John Kerry Calls Out Climate Change Denier B.S.

A hack of an “environmental scholar” working for an organization that consistently seeks to undermine efforts to fight global warming got schooled on climate change policy by Senator John Kerry during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on November 10th. Kerry rebuked Green’s comments for a solid five minutes, leaving a floundering Green unable to defend his views as anything other than his own personal opinion.

Kerry: “You may know something that thousands of other scientists don’t. They won a Nobel Prize. You and I didn’t.”

Ken Green’s title as ‘resident environmental scholar’ at the American Enterprise Institute may seem to indicate that he has a clue what he’s talking about. But who, exactly, are Green and this Institute?

From a 2007 Treehugger article:

The American Enterprise Institute, according to the Guardian, was called out in February for ” offering scientists and economists $10,000 each, “to undermine the IPCC report. .” AEI visiting scholar Kenneth Green made the $10,000 offer “to scientists in Britain, the US and elsewhere,” in a letter describing the IPCC as “resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent.” They noted also that AEI “has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil, and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI’s board of trustees.”

It just goes to show who these people really are – and how easy it is for them to misrepresent themselves to climate change skeptics as “experts”. What a joke.

Link [Treehugger]

GOP Politicians Parrot False Climate Bill Talking Points

What’s more important – actual facts, or talking points filled with false figures designed to knock down the competition at any cost? To the GOP, it’s clearly the latter. They’ve never been known for fighting fair, but in the past year or so the Republican Party has apparently decided that anything goes, with a series of jaw-droppingly dirty tactics centered upon outright lies and propaganda.

So, it’s not too surprising that eight GOP politicians are continuing to parrot talking points about the supposed costs of climate legislation, despite the fact that they’ve been repeatedly proven false. The $1,761 figure is an inflated estimate of the cost of a bill that was never even considered by Congress.

Hell, in the right-wing sphere, claims made on the news don’t have to have any basis in truth whatsoever. ThinkProgress has a great rundown on the process used to spread these false figures (via The Huffington Post):

STEP ONE: “News” generated by right-wing think tank.

STEP TWO: Right-wing print journalists write “breaking news” story.

STEP THREE: Promoted by Drudge, story repeated endlessly on right-wing blogs, Twitter, and talk radio.

STEP FOUR: Republican politicians, right-wing think tanks, and polluter front groups release statements of shock and outrage.

STEP FIVE: On Fox News, Glenn Beck calls President Obama a liar/socialist/Marxist/communist/fascist/racist.

Josh Nelson of EnviroKnow listed the many politicians who have repeated the false figure including Sen. Lamar Alexander, Sen. James Inhofe, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Rep. Roy Blunt, Rep. Fred Upton, Former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, House Minority Leader John Boehner and House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence. Check out the details at The Huffington Post – it’s truly sickening.

The GOP is happy to use any means necessary to protect their wealth and power against any perceived threat, real or imaginary. But who cares about climate change or health care as long as Republicans can keep their Hummers and McMansions?

Link [ThinkProgress] + [The Huffington Post]
Photo credit: Flickr user Ingrid Taylar

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]

Sierra Club Seeks DOJ Investigation into Faked Climate Bill Letters

The Sierra Club has asked Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate lobbying firm Bonner & Associates to see if it has faked letters to other legislators in the past after the firm was caught forging anti-climate bill letters.

Bonner & Associates sent letters purporting to be from two West Virginia minority groups to Rep. Tom Perriello in an attempt to trick him into voting against the Waxman-Markey climate bill that narrowly passed in the House last month. It didn’t work – Perriello voted for the bill anyway – but, the Sierra Club asks, how many other faked letters has this firm sent out?

From the Sierra Club’s letter to the Attorney General, via Treehugger:

Dear Attorney General Holder,

I am writing to urge you to initiate an investigation into the recent, apparently illegal activities of Bonner & Associates, a consulting firm located in Washington, D.C. In June of 2009 Bonner & Associates, on behalf of an unspecified client, sent letters via fax machine to the offices of U.S. Representative Tom Perriello. These letters purported to come from community organizations within Rep. Perriello’s Congressional district – including Creciendo Juntos and the Charlottesville, Virginia chapter of the NAACP – and utilized the letterhead of these organizations.

…The letters were sent without authorization of any representative of the community organizations. The individuals whose names and signatures appear on the letters do not exist.

…On behalf of Sierra Club, I therefore urge you to initiate an investigation into Bonner & Associates. First, the Department of Justice should ascertain whether forged letters were sent to other Representatives or Senators. Second, the Department of Justice should investigate whether other community organizations were similarly misrepresented.

That ‘unspecified client’ has turned out to be none other than the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), a front group for the coal industry. ACCCE claims not to have known about the tactics, saying in a press release “we are outraged at the conduct of Bonner & Associates”.

The Sierra Club, for one, isn’t buying it. They ran a full-page advertisement today in CQ, The Hill, Politico, Roll Call, and the National Journal’s Congress Daily AM. Treehugger reports that the ad says “When Dirty-Energy Washington Lobbyists couldn’t get any real-life supporters to defeat comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation, they made them up instead.”

Read the full letter from the Sierra Club to the DOJ (PDF) as well as ACCCE’s full response to the controversy.

Link [Treehugger]
Photo credit: Flickr user david drexler

Lobbyist Group Forges Anti-Climate-Bill Letters, Then Lies About It

A couple weeks ago, The Huffington Post warned readers to be on the lookout for dirty tricks orchestrated by right-wing groups attempting to derail the climate bill. Sure enough, a Washington D.C. based lobbyist group got caught sending five forged letters purportedly from Hispanic voters and the NAACP to a congressman in the hopes that it would sway his vote.

It didn’t work. Congressman Tom Perriello of West Virginia voted in favor of the Waxman-Markey climate bill, and lobbyist group Bonner & Associates is taking the heat for its abhorrent tactics.

Congressman Ed Markey announced that he would hold an official House hearing into the forgeries, saying:

“This fraud on Congress shows that some opponents of clean energy have resorted to forgery and theft to block progress.  This is an appalling abuse, and Congressman Tom Perriello deserves great credit for seeing through it and casting a vote that will create clean energy jobs in Virginia and throughout the United States. I encourage all Members of Congress to be on the lookout for other suspicious and illegal materials. My Select Committee will immediately begin an investigation of the extent and scope of this activity.”

Not that Bonner & Associates are actually admitting any wrongdoing. The group blames a ‘temporary employee’ who supposedly sent out the letters unbeknownst to the rest of the firm.

Nice try, says The Huffington Post – Bonner has a history of tricking people into supporting their causes. HuffPo found a 2002 story by the Baltimore Sun, which called out another forgery in the group’s past:

Donna J. Stanley, director of Associated Black Charities, was ready to mobilize for political battle after she received a fax marked “urgent” this week.

The fax told her she needed to sign an attached petition “today” to prevent 600,000 of Maryland’s poor and disabled from losing access to affordable prescription drugs. The fax, sent to dozens of community leaders, had the markings of a grass-roots effort, including grammatical errors and a handwritten cover letter.

But the appeal was actually generated by a sophisticated Washington lobbying firm trying to defeat several bills before the General Assembly supported by advocates for the poor.

So, how’d they explain that one away? Jack Bonner said it was “a great exercise in the First Amendment”. Bonner & Associates had allied itself with a puppet group for the pharmaceutical industry, using the organization’s letterhead to fool legislators into thinking they were hearing legitimate concerns from voters.

Abolishing the practice of lobbying lawmakers, and imposing strict term limits on all politicians – wouldn’t that go a long way toward cleaning up our government? Lobbyists clearly have no scruples when it comes to getting favors for Big Oil, Big Pharma and other corporate entities intent on putting greed before the good of the earth and its people.

Link [The Huffington Post]

10 B.S. Statements in the Climate Change Debate

When people who don’t know what they’re talking about spew utter hogwash about an important issue to people who don’t really grasp the issue in the first place, can anything important ever get done? Unlikely – and that’s the reality we’re living today as both parties of government debate climate change in front of an American public that can’t tell they’re being bullshitted.

WorldChanging is paying attention, and sorting out the truth from the half-truths, misrepresentations, lies and propaganda. They’ve put together the Top 10 Bogus Statements (BS) in the US Climate Debate, with a reality check following each one.

Check out the first two:

No. 10 BS: The United States can’t make a firm commitment to reduce greenhouse gases until China and India do.

Reality check: With this statement, international climate negotiations assume the stature of an Alphonse and Gaston routine. The modern version – “I’m not going to do the right thing until you do the right thing” – would be comical if it weren’t so childish and potentially tragic.

Why shouldn’t the United States make a hard commitment to cut carbon before China, India and other developing nations do? We’re responsible for most of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere today. We have been emitting them with abandon for generations.

On the other hand, many developing nations such as China and India are attempting to pull millions of their people from poverty. I don’t believe they deny their obligation to help solve the climate problem. In fact, many of China’s clean energy goals are more aggressive than ours. But they want the leeway to help their people approach the standard of living people enjoy in the U.S.

What the hell: Let’s be big about this and agree to go first. If the US is worried about a trade disadvantage with countries that don’t have carbon regulation, then let’s institute a “border adjustment” – the price those countries should pay for not agreeing to hard targets.

No. 9 BS: Coal will be with us for a long time to come.

In a recent interview with Grist, the chief White House environmental advisor, Nancy Sutley of the Council on Environmental Quality, said: “[C]learly coal is a part of our energy mix now and it’s likely to be so in the future… [E]ven if we were to stop using coal tomorrow, it’s used around the world and we have to deal with its environmental impacts.”

Reality check: Of course we must deal with coal’s environmental problems, but the best way to do that is to stop using it. Accepting that coal is part of our future is not the policy that motivates us to find substitutes. And whether we can deal with its environmental impacts is open to question. We don’t yet have and may never find a cost-effective and safe way to permanently sequester huge amounts of carbon dioxide from coal. If the technology ever is perfected, it will significantly increase the price of electric power from coal, while the price of power from renewable resources is coming down.

Then there’s mountain top removal and all the other environmental damages and carbon emissions associated with extraction and production (See No. 7 below). Let’s shoot for an international climate agreement that sets specific near-term targets for phasing out coal power, along with an aggressive program to replace it worldwide first with natural gas, then with renewable low-carbon fuels.

Head on over to WorldChanging for the rest, which includes statements about domestic oil production, mountaintop coal removal, putting a price on carbon and more.

Link [WorldChanging]
Photo credit: Flickr user dullhunk

Right-Wing Pundit Freak Out Over ‘Madoff-Waxman-Markey’ Bill

The climate bill that many environmentalists have decried as weak and ineffectual is being touted by right-wing pundits as a vast conspiracy to take their money (shocking, eh?). The usual suspects – Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin – are frothing at the mouth and waving pitchforks over the prospect of the bill being passed in the Senate.

From the NRDC Switchboard:

Among the most unhinged of the commentators has been the venerable Rush Limbaugh.  According to this host, the Waxman-Markey legislation should be called “Madoff-Waxman-Markey” because “this bill is a con game.”  You can see the Dittohead in Chief bloviate here courtesy of our friends at Media Matters.

In case you think Rush was alone in being off his rocker in comparing some of America’s most visionary lawmakers with the nation’s most notorious financial crook, check out Mr. Sensitivity, Glenn Beck’s rantings.

Beck suggests that lawmakers and the mainstream media have somehow colluded to use the death of Michael Jackson (!) to keep the public’s attention off climate change.   I promise you that we are not making this up:

“… it pays for everyone to be extra-vigilant.  Who stands to benefit from cap and trade? Why do we need to do it now? What does a ‘green banking center’ have to do with cooling the Earth?  And, most importantly, is there still a chance to stop this insanity in the Senate or will our politicians there simply wait for the next celebrity death before once again convening in the middle of the night to sell America out to highest bidder?”

Even worse is Michelle Malkin’s witch hunt, complete with wanted poster, of the eight GOP senators who have dared to support a cap-and-trade solution to climate change.

The NRDC goes on to question the legality/morality of shady campaigns by the Fox News-fueled “Tea Party Patriots” – be sure to give it a read.

But, when it comes down to it, the motivations of each side are telling. For what purpose, ultimately, would people like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin raise hell over a climate bill that doesn’t even measure up to the standards of environmentalists? Simple – getting attention, so they can make more money.

On the other hand, we dastardly environmentalists act out of the greedy desire to prevent humans from making the world uninhabitable for our own kind (as well as millions of other species). We’re so evil, aren’t we?

Link [NRDC Switchboard]

Climate Bill Faces Tough Battle in the Senate

As Greenpeace activists fight for action on global warming in Italy during the G8 Summit, climate change legislation here in the States faces an even tougher challenge. After passing in the House last week, President Obama’s climate change bill will likely see major erosion of environmental goals by the time the Senate is through with it.

Democrats had hoped to get some GOP support for the bill, but any votes coming from the other side of the aisle – and, indeed, from some lawmakers in their own party – would likely come at the expense of several key points in the bill.

From The Washington Post:

Senators will weigh a slew of potential compromises — everything from allowing more offshore drilling for oil and natural gas to increasing funding for nuclear energy — that they think would inch the package closer to passage. But environmental activists warn that the 1,400-page House version of the bill already includes so many giveaways to corporate America that more horse-trading in the Senate could lead them to oppose the final version.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) is counting on a handful of committee chairs to complete their portion of the legislation, which would create a cap-and-trade system, requiring major greenhouse gas emitters to either reduce their emissions or buy allowances.

As of today, Reid can count on the support of about 40 to 45 senators for that basic premise, according to aides and outside activists backing the legislation. Supporters are targeting a pool of roughly two dozen lawmakers — including about 15 of Reid’s Democrats — who will determine the legislation’s fate.

Democrats from the Rust Belt states of West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and Michigan are pushing for more incentives to help their depressed industries shift to alternative energy sources. The same senators also will likely want more funding for carbon capture and sequestration, a controversial and still-evolving technology described by its developers as “clean coal” but derided by many environmentalists. The technology is already slated for $10 billion in government-funded research in legislation that passed the House. A trio of Democrats from the Dakotas want more funding for wind power.

The only likely backers of the bill in the GOP are moderate Maine senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. In order to get more GOP support, the bill would have to include funding for nuclear options.

The bill is expected to hit the Senate floor sometime in the fall. By the time they’re done with it, however, the bill will likely be so diluted and full of concessions that environmentalists will want nothing to do with it.

This could get ugly. We envision Jerry Springer-like ‘Bitch, I’ll tear out yo weave’ cat fights over various interests – which would be fun, if it weren’t for the whole ‘the world is at stake’ thing.

Link [The Washington Post]

Greenpeace Takes Over Four Italian Coal-Fired Power Stations

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Greenpeace – like PETA – really knows how to make an attention-grabbing statement. Over 100 Greenpeace activists from around the world took over four Italian coal-fired power stations in an attempt to force Heads of State to take leadership on climate change. World leaders convened yesterday in Rome for the G8 Summit, and climate change was one of the issues discussed.

From Greenpeace, via PlanetSave:

In the early hours of this morning, the activists, from 18 countries, occupied coal conveyors and climbed smokestacks and cranes on the four power stations in Brindisi, Marghera (just outside of Venice), at Vado Ligure, (near Genoa) and at an old oil plant at Porto Tolle, (set to be re-opened as an experimental so-called “clean coal” power plant.)  Coal is the worst climate pollutant of all fossil fuels.

The Brindisi plant is Italy’s biggest coal-fired power station and the country’s largest single source of C02 emissions. Greenpeace plans to stop it from polluting by blocking the coal conveyor belts and preventing coal from going into the plant.

“Politicians talk but leaders act” said UK activist Ben Stewart from the top of the 160m high chimney at the Marghera plant.  “There is no more time to waste. The G8 leaders must stop putting the interests of big coal and other climate polluting industries ahead of the planet and take strong, decisive leadership on climate change. That means deep cuts in emissions by 2020, investing in adaption and mitigation in the developing world and halting tropical deforestation.”

Greenpeace was asking world leaders to agree to a stringent set of criteria in the fight against global warming, including ensuring that global emissions peak by 2015 and be as close to zero as possible by 2050, and committing, as a group, to cut emissions by at least 40% by 2020.

Unfortunately, the world’s major industrial nations were not able to agree on specific cuts to heat-trapping gases by 2050. In the end, the failure to establish specific targets was due to the refusal of emerging nations like China and India.

You can follow a live feed of updates on the Greenpeace website, including photos and observations from the protesters. Photos of the activists climbing scaffolding hundreds of feet above the ground are quite striking and can be viewed full-size at ScribbleLive.com.

Link [Greenpeace] via [PlanetSave]

Obama Administration Orders 14,105 Fuel-Efficient Vehicles

President Obama has lived up to his word on greening the federal fleet, ordering 14,105 fuel-efficient vehicles worth $210 million. The vehicles will be paid for with funds from the Recovery Act. The U.S. General Services Administration said that it ordered the vehicles from GM, Chrysler and Ford last week.

From GreenBiz.com:

“GSA is committed to spending Recovery dollars quickly and wisely,” Commissioner James A. Williams of GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service said in a statement. “Simultaneously, we are focused on acquiring vehicles that will provide long-term environmental benefits and savings by increasing the fuel efficiency of the federal fleet.”

On March 30, Obama directed his administration to purchase about 17,600 commercially available, fuel efficient vehicles from American auto companies by June 1, to use funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — and to get the job done swiftly to boost the nation’s auto industry and replace aging vehicles with greener ones.

As Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement, the vehicle orders is “good for our economy, good for our workers, and good for our environment”. Way to go green and give people jobs at the same time – a fantastic way to approach both the economic and climate crises.

Link [GreenBiz.com]
Photo credit: The Huffington Post

New CAFE Standards Mean Nothing without Consumer Dedication to Efficiency

The Obama administration’s new groundbreaking CAFE and emissions standards for cars and light trucks don’t mean much if the American public can’t be goaded into choosing energy-efficient models instead of gas guzzlers.

The new rule raises the average fuel economy for cars and light trucks combined to 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016, and gives the EPA authority to regulate tailpipe emissions from vehicles. But, automakers still have loopholes to create low MPG vehicles – vehicles that American consumers still want.

The only way to get consumers to purchase the more efficient vehicles in the numbers required to make a real difference would be raising the price of gas by 100%-200%, according to Pike Research, a market research and consulting firm that provides in-depth analysis of global clean technology markets.

From Matter Network:

The ongoing problem with CAFE is that it ignores consumer demand and offers automakers too many loopholes for building lower mileage vehicles. The fact is that consumers who are paying $2 or $3 per gallon for gasoline have very little incentive to buy higher mileage vehicles, and automakers still have an incentive (consumer demand) to build low mileage, high powered, trucks and SUVs.

…Without the shift in consumer thinking, though, the CAFE rules will only be window dressing for their intended purpose – getting more fuel efficient vehicles on the road. Additionally, as automakers try to force consumers into vehicles that are not actually spurred by their demand, consumers will react with their feet, marching quickly to companies that offer vehicles they want.

After all, there is a reason that in 2008 the Volkswagen Golf was the best selling vehicle in Europe, while in the same year the Ford F-150 was the best selling vehicle in the US, and it’s got nothing to do with CAFE rules. Getting Americans to buy more efficient vehicles that use less fuel through top-down product pushes brought on by CAFE rules is failing and likely always will.

It’s true: as long as gas prices are low, Americans will stubbornly hold on to their trucks and SUVs. Last summer, people were ditching SUVs so fast that used car lots were packed full of them. Now that prices have gone back down, that momentum has come to a screeching halt.

Of course, if gas prices were simply raised as an answer to inciting consumer demand for efficient vehicles, who would benefit the most? Oil companies. That would hardly be a good thing for the environment. A high gas tax would be a more effective, albeit more complicated answer.

Link [Matter Network]
Photo credit: Freaky Humor

Money-Hungry Industries Fight to Expand Meaning of ‘Renewable Energy’

Motivated by dollar signs, industries are pushing to have a range of technologies categorized as renewable including nuclear power plants, the burning of garbage and even waste from coal plants. Everyone wants to get in on government incentives, which were designed to give technologies like wind and solar an economic boost.

From The New York Times:

The lure of the renewable label is understandable. Federal tax breaks for renewable energy have been reauthorized, and quotas for renewable energy production have been set in 28 states, accompanied by extensive new grants, loans and other economic advantages. And legislation is moving through both houses of Congress to establish national quotas for renewable energy sources, including the climate bill passed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday.

With billions of dollars at stake, legislators have been besieged by lobbyists eager to share in the wealth.

“They’ve been queuing up outside staff offices, everyone with all their ideas as to what should be included,” said Bill Wicker, the spokesman for the Democratic majority on the Senate energy committee, which is considering a national quota.

Next thing you know, the coal industry is going to go beyond attempts to convince us that coal is clean and find a way to claim that coal is renewable. Who else is going to come out of the woodwork in an attempt to grow their bank accounts?

Lobbyists. Oy.

In The Know: Are Politicians Failing Our Lobbyists?

Link [The New York Times]
Photo credit: Flickr user david drexler

GOP Rep. Joe Barton Says CO2 is Harmless Because “It’s in Coca-Cola”

How low can the GOP go? The battered party is struggling with an identity crisis as millions of its members jump ship, and its scattered cast of current ‘leaders’ is making things even worse. The remarks that came out of Texas Rep. Joe Barton’s mouth on Tuesday morning illustrate the sort of dumbfounding stupidity – or perhaps willful refusal to accept the facts – that has come to define the Republican party.

Rep. Barton, ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, claims that we shouldn’t be concerned at all about carbon emissions. After all, CO2 is in our Coca-Cola!

“It’s odorless, colorless, tasteless, doesn’t cause cancer, doesn’t cause asthma… there’s nobody that’s ever been admitted to a hospital because of CO2 poisoning.” Stunning logic there, Congressman!

The Economist said it best:

Please don’t get me wrong, it’s not simply that Mr Barton is a climate-change sceptic. There are plenty of those and some make decent arguments against moving ahead with measures to control emissions. The problem with Mr Barton is that he is wholly uninterested in the science and statistics of the global warming debate. He is about as curious as a dead cat, as is his colleague in the Senate, James Inhofe.

Link [The Huffington Post] + [The Economist]

Public Schools to Get $6.4 Billion in Green Improvements

Public schools across America are in serious need of TLC. Pitifully low budgets mean some schools don’t even have clean drinking water, let alone up-to-date textbooks. But, Congress just passed a piece of legislation that might just save school districts enough money to get back on track. $6.4 billion has been earmarked for green projects in public schools, modernizing buildings so they’re more energy efficient.

From CNN, via The Good Human:

The measure passed 275-155 in a largely party-line vote, and will now move to the Senate for further review.

Among other things, the bill allocates substantial funds for improvements along the Gulf Coast, where many school districts are still struggling to repair buildings damaged by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The committee says the bill would require that 100 percent of the funds go toward green projects by 2015, which is the final year of funding under the bill.

“All students and teachers deserve safe and healthy learning environments, but too often, their schools are literally falling apart,” said Rep. George Miller, D-California, who is the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee and one of the bill’s sponsors.

“This legislation is a victory for students, workers and our planet. It will help improve educational opportunities and boost student achievement, it will help transition us toward a green economy by making our classrooms more environmentally friendly,” he said.

Of course, Republicans criticized the high cost, never able to look beyond today and see what tomorrow will bring. They also have a problem with the ‘increasing role of federal government’, claiming that the power to construct and renovate schools is a ‘fundamental right’ of state government.

It’s easy for old, rich white men whose grandchildren are more than likely enrolled in private schools to complain about such things while millions of school kids sit in public schools with sagging roofs, mold in the walls, peeling vinyl floors and other major problems. The American Society of Engineers says that one-third of America’s schools need extensive repair or replacement. This $6.4 billion is just a small fraction of the $112 billion the ASE says is needed to bring the nation’s public schools into an overall good condition.

Rachel Gutter of the U.S. Green Building Council emphasizes the benefits:

“The typical green school saves $100,000 a year on direct operating expenses. In school terms, that’s enough to hire two new teachers, purchase 200 new computers or 5,000 textbooks,” Gutter said.

“So these are major savings. And that’s just one year. The typical school lasts 40 years. And when you do the math, it starts to become some serious savings. … It pays for itself after a few years of operation.”

Link [CNN] via [The Good Human]
Photo credit: Flickr user woodleywonderworks

Obama Picks Superfund Polluter Lawyer for Environmental Post

President Barack Obama has nominated a lawyer who has spent much of her career defending major polluters to a sensitive environmental post.

Yes, you read that correctly.

If you feel like you’re experiencing an especially vivid and painful flashback to the days of former President Bush’s environmental follies, you’re not alone. It was common Bush administration practice to put the fox in charge of the hen house. The term ‘conflict of interest’ was seemingly meaningless to an administration that put nepotism ahead of the interests of the people and the land.

But it’s not something that most liberals would expect from President Obama, who has sought to separate himself from such practices.

From Think Progress:

On Tuesday, Obama “announced his intent to nominate” Ignacia S. Moreno to be Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division in the Department of Justice. Moreno, general counsel for that department during the Clinton administration, is now the corporate environmental counsel for General Electric, “America’s #1 Superfund Polluter“: Number five in the Fortune 500 with revenues of $89.3 billion and earnings of $8.2 billion in 1997, General Electric has been a leader in the effort to roll back the Superfund law and stave off any requirements for full cleanup and restoration of sites they helped create.

Before General Electric, Moreno worked as a corporate attorney at Spriggs and Hollingsworth. Moreno’s name is found in the Westlaw database as an attorney defending General Motors in another Superfund case, the GM Powertrain facility in Bedford, Indiana: Historical uses and management of PCB containing hydraulic oils and PCB impacted materials has contaminated on-site areas as well as the sediment and floodplain soil within Bailey’s Branch and the Pleasant Run Creek watershed.

If confirmed, Moreno will be in charge of the office that enforces environmental laws and defends federal regulations in lawsuits. Her experience lies in defending polluters, not enforcing environmental justice. And considering the particularly heinous nature of the crimes she has defended – like GM’s PCBs – can she really be expected to do the right thing?

Some say that Moreno’s industry experience could actually help her enforce the law, including Eric Schaeffer, director of the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project. Schaeffer, who resigned as chief of the EPA’s enforcement office in 2002 in protest of the Bush administration’s enforcement tactics, thinks that Moreno can use her knowledge to the government’s advantage. But who’s to say that Moreno has had a change of heart?

It’s an understatement to say that environmentalists are concerned about this nomination. I think ‘sputtering outrage’ more accurately captures the general sentiment. We expect better than this from President Obama.

Link [Think Progress] + [The New York Times]
Photo credit: The Daily Mail

EPA Bans Highly Toxic Pesticide

A toxic bird-killing, worker-poisoning pesticide will no longer appear in our food after an EPA decision to ban the chemical concoction. Tests have shown carbofuran to be highly toxic to mammals, marine animals, freshwater fish, birds and other creates and causes damage to the nervous system in humans, including respiratory paralysis and death.

From NRDC:

Initially, EPA had said that although uses of the pesticide in the U.S. would be cancelled, it would still be allowed as a contaminant on imported coffee, sugarcane, rice, and bananas. This would have meant that the manufacturer, FMC Corp., could still sell carbofuran in other countries that grow these foods  for U.S. markets, thus putting at much greater risk those foreign workers, their families, and their environment. Today’s decision will prevent all food contamination, including imports.

There are still two non-food uses of carbofuran that will remain: spinach seeds and pine seedlings will still be allowed to be treated with a granular form of carbofuran. EPA said that its future intentions are to cancel these uses as well, although today it is only the food uses that are being cancelled.

Isn’t it sad how we get all worked up over incidences in which the EPA actually, you know, does its job, protecting the environment and such? We got used to the EPA being not just ineffective but at times counterproductive under the Bush administration, so now every time Obama’s EPA makes a halfway decent decision we’re cheering them on like rabid football fans.

Link [NRDC]

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