Our future depends on what we do about energy – and yet our government has failed to come up with a coherent energy policy. Looks at the muddled practices that have passed for energy policy in the last 30 years, and what we should learn from so many breakdowns in strategy and execution. Three goals to drive any comprehensive energy policy: a) develop an effective approach to climate change, b) transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy technologies; and c) increase the efficiency of energy use to reduce dependence on imported oil. Failure has resulted from popular but unrealistic goals, competing domestic and international agendas, and poor analysis in planning, policymaking, and administering government programs. (also as e-book)

(ENERGY * ENERGY POLICY * CLIMATE CHANGE)

A paleoecologist argues that we are now in the Anthropocene era, and will be for many millennia—an era that emphasizes the unprecedented human impact on the global environment, involving alteration of climate, a huge loss of biodiversity, and introduction of poisons into our air, water, and soils. The worst-case scenarios for the Anthropocene are similar to a period about 55 million years ago, when the level of CO2 in the atmosphere was roughly equal to what would be the case if we burn all remaining oil and coal on the planet, resulting in acidified oceans, virtually no ice or snow anywhere, and mass extinctions. One inevitable consequence of warming will be acidified oceans, as CO2 absorbed by the oceans becomes carbonic acid, a process that has already begun and will continue for centuries; if we don’t control emissions, the outcome will be apocalyptic. [ALSO SEE from the National Research Council: Understanding Earth’s Deep Past: Lessons for Our Climate Future (National Academies Press, Sept 2011, 212p, $34pb), which also assesses the deep-time geologic record, and Ocean Acidification (NAP, Sept 2010, 176p) on long-term consequences.] (www.curtstager.com)

(CLIMATE CHANGE * ENVIRONMENT * OCEANS * ANTHROPOCENE ERA)

Over the past decade, carbon trading has emerged as the industrialized world’s primary policy response to global climate change. With carbon markets worth $144 billion in 2009, carbon trading represents the largest manifestation of the trend toward market-based environmental governance. Focuses on the role business played in making this policy instrument a central pillar of global climate governance, and presents three milestones in the rise of carbon trading: 1) internationalization of emission trading in the Kyoto Protocol (1989-2000), 2) creation of the EU Emission Trading System (1998-2008), and 3) reemergence of emission trading on the US policy agenda (2001-2009).

(CLIMATE GOVERNANCE * CLIMATE CHANGE * GLOBAL GOVERNANCE * EMISSIONS TRADING * CARBON TRADING)

Electricity use is growing worldwide, providing a range of energy services: lighting, heating and cooling, specific industrial uses, entertainment, information technologies, and mobility. Because its generation remains largely based on fossil fuels, electricity is also the largest and the fastest-growing source of energy-related CO2 emissions, the primary cause of human-induced climate change. Forecasts from the IEA and others show that “decarbonising” electricity and enhancing end-use efficiency can make major contributions to the fight against climate change. The generation and use of electricity will be subject to increasingly strong policy actions by governments to reduce their associated CO2 emissions. Provides an authoritative resource on progress to date in this area, with statistics related to CO2 and the electricity sector across ten regions of the world.

(ENERGY * CLIMATE CHANGE * ELECTRICITY USE GROWING)

The aggregate size of cities is driving their contributions to GHG emissions.  More than half of the people in the world now live in urban areas, a proportion that is growing fast.  The world’s 50 largest cities alone have a combined population (500 million people) larger than the United States. Residents of cities are responsible for as much as 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions while at the same time facing significant impacts from climate change.  Well managed, dense cities can become the most important pre-requisite to mitigation of GHG emissions and overall sustainable development. The report advocates the need to act now: massive investments in buildings and infrastructure that cities in developing countries are undertaking today will lock in urban form and lifestyles for many decades to come, foretelling greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and vulnerability to climate events like wind storms, flooding, heat waves, and sea level rise.  The report also provides evidence on how city form and lifestyles have an impact on GHG emissions.  Barcelona’s per capita residential GHG emissions, for example, are less than one-quarter those of Denver.

(CITIES AND CLIMATE * CLIMATE CHANGE)

How many species may perish as a result of climate change and associated threats? Experts from several disciplines examine initial extinction estimates in a 2004 paper, present evidence of extinction from climate change, set forth new risk estimates for future climate change, and consider conservation and policy implications. Seeks to be a critical resource for those working to conserve biodiversity in the face of rapidly advancing and evolving global stressor of climate change.

(ENVIRONMENT * BIODIVERSITY * CLIMATE CHANGE * SPECIES EXTICNTION)

Weighs the merits of the four major approaches to curbing CO2: cap-and-trade; command and control regulation; government subsidies of alternative energy; and carbon taxes. Although a tax is not the perfect or only solution, unlike other alternatives it can be implemented immediately and paired effectively with other approaches.

(CLIMATE CHANGE * CARBON TAX * CO2 EMISSIONS: HOW TO CURB)

Lays out the current understanding about the science of climate change, helps readers “get up to the speed” on the chemistry and physical sciences that produce weather and climate as we understand them, and enables reporters and editors to understand and report on the most authoritative scientific findings related to global climate change. The new edition provides updates on the ongoing climate debate, including UK “ClimateGate” scandal, as well as new developments in the science itself, and photos of what climate change has done to our planet’s landscape.

(CLIMATE CHANGE: INTRODUCTION)

“By the end of this century, without a reduction in emissions, atmospheric CO2 is projected to increase to levels that Earth has not experienced for more than 30 million years.” Throughout its long history, Earth has had two fundamentally different climate states: a cool “icehouse” of waxing and waning continental-based ice sheets at high latitudes, and a “greenhouse” state characterized by much warmer temperatures globally and only small—or no—ice sheets. Earth has been in an icehouse state throughout the time that humans evolved and for the previous 30 million years, but it has been in the warmer greenhouse state for most of the past 600 million years of geological time.

Although deep-time greenhouse climates are not exact analogues for the climate of the future, past warm climates—particularly abrupt global warming events—could provide important insights, especially as concerns the role of greenhouse gases in causing or “forcing” global warming. “As Earth continues to warm, it may be approaching a critical climate threshold beyond which rapid and potentially permanent—at least on a human timescale—changes not anticipated by climate models tuned to modern conditions may occur.” Components of the climate system that are particularly vulnerable include the loss of Arctic summer sea ice, the stability of the Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheets, the vigor of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation, the extent of Amazon and boreal forests, and the variability of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation. Studies of past climates show that Earth’s climate system does not respond linearly to gradual CO2 forcing, but by abrupt change as it is driven across climatic thresholds. “Modern climate is changing rapidly, and there is a possibility that Earth will soon pass thresholds that will lead to even larger and/or more rapid changes in its environments.”

Chapters describe lessons from past warm worlds (as concerns sea level fluctuations, biotic response, and hydrological processes), icehouse-greenhouse transitions, how long the greenhouse will last (severe global warming could persist for 20,000 to 40,000 years), the decreasing ability of oceans to sequester CO2 as they become more acidified, and implementing a deep-time research agenda. [ALSO SEE: The Fate of Greenland: Lessons from Abrupt Climate Change by Philip Conkling, Richard Alley, Wallace Broecker, and George Denton (MIT Press, April 2011), noting that “we might cause enough warming within a few decades to cross the threshold leading to ice-sheet loss…if the Greenland ice sheet melts, sea level would rise 7 meters—or about 24 feet—worldwide.” The authors do not expect a North Atlantic conveyor shutdown, a belching of methane, or a sudden ice-sheet collapse, but all appear possible: “the uncertainties are dominantly on the bad side.”]

(CLIMATE CHANGE AND HIGH GHG LEVELS * CLIMATE CHANGE * ICEHOUSE-GREENHOUSE TRANSITION * DEEP-TIME CLIMATE ANALYSIS * ABRUPT CLIMATE CHANGE * EARTH THRESHOLDS)

Summarizes four other 2010 climate change reports of the National Research Council, describes the unique challenges of climate change, and introduces the important notion of “iterative risk management” for making important choices. For a lengthy description, see GFB Book of the Month, Oct 2011.

(CLIMATE CHANGE * ITERATIVE RISK MANAGEMENT * AMERICA’S)