Blog & news round-up July 24: the cost of inaction, debunking bogus statements and the Navajo Nation goes green

With the August congressional recess coming up and health care reform dominating the headlines, it may seem like climate and energy are off the national radar. In fact, there's plenty going on, both in and out of Capitol Hill.

Supporters of clean energy and climate legislation in the Senate are working hard behind the scenes, preparing different portions of a bill they hope to pass later this year. Unlike the last time the Senate considered a climate bill, when just one committee was in charge of the process, this time it's different:

This time around, Senate Democrats are trying another approach. They have set out to work as a team, with six separate committees trying to write language that can build ownership among influential swing votes well before the floor debate begins.

"To me, the more committees that are involved, the happier I am, because you get more and more colleagues that get to understand it, that get to be part of it," Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) told reporters last week. "The more colleagues that play a role, the better."

Opponents of a strong clean energy bill have been busy trying to scare both voters and backers of the Waxman-Markey bill by arguing that it will result in higher energy costs and job losses. In fact, the cost of inaction would be much higher:

Measures needed to tackle global warming could save economies more money than they cost, the world's top climate change expert said today.

Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told the Guardian: "The cost could undoubtedly be negative overall." This is because of the additional benefits that reducing greenhouse gas emissions could bring, beyond limiting temperature rises.

Until now, estimates of the price of preventing dangerous climate change have all indicated significant costs. The most authoritative study, the 2006 Stern report, concluded that 1% of global GDP would be required, and he has since said 2% is now more likely.

For a thorough debunking of the worst scare tactics from climate action opponents, you can't do much better than Bill Becker's "The top ten bogus statements (BS) in the climate debate." Here's just one:

No. 8 BS: The answer to energy security is to produce more oil, coal and gas here at home. We have ample supplies. The “drill baby drill” policy was a prominent plank at the Republican National Convention and it’s still being used, most recently by Wyoming Republican John Barrasso in a hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Reality check: The real question today isn’t how much carbon we have left in the ground; it’s how much we can put into the sky.  The answer is: No more. As the former Arab oil minister said, “The stone age didn’t end because we ran out of stones.” It ended because we found a better way to do things. There is no mandate that we must extract all the fossil fuels we find and burn all the fossil fuels we can extract. However, there is definitely a limit on how much we can burn – and we have reached it.

Much ink and pixels have been devoted to some of the more disappointing compromises reached to pass ACES, but this week Architecture 2030's Edward Mazria draws attention to one of the bill's best provisions: its building energy codes:

No matter what else is compromised or changed in the climate bill working its way through the Senate, Section 201 must not be changed or weakened. Why? Because all other energy and emissions reduction approaches pale in comparison to what Section 201 will accomplish. Without it, we simply cannot meet the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets called for in the bill. We won’t even come close.

The whole piece is worth reading, especially the cost comparison of emission reductions between building 100 new nuclear plants vs. the Section 201 codes.

As for the supposed job losses that a strong clean energy bill would cause, ask the Navajo Nation why they're looking to create green jobs instead of throwing their lot with the dirty fossil fuels of the past:

We can all be excited about this development. On July 21, 2009 in Window Rock AZ, the 21st Navajo Nation Council voted "green" and passed the enactment of the Navajo Green Economy Commission, which would oversee the use of federal, state and private funds for green job initiatives. Through the measure, community members could apply for funding to create projects that the commission deems "green." Navajo Nation Speaker Lawrence T. Morgan and the Navajo Green Economy Coalition (NGEC) developed the legislation to support the creation of hundreds of green jobs on the Navajo Nation.

Check out this video from the Navajo Green Economy Coalition about their efforts to create green jobs in the Navajo community:

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