Were you worried about Russian Arctic methane emissions?

Well, if you weren't, now you can worry.

Writing about the newly discovered gargantuan methane plumes on December 12, 2011, Nick Jardine quotes thusly:

One scientist told the Independent: "Earlier we found torch-like structures like this but they were only tens of meters in diameter. This is the first time that we've found continuous, powerful and impressive seeping structures more than 1,000 metres in diameter. It's amazing."

Disappointment in Durban

I'm not surprised to be hearing a lot of disappointment from my colleagues and friends who are in Durban for the international climate change negotiations there.

I wanted to know more about other people's disappointment in Durban, so I Googled the words 'disappointment in durban' and actually found a Dec. 5, 2011, article with that exact title-- from the Spectator, by Matthew Sinclair.

It's just a few paragraphs summarizing the main problem with the Durban talks-- that the world's main greenhouse gas emitters aren't willing to take a strong stand on controlling emissions. Canada, Russia and Japan aren't even at the table in Durban. And, Sinclair points out, whatever is decided at Durban will likely be proclaimed a success by participating governments. Also not helpful.

I largely agree. I also think it is valuable to gather the governments who are willing to work on reducing GHG emissions to make whatever agreements they can make. However, nobody should be entertaining the thought that this is enough. And, everybody should gear up to face the impacts of failed emissions-control policies. Durban's wheel-spinning should put government planners on notice-- the impacts of climate change just got a little more real, a little more life-threatening.

I don't know much about Matthew Sinclair, but he seems to have some interesting economic points to make. He cites his August 2011 book: Let Them Eat Carbon: The Price of Failing Climate Change Policies, and How Governments and Big Business Profit From Them.
From the Amazon blurb:

Around the world companies are making billions out of the schemes governments have put in place saying they will curb global warming and protect us from the threat of climate change. There is little evidence that those policies are an efficient way to cut emissions.

It looks like his alternative to investing in expensive renewable energy projects and putting a fixed price on carbon is putting "scientists and engineers to work making it cheaper to produce low emissions energy" (from his article of this past Monday).

I found this 10-minute video of Sinclair from Aug. 2011 giving his point of view on renewable energy policy failures. He explains his economic points briefly, repeating some truths that need to be remembered, including the fact that rich countries investing in expensive renewable energy projects won't be worth it if ONLY rich countries are doing it.

While effective adaptation policy has to be local, effective greenhouse gas reduction policy by definition has to be global.

I'd like to hear more about his alternative solutions. He ends the video saying "there is a better way." I guess I'll have to get his book to find out what that is!

Climate Bonds! May you live long and prosper!

From the Nov. 27, 2011, edition of the New York Times, by Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop: A Change of Heart on Investing in the Climate.

This article describes a new form of financing for climate change adaptation now underway. These "green bonds" focus on "battling climate change" -- e.g., backing mitigation and adaptation investments-- using a relatively low-risk finance instrument. They will only be successful if they get enough projects to back and enough big investors, but they've only just launched and... "[Sean Kidney, executive chairman of the Climate Bonds Initiative] estimates that $14 billion to $30 billion worth of bonds backed by investments related to climate change solutions have already been issued internationally..."

Kidney elaborates on what these bonds should cover:

"'[W]hen you’re talking about building a low-carbon economy, it should not be just about mitigation but about adaption as well. Water investments in North Africa might be considered climate adaptation bonds. Adaptation would look at infrastructure for disaster risk reduction, flood defenses or forestry conservation.'"

Find out more here:

Climate Bonds Initiative - "an investor-focused nongovernmental organization set up to promote large-scale investment in the low-carbon economy"

CBI's new Climate Bond Standards and Certification Board - launched on Nov. 24, 2011.

The Oct. 19, 2011, press release about the launch of the State Street Global Advisors (SSgA)'s High Quality Green Bond Strategy "a way to direct fixed income investments to climate solutions."

My Writings About Adaptation on the Bay Area Open Space Council's Blog, Part 4

Here's my new piece "Be Our Guest: Generation Hot" for the Bay Area Open Space blog, posted yesterday. I'm describing some of the good work being done to prepare California for climate impacts at the state and local levels.

My Writings about Adaptation on the Bay Area Open Space Council's Blog, Part 3

Here is my post "Be Our Guest: When the Levee Breaks, Mama You Got to Go"on the issue of human versus natural system adaptation, and "ecosystem-based" adaptation, written for the Bay Area Open Space blog.

Part four, coming out next week, talks about California adaptation initiatives.

I love that the blog editor linked my title "When the Levee Breaks, Mama You Got to Go" to a recording of the Led Zeppelin song. I didn't explain in my post that the song is actually relevant-- written about the Great Mississippi Flood in 1927, which was as much an engineering disaster as a natural disaster. Read more about the 1927 flood in John Barry's book on the matter, Rising Tide, written well before Katrina. I loan that book out but make sure to get it back, because I feel like it's a really important cautionary tale that I never want to forget. You can preview it on Google Books.

Congratulations RISE on a great media piece!

Yesterday I heard a wonderfully evocative radio program on KALW radio about the San Francisco Bay and sea level rise, featuring our local climate change science/ planning heavy-hitters Will Travis of BCDC and Healy Hamilton of the California Academy of Sciences.

Congratulations to radio producer/director Claire Schoen, and to Travis and Healy (and the others who appeared in the segment) on a great piece of media exposure!

One of my favorite quotes was from Healy, said with such calm force, as though her life depended on you, the listener, grasping her every word and believing:

We are headed right now on a path to an ice-free planet. And once we are there this planet will look nothing like it does today, and the human infrastructure that we all depend upon will not be able to adapt to those kinds of changes.

Listen to the one-hour program RISE: Part I: Sounding the Waters streaming here.

My Writings About Adaptation on the Bay Area Open Space Council's Blog, Part 2

Here's "Be Our Guest: Planning for Climate Change, Part Two (A Case Study of Impact Scenarios in Marin County)" -- the next installment in my four-part series being posted on the Bay Area Open Space Council Blog. This one is about the Futures of Wild Marin workshop that I organized with 35 resource managers and scientists in Marin in January 2011.