“Thinking Differently and Acting Alike” from Roger Pielke, Jr.

Here’s a link to a Roger Pielke, Jr., piece in Foreign Policy. Here’s a link to yesterday’s post on his blog about it. The comments are fairly interesting also.

Of course, climate issues are of interest to people on this blog, but I especially liked this quote:

The vast complexity of the climate issue offers many avenues for action across a range of different issues. What we need is the wisdom to have a constructive debate on climate policy options without all the vitriolic proxy battles. The anger and destructiveness seen from both sides of this debate will not be going away, of course, but constructive debate will move on to focus on goals that can actually be accomplished. To paraphrase the great columnist Walter Lippmann, politics is not about getting people to think alike, but about getting people who think differently to act alike. The climate issue will never be solved completely, but it’s still possible for us to make things better or worse.

I wonder what would be the equivalent in our public lands debates for “results that can actually be accomplished”?

Below is an excerpt of the Foreign Policy piece that focuses on “what should we do next?”

So what’s the next step? For years — decades, even — science has shown convincingly that human activities have an impact on the planet. That impact includes but is not limited to carbon dioxide. We are indeed running risks with the future climate through the unmitigated release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and none of the schemes attempted so far has made even a dent in the problem. While the climate wars will go on, characterized by a poisonous mix dodgy science, personal attacks, and partisan warfare, the good news is that progress can yet be made outside of this battle.

The key to securing action on climate change may be to break the problem into more manageable parts. This should involve recognizing that human-caused climate change involves more than just carbon dioxide. This is already happening. A coalition of activists and politicians, including numerous prominent scientists, have argued that there are practical reasons to focus attention on “non-carbon forcings” — human influences on the climate system other than carbon dioxide emissions. The U.N. Environment Program argues that actions like reducing soot and methane could “save close to 2.5 million lives a year; avoid crop losses amounting to 32 million tons annually and deliver near-term climate protection of about half a degree Celsius by 2040.”

Some of these opportunities are political. For instance, in the United States, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), a loud and theatrical opponent to most action related to climate, supports action on non-carbon forcings, particularly efforts to reduce the amount of particulates in the air. As he explained to the Guardian “Al Gore probably would be against automobile accidents and I am too. This has nothing to do with the CO2 issue.” The lesson here is that if Gore and Inhofe can find common political ground on one important aspect of the issue, then there is plenty of hope for progress.

Other human influences on climate, such as those caused by chlorofluorocarbons, which are also known to impact the ozone layer, offer other tantalizing opportunities for progress while circumventing the most gridlocked parts of the debate. Similarly, the global demand for huge amounts of energy in coming decades provides a compelling rationale for energy technology innovation independent of the climate issue.

Of course, we can’t ignore carbon dioxide. Carbon emissions will remain a vexing problem because they are so tightly bound to the production of most of the world’s energy, which in turn supports the functioning of the global economy. But even here the situation may not be hopeless. America’s recent boom in the production of shale gas illustrates the virtuousness of innovation: In the United States, shale gas has become widely available and inexpensive due to technologies developed by the government and private sector over decades and has displaced large amounts of coal in a remarkably short time, dramatically reducing carbon dioxide emissions in the process. According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, carbon dioxide emissions in 2011 were lower than those of 1996, even though GDP increased by more than 40 percent after inflation.

Natural gas is not a long-term solution to the challenge of stabilizing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, because it is still carbon intensive, but the rapidly declining U.S. emissions prove an essential policy point: Make clean(er) energy cheap, and dirty energy will be quickly displaced. To secure cheap energy alternatives requires innovation — technological, but also institutional and social. Nuclear power offers the promise of large scale carbon-free energy, but is currently expensive and controversial. Carbon capture from coal and gas, large-scale wind, and solar each offer tantalizing possibilities, but remain technologically immature and expensive, especially when compared to gas. The innovation challenge is enormous, but so is the scale of the problem. A focus on innovation — not on debates over climate science or a mythical high carbon price — is where we’ll make process.

The vast complexity of the climate issue offers many avenues for action across a range of different issues. What we need is the wisdom to have a constructive debate on climate policy options without all the vitriolic proxy battles. The anger and destructiveness seen from both sides of this debate will not be going away, of course, but constructive debate will move on to focus on goals that can actually be accomplished. To paraphrase the great columnist Walter Lippmann, politics is not about getting people to think alike, but about getting people who think differently to act alike. The climate issue will never be solved completely, but it’s still possible for us to make things better or worse.

I’m all for doing better.

Smoke from the NW Visits Denver- It’s a Small World

good photos included in the CBS story here.

Have you noticed the hazy skies we have had around the Mile High City the last few days?

The current wind patterns are to blame.

At the moment there are over a dozen wildfires burning in the Pacific Northwest. There’s also a fire that has put out a bit of smoke in Western Colorado — the Wolf Fire.

The high pressure ridge over Colorado and a Jet Stream passing over the northern Rockies is pumping smoke right into our state from the northwest.

This along with the higher ozone levels has made for poor air quality that has created unhealthy conditions for people with breathing difficulty, according to Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

Draft Objection Process in Federal Register- Beginning of 30 Day Comment Period

Here’s a link from the FS website.

US Forest Service proposes to streamline land management plan review process
Provides for public comment opportunity for some land management plans

WASHINGTON, Aug. 8, 2012 — The U.S. Forest Service today published in the Federal Register a proposed regulation that will improve the administrative review process for proposed projects and activities implementing land management plans. The proposed rule is posted here.

The proposed rule for an objections process will be applied to all projects and activities that implement land management plans requiring an environmental analysis or environmental impact statement. The publication of the proposed rule will provide a 30-day public comment opportunity. All comments received will be considered before a final rule is published.

“This proposal will result in better, more informed project decisions, better documentation of environmental effects of agency proposals, and reduced regulation for administrative reviews,” said US Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell.

The Forest Service has used a predecisional objection process for hazardous fuel reduction projects since 2004. This year Congress directed the Forest Service to also establish a predecisional objection process for other projects in lieu of the post-decisional appeal procedures in use with those projects since 1993.

Note from Sharon: there was some talk of developing an interim final rule so that it could be used during the comment period and as the final rule would be developed. Since Congress specifically directed this in the Approps bill last year, this seemed to me like an appropriate approach. I wonder why it was decided to go with a rule that won’t be effective until after the public comment period, analysis of comments, and further development internally, added on to the unpredictably slow process of clearance. For something Congress directed fairly straightforwarldy, IMHO.

I heard through the grapevine it had something to do with lawyers and potential confusion with, and linkage to, the court order around notice and comment for CE’s. However, to me it seems that these can go down separate tracks. If I were in Congress, I would be wondering…and maybe attempt clarify Congressional thoughts on notice and comment for CE’s, if that is really the hold-up .

In looking around on the FS website for a “plain English” version of what’s in the proposed rule, I found this website of existing objections, which is also interesting. You can look up if there are any projects around you that use objections (HFRA projects can use them not, without the proposed rule going into effect).

If anyone knows of such a document (what I call a “plain English” version, or summary of requirements) put out by the FS, or other groups, please comment and show a link or send to my email (terraveritas@gmail.com) if it’s a document.