Climate Progress: An insider's view of climate science, politics, and solutions

And we don’t just mean the banter and attacks on integrity and voting records going on in the primary races for the party nominees. There’s also the physical campaign trail, littered with greenhouse gas emissions from traveling across the country and between cities in contested states.

So, meet Standard Carbon LLC, introducing a new effort to get presidential candidates to offset their campaign carbon footprint. The group has created a brand – simply that presidential hopefuls are certifiably Carbon Neutral – it wishes to use to put pressure on the candidates to not only clean their trail but to also prioritize global warming in their policy platforms and rhetoric.

To excerpt their press release:

“If you commit to stand up for what you believe in that means taking personal action first. Climate change depends upon leadership, because cleaning up the air is a non-partisan decision. Our program makes it easy for each campaign to be carbon neutral and allows candidates to lead by example.” Said Brendan Woodward, President of Standard Carbon LLC, a national provider of carbon offset credits and Chicago Climate Exchange member.

Carbon offsets are bought by Carbon Standard, and the initiative is unique to the market because its strictly for political races. Another thing is that only offset projects located in the U.S. can count.

There are, of course, both good and bad attributes to Standard Carbon’s effort. What’s good is that a Carbon Neutral label could become a hot item, with no presidential candidate allowing his/her campaign to continue without one. As a result, global warming receives more attention from these leaders and the pundits.

What’s a bit more worrisome is that offsets are hazy in the first place. The desire to be called Carbon Neutral could easily over ride the actual impact of the offset projects on greenhouse gas emissions. It’s hard to keep offsets transparent, measurable and verifiable. Offsets, too, can be dirty work.

[JR: Another problem is that the offsets are purchased through the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), which does not have a transparent process for assuring high-quality offests.]

– Kari M.

With Bush’s final State of the Union Address just a few days from now [pause for applause], I’m happy to share a great presentation on W’s sorry legacy. Lots of great factoids for debates with conservatives, letters to the editor, and, of course, blog posts!

Related Posts:

• Karl Rove, Global Warming, and Bush’s Legacy
• The Failed Presidency of George W. Bush

We have known for weeks that EPA Administrator overruled his staff when announced late last year that the EPA was denying California’s application to regulate vehicle greenhouse gas emissions.

Now we have the details of the PowerPoint presentation that the EPA’s legal and technical staff made to Johnson – thanks to Sen Barbara Boxer (D-CA). At the end, I’ll reprint a letter from the Terminator and (13 other Governors) sent to the EPA. As reported today by the S.F. Chronicle:

In the presentation last year, EPA staffers wrote that California could clearly demonstrate “compelling and extraordinary conditions” – the legal definition under the Clean Air Act that requires EPA to approve regulations set by the state.

“California continues to have compelling and extraordinary conditions in general (geography, climatic, human and motor vehicle populations – many such conditions are vulnerable to climate change conditions) as confirmed by several recent EPA decisions,” the staff wrote.

The staffers also told Johnson that climate scientists at the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had concluded California was at greater risk from the impacts of global warming than other states, which could justify the tougher rules.

“California exhibits a greater number of key impact concerns than other regions,” they wrote. The staffers listed all the risks that could prove the state’s case – from potential water shortages to rising sea levels affecting coastal communities to health threats from air pollution.

“Wildfires are increasing,” which could “generate particulates that can exacerbate health risk,” they wrote. “California has the greatest variety of ecosystems in the U.S.; and the most threatened and endangered species in the continental U.S.”

Nice to see the EPA staff gets this issue, even if their boss and the White House don’t. The story notes:

EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar insisted Wednesday that Johnson had not overruled his staff. He said the EPA chief is not bound by the opinions of his staff.

I guess it depends on what your definition of the word “overruled” is.

A stinging rebuttal to Johnson can be found in the text of a letter from Gov. Schwarzenegger and 13 other Governors about EPA’s denial of California’s tailpipe emissions waiver request:
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President George W. Bush will deliver his final State of the Union address on Monday. We can be sure he will talk about Iraq and the economy, particularly the hot topic of the moment: recession. He probably will discuss Iran and the war on terrorism. He may talk about immigration and rising oil prices, two topics he raised last year and on which there has been no progress.

But will he talk about global climate change?

On the eve of the address and in no uncertain terms, a group of the nation’s leading scientists and policy experts is advising the President that he should.

“We regret to report that the state of the nation’s climate policy is poor, and the climate and the ecosystems that depend upon it are showing increasing signs of disruption,” the group says in a statement being delivered to the White House today. We can no longer discuss the State of the Union without assessing the state of the nation’s climate.

Among the diverse signatories are two Nobel Laureates; nearly 30 mayors of U.S. cities; climate experts from 15 academic institutions including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Duke Universities; and leaders of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Federation of American Scientists, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, and the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences. Individuals from several foundations, think tanks, and businesses also signed.

The seven-page statement makes clear that global warming deserves much more attention in the State of the Union address than the President gave it last year, when he sent the policy world atwitter with six words — “serious challenge of global climate change”. As it turns out, those words were the high point of the Administration’s climate action agenda last year. The low point came in Bali.

Compared to the other issues the president is likely to discuss, none approaches global warming in scale, duration or significance. Recession may be dominating the attention of the White House, the candidates and Congress. But as TIME columnist Justin Fox noted this week, the recession is “just a passing phenomenon.”

“Keep that in mind when listening to those presidential candidates talk economics,” Fox wrote, “By the time one of them takes office a year from now, this year’s slump will probably be history. It’s the other stuff that he or she might actually be able to do something about.”

Among the themes in the “State of the Climate” paper are that climate change is not a distant problem and it is not simply an environmental issue.

“The early signs of climate change are appearing much more quickly than predicted,” the statement says. “These signs are not restricted to the Arctic and Antarctic. We are seeing troubling patterns emerging in the United States that are consistent with the predicted impacts of climate change.” Among them are changing precipitation patterns, Atlantic hurricane activity, the frequency and size of wildfires, diminishing snow pack, changing migratory patterns, and damage from insects, including the death of pine forests.

“Some suffering is inevitable and we must help those least able to cope,” the statement says. “But the more quickly we reduce emissions today and prepare for the consequences of emissions from the past, the less suffering there will be. Those are the realities that we must acknowledge and act upon now.”

Among the statement’s many other points are these:

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A friend just sent me this remarkable story, “Former Air Force official joins leading coal-liquids developer,” which appears in the little-known Aim Points, “A daily summary of news, messages and communication tactics to help AF people tell the AF story.”

It looks like the “tactic” AF people are being told about is the good-ol’ revolving door:

Ron Sega, up until last year the Air Force’s chief energy executive, has joined the board of directors of coal-to-liquids (CTL) fuel developer Rentech, Inc., on Dec. 18, according to a statement issued by the company. Rentech develops synthetic fuels for the Air Force alternative fuels program, using coal and other feedstocks.

Sega resigned as Air Force under secretary in August 2007, after in part leading an effort within the Air Force to develop alternative fuels not based on petroleum and thereby reduce dependence on imported energy supplies.

“As the Air Force’s chief energy executive, Dr. Sega led the creation of a new energy strategy for the Air Force,” a strategy that addressed “demand-side energy efficiencies, supply-side energy assurance options and the establishment of a culture of conservation,” according to the Rentech statement.

The statement cites Sega as saying: “I am exited to be joining Rentech, a company that is committed to using a wide array of domestic resources to produce environmentally sound fuels that will help ensure our nation’s energy security.”

The Air Force aims to act as a catalyst for the synthetic fuels industry by using its huge buying power to guarantee demand, service officials have said. Officials say that in the near term, coal is the only feedstock that can provide sufficient energy output from synthetic fuels, and will therefore be the dominant feedstock in the so-called “synfuels” program for the time-being.

CTL fuels have drawn criticism from environmentalists, who fear that without carbon capture and sequestration during the manufacturing phase, CTL technology could release twice the amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that petroleum-based fuels do. In response to these fears, the Air Force has committed itself to buy only CTL fuels that are no worse for the environment than conventional fuels, in effect requiring carbon capture and reuse or sequestration.

Yeah, I’ll believe that when I see it. Note to Air Force: “Carbon capture and reuse” is not bloody likely, unless maybe the AF wants to get into the carbonated beverage business.

The final paragraph has one of those laughable claims that make you wish some people were hooked up to lie detectors as if life were some sort of reality show, rather than the surreality show it really is:

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Change — a perennial theme in presidential campaigns — has taken on a more serious meaning this election season. Of all the promises being put forward by the presidential candidates, change may be the most frequent

“Change” usually is a word used by candidates who don’t have much Washington experience, but want to package their inexperience as a virtue. But allegiance to “change” is far more important If we want to confront global warming, energy insecurity and peak oil over the next 4-8 years — not to mention Iraq, the deficit, health care costs and several other messes the Bush Administration is leaving to its successors — change will be the name of the game. Big change, in fact.

There is wide acknowledgment that America needs to come together to solve some of these problems. We need a uniter not a divider in the White House, for real this time. We have enough common causes, certainly, around which we should rally. What we don’t have is trust.

If you asked most Americans today what one word comes to mind when they think about the White House, “trust” probably would not be their answer. It’s not good sport to take potshots at lame ducks, so I’ll resist the temptation to rant. I’ll just say that the presidency we’ve experienced in the past seven years (think Cheney energy plan, Plame, WMDs, censured science, fired attorneys, erased CIA videos, lost White House e-mails, etc.) has reinforced the perception that Washington is a culture not only of incompetence, but of flagrant and unabashed dishonesty. It has been a great seven years not only for Leno, Stewart and Letterman, but also for the cynicism industry.

But cynicism will not get us through problems as urgent and intractable as global warming. If I were writing the talking points for the candidates, I would have them say this: The first item on the national agenda is not a change in policies; it’s a change in our culture of leadership.

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