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The environMENTALIST contest: On what day will Obama sign the bipartisan climate and clean energy bill into law?

Sunday, November 15th, 2009

One of my guilty pleasures is the CBS crime show, The Mentalist. One-time fake psychic Patrick Jane uses his powers of observation and deduction to figure out the answer to the mystery before everyone else.

So here’s the contest for all you would-be environ-Mentalists. Use your amazing powers of observation and deduction to figure out on what day Obama will sign the bipartisan climate and clean energy bill into law. The winner gets to write a blog post for Climate Progress — woo hoo!

Remember, the bill has to pass the Senate, go into conference, pass the House and Senate again, and then a few days after that, Obama has the big signing ceremony.

Yes, you could pick “never” but, of course, you’d never collect! Plus the bill remains a likely prospect since the breakthrough Senate climate partnership between Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and John Kerry (D-MA) — see E&E News: “At least 67 senators are in play” on climate bill.

Indeed, with the addition of Sen Lieberman (I-CT) to the bipartisan (tripartisan?) team and the beginning of talks with White House “to discuss a possible compromise” the chances may be greater than ever. Heck, even the moderate coal-state Democrat Sen. Baucus (D-MT) said last week, “There’s no doubt that this Congress is going to pass climate change legislation.”

That said, it seems increasingly unlikely that the bill will get to Obama’s desk before the summer. Indeed, The Washington Times Washington Insight/Energy (sub. req’d) has these remarkable prognosications from a former Senate majority leader and a leading industrial expert:

Post by Joe in Clean energy jobs bill | 32 Responses

Superfreakonomics coauthor replies to “scathing review” by Elizabeth Kolbert: “she somehow accomplished all this with a degree from Yale in … literature.”

Saturday, November 14th, 2009

On Monday, The New Yorker published Elizabeth Kolbert’s lengthy review of SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance. In her 2400-word review, titled “Hosed: Is there a quick fix for the climate?” she writes:

Given their emphasis on cold, hard numbers, it’s noteworthy that Levitt and Dubner ignore what are, by now, whole libraries’ worth of data on global warming. Indeed, just about everything they have to say on the topic is, factually speaking, wrong. Among the many matters they misrepresent are: the significance of carbon emissions as a climate-forcing agent, the mechanics of climate modelling, the temperature record of the past decade, and the climate history of the past several hundred thousand years. Raymond T. Pierrehumbert is a climatologist who, like Levitt, teaches at the University of Chicago. In a particularly scathing critique, he composed an open letter to Levitt, which he posted on the blog RealClimate.

She then quoted from that open letter, which noted that their critique of solar cells was “complete and utter nonsense.”

On Friday, coauthor Stephen Dubner replied in a post titled, “With Geoengineering Outlawed, Will Only Outlaws Have Geoengineering?“ Notwithstanding the title, the piece is clearly meant to be serious. Here is what they have to say about Kolbert’s review:
(more…)

Post by Joe in Geoengineering | 31 Responses

Record high temperatures far outpace record lows across U.S.

Saturday, November 14th, 2009

Spurred by a warming climate, daily record high temperatures occurred twice as often as record lows over the last decade across the continental United States, new research shows. The ratio of record highs to lows is likely to increase dramatically in coming decades if emissions of greenhouse gases continue to climb.

This graphic shows the ratio of record daily highs to record daily lows observed at about 1,800 weather stations in the 48 contiguous United States from January 1950 through September 2009. Each bar shows the proportion of record highs (red) to record lows (blue) for each decade. The 1960s and 1970s saw slightly more record daily lows than highs, but in the last 30 years record highs have increasingly predominated, with the ratio now about two-to-one for the 48 states as a whole. (©UCAR, graphic by Mike Shibao.)

This is from the news release of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The scientific paper itself is here (subs. req’d). A blog post on this by the NYT’s Andy Revkin is here. And NCAR posted a video of lead author Gerald Meehl discussing his findings:

Post by Joe in Science | 13 Responses

Ban Ki-moon climate deputy says Copenhagen deal may take two stage approach; Outline of bipartisan Kerry, Lieberman, Graham proposal likely beforehand

Friday, November 13th, 2009

The top climate lieutenant to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday that a major — though perhaps preliminary — international agreement to curb global warming is still possible in Copenhagen. One leading option is to set low targets for emissions reductions initially and to boost them if global warming gets worse.

Janos Pasztor, director of the climate change support team under Ban, told reporters that the Copenhagen global warming conference could yield a breakthrough on greenhouse gas reduction targets and financial aid to poor countries. A binding agreement would be written in 2010, he said….

Ban visited Washington last week to meet with Obama officials and with senators, and said he was optimistic about the chances for a bill to pass the Senate sometime next year. Two of the three senators working to build a bipartisan coalition for the legislation — John Kerry, D-Mass. and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn. — said after the meeting they would try to release an outline of their proposal before the Copenhagen conference.

That’s the news today from The Washington Times Washington Insight/Energy (sub. req’d).

It is no surprise to CP readers that “administration officials have stressed that it will not agree to a global treaty that cannot win approval in the Senate.” For a related story, see the WashPost’s “U.S. weighs backing interim international climate agreement.” And this is similar to the “Statement by Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen at the GLOBE Copenhagen Legislators Forum on 24 October 2009,” which I’ll excerpt below.

First, more from the Insight story:

Post by Joe in International | 7 Responses

Climate bill would be a boon to farmers

Friday, November 13th, 2009

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack has argued that for American agriculture, the income benefits from climate and clean energy legislation will outweigh the costs (see “USDA: Economic benefits of climate bill for farmers ‘easily trump’ the costs“). Unrestricted greenhouse gases emissions would certainly be a disaster for farmers (see “A Stormy Forecast for U.S. Agriculture“). In this CAP repost, guest blogger Tom Kenworthy, looks at some recent studies on the direct economic benefits a climate and clean energy bill would have for farmers.

When it comes to legislation cutting carbon pollution, two Iowans steeped in agriculture policy take very different views of the likely impact on rural America.

“The agriculture industry and rural communities will be some of the hardest-hit areas,” says Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA).

“For American agriculture, the income benefits will outweigh costs, particularly over the long term,” says Tom Vilsack, Iowa’s former governor and now secretary of agriculture in the Obama administration. “For rural Americans, it will help create new economic opportunities and green-energy jobs.”

Secretary Vilsack has it right. While no one can precisely predict what the economic impacts will be of either the American Clean Energy and Security Act, H.R. 2454, which passed the House in June, or the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, S. 1733, now under consideration in the Senate, most thoughtful analysis contradicts the doomsday scenarios seen by some farm state lawmakers and representatives of big agriculture.

Post by Joe in Clean energy jobs bill | 6 Responses

Europe to easily beat Kyoto target — looks like the European Trading System has worked after all

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

Europe made a major commitment under the Kyoto Protocol that U.S. conservatives have been telling us for years it would never achieve. In fact, the Europeans are poised to surpass their targets under the terms of the Protocol. It is no longer plausible for those who don’t want a U.S. cap-and-trade system to point to the European Trading System (ETS) as a failure. Quite the reverse.

A report by the European Environment Agency released today shows that the European Union and all Member States but one [Austria] are on track to meet their Kyoto Protocol commitments to limit and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Whereas the Protocol requires that the EU-15 reduce average emissions during 2008–2012 to 8% below 1990 levels, the latest projections indicate that the EU-15 will go further, reaching a total reduction of more than 13 % below the base year.…

Looking further ahead, almost three quarters of the EU’s unilateral target to cut emissions to 20 % below 1990 levels by 2020 could be achieved domestically (i.e. without purchase of credits outside the EU).

The report highlights the importance of the EU ETS in helping Member States meet their targets.

That is today’s news release from the European Environment Agency. The full report is here. The report notes:

Five EU‑15 Member States (France, Germany, Greece, Sweden and the United Kingdom) have already achieved average GHG emission levels below their Kyoto target….

The EU ETS is expected to result in important reductions of domestic EU emissions.

The EEA analysis concludes the EU-15 will not need to rely on offsets to meet their Kyoto target and “foresees a variety of factors contributing to the EU-15’s total reduction of more than 13%”:

Post by Joe in International | 25 Responses

USGBC jobs finds “Green building to support nearly 8 million U.S. jobs over next 4 years”

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

USGBC/Booz Allen Hamilton Report Shows Green Construction to Contribute $554 Billion to U.S. GDP Between 2009 and 2013.

The U.S. Green Building Council is having its huge annual conference now — you can watch live streams and archived videos of the leading experts on clean energy and energy efficiency here. And they just released a major new “Green Jobs Study” done by Booz Allen, which concluded:

Post by Joe in Solutions | 4 Responses

Should electric cars be intentionally made noisier?

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

This is a guest post by Chelsea Sexton, my friend and costar of the 2006 documentary film “Who Killed the Electric Car?“ At a young age, Chelsea began working for GM marketing their ill-fated electric car, the EV1. She even married an EV1 service technician! Now she serves as the Executive Director of Plug In America (full bio here). Her first guest post was, “So what is it like to actually drive the Chevy Volt plug in hybrid electric car?“). This post was first published on her blog. The picture is of Fisker Karma’s artificial sound-emitting bumper speakers.

For the most part, the electric vehicle world is palpably buzzing with excitement of cars to come — and after some seriously dark years, there is much to look forward to. The collective conversation has finally shifted from “if” to “how”, but even on easier “how” points, we can’t seem to get out of our own way — which really doesn’t bode well for the hard stuff.

Case in point is a newly-emerging issue over the silence of hybrids and electric cars. In the EV generation of the 1990’s, their comparative lack of noise was a selling point. Now, according to some, it’s a threat to life itself.

Post by Joe in Solutions | 26 Responses

Under pressure from Tea Party activists, Charleston GOP censures Lindsey Graham for bipartisanship effort to preserve our national security

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

First Lindsey Graham (R-SC) announced his breakthrough Senate climate partnership with John Kerry (D-MA). Then Teabaggers tried to “flush” Graham out of GOP, calling him “traitor” and “RINO” and “wussypants, girly-man, half-a-sissy.” Graham responded, “We’re not going to be the party of angry white guys.” But the Tea Party activists weren’t done, as this Think Progress repost makes clear.

On Monday, the Charleston County Republican Party’s executive committee “took the unusual step” of officially censuring Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). The local GOP committee admonished Graham for stepping across party lines to work with Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) on a bipartisan clean energy bill and other pieces of legislation. The censure stated that Graham’s “bipartisanship continues to weaken the Republican brand and tarnish the ideals of freedom.”

Part of the fury from the right against Graham is being spurred by the oil and coal industry. The oil company front group “American Energy Alliance” has blanketed South Carolina with ads smearing Graham for seeking to address climate change.

Post by Joe in Clean energy jobs bill | 3 Responses

Why solar energy trumps coal power: Exclusive new Caldeira analysis explains “the burning of organic carbon warms the Earth about 100,000 times more from climate effects than it does through the release of chemical energy in combustion.”

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

The color of solar cells — and their short energy payback — are trivial factors when considering the huge climate benefit they provide in avoiding the release of CO2 from the combustion of fossil fuels.

That was a central point in my first post debunking the error-riddled book Superfreakonomics. By failing to retract the many glaring errors I pointed out in my original post weeks ago — and instead blowing an aerosol smokescreen with false claims that Caldeira did not say the book misrepresented his views (see here) — Levitt brought upon himself the detailed and devastating takedown by Geophysicist Raymond T. Pierrehumbert, which focused on the same exact paragraph in the book that I debunked:

“A lot of the things that people say would be good things probably aren’t,” Myrhvold says. As an example he points to solar power. “The problem with solar cells is that they’re black, because they are designed to absorb light from the sun. But only about 12% gets turned into electricity, and the rest is reradiated as heat — which contributed to global warming.”

In my post, I noted that there were three and a half major howlers in this one tiny paragraph and that California Energy Commissioner Art Rosenfeld called this “patent nonsense” when I read it to him. Within minutes of my posting, a former lead engineer at Princeton Plasma Physics Lab “emailed me to be sure I don’t miss the forest for the trees here in debunking this,” as I wrote at the time. He pointed out that climatologist Ken Caldeira, of all people, had an analysis showing it was trivial:

As Ken Caldeira so grippingly points out (and I tried to make graphically clear in my Stanford talk last year), each molecule of CO2 released thermal energy when it was formed — that’s why we formed it. In the case of electricity generation, about 1/3 of its thermal energy went out a wire as electric power, the rest was released promptly as waste heat. But each molecule of CO2, during its subsequent lifetime in the atmosphere, traps 100,000 times more heat than was released during its formation.

A hundred thousand is a big number. It means that running a handheld electric hairdryer on US grid electricity delivers a planet-warming punch comparable to [the heat given off by] two Boeing 747s operating at full takeoff power for the same time period. The warming is delivered over time, not promptly, but that don’t matter; the planetary heating is accrued, the accountants would say, the moment you hit the switch.

And so I immediately added that in the original debunking (see here), which Levitt and Dubner obviously read and chose to ignore.

The graphic above is a PowerPoint from the engineer meant to illustrate the factor of 100,000.

Several people asked me for the analysis that derived the factor of 100,000. Climatologist Ken Caldeira was kind enough to share it with me and give me authority to post it. It is a previously-unpublished joint analysis by Caldeira and NYU’s Martin Hoffert titled, “Warming from fossil fuels,” which is now posted here. The abstract reads:

Post by Joe in Must-have PPTs, Science | 26 Responses

Veterans Day, 2029

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

This post is an update of Memorial Day, 2029.

The two worst direct impacts to humans from our unsustainable use of energy will, I think, be Dust-Bowlification and sea level rise, Hell and High Water. But another impact — far more difficult to project quantitatively because there is no paleoclimate analog — may well affect far more people both directly and indirectly than either of those: war, conflict, competition for arable and/or habitable land.

We will have to work as hard as possible to make sure we don’t leave a world of wars to our children. That means avoiding centuries of strife and conflict from catastrophic climate change. That also means finally ending our addiction to oil, a source — if not the source — of two of our biggest recent wars. As the NYT reported in August:

The changing global climate will pose profound strategic challenges to the United States in coming decades, raising the prospect of military intervention to deal with the effects of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics, military and intelligence analysts say.

Such climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions, say the analysts, experts at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies who for the first time are taking a serious look at the national security implications of climate change.

Post by Joe in national security | 15 Responses

Maryland county draws a “car-free blueprint for growth”

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

Montgomery County redefined the way it will grow in the next two decades when lawmakers endorsed a plan Tuesday that encourages development where residents can easily live a car-free lifestyle.

The County Council, after weeks of intense debate over the county’s growth policy, unanimously agreed to give developers discounts to build dense developments near transit stations as long as they also construct bike paths and walkways, put shops and other amenities nearby, and use environmentally friendly construction methods.

I don’t do a lot of local area reporting, but this front page (!) Washington Post story, “Montgomery draws a car-free blueprint for growth,” seemed newsworthy. The picture above is of the Rockville Pike corridor, and anyone who has driven around Rockville knows it is as car-centric as anywhere in America.

The county is working to change that:

Post by Joe in Climate Progress, Solutions | 8 Responses

News ads for clean energy and climate bill from Vote Vets and League of Conservation Voters

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

If you want to help keep the Vote Vets ad on the air, click here.

And this is the new LCV ad to “stop Big Oil’s bid to kill clean energy legislation”: (more…)

Post by Joe in Advocacy Content, Clean energy jobs bill | 1 Response

In “Act of Despicable Hubris,” coal front group ACCCE exploits veterans groups to push dirty energy agenda

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

You may recall from September that the dirty coal group’s 14th forgery impersonated American veterans, whereas real vets support strong action on climate and clean energy — as does GOP Senator John Warner, former Armed Services Committee chair. The coal industry is still up to its dirty tricks, as made clear in this Think Progress repost.

accce-who The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) — a front group of big utilities and coal companies — is no stranger to fraud. During the summer’s House debate on cap-and-trade legislation, lobbyists working on behalf of the coal group sent forged letters to members of Congress, and lied under oath about it. Now, ACCCE is trying to exploit Veterans Day by misrepresenting veterans groups in an email to supporters:

With Veterans Day around the corner, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on all the military personnel who are involved in ensuring our country is protected.

Energy security is one issue that has become increasingly important to our veterans. In fact, national veterans groups Votevets and Operation Free are urging the government to become more energy independent and less reliant on foreign oil.

We can do this by using the abundant domestic fuels we already have. With more than 250 billion tons of recoverable coal reserves, the United States has more coal than the Middle East has oil.

Post by Joe in Greenwashing | 5 Responses

Must-see video of Sen. Kerry grilling AEI’s Kenneth Green: “You just can’t just throw that stuff out there.”

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

Senator Kerry: Has your study been peer reviewed?
Kenneth Green: No, I don’t work in the peer review literature, Senator. I don’t work for a university.

Steven Hayward, the F.K. Weyerhaeuser fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, recently said, “The brain waves of the American right continue to be erratic, when they are not flat-lining.” He may have had in mind his AEI colleague Kenneth Green, whose lack of knowledge on climate was laid bare for all to see by Sen. John Kerry in today’s Finance Committee hearing:

I don’t know what is more revealing and embarrassing for Green and AEI — that Green couldn’t actually name a single peer-reviewed study in his defense or that when Kerry calls him on it, his only defense is an appeal to authority — his own “opinion” (!):

Post by Joe in Science | 24 Responses

Supermodel: Why I Took It Off For Climate Change

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

Our guest blogger is supermodel Cameron Russell, a junior at Columbia University and the organizer of the “Supermodels Take It Off For Climate Change” video for the 350.org movement. This is a Wonk Room repost.

Right now, preventing catastrophic climate change is just about the most important thing any one of us should be working on right now. 350.org organized a worldwide day of action which took place on October 24. The goal of their effort was to educate and generate attention around the setting of a 350 parts per million CO2 target goal for the meeting to be held in Copenhagen in December. I know something about getting attention and decided to contribute to their effort.

In the history of the world, all five mass extinctions have been accompanied by massive climate change, so we are facing an incredibly serious threat. In fact, we are technically in the sixth mass extinction right now, and it is the first mass extinction being attributed to humans.

Post by Joe in Media | 32 Responses

Obama will go to Copenhagen — if he can seal a deal

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday he would travel to Copenhagen next month if a climate summit is on the verge of a framework deal and his presence there will make a difference in clinching it….

“If I am confident that all of the countries involved are bargaining in good faith and we are on the brink of a meaningful agreement and my presence in Copenhagen will make a difference in tipping us over edge then certainly that’s something that I will do,” Obama told Reuters in an interview.

I had written back on October 9, after the Nobel Peace Prize announcement, that it looks like Obama will be going to Copenhagen after all.

The only question is whether there will be enough progress to motivate him to come. Reuters notes that the President remains optimistic n spite of the too-slow movement in the Senate:

Post by Joe in International | 9 Responses

Sen. Inhofe explains he’s going to Copenhagen so that when Sen. Kerry says “Yes. We’re going to pass a global warming bill” then “I will be able to stand up and say, ‘No, it’s over. Get a life. You lost. I won!’ ”

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

Thousands and thousands of climate science advocates — including me — will be in Copenhagen next month trying to advance an international deal that gives the world a chance to avoid catastrophic global warming.

And then there will be the man even the Washington Post calls “the last flat-earther,” Sen. James Inhofe (R-OIL). Why is he going? The Ada Evening News reported Monday:

Inhofe said he still intends to attend the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference.

“I’m always the spoiler at this thing. Last night I was on the Larry Kudlow show. He said, ‘Inhofe is the one-man truth squad going to Copenhagen.’ So when Barbara Boxer, John Kerry and all the left get up there and say, ‘Yes. We’re going to pass a global warming bill,’ I will be able to stand up and say, ‘No, it’s over. Get a life. You lost. I won,’ ” Inhofe said.

Sadly, the U.S. Constitution restriction — “No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years” — applies only to physical age. The senior junior-high-school Senator from Oklahoma is proof of that. What’s next for Inhofe? Perhaps during the Senate floor debate he plans to say “La, la, la, la, I can’t hear you”?

Inhofe makes other equally revealing nonsense statements in the interview:

Post by Joe in International | 23 Responses

Baucus supports a climate bill and knows it will pass Congress, but Senate Finance Committee calls on polluter lobbyists to attack clean energy yet again

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) knows that his state’s trees are being ravaged by warming-driven pests now and that Montana faces 175% to 400% increase in wildfire burn area if we don’t reverse course sharply and soon on greenhouse gas emissions. That’s why he supports strong climate action and said last week, “There’s no doubt that this Congress is going to pass climate change legislation.”

Bizarrely, though, his Finance Committee will hold an utterly missable hearing today on the “future of jobs” under clean energy legislation that has a witness list stacked with fossil-fuel-industry-funded polluters and deniers. Wonk Room has the story, excerpted below:

Appearing before the committee are four industry or conservative lobbyists and one coal-industry union lobbyist, Abraham Breehey. The only economist to testify will be Margo Thorning, a lobbyist for the anti-tax American Council on Capital Formation. Also testifying is Carol Berrigan, a nuclear industry representative, Van Ton-Quinlivan of Pacific Gas & Electric, and American Enterprise Institute fellow Kenneth Green.

Green regularly spouts anti-scientific nonsense like, “We’re back to the average temperatures that prevailed in 1978…. No matter what you’ve been told, the technology to significantly reduce emissions is decades away and extremely costly” — from a 2008 speech AEI later removed from their website (excerpts here). Last month, Green weirdly compared EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to Clint Eastwood and carbon polluters to criminals.

Post by Joe in Politics | 5 Responses

Voters in Ohio, Michigan and Missouri overwhelmingly support action on clean energy and global warming

Monday, November 9th, 2009

The new polls also found that large majorities believe global warming is a serious or very serious threat.

Polling from 3 key states — and 5 key districts — finds strong support for the climate and clean energy bill. Every major recent poll has come to the same conclusion (see Swing state poll finds 60% “would be more likely to vote for their senator if he or she supported the bill” and Independents support the bill 2-to-1). Perhaps that’s why E&E News found “At least 67 senators are in play” on climate bill.

In the new polls, likely 2010 voters were asked:

“Congress is considering an energy plan that has two key parts. One part would require factories and power companies to reduce their emissions of the carbon pollution that causes global warming by 17% (20% in MO) by the year 2020 and by 80% by the year 2050. The other part would require power companies to generate 15% of their power from clean energy sources like wind and solar by the year 2025. Would you favor/oppose this entire plan?”

The results:

75% of voters in Michigan favor.
68% of voters in Ohio favor.
67% of voters in Missouri favor.

And this matches every recent poll:

Post by Joe in Clean energy jobs bill | 6 Responses