Climate Progress

“The Web's most influential climate-change blogger” — Time Magazine A Project of Center for American Progress Action Fund

Must-have PPTs: GOP witness details harsh impact Bush-Cheney policies had on U.S. manufacturing jobs

October 29, 2009

The US manufacturing sector has lost over 5.1 million jobs in the last 10 years. Output and investment per GDP has fallen consistently and imports have risen sharply. (See charts below) This is not the time to implement risky unproven climate policy. The US economy cannot afford to lose any more jobs or shutdown facilities. Approximately 40,000 manufacturing plants have closed during the seven years ending in 2008. We have lost eleven industries that we were once dominant since the late 1990s. By late 2008, the US trade deficit with China alone was running at close to $1 billion per day, amounting to more than $90 per month or more than $1100 per year for every American.

That’s from one of the strangest pieces of testimony you’re ever going to see — by Paul Cicio, Executive Director, Industrial Energy Consumers of America.

Cicio was the GOP witness at the landmark hearings for the Senate climate and clean energy jobs bill today. He seemed to think that a strong argument against the clean energy bill was that the U.S. manufacturing sector has been devastated by eight years of conservative rule. I have argued many times that conservative do-nothing energy and economic policies led to sharp increases in energy costs (see “Senate GOP propose 25% ‘Do-Nothing’ energy tax on Americans“) and sharp decreases in US competitiveness (see “Invented here, sold there”).

But Cicio has the most (unintentionally) damning set of slides I’ve ever seen, a few of which I’m going to reproduce here since I’m sure progressives will want to use them in explaining why we must never go back to the Bush-Cheney policies. The figure above shows how conservative policies have killed manufacturing jobs. And lest you think that it is purely a coincidence that the manufacturing sector has been slammed by Bush-Cheney, Cicio provides this jaw-dropping figure which goes back another decade:

Read the rest of this post »

Post by Joe | October 29, 2009 | 17 comments | |

Print

Print

During forged letter investigation hearing, coal industry lies under oath about its lobbying history

October 29, 2009

This is a Think Progress repost.

Today, the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming held a hearing investigating fraudulent letters forged by Bonner & Associates on behalf of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) to attack the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454). As the Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson has reported, ACCCE President and CEO Steve Miller lied under oath when he told the committee that his organization has never opposed clean energy legislation.

Later during the hearing, Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) asked Miller about the purpose of ACCCE. Miller replied that in addition to grassroots lobbying (astroturfing) and state-based lobbying, his front group has only began federal lobbying in “April of 2008″ in its “16 year history”:

Read the rest of this post »

Post by Guest | October 29, 2009 | 2 comments | |

Print

Print

Increasing competitiveness through clean energy: Taking on China’s broad-based effort to be the world’s clean energy leader

October 29, 2009

I hope you have been watching panel 3 of today’s Senate climate bill hearings. It has been incredibly informative about the international competitiveness issue, especially China’s aggressive efforts to become the clean energy leader and the complete turnaround in the thinking of Chinese business and policymakers since Chinese President Hu Jintao’s UN speech (see “Are Chinese emissions pledges a game changer for Senate action?“). I’ll do a post on it later. Here is the testimony of CAP president and CEO John Podesta. I have reprinted the extensive discussion of China’s efforts to forever seize leadership in clean energy, which we can only match if we pass the clean energy bill.

Madam Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify before you this afternoon. I am very pleased to have this time to share my thoughts on the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, S. 1733, and its power to boost our economy’s competitiveness.

The Senate global warming debate has focused on pollution limits and timetables, carbon markets and allocations. But we have lost sight of our principal objective: building a robust and prosperous clean energy economy. Moving beyond fossil fuel pollution will involve exciting work, new opportunities, new products and innovation, and stronger communities. Our current national discussion about constraints, limits, and the costs of transition overshadows the economic opportunity of clean energy investments. It is as if, on the cusp of the Internet and telecommunications revolution, debate centered only on the cost of digging trenches to lay fiber optic cable.

Many of our economic competitors see investments in clean energy technologies as key to their long-term sustainable economic growth. Germany, Spain, Japan, China, and even India are building the foundation for a prosperous low-carbon future. Many leaders in the American business community realize the competitive threat to the United States if we do not join other nations by investing in our clean-energy sector. Venture capitalist John Doerr and General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt warn, “There is still time for us to lead this global race, although that window is closing. We need low-carbon policies to exploit America’s strengths—innovation and entrepreneurs.”

Read the rest of this post »

Post by Guest | October 29, 2009 | 9 comments | |

Print

Print

Contrarian Chic: Why can’t the media tell the difference between an attack on dubious ‘conventional’ wisdom and an attack on genuine scientific wisdom?

October 29, 2009

The Atlantic Monthly named Freeman Dyson a “Brave Thinker” for the “contrarian view” he’s taken on climate change. They tout his quote, “I like to express heretical opinions. They might even happen to be true.”

Like the authors of the error-riddled Superfreakonomics, Dyson is contrarian for the sake of contrarianism — the truth is secondary. Coincidentally, the same is true of the reporter who profiled him for the NY Times magazine — see Media stunner: When asked “Does it matter, from a journalistic point of view, whether [Freeman Dyson is] right or whether he’s wrong?” his NYT profiler replies “Oh, absolutely not.”

In fact, the media’s adoration of contrarians means it is a lot less brave to be a contrarian these days than it used to be in, say, Galileo’s day. Dave Roberts at Grist makes that point in a terrific piece (reposted below):

Willing to risk a fawning NYT profile … freeeeeedooooom!
Is Freeman Dyson really “brave”?

… What leads people to think that entire areas of climate science and policy, the subject of close study by thousands of very smart people all over the globe every day, can be overturned with facile points of logic and Silver Bullets Nobody’s Thought Of?

Well, it ain’t bravery….

On the other hand, simply repeat the broad global consensus— climate change is an urgent problem that warrants coordinated action to reduce GHG emissions—and you get nowhere. Boooring.

(I can’t tell you how many back-and-forths I’ve had with media outlets where I try to explain that the thing most people think is right actually is right, and they say, maybe so, but that’s not going to titillate our readers.)

Ditto! Scientific wisdom was, like, so last year.

Krugman had it right in his first take on the Superfreaks: “If you’re going to get into issues that are both important and the subject of serious study, like the fate of the planet, you’d better be very careful not to stray over the line between being counterintuitive and being just plain, unforgivably wrong.” Last week, in “Contrarianism without consequences,” the Nobel laureate added:

Read the rest of this post »

Post by Joe | October 29, 2009 | 11 comments | |

Print

Energy and Global Warming News for October 29: Report slams low-carbon tar sands ‘myth’

October 29, 2009

Report slams low-carbon tar sand “myth”

Capturing and storing some of the carbon that would be released in the processing of Canada’s tar sands may not clean the industry up. To turn the vast but dirty resource into useable oil, Canada will have to spew vast amounts of greenhouse gases.

That’s the conclusion of a new study on the potential of so-called carbon capture and storage technology to reduce carbon emissions from tar sands operations.

The Athabasca tar sands of north-eastern Alberta, Canada, hold more than 170 billion barrels of recoverable oil, second only to Saudi Arabia’s reserves. However, the oil is in the form of tarry bitumen that requires a great deal of energy to extract and turn into usable oil – some three to five times as much as conventional crude. The greenhouse gases released during the processing of tar sands make it an environmentally disastrous proposition.

No wonder, then, that the government of Alberta is putting much emphasis, and billions of research and development dollars, into carbon-capture technologies that aim to remove carbon dioxide released by the tar sands industry and store it safely underground.

But a new analysis (PDF) published this week by a UK consumer cooperative and the UK branch of environmental group WWF suggests that carbon capture will be too little, too late. Using the oil industry’s own best-case estimate – that 30 per cent of carbon emissions could be captured by 2030 and 50 per cent by 2050 – the analysts note that this falls far short of the reduction needed to make tar sands oil compare favourably with conventional crude.

Kudos to New Scientist for calling the “biggest global warming crime ever seen” by their real name, “tar sands” — see Memo to Obama: CCS won’t make tar sands clean. Memo to all: They ain’t “oil sands”. See also Canadian bishop challenges the “moral legitimacy” of tar sands production. For more on the report, see here.

Read the rest of this post »

Post by Jaren | October 29, 2009 | 6 comments | |

Print

Print

Senate shocker: Second biggest U.S. coal producer believes in global warming and strong climate action

October 29, 2009

Ken Ward, Jr., the best journalist in West Virginia, has been following the landmark Senate climate and clean energy hearings at his blog, “Coal Tattoo: Mining’s Mark on our World.” I’m excerpting his latest piece.

But then there was Preston Chiaro, (above) chief executive for energy and minerals at Rio Tinto, a huge worldwide coal company and the second largest coal producer in the United States, who told lawmakers:

Unmanaged climate change is a threat to our assets, our shareholders, and our employees, and also to civil society and political institutions in many of the countries in which we operate and across the globe.

Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., was kind enough to read into the record part of today’s Gazette story, “Climate bill adds more sweeteners for coal industry. In it, I took a first cut at trying to describe some of the changes that were added to the bill to help coal, in response to efforts by, among others, Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va.

Coal Tattoo readers know that some folks in the coal industry — such as United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts and American Electric Power President Michael Morris – are taking a much more progressive stance on the climate bill than others, such as Massey Energy President Don Blankenship, who wants the issue to just go away.

But Rio Tinto’s testimony was a real eye-opener … for example, as far as the Boxer-Kerry bill’s tougher near-term emissions reductions, Chiaro said:

Read the rest of this post »

Post by Guest | October 29, 2009 | 6 comments | |

Print

Print

Limbaugh rejects an apology for Revkin

October 29, 2009

When we last left the most vociferous intellectual leader in the conservative movement, he was being widely condemned for telling NY Times environment reporter Revkin: “Why don’t you just go kill yourself?” Limbaugh’s remarks were far beyond the pale even for his brand of extremism.

Yesterday, Limbaugh closed his show with a mention of this incident (audio here):

(music up)…Another excursion into broadcast excellence gone, in the blink of an eye. The fastest three hours of media. You remember last week I had a little fun with this New York Times guy Revkin who seriously considered the carbon limiting implications of limiting childbirths to one per family and I suggested show us some leadership on this. I mean you’re always telling everybody else to not have any go ahead and show us how it works. Die and save the planet. And he was profoundly offended by this and I’m told wants an apology…. (music up, end)

In the comments section of his blog, Revkin takes an Uber-optimistic spin on what looks to me like another slap in the face:

Read the rest of this post »

Post by Joe | October 29, 2009 | 4 comments | |

Print

Print

Breaking: Toshiba tells San Antonio its new twin $13 billion nukes will cost $4 billion more! The city balks. This looks like a job for clean energy.

October 28, 2009

One of the very first new nuclear power plants proposed to be built in the U.S. in over 30 years just hit a brick wall. It’s the same brick wall — absurdly high cost — being hit around the world (see “Nuclear Bombshell: $26 Billion cost — $10,800 per kilowatt! — killed Ontario nuclear bid” and “Turkey’s only bidder for first nuclear plant offers a price of 21 cents per kilowatt-hour“).

The San Antonio Express News reports today:

The estimated cost of two new nuclear reactors proposed by CPS Energy has gone up as much as $4 billion, prompting the City Council to postpone Thursday’s vote on the project’s financing until January.

CPS officials and Mayor Julián Castro, flanked by every council member except David Medina, held a hastily arranged news conference Tuesday afternoon announcing the delay.

CPS interim General Manager Steve Bartley said the utility’s main contractor on the project, Toshiba Inc., informed officials that the cost of the reactors would be “substantially greater” than CPS’ estimate of $13 billion, which includes financing.

The San Antonio Current notes that “After what can only be considered a sustained Certified Sales Event by CPS Energy matched by Mammoth Media Buildup,” the City Council was set to vote for the $400 Million bond issue this Thursday, which would have put the city “on an irreversible date with” the Toshiba nuke.

Occasional guest CP blogger Craig Severance not only tipped me off to this, but in fact predicted this price rise last month in a post, “San Antonio: New Economy Leader or Nuclear Guinea Pig?” that offers some saner and cheaper clean energy alternatives, which I’ll reprint below.

If you want to see an especially painful press conference from a Mayor who had been putting his foot on the nuclear accelerator, watch this:

Even before the latest jump price jump, the city was planning “a 9.5 percent base rate increase to cover the nuclear expansion and the utility’s other capital projects.” Such preemptive rate increases years before the plant would even deliver a single kilowatt hour are inevitable when you pursue nuclear power these days, as Florida has painfully found out (see “What do you get when you buy a nuke? You get a lot of delays and rate increases….”).

New nuclear plants are so expensive they are likely to provide electricity at some 15 cents per kilowatt hour (see “Nuclear power, Part 2: The price is not right“) — or possibly more than 20 cents/kWh (see “Exclusive analysis, Part 1: The staggering cost of new nuclear power“). The precise answer — 50% higher than average U.S. electricity prices or more than 100% higher — is hard to know since it is all but impossible to find a utility willing to stand behind a firm price in a rate hearing.

Some city Council members are now rethinking their commitment to the nuke:

Read the rest of this post »

Post by Joe | October 28, 2009 | 21 comments | |

Print

Arctic sea ice is refreezing quite slowly. Go figure!

October 28, 2009

When records were being set for loss of summer Arctic sea ice area (2007) and sea ice volume (2008), the deniers spent all their time talking about how quickly the ice refroze in the ensuing months. Now, they are strangely quiet on the remarkably slow refreezing we’re seeing.

Why the slow refreezing this year? I’ll post the answer from the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the end. First, some background.

“The recent sea-ice retreat is larger than in any of the (19) IPCC [climate] models,” as Tore Furevik, Vice director at Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, pointed out in a May 2006 talk (big PPT here) on climate system feedbacks.

And that was before another staggering drop in Arctic sea-ice area in 2007 (see “Arctic Ice shrinks by an Alaska plus a Texas“).

And then we hit a record low volume in 2008 (see here), as this remarkable figure shows:

Read the rest of this post »

Post by Joe | October 28, 2009 | 17 comments | |

Print

University Of Kentucky approves new $7 million industry-funded dorm named after “Coal”

October 28, 2009

You can’t make this stuff up, as this Think Progress repost makes clear.

A group led by Alliance Coal CEO Joseph Craft recently proposed donating $7 million to the University of Kentucky for a new dorm for the men’s basketball team. The catch, however, is that the dorm would have to be named after Craft’s true love: coal. The proposed change sparked intense protests from local environmentalists and students. One professor said that as universities become “models for new energy sources,” putting “coal” on a prominent building could “make it difficult to attract top students and faculty members to the university.”

[JR: Yes, coal industry will spend millions for a new dorm -- and yet Massey Energy refused to fund a new school so students can move away from coal processing plant!]

Yesterday afternoon, the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees voted 16-3 to approve the proposal for the new dorm, which will be named the “Wildcat Coal Lodge.” Significantly, two of the “no” votes were from faculty representative Ernie Yanarella and Student Government President Ryan Smith, who said he opposed the motion “as a voice for the student body.”

Students in the audience were reportedly not allowed to speak at the meeting. After the vote, people began chanting, “Move forward, not backward,” forcing the trustees to temporarily recess. More on the events at the meeting:

Read the rest of this post »

Post by Joe | October 28, 2009 | 6 comments | |

Print

Print

Harvard Business Review: SuperFreakonomics Ignores the Business Case for Sustainability

October 28, 2009

The error-riddled book Superfreakonomics got the economics dead wrong, too, as Nobelist Krugman and others have noted. Now Harvard Business Review weighs in on how they got the business side wrong. I’m reposting an HBR piece by Andrew Winston, co-author of the best-seller Green to Gold and the author of the new book Green Recovery.

Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt’s SuperFreakonomics has certainly gotten a lot of people worked up. The point of contention is a chapter about global warming which makes the case that Al Gore and others are getting us way too worked up about the climate problem because the only way to solve it is to convince people to “put aside their self interest and do the right thing even if it’s personally costly.”

The authors go on to explain their solution — geoengineering — which purportedly isn’t going to require us to cut back on our energy use or rethink the way we do business. But what they have completely failed to address — and what the (ahem) lively discussions on the topic have missed as well — is what the benefits of tackling climate change might be, instead of just the costs.

The authors have missed a major economic issue: the process of shifting our economy to a low-carbon one has enormous upsides completely aside from the benefits to climate balance.

Read the rest of this post »

Post by Guest | October 28, 2009 | 14 comments | |

Print

Print

Memo to Baucus: Your state’s trees are being ravaged by warming-driven pests now and Montana faces 175% to 400% increase in wildfire burn area

October 28, 2009

Sen. Max Baucus said Tuesday he has “serious reservations” about climate legislation unveiled by his Democratic colleagues, signaling trouble for a proposal that is stronger in certain respects than a bill passed by the House.

In an effort to inject drama and conflict into a hearing that lack both, the WSJ and other media outlets trumpeted the fact that Baucus said he thought Boxer’s proposed bill was too strong.

In fact, it’s obvious to everyone else that one couldn’t get 60 votes for Boxer’s bill and the final bill is going to be different (see Breakthrough Senate climate partnership: Graham (R-SC) and Kerry (D-MA) join forces and assert they are “convinced that we have found both a framework for climate legislation to pass Congress“). The WSJ story never mentioned this fact, but ominously writes, “Supporters of the climate proposal can ill afford to lose any Democratic votes in the Senate, given stiff Republican opposition.” Baucus himself said (full remarks at the end):

I support passing common-sense climate legislation that reduces greenhouse gas emissions while protecting our economy. And the key word in that sentence is “passing.”

So Baucus will be voting for the final bill.

One part of the media focused on the real story that Montanans are increasingly concerned about: Climate change is already hitting their state hard now and is poised to devastate it utterly. American Public Media’s Marketplace has be done a terrific multipart series on climate change, which can be accessed here, along with a map of how different regions of the country are being affected now and how they are likely to be hit in the future.

The first piece “Climate change in our own backyards,” tells the amazing story of the warming-driven bark beetle infestation around Helena. And yes, this is the same exact story that the NYT screwed up in July (see “Signs of global warming are everywhere, but if the New York Times can’t tell the story (twice!), how will the public hear it?“).

The figure above is from a major recent study, which projects a staggering increase in “wildfire activity and carbonaceous aerosol concentrations in the western United States” — “with the forests of the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountains experiencing the greatest increases of 78% and 175% respectively” by 2050. The graph “shows the percentage increase in area burned by wildfires, from the present-day to the 2050s,” if we only see an “average global warming of 1.6 degrees Celsius (3 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2050.” If we don’t start reducing emissions sharply — sharper than Baucus wants — the UK Met Office says the plausible worst-case is 13-18°F warming over most of U.S. by 2060. Montana would be an inferno.

You can see how serious Marketplace is about getting the climate story right from the very first words of Kai Ryssdal (audio and transcript here):

Read the rest of this post »

Post by Joe | October 28, 2009 | 14 comments | |

Print

Print

Energy and Global Warming News for October 28: Solar industry takes on coal and oil lobby; White House continues to step up climate efforts

October 28, 2009

Solar Industry Takes on Coal and Oil Lobbies

A solar industry leader smacked down the oil and coal industries on Tuesday, calling for renewable energy proponents to open their wallets to level the playing field in Washington.

“The full promise of solar power is being restrained by the tyranny of policies that protect our competitors, subsidize wealthy polluters and disadvantage green entrepreneurs,” said Rhone Resch, chief executive of the Solar Energy Industries Association, according to prepared remarks for a speech he is to give at the opening of the Solar Power International conference.

The event, being held in Anaheim, Calif., is the solar industry’s biggest annual get-together in the United States, and is usually a celebration of the industry’s breakneck growth of recent years.

But Mr. Resch said that with the fossil fuel industry devoting tens of millions of dollars to defeat climate change legislation now before Congress, the solar industry needs to start throwing its weight around Washington.

“How our country proceeds on climate change will permanently shape the market for solar,” he said in his remarks.

Oil and coal interests “are spending millions of dollars on lobbying, P.R. and advertising, and much of it is financing a deliberate effort to discredit our industry,” Mr. Resch added. “At the end of the day in Washington, good intentions won’t stand a chance against millions of dollars and intense political pressure. We have relied on good will long enough, and if that’s the only arrow in our quiver, we will lose.”

Actually, the solar industry is coming off quite a successful year in Washington, winning a slew of tax breaks, incentives and loan guarantees for solar energy development.

But Mr. Resch said fossil fuel industries received $72 billion in federal subsidies between 2002 and 2008 while the solar industry scored less than $1 billion. “Taxpayers are forced to subsidize companies like ExxonMobil, companies that are the richest in the history of the world,” he said.

His solution: Start playing the influence game, raising big money for politicians and mobilizing constituents to pressure Congress to support the solar agenda. “In 2008, the oil industry contributed $22 million to political candidates, the utility industry $21 million,” said Mr. Resch. “The solar industry: $138,000. We cannot compete with the entrenched energy interests unless we step up our game.”

In an interview Monday evening, Mr. Resch said the new aggressiveness reflects the solar industry’s continued growth, even in a deep recession. He noted that attendance at the Solar Power International conference has doubled since 2007, with 25,000 people expected in Anaheim this week.

“We need to take a different role in our advocacy, in our relationships in Washington and our ability to influence directions that affect the outcome of our economy,” he said.

White House steps up climate efforts

Read the rest of this post »

Post by Michael | October 28, 2009 | 9 comments | |

Print

Print

Washington Post mocks Inhofe as “the last flat-earther”

October 28, 2009

It must be very lonely being the last flat-earther.

Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, committed climate-change denier, found himself in just such a position Tuesday morning as the Senate environment committee, on which he is the ranking Republican, took up legislation on global warming. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was in talks with Democrats over a compromise bill — the traitor! And as Inhofe listened, fellow Republicans on the committee — turncoats! — made it clear that they no longer share, if they ever did, Inhofe’s view that man-made global warming is the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”

… Agitated, his utterances disjointed, Inhofe went on: “Now, I also was — was kind of — I don’t want any of the media to think just because I had to sit here and listen to our good friend Senator Kerry for 28 minutes, that I don’t have responses to everything he said.”Nobody doubted that Inhofe had a response. The doubt was whether the response would make any sense.

That’s Dana Milbank in his regular “Washington sketch” column writing about yesterday’s Senate climate hearing. Milbank is being kind not to count his fellow WashPost colleagues George Will and Fred Hiatt in calling Inhofe (R-OIL) the last flat-earther (see “WashPost recycles another denier WSJ op-ed, this time from coal apologist Bjorn Lomborg. Funny how two new senior Post editors came from the WSJ” and “Memo to Post: If George Will quotes a lie, it’s still a lie“).

If you’ve been dissed by the WashPost as being too head-in-the-sand on global warming, you must be buried up to your toes. Milbank shows just how out of the mainstream, how devoid of sense Inhofe has become by quoting from his fellow Republicans on the science:

Read the rest of this post »

Post by Joe | October 28, 2009 | 17 comments | |

Print

Print

The weak El Niño appears to be strengthening, as expected, so record temperatures will continue.

October 27, 2009

Two weeks ago I blogged that NASA reports hottest June to September on record; NOAA says “weak” El Niño “expected to strengthen and last through” winter.

NOAA’s National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center (and most other models) have been predicting for a couple of months that the weak El Niño would strengthen, but it hasn’t. Until now, that is.

This sea surface temperature (SST) data is from the NOAA’s October 26 weekly update on the El Niño/Southern oscillation, “ENSO Cycle: Recent Evolution, Current Status and Predictions“:

It is the warming in the Nino 3.4 region of the Pacific that is typically used to define an El Niño. The region can be seen in this figure:

Read the rest of this post »

Post by Joe | October 27, 2009 | 14 comments | |

Print

The landmark Senate climate hearings: Day 1 debrief

October 27, 2009

Kerry testifies before EPW

The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works began its hearings today on the climate and clean energy bill. I don’t think there was any big news. Sen. Baucus (D-MT) and Sen. Voinovich (R-OH) were a tad more negative than I expected. I’ve no doubt Baucus will support the final bill, but I definitely have doubts Voinovich will. This Wonk Room post is a great summary of everyone’s position on the key issues:

This week, hearings begin in the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works on the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (S. 1733). This comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation, co-sponsored by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) and committee chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA), will establish a mandatory global warming pollution reduction market that will fund clean energy and climate adaptation, as well as establish new renewable energy and energy efficiency standards. The 19 members of the committee — 12 Democrats and 7 Republicans — are overseeing a three-day marathon of legislative hearings this week, starting with Administration witnesses today.

The committee members can be sorted by their degree of support for clean energy, progressive reform, and strong climate action:

Read the rest of this post »

Post by Guest | October 27, 2009 | 9 comments | |

Print

Print

Obama announces $3.4 billion in smart grid investments “to build a clean energy superhighway.” Creating a clean energy economy will require an “all-hands-on-deck approach similar to the mobilization that preceded World War II…. I also believe that such a comprehensive piece of legislation that is taking place right now in Congress is going to be critical.”

October 27, 2009

The President said today that we’re having a debate “between those who are ready to seize the future and those who are afraid of the future.”

ARCADIA, FLORIDA – Speaking at Florida Power and Light’s (FPL) DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center, President Barack Obama today announced the largest single energy grid modernization investment in U.S. history, funding a broad range of technologies that will spur the nation’s transition to a smarter, stronger, more efficient and reliable electric system. The end result will promote energy-saving choices for consumers, increase efficiency, and foster the growth of renewable energy sources like wind and solar.

The $3.4 billion in Smart Grid Investment Grant awards are part of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, and will be matched by industry funding for a total public-private investment worth over $8 billion. Applicants state that the projects will create tens of thousands of jobs, and consumers in 49 states will benefit from these investments in a stronger, more reliable grid. Full listings of the grant awards by category and state are available HERE and HERE. A map of the awards is available HERE.

An analysis by the Electric Power Research Institute estimates that the implementation of smart grid technologies could reduce electricity use by more than 4 percent by 2030. That would mean a savings of $20.4 billion for businesses and consumers around the country, and $1.6 billion for Florida alone — or $56 in utility savings for every man, woman and child in Florida.

One-hundred private companies, utilities, manufacturers, cities and other partners received awards today, including FPL which will use its $200 million in funding to install 2.6 million smart meters and other technology that will cut energy costs for its customers…. The awards announced today represent the largest group of Recovery Act awards ever made in a single day and the largest batch of Recovery Act clean energy grant awards to-date.

The White House announced this major down payment on the effort to jumpstart the transition to a clean energy economy. Obama himself said:

So at this moment, there is something big happening in America when it comes to creating a clean energy economy…. And I have often said that the creation of such an economy is going to require nothing less than the sustained effort of an entire nation — an all-hands-on-deck approach similar to the mobilization that preceded World War II or the Apollo Project. And I also believe that such a comprehensive piece of legislation that is taking place right now in Congress is going to be critical. That’s going to finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America — legislation that will make the best use of resources we have in abundance, through clean coal technology, safe nuclear power, sustainably grown biofuels, and energy we harness from the wind, waves, and sun.

I’ll repost Obama’s entire speech at the end. It is a good follow on to his M.I.T. speech.

Here’s more on where the $3.4 billion went and its projected impact:

Read the rest of this post »

Post by Joe | October 27, 2009 | 2 comments | |

Print

Print

SuperFreaks claim book doesn’t have “a moral or policy perspective.” Yet they wrote, “Any religion, meanwhile, has its heretics, and global warming is no exception” and warming is “at the forefront of public policy.”

October 27, 2009

Yesterday, SuperFreakonomics co-author Steven Levitt said his book’s erroneous statement on recent global temperature trends was just an attempt at “irony” (see Caldeira — “To talk about global cooling at the end of the hottest decade the planet has experienced in many thousands of years is ridiculous.” Levitt “said he does not believe there is a cooling trend”!!).

He and coauthor Stephen Dubner also continued their national media disinformation tour on public radio’s Diane Rehm Show. I couldn’t stomach listening to their efforts to either walk back or obfuscate key errors and misrepresentations in their book error-riddled book. Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson has a stronger digestive system than I do, so he listened to the show and I’ll repost his response.

Levitt and Dubner dismissed the widespread criticism of their book by Nobel Prize-winning economists and climate scientists as the “work of an activist,” evidently referring to physicist and former Department of Energy official Joseph Romm, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. Levitt and Dubner even tried to laugh off the on-air criticism of Dr. Peter Frumhoff, a global change ecologist who is the director of Science and Policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists and a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The authors represent their book as merely a quizzical look at interesting issues, without “a moral or policy perspective“:

Read the rest of this post »

Post by Guest | October 27, 2009 | 20 comments | |

Print

Print

Energy and Global Warming News for October 27: Climate change endangers human health

October 27, 2009

Ailing planet seen as bad for human health

Climate change will make Americans more vulnerable to diseases, disasters and heat waves, but governments have done little to plan for the added burden on the health system, according to a new study by a nonprofit group.

The study, released Monday by the Trust for America’s Health, an advocacy group focused on disease prevention, examines the public-health implications of climate change. In addition to pushing up sea levels and shrinking Arctic ice, the report says, a warming planet is likely to leave more people sick, short of breath or underfed.

Experts involved with the study said that these threats might be reduced if the federal government adopts a cap on greenhouse-gas emissions. But no legislation could stop them altogether, they said. Emissions already in the atmosphere are expected to increase warming — and the problems that come with it — for years to come.

“That [a cap on greenhouse gases] really is not enough,” said Phyllis Cuttino of the Pew Environment Group, which funded the study. “We can see all these problems coming, but as a country, we haven’t done enough to prepare for them.”

The idea that climate change will be bad for people as well as polar bears is not new: It was explained in detail by a United Nations panel that won the Nobel Peace Prize for its work on climate in 2007.

For more on the health impacts of climate change, see

Read the rest of this post »

Post by Jonathan | October 27, 2009 | 12 comments | |

Print

Print

Green Halloween tips you may not have thought of PLUS when you see kids out trick-or-treating tonight …

October 27, 2009

There’s a whole website GreenHalloween.org. And everybody’s favorite green website, Treehugger, has a bunch of ideas (reprinted below).

But first, when you see kids out trick-or-treating tonight … please consider these lines from the nation’s top climate scientist:

… the most serious effects will be visited upon the young and the unborn, the generations that bear no responsibility for the problem. The most important effects, I believe, will be those that are irreversible for all practical purposes, specifically (1) extermination of species, and (2) ice sheet disintegration and sea level rise. If we continue business-as-usual energy policy, using more and more fossil fuels, it is likely that we will have: (1) rapid climate change that will combine with other pressures on species to cause the rate of extinction of plants and animals to increase markedly, leading in some cases to ecosystem collapse, snowballing extinctions, and a more desolate planet for future generations. (2) meter-scale sea level rise this century, and ice sheets in a state of disintegration that guarantees future sea level rise in the 10-meter-scale, with a continual reworking of future global coastlines out of humanity’s control.

I would add that the planetary desolation our continued inaction would leave our children includes the loss of the inland glaciers that provide fresh water for a billion people, irreversible ocean acidification and Dust-Bowlification across one third of the habited land mass (see “Hell and High Water “).

That should give a double incentive for a greener Halloween … “in ways you may not have thought of“:

Read the rest of this post »

Post by Joe | October 27, 2009 | 4 comments | |

Print

Print