Climate Progress

Earlier this week, representatives of four presidential candidates (two Democrat, two Republican) appeared for an issues briefing at the National Press Club on energy policy — videos here (warning, they are kind of boring). The short version is that the politically polite rhetoric managed to smooth over the sticky policy points: details of a cap and trade program and nuclear energy policy.

Congressman David E. Bonior spoke on behalf of John Edwards, Senator Tom Daschle on behalf of Barack Obama, former Secretary of Energy John S. Herrington for Rudy Giuliani, and Douglas J. Holtz-Eakin for John McCain.

The representatives loved to point out that they agreed on two things: leadership and urgency. The discussion was diplomatic and strategically ambiguous, as they did not all agree which required leadership and urgency - energy policy or climate policy.

Secretary Herrington was the outlier whose priority was clearly energy policy (and it’s no wonder, given his background). Only Herrington expressed hesitation regarding a cap and trade program, while the others sparred more over details of a plan. Rather than discuss climate, Herrington repeatedly revolve his comments around Giuliani’s two energy priorities: investing in nuclear energy for our electricity sector and using natural gas to fuel our vehicle fleet. [JR — a truly pointless idea since 1) natural gas can be used twice as efficiently displacing coal power and 2) if natural gas became a major transport fuel, we’d have to import it, so it doesn’t solve our energy security problem.]

Since Giuliani is the Republican front-runner, this lame energy/climate policy is quite discouraging.

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The climate bill by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.) is NOT the greatest thing since sliced bread, but with improvements it wouldn’t be bad. And right now, it looks like it is the only bill with the mojo to make it through the Senate Environment and Public Works committee.

E&E Daily (subs. req’d) report the bill is gaining key support:

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) added momentum to global warming legislation yesterday when he announced his support for a bill that proposes to set mandatory caps on heat-trapping emissions.

“It’s not too far to the left, not too far to the right,” Baucus said [of the Lieberman-Warner bill]. “It’s balanced, therefore it’s most likely to succeed.”

Baucus represents a key swing vote on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and his support moves Lieberman and Warner within sight of the one-vote majority necessary to pass their bill, S. 2191, “America’s Climate Security Act,” during a subcommittee markup next Thursday.

The rest of the story, with more details on the likely prospects for votes in EPW and comments by industry, follows:

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I am no expert on the intricacies of the farm bill, but it will have a huge impact on climate. Fortunately the Center for American Progress does have an expert, Jake Caldwell. He has written a great piece, “A New Farm Bill: The Work is Not Finished.” I will excerpt the energy-related parts:

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) and the Senate Agriculture and Senate Finance Committees have done a commendable job so far preparing for the next generation of cellulosic biofuels–liquid fuels sustainably produced from energy crops such as switchgrass and agricultural wastes such as corn stalks and rice hulls. The Senate bill increases funding for farmers growing new biofuel feedstocks in a sustainable manner. It also provides significant provisions for increasing research and development by bolstering financial incentives for new cellulosic biofuel refineries and increasing funding that would allow biorefineries to purchase and transport diverse biofuel feedstocks.

The Energy Title of the Senate Farm Bill also provides for the use of transparent certification and labeling criteria to encourage sustainable production of biofuels through the innovative “Voluntary Renewable Biomass Certification Program.” An investment in advanced biofuels must be accompanied by enhanced environmental safeguards and incentives for biofuel producers to conserve land and water resources, maximize lifecycle greenhouse gas emission reductions and the low carbon characteristics of fuels, and grow energy crops in a sustainable manner.

What is the farm bill missing, energy-wise?

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Wildfires aren’t just the “Hell” in Hell and High Water….

No one is going to come to the rescue on the supply side — and, of course, we remain stuck with an administration that doesn’t believe in demand-reduction strategies.

As the Wall Street Journal (subs. req’d) reported in “OPEC’s Lever Loses Its Pull on Oil“:

Oil prices are hovering near historic highs, but consuming nations shouldn’t expect quick relief from OPEC, the world’s only source for big, quick supplies.

For several reasons, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has neither the clear leverage nor the inclination to open the spigots and drive down the price of crude, which jumped past $90 a barrel in intraday trading in New York last week for the first time.

This figure shows how little spare capacity OPEC has — essentially none outside of Saudi Arabia, and the Saudis have no inclination to initiate a major price drop, especially since these prices do not appear to be destroying demand.

Moreover, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned back in July that it saw “OPEC spare capacity declining to minimal levels by 2012.”

And the WSJ notes no one outside of OPEC will be coming to the rescue either:

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The climate news is coming so fast and furious, I can’t keep up!

At the Poles, Melting Occurring at Alarming Rate - The Washington Post. A first-rate article on what’s happening at the North and South poles. Quotable quote: “I just don’t see a happy ending for this,” said Ted Scanbos, who studies the polar ice at the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Wildfires force California to postpone EPA lawsuit - Boston Globe. A tiny irony: Wildfires, whose severity may be in part due to global warming, has led to at least a week delay in the state suing EPA to let it restrict greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles.

How to Cool the Globe - NYT Op-Ed. A pro-geo-engineering piece. Climate Progress has previously debunked this particular strategy here and here.

In general, I have been critical of media coverage of global warming. So I am pleased to announce that two of the best environmental journalists have launched blogs:

• A new environmental blog from Mark Hertsgaard, the terrific environment correspondent for The Nation (and author of a lot of great books).

• A new sustainability blog from the New York Times, dotearth, led by their first-rate climate reporter, Andrew Revkin. Revkin notes the limits of the traditional media on these issues:

I’ve decided to focus Dot Earth on the broad-brush theme of sustainability for a few reasons. One is that “slow drip” issues are hard to capture and convey through traditional media tools, which are mostly (and appropriately) focused on dramatic events happening now, not eventually momentous trends that hide in plain sight.

Another is that some of the underlying problems related to humanity’s impact on the environment are largely irreversible. The greenhouse effect appears a lot easier to amplify than to reduce. Extinction is forever (at least for now). Such issues deserve sustained attention.

The shameless attempt to deny the American public the truth about climate impacts continue. As the AP reports:

Testimony that the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention planned to give yesterday to a Senate committee about the impact of climate change on health was significantly edited by the White House, according to two sources familiar with the documents.

Specific scientific references to potential health risks were removed after Julie L. Gerberding submitted a draft of her prepared remarks to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review.

Instead, Gerberding’s prepared testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee included few details on what effects climate change could have on the spread of disease….

A CDC official familiar with both versions said Gerberding’s draft “was eviscerated.”

Wouldn’t want the public knowing the health impacts of its do-nothing climate policy.

If you’d like to see the original testimony, here it is, courtesy of Climate Science Watch. Compare that to the eviscerated version here. Stunning and petty at the same time.

Must our long national climate nightmare continue for another 15 months?

I am writing a reply to this hit-piece in Slate, “Save the Earth in Six Hard Questions: What Al Gore doesn’t understand about climate change.” [link fixed]

You can probably imagine what I’m going to say, but I’d love any thoughts or ideas for links you have (hopefully today).

Global warming makes wildfires more likely and more destructive — as many scientific studies have concluded. Why? Global warming leads to more intense droughts, hotter weather, earlier snowmelt (hence less humid late summers and early autumns), and more tree infestations (like the pine beetle). That means wildfires are a dangerous amplifying feedback, whereby global warming causes more wildfires, which release carbon dioxide, thereby accelerating global warming.

The climate-wildfire link should be a special concern in this country where, since 2000, wildfires have burned an area larger than the state of Idaho.

I write this as my San Diego relatives wait anxiously in their hotel room to find out if their Rancho Santa Fe home has been destroyed. This is a beautiful home that I lived in for a month when I moved to the area in the mid-1980s to study at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Can we say that the brutal San Diego wildfires were directly caused by global warming? Princeton’s Michael Oppenheimer put it this way on NBC Nightly News Tuesday:

The weather we’ve seen this fall may or may not be due to the global warming trend, but it’s certainly a clear picture of what the future is going to look like if we don’t act quickly to cut emissions of the greenhouse gases.

Thomas Swetnam, University of Arizona climate scientist, who coauthored a major study on the subject (see below) said in 2006:

We’re showing warming and earlier springs tying in with large forest fire frequencies. Lots of people think climate change and the ecological responses are 50 to 100 years away. But it’s not 50 to 100 years away–it’s happening now in forest ecosystems through fire.

I researched wildfires for my book — hence the “Hell” in Hell and High Water — and my view is closer to Swetnam’s for several reasons.

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