The Oregon Climate Change Research Institute (OCCRI) has released its first Oregon Climate Assessment Report, highlighting the impacts of climate change in Oregon.

The Report takes for a given the science:

• Temperatures will increase on average around 0.2-1°F per decade.
• Summers will be warmer and dryer.
• Extreme precipitation events will likely increase.
• Sea levels will rise, probably by 2 – 4 feet by 2100.

What will the consequences of climate change mean for Oregon?

Summer water supply will decrease as a result of reduced snowpack and summer precipitation. This will be tough on agriculture in Oregon, impacting the availability, quality and cost of water for irrigation. Wildfires will pose a bigger threat to Oregon’s forests. Coastal communities will be increasingly vulnerable to flooding and erosion. Many plant and animal species may have to pick up and move – if they can – or die, as their habitat shifts. Ocean waters will become warmer, and more acidic – and thus corrosive to certain species.

The Report emphasizes that we are already experiencing the impacts of climate change in Oregon.

Given the parade of horribles in the Report, you’d think the Report might urge strong action.  Think again.

The studies and projects discussed above present different lenses for examining public understanding and reactions to climate change. Although these studies and projects use different approaches, measures, and methods, commonalities are revealed; it is likely many Oregonians perceive climate change as a problem although they may not know the scientific details. There are cognitive and perceptual barriers that need to be addressed if we expect individuals or groups to change behaviors for either mitigating or adapting to climate change, although there appears to be general acceptance of and desire for government efforts that will direct such behavioral change. It may be possible to use existing state assessment and monitoring programs to monitor climate change impacts on cultural resources, built environments, and public health.

We need additional research to set baselines in order to monitor changes over time to understand more fully: (1) how a wide range of Oregonians who are likely to be affected by climate change due to the place they live, the job they hold, or the organization they work for experience climate change impacts; (2) the acceptability of specific policy and behavioral changes to a wide range of Oregonians; and (3) the barriers faced by individuals, groups, and organizations, including state agencies, as they start to respond to the observed impacts of climate change in Oregon.

That’s the recommended course of action? Wait until we “understand more fully” how and where Oregonians might be effected; what actions might prove acceptable, and when; and where and how strong the opposition is  to any action at all?

Pretty weak broth, following really sterling work laying out the situation.

A legislative summary of the report is available here.

As the latest round of climate talks kick off in Cancun, the world’s oldest and most prestigious scientific society is saying:

[T]here is now little to no chance of maintaining the global mean surface temperature at or below 2^°C. Moreover, the impacts associated with 2^°C have been revised upwards, sufficiently so that 2^°C now more appropriately represents the threshold between ‘dangerous’ and ‘extremely dangerous’ climate change.

The quote above is from the abstract of the article Beyond ‘dangerous’ climate change: emission scenarios for a new world, published in a special theme issue of the Royal Society of London periodical Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. The reports contained in the issue, entitled “Four degrees and beyond: the potential for a global temperature increase of four degrees and its implications”, stem from the Four Degrees and Beyond Conference held in September 2009. Participants were asked to specifically address the questions of (i) how probable a warming of four degrees or higher might be, (ii) what the consequences of such a warming might be for ecosystems and society, (iii) how to adapt to such large changes, and (iv) how to keep the risk of high-end climate change as low as possible.

Even if global carbon emission curbs were to be agreed in the future, the emissions reductions would be insufficient to limit global temperature rises to 2 degrees Celsius this century. To have a realistic chance of doing that, the world would have to get carbon emissions to peak within 15 years and then follow this up with a massive decarbonization of society. The odds of this happening are zero. It won’t happen – at least not voluntarily. The politics are simply too daunting.

We’ve already built in an overshoot of 2^°C, and are heading towards 4^°C. So what?

“In such a 4°C world, the limits for human adaptation are likely to be exceeded in many parts of the world, while the limits for adaptation for natural systems would largely be exceeded throughout the world.”

The concluding piece by Rachel Warren, “The role of interactions in a world implementing adaptation and mitigation solutions to climate change,” suggests that adaptation may not be possible. The interaction of impacts is likely to be overwhelming as ecosystems collapse over large parts of the Earth:

[A] 4°C world would be facing enormous adaptation challenges in the agricultural sector, with large areas of cropland becoming unsuitable for cultivation, and declining agricultural yields. This world would also rapidly be losing its ecosystem services, owing to large losses in biodiversity, forests, coastal wetlands, mangroves and saltmarshes, and terrestrial carbon stores, supported by an acidified and potentially dysfunctional marine ecosystem. Drought and desertification would be widespread, with large numbers of people experiencing increased water stress, and others experiencing changes in seasonality of water supply. There would be a need to shift agricultural cropping to new areas, impinging on unmanaged ecosystems and decreasing their resilience; and large-scale adaptation to sea-level rise would be necessary. Human and natural systems would be subject to increasing levels of agricultural pests and diseases, and increases in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.

In such a 4°C world, the limits for human adaptation are likely to be exceeded in many parts of the world, while the limits for adaptation for natural systems would largely be exceeded throughout the world. Hence, the ecosystem services upon which human livelihoods depend would not be preserved. Even though some studies have suggested that adaptation in some areas might still be feasible for human systems, such assessments have generally not taken into account lost ecosystem services.

If the conclusions of the scientists contributing to the Royal Society’s special issue are not worrisome enough, their models still do not incorporate the feedback effects of methane emissions from thawing tundra or melting methane hydrates.

Preventing global warming by giving up the burning of fossil fuels – and doing so quickly – is humanity’s only hope.  Peak oil could yet prove to be humanity’s best friend.

For the last six or seven years something has been seriously wrong with the global supply of oil. It hasn’t been increasing, as shown in this graph posted by David Cohen in a piece titled Peak oil – where do we stand.

On a yearly basis, conventional oil production (crude oil plus lease condensate) peaked in 2005. On a monthly basis, conventional oil production peaked in July 2008. That doesn’t necessarily mean these peaks will not be surpassed in the future – but it’s clear that the years of steadily rising oil production are over.

Cohen points out the world is now in the position of having put all of its future oil production eggs in one risky basket – the Saudi basket.

When push comes to shove in terms of global demand, how much oil is Saudi Arabia willing [or able] to produce? We really don’t know.

One result of constrained oil production was the great oil price spike to $147 a barrel in the summer of 2008, which was (to mix a metaphor) the straw that popped the great financial/credit bubble that had been growing in the U.S. and Europe for several decades. It didn’t take declining supplies of oil to cause incalculable damage to the world’s economy. All it took was for supplies to stop increasing.

As Tom Whipple observes in his article Peak Oil Crisis: The Midterms, politicians from both political parties are running on a platform of a return to the good times and economic growth that we in America have known for much of our lifetimes. Telling it like it is – that there will be little or no economic growth for a long time and growing impoverishment of most of the population – would be political suicide. Our politics have become completely disconnected with reality:

The unwillingness of both parties to deal with the real issue — that the fossil fuel age is coming to an end and that we must rapidly restructure our economy and lifestyles — means that sensible proposals are completely absent from the political dialogue.

The dénouement:

We are actually going to drive ourselves over a great economic cliff with banners of “growth,” “jobs,” “return to the good old days,” and “no taxes” streaming in the wind. It is going to be one hell of a train wreck – unlike anything the American people have ever known.

For decades, increases in global oil production have been accompanied by economic growth. Current economic theories take increasing energy supplies in general and oil production in particular for granted.  Charles Hall cautioned, at the seventh Advances in Energy Studies Conference in Barcelona, that current economic theories are quite probably not true, going forward. We need new economic theories applicable to the downslope we are approaching.

Mark Brown at the same conference argued that we need more than just new economic theories: we need to change our way of being.

The problem is not just resource availability nor is it finding another energy source. The problem is BUSINESS AS USUAL. The environmental, social, and economic consequences of unlimited cheap energy might be even worse than limited fossil fuels. Our fascination and addiction with continued growth may have unbelievable consequences in the long run. Faced with the possibility of unlimited growth, and its coupled consequences, one can only hope that we fail in our attempts to solve this current crisis so that our focus will turn to living within the planet’s carrying capacity.

Unfortunately, political leaders, here and around the globe, are not listening, and are continuing to pursue growth even though it can no longer be denied that emissions stemming from economic growth are destroying the planet. When they work up enough courage to consider any action at all, the best they can come up with is market-based “solutions” that avoid real change, instead promoting the same economic model responsible for the crisis.

Laura Carlsen has it exactly right:

If the world that defends our current model of production and consumption prevails, the planet will edge ever closer to catastrophe.

The U.S military, the German military, the U.K. financial community, and the U.S. investment community have all acknowledged the immanence and the potentially calamitous consequences  of peak oil. But the words “peak oil” have yet to slip from a politician’s lips (with the amazing exception of Representative Roscoe Bartlett, R-Maryland).

A political body may at last be poised to take notice.

In New Zealand, a new research paper done for the New Zealand Parliament by the Parliamentary Service predicts decades of economic turmoil and recessions face the world as oil supplies run low and energy prices surge.

The paper is titled The Next Oil Shock?. A summary is available here.

Here are the key points from the summary:

• Oil is “the lifeblood of modern civilisation”. This paper provides an overview of the global oil market. In particular, it examines the outlook for oil supply and demand over the next five years, and the economic consequences.
• Low-cost reserves of oil are being rapidly exhausted, forcing oil companies to turn to more expensive sources of oil. This replacement of low-cost sources of oil with higher-costs sources is driving the price of oil higher.
• While the world will not run out of oil reserves for decades to come, it cannot indefinitely continue to produce oil at an increasing rate from the remaining reserves. Forecasts indicate that world oil production capacity will not grow or fall in the next five years while demand will continue to rise.
• If oil production capacity does not rise as fast as demand, the buffer of spare production capacity disappears. In such a ‘supply crunch’ the price of oil ‘spikes’ to high levels. High oil prices can induce global recessions.
• Organisations including the International Energy Agency and the US military have warned that another supply crunch is likely to occur soon after 2012 due to rising demand and insufficient production capacity.
• There is a risk that the world economy may be at the start of a cycle of supply crunches leading to price spikes and recessions, followed by recoveries leading to supply crunches.
• New Zealand is heavily dependent on oil imports and will remain so for the foreseeable future. While there is potential to substantially increase domestic production, domestic oil production cannot insulate New Zealand from global oil price shocks because New Zealand pays the world price for goods like oil.
• Key export-generating industries in the New Zealand economy including tourism and timber, dairy, and meat exports are very vulnerable to oil shocks because of their reliance on affordable international transport.

We’re not quite ready yet in our political discourse to face hard reality. And we’re not yet quite ready to concede that peak oil means peak demand as well – that is, the growth that is assumed in our political and economic thinking is over:

The world’s oil production capacity may not be sufficient to match growing demand in coming years. The potential for short-falls arises from geological, infrastructure, and political/economic constraints limiting the ability of world oil production capacity to grow while demand continues to rise.

Note the conditional language “if” and “may”, in the passage above and in this passage describing consequences of oil supply shortfalls:

If oil supply cannot meet demand a price spike may be triggered, with major detrimental effects on economies, especially those heavily dependent on oil imports.

Nevertheless, an important milestone has been reached. One political body in a major developed country is formally entertaining the concept of peak oil, considering the consequences, and conceiving that there may be storm clouds on the economic horizon. Notable for its absence is any indication of awareness that there may be political consequences as well.

Nobody “official” – no country, no established economic research institute, no international organization (such as the IMF) – appears willing to entertain any notion or to publicly discuss scenarios that don’t plan for a return to stable economic (GDP) growth.

But then there’s the non-establishment Institute for Integrated Economic Research – which is unafraid to think the unthinkable.

The IIER suspects the odds of business-as-usual coming to an end are pretty high.

Nate Hagens at The Oil Drum: Campfire suggests it might be entertaining and perhaps even enlightening to begin asking our politicians, what will you do if growth is over?

Over the last 60 years, anti-urban policies have resulted in an energy-sucking, emissions-spewing U.S. Edward L. Glaeser, a professor of economics at Harvard University, points to subsidization of highways and home ownership as deliberate policy choices that have bled cities and encouraged a suburban and exurban infrastructure – one that is dependent on high levels of energy inputs (resulting in emissions outputs) both for transportation and to power buildings.

Glaeser cites studies that find each new federally-funded highway passing through a central city reduces its population by about 18%. Cities don’t benefit much from that highway infrastructure because dense areas already have good means of getting around – like walking.

Subsidizing home ownership is also anti-urban. Glaeser gives Boston as an example: 62% of Boston homes are rented; 78 percent of suburban Wellesley homes are owner-occupied. Cities are dominated by apartments, and more than 85% of homes in multi-unit structures are rented. Suburbs are dominated by single-family detached houses, and more than 85% of such homes are owner-occupied.  Multi-unit structures are generally both smaller and more energy-efficient than detached single-family dwellings considering both embedded and operating energy and emissions – at least up to a point.

Subsidizing home ownership, through Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the home mortgage interest deduction, lures people out of apartments and cities, increasing their energy and emissions footprints.

The U.S. isn’t alone in promoting sprawl. Canadian government at all levels spends more than four times as much on highways as on transit, thus opening up suburbs for development. As in the U.S, Canadian cities and suburbs artificially limit density through single-use zoning that also imposes density limitations and minimum parking requirements.  Low density limits the number of people who can walk to jobs, shops or transit stops, thus making development more car-oriented. But overall, the Canadian government promotes sprawl less aggressively than the United States – and gets less of it as a result.

One consequence of “less bad” anti-urban policies, Canadian cities are healthier and more vibrant than American cities. Among the ten cities that were America’s most populous in 1950, eight have lost population- often by huge margins.  The most extreme example is St. Louis, which lost 59 percent of its population between 1950 and 2000.  By contrast, every single one of Canada’s 1950 “Top Ten” cities has gained population.

So how to reduce energy consumption and emissions? A good start would be to eliminate highway subsidies, to stop subsidizing home ownership, and to give more respect and provide greater rewards to renters.

The Oregon Senate has approved a bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks.

SB 1059, which implements recommendations from 2009 Metropolitan Planning Organization Greenhouse Gas Emissions Task Force, does more than just set targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in metro areas. It also directs state agencies to:

• Develop a statewide transportation strategy on greenhouse gases.
• Craft a toolkit to assist local governments and metro areas in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector.
• Develop guidelines for scenario planning – used by communities across the country to consider alternative choices of land use patterns and transportation options to reduce emissions.
• Work with the Oregon University System to educate the public about the costs and benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
• Report back to the 2011 Legislature with an estimate of how much it will cost local governments to prepare and select a land use and transportation scenario that reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and potential sources of funding.
• Report back to the 2013 Legislative Assembly with an assessment of how the agencies are doing on these tasks.

The bill passed out of the Senate despite unanimous opposition from Republicans, 17-13 (Sen. Rick Metsger, D-Mount Hood joining the Rs in voting “no”). The bill now goes to the House, where it will most likely come up for a vote Wednesday.

Mary Kyle McCurdy, 1000 Friends of Oregon Policy Director, stated in a press release:

This victory will help create healthier, sustainable communities across Oregon. And it’s a major step for giving Oregonians better transportation choices.

The press release also quotes Chris Hagerbaumer, Deputy Director of the Oregon Environmental Council:

SB 1059 is a win-win for cities and towns across Oregon. The bill will help create the tools and resources local governments need to make cost effective decisions on planning future growth while also improving air quality and reducing harmful greenhouse gas emissions. Cities and towns of all sizes will be able to use the tools that the agencies develop.

The Task Force identified a number of additional benefits that would accrue from reducing greenhouse gas emissions, including: saving families money by reducing their transportation costs; lower public infrastructure costs; healthier lifestyles due to more opportunities to walk and bike; and greater energy security by reducing our reliance on fossil fuels.

UPDATE 2/25/2010: SB 1059, which would initiate steps to cut greenhouse gas emissions in transportation, is headed to the governor’s office after passing out of the House 32 to 26 Wednesday. The Rs voted against the bill as a solid block. Two Ds, Terry Beyer of Springfield and Arnie Roblan of Coos Bay, joined the Rs in opposition.

Amanda Gelder has a great interview with Jeremy Rifkin at Culturelab. What I find most intriguing are the connections Rifken draws among psychology, politics, and economics. We find ourselves in a pickle of historic proportions at the moment at least in part because of errors in thinking about these things.

I’ll try to pull together a couple of threads to focus on economic thinking and its relationship to the global crisis we face:

The Enlightenment view is that human beings are rational, detached agents that pursue our own self-interests and our nation states reflect that view. . .

A lot of interesting new discoveries in evolutionary biology, neuroscience, child development, anthropology and more suggest that human nature might not be what Enlightenment philosophers suggested. For instance, the discovery of mirror neurons suggests that we are not wired for autonomy or utility but for empathic distress; we are a social species.

* * *

Geopolitics is an extension of the Enlightenment view of human nature, the idea that we pursue our utilitarian pleasures and individual self-interests. In geopolitics, the nation-state becomes a macro view of that. Nations deal with nations by being rational, detached and calculating, pursuing self-interests, excercising power and acquiring more capital and wealth. That’s why Copenhagen failed. The world leaders weren’t thinking biosphere, they were thinking geopolitics. Everyone was looking out for their nation’s self-interest.

* * *

A lot of business people would say that you can’t be empathic in the market. But the market is a secondary institution–it’s an extension of culture. The real invisible hand of the market is trust, which is the result of empathic engagement. The only way you can have a market is if you have a shared narrative. The market is not a utilitarian frame of reference, it only exists by the social trust that allows people to engage in anonymous settings and believe that their engagements will be honored. When that trust fails, markets collapse and that’s what is happening now.

Rifken thinks the new world of distributed knowledge and distributed energy means we’ve moving from Homo sapien to Homo empathicus. His vision is attractive. I wish I could share his optimism. Still, we too often forget that philosophy does not live just in acedemia – it has real world implications. The “market” we have come to deify today is really nothing more than a myth, a powerful one that has turned destructive and threatens to consume civilization itself.

Rifkin has just published a new 600-page book, The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis, in which he expands on the ideas explored in the interview. I recall in my college days (note we were flower children of the 60s) reading books about evolving human consciousness.  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s  The Phenomenon of Man. Lancelot Law Whyte’s The Next Development in Man. Remember Charles Reich’s The Greening of America? Answer: not without some embarrassment.

So count me skeptical. My remaining aspirations are much less ambitious than forging a new human consciousness, rather just to eat well and live warmly in an increasingly uncertain world.

Lane County is convening a stakeholders group with the objective of revising the county’s comprehensive plan and development code to address the burning issues of the 21st century: how to best ensure cleaner, healthier, safer, and more prosperous communities in a world increasingly threatened by energy shortfalls and a warming climate.

Here’s the text of an email sent out by Planning Director Kent Howe:

All,

As part of the citizen involvement process for Lane County’s Long Range Planning Program, you have volunteered to participate in the Lane County Stakeholder Group that will be reviewing potential revisions to land use policies and regulations.

The Lane County Board of Commissioners has directed Land Management Division staff to facilitate this group process.

The first meeting of the Stakeholder’s Group is Thursday, February 25th, 6:00pm, Harris Hall, 125 E. 8th Ave, Eugene.

At the Feb 17, 2010, meeting the Board specified the Stakeholder Group review the first 6 policy issues in the Goal One Code Amendment Proposal, attached. These correspond to lines 1-24 on the Preliminary List of Code Amendments spread sheet, also attached.

We look forward to working with you. If you have any questions, please give me a call.

Thanks,

Kent Howe
Planning Director
Lane County
541-682-3734

The text of the amendments proposed by Goal One Coalition and LandWatch Lane County is available here.

So all of you Lane County folks who are concerned about figuring out a way to strong local economies that will be resilient enough to grapple with the challenges we are already beginning to face, here’s your chance to take on the developers who normally have their way.

See you Thursday!

Republican Governor Jan Brewer has pulled Arizona out of the Western Climate Initiative.

The Western Climate Initiative is made up of seven Western states — Arizona, California, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington — and four Canadian provinces. Its modest goal is to achieve a 15% reduction from 2005 emissions levels by 2020. The regional cap-and-trade program was to begin in 2012, but California is the only state on schedule.

The New York Times quotes Benjamin Grumbles, the head of the state’s environmental agency:

Green and grow is our approach now.

Fearful that cutting emissions plan will slow the state’s economic recovery, Arizona will focus less on regulations and instead support initiatives to expand the use of solar power, nuclear power and other renewable energy sources. Arizona will look at “growth policies that limit pollution” and “steps to adapt to the changing climate.”

Arizona is also reconsidering the stricter vehicle-emissions rules set to take effect in 2012.

A glimpse at conditions to which Arizona is going to have to adopt to is found in the U.S. Global Change Research Program report, Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States (2009):

Recent warming in the Southwest has been among the most rapid in the nation. This is driving declines in spring snowpack and Colorado River flow. Projections of future climate change indicate continued strong warming in the region, with much larger increases under higher emissions scenarios compared to lower. Projected summertime temperature increases are greater than the annual average increases in parts of the region and are likely to be exacerbated by expanding urban heat island effects. Further water cycle changes are projected, which, combined with increasing temperatures, signal a serious water supply challenge in the decades and centuries ahead. The prospect of future droughts becoming more severe due to warming is a significant concern, especially because the Southwest continues to lead the nation in population growth.

The report identifies several key issues for the Southwest as climate rapidly changes:

• Water supplies will become increasingly scarce, calling for tradeoffs among competing uses, and potentially leading to conflict.
• Increasing temperature, drought, wildfire, and invasive species will accelerate transformation of the landscape.
• Increased frequency and altered timing of flooding will increase risks to people, ecosystems, and infrastructure.
• Unique tourism and recreation opportunities are likely to suffer.
• Cities and agriculture face increasing risks from a changing climate.

“Green and grow.” Sigh.