Biofuels Could Make Global Warming Worse

What could be more environmentally harmful than fossil fuels? Try biofuels. That’s right, a new study claims that we’ll make global warming even worse if we rely too much on the new generation of biofuels, because rules governing their production encourage deforestation. And, as another recent report illuminated, our forests are our most important line of defense against climate change.

From Reuters:

In a study to be published Friday in the US journal Science, a group of 13 scientists called for the rules, which contain a loophole exempting carbon dioxide emitted by bioenergy regardless of its source, to be overturned.

“The error is serious, but readily fixable,” said lead researcher Timothy Searchinger of Princeton University.

The study called for the issue to be addressed in the climate treaty that nations around the world are hoping to sign at the Copenhagen summit in December to supercede the Kyoto Treaty.

Researchers said numerous analyses — including one released by the US Department of Energy — have found that this loophole “could lead to the loss of most of the world’s natural forests as carbon caps tighten.”

The loophole needs to be closed before oil companies, power plants and other energy industry firms – who stand to benefit the most from it – can exploit it.

But that’s not the only problem with biofuels. Another study published in Science Express on Thursday noted that there’s not enough oversight on land use when it comes to producing biofuels, meaning some unscrupulous companies could cut down forest lands and use them to grow fuel.

Burning biomass releases almost as much carbon dioxide as burning fossil fuels, but that CO2 is partially offset by the plants themselves, grown for biofuel, absorbing CO2 from the air. That’s a big benefit – but we can’t cut down forests to grow these plants. Talk about counterproductive.

Link [Reuters]
Photo credit: Dave Reede

Saving Forests Five Times More Effective than Carbon Capture

The best way to fight against global warming isn’t expensive, potentially ecologically disruptive carbon capture methods. It’s saving the forests that we already have, which act as massive carbon sinks, protecting the planet against catastrophic climate change.

According to a new report released by WWF Sweden, world leaders have got to join together in an international agreement to halt forest loss as a highly cost effective measure on climate change.

From Panda.org:

“Sweden should follow the examples set by its northern neighbors in developing systems to halt deforestation,” said WWF CEO General Lasse Gustavsson.. “One Swedish krona to stem deforestation results in the same emissions reductions as five kronor for the controversial carbon capture and storage technique,”

Gold in Green Forests, a report issued today by WWF-Sweden, says that next to energy efficiency halting forest loss and degradation is the most cost-effective method for mitigating climate change.

The annual loss of natural forests in developing countries is equivalent to one third of Sweden’s surface area. Forest fires, the conversion of forests to agricultural land and the cultivation of energy crops are responsible for the high rate of forest loss.

A program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation, known as REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) is currently being discussed in the negotiations for a global climate deal. REDD aims to make it worthwhile for developing countries to maintain their forests, as opposed to cutting them down.

Preventing deforestation should be among our first lines of defense against climate change. It definitely makes sense financially. The trick is getting nations like Indonesia – which is cutting its forests down at an alarming rate to make room for lucrative palm oil plantations – to agree to the program.

The whole report is available over at Panda.org.

Link [Panda.org]
Photo credit: Flickr user zoutedrop

Climate Change Costs: 25 Million More Starving Children by 2050

Conservatives love to whine about perceived costs of climate legislation, but they’re clearly more worried about their own bottom lines than about the true costs of catastrophic climate change. A new report issued by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) states that the world will have 25 million more starving children by the year 2050 as climate change causes food shortages and soaring food costs.

From The Guardian:

The grim scenario is the first to gauge the effects of climate change on the world’s food supply by combining climate and agricultural models.

“The food price crisis of last year really was a wake-up call to a lot of people that we are going to have 50% more people on the surface of the Earth by 2050,” said Gerald Nelson, the lead author of the report. “Meeting those demands for food coming out of population growth is going to be a huge challenge – even without climate change.”

After several years in which development aid has been diverted away from rural areas, the report called for $7bn a year for crop research, and investment in irrigation and rural infrastructure to help farmers adjust to a warming climate. “Continuing the business-as-usual approach will almost certainly guarantee disastrous consequences,” said Nelson.

The G20 industrialised nations last week began discussing how to invest some $20bn pledged for food security earlier this year.

Some regions of the world outlined in the report are already showing signs of vulnerability because of changing rainfall patterns and drought linked to climate change.

And this is the great irony about religious conservatives in particular: they’re so worked up over abortion, yet they don’t seem to give a rat’s ass about the people who already live on our planet. Twenty five million starving children in addition to the millions that already exist – now that’s something to be angry about.

Link [The Guardian]
Photo credit: MiaFarrow.org

CO2 is Green, Say Oil Execs in Ludicrous Ad

Attempts by dirty industries to fight the climate bill just keep getting more and more desperate and ridiculous. Care2 spotted a television ad campaign run by oil execs is actually trying to convince the public that excess CO2 is a good thing.

From The Washington Post, via Care2:

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) may be grappling with health care, but in Montana a new advocacy group opposed to climate legislation called CO2 Is Green is taking aim at the next big battle for Congress.

The group is already running television ads: “This will cost us jobs,” one says. “There is no scientific evidence that CO2 is a pollutant. In fact higher CO2 levels than we have today would help the Earth’s ecosystems.” It urges voters to contact Baucus, who in the past has backed bills to cap emissions and allow companies to trade pollution allowances.

The man behind the latest entry to the climate legislation wars is H. Leighton Steward, a veteran oil industry executive, co-author of the “Sugar Busters!” dieting books, and winner of an Environmental Protection Agency award for a report on damage being done to Mississippi wetlands. Now retired, he says he wants to “get the message out there” that carbon dioxide, which the Supreme Court has ruled a pollutant and which most scientists regard as a dangerous greenhouse gas, “is a net benefit for the planet.”

Well, thank the Great Flying Spaghetti Monster that we have oil company bigwigs to steer us in the right direction, not only with these super-intelligent and truthful ads, but by pumping as much CO2 into the atmosphere as humanly possible.

Link [Care2] via [Digg]

Arctic Record Proves Global Warming is Caused by Man

The Arctic’s geological record provides all the evidence we need that global warming is man’s doing, experts say. A closer look at the sediment timeline has shown that increased ice melt falls right in line with the birth of the Industrial Age, when those billowing clouds of greenhouse gases first started to flow from factory smokestacks.

From the LA Times:

For more than 2,000 years, a natural wobble in Earth’s axis has caused the Arctic region to move farther away from the sun during the region’s summer, reducing the amount of solar radiation it receives. The Arctic is now 600,000 miles farther from the sun than it was in AD 1, and temperatures there should have fallen a little more than 1 degree Fahrenheit since then.

Instead, the region has warmed 2.2 degrees since 1900 alone, and the decade from 1998 to 2008 was the warmest in two millenniums, according to a team headed by climatologist Darrell S. Kaufman of Northern Arizona University.

Not only was the last half-century the warmest of the last 2,000 years, “but it reversed the long-term, millennial-scale trend toward cooler temperatures,” Kaufman said.

The results seem to negate the primary argument of those who say the current warming of Earth is simply a natural variation, he said.

It’s not too difficult to understand the argument that people have against anthropomorphic global warming – that we, as humans, are simply too small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things to cause such changes in the earth and its natural balance. After all, nature is quite an amazing force.

But, to believe that we aren’t capable of causing global warming is to ignore the massive destruction we have unleashed upon this planet as we rose to the top of the food chain and began industrializing. We have changed the atmosphere. We have destroyed ecosystems and decimated much of the rainforest that would otherwise be helping to balance the greenhouse gases we’re pumping into the air.

It’s real, it’s happening, and we did it. Now we have to find a way to make up for it.

Link [LA Times]

Photo credit: Flickr user A6U571N

Dutch Begin Preparing for Rising Seas

The Dutch have always been a little bit ahead of the curve, so it’s no surprise to learn that they’re not just sitting on their hands waiting for global warming to cause the seas to rise up around them. They’re being proactive to ensure that the Netherlands, which is well below sea level, survives the coming challenges.

As glaciers in Switzerland melt, the water level of the Rhine will rise, necessitating a long-term solution to keeping water out of the city. Dutch people remember all too well the great flood of 1953, which killed over 1800 people and wiped too villages off the map, and they don’t want a repeat performance.

From Reuters:

Some 70 percent of the country’s economic output is generated below sea level, protected by a complex-system of ancient dikes and modern cement barriers that hold back water from the sea and the multitude of rivers that weave through the country.

Now, with scientists’ predicting that sea levels will rise by about one meter (3.3 feet) this century, the Dutch are reversing centuries of tradition to create natural flood plains for rivers as well as rebuild mangrove swamps as buffers against the sea.

“We’ve been adapting for 1,000 years. That’s nothing new. It’s just that climate change is going faster than it was before,” said Lennart Silvis, the operational manager of the public-private Netherlands Water Partnership.

Instead of raising dikes, the Dutch want to reclaim land and build public recreation areas that can absorb storm surges.

Plans in the works include developing floating housing that rises and falls with the water level. And, even if there were to be dangerous flooding, these people are prepared – children start a five-year course of swimming lessons at the age of four, which requires a test that includes swimming 100 meters while fully dressed in heavy winter clothing.

If you’re going to live in a vulnerable area, it’s important to accept reality and not just wait until a crisis happens. Communities around the world could definitely learn a thing or two from the Dutch.

Link [Reuters]
Photo credit: Flickr user Daveness_98

Could Salting Clouds Buy Precious Time in Fight Against Global Warming?

Once considered a risky last resort, geoengineering is becoming more accepted as a possible way to slow down global warming – but that doesn’t mean some of the ideas scientists are coming up with don’t sound downright kooky to the layman. One proposal involves lightening clouds with salt to improve their ability to reflect sunlight.

Scientist John Latham suggested that increasing the number of droplets in maritime layer clouds (stratocumulus), which cover a third of the ocean, could significantly increase their reflectance.

From BBC News:

The water droplets in clouds reflect solar radiation back to space. And the numbers of droplets they contain are largely controlled by the number of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), such as specks of dust.

Many of these nuclei are produced over the land. Land-locked clouds therefore contain many hundreds of cloud droplets per cubic centimetre, whilst clouds that form over the sea contain substantially fewer.

Generally, the more droplets that are present in a cloud, the smaller they are. For a given mass of water in a cloud, clouds with smaller droplets tend to be whiter.

So the proposal is to inject a fine spray of sea salt from the ocean surface into the clouds; to artificially increase the number of drops, reduce their size and increase the reflectance of the clouds, making them whiter.

The cooling that could result from this experiment could buy us 25 years in the battle against global warming – certainly, a lot of precious time to make other changes that could improve the outlook. But this method will take quite a bit of testing to get it just right, including experiments to determine the ideal size of the sea-salt nuclei. Research is expected to cost about $10 million.

So how exactly would we go about salting clouds? Edinburgh University scientist Stephen Salter (yes, that’s really his name) suggested a fleet of “cloudseeders”, wind-powered yachts that would inject the clouds with sea salt.

Link [BBC News]
Photo credit: John McNeill via WFS.org

EPA Close to Declaring CO2 a Dangerous Pollutant

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson says that CO2 will be declared a dangerous pollutant within a few months. This move could help push climate change legislation through Congress at a pace slightly faster than that of a melting iceberg.

A formal “endangerment finding” would force the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas pollution under the Clean Air Act regardless of whether Congress passes a final climate change bill. Top senators have recently declared that they plan to delay introducing legislation that would cap carbon emissions.

From SF Gate:

The EPA kick-started the regulatory process in April when it proposed declaring carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases as pollutants that jeopardize the public health and welfare. EPA scientists believe the greenhouse gases contribute to global warming by trapping heat in the Earth’s atmosphere.

The EPA can formalize the finding anytime, now that it has closed a 60-day public comment period that netted more than 300,000 responses.

President Obama and Jackson have said they would prefer that Congress – rather than the EPA – take the lead in implementing new greenhouse gas limits. Businesses and energy industry leaders also have largely favored congressional action over EPA-imposed limits, because they believe lawmakers are better positioned to combine economic safeguards with any new carbon cap.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that greenhouse gases qualified as pollutants and could be regulated, if the government were to determine that they threatened the public.

No doubt, this news will immediately cause opponents of climate change action to howl about CO2 being the source of life on this planet, and predict fines for exhaling. “Everybody hold your breath!” Har har har.

Common sense should tell these people that such a fear is absurd, but you know what they say about common sense. Climate change deniers don’t have any.

Link [SF Gate]

Oozing Methane Has Scientists Worried About Climate Catastrophe

It may start happening extremely quickly, or it may take centuries, depending on whom you ask – but enough pure methane is currently escaping into the atmosphere from thawing permafrost to make many scientists very worried about effects on climate.

Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, is currently building up in the atmosphere at rapidly increasing rates after bubbling up from underwater vents.

From The Columbia Daily Tribune:

Researchers say air temperatures here in northwest Canada, in Siberia and elsewhere in the Arctic have risen more than 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1970 — much faster than the global average. The summer thaw is reaching deeper into frozen soil, at a rate of 1.5 inches a year, and a further 13-degree temperature rise is possible this century, said the authoritative, U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC.

In 2007, air monitors detected a rise in methane concentrations in the atmosphere, apparently from far northern sources. Russian researchers in Siberia expressed alarm, warning of a potential surge in the powerful greenhouse gas, additional warming of several degrees and unpredictable consequences for Earth’s climate.

Others say massive seeps of methane might take centuries. But the Russian scenario is disturbing enough to have led six U.S. national laboratories last year to launch a joint investigation of rapid methane release. And in July, IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri asked his scientific network to focus on “abrupt, irreversible climate change” from thawing permafrost.

As the world warms, surface permafrost at a depth of about 5 meters is at risk of thawing. That would release a hell of a lot of methane into the atmosphere, causing a serious acceleration in climate change.

Scientists may disagree right now on how fast permafrost can thaw, but one thing is clear: there’s a very good chance that failing to act could have extremely negative consequences. While it’s encouraging that there are many research teams currently studying this issue, policymakers around the world have got to make fighting it a priority.

Link [Columbia Tribune]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Global Warming Could Cause Tilt in Earth’s Axis

Oceans warmed by the rise in greenhouse gas levels could cause the Earth’s axis to tilt, according to a new study by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Researchers say the tilt would be significant enough to create a large shift in the distribution of the Earth’s mass, especially when combined with the tilt being caused by the melting of Greenland’s ice.

From New Scientist:

The researchers modelled the changes that would occur if moderate projections made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – a doubling of carbon dioxide levels between 2000 and 2100 – were to become reality.

The team found that as the oceans warm and expand, more water will be pushed up and onto the Earth’s shallower ocean shelves. Over the next century, the subtle effect is expected to cause the northern pole of Earth’s spin axis to shift by roughly 1.5 centimetres per year in the direction of Alaska and Hawaii.

Luckily, the effect is expected to be relatively small, and shouldn’t induce any negative feedback in the planet’s climate. It just needs to be taken into account when interpreting shifts in Earth’s axis.

Still, this should be a strong message to those who still insist that we insignificant little humans can’t affect the planet we live on to a great extent. We may be relatively unimportant in the scheme of things, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t capable of causing some serious changes.

Link [New Scientist]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Youth to World Leaders: Less Talk, More Action on Climate Change

The biggest-ever youth gathering on climate change took place last Thursday in Daejeon, Republic of Korea with 700 participants releasing a statement to world leaders expressing “concern and frustration that their governments are not doing enough to combat climate change”, adding that “we now need more actions and less talking”.

The statement was the product of eight-week-long web discussions between young people across the world about their governments’ track record on addressing climate change. It was finalized as part of the global UN ‘Seal the Deal!’ campaign to garner public support for a comprehensive global climate agreement.

The children and youth asked governments around the world to agree on a more fair, just and action oriented post-Kyoto agreement adopted and implemented by all countries, strict laws against pollution, carbon action plans and much more.

From UNEP:

“It is very important to include the voice of children and youth in every environmental decision. It is our request to all politicians that they please take this statement into consideration in Copenhagen,” said 13-year-old Yugratna Srivastava from India.

The children and youth also addressed the citizens of the planet and urged them to push their governments to create a global green economy. Other recommendations included a call to pressure businesses, producers and governments to promote environmentally friendly products and eco-labeling policies.

“We are the generation of tomorrow. The decisions that are made today will define our future and the world we have to live in. So we young people of the world urge governments to commit to a strong post-Kyoto climate regime. It is our lives we are talking about,” said youth delegate, 23-year-old Anne Walraven from the Netherlands.

Visit UNEP.org to read the full statement and learn more about the youth conference.

It’s nice to know that even if the generation currently holding power around the world refuses to act, the next generation is ready to take the reigns and do what needs to be done. There’s a lot of security in this kind of enthusiasm among youth.

Link [UNEP]
Photo: Art by Li Pik Hei, 13-year-old winner of the 2008 International Children’s Painting Competition on Environment

Bill McKibben Talks CO2 with Stephen Colbert

Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org and author of 12 environmental books, was on the Colbert Report this week to discuss the steps that world leaders must take to lower carbon dioxide levels. McKibben explains the point at which scientists really began to worry about global warming – and stresses the need for action (despite Colbert’s pronouncement that we should all just give up and start having “end of the world sex”.)

Check it out:

The Colbert Report	Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Bill McKibben
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Meryl Streep

Colbert: “Can I steal your thunder and start 349.org? Mine’s one better!”

Link [Colbert Nation]

Civil Disobedience is Necessary to Kill Coal

Civil rights activists didn’t sit around waiting for politicians to ‘see the light’ and take action – and neither should we. If we want to shut down coal plants and prevent catastrophic global warming, we’ve got to put our necks on the line: that’s the message that Salon is sending out in an article entitled “How to kill a coal plant”.

Civil disobedience works. The case of the Kingsnorth Six, Greenpeace activists who were acquitted by a grand jury on vandalism charges after scaling a coal plant and beginning to paint it with a message to Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown, is a great example.

From Salon:

In the Kingsnorth case, world-renowned climate scientist James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, flew to England to testify. According to the Guardian, he presented evidence that the Kingsnorth plant alone could be expected to cause sufficient global warming to prompt “the extinction of 400 species over its lifetime.”

Citing a British government study showing that each ton of released carbon dioxide incurs $85 in future climate-change costs, the activists contended that shutting the plant down for the day had prevented $1.6 million in damages — a far greater harm to society than any rendered by their paint — and that their transgressions should therefore be excused.

What surprised both Greenpeace and the prosecution was that 12 ordinary Britons agreed. The jury returned with an acquittal, and the freed defendants made the front pages of newspapers throughout the country.

The tumult also produced political results. In April, British energy and climate change minister Ed Miliband announced a reversal in governmental policy on power stations, declaring, “The era of new unabated coal has come to an end.”

The success of the Kingsnorth protest has inspired similar protests around the world, from West Virginia to Australia.

Americans are notorious for being reluctant to face unpleasant facts. The desire to conserve the status quo has lulled most people into a sense of apathy, compounded by the scurrilous efforts of the energy industry to prevent action that could harm their profits. But, simply waiting until catastrophic global warming consequences begin to occur will change their lives negatively more than anything else could.

Salon is urging environmentalists and anyone concerned about global warming to engage in nonviolent protests during this year’s U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. While as many as 100,000 are expected to take to the streets in Copenhagen itself, many more will participate in events in the U.S. at the same time. Learn more and pledge to join in at BeyondTalk.net.

Link [Salon]
Photo credit: Greenpeace

China’s Air Pollution Causes Reduction in Rainfall

Bad air quality may be affecting China’s ability to raise crops, in addition to the health and environmental problems it causes. Air pollution in the eastern part of the country has reduced the amount of light rainfall over the past half-century, and has also decreased the number of days of light rain by 23%.

From Science Daily:

The study links for the first time high levels of pollutants in the air with conditions that prevent the light kind of rainfall critical for agriculture. Led by atmospheric scientist Yun Qian at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the study appears August 15 in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres.

“People have long wondered if there was a connection, but this is the first time we’ve observed it from long-term data,” said Qian. “Besides the health effects, acid rain and other problems that pollution creates, this work suggests that reducing air pollution might help ease the drought in north China.”

Researchers discovered that pollution’s aerosols cause smaller cloud droplets, which then have a harder time forming rain clouds. Water drops in polluted skies are up to 50% smaller than in clean skies.

Meanwhile, in Australia, drought experts have found a definite link between rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and a decline in rainfall. A study confirmed that the continent’s drought is not a natural dry stretch, but a shift related to climate change.

Link [Science Daily] + [Sydney Morning Herald]
Photo credit: Flickr user robennals

Man-Made Eco Disasters in the Making

Climate change and deforestation now stand to wipe out more than 60% of the Amazon rainforest by 2030. Not only will that be disastrous for the vast array of wildlife that the forest contains as well as people who have called it home for centuries, but for the world climate. And that’s far from the only man-made eco disaster in the making.

Check out this video from Instablogs, which illustrates some of the consequences of human interference in the earth’s fragile ecological balance.

Instablogs is a ‘news ecosystem’ where citizen journalists, bloggers and the traditional media contribute content, share it and connect with each other. Check it out at instablogs.com.

Link [Instablogs]

Oil Industry Planning Town Hall Protests Against Climate Bill

As angry, misinformed mobs take over town halls to scream in people’s faces about health care issues they don’t understand, the oil industry is quietly taking notes – and planning to use similar tactics against the climate bill.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the American Petroleum Institute and other energy groups are funding rallies in 20 states where they will hand out a flier that says things like “Climate change legislation being considered in Washington will cause huge economic pain and produce little environmental gain.”

The flier says the bill passed by the House in June and expected to come to the floor for a vote later in the year, “will cost 2 million American jobs, raise gasoline and diesel prices up to $4,” and threaten both U.S. competition and energy security.

“Let our U.S. senators know they need to ‘get it right’ and not make the same mistakes as the House,” the flier reads. Local organizers fill in the location, date and time slots.

The rallies will be organized in about 20 states, include those whose Democratic Senators aren’t strong supporters of a stringent bill, such as Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Mark Begich of Alaska.

“We’ve all seen those angry folks raising heck about health care,” said Frank O’Donnell, head of the environmental advocacy group, Clean Air Watch. “So I guess it was inevitable a special interest would try the same thing on the climate legislation,” he said in an email.

The ultra-dirty tactics – like outright forgeries – didn’t work, so Big Oil figures that it will merely take advantage of the public’s fear about the economy and their jobs to manufacture an anti-climate movement.

What’s really scary is how easily people are manipulated. If millions of people are willing to swallow outrageous lies about health care reform (i.e. Sarah Palin’s “death panel” comment), there’s no telling what else they’ll believe.

Link [The Wall Street Journal] via [Treehugger]
Photo credit: The Huffington Post

More Climate Bill Forgery: Big Oil Lobbyists Fake Public Opposition

You can smell the desperation of the dirty energy industry from a mile away. It’s the smell of a slow death, a filthy, oozing, gangrenous smell that emits from Big Oil and Big Coal as they attempt to lie, cheat and steal their way to maintaining the status quo.

Last month, lobbyists working for a coal industry front group were caught red-handed forging anti-climate-bill letters to a member of Congress. Now, it’s been revealed that the American Energy Alliance (the unholy spawn of the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute) is faking broad public opposition to the American Clean Energy and Security Act.

From the NRDC:

According to the AEA’s round-up release:  “In Newspapers Coast-to-Coast, Energy Rationing Bill Continues to Get Exposed for What it is: A Job Killer.” And how do our oily friends reach that conclusion?  In a move that is unlikely to represent a threat to the future of scientific polling, AEA bases its claims on eight letters to the editor and one op-ed.

What do the selected editorial page items tell us?  First, AEA is apparently endorsing flat-out, wild-eyed howling-at-the-moon denial of global warming science.   Take this “op-ed” found in the Springfield (MO) News Leader:

“I told you in my column on July 10 that global warming was a hoax. Just when I thought the cap and trade lunatics could not be any more ignorant, along comes the Democrat-controlled Congress with the Waxman-Markey bill on climate change. Cap and tax or con and tax are all better names for this abhorrent bill.”

Message: AEA appears to be 100 percent comfortable in embracing this full-throated, know-nothing approach to trashing the consensus view on global warming science.

The NRDC asks, “Couldn’t we just do the same thing by collating positive letters to the editor from across the nation?” and then proceeds to quote from seven such supportive letters – which actually appear in major publications, not BFE pennysavers.

Scruples: lobbyists do not haz dem.

Link [NRDC]
Photo credit: I Can Has Cheezburger?

Can You Spare 23 Cents a Day for Climate Change Action?

Much has been made of the potential financial costs of climate change legislation by conservatives, but as it turns out, the American Clean Energy & Security Act will cost the average citizen just 23 cents a day.

Reps. Markey and Waxman asked the Energy Information Agency to analyze the cost to consumers, to put out-of-control estimates by anti-climate-bill pundits and lawmakers to rest. They delivered, with a report (PDF) that projects the annual cost of the ACES to be roughly $83, adjusted for inflation, by 2030.

ACESA increases energy prices, but effects on electricity and natural gas bills of consumers are substantially mitigated through 2025 by the allocation of free allowances to regulated electricity and natural gas distribution companies. Except for the ACESA No International/Limited Case, electricity prices in five of the six main ACESA cases range from 9.5 to 9.6 cents per kilowatthour in 2020, only 3 to 4 percent above the Reference Case level.6 Average impacts on electricity prices in 2030 are projected to be substantially greater, reflecting both higher allowance prices and the phase-out of the free allocation of allowances to distributors between 2025 and 2030. By 2030, electricity prices in the ACESA Basic Case are 12.0 cents per kilowatthour, 19 percent above the Reference Case level, with a wider band of 11.1 cents to 17.8 cents (10 to 77 percent above the Reference Case level) across all six main policy cases.

So the question is, do Americans want to pony up 23 cents a day and take care of this problem before it blows up into an all-out global nightmare, or just wait until the cost of fixing it reaches epic proportions?

Link [Treehugger]
Photo credit: Flickr user Macinate

Which Members of Congress Caved to Special Interests on Climate Bill?

It must be so hard to be a lawmaker. They get free top-notch health care, far more paid time off than most other Americans could ever dream of having and are constantly plied with fancy dinners, parties and trips by lobbyists with deep pockets who just want their ear for an hour. Not all of our legislators give in to special interests when it comes to issues that affect the lives of the American public – but too many do.

The Environmental Defense Action Fund (EDAF) has called out a few of them – members of Congress who opposed the American Clean Energy and Security Act because of their ties to dirty energy industries. Check out this video, targeting Congressman Mark Souder(R-IN):

EDF had this to say about the ads:

This is a sustained campaign to educate the public. The public should know when their elected representatives vote against their interests. Opponents of this bill have based their campaign on phony numbers and scare tactics. We’re going to beat them with the facts. As this bill moves to the Senate, we are focusing on letting constituents know who is ready to take action to cut imported oil and who just wants to talk about it.

Check out the rest at EDF.org.

Link [EDF]

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