Tonight I want to promote two excellent websites. Every environmentalist who cares about global warming and what’s being done and not done to deal with its impact should bookmark both Hill Heat: Science Policy and Legislative Action and Solve Climate: Daily Climate News and Analysis.
Brad Johnson is the editor and publisher of Hill Heat. He has a background in climate science, online communications, technology journalism and political organizing. Long-time participants at Daily Kos may know him better as The Cunctator. He’s been posting environmental diaries and comments here since October 2003, including prodigious live-blogging of congressional hearings on climate and energy. Not that he didn’t also spend time writing about other issues, especially in his earlier days. His first DKos diary was Wounded soldiers languish in squalor and his latest - Dirty Coal Using Voter Fraud Corp To Teabag Town Halls - is part of tonight’s Green Diary Rescue.
Johnson has a solid grasp on what’s happening in energy and climate matters that not many bloggers can match. What I like most about Hill Heat is his devotion to writing in a way that gives his readers tools for action. His focus on what various Congresspersons are saying about global warming and related legislation provides a treasure trove for other bloggers and journalists.
While Hill Heat is a one-man operation, with all the constraints that imposes, Solve Climate has the advantages of a staff of three journalists with experience in Asia, Africa and Appalachia. They are founder David Sassoon, co-founder and foreign editor Stacy Feldman and managing editor Stacy Morford. More than 20 other writers and green advocates regularly contribute. As the site’s mission statement has it: ...we aim to hold our leaders accountable for solutions, for in the final analysis, the climate crisis is testing the moral validity of our way of life. Will America respond with courage and leadership to the global distress for which it is both historically and presently responsible more than any other nation?
Each day the site picks some choice news from other sources, presents a featured article from one of its writers, such as Friday’s America's National Parks: Canaries in the Climate Change Coal Mine by Leslie Berliant and tracks policy in Washington, including following organizations like 1Sky the new coalition that seeks "to change the rules of the D.C.climate policymaking game by using a non-negotiable, measurable and novel baseline for legislative success on global warming: science."
The excellent action-oriented coverage this week included Morford’s 10 Senators to Watch as Electric Utilities Up the Ante:
The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, an industry front group with a budget topping $20 million and ties to the phony letters scandal, is launching a campaign over Congress's August recess to push farm- and industrial-state senators to make the climate bill friendlier to coal.
This week, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), whose members represent more than 90% of the electricity generated and delivered in the United States, also weighed in with its own proposal for an all-of-the-above approach to energy, which it promises would cut emissions, too — with 50 new nuclear plants and plenty of coal.
She went one to list the 10 Senators, with details about their committee assignments, the amount and of campaign contributions they have received from the electric utilities funding, and sense of how they might vote on climate change legislation. Included were:
Evan Bayh (D-Ind.): $42,550
Bayh is also a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Indiana is a manufacturing state that relies almost entirely on coal for electricity. Bayh opposed even a low 15 percent Renewable Electricity Standard, and he opposed cap-and-trade last year saying he wanted to protect consumers.
[...]
David Vitter (R-La.): $19,499
Vitter, a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee that is spearheading the climate bill in the Senate, is vehemently against putting a price on carbon emissions. He argues that it would "have a profoundly negative impact on Louisiana’s economy in particular, bringing about significant job loss and increased energy prices – neither of which we need in these trying economic times." Vitter was tied for dead last on the Republicans for Environmental Protection’s 2008 Senate Scorecard.
As eco-progressives settle in for the long haul with a more green-amenable but still problematic Democratic administration and congressional majority, these two sites are must-reads.
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The diary rescue begins below and continues in the jump.
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Magnifico lamented that America's Glaciers don't get a Town Hall about their HealthAmerica's three "benchmark" glaciers are melting and over the past two decades they have been shrinking at an accelerated rate because of global warming. The glaciers in Alaska and Washington have undergone a "rapid and sustained" loss of mass since 1989. Scientists at the U.S. Geologic Survey think this "decline could be the result of recent climate changes" overcoming seasonal fluctuations that impact the glaciers' size. These findings, "Fifty-Year Record of Glacier Change Reveals Shifting Climate in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, USA", were released in a report by the USGS on Thursday."
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The Overnight News Digest is posted. Included is this story: Recession means fewer babies; US births fell 2 pct.
A Siegel wrote that we should be about Making Climate Policy Economically Profitable: "Smart climate policy will, even within traditional economic definitions, pay off for the economy. But, in fact, there are a multitude of payoffs here: Insurance: Reducing emissions (even going to carbon negative) is an insurance policy against potential impacts of catastrophic climate change. There will be impacts but we have, hopefully, the chance to control how bad they will be. Security: Reducing Global Warming impacts will improve national security (by reducing risks), but a key path will also mean reduced oil imports which might lead to lower global tensions and fewer drives for deployments of military forces into conflict situations. Economics: Well, the economic payoffs are enormous, from reduced health care costs from lowered pollution, to improved balance of payments due to lowered oil imports and increased exports of green technologies, to green jobs, to ...
denis diderot gave us a thorough look at Salmonella, Ground Beef, and Silly "American Housewives": "Today the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced a recall of ground beef products due to possible Salmonella contamination. According to the press release, ‘Beef Packers, Inc. [BPI]...is recalling approximately 825,769 pounds of ground beef products that may be linked to an outbreak of salmonellosis.’ The link between confirmed Salmonella infections and consumption of BPI ground beef products was first discovered by the Colorado Department of Public Health, and a subsequent traceback investigation conducted by FSIS. This recall was, for me, surprising news—and also inexplicable given the USDA’s long-held position that Salmonella is not an adulterant per se in raw meat, and also given the meat industry’s prior success in getting a court to invalidate Salmonella performance standards that the USDA had tried to implement as part of its 1996 Pathogen Reduction, HACCP regulations."
The Cunctator addressed Dirty Coal Using Voter Fraud Corp To Teabag Town Halls: "The new project will use its 250,000-person ‘America's Power Army’ of coal company employees and other coal supporters. They will visit town hall meetings, fairs and other functions attended by members of Congress with planted questions attacking clean energy reform. As first reported by E&E News, ACCCE has subcontracted its astroturf operations to the Lincoln Strategy Group, a GOP-tied firm notorious for voter fraud. The LinkedIn profile for Lincoln Strategies staffer Courtney Forrester reveals that her employer is engaged in a massive effort to recruit supporters on behalf of the coal industry. Steve Gates, communications director for ACCCE, told me that Lincoln Strategy Group ran their grassroots campaign last year as well."
BruceMcF provided some pushback of an attack on high speed rail in Glaeser Hacks up the Numbers on HSR: "This last weekend, I looked at a low-brow attack on HSR by John McCarron in the Chicago Tribune. This week, I look at a high brow attack by the economist Edward Glaeser at the NYTimes ‘Economix.’ However, the attack by Edward Glaeser is different. Even if some suspect a partisan motive, given Glaser's support for McCain ... this is not the kind of hackery we are seeing in the health care debate, where paid partisan hacks are just blatantly lying. It’s the kind of hackery that is embedded in a frame, and which will bias the results of any honest analysis done within that frame."
123idaho wondered if we aremaking the best decisions for Idaho’s families and natural legacy?: "Whether your summertime rituals involve an annual hike up a favorite trail or Sunday evenings at the old fishing hole, the great outdoors are one big reason most of us choose to live in Idaho. From our pristine lakes and rivers to abundant, accessible public land to clear blue skies, we are blessed with scenic and recreational riches. We also know that these gifts were given to us to use wisely, and that we are called to be stewards of the air, land and water that both feed our souls and help us keep food on our tables. Just as we all shoulder a great deal of individual responsibility for our actions, as lawmakers, we know that decisions made in the Idaho Legislature can affect our environment. Are we making the best decisions?"
Cpt Robespierre sought help to get my health care-energy idea to Congress: "My proposal is fairly simple: Add a federal tax of about 3 cents per kWh onto coal-fired electricity (no exemptions, unless they somehow become totally clean and store their carbon) and use that tax to help pay for health care reform.
I use that figure because an MIT study cited in the Economist feature (mentioned above) estimated the price would rise to 8 cents per kWh if coal companies had to store their carbon dioxide or pay a $30/ton carbon tax. That doesn't even cover the non-CO2 issues, of course."
And two more diarists joined the week's plethora who have taken a look at one of the week’s favorite stimulus projects.
From the personal angle, there was charityslave, writing Clunkers and your tax dollar: "I recently traded in my 1996 Ford Explorer for a 2009 Toyota Prius. While most of my friends and colleagues were happy and supportive of my decision and good fortune, one of them became miffed when he overheard me talking about it and, his face a little contorted with anger, said ‘Why should my tax money go to help you buy a new car?’ I started to list the reasons but he would have none of it and he left in a bit of a huff (wanna guess who he voted for in the last election?). But it got me thinking. Why did he get so angry? And why should we support a program such as this?
And The Media Consortium took a look at what various experts are saying in Weekly Mulch: More Cash for Clunkers.