Update on my climate activism

The month of my last blog post, in January of 2012, I helped start 350 Madison, the local group of the international climate change organization 350.org.  All of my energies have been directed toward that so I haven't had a chance to blog here very much!  To see what our group has been up to in the last year and a half, check out our website at 350madison.org.

One of my last blog posts here was about the Keystone XL pipeline - I declared it essentially dead, but unfortunately this is a zombie pipeline that just won't die!  While we've been effective at delaying what was once called a "slam dunk" project, there are powerful forces at play in the Canadian government and US fossil fuel industry.  An honest assessment of the risks of KXL, which has to include its effect on climate change, has not been completed.  Instead, the US State Department contracted the environmental assessment out to a company that is a member of the American Petroleum Institute and works with TransCanada (the pipeline company that wants to build KXL).  Not exactly an impartial judge for this project's effects.

So, because the political process is being altered by the power of industry, we're fighting back with people power.  In February 2013, I rode a bus overnight with 150 fellow Wisconsinites to Washington, D.C. for the Forward on Climate Rally - the largest climate rally in US history with over 40,000 people in attendance.  We called on President Obama to lead on climate change, starting with the rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline permit application.  Here I am in front of the White House:

Op-Ed on Keystone XL and America's energy future

I submitted this op-ed to the Wisconsin State Journal newspaper today:

President Obama made the right decision in rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline application.  This is a terrible project and for every argument made for the pipeline, a better alternative exists.  

For example, let’s talk about jobs.  The only independent jobs study, by Cornell University, found that the pipeline would create from 2,500 to 4,650 temporary jobs and several hundred permanent jobs.  TransCanada, the oil company behind the pipeline, has been downright deceptive in its job projections in trying to get the project approved.  Many other opportunities in the energy sector could create thousands of long-term, well-paying positions that would lead us to a clean energy economy.  Obama has already enacted two such policies - mercury emissions rules and Energy Department loan guarantees for wind and solar projects - that will create 113,000 jobs.

Do we really want to continue investing in infrastructure that keeps us locked in to a fuel source that is finite, extremely polluting, and comes with continually rising prices through the basic forces of supply and demand?  In contrast, by investing in renewable, infinite energy sources - such as wind and solar - we are transitioning our economy to energy independence and returning our world to a stable climate.

Our energy security would not improve by building this pipeline.  No one involved in this project is claiming the US would get a significant percentage of oil from the tar sands just because it would be piped through our country.  Once pumped from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, the tar sands would be refined and sold to the highest bidder just like any global commodity.  As long as we remain addicted to fossil fuels, we will still need to get a large percentage of our oil from volatile regions like the Middle East - and we will still be susceptible to threats of cutting off our oil supply by the likes of Iran’s Ahmadinejad, as he has been threatening to do in the last few weeks.

We can facilitate the transition to a clean energy economy by placing a price on carbon.  Through the carbon fee and dividend model, as proposed in the U.S. House of Representatives’ Save Our Climate Act (H.R. 3242), fossil fuel companies are taxed for each ton of carbon dioxide their fuel will generate and that money is then returned to American citizens in the form of a monthly check.  This will eventually make renewable energy cheaper than fossil fuels, thereby creating clear and predictable pricing signals for the business and investment sectors.  This market-based approach encourages robust investment in clean energy businesses and technologies, creating millions of jobs.  If you want Wisconsin, and our nation, to move forward, call your representatives and tell them that you support a price on carbon.  And Obama needs to hear from us that we don’t want the Keystone XL built along any route, at any time.  We want investment in the future, not the past.

Keystone XL pipeline is essentially dead!!!

This.  Is.  Huge.  What we have just witnessed is true democracy at work.  As of several months ago, the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline was all but certain to be approved.  The company who's behind the project, TransCanada, was even in the process of moving pipeline pieces to the proposed route as of last week.

Then, today, Barack Obama announced that the proposal needed to go back to the State Department for a thorough re-assessment of the impacts of the pipeline.  This will delay any decision for more than a year, and if done to the standards requested by Obama, should result in tossing out the pipeline plan.  Obama specifically cited the need for the environmental assessment to include climate change effects if the tar sands are tapped (the effects would be catastrophic, fyi).

So what brought about this seismic shift, when the State Department was weeks away from recommending approval?  People power.  In September, 1253 people were arrested for protesting the pipeline in front of the White House.  Then, on Sunday, over 12,000 people surrounded the White House with signs reminding Obama about his campaign promises to take on climate change.  Dozens of congressmen and congresswomen wrote to Obama about their concerns.  Nine Nobel Peace Prize winners declared their opposition to the pipeline.  College campuses around the country held rallies against the pipeline.  And Obama listened to us.

Power for the People

I read a great article today - Power for the People: Energy For the 99 Percent by Kate Gordon on the blog ClimateProgress.  It's definitely worth taking a few minutes to read.  The article lays out the two versions of our future that we have to decide between.  One version is the 'business-as-usual' option, where we continue to rely on fossil fuels and the corporations who provide those fuels.  These corporations are the most profitable companies in the world's history -- in just the first nine months of 2011, they made $101 billion in PROFITS.  Too bad that's not enough for them:

"Today Washington politicians publicly bicker over renewable energy credit programs that will only cost taxpayers $2.5 billion while the oil-and-gas industry quietly pulls in$7 billion in annual subsidies. But even that is not enough for Big Oil. These companies are now lobbying hard for even more federal government support, for even more of the public’s waters and lands to be opened up for drilling rigs or pipelines, and for even fewer health and safety standards to govern those projects."

Climate change doesn't care about corporate profits.  We can't just pay off the laws of physics to delay the intensification of global warming.  Instead, we need to opt for a cleaner, more just, and more sustainable future now, before our world becomes unrecognizable and unable to support us.  It needs to look something like this:

"Picture an America where at least half of our electricity comes from renewable sources such as wind, solar, wave, and geothermal. Sound impossible? It’s not. Other countries, especially in Europe, are already on track to get there.  Germany has set a goal of 45 percent renewable energy by 2030 and Denmark is hoping to be completely fossil-fuel free by then.

In this America the air and water are clean. The oceans and lakes are healthy enough to support a range of uses, from a vibrant commercial fishing industry, to family trips to the beach in summer, to offshore wind production that powers our economic growth. Our most precious public lands are protected from mining and drilling but remain open for recreation and tourism, which alone create 388,000 jobs on Interior Department lands and 224,000 jobs on Forest Service lands."

The most important point about these two futures is that they are being decided right now.  The House of Representatives is trying to vilify the EPA and strip it of its power to regulate pretty much anything.  The Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act are vastly popular among the public, and yet the majority of the Republicans in the House are trying to undermine our safety to save a few bucks for their political campaign donors.  The approval of the Keystone XL pipeline is another huge game changer in the trajectory our future will take.  Over 12,000 people protested the pipeline at the White House on Sunday.  If you haven't looked into this issue much, please do so here.

Civic action will be necessary if we are to overcome the powerful, well-funded reach of the largest corporations to ever exist.  We need to counteract their selfish, profit-driven interests with the biggest people power movement to ever exist.  Get involved, stay informed, let your elected officials know where you stand, and help actively choose which future you want.

  

Why Local Wins: Adaptation Action

This post is part of my series on the local actions needed to take on climate change.  Go here to read the introduction.


Adapting to a changing climate is something that every one of us will have to get used to in the coming years.  The locked-in changes that are coming aren't going to be easy to deal with, but if we all work together and stop pretending it doesn't even exist, we can come out the other side with a more healthy, sustainable, and just society.


Change isn't easy.  The climate is changing in ways we have never experienced.  The changes we need to make in response to our climate are going to require cooperation between all aspects of society.  Because it is a necessary change, we should act now instead of reacting later.  We need to truly come together - churches, businesses, schools, and government working collaboratively.  This is the only way that real society-wide change can occur.  Top-down orders from government aren't readily accepted by a significant portion of society, resulting in resentment and rejections, but if all affected factions are included in the decision-making process, the chance of successful change grows proportionately to the level of input they're afforded.  Creating a sense of ownership and investment in one's society fosters a connection to its success.  


The focus of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and most Western governments has been on big picture stuff, like the concentration of carbon dioxide in the environment and what the average effects will be throughout the world.  While very important, this focus has abstracted the problem to the point that most people are unaware of how their individual lives and communities will be affected by the coming changes.  Some areas will see more rain, or more droughts, or those by the ocean will need to prepare for rising sea levels, and on and on. The general trend of rising temperatures will have vastly different effects in each locality.  The responsibility to prepare each community will ultimately fall to that community.  Infrastructure decisions are made at the state, county, and city levels, not by international treaties.  For example, deciding the location and height to build a levee in response to projected increases in flood frequency and size is going to depend on that local government getting the most accurate information from climate science.  One encouraging trend is the development of local projection models, as discussed in my previous blog post here, that will allow communities to plan more specifically for their unique challenges ahead.   



If we can get communities involved, city by city, in their own plans for adaptation and reducing greenhouse gases, we will take a big step toward a sustainable future.  Eighty percent of the US population lives in cities.  That means that 80% of the country could enact comprehensive climate policy without having to wait on national politics to finally get a comprehensive plan in place.  Obviously, we need a national plan as soon as possible in order to send a signal to the rest of the world that we will take responsibility and act, but we have waited for this for too long.  We need to act now, wherever we can, and to me that power currently lies at the level of the city.


Grassroots campaigns in each voting district can make this happen - elect politicians who believe in a sustainable future, and hold them accountable to doing just that.

Why Local Wins: Food

This post is part of my series on the local actions needed to take on climate change.  Go here to read the introduction.


The local and sustainable agriculture movement has really blossomed in recent years.  Farmers' markets are thriving, local artisans such as microbrewers, cheese makers, and Slow Food restauranteurs are enjoying great success, and community supported agriculture (CSA) programs have sprouted rapidly (13,000 CSA farms are registered in the US alone).


While this trend has allowed for me personally to imbibe in ridiculously enjoyable amounts of deliciousness in this beer and cheese Mecca called Wisconsin, there's a much more profound reason that I hope the trend continues to expand exponentially.  Local, sustainable agriculture is the way of the future if we are to take on climate change with any hope of success.


The industrial agriculture model from which the majority of our food comes is totally unsustainable.  Because we ship food thousands of miles before it sits on a grocery store shelf for a month and then finally gets eaten, artificial sweeteners and fats are added to avoid food spoilage.  Not only do these additives account for much of the US obesity epidemic, but they also reinforce the monoculture model of agriculture, where corn is king.  The average American consumes 38 pounds of high fructose corn syrup every year - it's in virtually every processed food item we eat.  By only growing one type of crop and by using massive amounts of fertilizers to increase yields, the soil becomes decimated.  Ideally, fields should have time to recover and bring nutrients back to the soil through crop rotation, but in the continual push for higher and higher yields, farmers don't have the chance to do this.  Instead, as the soil in their fields becomes less and less nutrient-rich, they rely on more and more fertilizers, leading to a vicious circle of soil degradation.  


That isn't the worst of it, either.  To make all those fertilizers requires extremely large amounts of fossil fuels, directly increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.  Combine those emissions with the transportation of food cross-country in semi trucks, and our agriculture sector contributes 31% of all GHG emissions each year.  That's more than any other human activity besides the construction, heating, and cooling of buildings.  


Eating locally and sustainably cuts the transportation emissions, cuts the fertilizer emissions, and improves your health because additives aren't needed.


A common criticism of the organic movement is that it's not affordable for everyone, and that the yields aren't enough to support the entire food system.  First of all, conventional agriculture receives billions of dollars in federal subsidies to keep costs artificially low and to research how to increase yields with that agricultural model.  If those dollars went to organic agriculture instead, the prices would surely be much more competitive.  Then add to that the cost of health issues from obesity and the damage done by GHG emissions on our climate, and industrial agriculture's prices skyrocket.  


In Germany, organic farming has been implemented on a large scale and has been found to elicit the same yields as industrial farming after a 3-7 year transition period.  This amount of time could go down if more research funding were funneled toward organic techniques.

You don't have to start your own organic farm to be a part of this transition, although that would be awesome.  You can decide to put your morals where your mouth is and eat ethically, like my friends Shawn and Lianna describe here.  You can also just plant a garden, like Michelle Obama did in the White House South Lawn, an act echoing the Victory Garden movement that Eleanor Roosevelt started during World War II.  Within two years of Roosevelt's push to plant gardens, 50% of all fruits and vegetables consumed in the US were from these household, backyard Victory Gardens.  We can make that happen again.

We all have to eat, so why not do so in a way that is building a healthier, sustainable future?

Why Local Wins: An Introduction

Since the creation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992, we have witnessed international efforts to change the trajectory of our climate crisis.  The process and the results have been frustrating, disappointing, and ineffective.  We have seen large-scale international negotiating efforts fail to bring about a comprehensive international climate change mitigation and adaptation plan.  I feel that continuing these efforts is important, but is beginning to look futile as the years of inaction pile up.

Twenty years of negotiations has led to very little actual change - the Kyoto Protocol has been largely ineffective in actually reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and in several months that treaty will expire, with nothing to replace it as of now.  Twenty years' worth of relative inaction in climate-change-land has had devastating consequences for the trajectory of our future.  The effects of global warming are now locked in for the next 50 years, as Mark Hertsgaard discusses in HOT: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth.  Even if we cut our worldwide carbon emissions to zero as of today (obviously impossible), the amount of greenhouse gas already in the atmosphere will continue to wreak havoc on the climate system.  In order to lower the parts per million to below the 350ppm threshold for a livable world, major changes need to happen NOW.  So, what do we, the concerned public, do when our countries' leaders won't agree on a path forward?

I will be doing a series of posts on what we must do at the local level to start a movement that will:
- lower carbon emissions now, instead of waiting for an international treaty while the problem gets worse
- prepare our communities for the locked-in climate changes to come
- make our leaders unable to ignore climate change and finally act meaningfully on national and international levels

How clean cookstoves can help save the world

Hillary Clinton traveled to India yesterday to promote what I consider her most important and inspiring initiative as Secretary of State: the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves.  This $50 million public/private partnership is working to make clean, efficient household stoves affordable to families in developing countries.

In the developing world, 3 billion people use open fires and traditional wood-burning stoves as their primary means of cooking and heating.  Exposure to the smoke from these practices leads to many chronic and acute illnesses (including emphysema, lung cancer, pneumonia, and heart disease) that result in the premature deaths of 1.8 million people every year.  The vast majority of these victims are women and children, since they are the ones performing most household tasks.  In conflict areas, women's safety is threatened by having to search for wood for hours each day in dangerous war zones.  Efficient stoves would keep these women safer as well as free up all of that time for other activities that could improve their families' lives.  This will empower women by allowing them to pursue educational and/or income opportunities for themselves and their children.

The carbon dioxide, methane, and soot (or 'black carbon') from these dirty stoves and open flames is also a major contributor to climate change.  Carbon dioxide and methane release contributes to worldwide greenhouse gas levels.  The soot from the flames travels through the air and settles on various surfaces; the most damaging settling sites are glaciers and snowpack.  Many people using these forms of heat live in India and China, which is near enough to the Himalayan Mountains that large amounts of soot settle on these snowcapped mountains.  The black color of the soot translates into increased heat/light absorption from the sun, which in turn melts the underlying snow and ice much faster than the natural white color of the snow and ice would.

The clean stoves utilize a wide array of technologies, including solar electric power and fuel pellets made from agricultural waste.  Stoves cost between $10-100 and are made affordable to those in need through micro-lending programs.  The goal of the alliance is to get these efficient stoves into 100 million homes by 2020.  Clinton's visit included an announcement that two major Indian trade federations have signed on to the project, which will increase the visibility and  implementation of the program -- making their goal that much more feasible.

Yay for new air pollution rule!

So, I've been on vacation but now I'm back - and I've got a lot of catching up to do because there've been many very important developments in the last few weeks.  I'll start with the most exciting!

The EPA issued regulations on 7/7/11 that will cut toxic emissions from power plants in the 27 eastern-most states in the US.  Called the 'Cross-State Air Pollution Rule,' it will require nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide levels to decrease by 54% and 73%, respectively, by 2014.  


Every year, this improved air quality will prevent the loss of 34,000 lives and avoid 15,000 heart attacks and 400,000 asthma cases.  This will save taxpayers $280 billion annually in avoided healthcare expenses, while only costing $2.4 billion per year to implement and enforce.  Not a bad return on investment!

Again, Supreme Court defers to EPA

On Monday, the Supreme Court unanimously blocked the case of American Electric Power Co. et al. v. Connecticut et al., ruling that the group of states that brought the lawsuit (California, Connecticut, Iowa, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont) cannot ask the courts to force power companies to cut greenhouse gas emissions.  That authority belongs to the EPA under the Clean Air Act, as determined by the Supreme Court in Massachusetts et al. vs EPA on April 2, 2007.  

The EPA is planning to release these regulations by May 2012, but is facing immense pressure not to do so from Democrats representing coal and oil states as well as from virtually every Republican.  State governments and environmental groups are pushing for regulation of greenhouse gases from every possible angle, and aren't having much success.  Having lost the push for Congressional action in 2009, and having already waited on EPA regulations for the four years since the 2007 Supreme Court ruling, they were appealing to the judicial branch to force immediate action.  Having this case thrown out means that those pushing for regulations will have to keep waiting, as the ruling on Monday further reinforces the 2007 decision that the court won't intervene when a federal law already exists that mandates regulation of greenhouse gases by the EPA. 

The maddening thing about this is the gridlock -- every year of inaction will push our world closer and closer to the tipping points of uncontrollable climate change.  The judicial branch is deferring to the EPA, the EPA was waiting on a climate bill from Congress, and Congress is being controlled by special interests in the oil industry who want to maintain the status quo and, therefore, their power.  The Obama administration is under attack because its EPA is attempting to exercise the very authority reinforced twice now by the Supreme Court.

Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich), the Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee (which oversees the Dept. of Energy), stated in a Washington Post op-ed that EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions is an "unconstitutional power grab that will kill millions of jobs."  His co-author, Tim Phillips, is the president of Americans for Prosperity -- the front group for the infamous Koch brothers (Koch Industries is a major player in the business of refining and distributing petroleum and natural gas).  Does it bother anyone else that the Chairman of the ECC is presenting his opinions on the role of the EPA and the future of energy along with the president of a group that would benefit immensely from a lack of greenhouse gas regulations?  

This is no coincidence.  In 2010 alone, Upton received $20,000 in contributions from Koch employees.  Before becoming Chairman, Upton was known as a moderate Republican who in 2009 said "we need to reduce emissions."  This is in obvious opposition to his statement in the aforementioned op-ed that regulations are unnecessary because "this presumes that carbon is a problem in need of regulation. We are not convinced."  Oh, really?  What happened in 18 months to change your mind?  Perhaps $20,000?  

Until we can get the special interest money out of government, we won't be able to unlock the gridlock.  Campaign finance reform:  our last best hope.

Battery breakthrough!

Our addiction to fossil fuels is the biggest contributor to global warming, so if we are to halt this destruction of our livable climate, we need to find a way to break away from that addiction.  Our world's need for energy is continually increasing due to overpopulation and the worldwide rise in standard of living, so we need to find a way of increasing energy production and availability while decreasing the proportion of that energy coming from fossil fuel sources.

A big barrier in moving from fossil fuels to clean energy has been finding cheap and effective ways to store the electricity produced from clean energy sources.  Battery technology has just leaped forward with MIT's announcement of a breakthrough in semi-solid flow cell batteries.

Lead researcher Yet-Ming Chiang describes the battery architecture as "using two proven technologies [solid state lithium-ion batteries and liquid-flow batteries] and putting them together."  The result is a black sludge-like material that may be the solution to long-standing battery challenges.

Called 'Cambridge crude' because of its similar appearance to oil, the battery has many advantages over previous technologies:

1)  It's cheaper to make than solid state lithium-ion batteries that are currently in electric cars.

2)  It has 10 times the energy storage capacity of liquid-flow batteries, so a small battery can pack in a lot of energy.  This lessens the weight and size of the battery, which makes it much lighter and smaller than solid state lithium-ion batteries.

3)  Because of its small size, low cost, and fluidity, it's easy to quickly pump it in and out of a car like gasoline. With current lithium-ion powered electric cars, you have to wait for a solid state battery to recharge by plugging it in or pay a high price for a fully-charged spare battery.

These features could mean that the semi-solid flow cell battery is the key to finally making electric cars competitive with gas-powered cars.

Besides personal transportation, this technology can be scaled to a large size for a low cost, so that wind and solar plants can use it to store intermittent energy sources for later use (i.e. when it's not sunny or not windy, the power plant can tap into the stored energy).

The research team's goal is by September 2013 to have a "fully-functioning, reduced-scale prototype system ready to be engineered for production as a replacement for existing electric-car batteries."  MIT has partnered with a new company, 24M, to make this happen.  They've already raised $16 million and have also won funding from the Department of Defense's ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy), the energy equivalent of the agency that funded the creation of the internet...so let's hope for another rousing success as big as the internet, eh?

How will climate change look from your front porch?

The state of California is once again leading the way as an innovative, visionary force for developing solutions to complex societal issues.  Last week, the California Energy Commission launched a very exciting project called Cal-Adapt.  Its purpose is to "synthesize existing California climate change scenarios and climate impact research and to encourage its use in a way that is beneficial for local decision-makers."  More simply, it's a place for the public to see how climate change will affect their local area, which will help them plan for place-specific adaptation.

A collaboration between UC-Berkeley, Google, California Natural Resources Agency, and others, the website brings together the most current climate change research available so that a user can visualize how their local sea level, temperature, wildlife, precipitation, etc, will be affected by a changing climate.  The user is also able to compare data from the past thirty years with current and projected scenario measurements, making for powerful side-by-side analysis.  The projections are given in ranges for high-emissions and low-emissions futures, which could prove to be a powerful motivator for strong emissions reductions when people see how those two pathways lead to two very different outcomes for their hometowns.

Climate change has proven to be a difficult issue for which to elicit strong action from the public, in part because with a global problem, global averages are the main data presented to the public.  When given averages of possible temperature, precipitation, or sea level change on a global scale, it can be hard for the projections to resonate with people on a personal level.  This site has the potential to show people how their individual lives will be affected and why they need to care about climate change.  Hopefully, this will translate to faster and stronger actions toward fighting climate change.

Now we just need to get this started in the other 49 states and every other country...

Decisions are made by those who show up

I just finished reading the book Retaking Rationality: How Cost-Benefit Analysis Can Better Protect the Environment and Our Health, which lays out a convincing argument for why progressives should be embracing cost-benefit analysis instead of refusing to engage with the process on moral principle.  It serves as an action plan for environmentalists to push for the reform of the federal government's approval process for environmental and safety regulations.

Since Ronald Reagan's 1981 Executive Order 12,291 established the requirement for a cost-benefit analysis for all proposed regulation, the process has been defined and dominated by an anti-regulatory approach.  The assumption has been that all regulations are overreaching and overly stringent, so cost-benefit analysis should serve as a check to that power by making agencies prove that a proposed regulation will not place an undue economic burden on the affected group.  The assumption that regulators are power-hungry empire builders is a false narrative that industries and small government ideologues have developed to vilify those that are trying to protect the American people and our environment.  Environmental, health, and safety regulations are often times the only resource for the less powerful to be protected from those without our best interests in mind - the actual power-hungry empire builders:  corporations.

When corporations are told that they need to put the public good above their bottom line, they feel their freedom to make as much money as possible is being infringed upon.  So, since Reagan's presidency, industry has pushed for less and less regulation in the name of economic growth above all else.  They have rationalized this process through cost-benefit analysis by assigning costs to things that are not currently traded in our economy, i.e. the cost of a human life.  The cost to industry to implement a safety regulation is balanced against the benefits of the regulation, usually in terms of the monetary value of the number of lives saved.  If the costs are more than the benefits, the regulation is not implemented.

There are obvious moral problems with assigning an economic value to intangibles such as 'life' or 'the beauty of nature' - which is why progressives have historically dismissed the very practice of cost-benefit analysis.  However, for the past 30 years this is the way that decisions have been made about how our health and environment are being protected.  By removing ourselves from the debate on moral grounds, we have ceded the development of the methodology of cost-benefit analysis to the anti-regulatory crowd.  This has led to an imbalanced process where the costs of proposed regulations are vastly overstated and the benefits are grossly underestimated.  Those undervalued benefits need to be more accurately represented by changing the methodology used to calculate values, such as 'clean air to breathe.'  When the formulas and surveys used to establish these values have been developed by the people who don't want regulations to pass, it's no surprise that fewer stringent regulations will pass cost-benefit analysis tests.

By refusing to engage in the process, we lose the ability to argue rationally for protecting our health and environment.  Pro-regulatory groups can be written off as tree hugger activists or as big government zealots if they aren't speaking the same language of economics as anti-regulatory groups.  If the current system were reformed, we could get rationality back on our side by showing that the actual value of protecting our health and environment is much higher than has been previously represented in regulatory equations.  For example, it is common when calculating the costs of a regulation to include any unintended risks that may result from implementing the regulation.  However, unintended benefits are rarely included.  This is not rational, and this methodology must be reformed to adequately reflect the actual effects a regulation would have.  There are many, many institutionalized practices such as this that make no logical sense, yet are being used to make critical decisions about which regulations are implemented.  If pro-regulatory groups push for reform of these types of obviously irrational methods, a more balanced system can be developed.

While some may advocate for the all-out elimination of cost-benefit analysis, this seems unlikely and irresponsible.  It is unlikely because our society, for better or worse, is currently structured around economic valuation - if you can't put a price on it, it doesn't have value in our marketplace.  It's irresponsible because elimination of cost-benefit analysis has been the approach of environmental groups for 30 years, and the lack of involvement in its development has had tragic consequences for the implementation and stringency of regulations.

Cost-benefit analysis seems to be here to stay, so we should sit down at the negotiating table instead of ceding victory by default.

EPA kills dirty coal plan, not jobs

Last week,  EPA officials announced a veto of the Spruce Mine permit, which was the largest coal-mining mountaintop removal permit ever proposed in West Virginia history.  The reasons for the veto were summed up in this statement from the EPA:

"EPA’s final determination on the Spruce Mine comes after discussions with the company spanning more than a year failed to produce an agreement that would lead to a significant decrease in impacts to the environment and Appalachian communities. The action prevents the mine from disposing the waste into streams unless the company identifies an alternative mining design that would avoid irreversible damage to water quality and meets the requirements of the law."

Not only did EPA officials try to reach a compromise, they took the extra step of hiring an independent mine engineering firm that developed an alternative plan that would have decreased environmental impacts by half while maintaining the same coal production at virtually the same cost.  This proposal was obviously not accepted by Arch Coal, the company who submitted the permit.  Instead, Arch Coal has set out on a publicity tirade against the decision.  Joined by West Virginian politicians and the National Mining Association,  it seems that this veto was all part of the coal industry's new PR plan (see Matt Wasson's Huff Post article for more on this).  This veto is perfect fuel for the anti-regulatory fire being stoked by many members of the newly elected US Congress, and the coal industry can only benefit from that fire turning into a blaze (a coal-fueled blaze, that is).  The National Mining Assocaition issued this fear-mongering statement about the effects this decision will have on, apparently, every single American:

"The implications could be staggering, reaching all areas of the U.S. economy including but not limited to the agriculture, home building, mining, transportation and energy sectors.

If EPA is allowed to revoke this permit, every similarly valid ... permit held by any entity -- businesses, public works agencies and individual citizens -- will be in increased regulatory limbo and potentially subject to the same unilateral, after-the-fact revocation."

By the sound of that statement, it surely would be safe to assume that this Spruce Mine permit must have been a huge opportunity for economic growth in the region...one that would have created hundreds of jobs and significantly provided for our increasing energy demands...otherwise its denial wouldn't be affecting the entire US economy.  In actuality, the amount of coal that would have been mined from Spruce Mine would have increased US production by less than 1%.  And the job creation?   The region would have most likely lost jobs if this had been approved, because production in nearby underground mines, where real humans must be paid to excavate coal, would be shifted to the much more efficient mountaintop removal method.  Coal companies have been rapidly shifting to mountaintop mining because they can save so much money by replacing miners with machines.




The day before this permit was vetoed, another energy sector announcement made news in Massachusetts.  This announcement actually is of national significance in terms of the direct impact our regulatory decisions are having on American jobs.  The Evergreen Solar plant announced that it is shutting its doors, moving 800 jobs to China.  Their reason for closing?  A lack of clean energy subsidies offered in the US in comparison to China.  These subsidies are used to quickly bring new technologies to scale and drive production prices down.  In the US, energy subsidies are instead given to coal companies like Arch Coal, and these misplaced subsidies have left American companies like Evergreen unable to compete with the cheaper cost of their counterpart Chinese products, thus directly leading to lost jobs for middle class America.

Solar Panels to Return to White House

Finally, Obama has decided to answer thousands of petitioners' calls to place solar panels back on the White House roof.  This announcement restores at least a semblance of hope that Obama gets the importance of executive branch support for serious clean energy and climate change action.  However, this should have been done in his first year in office, or at the very least before the climate bill was put together in the Senate.  Now seems like a random time to be announcing this.  Why didn't he decide to show such visible support for clean energy in conjunction with his calls for passing a comprehensive clean energy bill last summer?!?  Seems like a huge missed opportunity to me...

The solar panels will be installed this coming spring, and it will only be for the Obamas' private quarters.  President Carter's solar panels in the 1970s powered the West Wing offices.  Can we read into the symbolism here and say that Obama doesn't want the public to take the solar panel installation as meaning that the government must be involved in clean energy deployment, but that it should be a household-by-household choice?  At least it's a move up from where George W. had his solar panels -- powering his swimming pool and a maintenance building.

Winds of Change...or not

The lack of a comprehensive clean energy and climate bill from the US Senate this year is having severe implications in the renewable energy sector.  Today, the Des Moines Register published an article that highlights the uncertainty among businesses and investors in wind energy.

There is no national long-term renewable energy mandate, which would stipulate that a certain percentage of every utility company's energy sources must come from renewable sources.  No plan exists to end subsidies to the fossil fuel industry or to institute a cap-and-trade system, both of which would place a more accurate price on the true costs of such energy.  The ability of renewable energy companies to compete and grow is being stunted by this political inaction.  "I would be reluctant to invest in more wind generation right now unless I knew I was required to do it or the market price of power was higher," said Tom Wind, an industry consultant in Iowa.

Iowa is the second leading wind energy producer in the nation, and yet zero wind projects are currently under construction.  Some say that this is because of the slow economy, but in fact, funding to subsidize new projects could have been easily provided by adopting a cap-and-trade system or transferring even a small percentage of the current fossil fuel industry subsidies to the renewable industry.

Iowa currently has 9,000 green job, many of which are in peril if the government doesn't continue to support renewables.  Most of these jobs are through small businesses that are either manufacturing wind turbines or installing/maintaining wind farms.  While the federal government, especially the Republican party, is saying they support small businesses, this is a clear example that they are in fact hurting them through their refusal to move forward with any renewable mandates.

The future world economy will be based on designing, developing, manufacturing, implementing, and maintaining renewable energy resources.  Those 9,000 jobs currently in Iowa could easily be tripled or more in the near future if we would look forward instead of clinging to the status quo.  Our inaction is severely damaging our ability to be a thriving nation in the 21st century and beyond.

Ecosystems in the Age of Cassandra

Kristen L. Marhaver, a PhD student in marine biology, has written a piece titled "Ecosystems in the Age of Cassandra" in Science Progress that urges the scientific community to change the way research findings are shared with the public and with policy makers.  Currently, major scientific research results get minimal time in the fast-paced media cycle before they are brushed aside and forgotten.  If a policy maker wants to compile the latest information on a scientific subject by going to the source instead of relying on mass media, s/he must sift through hundreds of publications, many of which are subscription based or protected by the university or lab who 'owns' the results.  Because there is no coordinated database for compiling such results, many policy makers are ill-informed of the current recommendations and warnings the scientific community is making, especially in regards to climate change and ecosystem deterioration due to human actions. 

The solution Kristen discusses is to create a comprehensive, free, open-to-the-public database of all federally-funded research.  It would also feature a search engine that policy makers could use to type in, say, "wetland habitat damage" and immediately have access to the latest information from the experts.  This would make it much easier to determine the scientific consensus as to which recommended actions would avoid said problem or threat.

The importance of getting the appropriate information to the decision makers of our country cannot be overstated.  Kristen puts it like this:

"Science produces some of the world’s most powerful information and we should be harnessing the full power of the information age to compile this knowledge and transmit it to policymakers. Otherwise we will simply be documenting, in exquisite detail but out of earshot of our decision makers, the death of planet Earth."

Really, Louisiana Senate?!?

Social and environmental justice concerns are converging in the midst of the massive oil leak/spill/volcano. Mother Jones blogger Mac McClelland's post "A Strike Against Oil Spill Lawsuits" discusses the Louisiana legislature's current project: Senate Bill 549. This bill, which the senate is holding a hearing on tomorrw, would severely limit the work of university law clinics that represent low-income clients. These clinics would be barred from filing suits against government agencies, suits seeking monetary damages, or suits that raise state constitutional challenges.

The main target is the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic, where law students take on cases against industrial polluters on behalf of Louisiana's citizens. The reason for being targeted? The senate wants Louisiana to be seen by businesses as pro-industry and wants to send a message that all these pesky lawsuits are doing is hurting Louisiana's economy. What's worse still is that environmental lawsuits won't be the only suits restricted. Not only is this bill pro-business, it is pro-wealthy. Also barred will be suits by civil rights plaintiffs, domestic violence victims, and juveniles. Those who cannot afford their own lawyers and turn to such clinics to seek justice will have that resource removed. But hey, at least industries will know that they can pollute without repercussions for their irresponsible, damaging actions!

"Climate Change and the Integrity of Science"

Yesterday, 255 National Academy of Sciences members published this statement in the journal Science, standing up to the recent attacks on scientists and clearly laying out why inaction toward climate change is not an option. This is exactly what the scientific community needs to be doing, because reason and facts are on their side.

"Climate Change and the Integrity of Science"

We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular. All citizens should understand some basic scientific facts. There is always some uncertainty associated with scientific conclusions; science never absolutely proves anything. When someone says that society should wait until scientists are absolutely certain before taking any action, it is the same as saying society should never take action. For a problem as potentially catastrophic as climate change, taking no action poses a dangerous risk for our planet.

Scientific conclusions derive from an understanding of basic laws supported by laboratory experiments, observations of nature, and mathematical and computer modeling. Like all human beings, scientists make mistakes, but the scientific process is designed to find and correct them. This process is inherently adversarial—scientists build reputations and gain recognition not only for supporting conventional wisdom, but even more so for demonstrating that the scientific consensus is wrong and that there is a better explanation. That’s what Galileo, Pasteur, Darwin, and Einstein did. But when some conclusions have been thoroughly and deeply tested, questioned, and examined, they gain the status of “well-established theories” and are often spoken of as “facts.”

For instance, there is compelling scientific evidence that our planet is about 4.5 billion years old (the theory of the origin of Earth), that our universe was born from a single event about 14 billion years ago (the Big Bang theory), and that today’s organisms evolved from ones living in the past (the theory of evolution). Even as these are overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, fame still awaits anyone who could show these theories to be wrong. Climate change now falls into this category: There is compelling, comprehensive, and consistent objective evidence that humans are changing the climate in ways that threaten our societies and the ecosystems on which we depend.

Many recent assaults on climate science and, more disturbingly, on climate scientists by climate change deniers are typically driven by special interests or dogma, not by an honest effort to provide an alternative theory that credibly satisfies the evidence. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other scientific assessments of climate change, which involve thousands of scientists producing massive and comprehensive reports, have, quite expectedly and normally, made some mistakes. When errors are pointed out, they are corrected. But there is nothing remotely identified in the recent events that changes the fundamental conclusions about climate change:

(i) The planet is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. A snowy winter in Washington does not alter this fact.

(ii) Most of the increase in the concentration of these gases over the last century is due to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.

(iii) Natural causes always play a role in changing Earth’s climate, but are now being overwhelmed by human-induced changes.

(iv) Warming the planet will cause many other climatic patterns to change at speeds unprecedented in modern times, including increasing rates of sea-level rise and alterations in the hydrologic cycle. Rising concentrations of carbon dioxide are making the oceans more acidic.

(v) The combination of these complex climate changes threatens coastal communities and cities, our food and water supplies, marine and freshwater ecosystems, forests, high mountain environments, and far more.

Much more can be, and has been, said by the world’s scientific societies, national academies, and individuals, but these conclusions should be enough to indicate why scientists are concerned about what future generations will face from business-as-usual practices. We urge our policy-makers and the public to move forward immediately to address the causes of climate change, including the un restrained burning of fossil fuels.

We also call for an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them. Society has two choices: We can ignore the science and hide our heads in the sand and hope we are lucky, or we can act in the public interest to reduce the threat of global climate change quickly and substantively. The good news is that smart and effective actions are possible. But delay must not be an option.

The Gusher in the Gulf

The past few weeks have been a stark reminder of the perils of our fossil fuel addiction. So much has been written about the Gulf spill and its catastrophic damage to the ecosystems and economies in the wide area that is bound to be affected before this disaster is over. While obviously tragic, there is a great opportunity here for a reframing of the energy and climate debate. Because the Senate bill has been indefinitely postponed, this is a prime chance to demand more support for renewables and eliminate the giveaways to the oil and coal companies that are in the current bill. Barack Obama needs to clearly and strongly lay out to America and the world why the path we are on is so dangerous. He needs to connect the major catastrophies of the past few years and show that the financial industry, coal industry, and oil industry disasters were all a result of a lack of government oversight and regulation.

Limited regulation is necessary in these industries. Without it, we have seen how greed for profit trumps all thoughts of what is good for the public. The government's job is to protect the public from such tyranny. We gave corporations the chance to self-regulate through voluntary safety standards, and as a result we have seen irresponsible sub-prime mortgage lending that led to the biggest economic recession since the Great Depression, we've seen 28 coal miners killed because of negligence to enforce basic safety standards by Massey Corp, and now we're seeing a tragic, thus-far unstoppable underwater volcano of oil erupting.

If BP had complied with the voluntary safety recommendations from the US Minerals Management Service to place a remote-control shut off for the well, the well could be closed by now. For a company who made $5.6 billion in the first quarter of 2010, spending $500,000 on this technology seems like a drop in the bucket, but its absence has now led to a gusher in the Gulf.