by Climate Conservative | Oct 10, 2022 | Climate Impact
The devastation caused in Florida recently by Hurricane Ian is unprecedented. A record-breaking storm surge, a “once in a thousand year” rainfall event, and a storm that will easily go down as the most expensive hurricane to ever hit the state.
On Sept. 26, Ian had top winds of 75 miles per hour (mph). By the next day, Hurricane Ian was sitting at a Category 3 storm with 125 mph winds. Only hours later, Ian had become a strong and massive Category 4. Its 155 mph winds just a couple mph short Category 5 strength. This rapid intensification, in addition to producing stronger storms, make storm preparation and evacuation more challenging.
Since 2005, the rapid intensification of hurricanes has become much more common. The warmer ocean waters that result from climate change create near perfect conditions for hurricanes to gain strength quickly. In addition to Ian, hurricanes Maria, Dorian, Harvey, Ida, and Katrina all experienced rapid intensification.
Warming ocean water and air temperatures are the primary reason these storms are larger in size and bringing record rainfalls. The warmer the air, they more moisture it can hold. This is a very dangerous thing because bigger and stronger hurricanes lead to higher storm surges combined with greater inland flooding from rainfall.
The result is a double whammy that our infrastructure was never designed to handle.
That’s not all. Meteorologists and climate scientists suspect that this same warming is a principle cause of these storms slowing down over land, sometimes just sitting over the same area for hours.
The ultimate example of this was Dorian, a Category 5 hurricane that hit the Bahamas in 2019. Dorian sat over Grand Bahama for 24 hours straight with winds up to 185 mph (stronger than Hurricane Irma) and heavy rainfall. After Dorian finally moved out, Grand Bahama was devastated—leveled in fact. It looked like a nuclear bomb had went off.
Now, while much of Florida is still assessing Ian’s horrific toll on lives, property, and infrastructure, we need to get serious about steps to reduce the odds of another Ian, Dorian, or worse.
The toll in lives lost and disrupted, people displaced, property destroyed, should alone be enough to spur action, but there are other ramifications as well.
Floridians face enormous cleanup and recovery costs, including repair of the power grid, rebuilding of bridges and other damaged infrastructure, and a huge impact to Florida’s already shaky insurance market. All of these costs are ultimately passed on to the public in the form of higher taxes and skyrocketing insurance rates—not just for us, but for our children and grandchildren.
If anyone, at this point, thinks that burying their head in the sand and refusing to address the underlying reasons that Ian was able to wreak such havoc is an option, they are being irresponsible and reckless, which are the opposite of being conservative.
When faced with a similar daunting climate problem, the erosion of earth’s protective ozone layer, President Ronald Reagan faced it head on. He listened to the experts and pushed through an international treaty that phased out the chemicals suspected of causing the problem.
Today, our ozone layer is healing because of Reagan’s leadership and foresight.
We need that same kind of leadership today. We need to do all we can to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are warming our atmosphere and our oceans—something conservative leaders like Reagan and his pal Margaret Thatcher were calling for 30 years ago.
For decades, we have largely failed to heed their warning, choosing instead to run away from the challenge, and allowing it to become politicized. As the Bible notes: “A man reaps what he sows.”
In all likelihood, Ian is indeed the new normal. For now. But it is not too late to take steps to make it less normal over time, or to ensure that something even worse doesn’t become the new normal.
There is nothing conservative about burying one’s head in the sand when it comes to climate stewardship—especially along Florida’s scoured Gulf Coast, where many communities are now digging out of it.
by Climate Conservative | May 5, 2021 | Climate Impact
As conservatives, we firmly believe in capitalism and the free market. The mantra “follow the market” instinctively makes sense to us. However, to do that, we must understand and accept what the market is telling us.
The energy market has always changed over time. When our country was founded, the primary energy source used was wood. Water mills also played a role for a while. Then the use of coal began to dominate starting in the late 19th century. Oil has played a big role as well, but mostly in the transportation sector.
The widespread use of electricity changed the energy picture dramatically. Instead of being burned in homes, coal was used to fuel power plants. Midway through the twentieth century, nuclear power emerged as another option for generating electricity.
Over the past two decades, natural gas gradually gained the upper hand over coal and nuclear as the primary fuel stock for electric power plants. Gas burns cleaner and has logistical advantages over coal, while nuclear has been hampered by cost and safety concerns.
Today, advances in solar and wind energy, along with similar advances in energy storage technology have vaulted those energy options over those more traditional sources in both cost and reliability.
Part of the reason this is happening is that coal and gas fired power plants have become more expensive to operate and maintain as they age. This is a big deal, because 88% of our nation’s coal-fired power plants, which have a 40-year life expectancy, were built between 1950 and 1990. The average age of our nation’s natural gas plants is 22 years old—and they have a life expectancy of 25 to 30 years. This means that the vast majority of these plants becoming uneconomical and the cost of electricity generated from coal and gas will continue to rise.
In fact, electricity generated from some coal plants is rapidly approaching $80 per megawatt hour (MWh). Gas generated electricity is headed in the same direction, as it now costs between $45 and $60 per MWh.
Meanwhile, new solar projects that include storage for nighttime generation are selling electricity for as low as $14 per MWh! Just ten short years ago that same solar power was selling for over $300 per MWh. Wind energy is priced similarly to solar.
Also notable, is the fact that purchase agreements for power from solar+storage facilities typically run for 20 years, which means that today’s low solar prices will be locked in for the next two decades.
Two decades of guaranteed bargain basement electricity prices sounds pretty good, does it not? A lot of utilities think so, which is why new solar projects are popping up all across the country.
As we consider this dramatic change in the energy market, it is worth noting that there is no red or blue, left or right, energy source. Energy is energy. If the market now favors solar and wind generated power, then we conservatives should embrace the market just as readily as we did when the market favored other forms of energy.
And, there is ample reason to believe that solar and wind could easily dominate the energy market for the next century. Keep in mind that all of the cost is upfront, the fuel is free. This contrasts greatly with coal and natural gas, where the fuel costs play a major role in the overall price.
Just like with the price of gasoline, the price of natural gas can be affected by everything from pipeline disruptions, to increasing fuel demand across the world, to foreign conflicts. If your electricity is generated from gas-fired power plants, its price can suddenly soar from any of these reasons with no warning at all—and creating a big hole in your wallet.
So, what does a changing energy market mean to us? Now that the energy market is favoring cleaner forms of energy, it means that simply by leaning into the market, we can fight climate change and lower electricity bills at the same time. There has never been a more opportune time to fight climate change, than right now.
Now is the time for we conservatives to get in the game and work to advance real climate solutions, solutions that not only help safeguard our life-sustaining atmosphere, but economic health as well.
by Climate Conservative | Dec 23, 2019 | Florida
Florida: Ground Zero for Climate Change
Nowhere on earth is immune from the effects of climate change, but some places are particularly vulnerable to those impacts. Florida, which is already under duress from climate-related problems, is ground zero. The sunshine state faces severe disruption and massive costs unless we get serious about safeguarding our life-sustaining atmosphere.
The Impacts
Tell your elected officials
Florida Needs Responsible Climate Stewardship!
It’s Conservative
Send a letter to U.S. Senators Rubio, Scott,
and your Congressman.
Send a letter to Gov. DeSantis,
your state Senator and your state Representative.
Drinking Water
Heavier rains, stronger storms, and rising sea levels present a multi-pronged assault on South Florida’s primary water source, the Biscayne Aquifer.
This aquifer is a shallow layer of highly permeable limestone that is very susceptible to contamination.
As the ocean rises, salt water is being pushed into the limestone, posing one source of contamination. Another comes as more intense flooding and rainstorms swell the water table, which risks inundating Miami-Dade’s more than 90,000 septic tanks and mainlining partially treated human waste into the aquifer.
Tourism
Florida’s attractiveness as a premier tourist destination is attributed largely to its weather and its beaches, both of which are facing dramatic changes. Increased temperatures and more rain result in more oppressively hot and humid days. An increased hurricane threat is also adversely affecting tourism. As for Florida’s world-class beaches, many on the Atlantic coast are already being inundated with mounds of foul smelling Sargassum seaweed, a problem caused by climate-related changes in the ocean and Amazon deforestation. Along the Gulf, toxic red tide is becoming more severe, killing massive amounts of fish and fouling the shoreline. A mixture of warmer ocean temperatures and increased nutrient runoff combine to create this deadly brew.
Real Estate
Climate threats to Florida’s drinking water supply and tourism industry also affect real estate values, but sea level rise, frequent flooding, and stronger hurricanes directly threaten virtually every property in the state.
The flooding threat is three pronged, with increased risk coming from more heavy rain events, stronger storm surges, and a rising ocean. The growing likelihood of monster hurricanes forming is like a continuous game of Russian roulette for Floridians.
Hurricane Dorian, which devastated much of the Bahamas with 183 mph winds, could have just as easily barreled across Florida, flattening everything in its path.
Agriculture
Agriculture, Florida’s second leading industry, is already reeling from several devastating blows that can be attributed to climate change. The citrus greening disease, which causes premature fruit drop and higher tree mortality, has decimated Florida citrus crops over the past decade. Both disease and the insect that spreads it are native to Asia and thrive in consistently warm year-round climates. Then, in 2017 Hurricane Irma knocked 50 to 90 percent of Florida’s citrus fruit to the ground in some areas and causing $760 million in damage. Beyond citrus, Florida temperature and precipitation patterns are increasingly likely to be unfavorable to a variety of key crops. Tomatoes and green beans, for example, are very susceptible to rising temperatures and farmers are already experiencing temperature-related crop failures.
Health
Floridians face increased health risks from climate change. There are direct threats from more oppressive heat, higher humidity, and poorer air quality. In coming decades, South Florida will likely see more than 120 days each year where the heat index exceeds 105 degrees. Such conditions increase the risk of heatstroke and heart attacks, exacerbate asthma, and worsen other lung disorders. Rising seas and flooding increases the opportunity for toxic chemicals and sewage to get into the drinking water sources and contaminate food crops. A warmer climate also contributes to the spread of mosquito-borne diseases such as Zika, West Nile Virus, Dengue Fever, and Encephalitis. Then there is the increased risk of bodily harm from stronger and more frequent hurricanes, tornadoes, and thunderstorms.
Fisheries
Florida’s fisheries and aquaculture industry have a combined economic impact of more than $15 billion. Climate change threatens that in numerous ways. It alters coastal wetland habitats, which are critical for many species, due to sea level rise, increased water temperature, and changes in rainfall. Sea level rise alone is expected to greatly reduce Florida’s salt-marsh habitat and tidal flats. The high carbon dioxide levels driving climate change are killing the state’s vital coral reef habitat by making ocean waters too acidic. Also, the warmer water temperatures from climate change cause more prolific algae blooms in freshwater lakes, which reduces the oxygen available for fish and other life. Beyond that, an increased frequency and severity of red tide poses a huge threat to Florida’s marine fisheries. The outbreak in 2017 and 2018 killed more than 2000 tons of fish and other marine life – including hundreds of manatees and sea turtles.
Cost of Living
Remember the old adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure?” That certainly holds true with respect to climate change and its impacts. Today, electricity from natural gas, solar, and wind is significantly cheaper than electricity from coal. Therefore, the cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions pales in comparison to the economic burden of climate change – and the enormous taxpayer cost for adaptation.
On our current path, the tax burden for Floridians will soar due to the enormous cost of protecting property and infrastructure from sea level rise and more severe storms. The projected need for seawalls alone is a budget buster. Additionally, Insurance rates will escalate more rapidly due to increased hurricane and flooding risks, and food costs are likely to rise significantly because of the impacts to agriculture.
Quality of Life
Florida has always been a popular place to live and visit because of the quality of life here. Ideal weather, beautiful beaches, recreation opportunities, a favorable business climate, you name it. Climate change poses an existential threat to those assets and the lifestyle of every Floridian.
Whether it is oppressive heat, stronger storms, or the impacts of climate change to drinking water supplies, tourism, real estate values, and agriculture, the lives and livelihoods of those who live here will change for the worse if climate change continues to worsen.
How you can help
Heading off the worst effects of climate change requires smart and effective new policies to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, the main cause of the problem. Developing these policy solutions – at both the state and federal level – is too important to cede entirely to the political left.
If our conservative lawmakers are not fully engaged in designing those policies, we will end up with whacky plans like the Green New Deal. Instead, we need targeted solutions that can win broad bi-partisan support.
Please click on the TAKE ACTION links above to send your elected officials a quick note urging them to support policies to advance clean energy and significantly reduce greenhouse gas pollution. One link is for your congressional representative and senators, and the other is for the governor and your state lawmakers.
by Climate Conservative | Jan 23, 2019 | Climate News
When the topic of climate change comes up, many folks—on both the political right and left—want to associate the issue with Al Gore, or perhaps Barack Obama, but their actions to protect earth’s life-sustaining atmosphere pale in comparison to the accomplishments of Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Yes, you read that correctly.
President Reagan, so often maligned by left-oriented environmental groups, was our nation’s original climate hero.
Reagan first signed legislation into law to address climate change. That bill, the Global Climate Protection Act of 1987, gave the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the lead role in developing a national policy on global climate change.
The legislation tasked EPA with identifying “technologies and activities to limit mankind’s adverse effect on the global climate by (A) slowing the rate of increase of concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere in the near term; and (B) stabilizing or reducing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases over the long term.”
Keep in mind that Reagan enacted that law in the mid-1980s, when climate change research was in its infancy and scientists were just starting to recognize the scope of the threat.
However, that was not Reagan’s biggest climate accomplishment. Two years later Reagan pushed through the greatest international environmental treaty in history, the Montreal Protocol.
The treaty’s purpose was to phase out the production and use of chemicals, such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) that were depleting the Earth’s ozone layer, which protects us from the sun’s radiation.
As it turns out, these chemicals are also potent greenhouse gases, with heat-trapping abilities up to 10,000 times greater than carbon dioxide.
An in-depth study published in a 2017 issue of Geophysical Research Letters found that by 2025, the Montreal Protocol will have reduced US greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by the equivalent of 500 million tons of carbon dioxide per year compared with 2005 levels.
This climate benefit far exceeds that of subsequent climate treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol.
Reagan also initiated the bi-lateral Global Climate and Environmental Change Initiative with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to expand cooperation between the two countries with respect to “global climate and environmental change.”
That Reagan took the threats of ozone depletion and climate change seriously, and acted on them, should not surprise anyone who paid attention to his tenure as Governor of California.
As governor, Reagan was very committed to cleaning up California’s notorious smog problem. Not only did he support stronger automobile pollution limits, in 1967 he established the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and appointed a scientist—an expert on smog—to lead the agency.
Around the same time, Congress was considering the Air Quality Act of 1967. Reagan wanted assurance that any new federal law would not threaten California’s strong tailpipe pollution standards. He worked with his allies in the California congressional delegation to secure a waiver that allowed the state to set its own, more stringent, pollution limits.
Those efforts have also served to reduce GHG emissions and slow the rate of climate change.
Reagan’s success as president with the Montreal Protocol agreement was a point of pride for the Republican Party, prompting the party to praise the treaty in its 1988 party platform. It then said that a similar ability to solve complex global problems such as tropical forest destruction and climate change “will be increasingly vital in the years ahead.”
While many on the political left like to blame President Reagan for the Republican Party losing its way on environmental stewardship, the inconvenient truth is that Reagan took environmental stewardship seriously, made a big difference, and had the GOP poised to tackle climate change head on.
Therefore, when Al Gore was just starting to talk about issues such as ozone depletion and climate change, Ronald Reagan was actually doing something about them.
As for the polarization and lack of progress since, well, that was on someone else’s watch.
by Climate Conservative | Jan 17, 2019 | Climate Impact
New evidence is popping up daily about the impacts and severity of climate change, including abnormal heat waves, supercharged storms, and a rapidly thawing arctic. This is all underscored by new report revealing the extent to which climate change is already wreaking havoc on the earth’s oceans and glaciers.
For conservative Christians like myself, who sometimes have issues reconciling science with Biblical teaching, it seems like a good time to reflect on God’s climate plan, and how His design should instruct our thinking and our actions going forward.
In the book of Genesis (3:19), God told Adam that his body would return to the ground when he died, saying, “…out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And unto dust you shall return.” What many tend to overlook is that God was describing a fundamental part of the carbon cycle.
Through this miraculous process carbon, an essential component of virtually all life on earth, is continuously cycled and reused. Trees and other plants, as well as the ocean, are designed to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. That carbon helps support life by being transferred to people, animals and the soil.
Much of that carbon stays in the cycle, but God in His infinite wisdom designed the carbon cycle maintain the proper balance of carbon in the atmosphere—and in the oceans—by removing excess carbon and storing it underground in the form of oil, coal and other hydrocarbons.
When we extract oil and coal from the earth and burn it in ever increasing quantities, we disturb that natural balance by releasing that stored carbon from bygone eras back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide over much shorter time scales than would naturally occur. That upsets the carbon balance in the atmosphere, causing excess carbon dioxide to build up in the atmosphere, where it begins to trap too much of the earth’s heat.
Does it not then stand to reason that God, after designing the earth’s processes to sequester excess carbon and keep our atmosphere’s chemistry in balance, would prefer that we respect His creation and find better ways to heat our homes and power our cars than using huge amounts of oil and coal?
A refrain I sometimes hear from fellow Christians, often from those who take their cues from oil and coal interests, is “God wouldn’t have put coal and oil in the ground if he didn’t want us to use them.” That presumptuous reasoning overlooks the possibly that God might have put those hydrocarbons exactly where he wanted them to stay.
At 412 parts per million (ppm), the carbon dioxide concentration in our atmosphere is the highest in human history—driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels. We are truly in unchartered territory, and as the latest reports from the NASA, IPCC and top climate scientists from around the globe show, the impacts are already evident and getting worse.
One no longer has to rely on climate modeling and predictions. We can all see and feel the changes for ourselves…hotter summers, heavier downpours, less snowpack, more wildfires, stronger hurricanes, the list could go on.
Globally, July 2019 was the hottest month ever recorded, with records going back 140 years. In fact, nine of the past 10 hottest Julys have occurred since 2005. This past September also tied with 2015 as the hottest September on record.
A byproduct of that warm air is more moisture in the atmosphere. January through September of 2019 was also the wettest such period (YTD) ever recorded.
These changes are taking a toll on our health, our livelihood, and our property. Moreover, it is stressing our nation’s infrastructure, affecting insurance premiums, and requiring more money for disaster assistance. That impacts our wallets and our country’s fiscal health.
By acting contrary to God’s design, we are putting at risk the very systems and processes that He put in place to sustain life.
Those who do not believe burning fossil fuels is altering our climate often peddle the notion that the earth was created on such a grand and complex scale, it is impossible for humankind to mess it up. In other words, we can do anything we want without serious consequence.
Does that sound like something God would say? To me, it sounds more like something the snake from the Garden of Eden would say.
Is there any aspect of our spiritual or physical life where our actions are without consequence? Everything we do has consequences—and the earth’s life-sustaining ecology was not designed to be immune from our actions and choices.
As Adam and Eve quickly discovered after giving into temptation, with knowledge comes responsibility.
With better understanding—often through scientific observation—of how God has designed the earth to function and support life, comes an even greater obligation to respect His design and live within it.
And as we consider the ever-mounting evidence that our actions are causing unprecedented harm to—as President Ronald Reagan liked to say—“this magical planet that God gave us,” it is a great time to reflect upon our obligation to be good stewards of His creation.
We would also do well to consider the words of conservative author and poet T.S. Eliot. He pointed out that, “Religion, as distinguished from modern paganism, implies a life in conformity with nature,” and then wisely concluded:
”A wrong attitude towards nature implies, somewhere, a wrong attitude towards God.”
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