UK Liberal Democrats Call for Carbon Neutral Britain

Last week, I argued that the right national target in the fight against global warming should be complete carbon neutrality. Apparently the UK's Liberal Democrats party has the same target in mind!

Calling for a "100 per cent carbon free" Brtain by 2050, the UK's Liberal Democrats party unveiled a series of proposals yesterday aimed at transforming Britain into an international leader in the fight against the climate crisis.

"Pollution doesn’t respect national boundaries," said Liberal Democrat party leader, Menzies Campbell. "Climate change is a global problem that requires an international solution. Britain should not be a bit player in finding that solution; we should be leading the pack."

The Liberal Democrats, the UK's third largest political party (wikipedia entry here for ignorant yanks like me), will debate the proposals, outlined in a paper called "Zero Carbon Brtain - Taking a Global Lead," at their party conference in Brighton next month.

The plan calls for:

Major improvements to the rail network and the construction of a high speed rail line, paid for by tolling lorries [trucks] on motorways

A commitment to 100 per cent carbon free, non-nuclear electricity by 2050

The use of green taxes to make the polluter pay, using the revenue to cut income tax

Introducing ‘green mortgages’ to enable people to make their homes more energy efficient

"With these policies the Liberal Democrats have become the first major British party to map out the route to a carbon neutral Britain," Campbell said. "And the first to plan the way towards a cleaner global environment too."

"This ambitious objective for zero-carbon Britain would put us in the global lead in tackling climate chaos," said Liberal Democrat Shadow Environment Secretary and Member of Parliament, Chris Huhne.

"Just as crucially," Huhne said, "we have set out plans that are the first attempt of any British political party to tackle carbon emissions from every part of the economy: transport, energy, housing, offices and factories. The time for talk has passed; we need action."

Well at least one yank is wondering (again) why we don't have instant run-off voting/preferential voting here in the U.S. (as they do in Australia) - or at least some system that allows viable 3rd parties.

The Liberal Democrats, a left-leaning social liberal party and Britain's third largest political party, routinely receives around 20% of the votes in general elections, and while the UK's first past the post" system under-represents them in parliament, the Lib Dems, as they are often abbreviated, still captured 62 seats in the House of Commons (about 10% of the 659 seats in the House).

In the U.S., we can only dream of a strong third party with seats in Congress that has the strength and position to take up a bold position on climate change, call for a carbon neutral America, and begin to shift the tenor of national and congressional debates on the climate crisis.

Without a strong two-party system that leaves little room for viable third parties, we in the U.S. will have to focus our attention on the two main political parties and do our best interject our rallying cry of a carbon neutral America into the mainstream.

Bravo to the Liberal Dems for taking a bold stand and setting an example for other political parties across the world! I'll raise a glass of gin to you chaps tonight...

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The New Development

By Timothy Den Herder-Thomas...

The climate movement has been going about its business fighting coal plants, promoting wind energy, and working for comprehensive carbon reduction policies. Suddenly, there's a new development.

Yesterday, a New York Times article highlighted the challenges of development and the pollution it has caused in China. We imagine that the unprecedented growth China is going through is desperately valued by its citizens, and feel brutal when we argue that the industrialization fueling this growth is unacceptable. The opportunity is valued, quite desperately, but at the same it does not reach everyone, and the pollution is killing hundreds of thousands annually.

I attended a program called the Global Leaders Institute in New York City in July. The program was sponsored by Goldman Sachs and the Institute for International Education, and brought 75 students from around the world together for a week of trainings, speakers, discussions and actions around the broad frame of global leadership. I had a wonderful opportunity to talk with a number of students from China. One student shared the widespread poverty, illiteracy, and degradation of ecological services in western rural areas as good jobs were displaced to giant coastal cities. Another mentioned how sustainable community development was nearly impossible because local social organization was almost unknown and strongly suppressed if ever in conflict with the interests of the nation. And finally, I came to the discussion with one girl who, voice almost breaking, told of the incredible toll in lives and livelihoods that industrialization was taking on the country - with deaths from asthma and water pollution, sweatshop conditions splintering families and devouring days, and the pursuit of progress shoving aside whole neighborhoods, local economies, and community spaces for skyscrapers and factories and ever more coal-burning power plants.

We have argued that China will not stop the mad course of industrialization, but we should ask who will not stop. Is it the growth percentage-obsessed public officials who define the progress of the country or the hopes and dreams of the people who simply want lives that are actually better. Whose development is it anyway?



If you think I'm going to launch into a tirade against the unresponsiveness of a communist government to the needs of the people and laud the advances we've won with democracy, you will probably be as surprised as my Chinese friend was by what I say next:

Here in America, we also have working class people facing financial insecurity, social instability, and loss of community because their jobs have moved elsewhere. Here in America, we also have poor communities being surrounded by polluting energy facilities that give them elevated risk of asthma, cancer, and more. We still have millions of citizens being sickened by their food, whether by pesticides, or hormones, or simply the incredible glut of unwanted calories bringing diabetes, heart disease, and stress. Here in America, millions of people feel stuck in jobs they dislike simply for the paycheck, we have millions stuck at the end of a cul-de-sac with little knowledge of their neighbors, and we still have millions so alienated from their governance that they never make their voice heard. Here in America, the economy keeps roaring, turning out ever more consumer goods (and land-fill filler) and wealth for large corporations while yielding less and less of relevance to the average American. A few million homeless people walk the streets of our cities, farmers across the country are losing their land, and inner city high-school children have pretty high chances of going nowhere.

My friend from China was stunned when I told her this, because this is America, the land of dreams and capitalism; the place that has been developed. It's funny how our internal problems rarely get told overseas. She then said something to the effect of: 'if that's what success in development means, I think we need something different."

It's time for the new development.

Since before the drafting of Kyoto, nations have been arguing over who should bear the cost for fighting global warming, and change-averse politicians have been frightening the public by posing action on the climate crisis as a grave risk to our economy. Even the activists are arguing that climate solutions will simply cost less than doing nothing at all - as cited in the Stern Report. Western climate leaders despair right along side global warming deniers that action here will do little since countries like China and India are growing so rapidly, and "will not accept limits on carbon emissions so that they can pursue economic growth". Politicians and fossil energy lobbies repeatedly remind us that any gains that America might make will be wiped out in this industrial juggernaut, and therefore we have no reason to sacrifice and reduce our competitiveness if no one else will join.

I fear that even within the climate movement, we have accepted the assumption - that fossil energy use is directly connected to economic development, and thus that cutting carbon means a sacrifice. We levy policies which raise costs to energy producers, forcing them to reduce pollution by acquiring new technology or cutting down on production. Our rallying cries have been solar panels and hybrids: solutions that at least currently are not cost-competitive with the status quo, and unavailable to the global poor. When we push for higher fuel efficiency standards, we combat protests that it will raise costs not with the obvious argument that it will in fact increase economic competitiveness with Japanese companies, create jobs, and strengthen the economy, but with tired old argument that to avoid global catastrophe, it needs to be done. We see the solutions as limitations that the government must enforce upon us instead of an empowering opportunity to build something new. It's almost as if we want it to be a sacrifice.

In a post on Sunday, Richard Graves noted that;

"China has become the environmental sacrifice zone for the global economy. We offshore jobs, factories, and pollution. The combination of an enormous workforce in poverty, a government willing to suppress dissent, and the availability of enormous natural resources has proved irresistible to globalized and highly mobile multi-national corporations. However, the combination of corrupt local officials, weak regulations, and the fast-tracking of industry has allowed every ‘low-road’ corporation that can save a buck in return for dumping toxic waste, venting poison into the air, or contaminating the bodies of its workers to find a home."

It should be clear to us that our supposed 'higher environmental concern' has not prevented us from being the world's highest emitters of carbon (China is on the verge of surpassing the US, but they have 4 times as many people), nor has it prevented us from expressing our 'environmental concern' by shipping much of our carbon and pollution-intensive industry to other. Yet in doing so, we've done away with most of our industrial economy along with some our dirty industry - and it's as the New York Times makes clear, it's not necessarily doing well for the Chinese either.

We're dealing with global warming. Carbon emitted in China is just the same as carbon emitted in the US, and in their frantic attempt to 'catch up' to us, the Chinese are also not taking the time to build more efficient energy systems. It's time to end the debate of sustainability competing with development - that idea applied narrowly at the US-scale largely contributed to the current Chinese carbon boom. It's time to forge a development paradigm that actually works: one that empowers people, strengthens communities, and sustains the world.

Some people have used sustainable development to mean destroying things slowly enough that they can recover. Forget it, that's not what I'm talking about. In the climate context, that means slowing emissions - careful exploitation. It also means cutting growth in China. The new development is not about limiting growth, it's about redefining prosperity.

Most environmentalists know about CFLs. You pay several dollars for a light-bulb instead of under a buck, but the energy savings it gets you in a year can mean $30 back in your pocket - while lasting 10 times as long so you don't need new bulbs. A sacrifice? Now if they did full recycling of the mercury, metals, and glass in that light-bulb after it burned out, you'd avoid the chance of toxic pollution and landfill waste, and manufacturing would cost less than if they had to make the metal from virgin ore itself - the next generation of bulbs could be cheaper. But, you might argue, we don't have an efficient collection system for old CFLs - it would cost too much to ship them back to the manufacturer. That might be true know, but if so, we're missing the opportunity - why not have a community-wide collection facility for CFLs and other old appliances where they could be shipped en masse to be re-manufactured?

Is that too small scale? Not going to change the world? Let's scale up.

A few colleges and universities have set up sustainability revolving funds. These innovative financing mechanisms allow colleges to put money into energy efficiency, renewable energy, and smart design systems, and use the cost savings or revenue to repay the fund, growing it into the future. Harvard's Green Campus Loan Fund is the largest and most well-known on college campuses, with $12 million. Here's more news, Harvard's fund gets an annual Return On Investment (ROI) of around 27% - the economic opportunities in efficiency and other sustainability changes are so lucrative that it yields over twice what either the stock market or Harvard's own professionally managed endowment can achieve. A sacrifice?

The most important aspect of such a creative strategy is making sure that it's applicable everywhere, and in the case of revolving funds, I've been personally involved. While I can't boast the remarkable scale of Harvard's fund, or it's history, I and a couple friends did set up a revolving fund, currently at $67,000, at Macalester College in 2006 while I was a freshman. Because community participation and engagement is so crucial in the new development, it was key to us that students created the Clean Energy Revolving Fund (CERF), are significant partners in its management (the consensus-based CERF Board has 2 students of 5 members, the other three of whom are close allies among the faculty, administration, and alumni. Working with Facilities Management, academic departments, and other campus entities, students develop many of the projects and thus use CERF to both advance campus sustainability, engage in hands-on project development in climate solutions, and share their stories with others. My friend Asa Diebolt and I wrote a manual: Creating a Campus Sustainability Revolving Loan Fund to help other students, staff, and community members set up similar funds on their own. We're still awaiting return results on our first projects - estimates are all between 20% and over 100% ROIs for various initial project - which will allow us promote expansion of the fund to campus administrators. The system has been met with cautious optimism: it sounds impossible that we could advance climate solutions, avoid spending valuable student time on onerous grants or fund raising, generate incredible hands on academic opportunities, and empower efficient long-term campus planning all while saving money, but that's exactly how it works.

Achieving many things at once by doing it right to begin with is a key piece of the new development. It may take more forethought, planning, initial investment, and participation from the entire community, but it pays off big-time. It often means re-evaluating problems from entirely new scales. We started with efficiency in Macalester, now we're moving to the community level. Instead of seeing each homeowner individually, our student group is working with non-profits and community leaders across the Twin Cities to mobilize neighborhood groups to pursue efficiency as a whole. Doing so dramatically drops the price since we're buying in bulk, and cuts energy usage in an entire area, reducing the overall energy infrastructure needed for that area. Furthermore, using revolving-fund mechanisms, citizens can see investments in their own homes as simply parallel to the stock market - just significantly more profitable, and communities can amass their own capital to receive significant economic returns simply from their lower energy bills. We're also experimenting with ways that wealthier citizens can participate as investors to lower income communities - providing the capital investment in efficiency that is paid off simply by lower energy bills (the residents pay no more than under business as usual). These systems are all in very early stages of development, but they offer opportunities for everyday people to take control of their own carbon footprint, energy use, and economic situation by working together in innovative ways. Our student innovators and non-profit experts have all the efficiency expertise we need to make this happen - the capital is in the neighborhoods: there's little to waste on vanity projects, but enough to invest in lucrative ones. We don't need subsidies - though we take advantage of whatever is available, we don't need large energy companies, though we use their assistance on audits and such, and we don't need government regulations - though we're very active on driving them so more people are encouraged to step forward.

This is not a developing country, but the clean energy industry is a huge source of development. On our small farms in rural Minnesota, farmers are fighting the loss of the small farm economy and the agribusiness takeover by signing up wind energy leases and joining partnerships like Community-Based Energy Development to own their own wind turbines. With small loans and support from larger investors, small farmers are owning a stake of the new energy future. Similarly, as old industries like the St. Paul Ford Plant pull out, labor groups, concerned citizens, and the leaders of tomorrow pull together new plans for eco-industry centers and mass-transit, mixed-use communities, we're looking for ways to cut fossil fuels, save the economic, social, and environmental costs of driving, provide jobs in an innovative clean industry sector, develop locally-owned renewable energy sources, and build the types of communities that pull neighbors together to generate yet more innovative ideas for the community and those around it. You ask who's doing this: it's students working with labor leaders working with non-profit experts working with neighborhood residents working with small businesses working with local politicians. We're a community building a new future for ourselves: together we figure it out.

Still too small? Just some crazy anomaly out in the Twin Cities as some of my youth climate leaders like to remind me. Not at all. Do a bunch of research in your own community - you'll probably find a bunch of folks (possibly scattered, hopefully coordinated) trying to do the same thing. Then, check out the national and global scene. The Apollo Alliance is pushing for a massive public investment in the clean energy sector to create 3 million new jobs, end our oil addiction and confront global warming. As UC Berkeley's Daniel Kammen points out, investments in renewable energy create several times more jobs than equivalent investments in fossil fuels. And as Van Jones of the Ella Baker Center puts it, this economic activity can mean "Green Jobs, not jails" for low-income youth in America's cities. A sacrifice?

When we contract for a large scale wind turbine for community-owned generation in Minnesota, we're not buying from an American producer. The turbine will come from Spain, Germany, Denmark, or most recently India. That's right, our most common provider of large scale wind turbines is now Suzlon, an Indian company that is building them in India and exporting globally. The US is falling very far behind. In Kenya, solar panels were more popular than fossil energy based grid interconnection for several years, until a government subsidized program made grid interconnection cheaper - this is Kenya, a poor third world country with tons of sun where solar power beats out fossil energy as more accessible to rural farmers.

As I've been reminded time and time again, there's at least one carbon sector I can't see any opportunity in: air travel. There just isn't much of a way to get people around the world in any reasonable time without fossil-based jet fuel. Someone else will have to figure that one out. Otherwise, the possibilities just spring up wherever you look - an the technology is advanced enough that we can get a huge start.

All these cases are driven by innovative individuals working together to create inspiring solutions that improve their lives and the lives of those around them, make sustainability the centerpiece of the new economy, and empower yet more people to get involved. Instead of pursuing growth in a way that ignores the communities, individuals, and ecosystems around them, these systems build prosperity by collectively enhancing them all. It's truly an ecological way of looking at our economy and our lives. Note that it's also not passive - it can't really be done solely by large governments imposing regulations (although that can help) or by corporations coming up with new technologies to sell (though that can also help). Development that yields prosperity builds opportunities in a way that enhance, not degrade, the communities and contexts in which they are situated. This kind of economy requires active participation and engagement by the people and ecosystems that support them - the new society runs on people power. We can imagine CAFE and RPS and Energy Star standards all we want - it's neer going to happen across society and the entire world unless it becomes a part of our communities, our economies, and our lives.

Without a new development, achieving a climate neutral America as Jessie Jenkins argued in a recent post (and Carlos Rymer supported in a previous one) will be impossibly expensive and ultimately self-defeating - we would literally mitigate ourselves out of progress as do-nothing politicians have feared. As frightful as that sounds, a failure to dodge the climatic tipping points could be even worse. In either case, the result would be ruinous.

Without a new development, solving the climate crisis will be disastrous. With one, it will be not only cost-effective, but profitable. It will require investment in a new society unlike anything the world has ever seen, but it will pay dividends in economic opportunity, job creation, global peace, public health, stronger communities, human rights, and local self-determination beyond anything we can imagine. This is the point where we redefine progress, and build an economic paradigm that actually fulfills everyday people and sustains the world.

Make sure to take ownership of the new development. You can't wait around for it - we are all the ones who will pursue it. The opportunities are in our hands. We can imagine that it's someone else's work, and let nations and corporations bungle the potential that they cannot realize without us while reaping profits that we could share. Or we can step forward, realizing that this kind of progress if development of ourselves by all of us, and for the entire global community.

I don't know how positive development solutions will be reached in China when bureaucrats are missing even the most obvious opportunities for efficiency and community innovation, and I don't know how sustainable community development in the United States will change a culture of widespread perceived powerlessness. I am sure that the process of pursuing solutions for our own futures will yield wisdom and ability to face both challeges that we can barely imagine.

Most of all, I am sure it will not happen by waiting. Forging a resiliant, integrated, and vibrant society starts now, and we are the people we have been waiting for.

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Dodging the Tipping Points?

By Timothy Den Herder-Thomas...

In the past couple months, the flurry of discussions around bold, visionary goals for global warming has gotten increasingly intense. We've been starting to realize that we have to be more ambitious if we're going to make it. I think this is a key question for movement introspection that's only the first stage in re-imagining a new society: what do we need to achieve?

We've been saying 80% by 2050 for over a year now. It sounds big, and significant, and is way beyond any of the 7% solutions Kyoto started with. But Kyoto phase 1 is over in 2012, after which we have to figure out the next step. I'll be nearing retirement by the time 2050 rolls around. We call it a science-based goal, but we're missing the risk assessment. Does the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) really hold the authority here? Before we go much farther, and define the post-Kyoto debate, we better take stock of the situation.

Here's a central challenge - why are we stopping at trying to prevent only those catastrophes that we are nearly sure of? Wouldn't it be prudent to avoid the risk of potential events, even if there's only a 50/50 chance that they'll happen. Considering that the things of which we're sure our tame compared to those that are still uncertain, I at least don't feel very comfortable taking our chance.

Let's face it, even if we were to stop emitting all carbon tomorrow, we are still going to lose large parts of Bangladesh, a country the size of Wisconsin home to 135 million people, and we are still going to have increasingly freakish storms and increasingly severe droughts (right where I am in MN too - for the second year in a row). Agriculture will face minor declines in some areas (like sub-Saharan Africa where people are already starving), and Venice is already a sitting duck (the Dutch are getting good at floating houses). It feels brutal to be callous, and we should use the knowledge to be ready when we do need to bail out places that get hit, but honestly, we just have to get used to the fact that yes, some of that is coming. These gradual, obvious changes will get us to the point where global warming will just be a massive global headache for the rest of my lifetime. Yeah, it's pretty annoying, but these types of things are not what we have to be worried about.

What we have to watch out for, are the really crazy changes that shake up everything.



We have to watch out for the tipping points. The really big, really bad changes that accelerate the problem, cause new positive reinforcement of climate change, and basically reshape the world.

There's a number of them that have been theorized, and many scientists believe that there are least decent chances that one or more could happen. More worrying still is the fact that the slow changes preceding these events are already starting to happen. Let's take a look at a few:

Die-back of Amazonia: the Amazon rainforest produces its own rainfall through the evapo-transpiration of the forest. As temperatures rise and we deforest the basin, less rain falls leading to drought. Since the soils hold very little water or nutrient reserves, just a few years of extreme drought could cause widespread die-back of forests. As the die-back accelerates, there are less trees to produce rain, less shade to cool the forest, and yet more drought and die-back. In addition to converting the Amazon into some combination of grassland and semi-desert conditions, this process would release massive amounts of carbon dioxide from decaying/ burning vegetation, turning one of the world's largest vegetative carbon sinks into a carbon source, thus causing more warming. Scientists in Amazonia have estimated that this die-back could be triggered with as little as three continuous years of extreme drought - The Amazon is in drought year number 2.

Gulf Stream disruption: we all know about the polar ice shrinking, and that the albedo effect with darker water keeps polar areas warming faster and faster than the rest of the world. But then there's the threat that collapse of large ice-masses like Greenland could send a massive rush of cold fresh water into the North Atlantic, threatening to cut off the Gulf Stream that keeps Europe warm (this is the disaster over-dramatized in The Day After Tomorrow). Scientists are now reducing the estimated risk of such on occurrence, but it should be noted that since the mid-1950s, the sinking of Gulf Stream water that drives the current has fallen by around 30% in response to colder fresher water. If you want a real shocker, go read The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery, where he discusses that fact that in past glacial periods, the Gulf Stream has collapsed in as little as a decade, throwing Europe and eastern North America into violent mini-ice ages even as main glacial periods were ebbing.

Or how about the problem in western Canada, where forest fires and bark beetles are ravaging the boreal forests, switching the nation from a net absorber of carbon to a net emitter in just a matter of years. Since the boreal forests are massive carbon sinks, this additional carbon is a huge loss, accelerating the feedback loops working against us.

How about a really freaky one: the melting of tundra permafrost in Alaska, Canada, and Russia. Permafrost holds massive quantities of carbon dioxide and methane that can be released only when the soil melts and begins to decay. With more carbon in these soils than the entire atmosphere, we could be looking at a nearly doubled potential for warming if this permafrost melts. While full release will almost certainly take over a century, it's beginning now, as endless reports of newly-swampy foundations, drunken trees, and melting Siberian peat bogs attest. Again, once started, the added carbon makes warming accelerate, meaning more melting ...

Shall I go on? Acidification of the world's oceans from increased carbonic acid concentrations resulting in dissolving carbonate rocks and the inability of ocean life to build protective shells? Massive collapse of methane hydrates (weird blogs of frozen-pressurized methane) from warming arctic seas? A rapid disintegration of the West Antarctic ice shelf sending sea levels up 10-20 feet? Loss of ice in the Himalayas causing massive drought and famine in the key food-producing river basins of the Indian subcontinent, China, and Southeast Asia?

I think we can all safely agree that we have to avoid this type of situation. Then there's a second key question: is any of this going to happen?

The answer is: we don't know. I'll be the first person to admit that any one of these 'tipping points' is uncertain: we know neither the timing of these tipping points, or even if they'll happen at all. Tipping points are inherently uncertain since they depend on complex non-linear responses that have little historical precedent (although they appear surprisingly common throughout the earth's history). But we should note that if one of them should occur, the result will both be disastrous, and will greatly increase the chances of others occurring. In other words, if we cross one of these thresholds, the world will never be the same again - and the chance of further drastic events will only increase. We have to dodge the tipping points.

We should note that complex civilization only emerged after a climatic tipping point, common over the past few million years of glacial-interglacial cycles, ended the last Ice Age and ushered in an era of warmth and prosperity. During that tipping point, atmospheric carbon concentrations rose from in the low 200s to near 280 parts per million (ppm). This change was typical of the periodic glacial-interglacial reversals of the past few million years, where carbon concentrations ranged from near 200 ppm (glacial) to near 300 ppm (interglacial). Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, we've gone from 280 ppm to about 385 ppm, and we're rising at a higher rate than any time in recent geological history. Yet our climate has so far only changed gradually, slowly shifting from the recent past. A tipping point will be like a sudden flip as dramatic as the changes between warm periods and Ice Ages. The difference is that Ice Age to non-Ice Age flips have been common over the past few million years. A flip from an interglacial period to a warmer era has not happened for many millions of years - since before humanity. And the rate of growth in global carbon concentrations is almost unprecedented.

Funny then, that IPCC reports don't discuss tipping points very much. The reason is that they're uncertain. Since tipping points are all about non-linear processes (which can accelerate dramatically when only minor changes are made to the climate system), and are inherently unpredictable, they are naturally unlikely to be confirmed by scientific studies in general, which require rigorous certainty (usually 95% confidence that a predicted event will occur). While some research has suggested that this level of confidence can be expected for certain tipping points if we do nothing to slow carbon emissions, other studies are less conclusive and thus do not agree that these events are certain. Because the IPCC produces consensus-based reports, where all scientists (and later diplomats arguing on scientific grounds) must come to agreement on the final publication of the report, and events that do not have near-complete agreement in the research are omitted. Another way of saying this is that the types of events the IPCC predicts are 95% certain, or that there's only a 5% possibility of them not occurring. Given that the predictions of the IPCC are only those that are almost certain, we have to start wondering about what's being left out.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that the chances of dramatically accelerating permafrost crossing a tipping point and thus causing vastly accelerated warming over existing predictions are 50%. This figure is completely made up (I sure hope its lower, though unless we change our course, the risk keeps rising) and the calculation of such a risk is so complicated based on a vast array of other variables as to be basically impossible to pinpoint accurately. Risk could also describe only a portion of the carbon released or a rate of release which changes the nature of the tipping point (its not like all the permafrost will melt at once), so this is a really simplistic example. The IPCC reports don't include this event because its not for sure, and thus can't be reported as scientific fact. Tipping point events vanish off consensus-based reports, leaving decision makers with no ability to assess the threat of such scenarios - most of our leaders aren't even aware of them. But would you like to base the future of the world on a coin flip?

Now let's imagine that the risk of that same tipping point event is only 1%. Pretty low, right? Small enough to ignore, right? Wrong. Homeowners typically buy home insurance even when the risk of their home being destroyed is vanishingly small - just a tiny fraction of one percent. We make a real investment in the security of our personal homes to avoid the risk of cataclysmic events. Why aren't we treating climate change the same way, and taking the problem seriously enough to avoid possible, though not certain, catastrophes? When the risks of all the possible tipping points are combined, they are far far higher than the risk of your individual home being destroyed by an accident. We can be sure that the risk is real, significant, and will only grow as we continue emitting more. The situation is also worse than on the personal level, since the effects shape our global home - the insurance industry can't use the financial weight of a wealthy society to bail out the unlucky homeowner. The victim in this case is the wealthy society, and we only have one home. With recovery out of the question, we only have one way to invest in our security: avoiding the crisis in the first place. Time for some prevention?

We can debate whatever level of risk we find appropriate as long as we like, but centrally, until we start looking at the risks, we're basing any policies we develop on the faulty assumption that the events we have to prevent are certain. And when you start looking at the risks for large scale impacts, the scale of the investment we have to make rises, the time-frame for doing so shrinks, and the cost of inaction soars sky-high. Taking a careful look at tipping points changes our frame - the 80% by 2050 reductions in the developed world that are necessary to prevent certain events become wholly inadequate in dealing with the risk of far worse ones.

For myself, I've decided I'm unwilling to accept any plan that will result in temperature rises that yield more than an estimated 1/3 chance of crossing a dangerous tipping point. A 2 out of 3 chance of making it through with only marginal impacts (like roughly a meter of sea level rise, temperatures a degree or so warmer, some amount of famine and a few more nasty hurricanes) that are for sure while avoiding real catastrophes seems the very maximum risk we can allow. I'd much prefer if the risk was 10% or 5%, 0r 1%, or even better 0.01%. We simply don't want to mess with this stuff.

To get to that low a risk, we're going to need to build a sustainable society, fast, collectively, and holistically. It will require everyone, which means it must also be done equitably, while taking into account the risks behind climate science. This is going to be intense.

I'll be following this up: as a teaser for next time, check out Colin Forrest's article about the degree of change that's needed. He's a layman analyzing a wide array of scientific documents. They're not consensus, but they've got risk analysis all over them. Similar conclusions have been popping up everywhere, so we have a lot to discuss. Next question: given risk, what should we aim for?

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Putting Aside Percentages - the Right Target in the Fight Against Global Warming is Carbon Neutrality!

A new rallying cry for the climate solutions movement: "A carbon neutral future for ourselves and our children!"

By Jesse Jenkins...

When it comes to fighting global warming, there tends to be a lot of different percentages and years thrown around: California is planning to reduce global warming pollution 25% by 2020; Oregon's legislature adopted 10% below 1990 levels as the state's 2020 objective; bills floating around Congress push targets ranging from a mere return to 1990 pollution levels by 2020 to a cut of 80% by 2050.

Lost amidst all of these percentages and years, those of us committed to building a movement for solutions to the climate crisis have struggled to find a rallying cry.

In an effort to 'mainstream' the currently-most-aggressive legislation in Congress, the nationwide Step it UP day of action rallied behind a call for Congress to 'Step it UP!' and cut carbon emissions 80% by 2050. Step it UP was arguably quite successful in this goal: co-sponsorship and support for the Boxer-Sanders and Waxman climate change bills, which call for an 80% reduction, has been building and all of the major Democratic 2008 presidential candidates have now adopted the 80% by 2050 target as part of their platform (with some upping the ante with a call for a 90% reduction).

Step it UP 2, scheduled for November 3rd, plans to reiterate the 80% by 2050 target while adding a few new planks to the call for action.

But amidst all this talk of percentages, is the '80% by 2050' target that has become the de facto rallying cry for our movement the 'right' target? Will it be enough to get the job done and solve the climate crisis? Will it be an adequate rallying cry to inspire a popular movement?

Now that the 80% by 2050 call has become mainstream, it's time for a serious discussion about whether or not its' time for a new, more inspiring, more aggressive rallying cry.

Carlos Rymer recently posted an excellent discussion on what the 'right' target is, scientifically speaking.

There's a strong argument to be made that even an 80% reduction by 2050 will be too little, too late, to give us better-than-even odds of avoiding catastrophic consequences of climate change. I don't know about you, but I'm not willing to bet the future of the world, to bet my future and my children's future on coin flip odds!

Carlos concludes that a 95% reduction by 2030 is probably necessary in the developed world, in order to do our part to reduce per-capita emissions to an appropriate level.

I think Carlos is right on in calling for a more aggressive target, and as he concludes at the end of his post, a call for 95% reductions is, practically speaking, the same as a call for 100% reductions, or complete carbon neutrality.

David Roberts over at GristMill agrees, and proposes a replacement rallying cry:

"Children born today should live to see a U.S. that produces no climate pollution."

Scientifically speaking, a call for complete carbon neutrality - no more human caused global warming pollution than human efforts to absorb and sequester global warming pollution can remove from the atmosphere - is a much more sound target than an 80% reduction by 2050. We ultimately need to model our energy and industrial systems on natural systems: what we put in the atmosphere must not exceed what we can safely remove from the atmosphere - through reforestation efforts, for example.

A call for complete carbon neutrality is also a more inspiring and aggressive rallying point than the 'wonky' call for 80% reduction in global warming pollution by 2050.

Jefferson Smith of the Oregon Bus Project, the MC for the April 14th Step it UP! rally in downtown Portland, Oregon, got plenty of laughs out of the mouthful that slogan presents:

"What do we want?" he shouted, to which the crowd, at his jocular coaching, responded: "An 80% reduction in global warming pollution!"

"When do we want it?" "By the year 2050 or preferably sooner!"

This was followed by plenty of laughs at the inadequacy of such a lengthy and wonky 'rallying cry.'

But self-effacing jokes aside, this dilemma isn't something we should laugh off lightly.

Building the strength and momentum of a powerful climate solutions movement will require an inspiring and aggressive rallying cry, something people can latch on to, something with emotional (not merely intellectual) appeal, something that will help redefine what is politically possible. Unfortunately, I don't think the '80% by 2050' call for action fits those criteria (at least not any longer).

So let's put aside the percentages and the target years. Let's put aside the wonky mathematics. We can leave the targets and the years to the policy wonks who will attempt to translate our powerful call for a climate neutral future into concrete policy proposals.

Instead, let's pick up a rallying cry that appeals to the heart, a rallying cry that inspires, that motivates and that shifts the discussion of what is politically possible!

As David Roberts says, "I want my kids to live in a country that does not pollute the atmosphere with [greenhouse gases]. You don't need to know any math to understand that."

[Photo Credit - Step it UP!/John Quigley/Spectral Q]

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Warnings From a Warming World: Antarctic Ice Thawing Faster Than Predicted

By Carlos Rymer... The following is adopted from Reuters, dated August 22nd, 2007:

A thaw of Antarctic ice is outpacing predictions by the U.N. climate panel and could in the worst case drive up world sea levels by 2 meters (6 ft) by 2100, a leading expert said on Wednesday.

Millions of people, from Bangladesh to Florida and some Pacific island states, live less than a meter above sea level. Most of the world's major cities, from Shanghai to Buenos Aires, are by the sea.

Chris Rapley, the outgoing head of the British Antarctic Survey, said there were worrying signs of accelerating flows of ice towards the ocean from both Antarctica and Greenland with little sign of more snow falling inland to compensate.

To read the rest of the Reuters article, click here.

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Introducing Carlos Rymer, New WattHead Contributing Author

Carlos Rymer joins the growing WattHead team today (check out his two excellent posts on climate tipping points and the right target for carbon reductions).

Carlos Rymer is a student at Cornell University studying sustainable development. On campus, he leads the Sustainability Hub and co-leads KyotoNOW!. In the Spring of 2007, he co-led an effort to convince Cornell's administration to commit to the American College and
University Presidents Climate Commitment with a campus-wide petition drive and a strong media campaign.

Off-campus, Carlos co-led the New Jersey Climate March in the Spring of 2007, which helped win a statewide campaign to pass the Global Warming Response Act, ground-breaking legislation that sets the first mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions to be 80% below 2006 levels by 2050. Carlos is also a Campus Organizer and New York State Coordinator for the Sierra Student Coalition. He is also Vice Chair for the D.C. March Committee of the Energy Action Coalition Powershift Planning Team, which is organizing a major action as part of Powershift 2007, the first national youth climate conference.

Outside of the U.S., Carlos works with Romana Sostenible in the Dominican Republic, which promotes sustainable development. Carlos is the Renewable Energy Director and is leading a Renewable Energy Campaign to convince the tourism sector to invest 2% of its annual demand (over U.S. $10 billion) in renewable energy projects to reach a national goal of climate neutrality by 2030, with the goal of showing real, urgent leadership on climate change.

Carlos is also regular blogger at It's Getting Hot In Here and The Energy Independent.

Welcome to the WattHead team, Carlos!

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Our National Climate Target: A Worthy Discussion

By Carlos Rymer:

The U.S. climate movement is rapidly strengthening. Global warming is becoming one of the top issues for business, youth, labor, and other communities, and we hear calls for immediate action everywhere.

In the last two years alone, there has been a surge in public opinion and activism about this issue, including carbon neutral businesses and schools, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, the IPCC report and other recent scientific studies, and commitments by other nations to fight global warming aggressively. All this has led to the U.S. movement to rally behind one simple call: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States by 80% below 1990 levels by the year 2050. Clearly, this is an aggressive target, making many in Washington uncomfortable, but is it enough to save our society from climate tipping points? Let’s take a closer look.

According to the Framework Convention on Climate Change, global society should not allow the global average temperature to rise beyond 2°C above pre-industrial levels. Going beyond this threshold could set in motion a series of tipping points that would accelerate temperature rise, loss of existing carbon repositories, and catastrophic weather events to a point of no return, where reversing the process is likely impossible. This could include the disintegration of Greenland and West Antarctica (raising sea level by more than 10 meters), the extinction of more than 50% of all species, and rapid loss of ecosystems like the Amazon rainforest and large parts of agricultural production systems. Direct loss of human life through natural disasters, disease, and famine would only compound general disintegration of a global economy reliant on efficient trade, cheap commodity production, and stable civilizations.

One problem is that the world has already warmed about 0.6ºC on average, and there is at least 0.5ºC of warming ahead of us due to the current concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. In order to prevent about 1ºC of further warming, scientists say that we should keep the total greenhouse gas concentration, expressed in CO2 equivalents, below 450 ppm.

Researchers at the Hadley Center in the UK have condensed the science up to 2005 to show the scale of greenhouse gas emission reductions necessary to avoid catastrophic tipping points. The current science shows that the natural sinks of CO2 – the oceans, soils, and forests – will lose much of their capacity to absorb CO2 by 2030. With these projections in mind, the world must reduce its total per capita greenhouse gas emissions to 0.33 tons of CO2 equivalents per person. This translates into a global reduction in total greenhouse gas emissions of 60% below 2005 levels by the year 2030, a much more ambitious target than what is currently being supported in the United States, which would have to reduce its emissions by around 95% by 2030 to meet the world’s target equitably.

One concern that climate activists and progressive politicians in the United States would have with this ambitious target is that it supposedly would not have any support in Washington. But it helps to think back in time.

In 1997, was there all-out support for the targets agreed-upon in the Kyoto Protocol? Today, cities and states all over the U.S. believe these are first steps and have set much more ambitious goals. Two years after the Kyoto Protocol came into effect in 2005, the European Union has agreed to reduce its emissions by 30% by the year 2020, with Germany saying it will go for 40% reductions. California, New Jersey, and a couple of other states have agreed to cut their emissions by at least 20% by 2020 and 80% by 2050. These previously “unrealistic” goals today are taken as the minimum “science-based” goals allowed. Given these fast changes in the last few years, would calling for a climate neutral U.S. by 2030 be politically acceptable?

The most recent studies tell us that this year’s IPCC projections are likely underestimates of what’s really happening and what’s to come. Let’s take a look at a sample of these.
Shortly after the IPCC technical report was released, the National Snow and Ice Data Center showed that Arctic sea ice was being lost three times faster than thought. The IPCC concluded that, from 1953 to 2006, the average sea ice loss per decade was 2.5%, but recent data shows that the average was in fact about 7.8%, 30 years ahead of forecast. As a result, the Arctic could be ice-free during the summer by 2020, warming the planet much faster due to the vast open waters that will be absorbing heat (and melting Greenland, by the way). It has already reached a record low this year.

Also this year, Dr. James Hansen and a team of scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies published a study showing that the Earth was at a “dangerous tipping point.” Hansen and his team pointed out that the CO2 limit of 450 ppm was likely dangerous due to the consequences we’ve seen with 0.6C of warming, and that the ceiling should probably be a lot lower. They warned that even moderate business-as-usual would lead to “global and regional disasters.”

Recently, the Brazilian government, alarmed by climate change effects in the Amazon, decided to reconsider climate policy. 2005 saw a major drought in the Amazon that killed crops and caused other major losses. 2006 and 2007 have also been drought years. Scientists at the Woods Hole Research Institute, together with Brazilian scientists, have shown that 3 years of continued drought leads the Amazon to a massive transformation, ending with much of it as a savannah. If 2008 turns out to be like this year, we may begin to see trees die in the Amazon, a huge tipping point that would elevate carbon emissions.

Since 2005, the frozen Siberian peat bog has been partly melting during the summer. This year, in particular, a vast area melted for the first time in recent human history. Scientists estimate that these peat bogs could release more than 70 billion tons of methane, a greenhouse gas 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide (by contrast, humans release about 25-30 billion tons of CO2 per year, so this would equal about 50 years of our current CO2 emissions).

Another study, this time near Antarctica, showed that the Southern Ocean is almost at capacity for holding CO2. The vast ocean served us well by taking up to 1/3 of all the carbon dioxide we released every year. But now, it will hold no more, so more of what we emit will stay in the atmosphere.

On the emissions side, new research shows that global CO2 emissions rose faster than the worst-case scenario used by the IPCC. The average in the last few years was 3.1%. This means that, if unchecked, we will likely see temperature rising above the worst-case scenario predicted by IPCC: 4.0C.

The fact is that the world needs a major energy transformation faster than previously thought if we are to avoid catastrophic climate tipping points. Before the U.S. climate movement allows the government to negotiate a new international treaty, it must make sure that the government understands the right target.

We, as climate activists, know that we have to work with what may currently be politically possible, but we shouldn’t be fools to think that we can’t change public opinion about targets and get politicians in government to agree to those targets. By 2009, the U.S. will likely begin negotiating a new global treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. If the U.S. does not go in demanding the right targets and that those targets are set equitably, we will see a treaty that may end up wasting a lot of financial resources in the name of failure, because the targets the world sets will likely not prevent tipping points.

Ultimately, it is up to climate activists who are leading the fight against global warming in the United States and elsewhere to make policymakers and the public aware of what the current observations and the science really calls for, not some consensus-based version that only considers what is certain and not what may be risky.

We must have a climate neutral nation within two decades or we’ll risk climate catastrophe. How to get there in two decades is a tricky question, and without the framework any targets have no meaning, but it is a question that will undoubtedly be answered if we make the climate neutral target mainstream. Climate activists: it is time to make your targets much more ambitious.

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Climate Tipping Points Get Scarier

By Carlos Rymer:

The warmest year on record was 2005. Scientists today indicate that the world has warmed by about 0.6C above the pre-industrial average. Earlier this year, the IPCC painted dire consequences for the world as a result of man-made global warming, which included widespread water shortage and famine, more intense floods and droughts (afflicting agriculture), prolonged heat waves, sea level rise, millions of climate refuges, the extinction of up to 50% of all species, etc. Today, we can look at several recent studies that show that the IPCC report didn’t go far enough on documenting the seriousness of the problem. Let’s take a look.

Shortly after the IPCC technical report was released, the National Snow and Ice Data Center showed that Arctic sea ice was being lost faster than the IPCC projections. The IPCC concluded that, from 1953 to 2006, the average sea ice loss per decade was 2.5%. This was concluded using model simulations. The recent data, on the other hand, shows that the average was in fact about 7.8%, 30 years ahead of forecast. As a result, the Arctic could be ice-free during the summer by 2020, warming the planet much faster due to the vast open waters that will be absorbing heat (and melting Greenland, by the way). Check out the release here and here.

Also this year, Dr. James Hansen and a team of scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies published a study showing that the Earth was at a “dangerous tipping point.” Hansen and his team pointed out that the CO2 limit of 450 ppm was likely dangerous due to the consequences we’ve seen with 0.6C of warming, and that the ceiling should probably be a lot lower. They warned that even moderate business-as-usual would lead to “global and regional disasters.” Hansen has also warned that sea level will undoubtedly rise by at least 1 meter this century, and suggested that the Greenland ice sheet is beginning to desintegrate (could raise sea level by 7 meters). See here and here for more.

Recently, the Brazilian government, alarmed by climate change effects, decided to reconsider climate policy. 2005 saw a major drought in the Amazon that killed crops and caused other major losses. 2006 and 2007 have also been drought years. Scientists at the Woods Hole Research Institute, together with Brazilian scientists, have shown that 3 years of continued drought leads the Amazon to a massive transformation, ending with much of it as a Savannah. If 2008 turns out to be like this year, we may begin to see trees die in the Amazon, a huge tipping point that would elevate carbon emissions.

Since 2005, the frozen Siberian peat bog has been partly melting during the summer (see here). This year, in particular, a vast area that had never melted in recent human history became liquid water. Scientists estimate that these peat bogs could release more than 70 billion tons of methane, a greenhouse gas 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide (by contrast, humans release about 25-30 billion tons of CO2 per year, so this would equal about 50 years of our current CO2 emissions!).

Another study, this time near Antarctica, showed that the Souther Ocean is almost at capacity for holding carbon dioxide. The vast ocean served us well by taking up to 1/3 of all the carbon dioxide we released every year. But now, it will hold no more, so more of what we emit will stay in the atmosphere. IPCC, check your emission projections next time!

On the emissions side, new research shows that global carbon emissions rose faster than the worst-case scenario used by the IPCC. The average in the last few years was 3.1%. This means that, if unchecked, we will likely see temperature rising above the worst-case scenario predicted by IPCC: 4.0C.

And just recently, The Guardian released an article about scientists warning about the proximity of tipping points in the climate system. It notes a new study showing that the Greenland ice sheet could disintegrate within 300 years (note that Hansen warns it could happen this century). It also notes other tipping points such as the loss of the Amazon rainforest, the disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet, and the shutdown of the world’s ocean circulation.

These things tell us two things: 1) All current projections are likely underestimates of what’s really happening and what’s to come, and 2) any further increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is very risky (i.e. we should be a lot more aggressive about our targets if our goal is to avoid tipping points). A more concerned administration/world would use this to declare war against greenhouse gases/global warming, making a complete transition to clean energy within 2 decades.

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Cape Wind - The Story Behind the Daily Show Video

By Jesse Jenkins:

A couple weeks ago, the Daily Show ran a 'news story' about the Cape Wind Project, an offshore wind farm proposed for the Nantucket Sound in Massachussets. In their typical, too-funny-because-it's-so-true satirical style, the Daily Show skewered the ultra-rich, NIMBY opponents of what could be the United States' first offshore wind farm.

The video was popular and made it's way around the blogosphere. I posted the video here at WattHead, and the video drove the highest hit counts I've ever seen at this site (a factor of ten higher than usual!). Sadly, the video is no longer available on YouTube (darned copywrite laws!).

But if you'd like to know the true story behind this hilarious video, Wendy Williams, an author and Cape Codder who appears in the Daily Show story and is apparently responsible for tipping off Jon Stewart and gang, has posted a column at RenewableEnergyAccess.com about the Cape Wind Project.

Read on for the true story behind the Daily Show video:

Cape Wind: Behind the John Stewart Show
by Wendy Williams, Author

When Cape Wind -- both the book and the issue -- appeared recently on the Jon Stewart show, it was for some Cape Codders the event of the summer season. Yet all the hoopla came about by serendipity, really.

A friend sent me a message with the name and phone number of a producer at the show. "You should call and get on the show," he wrote.

Feeling very intimidated, I picked up the phone to call for advice. I erred, however. Thinking I was calling my friend, I instead I called the phone number I was looking at on the computer screen. "Jon Stewart Show," the producer said, answering the call.

I'm not very polished when it comes to publicity. "Well," I said, "I guess it's pretty inappropriate for me to be calling you. I actually dialed your number by accident I'm sorry to bother you. Maybe I should just hang up."

And the rest is history, so to speak...

By now, several weeks after the famous spot in which Jason Jones, fake television reporter extraordinaire, "interviews" Senator Ted Kennedy by megaphone while sitting in a tiny boat on the Nantucket Sound in front of the Kennedy compound, the piece has been posted on You-Tube and viewed by well over 50,000 people.

It is funny, I have to admit. But it isn't really fair to lay all the blame for the six years of stalling and lobbying and backroom-dealing at the feet of Massachusetts' senior senator. At least as guilty is Willard Mitt Romney, a man who was 100-percent committed to keeping the project from being built.

Romney made this promise as part of his campaign to run for governor of the state, and he made it long before he knew anything about the project. "I keep my promises," he once told an interviewer, and he certainly did in the case of Cape Wind, whether it was good for the state or not.

Romney pulled every string and threatened any public appointee in order to keep the project tied up in regulatory hell for as long as he was governor. At least one person lost her job when she spoke out about what was going on behind closed doors in the Massachusetts Governor's office.

Not a few people think Romney's interest in all this delay was tied up with campaign contributions. The family of Bush Pioneer Richard J. Egan—a major financier of Romney's run for governor—is very much financially behind the $20-million effort to stop the project.

So what is Cape Wind, why is it so important, and when will it be built? It's an ambitious offshore wind energy project proposed six years ago for Nantucket Sound, summer sailing grounds and drinking resort of the world's wealthiest people. Long before the details of the project were revealed, these wealthy socialites decided that martini hour would be ruined—positively destroyed—if they had to see wind turbines on the horizon.

To some extent, I can see their point. Much of their money comes from fossil fuels, and Cape Wind represents not that dirty past, but a much more positive future. Initially the project team, led by the world's most stubborn energy entrepreneur Jim Gordon, wanted to built 130, 2.8-megawatt turbines on a very shallow shoal more than 5 miles off the coastline.

But opponents have been so successful in using their financial and political muscle to tie up the project that now, six years later, the technology has improved so much that Gordon has scaled down the number of turbines to 130 - but scaled up the output. Those 3.8-megawatt (MW) turbines would now make up a project with the nameplate capacity of 468 MW.

The developer says that the project would produce about 80 percent of the Cape and Islands' yearly consumption of electricity.

Why is Cape Wind important? It has become the flagship project for a promising new technology, offshore wind. It is well-suited to the northeastern region of the United States, where open space is severely limited, but where ocean winds are powerful and dependable.

Moreover, Cape Wind would reduce the use of the oil-fired power plant on the Cape Cod Canal. It should surprise no one that, as explained in great detail in the book, much of the money spent opposing the project can be traced to coal-and-oil roots.

The potential for power produced by offshore wind is obviously threatening to fossil fuel outfits. Down in Delaware, an offshore wind proposal was chosen by government agencies in lieu of a coal plant. Coal interests have challenged that decision as well.

Because Massachusetts' new governor, Deval Patrick, avidly supports new energy technologies, the project is expected to receive the necessary permits on the state level shortly—although project opponents have begun manipulating a Cape Cod local board, the Cape Cod Commission, in yet another delay attempt.

At the federal level, the project's permitting remains very uncertain. Currently, Minerals Management Service (MMS), of the federal Department of Interior, is supposed to release a massive draft Environmental Impact Statement any day now.

However, "any day now" has been the watchword on this release for many months. The most recent public announcement from MMS said the document would possibly be released this month, but observers aren't holding their breath.

The final decision from MMS is currently scheduled to be made next summer; however, this seems unlikely. For a project that has encountered no serious scientific, environmental or (genuine) legal issues, this seems a little long—particularly when the world feels such urgency over oil, coal and climate change.

Wendy Williams has written for many major publications, including Scientific American, The Christian Science Monitor, The Boston Globe, The Providence Journal and The Baltimore Sun. She has been journalist-in-residence at Duke University and at the Hasting Center; a fellow at the Center for environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado and at the Marine Biological Laboratory. The author of several books, including Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics and the Battle for Our Energy Future on Nantucket Sound, she lives on Cape Cod.

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Introducing Timothy Den Herder-Thomas, New WattHead Contributing Author

The WattHead team continues to grow as we welcome Timothy Den Herder-Thomas to the WattHead contributors team.

Timothy Den Herder-Thomas grew up in Jersey City, NJ, and started organizing around climate and energy issues in his inner-city high school. Now a student at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN as an Environmental Studies Major, Timothy is deeply involved in the movement for climate solutions. On campus, he works with student organization MacCARES to develop climate solutions while building student engagement at the campus level. Along with state-level coordination, Timothy works with the Energy Action Coalition and its partners, especially the Sierra Student Coalition to advance the Campus Climate Challenge.

Timothy focuses on engaging students in taking their work beyond campus by working with local residents, small businesses, labor leaders, farmers, and local governments to implement sustainable community development solutions. Timothy sees these people-powered initiatives as key to both building a climate movement and implementing the solutions the transition entails.

Welcome to WattHead Timothy!

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Warnings from a Warming World: Hurricane Dean Breaks Records, Third Most Intense Storm at Landfall

Hurricane Dean sets several records as many ponder the connection between Global Warming and stronger hurricanes

Hurricane Dean made landfall early this morning as a fierce category five storm, slamming into the southern end of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula with 160+ mph winds and lashing rains.

The major hurricane has set several records and, like Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, caused many to take a closer look at the connection between global warming and more intense and devastating hurricanes.

Here are the key records that Dean either broke or otherwise affects:

1. With a minimum central pressure of 906 millibars, Dean was the ninth most intense hurricane ever observed in the Atlantic basin (for comparison Hurricane Katrina's minimum pressure was 902 millibars).

2. That 906 millibar pressure reading was at landfall, making Dean the third most intense landfalling hurricane known in the Atlantic region and the first Category 5 storm at landfall since 1992's Hurricane Andrew.

3. When measured by minimum pressure, six of the ten most intense Atlantic hurricanes--Wilma, Rita, Katrina, Mitch, Dean, and Ivan--have occurred in the past ten years.

As with any single weather event, it is impossible to blame Hurricane Dean or any other singular storm on global warming directly. However, if recent trends towards more intense storms are true - and they are at least consistent with scientific predictions based on basic thermodynamics - recent massive hurricanes could be a sign of things to come, as global warming continues to warm ocean temperatures, fueling stronger storms.

Chris Mooney at Huffington Post and the Daily Green has published two excellent posts (one short, one longer) about what we can and can't say about global warming and Hurricane Dean:

Now we see why the ancient Mayans built their cities inland from the coasts.

Early this morning, Hurricane Dean slammed the Yucatan as a still-intensifying Category 5 storm with sustained winds upwards of 165 miles per hour. Dean required some troubling readjustments of our hurricane records, and as a result, we may hear some serious chatter today about the relationship between these intense storms and global warming.

For that reason, the purpose of this post is to lay out what we can and can't reliably say about Hurricane Dean. The upshot is this: We have to be careful what we claim and how we claim it, but even so, Dean fits into a worrisome pattern.

...

We can't blame any one hurricane event on global warming directly. Nevertheless, the information above is certainly consistent with the idea advanced by some scientists that global warming is causing an intensification of the average hurricane. We're apparently seeing the strongest hurricanes recur in the Atlantic with a higher frequency than before -- or at least, than we've ever been able to measure before.

Measuring systems weren't as good in earlier eras, you see -- a fact that makes our records somewhat impeachable. A "record" is only what's recorded, after all. And so skeptics will inevitably quibble with our imperfect data and challenge it. There might well have been a storm much stronger than Dean 200 years ago -- we just don't know.

Nevertheless, if you look at the data we have, Dean fits into a very troubling pattern and context. Moreover, the present data, with all their admitted imperfections, aren't all we have to go on. There's also the theoretical expectation that hurricanes ought to intensify, for basic thermodynamic reasons, as global warming adds more heat to the oceans. Add together this theoretical expectation with the new records today and, well, anyone would be justified in feeling pretty worried by Hurricane Dean.

Dean was also the strongest hurricane anywhere in the world so far this year -- and by far the strongest at landfall. We can only hope that somehow, the damage is lighter than expected as the storm tears across the Yucatan today and then prepares to cross the Bay of Campeche and make a second expected landfall in mainland Mexico.

For a further and more detailed discussion of Dean in its Atlantic and global context, see my "Storm Pundit" post at The Daily Green, available here.

[An obvious hat tip to Chris Mooney. (Image source: Weather Underground)]

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Before We Get Drunk on Ethanol, Let's Make Sure We Get It Right

Not all biofuels are created equal: in fact, depending on how they are produced, biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel can be environmentally destructive, raise the price of food, and even hurt efforts to tackle global warming.

Biofuels - ethanol and biodiesel - present a potentially important (partial) solution to concerns about global warming and our over-reliance on oil. However, to paraphrase a great LA Times op ed on the ethanol craze, alcohol is best enjoyed in moderation, and the same goes for these alcohol-based biofuels.

So before we all get drunk on ethanol, we'd better take a close look at the benefits and potential drawbacks of biofuels and make sure we get it right.


The Benefits - In Pursuit of Energy Independence and a Safe Climate

Biofuels offer the potential to displace foreign oil and depleting fossil fuels with a more sustainable and domestic fuel while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Still, depending on how they are produced, ethanol and biodiesel require considerable fossil fuel inputs - diesel for tractors, natural gas for fertilizers, fuel to transport the feedstocks, and typically fossil fuels to produce the biofuels at a biorefinery. So while the biofuel itself may be made from renewable crops and contains only carbon that was absorbed from the atmosphere during the growth of the plants, the total net benefit of biofuels after taking into account inputs is far from carbon neutral nor fossil fuel free.

Exactly how much net benefit there is to biofuels depends largely on the production methods and feedstocks and has been the subject of much debate. While some have repeatedly made the case that conventional biofuels - corn-based ethanol and soy or rapeseed-based biodiesel - take even more fossil fuels to produce than the offset, the consensus has been that conventional biofuels offer a moderate reduction in fossil energy use and greenhouse gas emissions - on the order of a 10-30% reduction when compared to conventional petroleum-based gasoline and diesel.

Next-generation biofuels produced from cellulosic feedstocks - a fancy term for a wide variety of generally inedible plant matter including wood, straw, and grasses as well as agricultural wastes like corn stalks and rice hulls - are an exciting prospect and could maximize the potential for biofuels to offset oil and fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions.

Making ethanol or biodiesel from cellulosic feedstocks can be a much more energy efficient process than conventional corn or soy-based biofuels, can be made from inedible crops and even agriculture, forestry, or urban waste materials.

However, next-generation, cellulosic biofuels are currently in the early stages of commercialization. The first pilot and commercial scale cellulosic biofuel refineries are under construction or on the drawing boards these days and how long it will take to fully scale up and commercialize the emerging biofuel technology remains to be seen.


Up in Smoke - How Slash and Burn Agriculture Wipes Out the Climate Benefits of Biofuels

Land use changes - most notably the loss of tropical forests - account for about 20 percent of total global greenhouse gas emissions - roughly the same as both the total annual emissions from the United States or China.

That's right: slash and burn agriculture can be just as large a threat to the climate as China's rampantly growing economy or the hundreds of millions of cars plying American highways!

So if we're going to start replacing oil with biofuels, we'd better not be trading one problem - rampant oil consumption - for another equally devastating problem - accelerating the conversion of tropical rainforests into farm and grazing lands.

Unfortunately, that's exactly what we're beginning to see, with massive swaths of tropical forests, savannas and grasslands - all productive carbon 'sinks' - being slahed, burned and replaced by biofuels plantations. Massive expansions of palm oil plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia, soy and sugar plantations in Brazil, and jatropha plantations in China's forested Southeast have all been proposed to feed the growing global demand for biofuels.

Slashing massive swaths of forests to clear the way for biofuel plantations clearly amounts to a devastating ecological loss. These tropical and semi-tropical forests are some of the most biologically-diverse habitats in the world and have already been devastated by traditional timber and agricultural demands. It's no wonder the Worldwatch Institute has called China's biofuels expansion "an ecological disaster," and the same can be said for similar biofuel expansion plans across the world.

But even beyond the massive loss of biodiversity and habitat when forests are converted to biofuel plantations, the destruction of these forestlands also wipes out any global warming benefits of biofuels.

According to a new study published in Science last week ($ub req., see this New Scientist summary) the climate benefits of ethanol and biodiesel are completely wiped out by tropical deforestation.

When you destroy forestlands, grasslands, savannas and other wilderness, much of the carbon stored in the ecosystem's living matter ends up in the atmosphere - burned, decomposed or otherwise oxidized. Additionally, forestlands represent an important carbon sink, 'breathing' carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and storing it as trees and other plants grow.

The loss of these important natural carbon 'scrubbers' more than makes up for the moderate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from burning biofuels instead of gasoline or diesel: according to the study, it would take up to a century for the benefits of biofuels to recoup the initial loss of the tropical forestland and the emissions associated with slashing and burning the land to make way for biofuel plantations!

"We cannot afford that, in terms of climate change," says Renton Righelato, co-author of the new study.

Furthermore, the study concludes that the climate benefits of biofuels are trumped by reforestation efforts, even in temperate climates. "You get far more carbon sequestered by planting forests than you avoid emissions by producing biofuels on the same land," says Righelato.

The study's authors found that reforestation would store and sequester between two and nine times as much carbon over 30 years than would be saved by burning biofuels produced on the same amount of land instead of gasoline (see bar chart below).

[Graphic: the carbon savings from burning biofuels instead of gasoline (top six bars) compared to the carbon emissions resulting from clearing tropical forestland for biofuel plantations (red bar) and the carbon savings from reforestation efforts (bottom three bars). Figures are expressed as metric tons of carbon equivalent saved or emitted per acre devoted to biofuel production or reforestation. (Source: New Scientist)]


No Free Lunch When Fuel Competes with Food

We all know the old adage: there's no such thing as a free lunch. Well, when fuel competes with food, everyone's lunch gets more expensive (as the LA Times accurately observes).

The vast bulk of global biofuels production utilizes edible feedstocks like corn and soy. As demand for corn to make ethanol has soared, corn prices have shot up, nearly doubling in the past year. Record high prices are encouraging a record acreage of corn planted in the United States - the highest in 63 years - and prices for other foods are on the rise as farmers plant corn in acreage they have otherwise planted wheat or soy.

Prices for all kinds of food have soared in the first half of 2007 (see chart below) and the LA Times op ed reports that grocery-store food prices rose 8%. It's unknown how much of that hike is attributable to corn, and rising fuel and fertilizer costs are certainly a major factor in rising food prices, but soaring demand for corn for ethanol production is certainly playing a significant role as well.

[Graphic: Food prices on the rise in 2007. (Source: McClatchy Newspapers)]

Middle class Americans may be able to shrug off higher prices at the grocery store, but increasing food costs hit lower income folks harder.

And if low-income Americans are feeling the crunch, things are even harder in the developing world. When you get buy on just a few dollars a day, doubling corn prices are no small matter. Rising corn prices have already launched public outcry and even riots in Mexico, which depends on imported American corn for tortillas and other affordable, nutritious stables.

Producing biofuels from inedible cellulosic feedstocks could provide a solution to this fuel-or-food dilemma, although producing energy crops like switchgrass - an excellent biofuel feedstock and native North American grass that once dominated much of the Great Plains - on limited agricultural land could continue the competition between biofuels and foodstuffs.


Clean Green Fuels? - Other Environmental Effects

Industrial farming to produce biofuel feedstocks, particularly corn, consumes large amounts of water and chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. Many of these chemicals seep into waterways, polluting the water and providing nutrients for algae blooms that suck up all the oxygen and kill everything else. A 'dead zone' the size of Connecticut and Delaware put together has repeatedly formed in the Gulf of Mexico, caused by algae gorging on chemical fertilizers carried into the Gulf by the Mississippi river.

Additionally, farmers ordinarily rotate crops annually to avoid soil exhaustion, but high corn prices encourage them to plant corn in the same fields year after year. This high-intensity farming accelerates the loss of topsoil and depletes soil nutrients and the only way to make this work is to pour on more fertilizers, further exacerbating problems.

Finally, while ethanol may be "cleaner burning" when it comes to many pollutants and is a better fuel additive or "oxygenate" than toxic MTBE, burning ethanol in high concentrations could increase certain air pollutants. A recent Stanford University study argued that E85 - a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline - produces so much ozone, a key ingredient in smog, that if it were used in Los Angeles instead of gasoline, it would raise ozone-related deaths 9%.


Don't Throw the Baby Out With the Bathwater - If We're Smart, Biofuels Still Have a Role to Play

Given all of these concerns about increased use of ethanol and biodiesel, should we just bag the whole idea and move on to something else? No, I would argue.

When it comes to confronting the climate crisis and ending our oil addiction - two massive problems - we're going to need all the tools we can get. Biofuels, if done right, still have an important role to play in reducing our reliance on oil and our contribution to global climate change.

I present the above concerns about biofuels because understanding the potential pitfalls, problems and limitations of biofuels - both conventional and next-generation - will be crucial to developing the standards that are necessary to ensure that biofuels can help make a dent in our oil addiction and help solve the climate crisis without exacerbating other environmental problems.

We should focus on developing cellulosic biofuels that rely on readily available cellulosic biomass in existing waste streams - timber slash and mill residues, urban wood wastes, agricultural residues, etc.

These feedstocks offer the least environmental impacts, do not compete with food crops, and according to this study (pdf) are available in large enough quantities to be worth pursuing - roughly 3/4 of a billion dry tons each year, or enough to produce around 75 billion gallons of ethanol or biodiesel if estimated yields from next-generation biorefineries prove correct.

That is enough biofuel to provide about 1/3rd of all the energy consumed by cars and light trucks in the United States.

Additionally, unlike producing ethanol from corn, which typically requires large amounts of coal or natural gas, converting cellulosic biomass to biofuels requires little or no fossil fuel inputs. In fact, cellulosic biorefineries should be able to utilize the lignin portion of the biomass left over after the cellulose is removed to produce all of the energy inputs for the refinery process and even produce electricity for export (potentially offsetting electricity from coal or natural gas).


Getting on the Right Path - Time for a New U.S. Biofuels Strategy

To be done right:

Biofuels should not come from edible feedstocks, including corn, soy or wheat.

Biofuels should preferably be produced from readily-available, existing waste streams of cellulosic biomass.

If produced from an energy crop, sustainable harvesting practices should be employed, the crops should be grown on existing farmland and should be planted as part of a regular, sustainable crop rotation so as to not compete with foodstuffs.

The full, lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of all biofuels should be considered, including (and especially) emissions from land use changes. Under no circumstances should a biofuel feedstock be utilized that results in the clearing of rainforest or other wilderness areas or results in a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

Employing these kinds of standards in our public policy would necessitate a dramatic shift away from heavily supporting corn-based ethanol and soy-based biodiesel.

It would necessitate the creation of environmental sustainability standards for the U.S. biofuels industry and would imply a ban on imported biofuels from countries that do not adopt satisfactory sustainability standards on their own domestic biofuels industries.

It would require a focus on commercializing next-generation cellulosic biofuel technologies and exploring the most sustainable feedstock sources and harvesting/collection methods.

So, given all of the concerns about biofuels, why aren't any of our elected officials calling for a change in direction for the U.S. biofuels industry? Why do we continue to subsidize the corn ethanol industry to the tune of several billion dollars a year? Why do all of the presidential candidates pay at least lip service to corn ethanol, even those like Hillary Clinton and John McCain that have been openly critical of corn ethanol in the past?

Well, the political power of agri-giants like ADM and Cargill and the importance of corn-growing Iowa in presidential elections are certainly standing in the way of a sensible biofuels policy. It's hard to find another explanation for an energy policy that is so clearly designed to do little to actually solve any of the problems it's supposed to solve while so clearly benefiting narrow but politically powerful special interests.

The latest Senate energy bill continues this trend with a massive 36 billion gallon/year by 2022 biofuels requirement, 40% of which will likely come from good old corn-based ethanol, necessitating a quadrupling in the U.S. corn ethanol industry! (To be fair, the bill does require that 60% of the standard is met with next generation biofuels...)

It's time for a change in American energy policy when it comes to biofuels. It's time to actually have an energy policy when it comes to biofuels, and not a massive agricultural subsidy program disguised as an energy policy.

Let's heed the warnings of climate scientists, ecologists and rioting Mexican peasants: the path we're on right now means biofuels exacerbate the climate crisis, amount to an environmental disaster, and drive up prices for food around the world.

But there's another path, a path where sustainably-harvested, next-generation biofuels coupled with a dramatic increase in fuel efficiency and the adoption of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles makes gasoline a thing of the past.

It's time to get ourselves on the right path.

[A hat tip to Glenn Hurowitz at Gristmill]

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WattHead Turns Two Years Old!

That's right, on August 11th, WattHead turned two years old.

In my first post two years ago, I called on my readers - at that point, just a close group of friends and family - to "Start fighting global warming, like yesterday people!"

Since then, I've gotten a lot better at this whole blogging thing, I've gone from a student studying the issue on the sidelines to a policy analyst and renewable energy advocate working every day on these issues, and WattHead's readership has expanded from a few friends and family to hundreds of people every day.

But in all that time, the message of this blog, the message I've been trying to convey, has changed little: the need to tackle the climate crisis has only grown more certain and more urgent, and the call to begin the transition to a sustainable energy future more relevant than ever.

I'd like to thank everyone who has taken the time to read what I have to say here at WattHead, to thank those who've contributed to the WattHead community with great comments and insights, who've helped spread the word about this blog and who have invited me to participate in other blogs over the years. Thanks for taking what a young student turned young renewable energy advocate and climate change activist has to say seriously, despite my lack of credentials.

Here's to another year of progress towards a sustainable energy future!

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Massachusetts Ski Resort Installs Own Wind Turbine

Jiminy Peak Mountain Resort is now the first ski area to make it's own electricity with clean, renewable wind power

After a ski trip in January 2006, I was struck by the thought that every ski resort in the country should be generating some of their own power by installing small wind turbines at their windy, mountaintop ski areas:

Imagine if you had a piece of property that sat in a very high wind area with average wind speeds of 15 miles per hour (at 10 meters) or better blowing every day. Now also imagine that you ran a business on that property that consumed quite a bit of energy and had a not very green reputation to boot. Let's also add that there are significant financial incentives available in your state for renewable energy installations that could help finance over half the cost. Now why wouldn't you want to install a few wind turbines?

Well that's exactly the question that owners and operators of ski resorts around the country ought to be asking themselves.

Well, as I reported back in January '06, someone had a similar idea and actually ran with it, only on a much larger scale than I had proposed: Jiminy Peak Mountain Resort, a ski area in Massachusetts just flipped the switch on a 1.5 megawatt GE wind turbine that will power their operations, according to a press release I received today.

The dedication ceremony for the "Zephyr" wind turbine, held today, was the culmination of a three-year project to erect a 1.5 megawatt GE wind turbine taller than the Statue of Liberty, according to the press release.

Other ski resorts, like Aspen, Vale and Whistler, have made major purchases of renewable energy credits to offset the electricity they consume, but Jiminy Peak is the first to actually generate their own clean, renewable energy.

Brian Fairbank, president and CEO of the resort and the driving impetus behind the effort to harness the wind, said a combination of wind power and resort conservation will reduce the resort's energy costs by 49.4 percent in 2007-08. The $3.9 million wind turbine project, which Fairbank said was “the most complex financing project of my life,” is nonetheless expected to pay for itself in seven years.

The wind turbine requires a wind speed of 6 mph to operate and can work in winds gusting up to 55 mph. During periods when the mountain doesn't need the electricity, it will be sold back to the power company. “When the wind is howling at 2 a.m. and we're all asleep, we'll continue to make electricity for the grid,” said Fairbank.

The turbine will generate approximately 4,600,000 kWh each year, just over 60% of the approximately 7,500,000 kWh Jiminy Peak consumes a year.

According to the company, rising electricity prices were a major motivator to install their own wind turbine. Electricity prices were 50% higher during the 2005-2006 ski season than the previous year, Jiminy Peak reports. "Wind power will provide Jiminy with significant annual stabilization of cost on electricity," the company says, "and will allow Jiminy Peak to project a portion of their electricity costs for 25 years into the future. Due to the significant wind resource here at Jiminy, the wind power is the most economical energy stabilization measure for the resort."

“Although the wind turbine is up and running, we're not done yet,” said Fairbank. “While this is a giant step forward to helping to preserve the environment, Jiminy Peak will continue to improve upon its energy conservation and continue to strive to take better care of the mountain ecosystem.”

[Image: The Zephyr turbine perched on Jiminy Peak]

The Zephyr project is part of the resort's ongoing Forever Green program of environmental sustainability and responsible business practices.

In the future, Fairbank plans to educate other businesses, especially other ski resorts, on how the answer to reducing their carbon footprint is literally blowing in the wind.

Jiminy Peak plans to offer tours of the wind turbine site on Sept. 21 and 28, and Oct. 19 and 21. Zephyr will also be open and staffed during the mountain's annual fall festival on Oct. 8-10.

The company has set up a website with information and images about the Zephyr wind turbine and other green efforts the ski resort has undertaken.

Let's hope other ski resorts take heed. While a massive, 1.5 MW turbine presents some difficult logistical and financing challenges, it may be the most cost effective way to generate your own wind power. However, installing smaller 10-100 kw turbines could be an easier way for ski resorts to take advantage of the high winds that howl passed their ski lifts. Imagine 10 kW wind turbines perched atop the top of each ski lift...

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What to Do About Global Warming: A Basic Framework for a Good Cap-and-Trade Proposal

David Roberts at GristMill has been writing a series of thoughtful posts on the potential actions the 110th Congress may take to address climate change. As he recognizes in this post, we're now moving beyond simply demanding that Congress do something about global warming and have start thinking about what we want that something to look like. If we can't articulate some simple principles, we risk having growing momentum and calls for action co-opted to pass a weak, ineffective climate bill that fails to get the job done at the same time that Congress declares victory and tells us to pack up and go home.

As David writes, "We need the grassroots to be engaged, pushing back against the many half-ass measures on offer, lobbying on behalf of good measures." And to do that, to engage with the incredibly 'wonky' and complex yet enormously relevant topic of cap-and-trade proposals, people need some simple guidelines to help them see if a climate proposal is a good one or not. We need a few simple points we can latch on to, encourage our legislators to keep in mind and build pressure behind.

To that end, David recently outlined the general elements of what makes a good cap and trade system. Obviously there could be different priorities - Step it UP! 2 has a different, broader-focused list - but these are what both David and I agree are the key elements to a strong cap-and-trade proposal worth supporting:

(More below the fold...)

1) Auction rather than give away emissions permits for free.
Free allowances are a windfall for polluters, forgo an excellent revenue source (that can help offset the costs to low-income energy users and spur clean energy investment ... see point 2 below) and undermine the price signal for polluters that's the whole point of putting a price on carbon.

2) Spend revenue wisely to spur development and deployment of clean energy and reduce impacts on low-income and vulnerable citizens.
Putting a price on carbon will raise energy prices and will do so in a regressive manner: those with lower incomes pay a much more substantial portion of their income to energy costs and will be hit hardest by higher energy bills. The regressive nature of a cap and auction policy can be remedied by pumping auction revenues back into reducing payroll or income taxes for low-income citizens - I would suggest an expansion of the earned income tax credit, for example. The remaining revenue should either be used to fund incentives and R&D in clean energy technologies, or to fund a flat, per-capita tax rebate/reduction for everyone. The former will help further reduce energy bills by decreasing the costs of the clean technologies that will help transition to a low-carbon energy future and the latter will be a politically popular way to help sell the whole concept, building support by producing tangible benefits to voters. Both also help further offset the regressive nature of a carbon price.

3) No 'safety valves' that undermine the integrity of the cap.
A 'safety valve' or cap on emissions allowance prices undermines the integrity of the cap and destroys the price signals necessary to incent investment in low-carbon technologies, sacrificing the goals of the legislation to protect polluters.

These are simple guidelines and principles for what an effective cap and trade program would look like. To David's list, I'll add one more crucial point:

4) Targets that get the job done.
This probably means a target of 10-20% below 1990 levels by 2020 and 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. We've got to cut emissions hard and fast in the United States to a) do our fair share to curb rising global emissions and b) gain credibility with the rest of the world, particularly China and India, as we try to lead an international effort to cut global emissions at least in half by mid-century. That will mean getting developing nations to agree to develop in a less carbon-intensive way and to adopt mandatory caps on their emissions, a tough sell unless we're leading the way with credible, strong actions at home.

To summarize, as David does, "auction permits, spend the resulting revenue wisely, and don't short-circuit the system with safety valves.

We can all remember that, right?" Oh, and don't forget (as David unfortunately does) that we need targets that will actually get the job done - 80% by 2050 - or the whole thing's pointless anyway.

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An Interview with Docter James Hansen

[It's Getting Hot In Here has a great interview with Dr. James Hansen, widely regarded as America's top climate scientist. Dr. Hansen discusses a moratorium on coal-fired power plants, the role of 'clean coal' technology, and youth participation in the climate solutions movement. Special thanks to Whit Jones and the It's Getting Hot In Here community for putting together this interview...]

Last weekend Iowa native Dr. James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute made a homecoming trip to the Hawkeye state to join the March to ReEnergize Iowa and deliver the keynote address at the final rally. See the complete transcript of his speech here and read about the rally in the Des Moines Register.

Dr. Hansen echoed his call for a moratorium on coal and increased youth participation in the preservation of our future. The It’s Getting Hot In Here community generated a list of questions that were delivered to Dr. Hansen and his responses are included below. Please be sure to leave your thoughts and responses in the comments section.

1) In the span of your career, public opinion on global warming has shifted dramatically, have we reached the tipping point necessary to effectively combat it?

That is unclear. Although there has been a recent widespread increase in awareness, it comes at just the same time as an energy crunch due to a booming global economy (especially emergence of China) that is causing a sudden surge of increased coal use. If this is not nipped in the bud, we could lose the ball game.

2) In one of your recent email dispatches (pdf), you made a bold statement by calling for a moratorium on coal without carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology. Does the attention and recognition paid to CCS technology divert money and energy from clean energy and efficiency technologies?

It certainly should not. CCS technology is still somewhat of a mirage. As of yet there is no “clean coal” in reality, and commercial availability is probably at least 10 years away with current efforts. If a requirement is placed that coal can only be used if it is truly clean, that will cause a sudden stop in any increased use of coal. Efficiency and renewable energies are likely to be the big winners from such a constraint, at least for a decade and perhaps forever. CCS may be so expensive that it will cause a big change in the attractiveness of coal. Coal is presently very cheap, partly because it is often subsidized and because it almost never has to pay for the environmental damage it does, including mercury pollution of lakes and oceans.

3) What role do you see for youth in bringing forth a moratorium on coal?

The damages of dirty coal will be visited mainly on the youth of today and on the unborn. This is true especially for the climate changes that will be put “into the pipeline” to appear in future decades, but also for effects of water pollution such as brain damage due to mercury in fish, and the mess that is left behind on bull-dozed mountains.

4) What was the major issue on campuses when you were a student? Were you involved?

The Vietnam war. I was a post-doc by the time students really got heated up. They took over buildings on the Columbia University campus. No, I was not involved. It doesn’t fit my personality, I prefer working on science problems. I have had to force myself to get involved in the present case. It seems to me that the most useful thing that I can do is try to contribute to the court cases against inefficient vehicles and coal-fired power plants.

5) If we remove subsidies from carbon-intensive energy sources and manage to put a price on carbon, won’t CCS coal be priced out of the market?

Perhaps, but only if there are alternatives, much of which would probably be energy efficiency. Much more than half of the energy that we use is wasted. So if coal is priced out, that would be great. Imagine the cleaner atmosphere and ocean, and all the good high tech jobs that would be needed to replace that energy source. There are a lot of jobs associated with energy efficiency, as well as renewable energies.

6) Do you think CCS Coal technology will be essential for a low-carbon future for countries like China? Is it problematic, practically, ethically and scientifically, to transfer this technology to China when it is basically untested here?

It will surely be tested here and elsewhere. It can be tested there, as well as here. It is not like this is a dangerous technology that is going to explode and kill people.

7) In light of the fact that the impacts of fossil fuel use extend beyond the greenhouse effect, to what extent should we address the life cycle costs, such as mountain top removal mining and exploitation of impacted communities when confronting global warming?

Absolutely, it is very important to look at the life cycle costs, especially for things such as ethanol. Germany is finding that the huge subsidies they gave coal are now coming back to haunt them. Some villages are sinking a few feet — there are tens of billions of dollars of future costs due to land subsidence. These costs will be born by today’s youth, and the unborn.

8) Traditional media has failed to reach youth with the message that fighting coal is necessary to preserve our future, what do you think is the role for new media.

Well, one problem is that the media always focuses on today. It shortchanges the young and future generations. I don’t know how to fix that.

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Step it UP 2: Bigger, Badder and In Search of a Leader!

Announcing Step it UP! 2, November 3rd, 2007. The sequel will be even bigger and badder than the original - but only with your help!

On April 14th, 2007, hundreds of thousands of citizens joined forces to send a loud and clear message to Congress: "Step it UP, Congress: Cut Carbon 80% by 2050."

Students joined seasoned activists alongside everyone from soccer moms to hippies at over 1,400 different rallies and events held across the United States as part of the national Step it UP! 2007 day of action.

At city squares and village greens, on the tops of mountains and along threatened coastlines - there were even events underwater (check out this slideshow) - concerned citizens all across the country came together in what became the largest day of environmental protest since Earth Day 1970. We came together to draw a line in the sand and demand action to address the climate crisis.

Step it UP! 2007 gathered national and local media attention. We engaged our elected officials - many of whom made the Step it UP pledge alongside us - and we got a response: all of the 2008 Democratic candidates for president have now adopted the Step it UP! platform of an 80% cut in global warming pollution by 2050. Bills in both the Senate and House would make that call for action a reality and are gathering support and sponsorship.

Most of all, Step it UP! helped build a citizen movement for global warming solutions. And as Bill McKibben, founder of Step it UP! points out, "A movement needs to keep moving, and calling for real leadership is the next logical step."

That's why Bill and the Middlebury College students who successfully organized and kicked off Step it UP! in April are at it again: last week, they announced Step it UP! 2: Who's a Leader', a second round of nationwide protests, rallies and actions scheduled for November 3rd, 2007.

November 3rd is just about one year before the pivotal 2008 elections - an election that will make our break our efforts to tackle the climate crisis and build a sustainable energy future - and the goal of Step it UP! 2, as McKibben summarizes, is "to find out who is simply a politician, and who’s ready to be a leader.”

Here's Bill McKibben's invitation to all of us take one Saturday this fall to join with our fellow citizens to make Step it UP! 2 even bigger and badder than the first version! This is a citizen movement, built from the ground up by you and me, and it's up to us to make Step it UP! 2 a success in each of our communities. Let's keep on movin' on:

Dear Friend,

There are occasional moments in history when we desperately need leadership, and this is one of them. If we’re going to deal with global warming, then we need to go beyond politicians who say the right words and find champions who will actually do the tough work to transform our energy economy.

And you could play a key role in bringing those leaders to the fore. This is an invitation to take one Saturday this fall and use it to build a movement, a movement strong enough to finally put this issue on the table where it can no longer be ignored.

Here’s the idea. On November 3, a year before the next election, we’re asking people to organize rallies large and small in their communities. Each one should take place in some spot that commemorates great leaders of the past. People have already committed to climbing New Hampshire's Mt. Washington and gathering in Chicago's Lincoln Park. Others will gather at the Rhode Island church where John F. Kennedy was married, or in front of a site honoring Navajo elder and activist Roberta Blackgoat. But we need hundreds more, gatherings in places that bear the names of national leaders or of locally celebrated men and women who did the right thing in a moment of great need. You’ll know the person that makes sense in your city or town—they don't need to be saints, just true leaders, the kind who, faced with the great issues of their day, didn't punt or compromise.

Once you've got your rally registered on our website, we'll help you gather a crowd, and invite the politicians from your neck of the woods. We want to ask every Senator and Representative, and every candidate for those offices, to come to these rallies, along with state and local officials. Once they're there, we'll present politicians with the four "1 Sky" priorities prepared in the last few months by climate campaigners across the country. They are: an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050, 10% in three years (hit the ground running), a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants, and a Green Jobs Corps to help fix homes and businesses so those targets can be met. Basically, we want to find out who is simply a politician, and who's ready to be a leader.

We know these gatherings will be effective. In April, with the help ofthousands of people (most of them brand new to organizing) from across the country, we organized 1,400 rallies in places that showed how climate change would affect our lives. Those events were key in putting the demand for real action--80% cuts in carbon emissions by 2050--square in the middle of the Washington debate. But a movement needs to keep moving, and calling for real leadership is the next step.

Don't worry if you've never organized anything before--you're not putting together a March on Washington, just a gathering of scores or hundreds in your town or neighborhood. It needn’t be slick; homemade is just fine. Put your imagination to work: what would Lincoln do? How would Dr. King take on this challenge? This is a celebration of leadership, and a celebration should be joyful—as focused on the new economies and communities we can create as on the threats we must avoid.

These rallies will be local, but they’ll also have national impact. The website will help draw people to your action, and then on Nov. 3, we'll be gathering pictures and video from around the country so that by nightfall we'll have a good online slideshow of how America feels. We'll do our best to make sure that every candidate is firmly on the record about their plans. By the time the day is done, you'll have helped change the political landscape.

The best science tells us we have barely a decade to start the fundamental transformation of our economy and to lead the world in the same direction or else, in the words of NASA's Jim Hansen, we will face a "totally different planet." (He went on to say that the "1 Sky" priorities "describe just the kind of trajectory we need" to start solving the problem). A decade's not very long—we've got to get going.

I know you’ve already done the obvious things, like changing some of the lightbulbs in your house. Screwing in a lightbulb is important; screwing in a new federal policy to deal with climate change is crucial, especially if we’re ever going to regain enough credibility to help lead the world toward a stable climate. November 3 will be a powerful day, and you can play a vital role. Please sign up on the website to start or join an action—and thank you so much for caring enough to be a leader yourself.

Bill McKibben and the StepItUp2007.org team

P.S.One more thing. Please forward this invitation as far and wide as possible, to anyone you know who might possibly be interested. We’re not really an organization, and we don’t have lists of names—we depend on people like you to take the initiative.

So what are you going to do in your community? Let's Step it UP one more time, keep gathering momentum, carry it through Focus the Nation in January 2008, the primary elections in the spring and on through next summer and the 2008 elections. Nothing less than the future of the world as we know it hangs in the balance!

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House Passes Clean Energy Bills Including National Renewable Energy Standard

The House passes crucical clean energy legislation, but challenges still await in the form of a contentious conference committee and a possible presidential veto.

This past Saturday, the House of Representatives took a crucial step towards creating the sustainable energy future we’ve been calling for with the passage of two important clean energy bills.

The first, H.R.3221, the "New Direction for Energy Independence, National Security, and Consumer Protection Act" is a package of energy efficiency provisions, clean energy R&D spending and other energy policies. Weighing in at almost 800 pages long, H.R.3221 has been a project of more than a half-dozen committees for the past few months. It finally made it to the House floor Saturday and passed with a vote of 241-172.

The second bill, H.R.2776 is a package of tax incentives, loan guarantees and other financial incentives for clean energy, and is known as the "Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2007. The bill includes expansions of several popular and effective incentives, including the federal production tax credit, the solar investment tax credit and community renewable energy bonds. H.R.2771 passed 221-189.

The nearly $16 billion in clean energy appropriations in the two bills are funded by eliminating oil and gas company tax breaks and closing loopholes and correcting mistakes in current tax and royalty laws.

A summary of both clean energy bills can be found at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's website.

Perhaps the biggest, and most surprising, victory of the day was the passage of an amendment (pdf) sponsored by Representative Tom Udall (D-NM) that establishes a national renewable energy standard (RES) requiring utilities across the country - other than public utilties and electric cooperatives - to get at least 15% of their electricity from clean, homegrown renewable energy sources by 2020. In a compromise that helped secure the RES amendment's passage with a 220-190 vote, up to 4 percentage points of the 15% standard may be met by energy efficiency investments. It should be noted that states will retain the authority to implement higher standards and that those already in place will be protected.

While the passage of the RES amendment and the two clean energy bills is a major clean energy victory, this was only the first of three battles bills must face before being implemented.

The Senate, unable to get the necessary support to overcome a filibuster, did not include a renewable energy standard in its energy package this past June, nor was it able to pass a tax package proposal similar to H.R.2771. Additionally, the House failed to muster support for an increase in CAFÉ standards - an increase in fuel efficiency requirement to 35 mpg by 2020 for cars, SUV’s, and light trucks - that was included in the Senate energy package.

The differences in the two packages will need to be debated in conference committee, when the House and Senate energy packages are merged. When the package goes to conference, CAFÉ and RES are going to be important talking points. Democratic leaders will try to include both provisions and protect the tax package while Senate Republicans have called the RES a "deal-breaker" and even some House Democrats have opposed increased CAFÉ standards, including House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair John Dingell, who has jurisdiction over the issue.

An opinion piece in the LA Times explains the situation perfectly:

"In june, the senate passed an energy bill loaded with creamy peanut butter. On Saturday… the House approved an energy package that’s pure chocolate.Cookies If we could get these two together without removing their tastiest ingredients, the nation would be in for a history-making treat."

Like the Energizer Bunny, it seems the energy debates will keep going and going and going through the fall, and the fate of these provisions now lies in the hands of House and Senate leaders who will participate in the conference committee.As if surviving conference not a big enough challenge, the final battle for crucial clean energy legislation will be against our President, George W. Bush, who has threatened to veto the energy package when it comes to his desk. The President is opposed to the provisions in two House energy bills that would end tax breaks for the oil and gas industry to pay for clean energy investments.

We need rid America of our reliance on fossil fuels and build a new, sustainable energy future. If the best elements of both the House and Senate energy packages can survive conference and veto, this will be a historic first step towards that future.

Though the RES amendment had to be weakened to ensure necessary support - the targets were first dropped from 20% to 15% and then up to 4% of that was allowed to come from energy efficiency before supporters could secure the necessary votes - the completed energy package is a promising step forward, and certainly worth celebrating.

The tides are beginning to change. The tenacity with which activists have attacked climate change is beginning to show serious results.

Let your Representatives and Senators know you support a strong energy package, one which includes both an RES and increased CAFE standards.

We have the opportunity to truly shift the direction our country is headed in. The energy bills passed by the House and Senate won't be the end of the story, but they are a crucial step forward. Congress wont be back in session until September 4th, so take this time to make your position known.

[A hat tip to Mattew Maiorana]

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The Daily Show Skewers Cape Wind Opponents

This is hilarious, because it's so true. As usual, the Daily Show has deployed satire to perfectly highlight the ridiculousness of the NIMBY opposition to the Cape Wind offshore wave energy project proposed for Nantucket Sound in Massachusetts.



For more on the story behind this so-funny-because-it's-true satire, check out this column from Wendy Williams, who appears in the Daily Show clip, and is apparently responsible for getting the story on the Daily Show.

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Warnings from a Warming World: World Meteorological Organization Reports on Extreme Weather Events

The first half of 2007 was full of extreme weather events of the kind climate scientists predict will be more frequent as global warming progresses.

Weather and climate are marked by record extremes in many regions across the world since January 2007, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported today. Today's press release describes a catalog of extreme weather and climate events experienced across the world in the first half of 2007, from hurricanes and cycles to torrential floods.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report noted an increasing trend in these kind of extreme weather events during the last 50 years, and the IPCC report predicts that hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent as global warming progresses.

According to the WMO, January and April 2007 recorded what was likely the highest land surface temperatures those months have ever seen since record began in 1880. January was a full 1.89°C (3.4°F) warmer than average and April 1.37°C (2.47°F) warmer than average, according to the WMO.

Several regions also experienced prolonged heat waves and torrential rains leading to flooding, while devastating cyclones and hurricanes made landfall in several regions, including the first ever recorded cyclone in the Arabian Sea (Cyclone Gonu, pictured making landfall above right).

The WMO report below catalogs extreme weather events recorded across the world during the first half of 2007:


Heavy rainfall, cyclones, hurricanes and wind storms

During the first half (June-July) of the Indian summer monsoon season, four monsoon depressions (double the normal frequency) caused heavy rainfall and floods in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Many stations reported 24-hr rainfall exceeding 350 mm (13.8 in). These monsoon extremes and incessant rains caused large-scale flooding all over South Asia, a situation that continues even now, resulting in more than 500 deaths, displacement of more than 10 million people and destruction of vast areas of croplands, livestock and property.

Cyclone Gonu, the first documented cyclone in the Arabian Sea, made landfall in Oman on 6 June with maximum sustained winds near 148 km/h (92 mi/h). Gonu moved through the Persian Gulf making a second landfall in the Islamic Republic of Iran. In Oman, the cyclone affected more than 20,000 people and was responsible for more than 50 fatalities.

Heavy rains during 6-10 June ravaged areas across southern China. Flooding affected over 13.5 million people with more than 120 fatalities due to floods and landslides.

In England and Wales the period May to July in 2007 was the wettest (406 mm/16 in) since records began in 1766, breaking the previous record of 349 mm (13.7 in) in 1789. The extreme rainfall in June, with 103.1 mm (4 in) of rain recorded in 24 hours during 24-25 June in northeast England, was followed by a similar event with 120.8 mm (4.8 in) of rain on 20 July in central England. Both events resulted in extensive flooding across parts of England and Wales. At least nine people have died and damage is estimated at more than US$6.00 billion.

With 126 mm (5 in) (normal for 1961-1990: 71 mm [2.8 in]), Germany experienced its wettest May since country-wide observations started in 1901. In sharp contrast, the previous month was the driest April since 1901 with an average of 4 mm (0.16 in) (7% of the 1961-1990 normal).

A powerful storm system affected much of northern Europe during 17-18 January 2007 with torrential rains and winds gusting up to 170 km/h (105 mi/h). There were at least 47 deaths across the region, with disruptions in electric supply affecting tens of thousands during the storm. Initial estimates of losses were reported as 3-5 billion Euros.

The worst flooding event in 6 years hit Mozambique in February. An estimated 30 people were killed and 120,000 evacuated from the central Zambezi basin. Additional flooding and loss of life was attributed to the landfall of tropical cyclone Favio on 22nd February.

Abnormally heavy and early rainfall in Sudan since the end of June has caused the Nile River and other seasonal rivers to overflow, resulting in extensive flooding and damaging more than 16,000 houses.

In May a series of large swell waves (estimated at 3-4.5 meters/10-15 feet) swamped some 68 islands in 16 atolls in the Maldives causing serious flooding and extensive damages.

In early May, Uruguay was hit by the worst flooding since 1959. Heavy rainfall in portions of Uruguay produced floods that affected more than 110,000 people and severely damaged crops and buildings.

An increase in intense tropical cyclone activities in the North Atlantic since about 1970 has also been observed.


Heat Waves

Many European countries had their warmest January on record. January temperatures in The Netherlands were the highest since measurements were first taken in 1706, averaging about 7.1°C (44.8°F) (2.8°C/5°F above 1961-1990 average) while in Germany the temperatures were 4.6°C (8.3°F) above the 1961-1990 average.

In many European countries, April was the warmest ever recorded with the temperatures reaching more than 4°C (7.2°F) over and above the long-term mean in some areas.

In May a heat wave affected areas across western and central Russia breaking several temperature records. In Moscow, temperatures on 28 May reached 32.9°C (91.2°F), the highest temperature recorded in May since 1891.

In India, a heat wave during mid-May produced temperatures as high as 45-50°C (113-122°F).

Two extreme heat waves affected south-eastern Europe in June and July, breaking the previous records with temperatures exceeding 40 °C (104°F). Dozens of people died and fire-fighters worked around the clock fighting blazes devastating thousands of hectares of land. On 23 July, temperatures hit 45°C (113°F) in Bulgaria, setting a new record.

Recognizing the severe health impacts of heat waves, the WMO and the World Health Organization (WHO), are at an advanced stage of preparing Guidance on the implementation of Heat Health early Warning Systems (HHWS).


Extreme Winter Weather

An unusual cold winter season brought winds, blizzards and rare snowfall to various provinces in South America with temperatures reaching as low as -22°C (-7.6°F) in Argentina and -18°C (-0.4°F) in Chile in the beginning of July.

On 27 June a winter weather front moved across South Africa bringing the country’s first significant snowfall since 1981 (25 cm/9.8 in of snow in parts of the country).


Climate Change and Extremes

According to the most recent climate change scientific assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the warming of the climate system is "unequivocal."

Eleven of the last twelve years (1995-2006) rank among the 12 warmest years in the instrumental record of global surface temperature. The linear warming trend over the last 50 years (0.13°C/0.23°F per decade) is nearly twice that for the last 100 years.

Paleoclimatic studies suggest that the average Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the second half of the 20th century were very likely higher than during any other 50-year period in the last 500 years and likely the highest in the past 1,300 years.

The IPCC further notes that there has been an increasing trend in the extreme events observed during the last 50 years, particularly heavy precipitation events, hot days, hot nights and heat waves.

Climate change projections indicate it to be very likely that hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent.


Data

This information is based on inputs received from several WMO Members and with the collaboration of the NOAA National Climatic Data Centre (NCDC), USA, Germany's National Meteorological Service, the Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) and the Met Office, UK. It includes an indicative but not exhaustive coverage of the observed weather and climate extremes. More comprehensive information on weather and climate anomalies observed in 2007 will be provided towards the end of the year.

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“The Environmental Pollution Agency” - EPA Chief Testifies Before Senate Committee

[By Matthew Maiorana]

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen L. Johnson was called to testify before the Environment and Public Works Committee on July 26th. The issue? A waiver request that would allow California to regulate vehicle greenhouse gas emissions. Senator Boxer, Chairwoman, believes the issue has been handled in an entirely unsatisfactory manner and demanded an explanation.

This issue will have huge repercussions. There are already 13 states waiting to adopt California’s emission standards (see previous post), something they can only do if California’s waiver is approved.

Under the Clean Air Act, California has the legal ability to increase fuel efficiency standards. However, to do so, it needs permission in the form of a waiver from the EPA. So they asked – in December 2005. Now the EPA says it wont have a decision until December, a full 2 years after the initial request. Even more concerning, Senator Boxer is convinced the Bush Administration is working to make sure California doesn’t receive any waiver, saying it is so obvious “you would have to be born yesterday not to see it.”

When asked the reason the decision has taken so long, Mr. Johnson gave multiple answers, none of which were sufficient for Senator Boxer. Initially, the EPA wouldn’t accept that CO2 can be regulated under the Clean Air Act - that it isn’t pollution. This argument lead to the landmark Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA this past April saying that the EPA does have the authority to regulate CO2.

Finding a new excuse, the EPA argued it has received 60,000 letters, “an unprecedented number,” and that they must all be reviewed before making a decision. Boxer came back stating that 54,000 were 2 different mass mailing letters. Even more, those 54,000 were in support of California! Yet, Mr. Johnson insisted it still takes “rigorous analysis.”

The questioning then shifted to whether Mr. Johnson has discussed the waiver with the Bush Administration, which he admitted to - but only as part of routine conversations. While avoiding direct answers, he maintained the administration understands it is his decision to make. When Boxer attempted, for sake of clarity, to wrap-up what he said - that nobody in the White House had contacted him regarding the waiver, or given him their opinion - Johnson insisted that “to the best of my recollection” be added.

Senator Boxer later produced an internal document from the Department of Transportation (part of the administration) which read, “if asked our position, we say we are in opposition to the waiver.” When questioned about this, Mr. Johnson refused to condemn the statement, instead saying he wasn’t responsible for what they wrote. When pressured, he said “I defer to the DOT” 4 times in a row. Eventually he admitted to contacting the Department Secretary asking her to check with her constituency on the issue. Boxer came back immediately, “who is her constituency?!” A bit taken aback, Mr. Johnson defined them as interested members of congress and governors. Boxer was appalled, insisting that the duty of the DOT, not being an elected office, is to the American people.

Boxer ended by saying “your job is to protect, not to bow down to special interests, or call Rove, or anything else,” insisting that “the Environmental Pollution Agency” has “wasted time on purpose.” She gave her full permission for states to sue the EPA, saying this hearing hasn’t reassured her at all.

To combat the issue, Senators Boxer, Nelson, and Feinstein, have introduced S. 1785, a bill which would set a September 30 deadline for the EPA decision. Representative Jay Inslee (D-Wash) ha also introduced a corresponding House bill, H.R. 3083. The bills would also mandate that all future waiver requests be processed within 180 days.

S. 1785 passed out of the Environmental and Public Works Committee along party lines in last week (10-9) and should be taken up by the Senate when they return from August recess.

Click here to contact your senators and urge them to support S. 1785 and waivers for California and other states that have adopting the tailpipe emissions standards. After being delayed 1.5 years, it is far past time.

Hopefully the waiver will be approved, but Senator Boxer is already fed up with Mr. Johnson. “When history is written," she said to Mr. Johnson, "I think they’ll look back on your tenure as a missed opportunity, and that’s the nicest way I could put it.”

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Introducing Matt Maiorana, New WattHead Contributing Author

WattHead readers, I'd like to introduce you to Matthew (Matt) Maiorana, a new contributor here at WattHead.

After running the site solo for the past two years (WattHead turns two years old on August 11th!), I've decided to begin inviting others to contribute posts and help keep WattHead updated frequently, beginning with Matt.

Originally from Detroit, Michigan, Matt Maiorana is a student at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, where he is working towards his B.A. in Human Ecology with a focus on Policy, Environmental Science, and Activism.

Matt is an active youth climate activism organizer, and is currently working to organize local, state, national, and international climate action campaigns with SustainUS, the Sierra Student Coalition, and Energy Action. This December he will be traveling to Bali, Indonesia to take part in the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP 13.

I may be inviting others to become contributing authors at WattHead over time, and if you are interested in posting at WattHead, you can always send me an email with an initial post, and we can see where to go from there.

Welcome to WattHead, Matt!

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Illinois and North Carolina Pass Renewable Energy Standards - Half of All States Now Have RES Policies

Illinois and North Carolina recently joined 23 other states in enacting renewable energy standard (RES) policies. Delaware also doubled it's existing standard last month while Missouri adopted a non-binding renewable energy goal.

25 states now have RES policies with four states enacting new standards in 2007 and two others adding new renewable energy goals (see map below), making 2007 a big year for RES policies.



More on each state below...


Illinois: 25% by 2025

The Illinois General Assembly on July 26 passed energy legislation that includes a renewable energy standard (RES) of 10% by 2015 and 25% by 2025, according to the American Wind Energy Association's newsletter, WindEnergyWeekly (subscription req.).

The bill passed the House 80-33 and the Senate 40-13 and Governor Rod Blagojevich (D) is expected to sign it soon.

Although the Illinois RES applies to all utilities, the state has a competitive electricity sector and about half of the state's electricity customers are supplied by “alternative retail electricity suppliers” (ARES), which are not yet covered by the RES.

At least 75% of the standard must be met with wind resources and eligible resources must come from within Illinois initially and may come from Illinois or neighboring states after 2011.

“We are thrilled Illinois has passed a bold RES,” Wind on the Wires Director Beth Soholt told Wind Energy Weekly. “We congratulate all our Illinois colleagues who worked tirelessly to pass the aggressive renewable energy and energy efficiency package. Wind developers are lined up around the block to invest billions of dollars in Illinois, and they finally have a green light.”

With the Illinois energy market the fifth largest in the country, it is estimated that the RES will require more than 4,000 MW of new renewable energy to be delivered to bundled customers, WindEnergyWeekly reports. The new standards is also expected to spur renewable energy development for competitive market customers as well.


North Carolina: 12.5% by 2025

The North Carolina Senate on August 2 voted 47-1 for final passage of Senate Bill 3, WindEnergyWeekly reports. The bill includes a renewable electricity standard (RES) of 12.5% by 2021 with energy efficiency eligible to meet up to 40% standard being met with efficiency.

While the North Carolina standard is not as aggressive as standards recently adopted by other states, North Carolina is the first southeast state to adopt a renewable energy standard policy, setting an important precedent within the region.

"This [RES] sets an example for other states in the region to follow,” said Jane Preyer, director of the North Carolina regional office of Environmental Defense. “Despite its merits, the legislation has shortcomings, and the job is not over."

Environmental Defense noted that SB 3 will reduce the state's carbon dioxide footprint by at least 13 million metric tons by 2018, which is equivalent to taking more than a million cars off the road, it said.

In addition to the RPS, the legislation calls for simplified net metering and interconnection rules to remove regulatory barriers for new renewable energy generation and extended state tax credits for investments in renewable energy technologies to nonprofit entities such as churches.

The legislation next goes to the desk of Governor Mike Easley (D) for his signature.


Delaware: Doubles RES to 20% by 2019

Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner (D) on July 24 signed a bill that doubles the state's renewable energy requirement from 10% to 20% by 2019, according to AWEA.

Under Senate Bill 19, the required level starts at 2% renewables in 2007, increasing every year by between 1% and 2% until it reaches 20% in 2019.

WindEnergyWeekly reports:

The bill also specifies a minimum percentage of solar power needed to meet the overall standard. The solar requirement starts at 0.03% of each utility's electricity sales in 2009 and increases to 2% of sales by 2019. The requirement is structured to encourage the utilities to buy renewable energy credits (RECs) from Delaware homeowners and businesses that install solar power systems. A related bill, Senate Bill 8, specifies that utility customers retain ownership of the RECs associated with their net-metered renewable energy systems, so utilities must buy the RECs from the customers. It also allows utilities to stop offering net metering when the total customer-owned capacity equals 1% of the utility's peak load.The governor also signed Senate Bill 35, which doubles the funding for the state's Green Energy Fund. The fund helps to stimulate the local renewable energy sector by providing grants for renewable energy installations, technology demonstrations, and research and development projects.

Missouri: 11% by 2020 goal

Missouri Governor Matt Blunt signed legislation to increase the use of renewable energy from sources such as wind, hydroelectricity, solar power, hydrogen, and biomass on July 10th, RenewableEnergyAccess.com reports.

Senate Bill 54 creates renewable energy targets for utilities of 4% by 2012, 8% by 2015 and 11% by 2020. Utilities are expected to make "good-faith" efforts to reach these targets and are expected to report on their progress to the state utility commission.

The bill directs the utility commission to give utilities multiple credits towards the goal for renewable energy generation within the state.

The legislation also requires the Office of Administration to ensure that at least 70% of the new vehicles purchased for the state fleet are flex fuel and allows municipal landfills to accept yard waste in order to create bioreactors to produce methane gas.

Additionally, SB 54 enacts net metering and interconnection standards allowing utility customers to install net-metered on-site renewable energy systems up to 100 kW in size.

"This legislation furthers my commitment to Missouri's Green Power Initiative by increasing energy production in our state while practicing responsible environmental stewardship by increasing the use of renewable energy," Gov. Blunt said.


2007 a big year for Renewable Energy Standards

North Carolina marks the 25th state in the nation to enact a renewable energy standard policy, meaning half of all states and well-over half of the United States population is covered by a state renewable energy standard.

In addition to the 25 states with RES policies, Vermont, Virginia and Missouri have non-binding renewable energy goals on the books (see map above).

New Hampshire, Oregon, Illinois and North Carolina all passed new RES policies in 2007, while Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota and Delaware all expanded existing RES policies, doubling them or more.

A bill that would have established a 10% by 2025 RES policy also passed the Indiana House of Representatives 77-20 in April, but the bill failed to pass the state Senate [as far as I can tell, anyway].

While stopping short of adopting a percentage target or goal, Arkansas also adopted legislative language this year that requires utilities to “consider clean energy and the use of renewable resources” as part of their resource plans. The legislation also gives the state PSC the option to allow cost recovery on clean energy if it is determined to be in the public interest. This language is similar to the language found in renewable energy goals adopted this year in Virginia and Missouri.

Finally, Congress may very well send a federal renewable energy standard to the President's desk this year. The House of Representatives passed a 15% by 2020 federal RES policy along with a package of clean energy bills on Saturday, August 4th, the first time the House has ever passed an RES policy.

The fight for a federal RES is long from over though, as the RES must still survive conference committee with the Senate, who failed to pass an RES in their energy package, as well as a possible presidential veto of the energy bill the RES is attached to. More on all that soon...

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Votes on House Clean Energy Bills, Renewable Energy Standard Amendment Delayed

House could take up clean energy bills and hear amendments tomorrow, or may be forced to wait until after August recess.

[From the AWEA/Wind Energy Weekly:]

A late-breaking and unrelated procedural squabble delayed a looming vote in the U.S. House of Representatives that was anticipated to occur Friday on a federal renewable electricity standard [or renewable energy standard] (RES).

As of press time, the possibility remained that the legislation could be taken up sometime during the weekend or even after Congress’s August recess. The RES is likely to be the most high-profile floor amendment to broader energy legislation expected to go to the floor. The issue is to arise in the form of an amendment offered by Reps. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Todd Platts (R-Pa.), sponsors of the leading House RES bill, H.R. 969.

After being tweaked through negotiations that took place Thursday evening, the amendment currently calls for a 15% RES by 2020 that permits utilities to achieve up to 27% of their targeted requirement through energy efficiency savings (that is, the equivalent of 4% of the 15% requirement). The latest version of the amendment also edges down the near-term goal, requiring utilities to achieve a 2.75% target in 2010, rather than the 3.75% goal set by the previous version of the amendment.

Earlier this week, in anticipation of the House vote, Udall, Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and other champions of renewable energy joined a diverse coalition yesterday in the U.S. Capitol to call on members of Congress to support the RES amendment.

“The vote on a renewable energy standard, which requires that a larger share of the nation’s electricity be generated from renewable sources, is a landmark referendum on the direction of the nation’s energy policy,” said Gregory Wetstone, senior director for governmental and public affairs for the American Wind Energy Association. “It’s not every day that Congress has an opportunity to reduce energy costs, promote our security, spur job creation, and reduce pollution.”

An RES is a market-based mechanism that calls for a set percentage of the nation’s electricity to be produced from renewable sources, such as wind and solar. More than 20 states have enacted successful renewable electricity standards, but a national RES is needed to fully reap the benefits of renewable energy.

“The opportunity for innovation in the renewable energy industry is extremely high, making it one of the most attractive and fastest-growing sectors for venture capital investment,” said Mark Heesen, president of the National Venture Capital Association. “A signal of long-term Congressional support for the renewable energy space is tremendously encouraging for venture capitalists because it is good for America.”

Also lending their support at the event were Tom Buis, president of the National Farmers’ Union; Roxanne Brown, legislative representative for the United Steelworkers Union; Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters; and Anna Aurilio, federal legislative director for U.S. PIRG (Public Interest Research Group).

"The Udall-Platts Renewable Electricity Standard bill will ensure that more of our electricity is generated cleanly—which will help curb global warming while creating jobs and saving consumers money on their energy bills,” said Karpinski. “We urge members of the House to vote for this key measure to put America on track to a clean energy future."

Opponents of the RES have recently launched a campaign asserting that the Udall-Platts amendment would lead to higher costs for consumers, in particular in the Southeast. In fact, the cost allegations “don’t stand up to scrutiny,” said AWEA’s Wetstone in response to questions at the conference. Independent researchers have concluded that a national RES will lower demand and prices for natural gas and other fuels used for electricity generation, and will lower wholesale electricity prices—resulting in net savings for the economy. The Southeast, which imports most of the fuel it uses for power generation (natural gas, coal, and uranium) would benefit from these lower prices along with the rest of the nation. Wood Mackenzie, a non-partisan energy research firm, estimates that a 15% RES would lead to a net savings of $100 billion for U.S. consumers over the next 20 years, and that wholesale power prices would decrease by 7% to 11%, compared to a business-as-usual scenario.


This is the 'latest and greatest' update on the status of the RES proposal.

The vote will be down to the wire and will only be the beginning of the battle if it wins.

If an RES amendment passes the House, it will still need to make it through Conference Committee with the Senate, which failed to include an RES in the energy package they passed in June (see previous post). Additionally, the RES will be attached to an energy package that faces a presidential veto threat as well (see previous post).

See this previous post for a list of swing votes in the House and get on the phones if any of these folks belong to you! Crunch time...

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Bush Administration Threatens Veto of House Clean Energy Bills

Two House bills, if passed, would redirect subsidies and close royalty loopholes for oil and gas industries to provide tax incentives, bonds and R&D investments for clean energy technologies, increase energy efficiency standards, create green jobs and direct the federal government to be a leader in reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.

Two important clean energy packages scheduled to head to the House floor tomorrow have been threatened with presidential veto, according to a Bush Administration "Statement of Administration Policy" released today (pdf).

The Bush Administration describes the two clean energy bills as implementing "unnecessary and duplicative new Federal energy efficiency and R&D bureaucracy and global climate and worker training programs" and "strongly opposes" provisions in the bill that would redirect subsidies and close loopholes currently enjoyed by the oil and gas industries.

H.R.3221, the New Direction for Energy Independence, National Security, and Consumer Protection Act contains a package of clean energy legislation that would increase R&D investments in clean energy technologies, raise efficiency standards for appliances and lighting, and direct the federal government to become a leader in reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, among other provisions.

H.R.2776, the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act, is a companion tax package that would expand tax incentives and bonds for renewable energy, energy efficiency and renewable fuels as well as incentives for consumers to purchase plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and energy efficient appliances.

To pay for the package of clean energy incentives, the two bills would repeal approximately $16 billion in tax breaks for oil and gas companies and close a tax loophole that, according to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, "allows big oil and gas companies to game the system by understating their foreign oil and gas extraction income." H.R.2776 also closes the so-called “Hummer” Tax Loophole that provides an extra tax incentive for businesses buying luxury SUVs, while exempting vehicles that are used for legitimate business purposes.

The two bills are very similar to H.R. 6 passed by the House during the "First 100 Days" push. H.R. 6 went on to the Senate where the version passed out of the Senate in June failed to include the tax provisions (see previous post). The two new bills are the House leadership's second attempt to get a strong package of clean energy incentives into Conference Committee with the Senate and eventually onto President Bush's desk, forcing him to sign the legislation or make good on veto threats.

A summary of both clean energy bills can be found at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's website.

According to Speaker Pelosi:

"This legislation [H.R. 3221 and H.R. 2776] puts us on a path toward energy independence, strengthens national security, grows our economy and creates new jobs, lowers energy prices, and begins to address global warming. It does so by investing in the future. Specifically, we will invest in new energy technologies and innovation to create new jobs; improve energy efficiency for a wide range of products, lighting and buildings; make the federal government a leader in reducing energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions; and strengthen research and diplomatic efforts on climate change to protect our planet."

Not so, according to President Bush, who's Statement of Administration Policy says:

"The stated goal of energy reform by the new majority in the House of Representatives was "to achieve energy independence, strengthen national security, grow our economy and create jobs, lower energy prices, and begin to address global warming." The Administration is disappointed that the House has produced no such legislation, and instead is planning to consider H.R. 2776 and H.R. 3221, two bills that are not serious attempts to increase our energy security or address high energy costs. In fact, the combination of these two bills will result in less domestic oil and gas production, higher taxes to disadvantage a single targeted industry, and duplicative energy efficiency and R&D efforts that are largely underway already.""

According to the statement,

Because H.R. 2776 and H.R. 3221 fail to deliver American consumers or businesses more energy security, but rather would lead to less domestic oil and gas production, higher energy costs, and higher taxes, the President’s senior advisors would recommend that he veto these bills.

Although the President's statement plays lip service to renewable energy and conservation and touts the $12 billion of investment "in clean, safe advanced energy resources" made under the Administration's watch - mostly to 'clean coal,' hydrogen and advanced nuclear energy technologies it should be noted - the specific complaints with the two House clean energy bills outlined in the administration statement center around the bill's impacts on the oil and gas industries.

The administration complains that repealing tax incentives and subsidies for oil and gas industries - or "raising taxes" as the administration describes it - would "lead to higher energy costs to U.S. consumers and businesses" and "puts U.S. industries at a disadvantage to their foreign competitors."

The administration also "strongly opposes language that would force holders of certain deepwater oil and gas leases issued in 1998 and 1999 ... to either renegotiate the terms of the leases, pay an excessive fee, or face being barred from future oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico."

In a simple drafting mistake that has cost the U.S. government billions of dollars, more than 1,000 Clinton-era leases for deep water oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico failed to include provisions that require companies to share a portion of the revenue they receive from the sale of oil and gas produced on federal lands when prices reach a certain level. These royalty payments are standard in most federal leases and ensure the government a cut of the profit when oil prices soar as they have in recent years.

The fix proposed by H.R. 3221 would reinstate the royalties on Gulf oil and gas production when prices rise to a level - over $34.73/barrel for oil and $4.34 per million Btu for gas - where proponents of the bill argue incentives are not necessary to encourage exploration. Holders of the Clinton-era leases would be required to re-negotiate the lease terms to include the royalty provision or be banned from bidding on future Gulf exploration leases. Fixing the mistake in the old leases is expected to raise over $6 billion in revenue over the next 10 years.

H.R. 2776 would also end a special manufacturing tax deduction for oil and gas companies enacted by Congress in 2004. The deduction reduces the effective corporate tax rate for U.S. oil and gas production to 32% from the 35% standard for other manufacturing industries. The Democratic bill would bump the rate for the oil and gas sector back up to the normal 35% rate, raising another $8-10 billion in revenue.

The revenue raised by these two provisions would be pumped into tax incentives and bonds for renewable energy, efficiency, biofuels and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles as well as investments in research and development of innovative clean energy technologies contained in the two clean energy bills.

The administration statement also says President Bush "strongly opposes" provisions in Title VII of H.R. 3221 which the administration claims "would have a significant negative impact on current Federal efforts to increase traditional and renewable domestic production."

While Title VII does include some provisions for studying and recommending efforts to reduce impacts of wind power development on wildlife and birds - a provision that as far as I know is not opposed by the American Wind Energy Association - the bulk of Title VII focuses on ensuring greater accountability for oil and gas companies drilling on public lands and also includes the provision fixing the Gulf oil and gas royalties problem discussed above and it is presumably these provisions that have drawn the administration's ire.

Finally, the Bush Administration "strongly opposes" provisions in both bills that would require companies to pay workers prevailing wages if they receive federal tax incentives authorized under the clean energy bills.


Apparently harnessing and promoting American innovation to increase our energy independence and start on a path to a new, clean energy future while creating thousands of new jobs, reducing American's energy bills and slowing rising greenhouse gas emissions doesn't pass muster with the Bush Administration, so long these efforts are funded by removing billions of dollars of taxpayer-funded subsidies for his friends in the oil and gas industries - even while they are enjoying record profits.

And god forbid we require companies to pay workers prevailing wages if they want to enjoy federal tax beaks! That's downright un-American!

The message the Bush Administration sends in this Statement of Administration Policy seems perfectly clear to me: President Bush is on the side of oil and gas special interests, is fine with paying workers below prevailing wages and will stifle efforts to advance American energy independence, build a new energy economy and tackle climate change, even if those efforts are supported by a majority of United States Congress and the American people.

We've all known Mr. Bush is to put it nicely particularly chummy with his old oil and gas industry friends (others might say he's "in the oil and gas industry's pockets"), but I'm not sure there's ever been a clearer statement of where his loyalties lie than this latest Statement of Administration Policy!

This is simply despicable.

I hope the House calls President Bush's bluff and passes the two clean energy bills tomorrow.

Let Mr. Bush explain to the American people why, after Congress finally passes bi-partisan legislation to address rising energy costs, increase American energy independence, create a new energy economy thousands of new jobs and take a first step towards solving the Climate Crisis, he decided to veto the bill in order to protect an industry recording obscene and record profits while American's pay an arm and a leg at the pump.

Go for it Mr. President...

[A tip of the hat to Ilyse Hogue at MoveOn.org for spreading the word about the veto threat.]

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Bush Administration Tries to Pull a Fast One with Stealth Release of US Climate Action Report

Anyone in the news biz (or anyone who's a rabid West Wing fan like me) knows that bad news is always released on Friday afternoons. Why? Because nobody's paying attention to the newspapers on Saturday morning.

Well it's a good thing that bloggers don't operate on normal news cycles because last Friday, the Bush Administration tried to pull a fast one on the American public with a Friday afternoon stealth release of the 19 month-overdue and not too cheery Fourth U.S. Climate Action Report.

Luckily, Kevin Grandia of the great site, DeSmogBlog, and Rich Piltz at ClimateScienceWatch were paying close attention and spotted the stealthy and quiet news release. On Monday Mr. Grandia wrote,

The [Climate Action Report] was released last Friday (July 27th) by the Department of State in the form of this media memo. The release was not mentioned in the department's daily press briefing, nor is it mentioned in the news section of the White House's Council on Environmental Quality website.

But if President Bush is so proud of his administration's efforts to tackle climate change, why was it trying to quietly release the US Climate Action Report without anyone noticing?

Well, Mr. Grandia takes us on a closer look at the report, which was submitted to the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (the precursor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol) as per Framework requirements. Mr Grandia writes:

It's no wonder the Justice Department avoided any press attention over the latest US Climate Action Report released on Friday.

You can find the whole report here - I've taken the liberty of highlighting some of the more interesting quotes that I'm sure the White House would love to sweep under the rug...

From the section "Greenhouse Gas Inventory:" (pdf)

"In 2004, total greenhouse gas emissions rose to 7,074.4 teragrams of carbon dioxide equivalent, which was 15.8% above 1990 emissions."

"From 1990 through 2004, US greenhouse gas emissions increased by 15.8 percent. Specifically, C02 emissions increased by 20 percent, CH4 and N20 emissions decreased by 10 and 2 percent, respectively."

From the section "Projected Greenhouse Gas Emissions:" (pdf)

"Over the same period from 2002 to 2012, while GHG [greenhouse gas] intensity is declining, total gross GHG emissions are expected to rise by 11 percent."

Table 5-2 in the same section reports that even if the US fully implements its climate programs and measures, total greenhouse gas emissions will continue to rise between 2012 and 2020.

"From 2000 to 2020 total C02 emissions [from energy consumption] - as calculated with Full Implementation of Climate Program Measures - are projected to rise by 17 percent..."

From the section "Impacts and Adaptation:" (pdf)

"...despite increases in winter precipitation, in many places a large percentage of the traditionally snow-covered areas of the northwestern United States has experienced a decline in spring snow-pack, especially since the middle of the 20th century."

"The warmer temperatures projected with rising concentrations of greenhouse gases are expected to exacerbate present risks of drought in the United States."

"In recognition of significant potential impacts from climate change, the Federal Coastal Zone Management Act states: 'Because global warming may result in substantial sea-level rise with serious adverse effects in the coastal zone, coastal states must anticipate and plan for such an occurrence."

Great news, eh? And a sure sign that the Bush Administration is really taking care of the global warming problem for us. No need to worry...

Sarcasm aside, trying to bury this report is just another in a long line of deliberate (and despicable) lengths the Bush Administration has gone to delay action on climate change as long as possible.

First it was all about how we couldn't really be certain humans were the cause - the IPCC sure blew that out of the water.

Then it was about how devastating any action would be to the economy - former World Bank Cheif Economist Sir Nicholas Stern sure had a good response to that.

Now an administration report finally has to admit that:

Administration policies have been a dramatic failure and global warming pollution is still on the rise in the United States;

Temperatures are indeed rising; and

That's not a good sign for the snow-melt reliant Pacific Northwest, drought-prone communities across the country, and at-risk coastal communities, etc. etc. etc.

In other words, the administration itself is admitting in this report that their policies - even the "Full Implementation of Climate Program Measures" proposed by the administration - are failing to stop the rise in global temperatures, failing to even reduce America's contribution to the problem, and in so doing, putting Americans in harms way.

That's sure a report I'd want to bury. And if it wasn't for the watchful eye of bloggers like DeSmogBlog's Mr. Grandia and ClimateScienceWatch's Mr. Piltz - and the folks at the Student Operated Press, the only news 'outlet' to cover the report's release - they would have succeeded.

Nice try Mr. President.

[A hat tip to Kevin Grandia of DeSmogBlog for spreading the word on this story]

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