Notes from a Climate Scientist: Bark up THIS Tree!

I spent the first half of this week at The Yellowstone Business Partnership's 10th anniversary conference, with the magnificent backdrop of the Tetons, looking back at our past 10 years of challenges and accomplishments, and planning ahead for our next 10.  Perhaps my favorite session, after the inspiring allegory by author Gary Ferguson about Nature as the Great Equalizer (the sow griz with cubs doesn't care who has the most money, or the bluest blood.  She'll deliver her butt kicking to whoever is the biggest threat!), was Dr. Steve Running's report on the latest climate science.  Dr. Running won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his work with Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  Our executive director had asked him to give "an inspiring climate talk"...to which he replied: "...?..."

Carbon dioxide has risen by 36% since accurate measurements began in 1958.  Just two weeks ago, a milestone (and not in a good way): Earth's CO2 level passes 400 parts per million, "for the first time in 55 years of measurement, and probably more than 3 million years of Earth history." Major bummer.

Dr. Running outlined the global implications, as well as those that hit closer to home.  He really hit home with this graph and this sobering statement: "Until we shut down coal power, NOTHING else we do will matter."

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize from this graph that coal accounts for 43% of global emissions in 2011.  Living in Montana, coal is a hot button issue.  We have coal aplenty, so much coal that our ex-Governor is the biggest proponent of the benefits of "clean coal"; Dr. Running says the industry is talking about it but they aren't doing it, there is no technological basis for even testing the idea of "cleaner coal".  Here are just a few of the current controversies or "campaigns" surrounding coal in my beautiful home state:

• In Montana, Ranchers Line Up Against Coal: A ranching family that has been on their land for the past 125 years, now at risk of losing the viability of their 31,000 acres because of groundwater and aquifer contamination and the proposed Tongue River Railroad cutting through 9 miles of their ranch
• Count on Coal Montana: "All Montanans benefit from affordable electricity, job creation and state tax revenue when Montana produces and sells its abundant coal resources. These benefits are threatened by environmental activists who seek to end or minimize coal production in Montana, drive up our electricity rates and prevent Montanans from taking advantage of our most abundant natural and economic resource."
• Port Cities Protest: The Leadership Alliance Against Coal, the coalition formed by the Seattle mayor and other city and tribal leaders concerned about the impacts that increased coal train traffic through Washington state will have on traffic, public health and the environment

The Union of Concerned Scientists released a 2012 report titled "Ripe for Retirement: The Case for Closing America's Costliest Coal Plants", which makes the case for great opportunity to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy.  The report reveals that more than 3/4 of America's coal-fired power plants have outlived their 30-year lifespan, with 17 being older than 50 years.  They are inefficient, and cannot meet emissions standards.  "They lack essential modern pollution controls, so they damage public health. The sulfur they emit causes acid rain. The mercury they release poisons waterways and fish and causes neurological damage in children (EPA 2012). The soot they emit creates smog that causes lung disease, premature death, and triggers asthma attacks (EPA 2010a; NRC 2010). Burning coal demands billions of gallons of cooling water from vulnerable rivers and lakes, and leaves behind vast quantities of toxic ash residuals, while coal mining causes extensive and lasting damage both to human health and the natural environment (Gentner 2010; NRC 2010)."  The US is slowing down coal fired power plants, because the old plants can’t meet mercury emisisons standards and aren’t grandfathered in any more.  So the new strategy is to ship it to China.  Why not?  Outta sight, outta mind, right?  

This photo is taken in Missoula, MT, my hometown.  The parking lot on the right is the nursing home where my mom works.  The train cars in the background are transporting Montana coal west to Seattle and then on to China.  She spends the majority of her time, right here with these osprey, breathing in this coal dust and oblivious to the dangers rumbling by on the tracks.  Is she getting mercury poisoning, from walking to her car every day and working for 12 hours in a building with air circulated from outside?  Outta sight, outta mind?  Not so much.

So this scares me, and pisses me off.  Why is this so hard for us to understand?