Civilian Conservation Corps could help our National Parks fight ravages of climate change

(Photo of endangered pika in Canadian Rockies from Flickr and photographers Lara and Chris Pawluk.)

It’s time to create a new Civilian Conservation Corps to work in our understaffed, underfunded National Parks. The CCC of Franklin Roosevelt’s time put hundreds of thousands of young unemployed men to work in the parks. It’s unlikely we could do anything on that scale, but with unemployment high and the parks threatened by everything from climate change to careless use and lack of maintenance, they could do a lot of good – both for the parks and for themselves.

Climate change is the greatest threat to the parks and it's already having an impact. Warmer temperatures, erratic weather and water shortages are taking their toll on glaciers, trees, wildlife and plants. Ecosystems are changing and big adjustments must be made to fight invasive pests and help wildlife migrate away from the Equator.

Parks are in danger
A new report from the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and Natural Resources Defense Council tallies current disruptions and threats for the future:

• Beetle infestations to whiteback pines in Yellowstone have put grizzly bears back on the Endangered Species list because they feed on nuts from those trees.
• Joshua Tree National Park is losing its Joshua trees.
• Glacier Park is losing its glaciers (they’ll be gone in about a dozen years), as are Mt. Rainier, Yosemite and others.
• In Rocky Mountain National Park nearly all mature lodgepole pines have been killed by beetles.
• The pika, a cute little animal that lives at cool, high elevations, is nearly extinct, while sea turtles, Florida panthers, bighorn sheep and salmon are among threatened species.
• 1,000 trout succumbed to heat in a Yellowstone river in 2007.
• 50% of the coral in Virgin Islands National Park have died since 2006.
• Low-lying and coastal parks and monuments, such as Acadia, the Everglades, Biscayne and Dry Tortugas are threatened by rising seas. So are Ellis Island and even the Statue of Liberty.
• And parks in the Southwest are forecast to eventually have 100+ days over 100 degrees each summer – including Big Bend, Joshua Tree, Lake Mead and Saguaro. That alone would keep the visitors away, aside from the damage it wreaks on the landscape.

What to do about it
The report recommends expanding the parks, opening new ones and creating migration corridors to let plants and animals adapt to changing conditions. Each park should have a specific plan to protect at-risk resources. Air quality in the parks should be better protected; with more heat, ground-level ozone will be a health hazard. Some endangered parks should charge an entrance fee to help pay for adaptation. And all parks should be carbon neutral to do their part toward fighting climate change, following the lead of the Pacific Northwest.

Certainly a group of bright, unemployed men and women could help with the planning and labor. Let’s put them to work and kill two birds with one stone. (An unfortunate metaphor. But you know what I mean.)

(Sources: rockymountainclimate.org, ClimateWire)

Antiquated electricity grid won't be able to carry renewable energy to customers

(Photo of transmission lines from Flickr and photographers Vicki and Chuck Rogers)

Weekly Angst: A wind farm can be built in about a year. But it takes 5-10 years to construct the high-voltage power lines that will transmit the electricity to where it is needed.

And the lack of current capacity (excuse the pun) in transmission lines is blocking growth of renewable energy here, especially wind.

Many renewable projects simply won’t happen if policymakers don’t expand the power grid to accommodate them, alternative energy executives warned last week at the Renewable Energy Finance Forum in New York.

What happens with transmission “will define whether 2% or 20% of U.S. electricity is renewable,” said Dan Reicher, the executive in charge of Google’s green push.

Transmission lines aren’t a sexy subject, but I’m sure you’ll agree there’s not much point in building a wind farm or solar plant if it can’t get connected to a grid. And that is the risk here. Substantially more construction of towers and power lines is needed to for the U.S, to reach a goal of 15% renewable energy, a target passed by the House but not the Senate.

In Minnesota, for example, if just one-third of the applications for wind farms are granted, the 7,500 megawatts of power they would create for the Twin Cities would exceed the 2,000MW capacity of the grid.

Why it takes so long
One problem is that the ideal places for large wind farms (Midwest plains) and solar installations (Mojave Desert) are far from the cities where the electricity is needed.

And it costs $1.5 million per mile to put up high-voltage transmission lines. While that expense ultimately is passed on to the consumer, utilities are reluctant to build the lines before a wind farm or solar plant is built – and vice versa. So a chicken-and-egg struggle is going on here.

Also the permitting process can take forever. One issue is where to put the lines. Nobody wants them.

In California, there’s a battle over San Diego Gas & Electric’s plan to build a 150-mile transmission line from a desert solar plant to San Diego through a state park. Environmentalists argue it would ruin the park, while the utility says it can’t meet California’s renewable requirement without it.

A lag in investment
Investment in the electricity grid was neglected from 1975-2000, as funding dropped from $5 billion a year to just $2 billion by the turn of the century. Since then increased demand has sparked investment of about $60 billion, but the system is antiquated, causing such problems as the 2003 blackout in the Northeast and rolling brownouts in California. Lack of capacity remains a serious drawback that may well prevent states with mandated renewable electricity standards (RES)from reaching their goals.

Some in Congress are calling for “national renewable energy zones” to reduce bottlenecks in delivering power. Bills offered by Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) and Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) would have the government identify zones with the capability to produce significant amounts of renewable energy but insufficient transmission capacity. Inslee’s bill would spread the cost of construction and requires the president to identify specific high-voltage lines for renewal within a year of establishing a national zone.

The 2005 Energy Policy Act allows the federal government to designate “national interest electric transmission corridors” where it could extend needed lines despite state and local objections. But there is resistance from states and environmentalists.

Some states and regions are searching for their own solutions. Texas, the state with the most wind power, has such zones, originally through the Western Governors Association, now in a project with the Department of Energy, which will help it bring wind to Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. Colorado, Minnesota and New Mexico are taking similar steps.

Grid should be high priority
NASA climate scientist James Hansen said last week that the next president needs to make it a priority to create a nationwide low-loss electrical grid so the country can replace fossil fuels with renewable energy. The technology exists to bury direct-current high-voltage lines, he said.

Environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says it’s important for the next president to work with governors to get rid of arcane and conflicting state rules and open up the grid so clean energy can compete fairly with fossil fuels.

The energy sector “needs an initiative like the 1996 Telecommunications Act,” which required open access to phone lines, Kennedy said. As with telephones, he said, eliminating constraints will encourage investment, and utilities and entrepreneurs will revitalize the grid. Like Hansen, he argues for direct current, saying too much energy is lost in alternating current.

The transmission grid also needs to use “smart” technology to send electricity where and when it is needed, experts say.

Demand for electricity is expected to grow 40% by 2030, according to North American Electric Reliability Council. To meet that demand with renewable sources we must take action immediately to provide an adequate grid.

(Sources: PlanetArk, Greenwire, ClimateWire, E&E Daily, USA Today, The Guardian, Vanity Fair)

Cost of doing nothing about global warming: up to $3.6 trillion a year for losses in the U.S.

(Photo of damage from Hurricane Katrina from Flickr and and photographer SAsqrd/Steve.)

Weekly Angst: Every time I hear that it will cost too much to fight climate change and will “wreck the economy,” I say to myself (or sometimes out loud), “But what will it cost if we DON'T do anything?” So I was happy to see that Tufts University has just released a report on the cost of doing nothing, commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The study determined that continuing business-as-usual in terms of greenhouse gases could end up costing the U.S. economy as much as $3.6 trillion a year by the end of the century.

They also estimated that the cost of four major climate change impacts – coastal hurricanes, real-estate damage from rising seas, increased energy costs to meet hot temperatures, and water scarcity – would rise over time and could cost $1.9 trillion annually by 2100. The breakdown for that year:
• Hurricane damages $422 billion
• Real estate losses: $360 billion
• Increased energy costs: $141 billion
• Water costs: $950 billion

Other hard-hit sectors include tourism and agriculture.

“The longer we wait, the more painful and expensive the consequences will be,” said Dan Lashof, director of NRDC’s Climate Center.

The report predicted an average temperature increase of 13 degrees Fahrenheit in most of the U.S. in the next century and 18 degrees in Alaska, which is warming faster. Seas were predicted to rise 23 inches by 2050 and 45 inches by 2100, engulfing coastlines.

If global warming continues unchecked, the analysis found, New York City will have the climate of Las Vegas, and San Francisco will feel like New Orleans.

“Climate change is on a collision course with the U.S. economy,” warned Frank Ackerman, lead author of the study. The researchers used a new British model for figuring overall costs. They looked at economic losses, non-economic damages and the increased risk of catastrophe.

Climate disasters
And speaking of the increased risk of catastrophe, an op-ed piece in the New York Times Saturday by Charles M. Blow pointed out that we’re already experiencing more costly extreme weather disasters.

There have been four times as many weather disasters worldwide in the past 30 years as in the preceding 75, he said, citing the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. The U.S. has suffered most of them.

Of the 30 costliest hurricanes in the U.S. history, 10 have occurred since 2000, according to the National Hurricane Center. The worst year, of course, was 2005 (Katrina et al), with an estimated $39 billion loss.

Report’s recommendations
But getting back to the Tufts/NRDC report – it concludes with three overriding recommendations for action:
1. Enact comprehensive mandatory limits on global warming pollution to stimulate investment and guarantee that we meet emission targets.
2. Overcome barriers to investment in energy efficiency.
3. Accelerate development and deployment of emerging clean energy technologies.

Do it and do it now. Then we can avoid most of these costs (not all, though, because GHG in the atmosphere now will be there for many years.) And, of course, it’s not just financial cost. Think about the human cost of all these disasters. It’s mind-boggling.

Download the report.

(Sources: NRDC, Greenwire, New York Times)