Schwarzenegger: In California, It's 'Fire Season All Year Round'
From the Wonk Room.
In a weekend interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) talks of the impact of global warming on California’s wildfires. Climate change is lowering snowpack in the Rockies and increasing droughts, heat waves and lightning strikes, stoking more intense fires over a longer season:
Through global warming, we have now fire season all year round. We used to have fire seasons only in the fall, but now the fire seasons start in February already, so this means that we have to really upgrade, have more resources, more fire engines, more manpower and all of this, which does cost extra money.Watch it:
By May of this year wildfires were raging at levels traditionally seen only in July. After California’s driest spring in 114 years of recordkeeping, 1700 wildfires set a record 840,000 acres ablaze from June to July, costing the state more than $200 million. Fires in the past month, the worst in the Los Angeles area in four decades, have destroyed over 1000 homes. “Through last week, 1.24 million acres burned in California, the most since 1970, when consistent, modern records were first kept.”
Last month, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) called for the Bush administration to end delays in assistance, saying, “As the climate warms and wildland fires become bigger and more intense, a rapid response is critical to prevent the spread of fires.”
Methane Levels Surging
The amount of methane in Earth’s atmosphere shot up in 2007, bringing to an end a period of about a decade in which atmospheric levels of the potent greenhouse gas were essentially stable, according to a team led by MIT researchers.Methane levels in the atmosphere have more than tripled since pre-industrial times, accounting for around one-fifth of the human contribution to greenhouse gas-driven global warming. Until recently, the leveling off of methane levels had suggested that the rate of its emission from the Earth’s surface was approximately balanced by the rate of its destruction in the atmosphere.
However, since early 2007 the balance has been upset, according to a paper on the new findings being published this week in Geophysical Review Letters. The paper’s lead authors, postdoctoral researcher Matthew Rigby and Ronald Prinn, the TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science, say this imbalance has resulted in several million metric tons of additional methane in the atmosphere. Methane is produced by wetlands, rice paddies, cattle, and the gas and coal industries, and is destroyed by reaction with the hydroxyl free radical (OH), often referred to as the atmosphere’s “cleanser.”
The cause of the surge is unclear, particularly as it appears methane levels are well-mixed across the globe, although most methane emissions occur in the northern hemisphere. A disturbing possibility is that OH levels are declining, which could set off a catastrophic vicious cycle of rising methane and declining OH.
Guidelines for CO2 Capture, Transport and Storage
The World Resources Institute will hold a press briefing of WRI’s upcoming Guidelines for CO2 Capture, Transport and Storage. The report, the result of a two-year stakeholder process led by WRI with contributions from 88 leading CCS experts, lays out specific recommendations for policy-makers, regulators and project developers (see full report details below) and argues that sufficient technical knowledge exists to begin full-scale demonstrations of the technology in the US today.
The briefing will feature:
- Dr. Jonathan Pershing, Director, Climate and Energy Program, WRI
- Dr. S. Julio Friedmann, Carbon Management Program Leader, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory
- Sarah Forbes, Senior Associate, WRI
Contact:Stephanie Hanson, Communications Associate: 202-729-7641; [email protected]
World Resources Institute 10 G Street NE Suite 800 Washington, DC 20002
Accelerating Atmospheric CO2 Growth from Economic Activity, Carbon Intensity, and Efficiency of Natural Carbon Sinks
What is the relationship between economic activity and CO2 growth? What is carbon intensity and how does it relate to economic activity? What are the trends in CO2 growth, carbon intensity, and changes in the efficiency of natural reservoirs to store carbon? How does the growth in CO2 compare to the various estimates of CO2 growth contained in the most recent IPCC assessment of climate change? What is permafrost and what is the extent of permafrost thaw in the Arctic? Is permafrost thaw a response to global warming and if so, what is the future likely to hold? Will permafrost thaw result in the release of additional CO2 into the atmosphere from Arctic soils? If so, what is the impact likely to be on global warming? How much carbon is stored in Arctic soils? Assuming that the Arctic continues to warm well above the global average, what is the likely fate of that soil carbon and how might it influence climate in the future?
Moderator:- Dr. Anthony Socci, Senior Science Fellow, American Meteorological Society
- Dr. Josep (Pep) Canadell, Executive Director, Global Carbon Project, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) Marine and Atmospheric Research, Canberra, Australia
- Dr. Vladmir Romanovsky, Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK
- Dr. Howard Epstein, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
Program Summary How Fast is Atmospheric CO2 Growing and Why, and Does it Suggest Ways to Mitigate Climate Change?
The increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is the single largest human perturbation of the climate system. Its rate of change reflects the balance between human-driven carbon emissions and the dynamics of a number of terrestrial and ocean processes that remove or emit CO2. It is the long term evolution of this balance that will determine to a large extent the speed and magnitude of climate change and the mitigation requirements to stabilize atmospheric CO2 concentrations at any given level. Dr. Canadell will present the most recent trends in global carbon sources and sinks, updated for the first time to the year 2007, with particularly focus on major shifts occurring since 2000. Dr. Canadell’s research indicates that the underlying drivers of changes in atmospheric CO2 growth include: i) increased human-induced carbon emissions, ii) stagnation of the carbon intensity of the global economy, and iii) decreased efficiency of natural carbon sinks. New Estimates of Carbon Storage in Arctic Soils and Implications in a Changing Environment
The Arctic represents approximately 13% of the total land area of the Earth, and arctic tundra occupies roughly 5 million square kilometers. Arctic tundra soils represent a major storage pool for dead organic carbon, largely due to cold temperatures and saturated soils in many locations that prevent its decomposition. Prior estimates of carbon stored in tundra soils range from 20-29 kg of soil organic carbon (SOC) per square meter. These estimates however, were based on data collected from only the top 20-40 cm of soil, and were sometimes extrapolated to 100 cm. It is our understanding that large quantities of SOC are stored at greater depths, through the annual freezing and thawing motion of the soils (cryoturbation), and potentially frozen in the permafrost.
Recent detailed analysis of Arctic soils by Dr. Epstein and his colleagues found that soil organic carbon values averaged 34.8 kg per square meter, representing an increase of approximately 40% over the prior estimates. Additionally, 38% of the total soil organic carbon was found in the permafrost.
A total of 98.2 gigatonnes (1015 grams) of carbon is estimated to be stored in the soils of the North American Arctic tundra. An area-based estimate for the entire Arctic suggests the presence of approximately 160 gigatonnes of carbon. The annual increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is roughly 2% of this amount, so small changes in Arctic carbon storage could have substantive impacts on atmospheric CO2. The future of this stored carbon is, however, largely uncertain in the face of a changing Arctic environment. Climate change and resulting increasing temperatures in much of the Arctic could increase the decomposition rates of soil organic carbon (producing atmospheric CO2), and increase permafrost thaw, which would expose more soil organic carbon for decomposition. On the other hand, increasing temperatures could also lead to greater sequestration of atmospheric CO2 by tundra vegetation. Actual changes will be the result of complex interactions between processes that sequester carbon and those that release it. Past, Present and Future Changes in Permafrost and Implications for a Changing Carbon Budget
Presence of permafrost is one of the major factors that turn northern ecosystems into an efficient natural carbon sink. Moreover, a significant amount of carbon is sequestered in the upper several meters to several tens of meters of permafrost. Because of that, the appearance and disappearance of permafrost within the northern landscapes have a direct impact on the efficiency of northern ecosystems to sequester carbon in soil, both near the ground surface and in deeper soil layers. Recent changes in permafrost may potentially transform the northern ecosystems from an effective carbon sink to a significant source of carbon for the Earth’s atmosphere. Additional emissions of carbon from thawing permafrost may be in the form of CO2 or methane depending upon specific local conditions.
Dr. Romanovsky will present information on changes in terrestrial and subsea permafrost in the past during the last glacial-interglacial cycle and on the most recent trends in permafrost in the Northern Hemisphere. He will further discuss the potential impact of these changes in permafrost (including a short discussion on potential changes in methane gas clathrates) on the global carbon cycle. Dr. Romanovsky’s research suggests that permafrost in North America and Northern Eurasia shows a substantial warming during the last 20 to 30 years. The magnitude of warming varied with location, but was typically from 0.5 to 2°C at 15 meters depth. Thawing of the Little Ice Age permafrost is on-going at many locations. There are some indications that the late-Holocene permafrost started to thaw at some specific undisturbed locations in the European Northeast, in the Northwest and East Siberia, and in Alaska. Future projections of possible changes in permafrost during the current century, based on the application of calibrated permafrost models, will be also presented. Biographies
Dr. Josep (Pep) Canadell is the executive director of the Global Carbon Project (GCP) based at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) in Australia. His work involves internationally coordinated research on i) global and regional carbon budgets and trends, ii) vulnerable carbon reservoirs to changes in climate and land use, and iii) climate mitigation strategies to stabilize atmospheric carbon dioxide. He has published over 70 scientific papers, 8 books and special issues, and the first global environmental change encyclopedia.
Dr. Canadell received his MSc. and Ph.D. degrees on terrestrial ecology from the University Autonomous of Barcelona, Spain, and took several research positions during the 1990s at the University of California at San Diego and Berkeley, and at Stanford University, CA.
Dr. Howard Epstein is an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, specializing in the ecology of arctic tundra, and dry grasslands and shrublands. His current research projects in the Arctic involve 1) the study of land-surface features in arctic tundra related to freezing and thawing of soils, 2) the “greening” of arctic tundra vegetation in response to recent warming, and 3) patterns of arctic tundra vegetation and soils along latitudinal temperature gradients in the Arctic of North America and Russia. Studies outside of the tundra include 1) wind erosion effects on plant community changes in the deserts of southeastern New Mexico, 2) carbon and water cycling in a subalpine ecosystem of western Montana, and 3) carbon sequestration during vegetation recovery in abandoned crop fields of northern Virginia.
Dr. Epstein received an M.S. degree in Rangeland Ecosystem Science from Colorado State University in 1995 and a Ph.D. in Ecology, also from Colorado State, in 1997. He later engaged in postdoctoral studies at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado. Dr. Epstein came to the faculty of the University of Virginia in 1998. As part of his arctic research, he has traveled north of the Arctic Circle nearly every summer since 1999 and recently returned from a field expedition in northwestern Siberia. He teaches courses in the Fundamentals of Ecology, Terrestrial Ecology, and Ecology of Grasslands and Tundra. He has published approximately 60 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on Arctic tundra and dryland ecology.
Dr. Vladimir Romanovsky is a Professor in Geophysics at the Geophysical Institute and the Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Alaska Fairbanks. He also heads the Geophysical Institute Permafrost Laboratory (www.gi.alaska.edu/snowice/Permafrost-lab). His work involves internationally coordinated research on permafrost temperature changes in Alaska, Russia, Canada, Greenland, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia. He is also involved in numerical modeling of past, present and future permafrost dynamics and the remote sensing of permafrost and related cold-climate processes. Dr. Romanovsky’s research interests include the scientific and practical aspects of environmental and engineering problems involving ice and permafrost. These include problems in the areas of soil physics, thermodynamics, heat and mass flow, and growth and decay processes that are associated with permafrost, subsea permafrost, seasonally frozen ground, and seasonal snow cover. Dr. Romanovsky is the author of 110+ peer reviewed scientific journal publications, reports, and book chapters. He was a co-author of the 2005 Arctic Climate Impact Assessment for Chapter 6 “Cryosphere and Hydrology” and the lead author of Chapter 7 “Frozen Ground” in UNEP’s 2007 Global Outlook for Ice and Snow.
Dr. Romanovsky received his MSc. in Geophysics, MSc. in Mathematics and a Ph.D. in Geology from the Moscow State University in Russia. He also received a Ph.D. in Geophysics from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. He has held several research and teaching positions at the Moscow State University prior to moving to Alaska in 1992, where he is currently a professor at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
Responding to Climate Change: A Role for Ecosystems
With a growing number of reports show that climate change will impact human health, economic and national security, and agricultural and natural resource management, scientists and policymakers are now considering how to regulate carbon emissions and mitigate the effects of climate change. Legislation has been introduced to implement cap and trade systems and carbon taxes, and to promote carbon sequestration. Informed policy decisions require that policymakers understand the potential role of ecosystems in mitigating the problems caused by carbon emissions.
Join internationally recognized ecosystem researchers to learn what ecosystem science can tell us about carbon sequestration.
Speakers- Dr. Robin Graham – Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory: Environmental Policy and Carbon Sequestration by Ecosystems
- Ken Buesseler, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution: Ocean Fertilization: Ironing Out Uncertainties in Climate Engineering
- Peter Curtis: The Ohio State University: Forest carbon storage in the upper Midwest: Lessons from the past and predictions for the future
- J. Patrick Megonigal, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center: Carbon In, Methane Out: The Greenhouse Gas Balance of North American Wetlands
- Charles Rice, Kansas State University: Carbon Sequestration in Agro-ecosystems
- John Arnone, Desert Research Institute: Carbon Sequestration in Deserts
- Dr. Thomas E. Jordan – Smithsonian Environmental Research Center; President, Association of Ecosystem Research Centers, Moderator
RSVP’s please contact Megan Kelhart at [email protected].
For more information about this science briefing or the Association of Ecosystem Research Centers, please contact [email protected].
Room 3111, Smithsonian Institution Ripley Center
(Entrance is adjacent to the Smithsonian Castle on the National Mall)
Greenland's Shrinking Ice Sheet: Images, Measurements, and Implications
Many of the consequences of climate change such as warmer winters and shifting rainfall patterns are becoming increasingly apparent here in the United States, but it is in remote reaches of the planet that some of the most rapid and potentially catastrophic changes are occurring. Millions of cubic kilometers of water are locked up in Greenland’s ice sheet, and the data indicate that it is melting at an unexpectedly rapid rate. Substantial melting of Greenland’s glaciers would cause significant sea level rise, affecting the cities and populations that are concentrated near the coast. This briefing will highlight efforts to study changes in the Greenland ice sheet, capture both its beauty and demise and explore the consequences for U.S. citizens as well as people around the globe.
Moderator- Brendan Kelly, Arctic Natural Sciences Program, National Science Foundation
- James Balog, Extreme Ice Survey
- Robert Bindschadler, Goddard Space Flight Center, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Konrad Steffen, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado at Boulder
- James E. Neumann, Industrial Economics, Incorporated
Limited Space Available
RSVP by Wednesday, September 3 to [email protected] or 202/872-4556. Please provide name, affiliation, phone number, and e-mail address.
NWF: "Train of Storms is Symptomatic of a New Era of Stronger Storms"
In a news release, the National Wildlife Federation’s climatologist Amanda Staudt warns that “this hurricane season is a stark reminder of what science tells us to expect from a new era of stronger hurricanes fueled by global warming: higher wind speeds, more precipitation, and bigger storm surge in the coming decades.”
Scientific findings she notes:- “The big picture is that global warming is allowing hurricanes to pack a bigger punch. Over this century, windspeeds could increase 13 percent and rainfall could increase 31 percent.”
- “Even storms that do not reach category 3 and above will hit harder because they will likely bring more rain than a similar storm would have just a few decades ago. It is a law of physics that warmer air is able to carry more water.”
- “Both Tropical Storm Fay and Hurricane Gustav brought costly flooding, with rainfall totals exceeding 10 inches in some locations. As the remnants of Gustav continue to bring heavy rains, much of the lower Mississippi valley remains under flood watch.”
“We must restore the coastal wetlands, lowlands, and barrier islands that provide the first line of defense against hurricanes,” advises Dr. Staudt. “For example, about half of the wetlands around New Orleans have been lost in recent years. Because scientists estimate that every mile of healthy wetlands can trim about 3-9 inches off a storm surge – and an acre of wetlands is estimated to reduce hurricane damage by $3,300 – we must restore these wetlands.”
For more, read the full NWF report on the influence of global warming on the destruction caused by tropical storms.
National Wildlife Federation: Fay's Floods Are A 'Wake Up Call'
From the Wonk Room.
The National Wildlife Federation, which has been warning that global warming is worsening wildfires and floods, describes the triple threat of global warming-fueled tropical storms in a new report:While Florida and Gulf Coast residents bear the brunt of Tropical Storm Fay, the latest science connecting hurricanes and global warming suggests more is yet to come: tropical storms are likely to bring higher wind speeds, more precipitation, and bigger storm surge in the coming decades.
Watch it:
As Dr. Staudt writes in the report, “Stronger hurricanes, heavier rainfall, and rising sea level: this is what global warming has in store for the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic coasts.”
EPA Climate Career Staff Call Administrator's Actions 'Unprofessional,' 'Unprecedented,' 'Damaging'
In a letter addressed to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, the presidents of four unions representing career EPA scientists write of their collective dismay at Johnson’s handling of the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on greenhouse gas emissions. Johnson criticized his own agency’s work, calling the Clean Air Act “ill-suited for the task of regulating global greenhouse gases.” In addition, letters of comment criticizing the rulemaking draft were attached from the White House Office of Management and Budget, the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the White House Council of Economic Advisers, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Department of Transportation, the U.S. Small Business Administration, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Energy.
This July 30 letter, published by Publice Employees for Environmental Responsibility, reveals that the EPA staff were not allowed to review these letters of criticism before they were prepended to the ANPR. The union presidents write:“The way in which you subverted the work of EPA staff in your preamble statement on the merits of the supporting rationale for the ANPRM was as unprecedented as it was stunning to your staff and damaging to EPA’s reputation for sound science and policy.”They conclude: “We hope that in your final days in office you will try to rectify some of this damage and remove some of the tarnish from your legacy.”
Full text:
It is in the spirit of partnership between EPA workers and managers toward fulfilling the Agency’s mission that we address this letter to you.We write on behalf of the EPA employees that we represent to express our collective dismay over the way in which the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM), “Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions Under the Clean Air Act,” was presented for public comment.
The way in which you subverted the work of EPA staff in your preamble statement on the merits of the supporting rationale for the ANPRM was as unprecedented as it was stunning to your staff and damaging to EPA’s reputation for sound science and policy. And the fact that EPA’s experts who worked on this ANPRM were not given the opportunity to read or address the adverse comments of OMB, USDA, Department of Commerce, Department of Energy, and the Department of Transportation in advance of the ANPRM publication is troubling and, quite frankly, unprofessional. We believe that EPA’s hardworking, dedicated staff has earned more respect than you are giving. It makes your public and private pronouncements of thanks to EPA staff ring hollow. We would ask you to allow these EPA experts to submit responses to these agency submissions as part of the ANPRM public comment process.
The decision to publish the critiques of other agencies in the name of “transparency” in decision-making is both disingenuous and counterproductive. A far more direct contribution would be made to the credibility and transparency of EPA decision-making if you cooperated with congressional requests for documents and hearings. The professional staff of EPA has nothing to hide. In fact, contrary to your assertions of executive privilege, the free flow of policy recommendations would be aided by opening up all (not just selected) communications to public scrutiny.
Based on the media-covered responses to the ANPRM in the Wall Street Journal 1 and from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s William Kovacs2, EPA is being portrayed as foolish and dictatorial. Your action has lent support to critics like those above and the indicted former Congressman Tom Delay who characterize EPA’s civil servants – who are sworn to duty and charged with helping to protect the environment – as virtual enemies of the United States, an outrage that is unacceptable. We fear your action may make it more difficult for EPA and your successor, whether he or she takes office in January or before, to act decisively to protect the environment and public health. Without the public’s respect and support, EPA’s work to implement the environmental laws of our nation is jeopardized. The silence from your office in the face of such calumny and your failure to come to the Agency’s defense, wounds us far more than the ranting of Delay, Kovacs and the Wall Street Journal.
You were once one of us. We were proud when you were nominated as the first of us to occupy the Administrator’s Office, and we expected great things. Our disappointment is profound. We hope that in your final days in office you will try to rectify some of this damage and remove some of the tarnish from your legacy.
An Update on the Science of Global Warming and its Implications
- Jason Burnett, Former Associate Deputy Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
- Dr. Kevin E. Trenberth, Head of the Climate Analysis Section, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Climate and Global Dynamics Division
- Dr. Roy Spencer, Principal Research Scientist, Earth System Science Center, University of Alabama in Huntsville
10 Boxer The evidence has been overwhelming that global warming poses a serious threat to the American people.
Bond Workers are suffering as jobs go to countries with cheaper energy and weaker environmental laws. I would share the goal that we are going to reduce carbon, we are going to promote energy efficiency. What is the real threat to the people of America? The real threat is higher energy prices and more lost jobs.
Under the W-L bill $6.7 billion would be taken away from workers. Calpers had invested in the high future cost of energy. As long as we keep all the land out of production the price will continue to go up.
Boxer We’ll respond to his misstatement in the record.
10:15 Lautenberg My grandson has asthma.
10:22 Craig yields.
10:22 Cardin We haven’t had an energy policy and we’ve seen the consequences. The L-W bill will allow us to take the necessary steps to deal with global warming. I’ve urged we have a robust provision to have the best science available to achieve the objectives we set out to do. We all know about corn ethanol.
10:26 Klobuchar I met yesterday with a 14-year-old who biked 1500 miles with a petition signed by 1200 kids for greater fuel efficiency. It appears this administration has been living in an evidence-free zone. One of the redacted facts was that climate change would increase wildfires.
10:29 Whitehouse I yield.
10:30 Boxer swears in the witnesses.
10:31 Burnett I recently resigned my position as associate deputy administrator. The scientific information I present is not my opinion. The April 2 Supreme Court decision permanently changed the landscape. Severe heat waves are expected to increase. The science is clear. A Cabinet-level meeting in November reached the agreement greenhouse gases did endanger the public and needed to be regulated. The only way to avoid making a positive endangerment finding was to make any finding at all.
10:37 Trenberth The IPCC is inherently conservative. Climate change is a real problem today. The problem is accelerating. Changes could happen much larger and sooner than the IPCC suggests. The oceans and land ice have a lot of inertia. Long lead times are essential for action to address climate change. Globally the past 7 years are among the eight warmest on record. Sea level rise continues at a rate of a foot a century. In the first six months of 2008, record rains point to the increases of rain that have been observed in association with more water vapor in the atmosphere due to global warming. Longer dry spells are also associated with global warming. The risk of wildfire increases dramatically. In 2007 two Cat 5 hurricanes made landfall for the first time in Central America. Hurricane Bertha has broken records. We should not be misled by short-term climate changes such as La Nina. Our predictions at NCAR are for substantial changes. I believe there is a crisis of inaction in addressing climate change.
10:43 Spencer There’s two issues I’d like to talk about. As a NASA employee during the Clinton-Gore administration, I was told what I could or could not say. It seemed entirely appropriate to me to abide by the limits of my superiors. I’d like to present the latest research. There remains considerable uncertainty just how sensitive the climate is to human influence. We have attained the holy grail of climate research—a true measure of climate uncertainty. They have been contaminated by cloud variability. In my written testimony, I show how cloud variations and La Nina-El Nino might explain 70 percent of the warming we’ve measured. These results are not yet published, but I presented them at a seminar. The IPCC process has been guided by desired policy outcomes. I am predicting today that the theory mankind is mostly responsible for global warming will fade away.
10:51 Boxer Spencer has been named by Rush Limbaugh as his official climatologist. I’m going to ask Mr. Burnett a few questions about the waiver. Did Johnson discuss in December his plan to move forward with at least a partial waiver?
10:52 Burnett If the Clean Air Act was not amended by Congress, we would move forward with the waiver.
Boxer Did Johnson indicate that the compelling and extraordinary conditions had been met?
Burnett All three criteria were met.
Boxer Did you prepare Johnson for a meeting with the White House on the waiver?
Burnett Materials from our general counsel indicating the legal vulnerability of denying the waiver was communicated to the administrator in multiple fora.
Burnett Pres. Bush had made it clear of his policy preference for a single standard.
10:57 Craig Climate change conferences are a thriving cottage industry.
Spencer There’s more like me out there.
Craig You gave passing comment on climate change and wildfires. The skies of Idaho were filled with smoke from California. In 1991 forestry scientists met and determined that there were millions of acres of forest that were dead and dying. Because of the tremendous population and fuel buildup and a slight change of temperature we’re seeing those fires. Very little is said by scientists about natural emissions of carbon. I accept warming. Why aren’t scientists dealing more with the vegetative consequences and advocating reduced fuel loads?
Trenberth The major factor recently is the major drought that allowed the lodgepole pines to be infected by the pinebark beetle. In recent times we haven’t had the cold spells that kill the beetles.
Craig You’re right about the bug itself. If you take out those bug kill areas, we’re being denied that.
11:03 Lautenberg Mr. Spencer, since you ascribe the problems with changing climate to natural causes, that we then throw up our hands and wait?
Spencer I’m of the professional opinion that people have some influence. We already spend billions of dollars on alternative energy research.
Lautenberg You told the House Global Warming Committee that ExxonMobil thought regulations would taint the Bush legacy.
Burnett There were those in the administration who wanted to be the ones who took action and those who didn’t want to do anything.
Lautenberg Are we approaching the point of no return?
Trenberth What used to be a 500-year flood is now a 30-year flood.
11:10 Cardin Were you present at the Cabinet-level meeting?
Burnett I worked with other officials to prepare for the meeting.
Cardin How were you apprised of the findings of the meeting?
Burnett I prepared briefing materials and Johnson and Peacock asked us when they returned for us to draft findings that reflected the decisions of the meeting.
Cardin Do you know who was in the meeting?
Burnett I’m familiar with the agencies involved. We had meetings three times a week at the OMB. Administrator Johnson said he took the extra step of checking with the President’s chief of staff office and Joel Kaplan whether that meeting was sufficient to tell the staff a decision had been made.
Cardin What happened?
Burnett The sequence of events was strange. I had checked with my colleagues at EPA that the document was ready to be sent to OMB. I sent it over, and then received a phone call from deputy chief of staff Joel Kaplan asking us not to send the document over.
11:19 Klobuchar
Burnett The regulation we were developing would have raised fuel economy standards.
Klobuchar You went back and forth with OMB on the definition of carbon dioxide molecules.
Burnett I was at almost all of the meetings hosted by OMB. There was interest in defining CO2 from automobiles as different from CO2 from power plants. Jeff Rosen raised that question multiple times. It was sometimes embarassing for me to return to my colleagues to have them explain again that CO2 is a molecule.
Klobuchar What can we expect in the future?
Trenberth Rainfall is up about 7 percent, mainly east of the Rockies. Heavy rains are up 14%, very heavy rains up 21%. The reason is well understood. The warmer air can hold more water vapor.
11:25 Boxer Washington is under a severe weather alert.
Whitehouse Were you at the EPA long enough to get a sense what the routine meetings and conversations were between the administrator and the White House?
Burnett My focus was on air quality policy.
Whitehouse Would you characterize they were routine?
Burnett This was my first vehicle waiver process.
Whitehouse Were there specific meetings on the California waiver?
Burnett Yes.
Whitehouse Did the White House understand that the responsibility for making a decision on the waiver rest with the administrator?
Burnett In the ozone decision the president’s policy was ultimately followed.
Whitehouse Did the White House respond to the notice that you intended to partially grant the waiver?
Burnett The response was clearly made that the White House wanted a single standard inconsistent with the California waiver.
11:32 Sanders Talk about human health and global warming.
Trenberth We see events like Katrina, that our infrastructure isn’t adequate. These things happen from time to time but don’t all happen all at once. Natural variability plays a role. In Europe in 2003, the magnitude of the heatwaves, over 30,000 people died, you cannot account for it natural variability or global warming alone.
Sanders If you see increased drought, people won’t be able to grow food.
Trenberth There are various diseases that flourish in warmer climates. Everyone will be affected one way or another. In Europe and Asia it’s gotten much warmer. In the US, it’s gotten wetter. I personally think the biggest pressure point on society will be water and water resources.