SOME GOOD (CLIMATE) NEWS TO FINISH THE YEAR

AUSTRALIA CAN MEET ITS 2030 PARIS CLIMATE PLEDGE FOR FREE

Australia made a bold pledge when it signed the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement -- to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 26 - 28 percent by 3030. A new study by the Australian National University (ANU) shows that because of the rapidly falling cost of renewable energy, Australia can meet that goal at zero net cost.

 Sundrop Farms, Port Augusta, South Australia

Credit: Sundrop Farms

As anyone who has spent time in Australia knows, the country has abundant solar and wind potential. The ANU researchers note that these renewable energy sources will reach grid parity -- that is, they'll be no more costly than electricity on Australia's current national grid -- by 2020 (and cheaper soon after that). As a result, phasing out existing coal- and gas-fired generating plants and replacing them with renewable sources will actually save money.

Even when the researchers added in the costs of new pumped hydro storage and new long-distance power lines to ensure adequate electricity at night or during low-wind periods, the net cost still turns out to be zero.

Lower level of Tumut 3 Pumped Hydropower Station, NSW, Australia/Credit: CMH at English Wikipedia

“The cost of renewables includes stabilising the electricity grid with energy storage and stronger interstate powerlines to ensure that the grid continues to be reliable,” says Andrew Blakers, at the ANU Research School of Engineering. "Our study shows that we can make the switch to affordable and reliable clean power."

Kudos to Australia for its vision and willingness to move rapidly in this vitally necessary direction. With the cost of renewable energy plummeting worldwide, Australia can serve as a bellwether for the rest of the world.

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ORWELL STRIKES AGAIN, THIS TIME AT THE US DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

In his prescient novel, 1984, George Orwell introduced the world to Newspeak, a minimized and simplified revision of English designed to make nuanced, reasoned, independent thought impossible.

Inspired by our current president and his climate-change denial, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)--the agency whose mission is to guide and enhance American agriculture, conserve and improve the rural environment, and help feed America and the world--has decided to outlaw phrases such as "climate change," "climate change adaptation," "reduce greenhouse gases," and "sequester carbon." Newspeak is alive and well at the USDA.

Flooding in New Orleans--yet again

Credit: www.goodfreephotos.com

Those now-forbidden terms are to be replaced in official communication by what Orwell would call "goodthink"--terms approved by the all-powerful Party. "Climate change" becomes "weather extremes" or "intense weather events," "climate change adaptation" becomes "resilience to weather extremes," while "reduce greenhouse gases" and "sequester carbon" become "build soil organic matter" or the mind-numbing "increase nutrient use efficiency."

Wildfire, Black Forest, Colorado, June 12, 2013
Credit: DoD--photo by Master Sgt. Christopher DeWitt, U.S. Air Force

In Oldspeak--plain old English--it's at least possible to think and speak clearly about the global problem of climate change and ways to minimize or adapt to it. But, in Newspeak, in Trump's Department of Agriculture, that's now a thoughtcrime, or, better yet, simply unthinkable.

The flash drought that's currently decimating the high plains' wheat crop is simply an isolated weather extreme. It can't be linked to the raging wildfires in the Pacific Northwest, flooding in New Orleans, the fact that Virginia's Tangier Island is washing away or that Death Valley just experienced the hottest month ever measured anywhere on Earth. The concept that ties these "weather extremes" together no longer exists, at least at the USDA.

You can see this in action at the EPA, where scientists explaining how climate change has added to the destructive power of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Harvey are being accused of politicizing the storm. In other words, understanding is politicizing. Remaining ignorant is the right thing to do.

 Credit: Stephen Bettany

One of the three guiding slogans of the Party in 1984 was "Ignorance is Strength." If that's true, Trump's USDA is certainly flexing its muscles.

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You can read environmentalist Bill McKibben's comments  on this issue here.

You can read about an outbreak of Trump-mandated Newspeak at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) here, or at this URL.Newly banned words and phrases include "vulnerable," "entitlement," "diversity," "transgender," "fetus," "evidence-based," and "science-based." I, for one, start to feel pretty vulnerable when concepts like "evidence-based" and "science-based" are banned. What will replace them? The Republican party line? Trump's latest whim?

Part of the CDC's "Pledge to the American People" is to "Base all public health decisions on the highest quality scientific data that is derived openly and objectively." They should amend that to read, "Base all public health decisions on the current political directives from the President and his appointees, derived behind closed doors to advance a partisan agenda."

And you can see how far this fascist penchant for censoring words and ideas can go in this recent news item about the censorship of words, phrases and internet search terms in China. Just to put the cork in the bottle, they've banned references to George Orwell, 1984 and Animal Farm.

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THE BASIC PHYSICS BEHIND GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE HAS BEEN KNOWN FOR MORE THAN A CENTURY

Just a quick link to a great piece by engineering professor John Abraham entitled, "150 Years Ago, Scientists Understood the Climate Better than the EPA Head Does Today."

Here's the URL to click on.

It's worth reading the whole article, in which Abraham vividly reminds us that climate-change deniers such as Scott Pruitt, the current head of the EPA, are basically living in the 1800s, at least as far as their acceptance of the basic science of Earth's radiation balance, the greenhouse effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide and water vapor, and the impact of increased greenhouse gases on Earth's climate, all of which were well known before the turn of the century on New Year's Eve, 1899!

The basic science behind climate change was understood before this car hit the road

Credit: National Motor Museum

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AN APPLE A DAY KEEPS THE GREENHOUSE AT BAY

We've known for many years that raising animals for meat is an incredibly inefficient way to feed people. Meat production uses a huge amount of land, water and energy, and produces a huge amount of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and other forms of pollution.

Grazing cattle/Credit: USDA

Now, for the first time, consumers can compare the environmental impact of different kinds of food.

Researchers at Lancaster University, in the UK, and RMIT University, in Melbourne, Australia, reviewed 369 studies concerning the global warming impact of the production and distribution of a wide variety of foods. To help consumers, they've summarized their findings in a simple table.

The gist of what they found is that meat from ruminants such as cattle and sheep has the worst impact on the climate. Worldwide, one kilogram (2.2 lbs.) of greenhouse gas emissions only yields 38 grams of beef (that's just .08 pounds). Pork was better, but far from ideal, with one kg of greenhouse gas production yielding 174 g (.38 lb.) of pork. Chicken was better still, with a 270 g (.6 lb.) production of chicken at the cost of 1 kg of greenhouse gases. Fish and eggs were in the same intermediate range.

However, the winners by far were in the veggie department. For example, 1 kg of greenhouse gas emissions came from the production of 1 kg (2.2 lbs.) of lentils or 2.6 kg (5.7 lb) of oats.

And, getting back to the title of this piece, you can produce and distribute 20 medium-sized apples (3.5 kg, 7.7 lb.) at the cost of 1 kg of greenhouse gas. By weight, that's a whopping 92 times better than beef. (Onions were an even better buy for the environment, but I figure that an onion a day would keep everyone away).

Now that 193 nations have signed the Paris Agreement, vowing to do their part to combat global climate change, one thing each of us can do is shift our diets away from meat and towards more fruits and vegetables. How hard can that be?

A child eating an apple/Credit: USDA

CO2 RISING--THE SOUNDTRACK

We're currently pumping 2.4 million pounds of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere per second!

Earth's atmosphere is pretty big, but human activity is measurably changing it.

The longest run of measurements of atmospheric CO2 was started by American scientist Charles Keeling in 1958, from an observatory atop Hawaii's Mauna Loa.

The Keeling Curve--Atmospheric CO2 1958-2015

Credit: By Delorme - Own work. Data from Dr. Pieter Tans, NOAA/ESRL and Dr. Ralph Keeling, Scripps Institution of Oceanography., CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40636957

Keeling was the first to document irrefutably that atmospheric CO2 was rising, we now know due to the burning of fossil fuels and other human enterprises such as agriculture and deforestation.

That record of the concentration of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere is known as the Keeling Curve. It shows clear yearly cycles as vegetation absorbs and releases CO2 with the changing seasons.

But it also shows the dramatic rise in CO2 levels from 315 parts per million (ppm) in 1958 to today's levels of more than 400 ppm.

Two University of Washington atmospheric scientists, doctoral student Judy Twedt and Prof. Dargan Frierson, decided to dramatize what we're doing to the atmosphere by transforming the Keeling Curve into music.

You can hear and see the resulting YouTube video here. It speaks for itself.

To view a striking visualization of rising CO2 levels, check out item 3 at this URL.