NACo Green Counties Initiative provides resources for counties wanting to mitigate and adapt to future environmental threats
By Maria Sprow

More than 100 oficials and county employees gathered in a hotel in Washington, D.C., early last month for a jam-packed oneand- a-half day National Association of Counties (NACo) conference on global climate change.

The group had much to discuss: The schedule started at 8 a.m. and demanded a working lunch. Twenty speakers gave insight on topics related to helping the environment. Officials discussed the political tide surrounding climate change science, how to create county climate action plans and the small behavioral changes that can be made to gain energy efficiency, as well as green energy, green buildings, green fleets, green partnerships – and that was all before the end of the first day.

But the thing that kept coming up was this: The conference room was cold. Gathered together were 100 people concerned with lowering carbon emissions and saving energy. That means, in part, keeping the air conditioning down. Speaker after speaker cracked jokes about the temperature and NACo staff asked the hotel to turn the air down. Still, it didn’t seem to get much warmer.

Attendees shivered – if it’s that hard to affect the climate of a room, how much can be done to alter the Earth’s climate? The NACo County Climate Protection Forum was the first of its kind. The goal was to answer the question: What can counties possibly do about global climate change?

Speakers had no shortage of ideas. They spoke of conducting emissions inventories, creating energy efficiency plans to reduce carbon footprints, switching to alternative energy, reducing wastes from construction projects, engaging residents, leading by example, purchasing hybrid fleets, becoming involved in community light-bulb changing programs, turning off computers at night, implementing no-idling policies for county fleets and drivers and investing in water recycling plants. Discussion continued weeks after the forum ended, with NACo staff fielding inquiries on more ways counties can save money by going green, like using global positioning satellite software to reduce fuel usage and emissions.

No time was spent debating the actual merits of a conference focused on climate change, or of climate change science.

The NACo forum, which was part of a much larger climate change initiative NACo launched earlier this year, was mostly preachers preaching to those already on board the climate change wagon. The overarching goal was to get counties everywhere to “implement policies and programs that can make a real difference in terms of climate change mitigation” and adaptation, moderator Stephanie McClellan, a councilwoman from New Castle County, Dela., told attendees.

The NACo Climate Protection Forum sought to provide answers for counties looking to take the first steps to mitigating climate change and adapting to it, and to show that counties have already taken a leadership role in paving the way to a world in which “climate change” does not spell “Doomsday.”

King County, Wash., has been leading the way for counties looking to develop climate action plans, which forum speakers said is the first step to mitigating climate change. The county’s executive, Ron Sims, helped draft a guidebook on the issue titled Preparing for Climate Change: A Guidebook for Local, Regional and State Governments. The 186-page guidebook addresses questions dealing with scoping out impacts of climate change across community sectors, raising support for a climate-change initiative, creating a climate-change preparedness team, how to conduct a vulnerability assessment of the local area and prioritizing planning areas. It’s online at www.cses. washington.edu/db/pdf/snoveretalgb574.pdf.

Sims has been an advocate for climate change mitigation since 1988, when he was just a councilmember advocating for the creation of an office of global warming in his county. That attempt failed, but in 1996, when Sims became the county’s executive (similar to the county judge), he began developing a series of policies focused on environmental stewardship. He was eventually able to gain support because his ideas had co-benefits in areas unrelated to the environment, said Sims’ Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Lopez, who attended the NACo forum.

“The overall theme is that environmental stewardship is good on many levels – on health levels, economic levels,” Lopez said. The county, which is home to Seattle, created a plan to promote walkable communities, which cuts emissions and fuel needs, and promotes healthy living. It invested in a water-treatment plant with a waterreclaiming system in order to offset predictions that the area’s snow cap and water resources will decrease due to climate change. It purchased 236 hybrid diesel buses in 2004. The county helped launch the Cool Counties Climate Stabilization Initiative and pledged to reduce its carbon emissions by increasing energy efficiency, which reduced electricity costs.

“I think that there is an enormous amount of positive energy, and I mean that in a human sense, to do this work,” Lopez said. “There is a growing leadership in counties to take on these challenges and a great willingness to share ideas. Counties have a critical role to play in both mitigation and adaptation. Counties are regional governments. We have 39 cities inside our border and there is a leadership role to play to make sure all the governments are working together. “Every region has its own challenges. Your strategies follow from what the cause of the problem is and what your resources are,” he added.

A climate protection plan doesn’t just help the environment, speakers said. Several speakers said their counties are saving money through energy-efficient buildings and use of alternative fuels, despite the initial investment costs. A climate protection plan can work toward other goals as well, like reducing a county’s operational costs via energy savings or supporting local energy resources and new business and economic development opportunities. Tina Hill, a McHenry County, Ill., commissioner, admitted to being a climate change skeptic. “I have not bought into the climate warming thing,” she said, but added that she understood that the steps counties are taking to mitigate climate change can lead toward accomplishing other goals. “Even at the table, I said, ‘Guys, I need another word for climate action plan, (that’s) not going to fly.’” Other members told her to call it a “clean energy plan.” Whatever the goal or purpose, the first step to increasing energy savings, reducing air pollution or curbing carbon emissions is an emissions inventory. Many said they sought help from a member association called International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI). The association provides technical consulting, training and information resources to more than 630 cities and counties around the world. The association provides a software program specifically for emissions inventories.

ICLEI opened a regional office in Houston just last month, in part to better serve the state’s urban cities, many of which are already members, and in part to better promote the services to counties. Betin Santos, the regional director of the new Texas-based office, said ICLEI will help member counties look for ways to become more energy efficient.

“When you do these inventories, you don’t just hear about (carbon dioxide),” she said. “By doing an inventory, a county can see how much nitrogen oxide is coming from their operations and assess how much they can reduce that by as well, which can help counties comply with the Clean Air Act.”

Complete emissions reductions strategies can include everything from buying $80 gadgets called Energy Misers that reduce the electricity use of soda machines to changing employee behavior and enlisting policies for turning off county vehicles instead of letting them idle, and shutting down computers at night. Counties lacking staff and expertise to do an inventory themselves can go to colleges and hire interns to help with the inventories, she suggested.

“If you change your traffic lights from incandescent bulbs to LED bulbs, then you can save energy and money and over time it’s cheaper,” she said. “These energy-saving measures save money. It can save counties money on operations.”

While much of NACo’s County Climate Protection Forum focused on lowering greenhouse gas emissions, speakers stressed that addressing climate change is about much more. There’s a human cost associated with climate change, and a loss that will occur if people and governments do not begin planning for the future, speakers said.

Counties must determine “how we reduce that hurdling trajectory of risk that is coming hurdling at us at an alarming pace,” said speaker Margaret Davidson, who is the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NOAA Coastal Services Center. She said scientists are appropriately “wigging out” and that building community resilience to the effects of climate change will be just as important as taking measures to mitigate the phenomenon from continuing. She added that it’s important to understand why some communities are more resilient than others and t o study those communities, such as a Vietnamese community in Louisiana that was the first area to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina. She then quoted Oscar Wilde: “If you’re not at the table, then you are on the menu.”

Forum speakers and attendees discussed topics such as green building design, reducing wastes from construction projects, creating public-private partnerships and business incentives, alternative- fuel usage for green fleets, how to gather energy-management resources within the county, community engagement and how to build climate-resilient communities.

During a discussion on alternative-fuel usage in county fleets, Brent Yacobucci, an environmental and energy specialist for the Congressional Research Service, said counties looking to “go green” must first determine what it means to be green, and what goals the county wants to achieve. Going green, he said, can mean lowering energy dependence, reducing pollution, lowering greenhouse gas emissions or improving water and soil quality, but there is no silver-bullet solution for achieving all those goals in one endeavor. One alternative-fuel choice may promote one facet of going green while undermining another, he added.

For instance, the advantages of purchasing efficient gasoline or cleandiesel vehicles are that they utilize the existing gasoline infrastructure, lower greenhouse-gas emissions compared to conventional vehicles, and save in gasoline costs. However, they don’t eliminate the need for fossil fuels or reduce pollutant emissions. Gasoline-electric hybrids come with a federal tax incentive and also utilize the current infrastructure, but have a considerably higher initial investment. Natural gas vehicles lower both greenhouse-gas and pollutant emissions, but require a large initial investment and additional pumping systems.

(Currently, counties have several technology and fuel options when it comes to their fleets, all of which have their pros and cons, depending on the county’s overarching goal. The technologies include efficient gasoline engines, clean-diesel engines, gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles, flexible-fuel vehicles that run on 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, natural-gas vehicles and propane vehicles. Alternative fuels include reformulated gasoline, corn ethanol, biodiesel and renewable diesel, natural gas, propane, methanol and P-series fuel [a blend of natural gas liquids, ethanol and biomass]. Other technologies, such as plug-in hybrids, fuel-cell vehicles and cellulosic biofuels, are on the way.)

Each county should make the decision about which technologies to use on a case-by-case basis, Yacobucci said, but it’s still important that they make a decision. “Counties have a role to demonstrate new technology, and in just being leaders in creating green footprints,” he said.

Besides general topics and discussions, the forum highlighted the specific success stories of several counties that have already begun paving the way for other local governments looking to address climate change. Among those counties were Whatcom County, Wash., and Story County, Iowa., as well as the 12 founding counties behind the Cool Counties program.

Whatcom County: Taking Inventory and Action

Residents of Whatcom County, Wash., situated between Seattle and Vancouver, enjoy its scenic landscapes and outdoor activities and wanted to preserve the area’s natural beauty and economy. The county government decided to do its share, creating a Climate Protection and Energy Conservation Action Plan for both the community at large and its own operations. According to the county’s action plan, “by proactively reducing emissions generated by our own activities, the Whatcom County government takes a visible leadership role in the effort to address climate change. This is important for inspiring local action in Whatcom County as well as for inspiring other communities.”

The first step to creating the action plan was to hire a consultant to conduct a greenhouse-gas-emissions inventory. The county has about 188,000 residents, 40 percent of whom live in rural areas of the county; its largest city is home to about 75,000. The emissions inventory was a 12-week process in which emissions data was gathered on the community’s and county’s use of diesel, electricity, gasoline, methane, natural gas and propane.

The assessment determined that the community released 2.7- million tons of “equivalent carbon dioxide units” into the air every year, which was expected to grow to 3.7-million tons by 2020. The county government was responsible for about 10,000 tons, which could grow to 12,370 tons by 2012 if trends continue. (Equivalent carbon dioxide units, or eCO2, are used because greenhouse gases include not just carbon dioxide, but also methane and nitrous oxide, which have a greater heat-trapping capacity.)

As a result of the emissions inventory, the county was able to determine that about 1/3 of the community’s emissions came from transportation and about 2/3 came from buildings, including residences, commercial businesses and industrial plants. Only 1 percent came from community waste, since the county’s landfills are engineered to protect the public from exposure to the disposed waste. Almost 40 percent of the emissions were coming from the industrial and commercial sectors.

On the governmental side, the county discovered that 43 percent of its emissions were coming from buildings, while 38 percent were coming from its fleet vehicles, 18 percent from commuting employees and less than 1 percent from its street lights.

The county then set a goal of reducing community greenhousegas emissions to 10 percent below 2001 levels by 2020 and lowering its government-generated emissions to 25 percent below 2000 levels by 2012.

In order to reach its goals, the county focused its attention on promoting green-power purchases, buying hybrid vehicles, building energy-efficient homes and retail centers, increasing biodiesel use throughout the community, and challenging residents to turn off lights and appliances and turn down heating and air conditioning through the creation of a county-wide “energy efficiency challenge.” To meet its own goals, the county updated its lighting, utilized energy- efficient furnaces, purchased 14 hybrid vehicles, restructured the way sheriffs’ deputies patrol streets to cut down unnecessary fuel usage, educated employees about energy conservation and purchased green power.

“We asked employees to curb their energy use and shut off their computer every night,” said Christina Reeves, the county’s conservation resource analyst, who attended the NACo forum. “We estimated that would make about a $65,000-a-year difference.” There are several tools available to counties wanting to do a greenhouse gas emissions inventory or create a climate protection action plan.

Whatcom County hired a consultant through ICLEI, International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, an association of local governments that have made a commitment to sustainable development. ICLEI members receive a variety of services with regard to developing climate action plans, including technical consulting and training, software, and research. One such tool helps counties determine where exactly area greenhouse-gas emissions are coming from – buildings, transportation – and how far individual and collective solutions will go toward reducing an area’s emissions. Whatcom County’s climate action plan is available online at www. navigatingourfuture.org.

Story County: Making Use of Green Power

Story County, Iowa officials will never forget the floods of 1993, which affected much of the Midwest, killing 50 people and damaging 55,000 homes, according to the American Red Cross. Sandbagging efforts proved fruitless, and more than 530 counties were declared federal disaster areas. The Story County government experienced its own property losses. When the time came to rebuild, though, county supervisors decided to turn the loss into an opportunity and built their first geothermal-powered building. “We didn’t start with an overall plan. We started with a crisis,” said Story County Supervisor Jane Halliburton, adding that the county focused its design on customer needs, the county’s budget, having a sustainable design, the ease of maintenance and energy efficiency. After talking with architects, engineers and the county’s facility director, who had heard about geothermal energy from an energy conference, the supervisors decided to give green power a chance.

Halliburton cited several benefits the county has received from using geothermal energy, which uses the natural temperature of the earth’s ground to heat and cool buildings.

Building temperature can be controlled on a room-by-room basis, which can increase employee productivity. Pollutants from the building are substantially reduced when compared to buildings using a boiler. And, most importantly, the county considered the cost savings: a 40-percent annual savings on the building’s expected energy costs, an $80,000 construction-cost savings due to the reduced boiler-room size, reduced insurance costs since the building didn’t need to use combustible fuels for heat, and maintenance-cost savings of $.22 per square foot.

In the end, the county had to invest $175,000 to utilize the green energy; within five years it had saved $214,695 when taking into account energy savings and reduced building and boiler-room costs. The county had also utilized other green-building and energysaving materials, including T-5 lighting, window glazing, electronic water-saving fixtures, linoleum, sun-shading devices and recycled materials.

The success and savings from the first building led the county to include the use of geothermal energy in the design of a second building, as well as the renovation of a third. “Our citizens were very skeptical from the beginning, but we were able to document and record the results,” Halliburton said. “What they thought was politics was actually practical problem solving.”

Geothermal energy is not a suitable green-energy candidate for all areas. Its power comes from hydrothermal aquifers and areas in which the earth’s crust is relatively thin – geysers, hot springs, volcanoes and tectonic plates. Texas does not possess any high geothermal fields with the high temperatures necessary for geothermic power, but both Central Texas and the Trans-Pecos areas possess low-temperature hydrothermal reserves.

“Use of low temperature hydrothermal for various heating needs represents the best near-term application of Texas Geothermal resources,” according to the Texas State Energy Conservation Office, online at www.infinitepower.org.

But that doesn’t mean making significant use of green energy isn’t an option in Texas. According to the Energy Conservation Office, “Texas has more renewable energy potential than any other state,” and “every Texas community can use clean, renewable energy affordably.” The state’s biggest potential for renewable energy is the sun, especially in West Texas, followed closely by wind in North Texas and along the Gulf Coast. Certain areas of the state, including East Texas, can use biomass as a renewable energy source. According to the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, five utility companies in Texas already offer green energy to customers, including Austin Energy, Bandera Electric Cooperative, CPS Energy in San Antonio, El Paso Electric Company and Pedernales Electric Cooperative.

There are also several resources available for counties wanting to make their existing buildings more energy efficient.

Several counties, including Fort Bend and Harris, have partnered with Energy Star, a division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, to increase the energy efficiency of their buildings. The program offers free online training on how to improve energy-performance ratings; how to use its various free software tools, such as the Cash Flow Opportunity Calculator, which quantifies the cost involved in delaying building upgrades; and on its “Change a Light, Change the World” campaign, which Nueces County and others participate in through NACo.

“The buildings that we work in, shop in, educate our children in use about $200 billion in energy a year, and 30 percent of the energy used in these buildings is used unnecessarily or inefficiently,” said Mike Zatz, the manager of Energy Star Commercial Buildings. He said that on average, office buildings built according to Energy Star standards use 35 percent less energy than typical office buildings. “If you want to start to show some quick results (in emissions reductions), this is the place you want to look.”

Twelve Cool Counties

While much of the action surrounding climate change has come from urban areas and cities, counties have begun playing an important leadership role as well.

During the National Association of Counties Annual Conference held in July, 12 urban counties from across the country started the Cool Counties Climate Stabilization Initiative, a spin off of the Sierra Club’s Cool Cities program.

As of Oct. 15, the initiative had grown to 22 member counties. The initiative’s purpose is to provide motivation and resources for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that stem from county operations.

“We as county governments may not regulate emissions from power plans, automobiles or even lawn and garden equipment, but we do have both the opportunity and the responsibility to take aggressive steps to reduce our operational greenhouse gas emissions,” states the Cool Counties Web site.

The founding Cool Counties are located all over the map. The effort was initiated by officials in King County, Wash., along with the efforts of leaders in Fairfax County, Virginia, and Nassau County, New York. Those counties were initially joined by declarations from Alameda County in California, Arlington County in Virginia, Cook County in Illinois, Miami-Dade County in Florida, Hennepin County in Minnesota, Shelby County in Tennessee, Dane County in Wisconsin, and Montgomery and Queen Anne’s counties in Maryland.

Partners in Cool Counties agree to:

• Create an inventory of county government operational greenhouse gas emissions, and implement policies, programs and operations to reduce those emissions;
• Work with local, state and federal governments to reduce area greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below current levels by 2050, setting short-term, mid-term and long-term emission reduction targets; and
• Urge Congress to enact legislation that would reduce emissions.

Representatives from several of the counties attended the NACo forum, both to discuss Cool Counties and other initiatives. Counties signing on to the Cool Counties Declaration may use that pledge to fulfill the first step in their participation in the NACo County Climate Protection Program, which NACo launched in March after the Board of Directors adopted a policy calling on Congress and the Whitehouse to take practical actions to reduce the risks of global warming.

The adopted NACo policy states that “NACo supports immediate and long-range efforts by the federal government to involve all levels of stakeholders to mitigate possible sources of climate change now through a series of practical incentives and through more federal funding for all means of emissions reductions. NACo will provide a leadership role in the education, discussion, evaluation, and decision making processes regarding issues of global climate change affecting counties.”

The Climate Protection Program includes an online discussion forum, where county officials and staff can ask questions and receive feedback from other counties from across the country. More information on the program can be found at online at www. naco.org/climateprotection; the discussion forum is at www.naco. org/climatediscussion.

NACo also launched the Green Government Initiative, with the goal of serving as a catalyst in facilitating green government practices, products and policies, as well as creating new greenoriented partnerships between local governments and the private sector. More information, such as NACo’s own green government newsletter and other publications, can be found online at www. greencounties.org.

“It can be challenging for a county to navigate the world of climate change while remaining mindful of local and regional conditions,” NACo President Colleen Landkamer said back when the program first launched. “NACo is working to make that easier.” Besides Cool Counties, Alameda County in California started StopWaste.org, a collaboration of county agencies that provides public education, green building, waste reduction, market development and recycled-produce procurement programs. Alameda County also developed the Green Building in Alameda County Program to reduce the amount of waste coming from the construction projects within the county. The Green Building program works largely because of partnerships with private entities and public associations, such as the National Association of the Remodeling Industry, which agreed to develop a green-building class for local builders and remodelers.

A Climate Shift for Global Warming?

Though polls show that most Americans’ views on climate change — or global warming, depending on whose rhetoric is used — are still split along political lines, a series of events has led to a noticeable shift regarding the balance of political discussion in the media. Climate change-related headlines, many alluding to catastrophe or Armageddon , began flooding news outlets. The first major event arguably occurred in 2003, when a European heat wave killed 30,000 people. In 2004, the magazine Nature published an international study predicting that climate change could cause the extinction of 1 million different species. Polar bears floating on random patches of ice became an icon of the climate change movement, especially after the Ayles ice shelf in Canada became its own island.

Back then, there was still wide support for climate-change skeptics who argued that the science was rushed and faulty and possibly an environmentalist conspiracy. Senator James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma, called global warming “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” Author Michael Crichton even wrote a fictional novel, State of Fear, which included footnotes to various studies concluding that climate change is a non-issue (the novel was so convincing that the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and other climate experts released statements specifically directed toward discrediting its arguments).

Then Hurricane Katrina came in 2005. Americans wanted an explanation for the devastation in New Orleans. When Al Gore provided it with his climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth, it drew positive press coverage and was embraced by the liberal mass psyche. The film won an Oscar around the same time the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — established by the United Nations in 1988 — released “The Physical Science Basis,” the first volume of its Fourth Assessment Report. Still on a roll from polar bears, Hurricane Katrina and The Inconvenient Truth coverage, the press jumped on the latest round of IPCC findings.

The media took hold of the reliability of the report’s thousands of authors, especially after two other volumes — one on “Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability” and another on “Mitigation of Climate Change” — were released in April and May. The reports are available on the IPCC Web site at www.ipcc.ch. Taken together, the reports concluded that greenhouse gas emissions are causing climate change and that future warming will be inevitable, but also pointed out that a worstcase scenario could still be avoided through governmental action. The second report predicts worldwide water and agricultural problems due to global warming. In North America, “warming in western mountains is projected to cause decreased snowpack, more winter flooding, and reduced summer flows, exacerbating competition for all-over allocated water resources” and “disturbances from pests, disease and fire are projected to have increasing impacts on forests, with an extended period of high fire risk and large increases in area burned.” Climatologists forecast an increased number of heat waves with increased intensity and duration — conditions that put older citizens at risk of heat stroke.

Among the scientists, there was high agreement and medium evidence that “changes in lifestyle and behavior patterns can contribute to climate change mitigation across all sectors,” according to the third report summary. There was also high agreement and much evidence that the benefits of cutting carbon dioxide emissions would be greater and more varied than just climate change mitigation on its own; everyone wins.

In recent months, some Democrats, environmental activists and even conservative analysts have begun transforming climate change into a nonpartisan or bipartisan issue, or at least have tried to gloss over its politics.

The National Association of Counties took a nonpartisan approach when it started its Green Government Initiative earlier this year, after the NACo Board of Directors adopted a policy calling on Congress and the Bush Administration to take actions to reduce the risk of global warming. According to NACo policy, “NACo supports immediate and long-range efforts by the federal government to involve all levels of stakeholders to mitigate possible sources of climate change now through a series of practical incentives and through more federal funding for all means of emissions reductions. NACo will provide a leadership role in the education, discussion, evaluation and decision-making processes regarding issues of global climate change affecting counties.”

In a statement made when the initiative launched, NACo President Colleen Landkamer, a commissioner from Blue Earth County, Minn., she said she hoped all counties would benefit from the initiative. “It can be challenging for a county to navigate the world of climate change while remaining mindful of local and regional conditions,” Landkamer said. “NACo believes the program will provide counties at any stage in addressing climate protection an opportunity to learn how they can play an active role, implement strategies, evaluate results and determine realistic adjustments for future targets. As regional governments, counties are in the unique position to play a leadership role in local initiatives that produce positive environmental results. I am proud that many counties are taking up this challenge.” In addition, two books written by conservative analysts gained attention for conceding that human actions are causing the earth to warm but then shifting the debate toward how to best respond to the problem. In Cool It, author/economist Bjorn Lomborg argues that it’s too costly to reduce global carbon emissions enough to make an impact and that resources should be spent on adapting to climate change — giving to poorer countries, improving health care systems — rather than mitigating it. Break Through, by U.S. political consultants Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, charges that liberals have gone about framing the climate-change initiative in all the wrong ways, disenfranchising the public by their blame-game talk and worst-case Doomsday scenarios, and that climate change should be discussed instead in terms of the economic-development innovations and possibilities.

Corporate America has also begun to go green.

In 2006, corporate giant Wal-Mart, normally a liberal target, promised to eliminate 30 percent of its energy usage and announced its goal was to eventually be fueled entirely by alternative energy. “We don’t believe we can separate environmental concerns from business concerns,” said Andrew Ruben, the company’s vice president for corporate strategy and sustainability, who attended a bipartisan daylong climate change conference sponsored by the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. “Environmental threats are challenges for our businesses, just as they are for our communities, our associates and our customers.” But for all the efforts underway to transform climate change into a nonpartisan or bipartisan issue, there are still many politicians who use it as a dividing line and many skeptics who are standing firm. “Our national news media has embarrassed itself with a 100-year documented legacy of coverage on what turned out to be trendy climate science theories,” Sen. Inhofe said during a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee floor speech on Sept. 28, 2006, three days after calling global warming “the most media-hyped environmental effort of all time.”

In Texas, Gov. Rick Pretty remains a staunch skeptic of global warming. “Virtually every day another scientist leaves the global warming bandwagon. But, you know, the fact is, you won’t read about that in the press because they have already invested in one side of the story,” Perry told a group of California Republicans in September. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t be good stewards of our environment. We should. I am just saying when politics hijack science, it quells true scientific debate and can have dire consequences for our future,” he stated, just after receiving loud applause for a jab at Al Gore. The remarks were videotaped and available for viewing on his campaign Web site.

Meanwhile, polls suggest that the American masses are still generally struggling to understand climate change in scientific terms.

Interest and “belief” in global warming is still wrapped tight in politics — Democrats strongly lean one way while Republicans lean the other and neither side trusts what the other has to say.

A Zogby poll published in October concluded that 32 percent of Americans “dismiss that there are any alarming effects of global warming.” Among other statistics from the poll: 88 percent of Democrats are concerned about global warming, while 80 percent of Republicans said they do not view it as a threat; 51 percent of Americans believe the threat is overstated by liberals while the other half believe it is understated by conservatives. About 45 percent of respondents were said they were unsure one way or the other, and 51 percent said they were still against increasing fuel taxes to help reduce the threat of climate change.

Studies Predict Impact of Climate change on Texas

The science behind humanity’s affect on climate change can be explained simply, but climate itself is a complex and unpredictable system influenced by a large number of factors that the world’s most advanced supercomputers struggle to duplicate. Greenhouse gasses — created both naturally and through human processes like growing food, powering electricity, burning fuel and deforestation — allow sunlight to pass through Earth’s atmosphere but absorb the light that is reflected back toward space and trap that heat in the atmosphere. Some amount of greenhouse gasses is natural and is necessary to keep Earth warm, but there is a point where too much heat is being trapped in the atmosphere and not enough is being sent back out into space. The warming atmosphere will cause more water evaporation, the melting of the ice caps, more severe storms and more droughts. Those consequences will lead to more strain on our water resources, rising sea levels, more flooding and less agriculture, which leads to a whole slew of other problems.

One of the major problems is predicted to be sea level rise. Already, the sea level rose more than 1/3 of a foot during the 20th century and has risen about 1/4 of an inch per year since; it’s expected to accelerate as parts of the polar ice caps break away and melt. The most recent IPCC report assumed that the loss of the Greenland and Antarctic ice mass would remain constant until 2100 and calculated that the sea level would rise anywhere from 6 to 21 inches. But sea-level rise cannot be easily predicted. Some scientists have said the IPCC calculations are underreporting the problem and that the sea level rise will be closer to three feet.

Either way, those figures are a global average. Regional areas could be impacted differently, just like with every other shift associated with climate change, such as those dealing with temperature, snowfall, rainfall and storm intensity. But a rising sea level could have incredible human and economic costs. A 1997 report by the United States Environmental Protection Agency titled “Climate Change and Texas” predicted that in Texas, climate change would lead to an increased frequency of heat waves, which would also increase the number of heatrelated illnesses and frequency of diseases carried by heat-loving insects. The predicted sea-level rise is expected to result in loss of property and wetlands, regional population shifts and decreased longevity of low-lying roads and infrastructure. The state’s water supply was predicted to decrease, and soils could be less moist, impacting agriculture.

“Unless increased temperatures are coupled with a strong increase in rainfall, water could become more scarce,” according to the EPA report. “A warmer and drier climate would lead to greater evaporation, as much as a 35 percent decrease in stream flow and less water for recharging groundwater aquifers. Increased rainfall could mitigate these effects, but also could contribute to localized flooding. Additionally, climate change could give rise to more frequent and intense rainfall, resulting in flash flooding.”

The older predictions for the state are in line with the moreupdated regional IPCC predictions. Basically, the report predicted dryer weather for the southwest and hotter hots. The report predicted an annual precipitation decrease of 10 percent by 2100 and increased summer temperatures by 3 degrees Celsius, or 5 degrees Fahrenheit, though many scientists say the report is understating the possibilities.

Katharine Hayhoe, a climate professor at Texas Tech University, told The Houston Chronicle that if the world continues to use fossil fuels to meet its energy needs, winter temperatures in Texas will climb by up to 9 degrees and summer temperatures by up to 15 degrees by 2100. In the same report by the Chronicle, Gerald North, a climate professor at Texas A&M University, calculated that the state would need 25-to-45 percent more rain to offset the water evaporation caused by the increased temperatures, but rainfall is forecasted to decrease. He predicted that the Brazos, Colorado and Rio Grande rivers may run dry. Drying of the state’s water resources may cause Texas to lose up to 40 percent of its agricultural land, predicted A&M Agricultural Economics professor Bruce McCarl. Forecasts suggest that what rainfall the state does get will come in bursts, creating more flooding. Hurricanes would become more dangerous and have farther-reaching flooding implications due to the sea-level rise, which would also increase infrastructure erosion. Both attempting to mitigate those scenarios and choosing to adapt to them are costly.

“Possible responses to sea-level rise include building walls to hold back the sea, allowing the sea to advance and adapting to it, and raising the land,” according to the EPA report. “Each of these responses will by costly, either in out-of-pocket costs or in lost land and structures. For example, the cumulative cost of sand replenishment to protect the coast of Texas from a 20-inch rise by 2100 is estimated at $4.2–$12.8 billion.” The report also said that the Galveston sea level, which has previously risen about 25 inches each century, was expected to rise 38 inches by 2100.