Study: Global warming could yield $11.6 trillion in increased crop production

Could global warming be a boon to farmers? A recent study found that rising carbon dioxide concentrations bestow an additional $11.6 trillion in benefits from crop production between now and 2050.

The Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change found that while many studies focus on the costs of rising carbon emissions, few studies focused on whether or not more carbon in the atmosphere could be beneficial to society.

In fact, the Obama administration recently raised its social-cost-of-carbon estimate from $21 per metric ton to $35 per metric ton to the ire of global warming skeptics and Republicans. The estimate reflects how much each ton of carbon emitted costs the U.S. economy.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/19/study-global-warming-could-yield-11-6-trillion-in-increased-crop-production/#ixzz2jJEwUsg4

WATCH LIVE Secretary Sebelius Testifies on Obamacare Launch Car Charging Gets $230 Million EV System From Bankrupt Ecotality

Taxpayers paid for this.  Doesn't that make you feel good?!


Car Charging Group Inc. (CCGI), the Miami Beach-based operator of electric-vehicle charging stations, acquired the assets of bankrupt competitor Ecotality Inc. (ECTYQ) for $3.34 million, gaining a $230 million network partially funded by the U.S. Energy Department.

Car Charging paid cash for Ecotality’s Blink Network and related assets, including more than 12,500 charging stations, according to a statement today.

Car Charging also assumed the assets of The EV Project, an initiative that received a $114.8 million Energy Department grant and was managed by Ecotality. Outside investors matched the grant, according to the statement.

The acquisition is Car Charging’s fourth this year as it expands its network. The company now owns and operates more than 13,400 charging stations in 35 states and three countries, according to the statement.

READ MORE:   http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-17/car-charging-gets-230-million-ev-system-from-bankrupt-ecotality.html?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=8393

Obama’s global-warming folly

By Charles Krauthammer,July 04, 2013

 

The economy stagnates. Syria burns. Scandals lap at his feet. China and Russia mock him, even as a “29-year-old hacker” revealed his nation’s spy secrets to the world. How does President Obama respond? With a grandiloquent speech on climate change.

Climate change? It lies at the very bottom of a list of Americans’ concerns (last of 21 — Pew poll). Which means that Obama’s declaration of unilateral American war on global warming, whatever the cost — and it will be heavy — is either highly visionary or hopelessly solipsistic. You decide:

Global temperatures have been flat for 16 years — a curious time to unveil a grand, hugely costly, socially disruptive anti-warming program.

READ MORE:  http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-07-04/opinions/40369711_1_warming-climate-change-global-temperatures

Environmentalists, workers seek common ground

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The nation's largest labor unions are ready and willing to help fight global warming, but are cautioning environmentalists that workers need new clean-energy jobs before existing industries are shut down.

The four-day Power Shift conference in Pittsburgh is training young people to stop coal mining, fracking for oil and gas, and nuclear power, but organizers also want workers to join the battle against climate change.

Union leaders say their workers want to help build a new, green economy.

"Global warming is here, and we can work and get it fixed together," United Steel Workers president Leo Gerard said in a Friday night address at Power Shift.

READ MORE:  http://news.yahoo.com/environmentalists-workers-seek-common-ground-183058884.html

Last Gasp for the Atlantic Hurricane Season

This quote from the article says that scientists know "little about" important aspects of hurricane formation this year, but some of the same people believe they know what the climate will do in 100 years.  Does that seem odd to you?

 

"There is something else in addition to dry air, wind shear and tropical water temperatures, playing a role during the low hurricane seasons that we know little about and meteorologists have to study more," Kottlowski stated.

Tropical Storm Lorenzo has formed in the central Atlantic. It is not expected to impact any land in the coming days.

---

The area that has bred the majority of tropical storms during the 2013 Atlantic season may have a couple more tricks up its sleeve before the season comes to a close.

The western Caribbean and southwestern Gulf of Mexico are likely candidates for near-continent tropical storm formation in the coming weeks.

As large high pressure areas begin to build southeastward from Canada and across the eastern United States, the flow of air around these fair weather systems may help to spin up tropical systems farther south.

READ MORE:  http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/last-gasp-for-the-atlantic-hur/18980610

Seven States Just Sued The EPA For Failing To Update Standards For Wood-Burning Furnaces

Seven states and the group Earthjustice have filed two related lawsuits against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for failing to update emissions standards for wood-burning boilers.

It’s an often overlooked environmental concern. The boilers resemble outhouses with chimneys, and are used to heat water that’s piped into a home’s radiator system. Along with furnaces and other wood-burning sources, they emit soot — a potentially dangerous pollutant that falls under the under the regulatory authority of the Clean Air Act’s New Source Performance Standards.

The seven states are New York, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont, and Earthjustice’s lawsuit is on behalf of the American Lung Association, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Clean Air Council, and Environment and Human Health, Inc. According to the complaint, which was filed Wednesday, the EPA is required by the Clean Air Act to review standards for air pollution that can endanger health every eight years.

READ MORE:  http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/10/11/2768501/wood-boiler-lawsuit-epa/

Let's play God: The scientific experiments that might save the world (or destroy it...)

Fake volcanoes, giant space mirrors, oceans of iron filings… One of these ideas might save our planet from the worst effects of global warming – or destroy it. Memphis Barker reports on the rise of geoengineering – and the rift it has opened in the scientific community

 

Two years ago this month, in a disused Norfolk airfield, a small group of scientists were preparing to undertake one of the more controversial experiments in British scientific history. What little equipment it needed – a B&Q pressure washer, 1km of hydraulic hose and an 8m air balloon – had been bought or loaned. A truck was ready. Once in the air, the dirigible balloon would spray 120 litres of fine water droplets into the East Anglia sky, a miniaturised test for a much larger system that would eventually pump out chemical particles to reflect sunlight and, so the scientists calculated, cool the planet. It was to be a momentous day.

Geoengineering – as defined by the Royal Society in 2009 – is the large-scale, technological manipulation of the climate (some call it "planet hacking"). After decades of theorising, the Cambridge group was going to be the first in the West to take research out of doors. But shortly before lift-off, they aborted. There was, they feared, no way of knowing who could use their research, or in what way, and the Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering (Spice) team did not want to open a door that might be impossible to close.

READ MORE:  http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/lets-play-god-the-scientific-experiments-that-might-save-the-world-or-destroy-it-8884386.html

 

3 Coyotes Attack Man During Walk To Work

NIWOT, Colo. (CBS4) – A man is recovering after being attacked by three coyotes in Boulder County on Monday morning.

The man was walking to work in the Niwot area northeast of Boulder at 5 a.m. when he heard the animals coming up behind him. One of the coyotes was large and the other two were smaller.

“They lunged at him and were scratching and biting,” Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokeswoman Jennifer Churchill said.

The man told officials the attack took place over about a 70 yard stretch of road before he could finally get away from them.

READ MORE:  http://denver.cbslocal.com/2013/10/16/3-coyotes-attack-man-during-walk-to-work/

GOP accuses EPA of 'unprecedented' power grab with proposed water rule

Two Republican lawmakers on the House Science Committee are accusing the Environmental Protection Agency of pushing through a rule that could potentially expand the agency’s regulatory authority over streams, wetlands and other bodies under the Clean Water Act.

Reps. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, and Chris Stewart, R-Utah, on Friday sent a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy expressing concern over the proposed draft rule, which they say would give the agency “unprecedented control over private property across the nation.”

The rule, which aims to clarify the agency's regulatory jurisdiction over different types of water bodies, was sent to the Office of Management and Budget in September for review. The agency has said the scope of the proposal is limited to clearing up confusion caused by Supreme Court decisions involving the Clean Water Act.

The lawmakers claimed the agency is engaging in a "rushed, politicized regulatory process" and called for the EPA's independent science advisory board to review the science underlying the proposal.

READ MORE:  http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/19/gop-accuses-epa-unprecedented-power-grab-with-proposed-water-rule/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fpolitics+%28Internal+-+Politics+-+Text%29

013 Hurricane Season Ranks as One of the Least Intense

Wasn't global warming or climate change supposed to bring us more severe storms?  What happened?  Is it possible the scientists who believe so strongly in climate change might not know as much as they thought they did?

With only two hurricanes so far, the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season is well behind the curve to reach the average number of hurricanes and is one of the least intense since 1950.

While the season does not end until late November, time is running out for the season, much to the relief of those living in coastal areas.

By the end of November, on average there are about 12 tropical storms and six hurricanes per season. With approximately two months to go, the season will likely finish with an above-average number of tropical storms. There have already been 11 tropical storms as of Thursday morning, Oct. 3, 2013.

READ MORE:  http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/2013-hurricane-season-ranks-nearly-least-intense/18392996

Activists urge papers to follow LA Times on climate letters

And you thought you had freedom of speech?

An environmental group is pressing four large newspapers to follow The Los Angeles Times by refusing to print letters denying that humans are causing climate change.

The Times revealed its policy in a recent editor’s note that declares: “Letters that have an untrue basis (for example, ones that say there's no sign humans have caused climate change) do not get printed.”
Now the group Forecast the Facts has launched an online petition urging The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and USA Today to follow suit. The group said Monday it has gathered 22,000 signatures in less than a day thus far.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/328351-activists-urge-papers-to-follow-la-times-on-climate-letters#ixzz2hzDgtOnc

Assessing Wind Power Cost Estimates

Here's a study that shows wind power to be far more expensive than its proponents claim. 

-Rich Collins

The Institute for Energy Research released a study titled Assessing Wind Power Cost Estimates. The study, written by Dr. Michael Giberson, an economics professor at Texas Tech University, details the costs of wind power that commonly go unreported in studies performed by government-funded groups such as the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The study is published as the federal wind Production Tax Credit (PTC), a massive subsidy to the wind power industry, is set to expire at the end of the year. Last year, the PTC received another one-year extension that government analysts project will cost taxpayers $12 billion.

“As Big Wind’s lobbyists fight tooth and nail to extend the wind Production Tax Credit, it is important that we look at the true costs of wind power to taxpayers and ratepayers,” IER President Thomas Pyle said upon release of the study.

“Despite being propped up by government mandates and billion dollar subsidies for decades, wind power continues to be an expensive and boutique energy source that the American people cannot rely on for power when they need it. Although lobbyists for the wind industry prefer to downplay the real costs of wind power, Dr. Giberson has produced a fact-based study that demonstrates just how expensive it really is.”

READ MORE:  http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/ptccost/

Analysis: Lawsuits likely as EPA declares US ethanol blend wall a 'reali

(Reuters) - With two words, the U.S. environment regulator may be handing oil refiners the biggest win of a long battle to beat back the seemingly inexorable rise of ethanol fuel.

In a leaked proposal that would significantly scale back biofuel blending requirements next year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says the blend wall - the 10 percent threshold of ethanol-mixed gasoline that is at the crux of the lobbying war - is an "important reality".

The agency's rationale for a cut in the volume of ethanol that must be blended echoes an argument the oil industry has been making for months: the U.S. fuel chain cannot absorb more ethanol.

Few retailers are able to sell ethanol blends beyond the 10 percent maximum, or willing to take the legal risk that comes with it, they argue.

READ MORE:  http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/11/us-ethanol-blendwall-analysis-idUSBRE99A09420131011

Updating the Cost of Delaware's "Green" Energy Program

                A key CRI goal is to lower electricity bills in the state to make our economy more competitive to encourage job growth. Working against that goal has been an increasing cost for green energy programs.    State policy requires an increasing percentage of our power come from wind mills and solar cells. Electric generators must also buy permits at auction to emit carbon dioxide with the number of permits gradually decreasing over time forcing permit prices higher. This year these requirements will add a $90 million premium to electric bills in the state. The premium will grow to a job killing $275 million by 2022 and add almost $300 a year (12.5%) for an average residential customer.

 

            Adding electric generation will be critical to maintaining reliable service as coal plants shut down in response to federal policy. Wind farms produce electricity at roughly a 50% higher cost than conventional natural gas facilities (according to the US Energy Information Agency) with about the same impact on the environment. Several natural gas generators are scheduled for construction in the state and will add both construction and permanent jobs while lowering electric rates by as much as $240 a year for a typical residential customer. Meanwhile, we will be obtaining almost 20% of our power from out-of-state wind farms by 2025 with no construction or permanent jobs created. In fact, jobs will be lost because of the higher cost of electricity diverting money from discretionary income.    

 

            By 2025 about 2.5% of our power will come from solar electric systems and the power will cost two and half times the cost of conventional power. However, about 500 Delaware jobs are created at a solar manufacturing plant in Newark and by solar system installers around the state. At the current cost we project two jobs will be lost because of higher electricity costs for every job created. There is some indication installed cost for solar will continue to decline.

 

            Meanwhile, the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) is accelerating the cost of the carbon auction program. DNREC is using a regulatory change to extend the carbon reduction goal from 10% to 53% while raising the maximum allowable cost of the permits. The program was costing about $5 million a year in 2011 and 2012 but will cost over $16 million in 2013 rising to as much as $38 million by 2017. The Delaware Constitution requires any fee increase be approved by the legislature with a 3/5 majority but DNREC is ignoring the Constitution.

 

            Germany, with 40% of the world’s installed solar energy capacity, started down this same path a decade before Delaware. The green premium to electricity rates has reached 20% of the bill. The cost continues to grow despite a dozen reductions in subsidy rates over the last few years. Falling subsidies have led to lower wind and solar project costs as renewable energy suppliers try to remain competitive. New subsidized projects continue to be built although at a lower premium power cost rate. The German electorate is rebelling at the cost so more subsidy cuts are planned.

 

          It is not too late for corrective action by our state government. To reducing energy cost for the First State Delaware should:

 

·                     - Continue to encourage construction of natural gas pipelines and power plants to reduce net greenhouse gas emission while lowering power cost.

 

·       

                      - Require 3/5 legislative approval of changes to the carbon dioxide permitting program known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and remove the higher emission targets (Delaware has already lowered GHG by 45% compared to only 9% for the entire country).

 

·       

                    -Delay implementation of the increasing requirements of the Renewable Portfolio Standard particularly as it drives added use of out-of state wind farms. Gradually eliminate state subsidies for wind and solar projects to encourage lower installed prices.

 

·        

            -Cap the fuel cell project with Delmarva Power at 30 megawatts as power cost for fuel cells is the most expensive in Delaware at almost four times the cost of conventional natural gas generation and 60% higher than solar.

 

David T. Stevenson

Director, Center for Energy Competitiveness

Caesar Rodney Institute

http://caesarrodney.org/index.cfm?ref=30200&ref2=413

World hydrocarbon supply 'relatively boundless,' SEG told

Geophysical advances have contributed to the identification of a "relatively boundless supply" of oil and gas worldwide, Barry Smitherman, chairman, Texas Railroad Commission (RRC), told the Society of Exploration Geophysicists annual meeting Sept. 23. Texas oil production alone, 1.76 million b/d in the first 6 months of 2013, would rank third behind 2.9 million b/d of imports to the US from Canada and 2.2 million b/d of imports from the Persian Gulf, Smitherman said. Imports from Saudi Arabia would rank fourth. Including natural gas liquids, Texas is producing well above 2 million b/d of petroleum liquids and could double the figure by 2020 and triple it by 2025...

READ MORE:  http://www.ogj.com/articles/print/volume-111/issue-9d/general-interest/world-hydrocarbon-supply-relatively-boundless.html

AP IMPACT: Families hoard cash 5 yrs after crisis

NEW YORK (AP) — Five years after U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed, triggering a global financial crisis and shattering confidence worldwide, families in major countries around the world are still hunkered down, too spooked and distrustful to take chances with their money.

An Associated Press analysis of households in the 10 biggest economies shows that families continue to spend cautiously and have pulled hundreds of billions of dollars out of stocks, cut borrowing for the first time in decades and poured money into savings and bonds that offer puny interest payments, often too low to keep up with inflation.

"It doesn't take very much to destroy confidence, but it takes an awful lot to build it back," says Ian Bright, senior economist at ING, a global bank based in Amsterdam. "The attitude toward risk is permanently reset."

READ MORE:  http://news.yahoo.com/ap-impact-families-hoard-cash-5-yrs-crisis-042042926.html

What happened to hurricane season? And why we should keep forecasting it…

As we wrap up September, there have been just two short-lived Category 1 hurricanes in the Atlantic. Yet seasonal forecasts predicted an extremely active season. What’s going on?

Before diving into the seasonal forecasts, let’s take inventory on where the season stands.

In an average season,  8 tropical storms, 4 hurricanes, and 1 major (category 3 or higher) hurricane form by this date. This year, we’ve experienced 10 tropical storms, 2 hurricanes, and no major hurricanes.

Though we’ve had close to the average number of total storms, most have been short-lived and/or weak. If you went out for a cup of coffee at any time this hurricane season, you would’ve missed many of them.

READ MORE:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/09/30/what-happened-to-hurricane-season-and-why-we-should-keep-forecasting-it/

Federal shutdown weakens weather and climate enterprise

Much of the National Weather Service is still functioning, but that does not mean all is well in the world of weather and climate with much of the Federal government closed for business.

Most weather and climate-related activities not directly tied to the protection of life and property are on hold.
This means atmospheric research conducted not just at NOAA, but also at NASA, EPA, and the Department of Interior among others has stopped.

“A staggering 97 percent of NASA employees have been furloughed“, writes Phil Plait at the Bad Astronomy blog.

“The EPA is taking one of the biggest hits of any federal agency — about 96 percent of the agency’s staff aren’t coming to work,” notes Katie Valentine at Climate Progress.

READ MORE:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/10/01/federal-shutdown-weakens-weather-and-climate-enterprise/

New flood map lowers risk, insurance in Fenwick

FENWICK ISLAND — Despite growing concern over sea level rise on Delaware’s coast and the return of severe hurricanes such as last season’s Sandy, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has decided to lower the flood risk in Fenwick Island. FEMA’s update to the Flood Insurance Rate Map could result in lower flood insurance rates for property owners in the community who have already built above the proposed floodplain ordinance. The flood risk reduction came as a surprise to many Fenwick residents in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, said Pat Schuchman, building official for the town. However, FEMA’s Flood Insurance Study did not include data from Sandy that would have affected risk.

 READ MORE: http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20130930/NEWS/309300040/New-flood-map-lowers-risk-insurance-Fenwick?gcheck=1&nclick_check=1

A Pause, Not an End, to Warming

BERKELEY, Calif. — THE global warming crowd has a problem. For all of its warnings, and despite a steady escalation of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, the planet’s average surface temperature has remained pretty much the same for the last 15 years. 

As you might guess, skeptics of warming were in full attack mode as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gathered in Sweden this week to approve its latest findings about our warming planet. The skeptics argue that this recent plateau illustrates what they always knew — that complex global climate models have no predictive capability and that, therefore, there is no proof of global warming, human-caused or not. 

READ MORE:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/26/opinion/a-pause-not-an-end-to-warming.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130926&_r=3&

Global warming believers are feeling the heat

On Friday the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change delivers its latest verdict on the state of man-made global warming. Though the details are a secret, one thing is clear: the version of events you will see and hear in much of the media, especially from partis pris organisations like the BBC, will be the opposite of what the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report actually says.

• Nile Gardiner: Senator Ted Cruz stands up to the liberal Left
• Tim Stanley: Ignore the killer abortionist Kermit Gosnell
• Con Coughlin: Iran must get over its Holocaust hang-up

Already we have had a taste of the nonsense to come: a pre-announcement to the effect that “climate scientists” are now “95 per cent certain” that humans are to blame for climate change; an evidence-free declaration by the economist who wrote the discredited Stern Report that the computer models cited by the IPCC “substantially underestimate” the scale of the problem; a statement by the panel’s chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, that “the scientific evidence of… climate change has strengthened year after year”.

READ MORE:  http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100238047/global-warming-believers-are-feeling-the-heat/