambassador, Colorado lieutenant governor and treasurer, Democratic nominee for governor and Douglas County school board member.

nation | world

Report: Global warming man-made, unstoppable

A U.N. group of scientists says temperatures and seas will rise for centuries no matter how much humans control pollution.

By Seth Borenstein
The Associated Press
Denver Post

Article Last Updated:02/02/2007 10:04:01 AM MST

Paris - The world's leading climate scientists said global warming has begun, is "very likely" caused by man, and will be unstoppable for centuries, according to a report obtained Friday by The Associated Press.

The scientists - using their strongest language yet on the issue - said now that the world has begun to warm, hotter temperatures and rises in sea level "would continue for centuries," no matter how much humans control their pollution. The report also linked the warming to the recent increase in stronger hurricanes.

"The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice-mass loss, support the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that global climate change of the past 50 years can be explained without external forcing, and very likely that is not due to known natural causes alone," said the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - a group of hundreds of scientists and representatives of 113 governments.

The phrase "very likely" translates to a more than 90 percent certainty that global warming is caused by man's burning of fossil fuels. That was the strongest conclusion to date, making it nearly impossible to say natural forces are to blame.

What that means in simple language is "we have this nailed," said top U.S. climate scientist Jerry Mahlman, who originated the percentage system.

Sharon Hays, associate director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House, welcomed the strong language of the report.

"It's a significant report. It will be valuable to policy makers," she told The Associated Press in an interview in Paris, where hundreds of scientists and government officials were meeting to discuss global warming.

Hays stopped short of saying whether or how the report could bring about change in President Bush's policy about greenhouse gas emissions.

The 20-page summary of the panel's findings, due to be officially released later in the day, represents the most authoritative science on global warming.

The new language marked an escalation from the panel's last report in 2001, which said warming was "likely" caused by human activity. There had been speculation that the participants might try to say it is "virtually certain" man causes global warming, which translates to 99 percent certainty.

The panel predicted temperature rises of 2-11.5 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100. That was a wider range than in the 2001 report.

However, the panel also said its best estimate was for temperature rises of 3.2-7.1 degrees Fahrenheit. In 2001, all the panel gave was a range of 2.5-10.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

On sea levels, the report projects rises of 7-23 inches by the end of the century. An additional 3.9-7.8 inches are possible if recent, surprising melting of polar ice sheets continues.

But there is some cold comfort. Some, but not all, of the projected temperature and sea level rises are slightly lower than projected in a previous report in 2001. That is mostly due to use of more likely scenarios and would still result in dramatic effects across the globe, scientists said.

Many scientists had warned that this estimate was too cautious and said sea level rise could be closer to 3-5 feet because of ice sheet melt.

Nevertheless, scientists agreed the report is strong.

"There's no question that the powerful language is intimately linked to the more powerful science," said one of the study's many co-authors, Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria, who spoke by phone from Canada. He said the report was based on science that is rock-solid, peer-reviewed, and consensus.

"It's very conservative. Scientists by their nature are skeptics."

The scientists wrote the report based on years of peer-reviewed research and government officials edited it with an eye toward the required unanimous approval by world governments.

In the end, there was little debate on the strength of the wording about the role of man in global warming.

The panel quickly agreed Thursday on two of the most contentious issues: attributing global warming to man-made burning of fossil fuels and connecting it to a recent increase in stronger hurricanes.

Negotiations over a third and more difficult issue - how much the sea level is predicted to rise by 2100 - went into the night Thursday with a deadline approaching for the report.

While critics call the panel overly alarmist, it is by nature relatively cautious because it relies on hundreds of scientists, including skeptics.

"I hope that policymakers will be quite convinced by this message," said Riibeta Abeta, a delegate whose island nation Kiribati is threatened by rising seas. "The purpose is to get them moving."

The Chinese delegation was resistant to strong wording on global warming, said Barbados delegate Leonard Fields and others. China has increasingly turned to fossil fuels for its huge and growing energy needs.

The U.S. government delegation was not one of the more vocal groups in the debate over whether warming is man-made, said officials from other countries. And several attendees credited the head of the panel session, Susan Solomon, a top U.S. government climate scientist, with pushing through the agreement so quickly.

The Bush administration acknowledges that global warming is man-made and a problem that must be dealt with, Bush science adviser John Marburger has said. However, Bush continues to reject mandatory limits on so-called "greenhouse" gases.

But this is more than just a U.S. issue.

"What you're trying to do is get the whole planet under the proverbial tent in how to deal with this, not just the rich countries," Mahlman said Thursday. "I think we're in a different kind of game now."

The panel, created by the United Nations in 1988, releases its assessments every five or six years _ although scientists have been observing aspects of climate change since as far back as the 1960s. The reports are released in phases - this is the first of four this year.

The next report is due in April and will discuss the effects of global warming. But that issue was touched upon in the current document.

The report says that global warming has made stronger hurricanes, including those on the Atlantic Ocean, such as Hurricane Katrina.

The report said that an increase in hurricane and tropical cyclone strength since 1970 "more likely than not" can be attributed to man-made global warming. The scientists said global warming's connection varies with storms in different parts of the world, but that the storms that strike the Americas are global warming-influenced.

That's a contrast from the 2001 which said there was not enough evidence to make such a conclusion. And it conflicts with a November 2006 statement by the World Meteorological Organization, which helped found the IPCC. The meteorological group said it could not link past stronger storms to global warming.

Fields - of Barbados, a country in the path of many hurricanes _ said the new wording was "very important." He noted that insurance companies _ which look to science to calculate storm risk - "watch the language, too."

Associated Press Writer Angela Charlton contributed to this report.

Denver Post

nation & world

Global call to action for earth

The U.S., China and India absent as 45 countries fight man-made warming.

By Angela Charlton and Seth Borenstein
The Associated Press
Denver Post

Article Last Updated:02/04/2007 02:43:48 PM MST

Denver Post

nation world | global warming

Warming: Support grows for new world environmental body

By Angela Charlton
The Associated Press
Denver Post

Article Last Updated:02/03/2007 10:15:48 AM MST

Step up on carbon emissions

Article Last Updated: 01/31/2007 05:39:01 PM MST

The Bush administration's failure to participate in a global effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions is a head-in-the-sands mistake, the sooner reversed the better.

In his State of the Union address last week, President Bush referred to climate change as a "serious challenge." It was a lame acknowledgment but a welcome one, because for years he had simply dismissed concerns over global warming, saying not enough was known to do anything.

The president should follow up his remark with a coherent plan to reduce U.S. carbon dioxide emissions.

That was never more clear after a United Nations panel of climate scientists released a draft report that found the Earth's climate is changing faster than anyone had thought and seems destined to get much worse. The group of 2,500 experts has predicted more droughts, heat waves, hurricanes, a sharp rise in sea levels and continued ice- cap melting. By 2100, the environment will have sustained serious damage.

It says there is at least a 90 percent probability that industrialized society is to blame for at least the last 50 years of warming.

Also on Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives discussed global warming, and the news was disturbing. Two well-known advocacy groups appeared before a House panel to provide evidence that senior Bush administration officials had attempted to mislead the public by injecting unfounded doubt into global warming science.

The Union of Concerned Scientists and the Government Accountability Project surveyed hundreds of federal scientists and said many of them reported they were pressured to remove the words "global warming" and "climate change" from their reports. Forty- three percent of them reported their work had been edited to change the meaning of their findings.

It is in this context that we behold the news that President Bush signed a new executive order last week enhancing White House power to scrutinize government policy. The president has declared that each federal agency must designate a political appointee to vet new rules and policies and ensure they jibe with presidential leanings in areas such as the environment and workplace regulation.

We worry that the political officials will distort agency efforts and that regulators and researchers will be intimidated by the prospect of political interference.

U.N. officials called Tuesday for an international climate-change summit and we would like to see President Bush enter the mainstream effort to confront this serious challenge. The world was listening to the president's speech last week and saw his remark on global warming as an emerging opportunity. European Union policy calls for sharp cuts in carbon emissions and the United States should join the effort.

It's a chance for the president to step up on an issue that could otherwise stain his legacy.

Chilling appraisal from Boulder scientists in study

By Jim Erickson, Rocky Mountain News
January 20, 2007

A long-awaited report by an international scientific team will provide the strongest evidence to date that humans are changing the planet's climate by pumping heat-trapping gases into the air, according to Boulder scientists involved in the study.

On Feb. 2 in Paris, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will summarize the key findings from its latest assessment of global climate change.

The report will discuss observed changes - retreating mountain glaciers, melting polar ice sheets, rising sea levels, and shrinking summertime arctic sea ice, for example - as well as projections for the future.

The projections are based on 23 computer climate models operated by 16 research groups worldwide.

All 23 models agree that the planet will continue to warm as levels of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases rise in the coming decades, said William Collins of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.

"This report will provide the most compelling evidence to date that climate is changing and that mankind is responsible for that change," said Collins, a lead author of the report's climate projections chapter.

"Children being born at this point in the 21st century will experience - we believe, under certain projections - significant climate change," he said. "I personally hope that this report stimulates people to take action to slow our influence on climate."

The report will be issued as momentum to limit U.S. greenhouse gas emissions builds on several fronts. Just this month:

• Congressional Democrats announced four bills, with more expected, to control carbon dioxide emissions.

• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she wants to create a special committee on climate.

• Leading scientists joined evangelical pastors to declare their intention to fight the causes of climate change, as well as public confusion on the subject.

• Ten major U.S.-based corporations - including General Electric, DuPont and Alcoa - joined leading environmental groups to call for a firm nationwide limit on carbon dioxide emissions.

And next week, in his State of the Union address, President Bush will lay out his policy on global warming. But the plan will not include mandatory emissions caps, according to press secretary Tony Snow.

Evidence in greater detail

Collins was one of several Boulder scientists who contributed to the latest IPCC report, Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.

Boulder atmospheric scientist Susan Solomon is one of two co-chairs of the team that produced the first of four volumes in this year's update.

The IPCC's last major update, in 2001, said the planet warmed 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past century and is likely to warm another 2.5 to 10.4 degrees by 2100.

In the 2007 update, that temperature range will be narrowed a bit, largely because of improvements in the climate models, NCAR's Kevin Trenberth said.

"I think probably the low value (in the 2001 report) and also the high value came from models that probably had mistakes in them," Trenberth said Friday.

"The confidence in those numbers was probably not that good, and they probably never should have been used in the way in which they were used," said Trenberth, who worked on the atmospheric observations chapter in the upcoming IPCC report.

"And I think you will find, then, that the numbers are probably narrowed," he said.

The 2001 report also stated that most of the warming over the past 50 years was likely because of buildup of greenhouse gases, largely from burning fossil fuels.

"That's a pretty strong smoking-gun statement that directly ties human activity to climate change," said NCAR's Gerald Meehl, another leading participant in the upcoming report.

"And I think we've got more evidence that supports that conclusion in greater detail now," Meehl said. "And when you really connect a cause and effect like that, I think it's a pretty powerful kind of argument."

Meehl said the upcoming report shares a sense of urgency.

"The longer you wait, the worse it gets," he said. "So really, if you're going to do something about this problem, the sooner the better."

Meehl and other IPCC authors are barred from discussing details until the report's release. But it assesses studies recently published in peer-reviewed journals. Some major themes have emerged in recent research, Meehl said.

A role in extreme weather

One topic that's received a lot of attention is extreme weather.

In an October study titled Going to Extremes, Meehl and his co-authors concluded that extreme weather - heat waves, droughts and heavy rains, for example - will likely become more frequent and more intense in coming decades. Dry spells could lengthen significantly across the western United States, southern Europe and other areas.

"I can't say what's going to be in the next report, but that's the type of research that's assessed for the IPCC," Meehl said.

Trenberth said a section in his chapter explores possible links between intense hurricanes and global warming. The drought plaguing the West for much of this decade also is discussed.

Another topic examined in recently published climate studies is "climate-change commitment." Because heat-trapping carbon dioxide has a lifetime of about a century, gases pumped into the air today will continue trapping heat far into the future.

That heat will warm the air, land surfaces and oceans. As the heat creeps deeper into the ocean, the warmed water expands, resulting in sea-level rise.

Change will last centuries

The concept of climate-change commitment has been around for about 20 years. What's new is that some of the latest, most sophisticated climate models now confirm the dire predictions of earlier, cruder simulations.

In a 2005 report in the journal Science, NCAR researcher Tom Wigley said that even if greenhouse gas levels could be magically stabilized today, sea levels would rise 10 to 20 inches per century for the next 400 years or more, imperiling coastal regions.

Because of carbon dioxide's long lifetime, actions taken today to reduce emissions "mainly benefit the next generation and the generation after that," Trenberth said.

"That's one of the things which I'm not sure is fully realized," he said. "This is a long-time-scale problem, and that's why you really want to get ahead of it.

"The other side of that is that it means we've got to live with climate change, and that means we should plan for it."

How many researchers does it take . . .

450: Number of lead authors for four-volume climate assessment

800: Number of contributing authors

2,500: Number of scientists reviewing findings

Feb. 2: Release date for summary of the first volume

ericksonj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5129. The New York Times and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Climate Change in the Colorado High Country

The Rocky

If just a fraction of the predicted impacts materialize, that would jeopardize the qualities that make the West such a special place to live, work, and play.

More Heat

Worldwide, climate change is predicted to warm the Earth by 3 to 10°F (or 1.4 to 5.8°C) between 1990 and 2100, according to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Half of the variation in the estimates results from differences in assumptions about future levels of greenhouse gases, and half from differences in climate-prediction models.

The mid-range of the estimates, a 5.4°F increase, is enough to make:

• Aspen as warm as Flagstaff now is.
• Missoula as warm as Denver now is.
• Reno as warm as Albuquerque now is.

 Less Snow

One of the most certain effects of climate change will be less snow in our mountains. 

The U.S. government reports with a “very high confidence” that climate change will greatly reduce snowpacks in the Rocky Mountains. Not only is the climate expected to be warmer overall, but temperatures are expected to increase more in winter than in summer, more at night than in the day, and more in the mountains than at lower elevations – all leading to less snow.

Less Available Water

We in the Rocky Mountain states get 70 to 90 percent of our water from snowmelt, so less snow threatens our water supplies. Earlier snowmelt means that peak streamflows will be earlier, weeks before the peak needs of farmers, ranchers, homeowners, rafters and others.

“Current water resource management along the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains depends on the storage of winter precipitation as high elevation snowpack well into the growing season. . . . Under a climate shift to earlier snowmelt runoff, not only would there be a greater demand for water to irrigate during the extended growing season, but water would be released from its very efficient high-elevation natural seasonal reservoir well before the July and August interval of peak irrigation.”

-Central Great Plains Regional Climate-Change Assessment, U.S. Global Change Research Program (2002).

More drought

Even if we are fortunate enough to get more overall precipitation, climate change is expected to bring more frequent, more serious, and possibly longer-lasting droughts. The nation's worst droughts are predicted to be in the Rocky Mountain region, although predictions vary sharply as to how severe the droughts are likely to be.

“By the end of the century, the Canadian scenario projects that extreme drought will be a common occurrence over much of the Great Plains." 

"Increased tendencies toward drought are also projected in the Hadley model for regions immediately east of the Rockies.” 

-Climate Change Impacts on the United States (2000)

More Economic Disruption

Just a fraction of the predicted impacts of climate change would be enough to threaten the West's business climate.

Consider the effects just in Colorado.

Tourism, Colorado’s second leading industry, supports 253,000 jobs, brings $8.5 billion into our economy and pays over half a billion dollars in state and local taxes. In Eagle, Grand, Jackson, Pitkin and Summit counties, fully three-quarters of all income and half of all jobs come from tourism. The industry is particularly vulnerable to climate change, with less snow hurting skiing and more wildfires hurting summer recreation. 

Skiing is the biggest contributor to our tourism industry. One out of five skiers and snowboarders in the country take to the slopes of Colorado’s 27 resorts – far more than in any other state. 

Related businesses also depend on skiing, providing skiers with transportation, lodging and meals and supplying them with equipment and clothing. A downturn in skiing would depress property values near ski resorts, reduce tax revenues and disrupt entire communities.  

Water, essential always and scarce here, determines much of what happens in Colorado. Less reliable water supplies could lead to stricter water restrictions, new growth limits and more transfers of water from the Western Slope and farms and ranches to Front Range cities. And even one city running seriously short of water would make the whole state less attractive to businesses and workers.

 “The most significant threat to our economic security is not having a secure future water supply.”

-Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper

More Wildfires

Higher temperatures, longer summers and more lightning from more severe storms – to say nothing of more droughts – are predicted to lead to more wildfires in the Rocky Mountains.

Researchers have predicted that climate change could double the acreage burned by wildfires in the Sierra Nevada. Scientists from Colorado State University and the University of Colorado have reached similar conclusions with respect to the one area of the Colorado mountains that has been the subject of a specific study: Rocky Mountain National Park.

“Projections under future climate scenarios suggest that lightning ignitions will increase by 50 to 92 percent, human ignitions will increase by 3 to 30 percent, and the probability of [any one] fire exceeding 10 acres will increase by 30 to 100 percent.”

N.T. Hobbs et al., "Future Impacts of Global Climate on Rocky Mountain National Park – Its Ecosystems, Visitors, and the Economy of Its Gateway Community – Estes Park" (2003)

More Environmental Disruption: Less Biodiversity

Climate change could make major changes in the character of our mountains and in the abundance and variety of life they support.

Colorado’s famous mountain wildflowers, alpine meadows, and expanses of mountain-top tundra could all be greatly reduced, or perhaps almost vanish, as a result of climate change. So could many alpine species of animals and plants.

Dr. John Harte, Professor of Environmental Science, UC Berkeley

Climate Change is Underway in the West

In the West, temperatures have gone up more than in the rest of the United States. Increases are greatest in late winter and early spring, as predicted by climate-change models.

Since 1968, 30 percent of the glaciers have melted away in Glacier National Park. Mountain snowpacks have shrunk throughout the West. Snowpacks are melting as much as three weeks earlier in the spring.

"Forget talk of global warming and speculation of what it might do in 50 years or 100. Here and across the West, climate change is already happening. Temperatures are warmer, ocean levels are rising, the snowpack is dwindling and melting earlier, flowers bloom earlier, mountain glaciers are disappearing and a six-year drought is killing trees by the millions."

"Warm Climate's Effects Striking in West," Associated Press (2004)

Taking Action

Protecting ourselves from the adverse effects of climate change will be necessary to keep the West such a great place to live.

Climate change is too big for Westerners to stop all by ourselves. But we can do our share to reduce it. And with all that we have at stake, we have good reason to lead the nation by showing what can be done.

That will take understanding, leadership and action by public officials, businesses, private groups and individuals – by all of us.

The good news is that most predicted effects of climate change are predicated on greenhouse gases going up by one percent each year. Under a business-as-usual approach, that is not high, and could even be low.

But we can do much better. 

The United States, with under five percent of the world’s population, puts out 24 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. So we can do more than any other country to reduce climate change

What is done in the West can make a big difference. Arizona and Colorado each emit more carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel use than 174 nations do. Utah emits more than 172 nations, Wyoming more than 171, New Mexico more than 164, Nevada more than 156, and Montana more than 143. Even Idaho, with the region's lowest emissions, still emits more than 130 nations.

There are many “no-regrets” actions we can take to reduce climate change and its impacts – actions that make sense on other grounds, too.

Ample tools exist to cut greenhouse gases, not only without sacrifice, but while actually improving local economies and family finances. What it takes is decisions – by all of us – to use those tools.

Also, since gases already in the atmosphere will remain and affect the climate for decades, we will need to plan for and adapt to changes in climate that are coming. When it comes to what that means in our region, nobody else will figure that out for us. It is the responsibility of those of us fortunate enough to live here to shape the future that we want for ourselves and our children.

Using clean energy

We can meet more of our energy needs in ways that do not produce greenhouse gases. Coloradans get only one percent of our energy from renewable sources, even though we have them in abundance – including the 11th highest wind-energy potential of any state.

We can meet our needs with less energy. Actions we can take to save ourselves money can also save the climate. Aspen Skiing Company put fluorescent light bulbs in the parking garage of its Little Nell Hotel. Savings paid for the bulbs in a year and a half, and now increase profits by $11,000 a year. The bulbs reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 150 tons a year. In your home, each compact fluorescent bulb lowers your electricity bill by about $15 a year and, over its lifetime, keeps half a ton of carbon dioxide out of the air.

Keeping your car’s tires properly inflated costs less than a dollar. If we all check our tire pressure monthly, we would eliminate two percent of all carbon dioxide emissions from the nation’s cars.

The Rocky Mountain Institute has suggestions on saving money and reducing greenhouse gases in the home and on the road. RMI also offers a good $15 how-to guide for businesses, The New Business Climate: A Guide to Lower Carbon Emissions and Better Business Performance. Xcel Energy offers a free Guide to Home Energy Savings and other tips for commercial and industrial energy users.

Businesses can join dozens of others in the state, from Ball Corporation to Versar, Inc., in the Colorado Business Energy Partnership, getting assistance on ways to save money through energy efficiency,

Government actions

Government programs, both voluntary and mandatory, can reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

More Colorado cities and counties can join Denver, Fort Collins, Boulder, Aspen, and 140 others in the country in adopting local programs to reduce greenhouse gases, under an international Cities for Climate Protection Campaign. 

Improving water security

Water providers and users can take steps to stretch limited water supplies so they continue to meet our needs.

First, our still-growing coalition includes unusual allies and messengers, not just usual suspects. In two years, our coalition has grown to include 31 partners, including the City and County of Denver, which is Colorado's largest city, and ten other local governments; Denver Water, Colorado's largest water utility; Qwest, Colorado's largest business, and 10 other businesses, from three ski-resort companies to a pharmaceutical company; and eight nonprofits, from Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, an association of independent farmers and ranchers in Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming, to four of the region's largest and most important conservation organizations. This broad range of diverse interests gives us credibility that other, more traditional groups may lack.

Second, we focus on the specific, local impacts that climate disruption will have in this region. RMCO was founded because our way of life in the West already is being affected by less snow, less available water, and more drought. Yet no other effort was underway to connect the dots between those developments and the future of this region. This is a special place to live, and we want to keep it that way. We are confident that others who share our love of the West will join us in working to protect our home. 

Third, RMCO also is unique because of the experience and savvy of our leaders. They have been elected to Congress and local office, directed federal and state agencies, and managed political campaigns in state and congressional races. We know how to broaden a base, not just preach to a choir. We operate in a non-confrontational manner, the better to build a broad consensus and bring about widespread action. 

We began working primarily in Colorado, and now increasingly are reaching out to work throughout the Rocky Mountain region.

The Rocky Mountain Climate Organization is a nonprofit, charitable organization under section 501(c)(3) of the federal tax code. Contributions are tax-deductible -- and essential to our work. We started with a clear mission and an ability to make a difference, but not with any endowment of funds. We can only do our work if we get the support of people like you.

Attend the Community Forum on Climate Change March 8th

We invite you to discuss this and other viewpoints on climate change at a community forum entitled “Climate Change in the Colorado High Country-Whose Problem is it?” scheduled from 7:00 to 9:00 pm Thursday, March 8^th, 2007 at the Summit County Community & Senior Center, 151 Peak One Drive in Frisco.

Panelists include John Fielder, naturalist & photographer; Tom Easley from the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization; Marc Waage of Denver Water and a representative from the CU-NOAA Western Water Assessment project.

For more information about this event, kindly contact Sandy Briggs with Our Future Summit at OurFutureSummit@aol.com or call 970-418-0025.

Global Warming Verdict: Sooner and Worse

By Robin McKie

January 24, 2007

Global warming is destined to have a far more destructive and earlier impact than previously estimated, the most authoritative report yet on climate change will warn next week.

A draft copy of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows the frequency of devastating storms will increase dramatically.   Sea levels will rise over the century by about half a meter, snow will disappear from all but the highest mountains, deserts will spread, oceans will become acidic, leading to the destruction of coral reefs and atolls, and deadly heat waves will be more prevalent.

The impact will force hundreds of millions of people to flee their devastated homelands, particularly in tropical, low-lying areas, while creating waves of immigrants whose movements will strain the economies of even the most affluent countries.

"The really chilling thing about the IPCC report is that it is the work of several thousand climate experts who have widely differing views about how greenhouse gases will have their effect. Some think they will have a major impact, others a lesser role. Each paragraph of this report was therefore argued over and scrutinized intensely. Only points that were considered indisputable survived this process. This is a very conservative document - that's what makes it so scary," said one senior UK climate expert.

Climate concerns are likely to dominate international politics next month.

President Bush was expected to address the issue in his state of the union address this week, and the IPCC report's final version is set for release on February 2 in a set of global news conferences.

Although the final wording is still being worked on, the draft indicates that scientists have their clearest idea so far about future climate changes, as well as about recent events.

It points out that:

- Twelve of the past 13 years were the warmest since records began

- Ocean temperatures have risen at a level at least 3km beneath the

  surface

- Glaciers, snow cover and permafrost have decreased

- Sea levels are rising at the rate of almost 2mm a year

- Cold days, nights and frost have become rarer, while hot days, hot

  nights and heat waves have become more frequent.

The cause is clear, say the authors: "It is very likely that [man-made] greenhouse gas increases caused most of the average temperature increases since the mid-20th century." To date, these changes have caused global temperatures to rise by 0.6C.

The most likely outcome of rises in greenhouses gases will be to make the planet a further 3C hotter by 2100, although the report acknowledges possible rises of 4.5C to 5C. Ice-cap melting, sea-level rises, floods and storms will be inevitable.

Past assessments by the IPCC have suggested that such scenarios are "likely" to occur this century. Its latest report, based on computer models and more detailed observations, is far more confident, talking of changes as "extremely likely" and "almost certain".

To skeptics who argue that natural variation in the Sun's output is the cause of climate change, the panel says mankind's industrial emissions have had five times more effect on the climate than any solar fluctuations.

Observer

The National Academy of Sciences did its first rigorous global warming study in 1979.  Panel members weren’t sure how long it would take for changes already set in motion to become manifest because the climate system has a built-in time delay.  For this reason, what might seem like the most conservative approach—waiting for evidence of warming in order to assess the models’ accuracy—actually amounted to the riskiest possible strategy.  “We may not be given a warning until the CO2 loading is such that an appreciable climate change is inevitable,” they said.  (Excerpts: “THE CLIMATE OF MAN-I” by Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker, 4/25/05.)

Forecasting the future remains a contentious exercise.  “Most Scientists … have only recently been able to approach a basic agreement about our changing climate.  First, the Earth has gotten warmer. Since 1850, average global temperatures have risen about .6 degrees Celsius, the United Nations says. Greenhouse gases (“GHG”) such as carbon dioxide released by humans burning fossil fuels and clearing land are the likely culprits.” (Michael Coren CNN Friday, April 8, 2005).

Carbon Dioxide levels have been fluctuating up and down within limits for 400,000 years until the Industrial Revolution — about 1800 — then skyrocketing well beyond the former stabilizing limits.

Warming triggers some processes that are “positive” feedbacks and which speed further warming, and others - "negative” feedbacks - which mitigate it.  The balance between positive and negative feedbacks is a major cause of uncertainty in climate predictions.  There is concern that these are or may soon become out of balance, with positive feedback overwhelming any negative and stabilizing feedback.

Climate Disruption Is Under Way In the West

The scientific community now accepts that human activities are changing climates.  In Colorado, climate disruption is under way.  There will be more heat, less snowfall, smaller snowpacks, earlier snowmelt, less groundwater, more flood-control releases early spring, more droughts and more wildfires.  These impacts have huge ramifications for Colorado land use, farming and travel demands, especially in mountain regions and recreation resorts and in suburban sprawl where water may limit expansion.  In-stream flows for fisheries, river running, water for snow-making, mountain and urban golf course watering are some effects.  (Source: “Less Snow, Less Water: Climate Change in the West” by Stephen Saunders and Maureen Maxwell, Rocky Mountain Climate Organization, www.rockymountainclimate.org.) 

Growth since 1990 means that transportation emissions represent 37.1% of the growth in energy-related CO2 emissions from all sectors, and are the largest contributing end-use sector to total emissions.  Transportation planning should consider scenarios with these travel-affecting factors.  (Primary references: U.S. Global Change Research Program (2003; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2001); National Science Foundation; U.S. Global Change Research Program National Assessment Synthesis Team; Emissions of Greenhouse Gases in the United States 2003 Report #: DOE/EIA-0573 2003, Dec. 13, 2004 Transportation Sector.)

SMART UNDERTAKINGS ARE NEEDED

Smart Efficiency Benefits: 

There are savings and other benefits when transit substitutes for car travel:  Examples are vehicle cost savings, efficient land use, congestion reductions, infrastructure economics, parking cost savings, increased safety and health, energy conservation and emission reductions.  Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) reduction is critical: one transit passenger-mile reduces VMT by 4.4 or more; one Light Rail Train line can replace 10 highway lanes.  Planning and policy process must devote attention to these needs and efficiency benefits.  This Litman VTPI reference identifies these matters.  (References: “Evaluating Public Transit Benefits and Costs; Best Practices Guidebook” Todd Litman, Victoria Transport Policy Institute (VTPI); “Smart Transportation: Choices for Colorado 2002”, CMC 2002.)

The diagram above is not intended to imply that petroleum consumption is the only source of global warming GHGs.  Other fossil fuels and sources such as methane emissions are major contributors.  However, regarding “Smart Transportation” issues, petroleum-based consumption is highly relevant to global warming.

Courtesy of the Sierra Club

Global Climate Change and Energy Resource Depletion

Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are causing a measurable increase in global average temperatures.  To stabilize the Earth’s climate, this increase must be halted.

Stabilization of the global climate is an urgent matter requiring an immediate and effective response.  International scientific consensus, confirmed by the most respected national scientific bodies in the U.S. and worldwide, indicates that continuing “business as usual” for even a few more years will greatly increase the risk of harmful and irreversible climate change, affecting the productivity of natural systems, the survival of species, and the safety and well-being of all human societies on Earth.

Our society’s actions within the next decade will determine the level of eventual success.  Starting quickly and decisively is the most important element in our climate stabilization strategy, because greenhouse gases emitted now will persist in the atmosphere and have effects for centuries to come.

At present, the world’s climate scientists believe that carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels above 450 ppm would result in severe climate impacts.  To keep below that level, greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced substantially to stabilize the global climate.  Most importantly, CO₂ from fossil fuels must be reduced 70% to 90% by the middle of this century.

As the nation with the largest emissions of greenhouse gases, the U.S. has a moral obligation to respond vigorously.  To reach levels at which climate stabilization is more likely, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced at least 2% per year – well within reach as the U.S. economy shifts to a clean energy path.  Because the precise level for avoiding dangerous climate change cannot be determined in advance, the Sierra Club places primary emphasis on making substantial cuts in CO₂ emissions as soon as possible.  There is no time to lose.

Fossil fuels contribute a large part of greenhouse gas emissions, but at the same time supplies of cheap and easily available oil, gas and coal are diminishing, leading the energy industry to explore and produce these resources from increasingly remote areas.  This results in higher costs, more unconventional techniques and greater environmental damage.  Production of oil and gas in the U.S. using conventional drilling techniques has been in decline since the early 1970s, and the industry has turned increasingly to offshore production in the Gulf of Mexico, foreign sources of oil, and unconventional natural gas techniques such as coalbed methane.  At the same time, new discoveries of oil and gas worldwide have been falling, and peak production globally may soon occur.  The dependence of our society on these cheaply priced fossil resources, along with their impact on the global climate, accelerates the need to phase them out and turn to clean energy alternatives.

Together with the wide availability of renewable energy resources that can replace fossil fuels, the availability of very large energy savings through conservation practices and efficiency measures offers a substantial opportunity to decrease greenhouse emissions, improve the economy and protect the environment.

We can achieve a stable climate and sustainable energy system through continuous improvement in energy use, technology choice, and public policy, economic decision-making that fully incorporates environmental values and protects communities, and individual conservation commitments that every person can make.
 

The Sierra Club finds that:

1. Fossil fuel use is increasing carbon dioxide (CO₂) and other greenhouse gas emissions to levels that are changing our climate substantially, threatening human health and harming natural systems.
    
2. The current use of fossil fuels causes serious damage to public health.  Nitrogen and sulfur compounds, soot, smog precursors, radionuclides, and toxic substances such as mercury from the combustion of coal affect the health of all people and contribute to tens of thousands of premature deaths in the U.S. each year.  All too frequently this damage is concentrated locally, putting the health and livability of entire communities at risk.
    
3. Significant environmental damage will result from greenhouse gas emissions already in the atmosphere, and further increases in emissions will accelerate the harm.  Without immediate action to reduce these emissions, degradation of the world’s climate and natural systems, including the risk of widespread habitat destruction and species extinction, will dramatically increase within our lifetimes.
    
4. Global average temperature increases must be limited to not more than 2^oC above pre-industrial levels to minimize the possibility of dangerous climate change.  Atmospheric CO₂ was 275 parts per million (ppm) before 1800.  It is now 380 ppm and increasing more than 2 ppm per year.  Scientific assessment shows that atmospheric CO₂ must not exceed 450 ppm in order to maintain the global average temperature within the 2^oC limit.
    
5. With less than 5% of the world’s population, the United States produces 25% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.  Our nation has an obligation to lead the world in cutting fossil fuel use.  Emissions of CO₂ in the United States must be reduced at least 2% per year, resulting in levels 70% to 90% below the present (2006) by 2050.

Transition to a Clean Energy Future

The Sierra Club envisions that within this century the world energy system will use almost no fossil fuels,  and will instead rely on the efficient use of abundant renewable energy from the sun, the wind, water, biomass, and the Earth’s own heat.  To achieve this, the nations of the world must immediately and decisively shift to building a clean energy future.

The way forward will involve a transition period during which new and improved technologies are developed, old systems are replaced, and society moves toward a more sustainable form.  While there will be breakthroughs in technologies, policies and public attitudes, change must primarily come through incremental progress, because it takes time to replace existing infrastructure and practices.

Only a broad portfolio of options can achieve these ambitious objectives.  The Sierra Club supports moving quickly to make major reductions in CO₂ emissions and build the momentum for much broader improvements.  It may prove impossible to cut CO₂ much faster than a few percent per year, because doing so depends on many factors:  the rate at which buildings and equipment can be upgraded or replaced, efficiency measures and renewable technologies can be developed and brought to market, and a shift from waste and overuse to conservation can occur.

To accomplish this energy transition, the United States and the international community must take the following actions:

• Seek to change individual behaviors and attitudes about energy consumption.
• Adopt public and private policies that support reductions in energy usage.

• Invest in research and development of new technology.
• Emphasize efficiency as the most plentiful and cost-effective energy resource.
• Choose existing energy options that will reduce, and eventually eliminate, the use of fossil fuels and other sources of greenhouse gases, while recognizing that all energy use has adverse environmental consequences.
• Ensure the equitable availability and affordability of critical resources for all people, now and in the future.
• Remove subsidies, incentives and tax benefits for resources that create pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
• Promote change in energy use and production in deference to the need for healthy ecosystems, protecting human health, and providing for environmental justice. 

Success also requires progress on a long list of concerns outside the scope of this Energy Resources Policy.  These issues are addressed in existing and forthcoming Sierra Club policies.  They include moving toward sustainable land use and agricultural practices, considering energy and carbon taxes and incentives, reducing ecosystem impacts from energy and fertilizer pollution, addressing a host of equity and environmental justice issues, and much more.  In particular, because population relates to energy use and carrying capacity, every effort must be made to foster the social and economic changes that reduce population growth throughout the world and achieve a sustainable level.

Innovation

Innovation in technology and methods of energy use is a key to achieving a sustainable energy future.  Human ingenuity, imagination and strategic investment in research and development of new technologies will usher in a new energy era.  However, experience shows that support for innovation must be tempered with thorough review of new practices and technologies which often have unanticipated consequences.