Losing ground in the Chesapeake Bay

We've talked here before about how the Chesapeake Bay region is especially at risk from global warming because of how increasing sea levels will intensify effects already being seen from natural geological subsidence. The land mass is already sinking due to plate tectonics- one plate is being forced under another one. Combined with rising sea levels from global warming, Maryland is predicted to lose significant amounts of coasts and islands. A Washington Post article from Monday 10/25/2010, entitled Losing battle against the bay, presents a modern day Don Quixote's struggle and failure to save a two-story Victorian home on Holland Island.

For the past 15 years, a former minister named Stephen White had been trying to
hold back the water, protecting the house's foundations with timbers and rocks
and sandbags.

"I lie in bed and feel like I failed. And then I remember that
I did everything that I could," said White, who had first visited the abandoned
island as a boy.

Sea levels in the Chesapeake, scientists say, are rising faster than they are in some other coastal regions of the United States. One reason is ancient: The land here has been slowly sinking for thousands of years, settling itself from bulges created by the weight of Ice Age glaciers. The weight of glaciers to the north pushed the Earth's crust down, and the crust in this area went up like the other end of a see-saw. Now, the whole region is slowly sinking again.

The other reason is modern: climate change. The Earth's oceans are rising, scientists say, because polar ice is melting, and because warmer water expands. They have noticed the effect of climate change more in the past couple of decades, government scientists say.

These two factors mean that seas rise a tenth of an inch annually, eroding about 580 acres of Maryland a year, according to the state. The loss of land is all around the bay but is most noticeable on the low islands.

...It definitely won't, however, be the end of the Chesapeake's erosion problems. A few miles away, a watermen's community on Smith Island is just a few inches above the waves. And Maryland is contemplating how to, in one official's words, "facilitate abandonment and retreat" when faster-rising waters eventually threaten towns on the Eastern Shore's mainland.

Abandonment and retreat.

Photo by Astrid Riecken

No new nukes in Maryland

Maryland will not have a new nuclear power plant at Calvert Cliffs anytime soon, according to ClimateProgress. The reason? Cost. I, for one, would love to see us do other things first and see how far that gets us:

• Build up windpower resources in the wind belt and in offshore areas with adequate wind supply;
• retrofit American homes with insulation and solar hot water heating; engage people in other energy saving techniques;
  
• focus on increasing albedo (increasing the amount of sun and therefore heat that is reflected rather than absorbed) from surfaces like roofs and roads;
• retrofit existing power plants;
• and many other techniques to either reduce energy consumption, scrub filth out of smokestacks, use low-risk low-cost low-pollution energy sources, and/or reduce the heating on the earth's surface.
  

Climate change and roasted corn

Hometown Annapolis has a clever article published 10/9 entitled, "Our Bay: Will Climate Change roast our corn crops?" The short answer is yes. The reason?

"Corn, which prefers growing at about 50 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit, will feel the effects from hotter temperatures and more destructive storms, pests, weeds, diseases and ozone pollution...More sweltering 90-plus-degree days could force a change in the way farmers grow corn, according to a report by Environment Maryland called "Hotter Fields, Lower Yields.""

It's heartening to see some critical thinking going on about how climate change will affect our region- particularly agriculture. Climate change is a hard issue to wrap peoples' heads around, but many of its effects are not. Specific ways that climate change will impact corn production, quoted from the article:

• In midsummer, growers hope for cooler weather because of a roughly two-week window when pollination occurs.
• If temperatures are searing, that can hinder kernel development, making the corn less tasty and robust. Currently, Pennsylvania summers are ideal for growing sweet corn, and these days Pennsylvania only experiences five to 10 August days when the temperature exceeds 90 degrees, according to a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists. But by 2100, under the higher-emissions scenario, most of August (as well as July) in Pennsylvania is projected to exceed 90 degrees. Farther south, days would be even warmer.
• Among climate change's curses is drought. Increased drought will mean more irrigation, especially where sandy soils (such as on Maryland's Eastern Shore) fail to hold water, says Robert Kratochvil, associate professor and extension specialist at the University of Maryland. But, increase irrigation too much and water tables can run low, creating water shortages.
• Entomologists predict that warmer temperatures will expand insect ranges, and increase reproduction rates and overwintering success. As weed and pest ranges move north, farmers will have to apply more pesticides more frequently to keep corn yields up - meaning a higher financial and environmental cost. One sweet corn disease that farmers fear is Stewart's wilt, a disease transmitted by the corn flea beetle. Cold winters typically kill off populations of the beetles, but warmer winters may bring increased severity of Stewart's wilt. Farmers can choose to plant disease-resistant varieties of corn, but these varieties may be different in taste, texture and appearance than our favorite summertime staple. Another pest, corn earworm, may also be able to overwinter in a larger, more northern range. According to the New York Agricultural Extension's review of several studies, New York conditions currently require zero to five insecticide applications against lepidopteron insect pests to produce marketable sweet corn; Maryland and Delaware conditions require four to eight insecticide applications; for comparison, Florida conditions require 15 to 32 applications.
• Climate changes since 1981 have already cost corn growers worldwide about $1.2 billion per year, according to Environment Maryland's report, which estimates that global warming will cost corn growers in the United States at least another $1.4 billion per year as temperatures continue to climb. In Virginia, that cost is projected at $5 million. Maryland fares worse with an estimated $6.2 million loss, and Pennsylvania stands to lose about twice as much at $13 million - about New York's estimated loss of $12 million.
• Fickle weather has always challenged farmers, but climate change may mean growers must find new ways to adapt and adjust by investing in irrigation, using no-till practices (which help lock in moisture and sequester more carbon) and employing other techniques.

The kernel of the article: "If our lawmakers take climate change seriously and force energy conservation and development of technologies that cut carbon and greenhouse gases, then our warming may be a blip; keep on spewing greenhouse gases, and farmers of the next generation may have to adapt and adjust - at a higher cost."

I don't know if I agree with the conclusion; unfortunately a certain amount of warming now appears inevitable due to the residence time of greenhouse gases that are already in the atmosphere; however, there is no doubt that the sooner we act, the sooner we can stem problems like the loss of crops and the costliness of measures designed to protect crops.

Image from http://johansenhalim.blogspot.com/2009/03/great-place-for-hang-out.html

Vote for the winners of the CoolClimate Art Contest

Vote for the best climate change art in the CoolClimate Art contest- we'll be announcing the top 5 winners at the Center for American Progress on October 7 as part of the 350.org effort to be held 10/10/10.

I'll be speaking as part of a Climate Change and Art panel at the Center for American Progress on October 7, where we'll be announcing the five winners. I am really excited about this for several reasons. 1) ClimateProgress is my favorite climate change blog, and it is sponsored by CAP 2) Van Jones is on the panel with me, and he is one of my heroes 3) David Ross, the former head of the Whitney and SF MoMA art museums is also on the panel, and I would like to meet him.

WHEN: The panel will take place at CAP on Thursday, October 7, 2010, 7:00 - 8:30 pm. A reception will follow.

WHERE: 1333 H Street NW, 10th Floor, Washington DC, 20005

WHO: Panelists include:-

• Van Jones, Senior Fellow at the center for American Progress


• Danny Goldberg, President of Gold Village Entertainment


• David Ross, Former head of the Whitney Museum and SF Museum of Modern Art


• Shannon Moore, Artist


• Moderator, Anna Soellner, Vice President for Communications, Center for American Progress

The audience will consist of approximately 100 environmental advocates and arts leaders.

WHAT: The purpose of the contest is to identify iconic images that address the impact of climate change and spur participation in the climate change debate. Over 1,000 submissions came in from all over the world – from France, Bolivia, Bucharest and Greece to Milwaukee, Nebraska, and North Carolina and Philadelphia. Twenty finalists have been selected by notable art experts and celebrities including:·

• Jackson Browne (musician)


• Chevy Chase (Comedian)


• Jayni Chase (philanthropist)


• Mel Chin (artist)


• Dianna Cohen (artist)


• Philippe Cousteau (ecologist)


• Agnes Gund (collector & philanthropist)


• Van Jones (environmental activist)


• Carrie Mae Weems (artist)


• David Ross (curator)

Starting today, the public will vote on the HuffingtonpPost.com to select top 5 Climate Artists of 2010: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/28/vote-for-the-top-five-coo_n_740171.html

We will be announcing the winners on October 7 at the Center for American Progress event. Winners will also be featured on the Planet Green Planet100 show. The announcement will also be made on the Huffington Post and on deviantArt, the largest social networking site for artists with 13.8 million members. The winning art will also be disseminated to non-profits and the press with appropriate credit to the Entrants. The announcement is strategically taking place in anticipation of 350.org's international day of climate action on 10/10/10. Attendees will be provided with image tool kits that support their use of the art finalists in communicating a climate change message. Other environmental organizations and 350.org organizers worldwide will be provided with an electronic version of the image tool kit as well.

Global Climate Change and Wildlife Talk at NCTC

From NCTC:

On Monday, February 8, 2010 at 7:30 pm, scientist Virginia Burkett will present “Global Climate Change and Wildlife“ in the Byrd Auditorium at the National Conservation Training Center (NCTC) in Shepherdstown, WV.

Virginia Burkett is the Chief Scientist for Global Change Research at the U.S. Geological Survey. She was formerly Chief of the Forest Ecology Branch at the National Wetlands Research Center and Associate Regional Chief Biologist for the USGS Central Region. Dr. Burkett has served as Director of the Louisiana Coastal Zone Management Program, Director of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, and Assistant Director of the Louisiana Geological Survey. She has published extensively on the topics of global change and low-lying coastal zones. She was a Lead Author on the United
Nation's IPCC Third and Fourth Assessment Reports (2001 and 2007) and an IPCC Technical Paper on Water (2007). She coordinated both the Coastal and Southeast synthesis chapters of the U.S. National Assessment of climate change and its impacts. During her career Burkett has been appointed to over 40 Commissions, Committees, Science Panels and Boards.

The talk is free and open to the public. The NCTC is located at 698 Conservation Way along Shepherd Grade Rd. in Shepherdstown, WV 25443 approximately 70 miles west of Washington and Baltimore. No tickets or reservations are required. For more information on the series please visit: http://training.fws.gov/history/publiclectures.html or contact Mark Madison (Mark_Madison@fws.gov; 304 876-7276).

Talking about Copenhagen

Hey folks. I got quoted in our local paper today, talking about the climate talks in Copenhagen:

Shannon Moore, manager of the Watershed Management Section for Frederick County, writes a blog on reducing carbon emissions in everyday life.

A major effect of Copenhagen will be how China is perceived, she said. China considers itself a Third World country and wants aid to help it become more energy-efficient.

"They want to act like a Third World country, but they're not," she said. China is a major producer of greenhouse gas emissions, particularly from coal.

But the world needs to move away from looking at subsidies as a solution, and move toward more market-based solutions, she said.

"It is what is going to get us out of this problem," she said.

Companies in and around Frederick are developing solar and wind energy, and this kind of renewable energy technology will get people in the United States and abroad
focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, she said.

The U.S. is good at research and development, but it doesn't get much press, she said.

Climate change is already being felt. "Our climate is warmer," she said. "Where we used to get snow, we get rain. We've changed our hardiness zones. That affects
everything."

More carbon emissions from daily activities

I saw an article in New Scientist today, and liked that it gave the carbon dioxide emissions of various daily activities (numbers are from the UK). Here they are in summary form:

• Coffee: 1 cup of balck coffee causes about 125 g of CO2 emissions. 2/3 of this is from production and transport, and 1/3 is from the energy used to brew it. "175 kilograms: The annual CO2 emission of a six-a-day coffee habit. Equivalent to a single flight between London and Rome:
• "Every kilogram of recycled tissue saves some 30 litres of water and between 3 and 4 kilowatt-hours of electricity. Since 1 kilowatt-hour of grid electricity is responsible for around 500 grams of CO2, that means a saving of 1.5 to 2 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of tissue...The average American gets through 23 toilet rolls each year, adding up to more than 7 billion rolls for the country in total."
• "The energy required to collect, process and sell a reused item of clothing is only 2 per cent of the energy required to manufacture a new garment. Every kilogram of virgin cotton preserved by reusing second-hand clothing saves 65 kilowatt-hours of energy, equivalent to about 32.5 kilograms of CO2. For polyester, the savings rise to 90 kilowatt-hours per kilogram."
• "A full load in a washing machine uses around 1.2 kilowatt-hours of electricity per cycle and tumble drying clocks up a further 3.5 kilowatt-hours, resulting in over 2 kilograms of CO2 emissions per wash. With four or five loads per household per week, the total annual emissions from each home can easily pass the half-tonne mark" [I have discussed the emissions from laundry here before].
• "US households throw away around 30 per cent of their food, worth $48 billion every year...40,200 tonnes of milk are wasted each year in the UK, adding up to the equivalent of 40,000 tonnes of CO2. This is comparable to the annual CO2 emissions of 10,000 cars, or of flying 30,000 people from London to New York and back."
• "Some plasma TV screens now measure more than 150 centimetres and, assuming average use, cause the emission of almost a tonne of CO2 each year."
• "The must-have garden accessory of a few years ago, the patio heater remains the domestic antithesis of climate change mitigation. The little useful heat that does manage to redden the foreheads of those clustered nearby comes at a cost of around 10 kilograms of CO2 for just four hours' use."

Climate change may drastically alter Bay

From the Smithsonian Institution:

It is one of the largest and most productive estuaries in the world, yet dramatic changes are in store for the Chesapeake Bay in coming decades if climate change predictions hold true, say a team of scientists from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, the University of Maryland, Pennsylvania State University, and other research organizations in a recent paper published in the journal “Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science.”

Using forecasts of atmospheric carbon dioxide production for the coming century, the scientists predict the water of the Bay will see rising levels of dissolved carbon dioxide and higher water temperatures. As a result, climate change is expected to worsen problems of low dissolved oxygen concentrations in the Chesapeake’s water and cause sea levels to rise.

For fish and other organisms living in the Bay, the scientists predict:

• Populations of marine fish that favor warmer water and whose northern range
  ends near the Chesapeake can be expected to increase. These include
  southern flounder, cobia, Spanish mackerel, mullet, tarpon, black drum, red
  drum, spotted sea trout, spot and Southern kingfish.
• Many fish species that favor cold water will disappear or become less
  abundant in the Chesapeake Bay, including soft clams, yellow perch, white perch,
  striped bass, black sea bass, tautog, summer and winter flounder and scup;
• Fish susceptible to winter die-offs due to the seasonal cold weather of the
  Chesapeake may see a strengthening of their populations due to warmer water, with more juveniles surviving through the winter.
• Warmer water also may result in longer growing seasons for fish, resulting
  in increased yield by some commercial fisheries. Lack of surface freezing in
  shoreline habitats could improve opportunities for oysters and other intertidal
  species to colonize shorelines.
  Some fish parasites also will likely benefit
  from warmer water, increasing their impact on fish and oysters in the bay.
• Rising sea levels will submerge some of the Bay’s wetlands, which many
  ecologically and economically important fish use as nursery areas and as
  foraging grounds. Degradation of these habitats could affect the larger
  ecosystem of the Northeast U.S. continental shelf, as many of these species
  spend their lives in the coastal Atlantic.
• An increase of carbon dioxide in the water of the Chesapeake may raise the
  acidity of the Bay and gradually reduce the ability of oysters, clams, mussels
  and other animals to build calcium carbonate shells.

With warming temperatures, “the species that make up the food web of the Chesapeake Bay will be impacted differently, likely disrupting the normal predator prey interactions between these animals,” says Denise Breitburg, a scientist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Md. Hypoxia, or a lack of oxygen in the water, will be one prevailing characteristic of warmer Bay water, Breitburg predicts. “At warmer temperatures microbes will consume oxygen at a higher rate and less oxygen can dissolve in warm water. At the same time fish and perhaps other animals, will require more oxygen in warmer water.” With these factors in mind, “we would expect more severe episodes and negative effects of low oxygen in the Chesapeake,” Breitburg says.

The scientific paper “Potential climate-change impacts on the Chesapeake Bay,” is available at the Web address: http://snurl.com/talub

US to announce new fuel emissions standards

You knew it was coming. As early as Tuesday this week, according to the New York Times, President Obama is going to announce new national standards for fuel efficiency in automobiles. I quote items from the article:

• As a result, cars and light trucks sold in the United States will be roughly 30 percent cleaner and more fuel-efficient by 2016.
• The president would grant California’s longstanding request to implement its tailpipe standards. Thirteen other states [including Maryland -s] and the District of Columbia have said they intend to apply the same rules. That request had been denied by the Bush administration but has been under review by top Obama administration officials since January.
• Mr. Obama is planning to go further, effectively issuing a single mileage rule for both fuel economy and emissions that matches California’s strictest-in-the-nation standard. Under that new standard, the national fleet mileage rule for cars would be roughly 42 miles a gallon in 2016. Light trucks would have to meet a fleet average of slightly more than 26.2 miles a gallon by 2016.
• The auto industry is not expected to challenge the rule, which provides two things they have long asked for: certainty on a timetable and a single national standard.

Next up: cap-and-trade.

Yes we can afford to curb climate change

Today's editorial by Paul Krugman on cap-and trade is very well written and exposes the fallacious arguments on both sides of the cap-and-trade argument. On the left, you have greenies saying that limiting greenhouse gas emissions will involve no pain on the part of consumer. On the right you have arguments that the consumer's pocketbook will catch on fire. Neither is true. Though I don't always agree with Krugman (not that my opinion matters much; he has a Nobel and I have a blog) I do think we occupy a similar chasm; we are not joiners. People do not come to us for support but the media likes to ask us for our opinions. I was thinking about this in my own case and wondering if I could find a better way to be part of a movement but I think my drive for independent thinking continually keeps me on the outside.

Anyway, Krugman argues that the costs of cap-and-trade will be borne by anyone who uses fossil fuels that are regulated. This is only common sense. It is also common sense that these costs would not be more than the price of carbon per ton. He also explains how these costs will be phased in over time, and how the price pressures might encourage investment in substitutions. None of this is new and we have talked about it since forever. But he did say the following novel thing (emphasis mine):

To put it another way, a commitment to greenhouse gas reduction would, in the short-to-medium run, have the same economic effects as a major technological innovation: It would give businesses a reason to invest in new equipment and facilities even in the face of excess capacity. And given the current state of the economy, that’s just what the doctor ordered.

I like it when people make me think.