[GWSG] Call to act; Arctic acid; climate coverage; coastal real estate; toward the transition to renewables

[Tilley, Al]

1.  Led by Stanford faculty, 524 scientists from 84 countries have signed a declaration that we must act soon to avoid collapses of life support systems on a global scale.  http://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/may/environment-consensus-statement-052313.html

2.  Newly open water in the Arctic absorbs more CO2 than the former sea ice.  The Arctic Ocean is acidifying rapidly.  http://www.enn.com/climate/article/46007?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ClimateChangeNews-Enn+%28Climate+Change+News+-+ENN%29

3.  Pieces of the picture on climate coverage:  CBS has broken their silence on climate with a panel discussion on Face the Nation.  http://thinkprogress.org/media/2013/05/26/2063231/cbs-climate-change/?mobile=nc  NBC has been the best of the major TV news networks in covering climate.  http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nightly-news/52002561/#52002561  Chris Hayes of MSNBC has been active and well informed in covering climate disruption for the last several months.  http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/28/msnbcs-chris-hayes-rips-gov-chris-christie-for-dismissing-climate-change/  Hayes may have influenced Rachael Maddow’s recent discovery of the issue.  The New York Times has had little coverage in the last couple of years.  BBC coverage has become spotty.  The Guardian remains the major paper with regular coverage. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-change   Here is an encouraging editorial from the Philadelphia Inquirer, which seems to be joining CBS in finding its voice (though maybe I have just missed its coverage).  http://articles.philly.com/2013-05-26/news/39540253_1_climate-change-carbon-emissions-recovery-efforts  Mother Jones, of course, along with The Rolling Stone, regularly issues a blast.  http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/05/terracide-exxon-environment

4.  A letter in Nature Climate Change models the response of coastal real estate to climate risk.  It predicts that when the risks and cost of armoring against flooding and erosion become larger than returns from rentals, the real estate market crashes and properties will be abandoned.  It observes that people with little trust in climate models are more likely to hold real estate on barrier islands given current projections, so that taxes of the general population to underwrite the climate risks of holding coastal property go to support people who have undervalued risk projections.  The study predicts that under conditions of high sea level rise rates (10 mm/year) a market crash develops rapidly.  (Increasing rates of sea level rise, of course, are upon us.)  Dylan McNamara and Andrew Keeler, “A coupled physical and economic model of the response of coastal real estate to climate risk,” June 2013, 559-62 (subsc. req.).

5.  Progress toward a transition to renewable energy:  Australia appears set to beat its target of 22.5% renewable energy by 2020.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/30/australia-2020-renewable-energy-target  In spite of cheap American coal, the European Union seems on track to meet its target of 20% reduction in emissions by 2020 (on a 1990 base).  http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/29/us-eu-emissions-idUSBRE94S0EV20130529?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews   China is reported committed to reaching peak emissions by 2025 or earlier.  http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829193.300-can-china-really-turn-its-emissions-around-by-2025.html  Jim Hansen, discourage by the US failure to take legislative action on climate, believes that it may be time for a third political party in the US.  http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2013/20130529_AmericanParty.pdf   Still, President Obama achieved his goal of 12% renewable power by 2012 and intends that the country to produce 25% renewably by 2025.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_the_United_States  The US Sunshot initiative did succeed in lowering the cost of solar power to the point that permitting and installation are the soft spots.  The goal is retail solar power at $.06/kwh and a constructed price for commercial solar of $1/watt by the end of the decade.  http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/sunshot/about.html   We are close now.  http://news.yahoo.com/cusp-solar-energy-boom-075000286.html  In sum we have much to do to avoid the worst effects of climate disruption.  (See item 1.)  The great good news is that we have made a start.
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