Welcome to edition #5 of This week in climate change.
Big news today!
And for once it is not about the volcano of oil in the Gulf.
We finally have a climate/jobs bill in the Senate (a similar bill passed the house eons ago.)
Will it see the bipartisan support it needs? Or will the 41 Republicans in the Senate obstruct, obfuscate, and obliterate our chances of saving the planet?
It is time to hold their feet to the fire. Will the GOP stand with Americans who need jobs and want to keep our country safe? Or will they continue to back the terrorists who want to destroy America and corporations which care only about profit at any cost?
There is no middle ground.
It is a yes or no question.
• • • • • •
Climate news, Climate Diary Rescue, Climate Blog Roundup, Action Items and more below the fold.
This week in climate change is a new weekly series at Daily Kos devoted to climate change and related news. The hope is that we can engage in constructive debate about the issues raised by the topics presented, and coalesce around the action items proposed each week.
The diary for now will appear Wednesday afternoons, around 1PM Pacific.
THE LEDE
* GOP ♥ Terrorists, Hate Jobs *
Prove me wrong, goopers.
I'll admit it if you do.
Until then, I propose hammering the Party of No with this cudgel. They cannot both claim to be "tough on terror" and support funneling billions to rogue nations every week.
Support the effort to rebuild America.
OR
Support the effort to destroy America.
It cannot be both.
It is clear to (non-politician)people on both sides of the political spectrum that America's appetite for oil is a national security problem.
It is also clear climate change and its effects will pose other imminent threats, like the millions of climate refugees it will create, if climate change is not aggressively addressed immediately if not sooner.
So far we have but one GOP Senator who has had voiced concern for the bill he helped draft. Will there be others? Or will all the other Republican Senators stand with the terrorists and do nothing to end our need for foreign oil?
There are rumors already swirling about possible real and major New Deal-esque legislation to address some of these concerns.
Will the GOP fight a Green Jobs/End America's Foreign Oil Addiction Bill(s)?
Chairman of the 9/11 Commission, Thomas Kean, and former Prez'al candidate & co-chairman of the bipartisan U.S. Commission on National Security for the 21st Century, Gary Hart, call for swift action on climate change for national security.
http://www.politico.com/...
Climate change calls for innovation
by Thomas Kean & Gary Hart
Most people think of climate change as an environmental issue. But the potential effects on our security, our economy and our way of life make it a far broader challenge. It is a military readiness issue. Most crucially, it is a jobs issue.
To be prepared, we first require a new energy paradigm for this country, one that reduces our dependency on foreign oil and caps our greenhouse gas emissions.
Gulf spill a lesson nation must heed
Clean energy legislation will protect our coasts, create jobs
By Benjamin L. Cardin
May 11, 2010
h/t A Siegel
Nearly a year has passed since the House of Representatives approved legislation that would put millions of Americans back to work, reduce our dependence on oil and help to ensure a healthier future for all of us. It has been nearly six months since the Environment and Public Works Committee that I serve on adopted a similar comprehensive bill. These bills put a lid on emissions and make a sustained national investment in clean energy such as solar, nuclear, wind and waves, which will generate the kinds of American jobs that can't be exported.
Now it's time for the full Senate to act. We need to pass comprehensive clean energy legislation that will make our economy stronger and our country more secure.
I wonder what Party Sen. Cardin belongs to.
The one who wants to protect America by investing in its future?
Or the one that fights innovation at every turn?
Hmm.
GOOD NEWS
We on the political left, especially environmentalists, don't get enough good news lately. The past decade ("The Ohs") was our worst in 40 years. Let's try to briefly look at the minor victories more often before we find ourselves getting too down. M'kay?
• Climate-Damaging Refrigerant Gases on Their Way Out
The gases now used to keep food frozen are damaging to the Earth's climate. (Photo by Jordan Dawe)
WASHINGTON, DC, May 8, 2010 (ENS) - Household and commercial refrigerators and freezers in the United States and around the world could soon be using different gases to cool the food in storage. The gases now used either deplete the ozone layer or contribute to global warming, or both.
To phase out these damaging gases, Canada and Mexico have joined the United States in proposing to expand the scope of the international treaty governing ozone depletion.
The proposal would phase down production and use of the gaseous refrigerants known as hydrofluorocarbons, HFCs, which are "a significant and rapidly growing contributor to climate change," the U.S. EPA said in a statement Thursday.
HFCs are up to 14,000 times more damaging to the Earth's climate system than the most prevalent greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, scientists have found.
• California Makes Green Housing Affordable
Solar installations and green development bring sustainable housing to low-income families
by Leslie Berliant - May 11th, 2010
Sunlight is free, but getting power from solar panels remains far from it. At least for some low-income families in California, it's now affordable for the first time.
The California Public Utilities Commission Single-Family Affordable Solar Homes program, or SASH, is a first-of-its-kind program dedicated to bringing solar energy to owners of low-income housing. The program, part of the California Solar Initiative and managed by the non-profit organization GRID Alternatives, will bring solar power to 7,000 homes by 2016, all of them designated affordable housing.
The incentives offer anywhere from $4.75 to $7.00 per watt depending on income and the size of the installation. In some cases, these incentives completely cover costs.
Ted Bardacke, a senior associate in the Green Urbanism Program for Global Green USA, an organization that works to create sustainable cities and buildings, said that energy and water expenses can play a huge role in some families' expenses.
"To a family of four earning $20,000 a year, saving $100 on energy and water bills a month is a significant proportion of income whereas for a family of for earning $100,000, it matters, but not as much," he said. "There is a strong financial imperative and we get the environmental benefits, as well."
BIG NEWS
(not 100% sure it is "good news" just yet)
American Power Act Released today (finally)
• Senate Climate Bill Makes Its Debut Today
By JOHN M. BRODER
The nearly 1,000-page plan provides something for every major player – loan guarantees for nuclear plant operators, incentives for use of natural gas in transportation, exemptions from emissions caps for heavy industry, free pollution permits for utilities, modest carbon dioxide limits for oil refiners and expansion of offshore drilling for those states willing to accept the risks.
Senator Kerry expressed optimism that the bill would beat the odds and come to a vote sometime this year and be approved. He said that the broadest coalition ever assembled for major environmental legislation was lining up behind it, including major utilities and three oil companies – Shell, ConocoPhillips and BP.
The bill allow states to veto offshore drilling.
Cool.
Here is a bit about the bill in Sen Kerry's own words (from HuffPo; not x-post @ Dkos today Senator? sniff)
And, oh yes, we're sending billions of dollars a day overseas, with the global oil market enriching some of the most autocratic and anti-American regimes around the world. Here's one fact to stiffen the spine: as my friend Jon Powers and his band of veterans remind me, every day we keep going with what we're doing makes Iran $100 million richer and takes over a billion dollars out of our economy. Every single day.
That's why I'm doubling down on the proposal I'm rolling out today with Senator Lieberman, a work product that reflects six months of contribution from Lindsey Graham, and hundreds of meetings with our colleagues: major energy and comprehensive climate change legislation that meets this big challenge. It's a practical pathway to finally end our addiction to oil, put Americans back in control of our own power production, and release the innovation and ingenuity of Americans to build the clean energy economy we need to build prosperity in the 21st century.
More from Kerry, via TPM:
"I believe this is the year -- perhaps our last, best chance -- to pass comprehensive climate and energy legislation," he said.
"The right bill can create good jobs, strengthen our national security and give us cleaner air -- all while finally tackling the great challenge of global climate change."
Yet more from My. Kerry via Grist:
And here's what I can tell you, a comprehensive climate bill written purely for you and me -- true believers -- can't pass the Senate no matter how hard or passionate I fight on it. No, it's got to be an effort that makes my colleagues -- and that has to include Republicans so we can get to 60 -- comfortable about the jobs we're going to create and the protection for consumers and the national security benefits -- and it has to address those pieces on their terms. The good news -- I think we got that balance right.
(did he post everywhere BUT Dkos today? What does this say about us?)
Today's eKos Earthship has good discussion about the bill itself.
eKos Earthship Wednesday: Climate Bill Reax Open Thread
The reason I can't be too thrilled about the bill in its current form, call it "good news" just yet. Friends of the Earth is perhaps the 1st, but not the last to oppose the APA:
"Without dramatic improvements this bill should not be passed, and senators should consider alternatives. In the meantime, existing tools like the Clean Air Act must be put to work. More broadly, we must end a system in which polluter lobbyists exercise effective veto power in Congress. Our economy, global security, and the health of the public are all at stake."
A Siegel has thoughtful analysis, as usual, going on over @ GESN.
OTHER NEWS
• BP makes enough profit in four days to cover the costs of the spill cleanup thus far.
BP said yesterday that it had already spent $350 million on the spill response, and the company’s stock has taken a big hit, but the "behemoth" company will almost certainly survive the disaster with little long term damage. BP’s daily profits dwarf the daily cost of spill response, and at the current rate, the company could cover the entire cost of cleanup thus far in just under four days of profits:
An oil-soaked bird at the site of the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert / May 11, 2010) |
• Academics urge radical new approach to climate change
By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News
updated at 3:23 GMT, Tuesday, 11 May 2010 4:23 UK
A major change of approach is needed if society is to restrain climate change, according to a report from a self-styled "eclectic" group of academics.
The UN process has failed, they argue, and a global approach concentrating on CO2 cuts will never work.
They urge instead the use of carbon tax revenue to develop technologies that can supply clean energy to everyone.
The paper is named after Hartwell House, the Buckinghamshire mansion, hotel and spa where the group of 14 academics from Europe, North America and Japan gathered in February to develop their ideas.
Continue reading the main story
Its central message is that climate change can be ameliorated best by pursuing "politically attractive and relentlessly pragmatic" options that also curb emissions.
• Human numbers up, up, up! Other species? Not so much.
A financial trick in the familiar biodiversity tale
by Richard Black | 15:08 UK time, Monday, 10 May 2010
The abundance of vertebrates - mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds and fish - decreased by about one-third between 1970 and 2006.
Let's put it another way.
If you'd added up the numbers of mammals, fish, birds etc in the world in 1970, and done so again in 2006, one-third of them would have disappeared in between times.
Is it just me, or is that a truly staggering figure?
A couple of other things caught my eye from GBO-3.
One is that over the same time period - 1970-2006 - the Earth's human population almost doubled.
• Why it's worth passing an inadequate climate bill
by David Roberts for Grist, part of the Guardian Environment Network
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 11 May 2010 09.38 BST
Why would someone who recognizes the scope and severity of the problem support a bill that won't solve it?
There's a complicated answer to that question, but there's also a simple one, and it's this: I am optimistic about decarbonization. Despite conventional wisdom to the contrary, reducing emissions will be relatively fast and inexpensive. There are huge opportunities for low-cost (or negative-cost) emission reductions just waiting to be exploited.
Right now, policy is being made out of fear: fear by the private sector that decarbonization will be a crushing burden; fear by consumers that their energy prices will skyrocket; fear by politicians that the project will prove electorally unpopular.
CLIMATE BLOG HIGHLIGHTS
This is what "fantastic coverage of environmental issues" looks like.
This week featuring the following:
• ClimateWire
• Solve Climate (also above)
• Guardian Environment Blog:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
Top 50 Twitter climate accounts to follow
Discover the key people and organisations you should be following on Twitter if you're interested in climate change and the environment
Bloggers
- Climate Progress
- Grist
- TreeHugger
- Julian L. Wong
- Kate Sheppard
• EU Climate Chief: U.S. Climate Law Needed for Global DealUS inaction is key obstacle to international progress, she says
by Stacy Feldman - May 11th, 2010
Connie Hedegaard said on Tuesday that the EU "would be ready" to sign up for a new climate treaty at the end of this year if Washington would mandate cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
"The absence of movement on domestic legislation in the U.S. is without a doubt a key obstacle to progress in the international negotiations," Hedegaard said today in a lecture at the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development.
The whole world is watching.
Will we come together as a nation and help lead the world out of its current eco/climate tailspin?
Or will we continue to bicker with inter/intraparty whining while the world burns?
Developing....
• ClimateWire
Conservatives tend to conserve less, when it comes to energy -- study
Political ideology helps determine whether homeowners respond to voluntary energy conservation programs, two University of California, Los Angeles, economists have found. In a study published last month on the National Bureau of Economic Research website, Dora Costa and Matthew Kahn concluded that providing feedback on energy use can actually backfire with some conservatives.
Color me shocked.
Perhaps we can rename them WASTE-OIDS or another more appropriate name.
One of the only things they do not do is "conserve".
DKOS CLIMATE DIARIES
• These (Usual Suspects) Corporations Condone Deforestation
by Patric Juillet
To recap, 20% of global warming is due to deforestation. Along with the many ecological benefits and resources trees provide, they also sequester carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere and help reduce global warming, while they produce oxygen. You'd think this is an important figure, one that should ban limit these giant corporations from cutting down more of our lungs!
• Zero Net Energy House Winner Is Positive Net Energy House
by gmoke
In an interview with the Springfield Republican, builder Bick Corsa said the things that are most successful at lowering utility bills in a new home are tried-and-true design techniques.
"People tend to go for glamorous high-tech gadgets. There is nothing wrong with that stuff, but I tell people to go with the things that pay for themselves. A superinsulated shell for the house; put your money into that. It has no maintenance and it will save you on your heating," he said.
Also, homes that have lots of windows that face toward the sun, called passive solar heating, will reduce heating bills. In this region, facing to the southwest gets you the most sun exposure.
"Those two things together – superinsulation and passive solar heating – are by far the most effective ways to have a really low-energy house. They are simple things that do their job year after year," Corsa said....
These are also techniques that can be adapted to existing housing as well.
• I try to highlight different people each week. Forgive me for plugging JnH two weeks in a row, but he has just posted another wonderful edition of TWIEC:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
The Week in Editorial Cartoons - The Perfect Oil Clean Up Crew Hotlist
by JekyllnHyde [Unsubscribe]
Having posted a few diaries now that require a lot of tedious HTML cut/paste action, I cannot stress enough how much work JnH puts into his diaries. He it too humble to overtly mention it, but you can bet it approaches a dozen hours per diary. (Unless he has some magic trick for doing this stuff faster than I can!)
-It would be great if we can get that on the rec list.
HINT!-
Good job, guys.
Let's keep it up there for a while.
• BP Hearing - What The Traditional Media Did Not Report
by Something the Dog Said
Perhaps the most important exchange of the day was when Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) asked each of the executives if they could guarantee that a disaster like this would not happen again. All of them said that they could not guarantee that a major spill like this would not happen again. This is really the point that should be brought up again and again and again.
Other Env'al Series
The week in dirty coal by DWG
Alternative Energy Round-Up by mark louis
Sunday Train by BruceMcF
Climate Change News Roundup by PDNC
Macca's Meatless Monday by beach babe in fl
Hike On! by by RLMiller
ECSTASY by various artists
As always, please list your own favorite climate diaries that I didn't list above in the comments below.
INTO ACTION
• Our newest env'al blogger, slinkerwink, made these petitions known on Monday:
Please take action by urging President Obama to fully reinstate the moratorium on offshore drilling, and ask him to fully consider energy alternatives instead of taking on even more of "clean coal" and "nuclear energy" as a solution to our energy problems.
Here's how you can help take action:
1. Help support Sierra Club by signing their petition telling President Obama to stop new offshore drilling.
2. Sign the petition by Greenpeace telling the President to change his current approach on offshore drilling.
Once you've signed that Sierra Club petition, the site hosting it has a few more such as -
"Tell Congress to Permanently Protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge" by The Wilderness Society
& "Cap Global Warming Pollution Now" by Environmental Defense Action Fund
that you can easily sign with one click HERE.
And if you have yet to do so, they can also be supported by "LIKING" them on Facebook and you will hear about these action items right after they are released.
Sierra Club on Facebook
Greenpeace on Facebook
• "But, dude.
Like, what's a petition gonna change, man?"
Turn yourself into a tree.
Or barring that, plant one. Lots of them.
I planted a fruit tree this week; it felt great.
• Support the Permeable Cone Stocking
Call BP @ (281) 366 - 5511 tell them you support the 'Oil Corral' or 'Permeable Cone Stocking' concept (imagined by our own ericlewis0), at least until a more permanent solution is devised.
They will take some info from you and mail a PDF for you to fill out (not exactly an easy process, but oh well.)
You might be able to skip step 1 by emailing them directly.
• I'd like to encourage everyone to follow the lead set by WarrenS. For over 5 months, he has sent an LTE or letter to a politician about climate issues. Preaching to the choir in a DKos diary is nice and all, but getting our message out to a wider audience (Read: Those who REALLY need it) is also important.
Even if we can't commit to the same lofty goal of 7 letters/week, maybe a smaller number (1 or 2/week?) by a larger number of people (i.e.: Greater than 1) will make a big impact.
• From RLMiller
People who are concerned about [offshore oil should] comment online to the federal agency that has to listen. The MMS website for public scoping (agenda-setting) will accept comments through June 30. Tell them you're concerned about tourism. Tell them you're concerned about sea turtles and other vulnerable critters. Tell them you're concerned about safety. Just tell them!
A sample letter from the WWF HERE
The option is only available for a few more weeks! If you have yet to write, please do so NOW!
• Sen. Graham:
The last member of the GOP willing to act on climate change?
Or just a guy who likes attention?
Contact him to get him to once again support the bill he helped craft.
LINDSAY GRAHAM
SOUTH CAROLINA
202-224-5972 email
803-933-0112 864-250-1417 803-366-2828
508 Hampton Street, Suite 202, Columbia, SC
•
• •
• • •
What actions do you guys suggest? Leave items in the comments and I'll update the diary and include them here.
It takes not too much more than a couple hours to write this diary; hopefully others will try hosting their own version in the future. I never intended this series to be the intellectual property of one person.
In the comments below, please mention if you are willing to try and host this series on a future date.
Thanks for reading, recommending, and participating in the comments.
Get the eKos widget code!