Climate Negotiators Are Working on History’s Most Important Mad Lib

This week in Peru, delegates are creating the framework for a deal to fight global warming. Next year, they’ll fill in the blanks.

Delegates to the UN climate summit in Lima, Peru, listen to opening remarks this morning. Paolo Aguilar/ZUMA

The latest round of United Nations climate negotiations kicked off today in Lima, Peru. For the next two weeks, delegates from 195 countries will hash out the framework for what they hope will become a major international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions when negotiators reconvene in Paris next year. The Lima meeting will also be a chance to hear how far some major carbon-polluters—Brazil, India, Mexico, and more—are willing to go to slow global warming.

The goal of the Lima talks is to set a standard for how countries will formally submit their proposed emissions pledges in preparation for next year’s big summit. You can think of it like a climate action Mad Lib, where the story outline is now being drafted in Lima, and each country will fill in its blanks (but with emissions goals instead of nouns and verbs) before Paris. One of the big debates prior to Paris will be whether developed and developing countries will be required to meet the same criteria for setting those goals, and whether the goals will be legally binding.

This month’s talks will also be the first key test of President Obama’s climate pact with China, which was announced last month. The deal was important for a few key reasons. It set new carbon reductions goals: The US will reduce carbon emissions 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, while China promised to peak its emissions by 2030. It includes a plan to jump-start clean energy trade between the two countries. But perhaps most importantly, it could be a powerful incentive for other countries to create their own ambitious targets.

“The mood music will change,” said Michael Jacobs, a former environmental advisor to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Jacobs, who is in Lima this week with a climate economics think tank run by former Mexican President Felipe Calderon, added, “I think we will see…that if the US and China are both committed, then other countries will not want to look like they aren’t coming to the table.”

That’s a big deal, because widespread political participation is a prerequisite for the kind of global accord UN officials are hoping for in Paris. And it’s a big shift from past climate summits, like the 2009 one in Copenhagen, which have fallen apart thanks to a lack of cooperation from the US and China. Those two countries, the world’s top carbon emitters, have traditionally dragged their feet when it comes to global warming. Neither one of them ratified the last international climate treaty, the Kyoto Protocol of 1997.

But climate hawks are optimistic that the US-China accord has already advanced the future Paris negotiations into uncharted waters. As the Harvard economist Robert Stavins pointed out, the Kyoto Protocol covered only about 14 percent of global carbon emissions. But the Paris agreement will be structured differently. Instead of a single unified treaty that every country is expected to sign on to (an approach seen as a political dead end), the Paris agreement will be built around a patchwork of “nationally-determined contributions.” The US-China pact essentially serves as both countries’ commitment, and combined with the European Union commitment announced in October, already more than 50 percent of global carbon emissions are covered.

Negotiators in Lima are also designing a system for the international community to review countries’ proposed contributions to ensure that their proposed carbon cuts are sufficiently aggressive and that their calculations make sense. This would be the first time a peer review process is used in international climate talks, said Jennifer Morgan, a senior analyst at the World Resources Institute. Pushing for a strong review framework is a top priority of the US delegation, she said, speaking this morning from Lima.

Countries have until the spring to announce their emissions reduction pledges, so it’s not yet clear if there will be more announcements from Lima. Many eyes are on India, the world’s third-biggest carbon polluter, whose emissions are projected by WRI to climb 70 percent above 2000 levels by 2025. Without cooperation from India, a global accord would be much weaker; Narendra Modi, the country’s new prime minister, has so far been lukewarm on climate action.

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This week in Peru, delegates are creating the framework for a deal to fight global warming. Next year, they’ll fill in the blanks.

Delegates to the UN climate summit in Lima, Peru, listen to opening remarks this morning. Paolo Aguilar/ZUMA

The latest round of United Nations climate negotiations kicked off today in Lima, Peru. For the next two weeks, delegates from 195 countries will hash out the framework for what they hope will become a major international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions when negotiators reconvene in Paris next year. The Lima meeting will also be a chance to hear how far some major carbon-polluters—Brazil, India, Mexico, and more—are willing to go to slow global warming.

The goal of the Lima talks is to set a standard for how countries will formally submit their proposed emissions pledges in preparation for next year’s big summit. You can think of it like a climate action Mad Lib, where the story outline is now being drafted in Lima, and each country will fill in its blanks (but with emissions goals instead of nouns and verbs) before Paris. One of the big debates prior to Paris will be whether developed and developing countries will be required to meet the same criteria for setting those goals, and whether the goals will be legally binding.

This month’s talks will also be the first key test of President Obama’s climate pact with China, which was announced last month. The deal was important for a few key reasons. It set new carbon reductions goals: The US will reduce carbon emissions 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, while China promised to peak its emissions by 2030. It includes a plan to jump-start clean energy trade between the two countries. But perhaps most importantly, it could be a powerful incentive for other countries to create their own ambitious targets.

“The mood music will change,” said Michael Jacobs, a former environmental advisor to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Jacobs, who is in Lima this week with a climate economics think tank run by former Mexican President Felipe Calderon, added, “I think we will see…that if the US and China are both committed, then other countries will not want to look like they aren’t coming to the table.”

That’s a big deal, because widespread political participation is a prerequisite for the kind of global accord UN officials are hoping for in Paris. And it’s a big shift from past climate summits, like the 2009 one in Copenhagen, which have fallen apart thanks to a lack of cooperation from the US and China. Those two countries, the world’s top carbon emitters, have traditionally dragged their feet when it comes to global warming. Neither one of them ratified the last international climate treaty, the Kyoto Protocol of 1997.

But climate hawks are optimistic that the US-China accord has already advanced the future Paris negotiations into uncharted waters. As the Harvard economist Robert Stavins pointed out, the Kyoto Protocol covered only about 14 percent of global carbon emissions. But the Paris agreement will be structured differently. Instead of a single unified treaty that every country is expected to sign on to (an approach seen as a political dead end), the Paris agreement will be built around a patchwork of “nationally-determined contributions.” The US-China pact essentially serves as both countries’ commitment, and combined with the European Union commitment announced in October, already more than 50 percent of global carbon emissions are covered.

Negotiators in Lima are also designing a system for the international community to review countries’ proposed contributions to ensure that their proposed carbon cuts are sufficiently aggressive and that their calculations make sense. This would be the first time a peer review process is used in international climate talks, said Jennifer Morgan, a senior analyst at the World Resources Institute. Pushing for a strong review framework is a top priority of the US delegation, she said, speaking this morning from Lima.

Countries have until the spring to announce their emissions reduction pledges, so it’s not yet clear if there will be more announcements from Lima. Many eyes are on India, the world’s third-biggest carbon polluter, whose emissions are projected by WRI to climb 70 percent above 2000 levels by 2025. Without cooperation from India, a global accord would be much weaker; Narendra Modi, the country’s new prime minister, has so far been lukewarm on climate action.

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Will Obama Pull the Plug on Wind Energy?

The president has threatened to veto a tax package that includes a lifeline for wind.

Alexander Steinhof/Flickr

Yesterday President Obama threatened to veto a $440 billion package of tax breaks negotiated by a bipartisan group of legislators led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). The bill, a White House spokesperson said, disproportionately benefits businesses over families. The bill excludes a child tax credit for the working poor that had been a top goal for Obama, but makes permanent a group of tax incentives for big businesses that had been provisional.

But if Obama does kill the deal, he’ll also create a casualty that seems odd for a president who in recent weeks has made climate change a central issue: The tax credit for wind energy, which Reid’s bill would resuscitate for a few years before phasing out in 2017.

The Production Tax Credit (PTC) provides wind energy developers a tax break of 2.3 cents per kilowatt hour of energy their turbines produce for the first ten years of operation, which industry supporters say is a important lifeline to help wind compete against heavily-subsidized fossil fuel power sources. For over a decade, wind power has been locked in a boom-and-bust cycle as the PTC expires and then is re-upped by Congress: Every time the credit stalls or looks like it might disappear, contracts dry up, manufacturers shut down production, and jobs get cut. The same could happen again soon: The PTC expired again last year, and so the fate of Reid’s tax bill will be the fate of a cornerstone of America’s clean energy economy.

Any project that broke ground before the PTC expiration last year still got to keep the credit, so the wind industry is still on an up cycle. So far this year, wind accounts for 22 percent of new energy capacity, second only to natural gas, according to federal data. And with or without subsidies, wind is now one of the cheapest electricity sources out there. Those are critical pieces of the puzzle if the US is to meet President Obama’s new goal to reduce the nation’s carbon footprint 26-28 percent by 2025.

But wind’s halcyon days won’t last unless the PTC is extended soon, said Daniel Shurey, a market analyst with Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

“The momentum will peak next year, and then we’ll start to feel the effects,” Shurey said. “Without the PTC extension, the main US manufacturers are going to start running out of orders by 2016.”

The Reid bill throws a bone to conservative lawmakers and advocacy groups who have called the PTC a handout for an industry that should be able to support itself by now: gradually phasing out the credit by 2017. The American Wind Energy Association, a trade group, has supported such a plan, saying it would give manufacturers, developers, and other wind investors a degree of certainty about future market conditions that they don’t currently have. Shurey agrees: The actual amount of the credit is far less important, he said, than a clear, consistent signal to frame contracts and investments around.

Whatever tax deal Congress ultimately passes will probably include the PTC, says Jim Marston, vice president of US energy policy at the Environmental Defense Fund. Some of the credit’s biggest proponents are powerful Republicans from windy states, such as Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who said on the Senate floor last week that gutting the PTC “would cost jobs, harm our economy, the environment and our national security.” But a veto could mean a long delay—and more of the uncertainty that the wind industry fears.

from Climate Desk http://ift.tt/11KDyja

The president has threatened to veto a tax package that includes a lifeline for wind.

Alexander Steinhof/Flickr

Yesterday President Obama threatened to veto a $440 billion package of tax breaks negotiated by a bipartisan group of legislators led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). The bill, a White House spokesperson said, disproportionately benefits businesses over families. The bill excludes a child tax credit for the working poor that had been a top goal for Obama, but makes permanent a group of tax incentives for big businesses that had been provisional.

But if Obama does kill the deal, he’ll also create a casualty that seems odd for a president who in recent weeks has made climate change a central issue: The tax credit for wind energy, which Reid’s bill would resuscitate for a few years before phasing out in 2017.

The Production Tax Credit (PTC) provides wind energy developers a tax break of 2.3 cents per kilowatt hour of energy their turbines produce for the first ten years of operation, which industry supporters say is a important lifeline to help wind compete against heavily-subsidized fossil fuel power sources. For over a decade, wind power has been locked in a boom-and-bust cycle as the PTC expires and then is re-upped by Congress: Every time the credit stalls or looks like it might disappear, contracts dry up, manufacturers shut down production, and jobs get cut. The same could happen again soon: The PTC expired again last year, and so the fate of Reid’s tax bill will be the fate of a cornerstone of America’s clean energy economy.

Any project that broke ground before the PTC expiration last year still got to keep the credit, so the wind industry is still on an up cycle. So far this year, wind accounts for 22 percent of new energy capacity, second only to natural gas, according to federal data. And with or without subsidies, wind is now one of the cheapest electricity sources out there. Those are critical pieces of the puzzle if the US is to meet President Obama’s new goal to reduce the nation’s carbon footprint 26-28 percent by 2025.

But wind’s halcyon days won’t last unless the PTC is extended soon, said Daniel Shurey, a market analyst with Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

“The momentum will peak next year, and then we’ll start to feel the effects,” Shurey said. “Without the PTC extension, the main US manufacturers are going to start running out of orders by 2016.”

The Reid bill throws a bone to conservative lawmakers and advocacy groups who have called the PTC a handout for an industry that should be able to support itself by now: gradually phasing out the credit by 2017. The American Wind Energy Association, a trade group, has supported such a plan, saying it would give manufacturers, developers, and other wind investors a degree of certainty about future market conditions that they don’t currently have. Shurey agrees: The actual amount of the credit is far less important, he said, than a clear, consistent signal to frame contracts and investments around.

Whatever tax deal Congress ultimately passes will probably include the PTC, says Jim Marston, vice president of US energy policy at the Environmental Defense Fund. Some of the credit’s biggest proponents are powerful Republicans from windy states, such as Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who said on the Senate floor last week that gutting the PTC “would cost jobs, harm our economy, the environment and our national security.” But a veto could mean a long delay—and more of the uncertainty that the wind industry fears.

from Climate Desk http://ift.tt/11KDyja

Even Global Warming Can’t Convince Republicans That Global Warming Exists

Polling data suggests that even when the heat is on, political ideology outweighs facts.

Eunika Sopotnicka /Shutterstock

Scientists and science journalists like to say that one of the best ways to tell that climate change is real is to take a look at the changes we can already see: This year is on track to be the hottest ever recorded, and glaciers, corn, and even grizzly bears are responding to the warming. But all those shifts won’t be enough to convince most conservative climate skeptics, a new study in Nature Climate Change finds.

A growing body of recent research suggests a person’s political ideology, economic philosophy, and religious beliefs tend to overwhelm observed facts about global warming. The new study, which was released Monday, put that hypothesis to the test by analyzing Gallup polls taken just after the unusually warm winter of 2012. It found that both Democrats’ and Republicans’ perceptions of the warmer weather in their state tracked fairly well with actual satellite temperature data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But “for people who said their local winter was warming, the observed temperature anomalies had no effect on the tendency to attribute that to global warming,” explains Aaron McCright, a sociologist at Michigan State University who authored the study.

In other words, the actual temperature had no bearing on whether people believed in climate change. Instead, McCright says, “one of the strongest predictors” is party affiliation: Republicans were far less likely to attribute the warming they felt to man-made climate change than were Democrats. Other variables—gender, age, and level of education—were far less reliable as predictors of a person’s global warming beliefs.

The findings suggest that the political polarization of climate change has become so great that the path of least resistance for most people is to hew to their party line, McCright says. Interesting, Democrats in the polling data were guilty of a different kind of bias: Overall, they perceived local temperatures to be warmer than their Republicans neighbors did—a reminder, McCright says, that confirmation bias exists on the left, too.

An unrelated national survey taken after 2012′s record-breaking hot summer found that a growing majority of Americans are making the connection between temperature extremes and climate change. But that survey didn’t account for political affiliation. McCright’s research suggests that convincing Republicans will be a different challenge than convincing the public at large, and that references to extreme weather aren’t the best rhetorical strategy to deal with that challenge.

The political chasm on climate change is gaping—a Pew poll last year found 44 percent of Republicans believed there was “solid evidence the earth is warming” versus 87 percent of Democrats. That imbalance sets the stage for partisan gridlock on climate action in Congress; Senate Republicans have said they plan to make attacking President Obama’s climate policies a priority when they take control next year. So the stakes are high for winning more conservatives to accept the mainstream scientific consensus on climate change, and this study finds that changes in the weather might not be enough to change many minds.

“If we wait around for that to happen, we’ll be waiting for a while,” McCright says.

from Climate Desk http://ift.tt/11KDwbh

Polling data suggests that even when the heat is on, political ideology outweighs facts.

Eunika Sopotnicka /Shutterstock

Scientists and science journalists like to say that one of the best ways to tell that climate change is real is to take a look at the changes we can already see: This year is on track to be the hottest ever recorded, and glaciers, corn, and even grizzly bears are responding to the warming. But all those shifts won’t be enough to convince most conservative climate skeptics, a new study in Nature Climate Change finds.

A growing body of recent research suggests a person’s political ideology, economic philosophy, and religious beliefs tend to overwhelm observed facts about global warming. The new study, which was released Monday, put that hypothesis to the test by analyzing Gallup polls taken just after the unusually warm winter of 2012. It found that both Democrats’ and Republicans’ perceptions of the warmer weather in their state tracked fairly well with actual satellite temperature data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But “for people who said their local winter was warming, the observed temperature anomalies had no effect on the tendency to attribute that to global warming,” explains Aaron McCright, a sociologist at Michigan State University who authored the study.

In other words, the actual temperature had no bearing on whether people believed in climate change. Instead, McCright says, “one of the strongest predictors” is party affiliation: Republicans were far less likely to attribute the warming they felt to man-made climate change than were Democrats. Other variables—gender, age, and level of education—were far less reliable as predictors of a person’s global warming beliefs.

The findings suggest that the political polarization of climate change has become so great that the path of least resistance for most people is to hew to their party line, McCright says. Interesting, Democrats in the polling data were guilty of a different kind of bias: Overall, they perceived local temperatures to be warmer than their Republicans neighbors did—a reminder, McCright says, that confirmation bias exists on the left, too.

An unrelated national survey taken after 2012′s record-breaking hot summer found that a growing majority of Americans are making the connection between temperature extremes and climate change. But that survey didn’t account for political affiliation. McCright’s research suggests that convincing Republicans will be a different challenge than convincing the public at large, and that references to extreme weather aren’t the best rhetorical strategy to deal with that challenge.

The political chasm on climate change is gaping—a Pew poll last year found 44 percent of Republicans believed there was “solid evidence the earth is warming” versus 87 percent of Democrats. That imbalance sets the stage for partisan gridlock on climate action in Congress; Senate Republicans have said they plan to make attacking President Obama’s climate policies a priority when they take control next year. So the stakes are high for winning more conservatives to accept the mainstream scientific consensus on climate change, and this study finds that changes in the weather might not be enough to change many minds.

“If we wait around for that to happen, we’ll be waiting for a while,” McCright says.

from Climate Desk http://ift.tt/11KDwbh

Republicans Said China Wouldn’t Follow Through on its Climate Pledges. Looks Like They Were Wrong.

The world’s top emitter is pledging to cap coal use starting in 2020.

Coal-fired plants on the banks of China’s Yangtze River downstream from Chongqing. Arnold Drapkin/ZUMA

Almost as soon as President Barack Obama and President Xi Jinping announced their landmark climate deal last week, there was a torrent of criticism that the pact let China off the hook. Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) complained that “the agreement requires the Chinese to do nothing at all for 16 years.” The argument goes like this: The US committed to deeper, faster cuts than it had before—reducing carbon emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. But under the deal, the Chinese are allowed to spew greenhouse gases unabated, only committing to stop increasing those emissions “around 2030.”

Indeed, exactly how China will begin to “peak” its emissions around 2030 without a legally binding agreement is still an open question. Historically, there’s been widespread suspicion about China’s intentions on the issue—the country has, after all, been a thorn in the side of international climate negotiations for years. And even the White House appeared to raise an eyebrow at the staggering scale of the cleaner energy sources China would need to install to reach its goals: the non-fossil fuel equivalent of the “total current electricity generation capacity in the United States” over the next 16 years, the White House said.

But this week, China’s leadership has begun to answer that question. According to reports in state-controlled media, China’s State Council—essentially its cabinet—unveiled a new cap on annual coal use Wednesday. Under the new targets, China will limit coal consumption to 4.2 billion tons in 2020. That’s an increase from 3.75 billion tons last year. But relative to the country’s overall energy consumption mix, it’s a reduction; last year, coal accounted for around 67 percent of China’s energy consumption. Under the new plan, that figure would fall to 62 percent in 2020. The Xinhua report also says that the share of non-fossil fuels will rise to 15 percent by 2020 (from 9.8 percent in 2013)—a significant advance towards the goal of reaching 20 percent by 2030 outlined in the US-China deal.

While the cap represents a big step politically—coming from the State Council—the new promises are consistent with current trends in China. Many provinces have recently introduced air quality policies that seek to reverse the rapid growth in coal use, according to a Greenpeace report released in April. Twelve of China’s 34 provinces, accounting for 44 percent of the country’s coal consumption, have already pledged to implement coal control measures, according to the report.

Twelve Chinese provinces have already pledged to implement coal control measures. Click to view a larger version. Greenpeace.

This week’s announcement is likely to cement China’s plans at the very highest levels of government—and it sends a signal to the international community that the country means business. The South China Morning Post reports that the new targets announced this week are likely to make their way into China’s official “five year plan”—a kind of economic development master plan that will be formalized next year and will dictate top-down strategy for 2016-2020.

While the climate benefits are obvious, and global in scope, the drivers behind the high profile announcement are far more domestic. The newspaper quotes Lin Boqiang, director of Xiamen University’s China Centre for China Energy Economics Research, as saying the early announcement can be linked to China’s desperation to do something about its air quality: “The smog crisis has forced China’s government to change its views on the country’s energy structure in the past several years. That’s why they want to release this blueprint now.”

Environmentalists have cautiously welcomed the plan but are pushing for more. “We think it’s definitely a positive sign, in line with what they’ve said they’re going to do,” Alvin Lin, an energy expert with Natural Resources Defense Council, told the New York Times . “We’d like to see it a bit lower than that, if you’re trying to meet the air pollution and air quality targets that they have set, and if you consider all the other environmental and health impacts of coal and the greenhouse-gas emissions of coal.”

from Climate Desk http://ift.tt/1tF5BHv

The world’s top emitter is pledging to cap coal use starting in 2020.

Coal-fired plants on the banks of China’s Yangtze River downstream from Chongqing. Arnold Drapkin/ZUMA

Almost as soon as President Barack Obama and President Xi Jinping announced their landmark climate deal last week, there was a torrent of criticism that the pact let China off the hook. Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) complained that “the agreement requires the Chinese to do nothing at all for 16 years.” The argument goes like this: The US committed to deeper, faster cuts than it had before—reducing carbon emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. But under the deal, the Chinese are allowed to spew greenhouse gases unabated, only committing to stop increasing those emissions “around 2030.”

Indeed, exactly how China will begin to “peak” its emissions around 2030 without a legally binding agreement is still an open question. Historically, there’s been widespread suspicion about China’s intentions on the issue—the country has, after all, been a thorn in the side of international climate negotiations for years. And even the White House appeared to raise an eyebrow at the staggering scale of the cleaner energy sources China would need to install to reach its goals: the non-fossil fuel equivalent of the “total current electricity generation capacity in the United States” over the next 16 years, the White House said.

But this week, China’s leadership has begun to answer that question. According to reports in state-controlled media, China’s State Council—essentially its cabinet—unveiled a new cap on annual coal use Wednesday. Under the new targets, China will limit coal consumption to 4.2 billion tons in 2020. That’s an increase from 3.75 billion tons last year. But relative to the country’s overall energy consumption mix, it’s a reduction; last year, coal accounted for around 67 percent of China’s energy consumption. Under the new plan, that figure would fall to 62 percent in 2020. The Xinhua report also says that the share of non-fossil fuels will rise to 15 percent by 2020 (from 9.8 percent in 2013)—a significant advance towards the goal of reaching 20 percent by 2030 outlined in the US-China deal.

While the cap represents a big step politically—coming from the State Council—the new promises are consistent with current trends in China. Many provinces have recently introduced air quality policies that seek to reverse the rapid growth in coal use, according to a Greenpeace report released in April. Twelve of China’s 34 provinces, accounting for 44 percent of the country’s coal consumption, have already pledged to implement coal control measures, according to the report.

Twelve Chinese provinces have already pledged to implement coal control measures. Click to view a larger version. Greenpeace.

This week’s announcement is likely to cement China’s plans at the very highest levels of government—and it sends a signal to the international community that the country means business. The South China Morning Post reports that the new targets announced this week are likely to make their way into China’s official “five year plan”—a kind of economic development master plan that will be formalized next year and will dictate top-down strategy for 2016-2020.

While the climate benefits are obvious, and global in scope, the drivers behind the high profile announcement are far more domestic. The newspaper quotes Lin Boqiang, director of Xiamen University’s China Centre for China Energy Economics Research, as saying the early announcement can be linked to China’s desperation to do something about its air quality: “The smog crisis has forced China’s government to change its views on the country’s energy structure in the past several years. That’s why they want to release this blueprint now.”

Environmentalists have cautiously welcomed the plan but are pushing for more. “We think it’s definitely a positive sign, in line with what they’ve said they’re going to do,” Alvin Lin, an energy expert with Natural Resources Defense Council, told the New York Times . “We’d like to see it a bit lower than that, if you’re trying to meet the air pollution and air quality targets that they have set, and if you consider all the other environmental and health impacts of coal and the greenhouse-gas emissions of coal.”

from Climate Desk http://ift.tt/1tF5BHv

Mysterious killer of millions of sea stars identified

Scientists think that they have finally figured out what has been causing the deaths of millions of sea stars along the west coast of North America. The disease outbreak, which is known as sea-star wasting disease, started during the summer of 2013, and it has now decimated sea star populations all the way from Baja California in Mexico up to the southern coast of Alaska. The disease is most likely caused by a virus, the scientists say after they painstakingly gathered multiple lines of evidence from both laboratory and field studies. Their new findings were published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on November 17, 2014.

The first hint that a virus may be responsible for sea-star wasting disease came from observations made at aquariums along the Pacific Coast. At facilities where sea stars were held in sand-filtered seawater, the sea stars succumbed to the disease. However, at facilities where sea stars were held in seawater that was disinfected with ultraviolet light, the sea stars remained disease free. Hence, some type of water-borne pathogen was likely infecting the sea stars.

A healthy sunflower sea star (Pycnopodium helianthoides). Image Credit: Kevin Lafferty, U.S. Geological Survey.

To test their hypothesis that sea-star wasting disease is caused by a virus, scientists took tissue samples from sick sea stars, ground them up, and passed them through a filter that would trap bacteria but allow viruses to pass through. Next, they used heat to kill off any viruses in some samples while allowing other samples to retain their viral loads. These samples were then injected into health sea stars. After about 10 to 17 days, sea stars that had received the non-heat treated samples started showing signs of the disease. In contrast, those that had received the heat treated samples remained disease free.

Samples of viruses collected from the sea stars during the course of the experiment showed that a particular type of virus, known as a densovirus, had increased in number as the disease progressed. Field studies also confirmed that high densovirus loads were more likely to be found in sick sea stars than in healthy sea stars. All of these findings strongly suggest that the sea-star wasting disease is caused by the densovirus.

Ian Hewson, lead author of the study, is a microbiology professor at Cornell University. He commented on the new findings in a press release:

There are 10 million viruses in a drop of seawater, so discovering the virus associated with a marine disease can be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Not only is this an important discovery of a virus involved in a mass mortality of marine invertebrates, but this is also the first virus described in a sea star.

Interestingly, the scientists examined some museum specimens of sea stars and detected the presence of the densovirus in animals that were collected as far back as the year 1942. So the big question now is why haven’t similar outbreaks occurred before today?

Ian Hewson holding a sea star. Image Credit: Cornell University.

It’s possible that the virus has underwent some genetic changes that have made it more infectious, the scientists say. Additionally, it is possible that changes in the environment have made sea stars more susceptible to densovirus infections. Clearly, more research will be needed to fully understand this particular disease.

Sea stars are a keystone species, which means that they have an outsized influence on other organisms in the marine ecosystem. The loss of keystone species is often associated with dramatic decreases in biodiversity. For example, sea stars prey on mussels, and when sea stars are absent in coastal habitats, mussel populations can explode and crowd out other species. Long-term monitoring of coastal sites hit hard by sea-star wasting disease will be important to determine if there will be any cascading negative effects on the ecosystem.

The new research was a collaborative effort of 25 scientists from the United States and Canada. It was funded by Cornell University’s David R. Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, the National Science Foundation, and Washington Sea Grant.

Bottom line: Scientists say that a densovirus is the likely culprit behind sea-star wasting disease. The disease has killed millions of sea stars along the west coast of North America since 2013. The findings were published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on November 17, 2014.

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from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1wdCy4x

Scientists think that they have finally figured out what has been causing the deaths of millions of sea stars along the west coast of North America. The disease outbreak, which is known as sea-star wasting disease, started during the summer of 2013, and it has now decimated sea star populations all the way from Baja California in Mexico up to the southern coast of Alaska. The disease is most likely caused by a virus, the scientists say after they painstakingly gathered multiple lines of evidence from both laboratory and field studies. Their new findings were published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on November 17, 2014.

The first hint that a virus may be responsible for sea-star wasting disease came from observations made at aquariums along the Pacific Coast. At facilities where sea stars were held in sand-filtered seawater, the sea stars succumbed to the disease. However, at facilities where sea stars were held in seawater that was disinfected with ultraviolet light, the sea stars remained disease free. Hence, some type of water-borne pathogen was likely infecting the sea stars.

A healthy sunflower sea star (Pycnopodium helianthoides). Image Credit: Kevin Lafferty, U.S. Geological Survey.

To test their hypothesis that sea-star wasting disease is caused by a virus, scientists took tissue samples from sick sea stars, ground them up, and passed them through a filter that would trap bacteria but allow viruses to pass through. Next, they used heat to kill off any viruses in some samples while allowing other samples to retain their viral loads. These samples were then injected into health sea stars. After about 10 to 17 days, sea stars that had received the non-heat treated samples started showing signs of the disease. In contrast, those that had received the heat treated samples remained disease free.

Samples of viruses collected from the sea stars during the course of the experiment showed that a particular type of virus, known as a densovirus, had increased in number as the disease progressed. Field studies also confirmed that high densovirus loads were more likely to be found in sick sea stars than in healthy sea stars. All of these findings strongly suggest that the sea-star wasting disease is caused by the densovirus.

Ian Hewson, lead author of the study, is a microbiology professor at Cornell University. He commented on the new findings in a press release:

There are 10 million viruses in a drop of seawater, so discovering the virus associated with a marine disease can be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Not only is this an important discovery of a virus involved in a mass mortality of marine invertebrates, but this is also the first virus described in a sea star.

Interestingly, the scientists examined some museum specimens of sea stars and detected the presence of the densovirus in animals that were collected as far back as the year 1942. So the big question now is why haven’t similar outbreaks occurred before today?

Ian Hewson holding a sea star. Image Credit: Cornell University.

It’s possible that the virus has underwent some genetic changes that have made it more infectious, the scientists say. Additionally, it is possible that changes in the environment have made sea stars more susceptible to densovirus infections. Clearly, more research will be needed to fully understand this particular disease.

Sea stars are a keystone species, which means that they have an outsized influence on other organisms in the marine ecosystem. The loss of keystone species is often associated with dramatic decreases in biodiversity. For example, sea stars prey on mussels, and when sea stars are absent in coastal habitats, mussel populations can explode and crowd out other species. Long-term monitoring of coastal sites hit hard by sea-star wasting disease will be important to determine if there will be any cascading negative effects on the ecosystem.

The new research was a collaborative effort of 25 scientists from the United States and Canada. It was funded by Cornell University’s David R. Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, the National Science Foundation, and Washington Sea Grant.

Bottom line: Scientists say that a densovirus is the likely culprit behind sea-star wasting disease. The disease has killed millions of sea stars along the west coast of North America since 2013. The findings were published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on November 17, 2014.

Managing biodiversity in parks a growing concern

2014 State of the Birds report: Mixed marks for U.S. birds

Sea turtles nesting in record numbers

Bat-killing fungus continues to spread west through the US

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1wdCy4x

Everything you need to know: December solstice 2014

Sunlight on Earth, on the day of the winter solstice. The north polar region of Earth is in 24-hour darkness, while the south polar region is in 24-hour daylight. Gif via Wikimedia Commons.

Looking for this? NASA quells rumor: Days of darkness in December

Late dawn. Early sunset. Short day. Long night. For us in the Northern Hemisphere, the December solstice marks the longest night and shortest day of the year. Meanwhile, on the day of the December solstice, the Southern Hemisphere has its longest day and shortest night.

No matter where you live on Earth’s globe, a solstice is your signal to celebrate. For us on the northern part of Earth, the shortest day comes at the solstice. After the winter solstice, the days get longer, and the nights shorter. It’s a seasonal shift that nearly everyone notices. Follow the links below to learn more about the 2014 December solstice.

When is the solstice where I live?

What is a solstice?

Where should I look to see signs of the solstice in nature?

Why doesn’t the earliest sunset come on the shortest day?

Day and night sides of Earth on the December 2014 solstice

Day and night sides of Earth at the instant of the December 2014 solstice (2014 December 21 at 23:03 Universal Time). Note that the north polar region of Earth must endure 24 hours of night, while the south polar region gets to bask in 24 hours of daylight. Image credit: Earth and Moon Viewer

When is the solstice where I live? The solstice happens at the same instant for all of us, everywhere on Earth. In 2014, the December solstice comes on December 21 at 5:03 p.m. CST. That’s 23:03 Universal Time. It’s when the sun on our sky’s dome reaches its farthest southward point for the year. At this solstice, the Northern Hemisphere has its shortest day and longest night of the year.

To find the time in your location, you have to translate to your time zone. Click here to translate Universal Time to your local time.

Just remember: you’re translating from 23:03 UT on December 21. So for most of the world’s eastern hemisphere – Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand – the December solstice actually comes on December 22. For example, if you live in Perth, Australia, you need to add 8 hours to Universal Time to find out that the solstice happens on December 22, at 7:03 a.m. AWST (Australian Western Standard Time).

Earth has seasons because our world is tilted on its axis with respect to our orbit around the sun. Image via NASA.

What is a solstice? The earliest people on Earth knew that the sun’s path across the sky, the length of daylight, and the location of the sunrise and sunset all shifted in a regular way throughout the year. They built monuments such as Stonehenge in England – or, for example, at Machu Picchu in Peru – to follow the sun’s yearly progress.

But we today see the solstice differently. We can picture it from the vantage point of space. Today, we know that the solstice is an astronomical event, caused by Earth’s tilt on its axis, and its motion in orbit around the sun.

Because Earth doesn’t orbit upright, but is instead tilted on its axis by 23-and-a-half degrees, Earth’s Northern and Southern Hemispheres trade places in receiving the sun’s light and warmth most directly. The tilt of the Earth – not our distance from the sun – is what causes winter and summer. At the December solstice, the Northern Hemisphere is leaning most away from the sun for the year.

At the December solstice, Earth is positioned in its orbit so that the sun stays below the north pole horizon. As seen from 23-and-a-half degrees south of the equator, at the imaginary line encircling the globe known as the Tropic of Capricorn, the sun shines directly overhead at noon. This is as far south as the sun ever gets. All locations south of the equator have day lengths greater than 12 hours at the December solstice. Meanwhile, all locations north of the equator have day lengths less than 12 hours.

Around the time of the winter solstice, watch for late dawns, early sunsets, and the low arc of the sun across the sky each day. Notice your noontime shadow, the longest of the year. Photo via Serge Arsenie on Flickr.

Meanwhile, at the summer solstice, noontime shadows are short. Photo via the Slam Summer Beach Volleyball festival in Australia.

Where should I look to see signs of the solstice in nature? Everywhere.

For all of Earth’s creatures, nothing is so fundamental as the length of daylight. After all, the sun is the ultimate source of all light and warmth on Earth.

If you live in the northern hemisphere, you can notice the late dawns and early sunsets, and the low arc of the sun across the sky each day. You might notice how low the sun appears in the sky at local noon. And be sure to look at your noontime shadow. Around the time of the December solstice, it’s your longest noontime shadow of the year.

In the Southern Hemisphere, it’s opposite. Dawn comes early, and dusk comes late. The sun is high. It’s your shortest noontime shadow of the year.

EarthSky Facebook friend John Michael Mizzi saw this sunset from the island of Gozo (Malta), south of Italy. The earliest sunsets come a couple of weeks before the winter solstice.

Why doesn’t the earliest sunset come on the shortest day? The December solstice marks the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere and longest day in the southern hemisphere. But the earliest sunset – or earliest sunrise if you’re south of the equator – happens before the solstice. Many people notice this, and ask about it.

The key to understanding the earliest sunset is not to focus on the time of sunset or sunrise. The key is to focus on what is called true solar noon – the time of day that the sun reaches its highest point, in its journey across your sky.

In early December, true solar noon comes nearly 10 minutes earlier by the clock than it does at the solstice around December 21. With true noon coming later on the solstice, so will the sunrise and sunset times.

It’s this discrepancy between clock time and sun time that causes the earliest sunset and the earliest sunrise to precede the December solstice.

The discrepancy occurs primarily because of the tilt of the Earth’s axis. A secondary but another contributing factor to this discrepancy between clock noon and sun noon comes from the Earth’s elliptical – oblong – orbit around the sun. The Earth’s orbit is not a perfect circle, and when we’re closest to the sun, our world moves fastest in orbit. Our closest point to the sun – or perihelion – comes in early January. So we are moving fastest in orbit around now, slightly faster than our average speed of 18 miles per second.

Solstice Pyrotechnics II by groovehouse on Flickr.

The precise date of the earliest sunset depends on your latitude. At mid northern latitudes, it comes in early December each year. At northern temperate latitudes farther north – such as in Canada and Alaska – the year’s earliest sunset comes around mid-December. Close to the Arctic Circle, the earliest sunset and the December solstice occur on or near the same day.

By the way, the latest sunrise doesn’t come on the solstice either. From mid-northern latitudes, the latest sunrise comes in early January.

The exact dates vary, but the sequence is always the same: earliest sunset in early December, shortest day on the solstice around December 21, latest sunrise in early January.

And so the cycle continues.

Bottom line: In 2014, the December solstice comes on December 21 at 5:03 p.m. CST. That’s December 21 at 23:03 UT. Happy solstice, everyone!

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1bVFTFr

Sunlight on Earth, on the day of the winter solstice. The north polar region of Earth is in 24-hour darkness, while the south polar region is in 24-hour daylight. Gif via Wikimedia Commons.

Looking for this? NASA quells rumor: Days of darkness in December

Late dawn. Early sunset. Short day. Long night. For us in the Northern Hemisphere, the December solstice marks the longest night and shortest day of the year. Meanwhile, on the day of the December solstice, the Southern Hemisphere has its longest day and shortest night.

No matter where you live on Earth’s globe, a solstice is your signal to celebrate. For us on the northern part of Earth, the shortest day comes at the solstice. After the winter solstice, the days get longer, and the nights shorter. It’s a seasonal shift that nearly everyone notices. Follow the links below to learn more about the 2014 December solstice.

When is the solstice where I live?

What is a solstice?

Where should I look to see signs of the solstice in nature?

Why doesn’t the earliest sunset come on the shortest day?

Day and night sides of Earth on the December 2014 solstice

Day and night sides of Earth at the instant of the December 2014 solstice (2014 December 21 at 23:03 Universal Time). Note that the north polar region of Earth must endure 24 hours of night, while the south polar region gets to bask in 24 hours of daylight. Image credit: Earth and Moon Viewer

When is the solstice where I live? The solstice happens at the same instant for all of us, everywhere on Earth. In 2014, the December solstice comes on December 21 at 5:03 p.m. CST. That’s 23:03 Universal Time. It’s when the sun on our sky’s dome reaches its farthest southward point for the year. At this solstice, the Northern Hemisphere has its shortest day and longest night of the year.

To find the time in your location, you have to translate to your time zone. Click here to translate Universal Time to your local time.

Just remember: you’re translating from 23:03 UT on December 21. So for most of the world’s eastern hemisphere – Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand – the December solstice actually comes on December 22. For example, if you live in Perth, Australia, you need to add 8 hours to Universal Time to find out that the solstice happens on December 22, at 7:03 a.m. AWST (Australian Western Standard Time).

Earth has seasons because our world is tilted on its axis with respect to our orbit around the sun. Image via NASA.

What is a solstice? The earliest people on Earth knew that the sun’s path across the sky, the length of daylight, and the location of the sunrise and sunset all shifted in a regular way throughout the year. They built monuments such as Stonehenge in England – or, for example, at Machu Picchu in Peru – to follow the sun’s yearly progress.

But we today see the solstice differently. We can picture it from the vantage point of space. Today, we know that the solstice is an astronomical event, caused by Earth’s tilt on its axis, and its motion in orbit around the sun.

Because Earth doesn’t orbit upright, but is instead tilted on its axis by 23-and-a-half degrees, Earth’s Northern and Southern Hemispheres trade places in receiving the sun’s light and warmth most directly. The tilt of the Earth – not our distance from the sun – is what causes winter and summer. At the December solstice, the Northern Hemisphere is leaning most away from the sun for the year.

At the December solstice, Earth is positioned in its orbit so that the sun stays below the north pole horizon. As seen from 23-and-a-half degrees south of the equator, at the imaginary line encircling the globe known as the Tropic of Capricorn, the sun shines directly overhead at noon. This is as far south as the sun ever gets. All locations south of the equator have day lengths greater than 12 hours at the December solstice. Meanwhile, all locations north of the equator have day lengths less than 12 hours.

Around the time of the winter solstice, watch for late dawns, early sunsets, and the low arc of the sun across the sky each day. Notice your noontime shadow, the longest of the year. Photo via Serge Arsenie on Flickr.

Meanwhile, at the summer solstice, noontime shadows are short. Photo via the Slam Summer Beach Volleyball festival in Australia.

Where should I look to see signs of the solstice in nature? Everywhere.

For all of Earth’s creatures, nothing is so fundamental as the length of daylight. After all, the sun is the ultimate source of all light and warmth on Earth.

If you live in the northern hemisphere, you can notice the late dawns and early sunsets, and the low arc of the sun across the sky each day. You might notice how low the sun appears in the sky at local noon. And be sure to look at your noontime shadow. Around the time of the December solstice, it’s your longest noontime shadow of the year.

In the Southern Hemisphere, it’s opposite. Dawn comes early, and dusk comes late. The sun is high. It’s your shortest noontime shadow of the year.

EarthSky Facebook friend John Michael Mizzi saw this sunset from the island of Gozo (Malta), south of Italy. The earliest sunsets come a couple of weeks before the winter solstice.

Why doesn’t the earliest sunset come on the shortest day? The December solstice marks the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere and longest day in the southern hemisphere. But the earliest sunset – or earliest sunrise if you’re south of the equator – happens before the solstice. Many people notice this, and ask about it.

The key to understanding the earliest sunset is not to focus on the time of sunset or sunrise. The key is to focus on what is called true solar noon – the time of day that the sun reaches its highest point, in its journey across your sky.

In early December, true solar noon comes nearly 10 minutes earlier by the clock than it does at the solstice around December 21. With true noon coming later on the solstice, so will the sunrise and sunset times.

It’s this discrepancy between clock time and sun time that causes the earliest sunset and the earliest sunrise to precede the December solstice.

The discrepancy occurs primarily because of the tilt of the Earth’s axis. A secondary but another contributing factor to this discrepancy between clock noon and sun noon comes from the Earth’s elliptical – oblong – orbit around the sun. The Earth’s orbit is not a perfect circle, and when we’re closest to the sun, our world moves fastest in orbit. Our closest point to the sun – or perihelion – comes in early January. So we are moving fastest in orbit around now, slightly faster than our average speed of 18 miles per second.

Solstice Pyrotechnics II by groovehouse on Flickr.

The precise date of the earliest sunset depends on your latitude. At mid northern latitudes, it comes in early December each year. At northern temperate latitudes farther north – such as in Canada and Alaska – the year’s earliest sunset comes around mid-December. Close to the Arctic Circle, the earliest sunset and the December solstice occur on or near the same day.

By the way, the latest sunrise doesn’t come on the solstice either. From mid-northern latitudes, the latest sunrise comes in early January.

The exact dates vary, but the sequence is always the same: earliest sunset in early December, shortest day on the solstice around December 21, latest sunrise in early January.

And so the cycle continues.

Bottom line: In 2014, the December solstice comes on December 21 at 5:03 p.m. CST. That’s December 21 at 23:03 UT. Happy solstice, everyone!

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1bVFTFr

Structure of Histidine

The Alonso group has yet again (see these posts) determined the gas-phase structure of an important, biologically significant molecule using a combination of exquisite microwave spectroscopy and quantum computations. This time they examine the structure of histidine.¹

They optimized four conformations of histidine, as its neutral tautomer, at MP2/6-311++G(d,p). These are schematically drawn in Figure 1. Conformer 1a is the lowest in free energy, likely due to the two internal hydrogen bonds. Its structure is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 1. The four conformers of histidine. The relative free energy (MP2/6-311++G(d,p)) in kcal mol^-1 are also indicated.

Figure 2. MP2/6-311++G(d,p) optimized geometry of 1a.

The initial experimental rotation constants were only able to eliminate 1b from consideration. So they then determined the quadrupole coupling constants for the ¹⁴N nuclei. These values strongly implicated 1a as the only structure in the gas phase. The agreement between the experimental values and the computed values at MP2/6-311++G(d,p) was a concern, so they rotated the amine group to try to match the experimental values. This lead to a change in the NHCC dihedral value of -16° to -23° Reoptimization of the structure at MP2/cc-pVTZ led to a dihedral of -21° and overall excellent agreement between the experimental spectral parameters and the computed values.

It is somewhat disappointing the supporting materials does not include the structures of the other three isomers, nor the optimized geometry at MP2/cc-pVTZ.

References

1) Bermúdez, C.; Mata, S.; Cabezas, C.; Alonso, J. L. "Tautomerism in Neutral Histidine," Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 11015-11018, DOI: 10.1002/anie.201405347.

InChIs

Histidine: InChI=1S/C6H9N3O2/c7-5(6(10)11)1-4-2-8-3-9-4/h2-3,5H,1,7H2,(H,8,9)(H,10,11)/t5-/m0/s1

InChIKey=HNDVDQJCIGZPNO-YFKPBYRVSA-N

from Computational Organic Chemistry http://ift.tt/1yCv6iG

The Alonso group has yet again (see these posts) determined the gas-phase structure of an important, biologically significant molecule using a combination of exquisite microwave spectroscopy and quantum computations. This time they examine the structure of histidine.¹

They optimized four conformations of histidine, as its neutral tautomer, at MP2/6-311++G(d,p). These are schematically drawn in Figure 1. Conformer 1a is the lowest in free energy, likely due to the two internal hydrogen bonds. Its structure is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 1. The four conformers of histidine. The relative free energy (MP2/6-311++G(d,p)) in kcal mol^-1 are also indicated.

Figure 2. MP2/6-311++G(d,p) optimized geometry of 1a.

The initial experimental rotation constants were only able to eliminate 1b from consideration. So they then determined the quadrupole coupling constants for the ¹⁴N nuclei. These values strongly implicated 1a as the only structure in the gas phase. The agreement between the experimental values and the computed values at MP2/6-311++G(d,p) was a concern, so they rotated the amine group to try to match the experimental values. This lead to a change in the NHCC dihedral value of -16° to -23° Reoptimization of the structure at MP2/cc-pVTZ led to a dihedral of -21° and overall excellent agreement between the experimental spectral parameters and the computed values.

It is somewhat disappointing the supporting materials does not include the structures of the other three isomers, nor the optimized geometry at MP2/cc-pVTZ.

References

1) Bermúdez, C.; Mata, S.; Cabezas, C.; Alonso, J. L. "Tautomerism in Neutral Histidine," Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 11015-11018, DOI: 10.1002/anie.201405347.

InChIs

Histidine: InChI=1S/C6H9N3O2/c7-5(6(10)11)1-4-2-8-3-9-4/h2-3,5H,1,7H2,(H,8,9)(H,10,11)/t5-/m0/s1

InChIKey=HNDVDQJCIGZPNO-YFKPBYRVSA-N

from Computational Organic Chemistry http://ift.tt/1yCv6iG