Contents of the IPCC Sythesis Report Summary for Policymakers

For those not familiar with it, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was set up in 1988 to write periodic assessments of the state of climate science. Its goal is to produce policy-neutral reports that inform policymakers about the best thinking of the scientific community. These reports have tremendous impact on the debate, owing to the credibility of the IPCC process.

The IPCC is actually split into three working groups. Working group 1 focuses on basic climate science, working group 2 focuses on the impacts of climate change and human adaptation to it, and working group 3 focuses on mitigation efforts (efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions). In 2007, as part of the IPCC's fourth assessment report, each of the three working groups issued a report (e.g., see here for a discussion of the working group 1 report).

Now comes the final part of the fourth assessment report: the synthesis report. This report ties together the three working group reports in an effort to create a single unified picture of what we know about climate change.

Green job planning for 2008

It’s a whole new year! A fresh canvas to paint on. The first page of the brilliant adventure story that...

The Congressional Budget Office savages the Lieberman-Warner approach to climate change pol

America’s Climate Security Act, the Senate climate bill offered by Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.), offers enormous giveaways...

How strong is McCain’s commitment to fighting global warming?

The following post was first published on Passing Through, The Nation‘s guest blog, where I will be posting all month....

Public-university researchers get cash for studying GMOs — and the shaft for studying organic ag

The following essay, which first appeared on Alternet, is a lucid, detailed look at what has become of public-university agriculture research in an age of budget austerity.

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I've startled a bug scientist. "Yeah, now I'm nervous," said Mike Hoffmann, a Cornell University entomologist and crop specialist who spends his days with cucumber beetles and small wasps. But he's also in charge of keeping the research funding flowing at Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. What have I done to alarm him? I've drawn his attention to the newly released FY 2009 Presidential Budget.

Like more than a hundred public institutions of higher learning, Cornell is what's known as a "land grant" college. Dotting the United States from Ithaca, N.Y., to Pullman, Wash., such schools were established by a Civil War-era act of Congress to provide universities centered around "the agriculture and mechanic arts." Congress handed each U.S. state a chunk of federal land to be sold for start-up monies, and for the last 150 years, it has funded groundbreaking research on all things agriculture, from dirt to crops to cattle.

The land-grant system has been, in short, a high-yield investment. The scientific research that has come out of land-grant labs and fields has aided millions of farmers and fed millions of Americans. And the land-grant reach doesn't stop at ocean's edge. Oklahoma State, the Sooner State's land grant, says that the public funding of land-grant research "has benefited every man, woman and child in the United States and much of the world."

That was until America's land-grant system met George W. Bush.

How high a price on carbon is needed to make renewables competitive?

I’ve argued before that electricity cost comparisons are, in Walt Patterson’s memorable phrase, "an artifact of prior decisions otherwise concealed"...

Better agronomy for energy crops

I believe improved crop practices are a vital aspect in meeting our cellulosic feedstock needs. There are a few areas that offer significant potential:

1. crop rotation,
2. the use of polyculture plantations,
3. perennials as energy crops, and
4. better agronomic practices.

We address all four issues here. Though none of these have been extensively studied, early studies and knowledgeable speculation point to their likely utility. Further study of these techniques is urgently needed, especially the use of grasses or other biomass-optimized winter cover crops.

Crop rotation

I have proposed the usage of a 10 year x 10 year energy and row crop rotation. As row crops are grown in the usual corn/soy rotation, lands lose topsoil and get degraded, need increased fertilizer and water inputs, and decline in biodiversity. By growing no-till, deep-rooted perennial energy crops (like miscanthus or switchgrass -- see below) for ten years following a ten year row crop cycle, the carbon content of the soil and its biodiversity can be improved and the needs for inputs decreased. The land can then be returned to row crop cultivation after ten years of no-till energy crops.

Currently unusable degraded lands may even be reclaimed for agriculture using these techniques over a few decades. A University of North Dakota study highlights some of the benefits for food crops. I expect similar or even greater benefits for food crop/energy crop long cycle rotations, especially in soil carbon content:

On Lieberman-Warner, long-term emissions targets, and picking a trajectory

I’ve heard quite a bit of protest about the fact that the Lieberman-Warner climate bill’s long-term target — 70 percent...

Fossil-friendly biz groups send letter to Senate requesting reversal of Supreme Court decision

Today, an extraordinary letter about the energy bill was sent to the U.S. Senate by a coalition of business groups...