John McCain is clearly too out of touch with reality to be president. Phil "cut your whining" Gramm is an idiot. Could Jim Inhofe really be just a hoax? Most of the Republicans still left in office are a disgrace to our country. But there is one left that I have to have some grudging admiration for - Carly Fiorina, former HP CEO and chair of the RNC's "Victory 08".

Wired just posted a great interview with Fiorina (actually the interview was done by a sister publication, "Portfolio magazine").

For those who remember, Fiorina spearheaded the acquisition of Compaq computer by HP way back, and was castigated for it and eventually let go by the company's board. But in fact, HP stock did no worse under Fiorina than any other tech company stock of the time, and the merger has proved quite successful. I've long thought the attacks on Fiorina at the time were unjustified, some of the same sort of misogyny we saw with Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Over on Dot Earth, Andy Revkin posted a blog entry on the need to make decisions in the face of uncertainty. As usual, it inspired the "denialist" forces to come out in full attack mode. Actually, this was far from the worst instance there recently. But one of the commenters wondered "why the vitriol"? Read on for my thoughts...

The New York city metro area transit authority relies disproportionately on its riders for funding, compared to other major cities around the country. As evidenced once again by a fare increase this past week. Given the extremely positive environmental impact of increased transit use, making our country's best transit system even more effective is worth some serious attention from federal and state government in coming years. Two thirds of the country's rail users ride on New York MTA systems. In the hopes that more funding will appear, MTA director Elliot Sander has proposed an ambitious expansion plan that could greatly expand ridership and reduce automobile use in the NYC area in coming decades.

Not sensible enough to know when he's just digging the hole deeper, senate environment and public works committee minority communications director Marc Morano continues to make a fool of himself with comments at the NY Times "Dot Earth" blog. Morano's fight against any action on climate change has now added a feud with an actual climate scientist, Raymond Pierrehumbert, wielding his list of "now over 450" deniers, some of whom may even have actual scientific qualifications. In this episode, he also tangles with a Rabbet, triumphs over foes with a spell-checker, deftly avoids use of "Latinisms", quotes even more "scientists" and peppers his foes on the left once again with the supreme irony of Alexander Cockburn.

Selected quotes for amusement, below the fold.

For earlier installments in this continuing series, see: Inhofe's Morano attacks AGU (updated) and Senate staffer continues blog rampage.

I posted yesterday about Marc Morano's attacks on a recent American Geophysical Union statement supporting climate change science. Morano, if you recall, is the communications director for James Inhofe's minority senate committee on environment and public works. According to this C-Span page, as a senate committee communications director Morano is likely paid a full-time government salary on the order of at least $65,000. So what do you suppose our tax dollars are paying for today?

As of 8:00 pm Eastern time Jan 25th, Morano had written a total of nine comments in this thread, some very lengthy, attacking not only the AGU, but also the IPCC, the American Meteorological Society, the National Academy of Sciences, Andrew Dessler, Ray Pierrehumbert, realclimate, Rajendra K. Pachauri, and to top it all off, the whole institution of peer review! Entertaining I suppose, but I'm wondering if we should ask for our money back on this one... More details below the fold.

NY Times reporter Andy Revkin's environmental blog Dot Earth has generated comments from a wide variety of respected scientists such as the realclimate bloggers and other prominent folk, particularly on climate issues. In response to today's post on the the latest American Geophysical Union statement on climate change, who should put up a comment but none other than Marc Morano, communications director for James Inhofe's notorious (now minority) US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Yes, that same Morano who created that report on 400 scientists supposedly against the global warming consensus.

Obama's win in Iowa is wonderful and exciting. But what explains this NY Times headline?

Obama Takes Iowa in a Big Turnout as Clinton Falters; Huckabee Victor

and the RSS blurb also mentions Romney. Hmmm, who's missing? Apparently, the blackout continues.

On NPR this morning, Mara Liasson and Steve Inskeep reported on Iowa: 7 mentions of Obama, 6 mentions of Clinton, but only 1 mention of Edwards. They played audio clips from all three candidates: 1 from Obama, 2 from Clinton, 1 from Edwards. They also played Hucakabee, Romney, and McCain clips (what, no Fred Thompson?)

One theme that's appeared so far in Andy Revkin's Dot Earth climate blog has been the difficulty of communicating clearly to the public about the significance of the problem. One aspect of that certainly is the media propensity for false balance and allowing fringe (but ostensibly pro-big-business) views to dominate the discourse. But even with good coverage, or for example in public responses to "An Inconvenient Truth", understanding of the real scale of the problem and the relative importance of different proposed solutions is often very limited.

You'll notice, for example in discussions of the recent energy bill, on CAFE legislation and the like, they use a wide variety of different units at non-human scales to describe significance. Sometimes it's millions of tons of CO2 avoided, sometimes it's megawatts of renewable energy, or sometimes a project may "provide power to a city the size of San Francisco". There's barrels of oil, btu's, millions of cubic feet of natural gas, short tons of coal. The range of units is confusing even for somebody deeply familiar with the issues, and I believe leads to a basic public innumeracy. What we need is a simple standardized scale, like the Richter scale for earthquakes. Read on for my proposal.

As Jerome just posted, Energize America is alive and well and looking to update the policy proposals we have come up with so far. In some email discussion with A Siegel, devilstower, Jerome and the others one area that seemed missing from the original plan was an energy research component. There are enough renewable and efficiency solutions available to make a lot of progress right away - there's no reason for any further delay in answering the call for leadership that just came out today from the UN and IPCC. But meeting the Step it Up goal of an 80% reduction by 2050 is going to be tough and potentially costly, without technological advances to help us along. Read on for our initial thoughts on ways to think about prioritizing research funding for the future of energy, and share your thoughts and insights on how different options could meet the challenges we face.

When I first heard of Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger's new book "Break Through", on the "Politics of Possibility" regarding solving global warming, I was intrigued. So I ordered the book and found some useful ideas. For example on p. 122:

To succeed over the long term, global emissions trading must be understood more as a national economic development agenda than as a regulatory framework to limit carbon emissions.

But then I got to "The Death of Environmentalism" and the rest of the book, and I could only conclude they've gone off the deep end. I don't normally review books I don't like, I just quit reading them. But I felt some commitment having corresponded with Shellenberger here and elsewhere. So I slogged through it; read on for my take, so you don't have to endure this one yourself.

A couple of days ago I wrote on the question of whether we need breakthroughs in energy technology - specifically government investment in the necessary R&D - to solve our energy and climate problems. Of course I'm interested in all the options, but I am slightly partial to one of them that I've written on elsewhere - Space Solar Power. I recently became involved in an internet-based study group on the subject led by people at the National Space Security Office, and the first "final" "interim" report was released today. Read on for some more thoughts on the actual content of the report.

For other reading I've blogged today's press conference on the release of the report, and also posted a brief note at slashdot.

Environmental bad boys Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger have a new book out: "Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility" that's been receiving a lot of attention. Joseph Romm, for whom I have a lot of respect from his "hype about the hydrogen economy" days, has written several "debunking" articles culminating in one today that links them with Bjorn Lomborg.

It's an interesting fight, but it had me wondering, what exactly would breakthrough energy technologies look like, that we'd be funding with these R&D proposals? Some thoughts below the fold.

Did you know you can deduct parking expenses up to $215/month from your pre-tax income, while you can only deduct $100/month of public transportation charges? Yet another federal government incentive to promote congested roads and increased consumption of oil and emission of CO2. This
NY Times article today goes into the details - and the contrast between this incentive to promote driving, and the new congestion pricing fees that NY City wants to impose, with federal support, that act the other way. Why do we have the federal government paying on both sides of this issue?

At least Senator Schumer has a proposal to put both deduction limits at $200/month - better would be to eliminate the parking deduction altogether!

Update - I should note the poll is partly inspired by chapter1's diary on bicycles the other day.

(Promoted by Devilstower)

Which of the major Democratic party candidates has the best energy platform? I thought I'd do a comparison based on what I could find on their websites and some interviews. The good news is that all four of Edwards, Obama, Richardson, and Clinton have either "Energy" or "Energy and Environment" as one of the top-level platform issues on their sites. The not-so-good news is the content of those platform proposals. Details below!

(Cross-posted from my blog at altenergyaction.org.)

To facilitate comparisons I broke down the candidates' energy plans into 14 significant policy areas, with an additional note on the detail level of the plans and a final "miscellaneous" category for special ideas found in each. Every one of the proposals has something that seems unique and useful, but not all will do as much to solve our energy and climate problems.

Energy policy area	Edwards	Obama	Richardson	Clinton
Plan detail level	Medium	Low	High	Low
CO2 reduction goal	15% by 2020, 80% by 2050	80% by 2050	20% by 2020, 80% by 2040, 90% by 2050	No policy
Post-Kyoto	Yes: binding greenhouse reductions in trade agreements	After we take first step; help developing countries with our technology	Mandatory world-wide limits, help finance leapfrogging in developing countries	No policy
CAFE	40 mpg by 2016	4% annual increase	35 mpg by 2016, 50 by 2020	No policy
Renewable electric standard	25% by 2025	No policy	30% by 2020, 50% by 2040	20% by 2020
Bio-fuels	Goal of 65 billion gallons/year by 2025 (corn ethanol first, then cellulosic)	National Low Carbon Fuel Standard: reduce fossil carbon in fuels by 5% in 2015, 10% in 2020; expand E85 and biodiesel	life-cycle low carbon fuel standard - 30% lower by 2020	Part of Strategic Energy Fund
Carbon tax or cap and trade?	Cap and trade	Cap and trade	Cap and trade	Cap and trade
"Clean coal"	freeze on new coal power until sequestration in place	No freeze; use cap and trade market to decide	by 2020 new plants have to emit 90% below today's	Fund R&D on "clean coal"
Energy R&D	$13 billion/year New Energy Economy fund	No policy	Energy and Climate Investment  Trust Fund - several billion dollars/year	Part of Strategic Energy Fund
Solar/wind production tax credit	make permanent	No policy	10-year extension; add storage technology tax credit	No policy
Oil company subsidies	Repeal	No subsidies that increase global warming	Invite oil companies to become energy companies	Eliminate tax breaks, create new "Strategic energy fund" - oil companies can invest in renewable energy themselves, or pay into the fund
Distributed generation	$5000 tax credit, R&D, smart meters, smart grids	No policy	No policy	No policy
Public transportation	No policy	No policy	increase funding, tax incentives for passengers	No policy
Buildings	weatherizing and other efficiency	No policy	goal of 50% savings by 2030; incentives and regulations on retrofits and new buildings	No policy
Improving Efficiency	Goal-based; cut US govt energy use 20%, add R&D dollars	Market-based; don't prejudge what works	Strong federal standards; efficiency resource program through utilities	Market-based; invest in R&D
Other ideas	GreenCorps - volunteers adding renewable/efficient infrastructure	domestic auto makers get health care assistance for efficiency investments	100 mpg car, smart growth, bike and walking trails, more specifics	"Apollo Project-like program" for energy independence

All of these are significant improvements over present US energy policy. Senators Clinton and Obama have actually introduced some of their ideas as legislative proposals this session, but so far they haven't won enough support to be enacted into law. Richardson and Edwards clearly favor government regulatory-based approaches to improving efficiency and introducing technologies, rather than the more market-based approaches of Clinton and Obama, though even Obama introduces regulatory constraints with his CAFE improvements and Low Carbon Fuel standard, and they all force regulation through "cap and trade" and post-Kyoto international agreements, something Republicans have clamored against for decades now.

I don't think any of these plans is perfect, but all will be helpful. If I've misinterpreted or missed something from one of their policy statements on energy, please let me know.

Update: I just learned that a 20% by 2020 Renewable Electric Standard has been introduced as an amendment to the energy bill currently under consideration in the house: from the oil drum and some background info from Dave Roberts. If this actually gets through maybe we can cross that line off our table - though Richardson's proposal is still tougher.

In an great overview article today, "Solar Power Wins Enthusiasts but Not Money", Andrew Revkin and Matthew Wald review the sorry state of funding for solar energy research, in contrast with the very wide base of public support. Solar energy was the top choice of Americans for our primary source of electricity in 15 years in a survey conducted by the Nuclear Power Industry! And yet:

Even a quarter century from now, says the Energy Department official in charge of renewable energy, solar power might account for, at best, 2 or 3 percent of the grid electricity in the United States.

What's behind the discrepancy? Solar power still costs far too much - 5 to 10 times more than the alternatives. And one likely reason - funding levels for research in the technology have never been restored to the billion-dollar Carter levels since the Reagan cuts of 1981:

My letter to the editor on expanding rail services to help global warming was the first in this week's edition of Newsweek - yay! But they edited it slightly - after calling me first to check some numbers in my original letter. If only they checked the numbers of their columnists. Actually, this week also included a correction  on Zakaria's numbers, while neglecting to mention that the change essentially nullified the entire argument in his column (that efficiency improvements aren't significant).

Anyway... my original letter said:

the Bush administration has cut federal matching levels from 80% to just 30% for most urban rail projects

which was changed to:

the Bush administration has cut federal matching levels significantly for most urban-rail projects

Below the fold are my list of reasons for believing the 30% number is about right. Can DailyKos readers come up with any more evidence on what the actual number is now, and why?

Needless and premature death, whether by accident, war, illness, or murder, strikes our hearts as we wonder - what if that were me, my brother, my son or daughter? What has the world irretrievably lost? Every such loss is a tragedy in itself. Multiplied by dozens, the loss becomes numbing and almost unbearable.

People have compared the losses at Virginia Tech with the daily tragedy that is Iraq - and rightly so. Today we hear of another bombing with over a hundred lost - mothers, fathers, children irretrievably torn from their mortal existence, never again to feel the rain or hear the birds or laugh and have joy on this Earth.

But needless, tragic death is not restricted to war zones or gun violence. Every day in America brings senseless tragedy to families across the country. Tragedy that is, if not completely preventable, greatly reducible if only...

When I started looking into the passenger rail proposal for Energize America a few months ago, the emphasis was on High Speed (inter-city) Rail. Thanks to the tremendous feedback from the DailyKos community and from passenger rail advocates who have rallied to our effort, we are getting close on the next version of the intercity passenger rail proposal. But we also had a lot of feedback on the importance of urban rail, transit-oriented development, and the key role that increased use of "local rail" could have both in increasing ridership for intercity rail, and in directly reducing America's dependence on oil and the global-warming impact of the transportation sector.

Update: Adam Siegel pointed out BruceMcF's vision for suburban rail, which goes into much more detail on what this all could look like.