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Straight Up: America's Fiercest Climate Blogger Takes on the Status Quo Media, Politicians, and Clean Energy Solutions

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In the footsteps of George Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant, about GOP language games and how to counter them, Jospeh Romm shows us how to use the Ancient Greek art of rhetoric to debunk the complete irrationality coming out of the GOP today, as regards the urgency of fixing climate change, which does not necessarily mean "hotter everywhere all the time", but certainly does mean new and dangerous extremes in weather. Don't tell me you haven't experienced some of it in the last few years.

Republicans have successfully sown a lot of uncertainty, recently, that the planet's warming is man-made. Here Romm debunks climate-change deniers like Bjorn Lomborg and Sarah Palin, and shows you how to do it, too; although mostly it is directed at scientists who know the evidence intimately, which to be fair is not all of us.

Joe is a trained climate physicist from MIT who served in the Clinton administration
as assistant deputy energy secretary and has also written many books. He spent some years showing companies how they could retrofit their companies(or, I think, build new ones) to be more energy efficient and in every case they took a profit in doing so! We do want to give credit to those in business, some among the GOP, who understand the need for clean energy.

In this book, Romm has married both arts of science and fine writing.

The intro refers back to George Orwell's Essays on Politics and the English Language,
particularly the chapter, "Why I Write". Joe calls his "Why I blog." Kudos to him for opening completely to readers about his motivations so you know exactly where he's coming from and that his not just a political axe to grind. Climate Change, as he says, is a bipartisan issue.

There's a good section on the science of the most energy efficient car(hybrid plug-ins), the feasibility of the different new, but not impossibly new, forms of energy, including a wild(but not new) one I'd never heard of, CSP, which involves using mirrors to catch the sun's light and direct it into energy creation.
Romm discusses most of the alternative forms out there as wedges of a pie that would get us to be much less dependent on oil. And it must be done yesterday
but there's still hope.

Romm also points out that the media did a terrible job of assessing the outcome of Copenhagen. They called that international summit on climate change underwhelming. In fact, a lot went on! "Read all about it."

It also goes without saying that media too often feels that it has to present both sides of every story- even when only one side is supported by the facts.
But Romm says it here with a vengeance.

This book comes out at an auspicious time when Kerry and Lieberman just presented a Bill last week.
Here's a quote from today, May 20, 2010, where Romm urges the Senate to act on it:

"WashPost: Senate needs to act now on climate bill

Quotes IEA: 'Every year the world fails to seriously deal with climate change raises the price tag by $500 billion -- a lot of which, no doubt, Americans will be on the hook for' May 20, 2010
Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) have provided Congress with an opportunity. Their climate bill, released last week, is imperfect. But it offers a start, very much in the right direction. Contrary to popular wisdom, acting on global warming is not going to get easier after this year's election. Legislators should seize this moment."


Joseph Romm's a famous blogger now, and doesn't need me to tout this book.
If you would like to keep up with his blog, it's at climateprogress dot org or you can follow him on Twitter under the name "climateprogress"

If you haven't bought or read Straight Up, please do so immediately. Joe Romm has an amazing ability to stay fact-driven and optimistic even as the anti-science ideologues become even more entrenched. It is this passionate science-based activism (and similar efforts by so many others) that may preserve a livable climate for our children and grandchildren.

My favorite aspect of the book is Romm's dedication to realism and honesty. Romm states, "Affection for the planet is unrequited. We need to focus on saving ourselves." By separating himself and climate-change from traditional environmentalism, Romm is able to focus on the true challenge: preserving a livable climate for humans. Combined with the "why I blog" section of the book, Romm makes it clear that he and many other Climate-change activists are not driven by an environmental or liberal idealism, but rather the rational and science-based understanding of the consequences of business-as-usual (i.e. worst-case-scenario.) We can only hope this kind of inspection of both the science and the solutions (and the barriers to each) will become more pervasive, and finally transform the undeserved perception of "alarmism."

Between climate deniers who will stretch the truth so far out of whack to kill any effort to reduce greenhouse gases, to the media who constantly demonstrate incompetence when covering climate change, Straight Up is a welcome relief. Joe Romm brings a strong scientific background in climate change research to bear on the efforts by the right to mislead the public into doing nothing to stop the most serious threat to our ability to survive as a species. And he provides an equally compelling critique of the ineptitude among members of the media to accurately report the reality that climate change is caused by humans.

Joe Romm addresses every issue of contention with clarity and a facts.

Drawn from the most influential climate change blog around ([...]), Straight Up gives you the real deal. It is both scientifically grounded and easily accessible. Straight Up is a must read for anyone that wants to be serious about learning the facts related to climate change.

If there is one book to read this year, this is the one. The most important issue for humankind to address is GLOBAL WARMING. This book by a scientist cuts through the disinformation and gets to the true facts surrounding global warming and lays out the stark reality facing our children and grandchildren. Rather than being a constant downer this book provides hope, but only if we get action now! A must read.

Let's assume for a moment that I agree with Romm about the need to "stabilize" atmospheric CO2 concentrations at 450ppm. Even though I don't agree with this statement, Romm's solution for doing this is neither as cost effective as he claims nor capable of providing the on demand power we rely on for everyday use.

The main thrust of Romm's argument is that we need to use "wedges" to stabilize atmospheric CO2 concentrations. A couple of "wedges" of forests, "wedges" of nuclear, "wedges" of solar, "wedges" of efficiency and so on. Honestly, its not a terrible way of looking at the issue. Where Romm is severely lacking is in his estimation of what these wedges will cost and how effective they will be.

Take wind power, for example. Romm believes that not only is wind power cost competitive with nuclear, its actually less expensive. Its easy to see why he comes to this conclusions: he overestimates the cost of nuclear and ignores the total installed cost of wind. Romm uses some ridiculously high installed costs for nuclear, $10,800/kw, basing it off of one proposal and compares nuclear generation with renewable generation on a one to one basis. But renewable like solar and wind are intermittent generators and have extremely low capacity factors of 20-30% (average power produced/maximum power produced) and nuclear generators have extremely high capacity factors 90-95%. That means for every one watt of nuclear you install, you would have to install three watts of renewable to get the same output. Additionally since Romm would like to see renewables provide for baseload generation you would also have to factor in construction of spinning reserves, likely natural gas, pumped storage, or some other form of backup generation/storage, to provide a reliable baseload supply. Additionally renewable power tends to be located far from consumers and far away from existing grid tie ins. A mile of high voltage DC transmission line, as mentioned by Romm, costs about $2million a mile.

So while nuclear power does have significantly higher capital construction costs per watt of installed capacity, it can be located closer to existing grid tie ins, has triple the capacity factor of renewables (lower an apples to apples cost by 2/3rds), is not as land intensive, and needs no spinning reserve or electricity storage because its not intermittent. When all these factors are taken into account, nuclear is less expensive than renewable. Nuclear may seem so much more expensive because the initial price tag is so high, but so too is the overall capacity.

And we haven't even touched on the modular designs that will be coming onto the scene in the next five years.

Romm also puts a large emphasis on energy conservation. He believes that reducing energy usage will ofsett enough carbon to bring us to that magical 450ppm and it will be cheaper, on a $/kw basis, then building new generation. This certainly makes sense until one considers the "Jevons Paradox". This was first observed in the mid 19th century in Great Britain. The Jevons Paradox explains why gains in efficiency are offset by increased consumption. Instead of saving the energy conserved through efficiency, society will find new ways to use it leading to greater consumption than before the efficiency gains were made. This isnt an entirely bad thing of course, as efficiency makes society materially wealthier. Naturally Romm has a solution for this: taxation and regulation to eliminate the increased consumptive effects of energy efficiency. Sounds good but without the economic advantage of both the savings and the increased production potential the market incentive for the kinds of massive efficiency gains Romm calls for won't materialize. Put another way, let's say that you figure out a way to increase your workplace productivity by 100%, instead of your boss rewarding you with more money or more time off, he just makes you work that additional 4 hours at twice your output. You could cynically argue that business already does this, but it's not much of an incentive to be productive.

Far from being a "sophisticated" analysis of climate, energy and public policy the book is a sophomoric attempt to push Romm's philosophy on these subjects and does so with poorly developed models and an incomplete understanding of the nation's electrical generation infrastructure.

Romm is one of those climate activists who have decided that he should tell lies about nuclear power in order to promote his preferred sources of low carbon energy.

He does it in the standard way: "renewables" are defined as "clean". "Clean" is "green". "Clean", "green", "renewables" are the only "low carbon", or "carbon free" sources of energy that can or will be the solution to climate change.

When pressed, Romm will admit that nuclear power is fundamentally or potentially carbon free - depending where the energy comes from at any point as uranium is mined, nuclear plants are built, etc. I believe he will accept the IPCC AR4 assessment that nuclear is as low carbon now as "renewables". However, the Romm line is that nuclear as too expensive.

For a good illustration of Romm in action in debate with nuclear experts, see the video posted online of his appearance at Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering Second Annual Great Issues in Energy Symposium: The Nuclear Option. [...] Here you will hear Romm himself state his nuclear line to the crowd, in the presence of one of his former teachers, Dr. Ernie Moniz of MIT, Director of the Energy and Environment Lab there, member of President Obama's Council of Advisors for Science and Technology and Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future.

Romm gasses on describing how serious climate change is, touting CSP, i.e. solar thermal electrical power and dumping on nuclear. He claims baseload electricity is no longer required, and he denounces nuclear power as so expensive it is "priceless", claiming no one in their right mind would build any nuclear plants in the US unless there were huge subsidies implemented over fears of climate change.

Moniz takes the floor and says all this is not true. Moniz tells the crowd to look up the Du and Parsons study associated with the 2009 MIT update to "The Future of Nuclear Power" report, for detailed and accurate information on the cost of nuclear power. During the Q&A Romm's line emerges in more detail - he wants everyone to build solar thermal and other renewables now, no matter what the cost, and the "learning curve" will drive the price down in time so that the cost will at last be competitive.

Moniz decides the best way to counter this meme of Romm's is to quote an authority he knows Romm will hesitate to be seen to be disagreeing with - John Deutch. Moniz: "... I will just "neutrally" quote my colleague John Deutch, who says, "learning curves are the refuge of scoundrels". Looking at Romm, Moniz then says "you can argue with John".

Romm: "I would never argue with John".

Joe Romm joins that long list of hysteria and fear hustlers. People who have profited off of predicting terrible futures that never happen.
Hal Lindsey did it in the 1970's with the bible. Paul Ehrlich did it in the 1960's with population.
Romm does it now with climate.
He calls himself 'fierce' but he is just another angry rude guy whose only contribution is to be left on that long list of losers who make money selling fear.