Climate news this week: the world's newest island, scandal at Interior, China debates climate--9/12

Perhaps the biggest climate news this week comes from the North Pole, which apparently has become the world's newest island (see NASA image below):

The North Pole has become an island for the first time in human history as climate change has made it possible to circumnavigate the Arctic ice cap.

The historic development was revealed by satellite images taken last week showing that both the north-west and north-east passages have been opened by melting ice.

Prof Mark Serreze, a sea ice specialist at the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in the US said the images suggested the Arctic may have entered a "death spiral" caused by global warming.

Global warming has caused the Arctic icecap to retreat from neigbouring continents creating opening a gap.

Meanwhile, employees at the Dept. of the Interior's Minerals Management Service have been, um, busy at work:

Government officials in charge of collecting billions of dollars worth of royalties from oil and gas companies accepted gifts, steered contracts to favored clients and engaged in drug use and illicit sex with employees of the energy firms, federal investigators reported yesterday.

Investigators from the Interior Department's inspector general's office said more than a dozen employees, including the former director of the oil royalty program, took meals, ski trips, sports tickets and golf outings from industry representatives. The report alleges that the former director, Gregory W. Smith, also netted more than $30,000 from improper outside work.

The report from Inspector General Earl E. Devaney contains fresh allegations about the practices at the beleaguered royalty-in-kind program of Interior's Minerals Management Service, which last year collected more than $4 billion worth of oil and natural gas from companies given contracts to tap energy on federal and Indian lands and offshore. The revelations come as Congress is set to consider opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and areas off the coast of Florida for drilling.

I could make some comment here about the current administration literally being in bed with the oil & gas industry, wonder when "sex, drugs and oil 'n'gas" replaced "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll" or ask why Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are working at Interior now, but really, that would be too easy. If you're so inclined, leave your own snarky remark in the comments. If only this were a joke...

In more wholesome news, the University of Massachusetts Political Economy Research Institute and the Center for American Progress released an important report this week that shows the U.S. can create two million jobs by investing in clean energy technologies that will strengthen the economy and fight global warming:

The signs are clear: Our economy is in trouble. Falling home prices, foreclosures, bank failures, a weaker dollar, rising prices for gas, food, and steel, and layoffs in banking, construction, and manufacturing sectors are all indicators of serious economic strain—following a long period in which the middle class went nowhere even while the economy grew as a whole. What’s more, evidence suggests the current downturn will continue for at least another year.

At the same time, we face a growing climate crisis that will require us to rapidly invest in new energy infrastructure, cleaner sources of power, and more efficient use of electricity and fuels in order to cut global warming pollution. There is much work to be done in building smart solutions at a scale and speed that is bold enough to meet this gathering challenge.

It is time for a new vision for the economic revitalization of the nation and a restoration of American leadership in the world. We must seize this precious opportunity to mobilize the country and the international community toward a brighter, more prosperous future. At the heart of this opportunity is clean energy, remaking the vast energy systems that power the nation and the world. We must fundamentally change the way we produce and consume energy and dramatically reduce our dependence on oil. The economic opportunities provided by such a transformation are vast, not to mention the national security benefits of reducing oil dependence and the pressing need to fight global warming. The time for action is now.

Speaking of green jobs, the Green Jobs Now national day of action is just around the corner—did you sign up yet?

New York Times foreign affairs correspondent (and major opinion-maker) Thomas Friedman has a new book on the shelves: Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America. Here's a taste from a review at his employer's website:

Lacerating the ubiquitous, feel-good, magaziney “205 easy ways to save the earth,” Mr. Friedman, a columnist for The New York Times, exhorts sacrifice to stem rapidly accelerating biodiversity loss. He wants a green revolution as part of nothing less than “nation building” in America.

He also says that renewable energy driven by technology plays to American strengths: great laboratories and entrepreneurs, a start-up culture of risk and reward. If the United States gets serious, it will dominate, creating not just jobs but also whole new industries.

. . . . .

Our planet is becoming hot because flat (globalization, in Mr. Friedman’s lingo) is meeting crowded (ever more people are joining the resource-consuming middle class). As of 1950, all world economic activity was valued at $7 trillion, he says, but now that much in new growth takes place each decade. He quotes scientists and representatives of nongovernmental organizations, as well as some corporate executives, urgently warning of the need to avoid a doubling of carbon in the atmosphere over the next few decades — the course we are on.

This makes for a nice segway to plug Van Jones' upcoming book: The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problem. Pre-order your copy today!

Continuing the trend of reaction in the face of federal inaction, (and extending a theme treated many times in this feature) the Bay Area's big-city mayors commited to a major climate-change compact:

San Jose's Chuck Reed, San Francisco's Gavin Newsom and Oakland's Ron Dellums are scheduled to participate in the Silicon Valley Leadership Group's annual Projections event on the Santa Clara University campus, where they'll pledge support for a region-wide approach to combating global warming.

What's being called the Bay Area Climate Change Compact is, according to the leadership group, "a call to take immediate action to limit greenhouse gas emissions and increase the resilience of the region to global climate change."

Few details have been released as the document undergoes some final tweaks. But Mike Mielke, the group's director of environmental programs and policy, said specific goals have been set for 2013, including:

• Reducing electricity usage in municipal buildings by 10 percent;
• Adding 20,000 so-called green-collar jobs, including both management and skilled positions;
• Decreasing community water consumption by 15 percent.

Other targets in the "Projections: Clean & Green" report to be released today include:

• A common standard for green building and rooftop-solar installations;
• Persuading commuters to use public transit and to walk and bike more frequently;
• Boosting use of renewable energy;
• Adopting a regional climate-change plan;
• Diverting more waste from landfills;
• Increasing use of electric vehicles.

Finally, Reuters lands an exclusive that carries promising news from China, where a top policy adviser may spark a major debate in the country on climate change:

China should bind itself to international goals to slash greenhouse gas pollution, one of the nation's most prominent policy advisers said, in a striking break with Beijing's official stance.

Hu Angang, a public policy professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, warned failure to act could doom global climate change talks.

In submissions to leaders and a recent essay, Hu has argued China could emerge an economic and diplomatic winner if it vows to cut gases from industry, farms and transport that are trapping increasingly dangerous levels of solar heat in the atmosphere.

"It's in China's own interest to accept greenhouse gas emissions goals, not just in the international interest," Hu told Reuters in an interview on Sunday.

"China is a developing country, but it's a very special one, with the biggest population, high energy use and sooner or later, if not now, the biggest total greenhouse gas emissions. So this is a common battlefront we must join."

Got any other must-read climate stories? Share them in the comments!