Elon Musk: What Will It Take to Address the Climate Crisis?

Elon Musk, Tesla Motors CEO, breaks down climate change for students at The Sorbonne in Paris right before the historic Climate Change Conference in which over 190 nations agreed to reduce global warming emissions to keep the global average temperature increase below 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) relative to pre-industrial temperatures.

What will it take to address the Climate Crisis? Watch the 12 minute video for Elon Musk's view:

Cost of Inaction on Climate Change

Robert Rubin: How ignoring climate change could sink the U.S. economy

By Robert E. Rubin - Council on Foreign Relations co-chair, Treasury secretary from 1995 to 1999.

When it comes to the economy, much of the debate about climate change — and reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that are fueling it — is framed as a trade-off between environmental protection and economic prosperity. Many people argue that moving away from fossil fuels and reducing carbon emissions will impede economic growth, hurt business and hamper job creation.

But from an economic perspective, that’s precisely the wrong way to look at it. The real question should be: What is the cost of inaction? In my view — and in the view of a growing group of business people, economists, and other financial and market experts — the cost of inaction over the long term is far greater than the cost of action.

Read more at The Washington Post.

The Coming Climate Crash

Lessons for Climate Change in the 2008 Recession

By HENRY M. PAULSON Jr. - Chairman of the Paulson Institute at the University of Chicago and served as secretary of the Treasury from July 2006 to January 2009.

There is a time for weighing evidence and a time for acting. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned throughout my work in finance, government and conservation, it is to act before problems become too big to manage.

For too many years, we failed to rein in the excesses building up in the nation’s financial markets. When the credit bubble burst in 2008, the damage was devastating. Millions suffered. Many still do.
We’re making the same mistake today with climate change. We’re staring down a climate bubble that poses enormous risks to both our environment and economy. The warning signs are clear and growing more urgent as the risks go unchecked.

This is a crisis we can’t afford to ignore. I feel as if I’m watching as we fly in slow motion on a collision course toward a giant mountain. We can see the crash coming, and yet we’re sitting on our hands rather than altering course.

We need to act now, even though there is much disagreement, including from members of my own Republican Party, on how to address this issue while remaining economically competitive. They’re right to consider the economic implications. But we must not lose sight of the profound economic risks of doing nothing.

The solution can be a fundamentally conservative one that will empower the marketplace to find the most efficient response. We can do this by putting a price on emissions of carbon dioxide — a carbon tax. Few in the United States now pay to emit this potent greenhouse gas into the atmosphere we all share. Putting a price on emissions will create incentives to develop new, cleaner energy technologies.

Read more at The New York Times.

Money men tally cost of climate change

NEW YORK (AP) — Climate change is likely to exact enormous costs on U.S. regional economies in the form of lost property, reduced industrial output and more deaths, according to a report backed by a trio of men with vast business experience.

The report, released Tuesday, is designed to convince businesses to factor in the cost of climate change in their long-term decisions and to push for reductions in emissions blamed for heating the planet.

It was commissioned by the Risky Business Project, which describes itself as nonpartisan and is chaired by former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Thomas F. Steyer, a former hedge fund manager.

"If we act immediately, we can still avoid most of the worst impacts of climate change and significantly reduce the odds of catastrophic outcomes," Paulson said.

Among the predictions: Between $66 billion and $106 billion in coastal property will likely be below sea level by 2050, labor productivity of outdoor workers could be reduced by 3 percent because extremely hot days will be far more frequent, and demand for electricity to power air conditioners will require the construction of more power plants that will cost electricity customers up to $12 billion per year.

"Every year that goes by without a comprehensive public and private sector response to climate change is a year that locks in future climate events that will have a far more devastating effect on our local, regional, and national economies," warn the report's authors.

The analysis and calculations in the report were performed by the Rhodium Group, an economic research firm, and Risk Management Solutions, a catastrophe-modeling company that works for insurance companies and other businesses. It was paid for by the philanthropic foundations of Bloomberg, Paulson and Steyer, among others.

The report analyzes the impacts of climate change by region to better show how climate change affects the businesses and industries that drive each region's economy.

— The Northeast will likely be most affected by sea level rise, which will cost an additional $6 billion to $9 billion in property loss each year.

— The Southeast will likely be affected both by sea-level rise and extreme temperatures. The region, which has averaged eight days of temperatures over 95 degrees each year, will likely see an additional 17 to 52 of these days by midcentury and up to four months of them by the end of the century. This could lead to 11,000 to 36,000 additional deaths per year.

— Higher temperatures will reduce Midwest crop yields by 19 percent by midcentury and by 63 percent by the end of the century.

— The Southwest will see an extra month of temperatures above 95 degrees by 2050, which will lead to more frequent droughts and wildfires.

The report does not calculate the cost of these droughts or wildfires, or many other possible costs such as the loss of unique ecosystems and species and the possible compounding effects of extreme weather conditions. Nor does it calculate some of the ways economies could adapt to the changing climate and reduce the costs of climate change.

Beyond the three co-chairs, the members of the group's risk committee include Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, former Cargill CEO Gregory Page, and George Shultz, former treasury secretary and secretary of state.

"These are people who have managed risk all their lives and have made an enormous amount of money doing so," Yohe said.

Read the AP Report at The Buffalo News

Risky Business Report: The U.S. economy faces significant risks from unmitigated climate change. The Risky Business report presents a new approach to understanding these risks for key U.S. business sectors, and provides business leaders with a framework for measuring and mitigating their own exposure to climate risk. Explore the report here: http://riskybusiness.org.

Inaction on Climate Change: The Cost to Taxpayers

When we examine the full costs of public programs that pay for disaster relief and recovery from extreme weather events—ad hoc disaster assistance appropriations, flood insurance, crop insurance, wildfire protection, and state run “residual market” insurance programs—we can begin to understand the price to U.S. taxpayers of inaction on climate change.

As the frequency and severity of extreme weather events intensify with the effects of climate change, our federal and state disaster relief and insurance programs will become increasingly unsustainable as losses from such events increase. The net present value of the federal government’s liability for unfunded disaster assistance over the next 75 years could be greater than the net present value of the unfunded liability for the Social Security program.

Boosting our resiliency to today’s extreme weather events is an urgent priority. Investing concurrently in forward-looking measures that over time will reduce the climate-altering carbon emissions contributing to extreme weather is essential to our long-term physical and economic well-being.

Download the Ceres report here.

 

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Renewable New York -- Planning for a Clean Energy Future

By Jannette M. Barth, Ph.D. 
RenewableNewYork.org

Renewable New York is a newly formed grassroots organization dedicated to helping New York State transition to a 100% renewable energy infrastructure. It was founded by individuals who recognize that fossil fuels must be phased out quickly and replaced with the superior alternative: renewable energy combined with energy efficiency and conservation.

Renewable New York will work to advance the goals of The Solutions Project, a national effort to move each state to an energy infrastructure that is 100% supplied by wind, water and sunlight. A team of scientists under the direction of Professor Mark Jacobson of Stanford University has described how New York can successfully, affordably and productively transition to renewable energy by relying solely on technology that exists today, creating new jobs in the process.

The Solutions Project plan for New York can be found here:

http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/NewYorkWWSEnPolicy.pdf

A brief summary of the plan is here:

http://www.eeb.cornell.edu/howarth/documents/2030PlanHandout.pdf

A distinguished group, including five coauthors of the Solutions Project plan, has agreed to serve as Special Advisors to Renewable New York.

Renewable New York recognizes that there are many groups and individuals in New York State already successfully working to increase the production and use of renewable energy and to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. Renewable New York seeks to assist with these efforts, in part by assembling a database of programs already underway so others can benefit from past efforts. For this reason, Renewable New York is asking organizations throughout the state to send us information about your projects so that we can post them online on our forthcoming website. (Please email info@RenewableNewYork.org with the name of your organization, contact information, a link to your website, and a brief description of your organization’s efforts.)

We’d also like to hear from individuals with particular relevant expertise in energy conservation and sustainable energy. A timely response will insure that your efforts are included when our website first goes online.

Renewable New York understands that the 2030 Plan for New York State as described in the Jacobson et al. study is just one feasible way to make the transition. The 2030 plan is a plan, not necessarily the plan. All of our ideas need to be thrown into the mix. It is fully expected that this plan will be adjusted as progress is made. The most immediate need is for us all to pull together to ensure a speedy transition to a sustainable future.

Please forward this message to list serves and other contacts.

 ~  ~  ~

DEADLINE to Submit Public Comments on the draft New York State Energy Plan is April 30, 2014. Deadline has been EXTENDED to May 30, 2014.

Help N.Y. State achieve critical goals on climate, energy efficiency and renewable energy by submitting your comments here: http://energyplan.ny.gov/Process/comments.aspx

Slide Show: Shale Gas Potential in New York

The slide show was produced and narrated by Jerry Acton, a Systems Engineer & Systems Architect (retired) at IBM and Lockheed. Acton describes an analytical procedure he developed that uses shale gas production data from Pennsylvania (PA) together with the depth and thickness of the Marcellus Shale along the PA-NY border to forecast shale gas production in New York and its economic impact.

A written report based on Acton's findings is HERE.

New York Lacks Economically Recoverable Shale Gas

Black diamonds represent uneconomic drilling (see text) -- Jerry Acton.

New York Shale Play Gets Major Downgrade

By Peter Mantius

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. — The real reason New York State has not allowed high-volume hydrofracking for natural gas in its Marcellus shale is that there is almost no gas that can be economically extracted, according to four retired professionals turned fracking analysts.

Their argument contradicts the gas industry’s narrative – widely accepted as fact by many landowners, investors, politicians and state regulators – that shale gas is a potential economic “game-changer” for poor, rural upstate New York.

For the past four years, two governors have repeatedly extended the state’s de facto moratorium on fracking while they tinkered with the rules. Since last fall, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said he is waiting for the results of a vaguely defined health study, frustrating pro-gas groups with his apparent lack of urgency.

But the four analysts now argue that it’s geology – not health – that best explains Cuomo’s foot-dragging. In the governor’s cost-benefit analysis, they say, meager potential economic gains from drilling are not worth the environmental and political risk.

“The vast majority of the New York Marcellus shale is too thin (less than 150 feet thick) and too shallow (less than 4,500 feet) to yield economically recoverable natural gas,” said Jerry Acton, a retired systems engineer for IBM and Lockheed Martin who based his conclusions on drilling production results from neighboring Pennsylvania, where fracking is allowed.

Acton crunched four years of publicly available data supplied to regulators by Pennsylvania drillers. His analysis covered all 1,539 active natural gas wells drilled into the Marcellus shale in six counties that border New York. Acton found that median production results [Figure: Median IP chart, colored bars] for specific towns and counties [colored circles on map] correlate closely with the depth [white lines] and thickness [black lines & numbers] of the shale layer drilled. The deeper and thicker, the better.

That finding points to trouble for drilling prospects in New York, Acton said, because its Marcellus layer is relatively shallow and thin. While a cluster of Pennsylvania gas wells only 40 miles southwest of Binghamton have been highly successful, they tap a Marcellus layer that is much thicker and deeper than any in New York. As Pennsylvania drillers moved west of that sweet spot into thinner, shallower sections with geology similar to New York’s, gas production levels plummeted.

Read more at DC Bureau.

See also this economics report: Hyped Benefits of Fracked Gas Already Fading
By Deborah Rogers at EcoWatch

FORUM: Shale Gas Potential in NY State [Update: 10.26]

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Printable Posters are Here

Map to the Presentation at Cornell University is Here

UPDATE - 10.26.2013: How much Shale Gas could be Produced in NY State?
Video - Chip Northrup interviewed on Capital Tonight 

Economics of Fracking for Gas and Oil

Deborah Rogers joined radio host Pat Kenny in Ireland to discuss the economics of fracking to extract gas and oil from shale. Ms. Rogers is an economist and a primary member to the U.S. Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, an advisory committee within the U.S. Department of Interior. 
To hear the discussion, click the 'news talk' button, below:

Deborah Lawrence Rogers began her financial career in London working in investment banking. Upon her return to the U.S., she worked as a financial consultant for several major Wall Street firms, including Merrill Lynch and Smith Barney.

Ms. Rogers was appointed as a primary member to the U.S. Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (USEITI), an advisory committee within the U.S. Department of Interior, in 2013 for a three year term. In May 2013, she was invited to testify before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. In July 2013, she participated in a working group at EIA, the Energy Information Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy. 

Public Hearing on Replacing Coal with Gas in Power Plants

PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION (PSC) HEARING

ON PROPOSAL TO REPOWER DUNKIRK AND CAYUGA

COAL FIRED POWER PLANTS WITH GAS

Come and Give Testimony

Come and Support those Giving Testimony with your Presence

Monday, July 15, 2013

SUNY Fredonia, Multi-Purpose Room at the William Center

Fredonia, NY

Public Testimony starts at 7 pm

Administrative Law Judge Presiding

The Public Service Commission (PSC) is currently deciding whether to repower the Dunkirk and Cayuga coal-fired power plants with natural gas or to opt for more environmental and cost effective transmission system upgrades, efficiency, and renewables. There will be presentations by NRG and National Grid with Q&Q from 6-7. Public testimony will follow at 7 pm.

There is so much agreement that natural gas is the wrong choice (for environmental, fracking, cost, consumer benefit reasons) that the Business Council, the Sierra Club, and seven other environmental organizations submitted joint comments to the PSC urging the transmission upgrades, efficiency, and renewables over natural gas, Needless to say, the Business Council and enviros rarely issue joint statements. 

Senators Maziarz, Young, and Nozzolio quickly requested a public hearing in Fredonia which the PSC granted. The Sierra Club -- and others -- have submitted about 2,000 public comments opposing the natural gas conversion.

We need a strong presence at the Fredonia hearing so that Senators Young and Maziarz will hear our voices in support of cost-effective and more environmentally friendly options like renewables, infrastructure, and efficiency. This hearing can set the stage for future victories and give a public victory to fracktivists and renewable energy activists. 

SUNY Fredonia Location:  Building #21 on Campus Map.
Map to SUNY Fredonia is Here

NEW SOLUTIONS: Concerns Related to Shale Gas Extraction

The journal New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy has just released a special issue. It covers concerns related to shale gas extraction with respect to scientific, economic, social, environmental and health policy.

The issue opens with an Editorial entitled "An Energy Policy that Provides Clean and Green Power" by Craig Slatin and Charles Levenstein. They write:

  Now shale gas extraction conducted through the technological process commonly referred to as “fracking” is touted by the oil and gas industry as the next great energy boon. They tell us that gas will be so plentiful that it will answer all of our energy-related problems. Best yet, it will end the unemployment crisis that lingers past the Great Recession, leading to millions of jobs over the next several decades. Its promoters claim that we can have energy independence and a fuel that burns cleaner than coal—while they spread denial that the threat of catastrophic climate change is real or has much to do with human activity.

Let’s not be deceived: shale gas extraction will neither fulfill the prophesies nor be useful in the transition to just, democratic, and ecologically sustainable economies across the globe. It is business as usual. It is owned and operated by industries with more than a century’s legacy of greed, corruption, war provocation, pollution, illness, injury and death, environmental degradation, and a steady stream of propaganda and lobbying to limit its regulation by governments.

One claim of industry propaganda is backed by a reference to a publication from an independent source. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reported that the Marcellus Shale deposit “contains about 84 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas," a figure which is 80 percent less than that supplied to the U.S. Energy Information Agency by industry consultants.

The Editorial concludes with a call for the need of a national energy policy that addresses climate change and protects human health and welfare:

Whatever short-term assistance the American economy gains from the continued use of fossil fuels, the highest priority must be placed on establishing a national energy policy, coordinated with an international set of energy policies, that aims for immediate measures to avert catastrophic climate change and establish a transition toward producing and delivering clean, green, and sufficient energy as part of the foundation for sustainable development. Attention to the health and welfare of workers and communities affected by these changes must be an essential priority of this new energy policy.

This special issue of New Solutions was organized by guest editors Robert Oswald, a Cornell professor, and Michelle Bamberger, a practicing veternarian. Many will recognize these individuals as the authors of a 2012 report entitled “Impacts of Gas Drilling on Human and Animal Health." Oswald and Bamberger also wrote the introduction for the special issue.

Eleven articles in the issue cover scientific, economic, social, environmental and health policy. Authors include experts, such as Jannette Barth, Wilma Subra and Ronald Bishop, who have testified on aspects of shale gas extraction before the New York State legislature. Also, Anthony Ingraffea, Cornell professor of civil and environmental engineering, is interviewed in one of the articles.  

The entire issue spans 221 pages and the PDF is available here.

New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy  seeks to deliver "authoritative responses to perplexing problems, with a worker’s voice, an activist’s commitment, a scientist’s approach, and a policy-maker’s experience." Journal articles are "written for both the academic and educated lay audience." Its the Journal intention "to affect the public health policy discussion and shake up the policy debate." Articles are peer reviewed using a process described here.

FRACKONOMICS: Economic Myths of Fracking

FOOD AND WATER WATCH…SIERRA CLUB NIAGARA GROUP

WNY DRILLING DEFENSE

Are Sponsoring

CHRIS BURGER

ON

 THE ECONOMIC MYTH$ OF FRACKING

Is this really a contest between the economy and the environment?

Learn about the myths and hype being used by the gas industry and some politicians to convince us that environmental and health risks are worth the money to be made.

DATE:    Sunday, February 26, 2012

TIME:    4pm to 5:30pm

WHERE: Lafayette Presbyterian Church, 865 Elmwood Ave, Buffalo NY

 Use the church entrance near the Lafayette Ave parking lot

FLYER:   Click here

 Chris Burger, a Co-Chair of the SC Atlantic Chapter’s Gas Task Force, is a college instructor who has degrees in Chemical Engineering, Economics and Social Psychology. His many activities in environmental issues include his being the Co-founder and Chair of the Binghamton Regional Sustainability Coalition. He was a former Broome County Legislator and Chair of the Cornell University Eco-Justice Project.
 

This program is free and open to the public