Welcome to This week in climate change, the tenth and final edition.
Or at least a TTFN edition.
The idea was spawned way back when before the neverending Gulf Gusher began. BGG, if you will. Now, 8 weeks AGG, we have seen a gush of eco diaries unleashed like never before. We have gone from caring too little about eco issues to caring (or at least writing) too much.
We also have seen a major influx of new eco series launch in that time, including eKos, EcoAdvocates, and the BP Catastrophe Liveblog, all of which have become far more popular than this idea. In addition, the series whose absence spurred me to fill their void have returned.
I'll still write about stuff, often about climate issues. Others here will too.
However, the use for yet another series seems tenuous, at best, superfluous at worst.
Long story short, it's been real.
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Climate news, Climate Diary Rescue, Climate Blog Roundup, Action Items and more below the fold.
This week in climate change is a new weekly series at Daily Kos devoted to climate change and related news. The hope is that we can engage in constructive debate about the issues raised by the topics presented, and coalesce around the action items proposed each week.
The diary for now will appear Wednesday afternoons, around 1PM Pacific.
THE LEDE
GOP united against progress.
Again.
This time it's (Your topic HERE __ )
This week's -winner- loser is....
Energy and Climate change
Climate bill faces long odds, despite Obama speech
By MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON – A climate and energy bill being pushed in the Senate faces bleak prospects, despite President Barack Obama's call for a "clean energy" future that lessens dependence on oil and other fossil fuels.
A day after the president's Oval Office speech, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., reiterated that his party remains unanimous in its opposition to what he called a national energy tax.
snip
White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said Obama's speech reiterated his call for comprehensive energy and climate legislation to break the nation's dependence on fossil fuels. The president will be reach out next week to senators on both sides of the aisle to chart a path forward, LaBolt said.
reaching....
reaching....
There's gotta be an aisle here somewhere!
But even Dems are being fossil fools on this one right now:
“The climate bill isn’t going to stop the oil leak,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat. “The first thing you have to do is stop the oil leak.”
“There’s not a great call for it in the Democratic caucus,” said West Virginia Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller, who has argued against taking up the bill. Feinstein said last week she believed climate legislation could be passed next year.
No, DiFi, but if we get off oil, we won't have any leaks in the future!!!!
Do you see what I did there?
GOOD NEWS
We on the political left, especially environmentalists, don't get enough good news lately. The past decade ("The Ohs") was our worst in 40 years. Let's try to briefly look at the minor victories more often before we find ourselves getting too down. M'kay?
• Swiss supermarkets to offer Think electric cars
"Honey, could you run down to the store and pick up some milk, tofu, and one of those new Think City electric cars?"
That's a request you could be hearing soon in Switzerland (in French, German, Italian, or Romansh, of course) now that Norwegian electric automaker Think has struck a deal with Swiss retailer Migros to market the City.
Sort of a cooperatively owned Costco, Migros is Switzerland's largest supermarket chain and operates more than 600 stores across the country.
Are you feeling just a wee bit behind the people in Wetern Europe yet?
Yeah, me too.
• Oregon Geothermal Project Wins $102 Million Federal Loan Guarantee
BOISE, Idaho, June 14, 2010 (ENS) - The renewable energy development company U.S. Geothermal, Inc. has been offered a $102 million loan guarantee by the U.S. Department of Energy to construct its planned 22-megawatt power plant at Neal Hot Springs in eastern Oregon.
Neal Hot Springs is the first geothermal project to be offered a conditional commitment for a loan guarantee under DOE's Title XVII loan guarantee program, which was created by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to support the deployment of innovative clean energy technologies.
OTHER NEWS
• 2010 So Far Has Been Hottest Year on Record: NOAAby Matthew McDermott
Continuing the trend from the previous month, NOAA reports that May, the period from March to May, and from January to May all have had the hottest combined global land and ocean surface temperatures since records began in 1880.
• Oilpocalypse Estimates multiply like rabbits:
From TPM:
• Addition by Subtraction?
Finding silver linings in the Prez'al address yesterday wasn't easy for people on the left. David Roberts at Grist tries his best:
So what three policies did Obama choose to call out individually?
Some have suggested raising efficiency standards in our buildings like we did in our cars and trucks. Some believe we should set standards to ensure that more of our electricity comes from wind and solar power. Others wonder why the energy industry only spends a fraction of what the high-tech industry does on research and development -- and want to rapidly boost our investments in such research and development.
I could be reading too much into this -- "some believe" and "others wonder" aren't exactly cris de coeur -- but these words were chosen carefully. Normally Obama's energy pitch includes ritual nods to "clean coal," nuclear power, and domestic drilling. None of those made an appearance last night; it was only energy efficiency and renewable energy. That strikes me as a deliberate (and welcome) message to the Senate about what Obama wants on the energy side of a bill.
CLIMATE BLOG HIGHLIGHTS
This is what "
fantastic coverage of environmental issues" looks like.
This week featuring the following:
• Solve Climate
• HuffPo Green
Multiple Polls Reveal Overwhelming Concern about Global Warming among Americans
WASHINGTON—Much-ballyhooed polls from Gallup, CNN and the Pew Research Center have led our short-attention-span nation to believe that Americans are increasingly skeptical about the very existence of global warming.
However, Stanford University political science and psychology professor Jon Krosnick, who has conducted surveys about climate change since at least 1995, questions that conclusion, and evidently has the goods to back up his doubts. Belief in the reality, human causes and threats of global warming is alive and very much kicking, he maintains.
His June 1-7 countrywide telephone poll of 1,000 adults indicates that 74 percent thought the Earth’s temperature had heated up during the last 100 years, 75 percent attribute warming to human behavior, and 86 percent want the federal government to limit air pollution emissions from businesses.
Tired of the
Obamabot! vs.
Purity Troll! wars?
HuffPo Green has you covered!
In this corner...
Why Jane Hamsher Should Join the Sierra Club
by Michael Brune, 06.16.2010
Executive director of the Sierra Club
In the other corner...
Sierra Club Chooses Corporate Sponsorship Over Grassroots Activists
by Jane Hamsher, 06.16.2010
Founder, FireDogLake.com
Sounds fun, eh?
I haven't read either column. Let me know how it goes.
I'll make the popcorn.
DKOS CLIMATE DIARIES
• Today's post by A Siegel is required reading for all greeny types and should be used as a cudgel against any fence-sitting legislators:
“All costs, no benefits ...”
In fact, the EPA analysis simply has the sign wrong. More robust analysis, which includes at least some of the key benefit arenas would show significant benefits from action as opposed to quite limited costs of action.
What are some of the excluded benefit arenas ...
• Avoided costs: The reason for climate change mitigation is that unchecked climate change will have catastrophic impacts. For the EPA, reducing the costs of those catastrophic impacts has zero value in their analysis of the American Power Act.
• Health Benefits: Fossil Fuel pollution fosters asthma, heart disease, cancers ... with analysis suggesting a fiscal cost of some $130 billion per year in added costs to the American economy. Reducing fossil fuel pollution, a corollary impact of climate change mitigation efforts, will lower that toll on Americans’ health and lower the fiscal cost to households and the nation.
• Productivity Implications: Reducing the health impacts would mean, surprisingly perhaps, that there would be fewer sick leave days with generally healthier workers — that translates to higher productivity. Climate mitigation would hasten ‘green building’ and study after study shows that ‘green building’ improves worker productivity and educational performance and ... The ‘productivity’ impact of greening a building can range from 5 to 10s of percent. The economic value for a society-wide (including schools) 5 % jump in productivity and performance, alone, would turn the EPA calculation from “cost” to “benefit”.
• Competitive Implications: Climate mitigation would foster investment in clean energy technologies that are proving ever-more critical for international competitiveness. The competitive benefits, however, go into other realms. For example, climate mitigation efforts would create funds for protecting rainforests, with fewer trees cut down to create farms. American farmers, therefore, would face less competition in the international market place from megafarms created on the ash of burned down rainforests. “Ending deforestation will boost revenue for U.S. producers by between $196-$267 billion by 2030 – approximately equivalent to the entire amount projected to be spent by farmers on energy during that time.”
• Another excellent climate bill analysis, but of a different sort, comes from one of the most consistent and prominent eco advocates on this site:
Of Pole Signs, Coal Plants, and Impractical Energy Plans
by RLMiller
Which brings us to the Practical Energy and Climate Plan bill, S. 3464, recently proposed by Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN).
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will, it's rumored, merge different bills together, create one monster bill, and bring it to the Senate floor by July 4. Some analysts like Lugar's bill better than the competing S. 1462 (ACELA, aka Bingaman bill). But is Lugar's bill worthy of being folded into the Frankenbill?
Despite its title, Senator Lugar's bill isn't a climate bill: it has no direct mechanism for capping carbon. Bradford Plumer elaborates: "because there's no overall cap on carbon, it's not even assured that Lugar's bill would lead to these promised cuts. What if, say, industrial polluters get more efficient but then just decide to pollute more overall? (This is what's happening in China, after all.) Without a cap, there's nothing that would prevent this from happening."
Lugar's bill is an energy bill. Its transportation section has some teeth. The construction section will be voluntary for any building constructed before 2010. And any utility policy advancing coal as part of a diverse portfolio won't stop mountaintops from being blown to pieces.
Other Env'al Series
The week in dirty coal by DWG
-Alternative- Renewable Energy Round-Up by mark louis
Sunday Train by BruceMcF
EcoJusitce by various artists
Climate Change News Roundup by PDNC
Macca's Meatless Monday by beach babe in fl
Hike On! by by RLMiller
ECSTASY by various artists
As always, please list your own favorite climate diaries that I didn't list above in the comments below.
INTO ACTION
• Call Harry Reid and pressure him to bring the APA to the Senate floor instead of a feckless energy-only -giveaway- bill.
Sen. Harry Reid
202-224-3542
He is facing re-election this year. Sure the Teabag Party has made his path to re-election easier, but he still needs our support; make him earn it.
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What action items do you suggest?
Leave items in the comments and I'll update the diary and include them here.
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Previous TWiCC diaries:
• Apr 14, 2010- New series: This week in climate change by LaughingPlanet
• Apr 21, 2010- This week in climate change: ¡Viva Bolivia! by LaughingPlanet
• Apr 28, 2010- This week in climate change- by LaughingPlanet
• May 05, 2010- This week in climate change: Nothing to see here edition by LaughingPlanet
• May 12, 2010- GOP ♥ Terrorists & Big Oil, Hate Jobs by LaughingPlanet
• May 19, 2010- TWiCC - How low can we go? (w/ good news, as always)
by LaughingPlanet
• May 26, 2010- eKos Earthship Wednesday: "it's the climate, stupid!" by boatsie
• June 2, 2010- This Week in Climate Change: Murky Air, Murkier Politics by RLMiller
• June 9, 2010- This week in climate change: Wise-cracker Graham
by LaughingPlanet
Thanks for reading, recommending, and participating in the comments.