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Gillian Caldwell — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:02:27 +0000

Tonight, President Obama is expected to go to bat for his key priorities including energy, health care, and education in a national primetime press conference. We need him now more than ever to enlist every state in this country in the challenge to rebuild a clean, green economy.

The American economy will not be well until we break our reliance on oil and coal and produce energy from renewable sources that create American jobs. Now is the time. This administration and Congress can, with our help, usher in a new era of clean safe sources of energy that will never run out.

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Luis Hestres — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 15:09:45 +0000

I was going to devote this blog exclusively to the energy speech President Obama delivered at Georgetown University, but there are some disturbing reports in the press today that I need to address first.

Despite public denials from the White House, the AP reports that behind the scenes the president's team is insisting some Republican proposals to gut the Clean Air Act must be included in a bill to fund the government through September 30th. If these reports are true, this would be a betrayal of the American people's demands for strong protections against all kinds of pollution -- not to mention a betrayal of millions of voters and volunteers who supported the president in 2008 because of his positions on climate change and the environment.

First, the president failed to push through Congress a comprehensive climate and clean energy bill as he promised he would. Now he seems willing to sell out his own EPA's regulations of climate pollution -- the best tools we have right now to deal with climate here at home -- to get a spending deal from Congress. Every American who cares about clean air, healthy communities and the dangers of climate change should be outraged that this giveaway to dirty polluters is even being discussed -- I know I am.

The health and welfare of every community in this country and around the world will be jeopardized if Obama allows Congress to gut the Clean Air Act. Shame on you, Mr. President, for even putting this on the table.

And now, on to the the president's speech:

On Wednesday, President Obama addressed the energy crisis in a national speech from Georgetown University. As many have pointed out, this was a huge opportunity for him to reframe the energy debate, push for less dependence of fossil fuels, and remind the American public that high gas prices are part of a larger problem: a dependence on high-risk fossil fuels like oil and coal.

The president not only missed the opportunity to fight for a clean energy future, he actually turned his back on it. In his only mention of potential energy sources, the president placed dirty coal, wind, and solar in the same category of clean energy alternatives. To lump coal together with truly clean energy sources like solar and wind is just ridiculous. Coal has never been and will never be a clean energy source, unless you count pumping billions of toxic tons of carbon pollution, lead, arsenic, and mercury into the air as "clean." As a mom, I would say that is about as far from the "clean" I want my son exposed to as we can get.

In addition to praising the virtues of dirty coal, the president took the opportunity to pose a "solution" to our energy problems: more drilling. Reduce our dependence on big oil? No, that would hurt profits and CEO bonuses. Drill more? That will apparently solve all our problems. The president was right on one point: the reason we keep seeing seesawing energy prices is because we are dependent on high-risk dirty energy that hurts our wallets, our families, and our climate. But the solution is not to transfer more of that risk home; it is to find less risky sources of energy.

Though I was happy to hear the president specifically mention climate change and the need for the U.S. to rise to the challenge of a cleaner energy future, the fact is it just isn't enough. Even what little he mentioned was for the larger priority of drilling for more oil. I am outraged that it all sounded like a page from the Koch brothers' "Americans for Prosperity" policy manual. We know their messaging is strong, but that's all the more reason for President Obama to push back on it. We need him now, more than ever, to stand up forcefully for a clean energy economy and climate action.

Look, we get it: pressure from industry is mounting to all-time highs, with money pouring in at record levels. The election season is, as always, right around the corner. Just last week, when our volunteers hit the Hill to talk to their elected officials, we heard it time and time again: industry is killing us on this -- where are folks on the ground?

So yes, we are deeply disappointed. But the thing is, we also should be disappointed that we, as people who care about climate change, weren't louder on this issue. It's time for us to also rise to the standard we ask of the president -- to stand stronger, louder, and more united. We have to give the president something to respond to rather than just something to lead on by building a stronger movement. That's our calling right now. The world depends on this movement getting stronger and louder.

This speech, along with reports about the possible gutting of the Clean Air Act as part of a spending bill, must force us to work harder to build the grassroots climate movement we need. We are at a crossroads. Our words alone are not strong enough to counteract the money poured into our politics by big polluters: it is time to organize and act.

Will @BarackObama sell out the #CleanAirAct for a deal with Congress?

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Luis Hestres — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 19:17:31 +0000

Just how low can the U.S. Chamber go? Pretty low, according to former Bush cyber security czar and counter-terrorism expert Richard Clarke. As part of its ongoing investigation into allegations that the U.S. Chamber engaged "private security firms" to sabotage progressive groups, Think Progress interviewed Clarke during a cyber security conference in Washington DC. Clarke concluded that, if the allegations are true, the U.S. Chamber committed a felony:

CLARKE: I think it’s a violation of 10USC. I think it’s a felony, and I think they should go to jail. You call them a large trade association, I call them a large political action group that took foreign money in the last election. But be that as it may, if you in the United States, if any American citizen anywhere in the world, because this is an extraterritorial law, so don’t think you can go to Bermuda and do it, if any American citizen anywhere in the world engages in unauthorized penetration, or identity theft, accessing a number through identity theft purposes, that’s a felony and if the Chamber of Commerce wants to try that, that’s fine with me because the FBI will be on their doorstep in a matter of hours.

Listen here

We're heavily involved in 350.org's new "The Chamber Doesn't Speak for Me" campaign. The aim is to blow up the myth that the Chamber speaks for thousands on mom-and-pop stores when in reality it's a front group for mega-corporations, including big polluters trying to destroy the Clean Air Act. If you haven't already, speak up against the Chamber and join the campaign today!

Clean energy is one of the few economic sectors that is growing at a rapid rate and creating jobs. So what's a deeply unpopular, union-busting governor of a state with 8.2% percent unemployment to do? Drive clean energy businesses away from his state, of course:

Wind energy developer Invenergy pulled the plug on a planned wind farm in Wisconsin last week, in the first of what may be a slew of such money-losing exits for the state.

The Chicago-based firm cited the state's "regulatory uncertainty" in its decision to cancel plans for the 150-megawatt Ledge Wind Energy Center in southern Brown County.

Invenergy said that the abrupt suspension of state wind siting rules and an "unstable climate" — namely Gov. Scott Walker's bill to establish the nation's most stringent wind standards — had forced the firm to think twice about building its 100-turbine project in Wisconsin.

Of course, when you know who butters Scott Walker's bread, this all makes perfect sense.

Some good news on the clean energy front: According to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, clean energy is becoming increasingly cheaper and more competitive:

Clean sources of energy such as wind and solar will be no more expensive than oil and gas projects by the end of the decade, US Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Wednesday.

President Barack Obama's administration has been encouraging companies to invest in green growth, calling it a new source of jobs and fearing that other nations -- led by China -- are stealing the march.

"Before maybe the end of this decade, I see wind and solar being cost-competitive without subsidy with new fossil fuel," Chu told an event at the Pew Charitable Trusts.

. . .

The US Congress has rejected attempts to mandate curbs on carbon emissions blamed for climate change, with many members of the Republican Party arguing that reducing dependence on fossil fuels would be too expensive.

Hopefully as clean energy becomes more and more competitive, opponents will be forced to drop the price tag boogeyman as an excuse to keep propping up dirty energy -- but don't count on it.

Polluters' friends in Congress have also been harping about the rising price of gas and offering their old stand-by, simplistic non-solution: drill, baby, drill! Never mind that gas prices have almost nothing to do with domestic oil production and everything to do with the inherent instability of global oil markets. Thankfully, Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) stepped into the breach to provide some much-needed perspective to the debate (such as it is). Dave Roberts approves:

Apparently, [Bingaman] finally had enough of the overheated, unmoored ideological fantasies that pass for public discussion of gas prices. So he dropped some knowledge.

First, he explained that the price of gas follows the price of oil. Then he explained that the price of oil is set on the global market. It is largely unaffected by domestic policies like EPA carbon restrictions and Gulf oil permitting. It is only barely affected, and only at the margins, by U.S. supply, which flows from just 2 percent of the world's reserves. (After all, U.S. production has been rising even as oil prices rise too.) The price of oil is shaped by supply constraints in petrostates, demand growth in developing countries, OPEC policy, and unrest in the Middle East. None of those, you'll note, take place in America.

What follows is an inescapable conclusion (my emphasis):

But what can Congress do to help ease the burden of high prices for U.S. consumers, when oil prices are determined mostly outside our borders? I think a realistic, responsible answer has to be focused on becoming less vulnerable to oil price changes over the medium- and long-term. And we become less vulnerable by using less oil.

Finally, have you registered for Power Shift 2011 yet? General registration ends on March 27 -- your last chance to get a good rate before late registration kicks in. Check out this inspiring post from the Power Shift blog and then register today!

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Luis Hestres — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 17:06:12 +0000

As Naima noted in last Friday's roundup, the percentage of Americans who believe climate change is real has dropped to the lowest point since 1998, from roughly two-thirds in 2008 to just 51% in 2010.This is no coincidence: From the so-called "Climategate" incident to the circus of last week's Upton-Inhofe Dirty Air Act hearings, big polluters and their allies in Congress have waged a concerted campaign to undermine climate science for years.

All of us who accept the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate have to fight back against this well-funded disinformation campaign. And now the philanthropic arm of one of the world's larges tech companies is doing just that:

Climate change skeptics who have created a political megaphone in Washington may finally meet their match in the world's largest search engine.

Google.org, the technology giant's philanthropic arm, has hand-picked a team of 21 fellows working in climate research to improve the way the science of global warming is communicated to the public and lawmakers through new media.

"We are seeing very clearly with climate change that our policy choices are currently not grounded in knowledge and understanding," said Paul Higgins, a Google fellow and an associate policy director for the American Meteorological Society.

Find out more about the program at Google.org's blog. More of this, please!

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Naima Pearce — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 19:21:06 +0000

As the 2012 elections draw closer, the numbers at the pump could directly effect the ones at the polls. President Obama has had to quash criticisms that the climbing gas prices were owed to stalled domestic oil production. Rather, the spike is owed to the Middle East instability and most noticeably the unrest in Libya.

Regardless of the origin of higher gas prices, they point once again to the importance of new, clean, and renewable sources of energy with prices that don't rise and fall with the political tides. Wind and solar power generated here at home won't be derailed by oil spills, cut short by political unrest, or subject to shutdown amidst public health concern.

Such reasonable analysis, however, seems beyond the current Congress. House Speaker John Boehner, is working hard to connect high gas prices to EPA rules in an attempt to further support for revoking the EPA's authority over greenhouse gasses. Meanwhile, Representatives Fred Upton (R-MI) and Ed Whitfield (R-KY), of Dirty Air Bill fame, have been touting the proposed measure as the cure-all for the rising gas prices. In a joint letter by Upton and Whitfield titled "Concerned About High Gas Prices? Cosponsor H.R. 910 and Make a Difference Today!" they argue that derailing the Clean Air Act and the EPA is our only chance at salvation.

When weak connections are made between the EPA's regulatory measures and the sticker price on gasoline or leaving Americans without a livelihood, we tread on dangerous territory that leaves us misinformed or uninformed about much higher costs. Representatives Upton and Whitfield aren't presenting a solution to pump prices. They're not offering alternatives or innovation -- they are reinforcing dependencies on old habits that stunt our investment in a clean, and reliable, energy future.

High gas prices are hurting American families. So are the billions of dollars spent in medical bills and hospitalizations caused by toxic pollutants expelled from coal-fired power plants, and so is the remaining oil in the gulf of Mexico. As Naomi Klein put it recently on Democracy Now!

... We are now in the era of extreme energy. The easy-to-get fossil fuels have pretty much been gotten, and now it’s the harder-to-get stuff, the more-expensive-to-get stuff and the riskier stuff... I think we need to get away from this idea that we’re just going on as we’ve always gone on. No, we aren’t. If we don’t get off fossil fuels, we are accepting a much, much higher-risk energy trajectory.

Volatile prices, risky energy solutions. There is a way out. We can tackle the climate crisis, we can pursue a clean energy future, but first we need you. We need to come together and demand it. We have to stand up and be counted as advocates for a clean American energy future.

In the next few weeks, as we join 350's "The U.S. Chamber Doesn't Speak for Me" campaign, we will be asking business owners to stand up and be clear that when the US Chamber advocates against the Clean Air Act, against climate science, for continued fossil fuel subsidies, that they are not representing Main Street. They are representing the profits of the elite few corporate polluters who have no shame in making us pay for their mess.

So don't be trapped into complaining about Rep. Upton's irrational war on science, don't sit around and talk about how corporations are corrupting our democracy, stand up and be counted. Do something.

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Naima Pearce — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 19:01:45 +0000

Hold on to your seats; February isn’t over just yet. This week we’re standing up to the dirty energy supporting U.S. Chamber of Commerce and rallying around the nation in solidarity with workers in Wisconsin. Also in the news, report this week shed light on the serious danger coral reefs are in and Rolls Royce dropped a few photos of their brand new electric car.

Coral in Danger

The rain forests of the sea could soon be no more. A study released this week says that coral reefs are headed for dire straits. Due to climate change warming the seas and ocean acidification from carbon dioxide pollution, over 90% of reefs will see substantial threa t by 2030. Nearly all of them could be wiped out by 2050. Lauretta Burke, lead author on the report, "Reefs at Risk Revisited" says that the forecast looks dire, but taking action now could go a long way. Cutting greenhouse gas emissions is at the core of the necessary changes needed to save the livelihoods of 500 million people who depend on the reefs worldwide.

Rally to Save the American Dream

In response to the bill in Wisconsin that plans to destroy the collective bargaining rights of many public workers, 1Sky has joined in with a hefty coalition of organizations to cosponsor the "Rally to Save the American Dream," happening tomorrow, February 26. Join us at noon on Saturday at State Houses across the country to take a stand for the public workers who protect, educate and serve us every day.

Members of the Wisconsin state assembly are pushing to destroy unions, slash state budgets, and give tax breaks to wealthy corporations. A Buffalo Beast editor pranked Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker by posing as famed foe to climate, David Koch. The conversation that transpired underscores the serious danger we face as a nation as companies buy politicians and write off their corporate interests with a cheque. 1Sky campaign director Liz Butler has more:

What's happening in Wisconsin is a crucial, turning point moment for our country, especially those of us who care about climate and green jobs. MoveOn and others have been doing whatever can think of to support what's happening in WI, nationalize the pushback, and spread the fight. This fight is about the battle to dismantle the issues we all care about including climate related issues. Right now this is the leading edge of the fight against big corporations' effort to cut everything we care about."

Please sign on to the rally and work to get people out in the street since our American Dream to protect the climate is under threat right now, along with many other critical issues.

Electric Luxury

On the heels of The New York Times looking at the 5 year equation behind hybrid cars, Rolls Royce has released the first pictures of their 102EX phantom experimental electric car. The official unveiling for this electric dream on wheels will be at the 2011 Geneva motor show. Though it won't be available for mass market, this pilot vehicle will be used to test the future of EV's for Rolls Royce and gauge interest from their core buyers. As Grist points out, this is "basically straight-up eco-friendliness as status symbol," but a potentially huge step in hastening the electric car movement with the ever important cool factor.

Oil Prices hit $100 a Barrel

For the first time since 2008, Oil prices have reached the $100 dollar mark. The price has been driven by growing concerns about global supply, especially as still Moammar Gadhafi holds the reigns on oil-rich Libya. AP reports,

Libya's oil is a high-quality variety that produces valuable petroleum products like gasoline, jet fuel and diesel. Some refineries won't be able to run on Saudi Arabia's lower-grade crude, so a sustained shut down in Libya could start a bidding war for comparable kinds of crude."

With no defined end in sight to Mideast disruption in oil production, the financial toll could be significant on consumers worldwide.

Government Shut Down

March 4th is drawing nearer. To circumvent the looming shut down on critical agencies, lawmakers must pass a short-term resolution to continue funding the government. Democrats want to keep funding at the current levels for the 2011 fiscal year, but Republicans have sought to slash funding for the remaining months and make some serious cuts. The "compromise" the House Republicans have hatched up only allots $4 billion for a two-week resolution span. So where do these cuts fall the deepest?

1Sky Policy Coordinator, Jason Kowalski, gives a breakdown of the gauntlet the Clean Air Act runs through in light of the budget crisis. The House resolution is rife with provisions that end cash flow to key environmental protections - all of this while continuing billions of dollars in funding for oil companies. As an extra measure, it drops investment dollars in clean energy -- yes, with oil prices reaching $100 dollars a barrel.

Stunting the EPA in such a manner not only serves as the GOP's means to abandon the tougher pollution controls Big Coal wants eliminating and putting a death sentence on job growth.

The U.S. Chamber Doesn't Speak for Me

350.org launched their "The U.S. Chamber Doesn't Speak for Me" campaign this week and invites business owners to post videos expressing how differently they think than the chamber when it comes to global warming, energy and the environment. This nationwide campaign kicks off across the nation with volunteers canvassing local businesses from corner stores to cafes to collect signatures.

1Sky board member Bill McKibben posted a great overview of how the chamber has spent as much as $33 million to influence the 2010 midterm elections since the Citizens United allowing the flow of mass corporate funds to candidates. McKibben explains,

Still, the rest of us can stand up and be counted. We can tell the Congressional representatives taking their money that they don't speak for us. We can urge more big companies to act like Apple and Microsoft, which publicly denounced the chamber. (It's good to hear Levi Strauss, General Electric, and Best Buy making similar noises.) We need to hear from more dissenting chambers of commerce. It cheered me to find that the CEO of the Greater New York Chamber said, "They don't represent me," or to discover that just a few weeks ago the Seattle chamber cut its ties."

This is the action we need to cut the greed fueling dangerous policy the jeopardizes our health, welfare, environment and jobs.

Weekly roundup 2/25/11: Standing tall in #Wisconsin and around the nation #WI #climate

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Luis Hestres — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 20:20:08 +0000

So much of our time has been taken up with defending the Clean Air Act from the likes of Fred Upton (R-Coal/Oil) that it's easy to forget there are lawmakers out there willing to speak out strongly in its defense. People like Barbara Boxer, who has been giving Fred Upton her own version of Ian McKellen's 'you shall not pass!' speech from Lord of the Rings in reference to the Clean Air Act. Around here we call these leaders "climate champs" -- and they deserve recognition when they speak out.

Props go this week to climate champ Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA), who wrote an outstanding and widely circulated op-ed this week about the need to protect the Clean Air Act from dirty polluters and their allies in Congress. Inslee talks extensively about the positive impact the Clean Air Act has had on public health, but he also reserves a good portion of his outrage for Republican attempts to gut greenhouse gas regulations by attacking climate science:

Nor can a lack of clarity about the science justify the Republicans' assault on the law. Huge power plants are now burning more than 1.1 billion tons of coal [PDF] and pouring out 2.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, gases that are irrefutably changing our climate and increasing concentrations of ozone that are directly making our children's asthmatic gasps more frequent and severe. Their effort to spray an ink cloud of doubt about this unassailable fact was revealed as quite pathetic when they failed to produce one credible scientist who contradicted this rock solid conclusion. Not one!

This is exactly what we need to hear from our elected officials: an impassioned defense of the Clean Air Act that puts its climate pollution-cutting role front and center. If you want to hear your own members of Congress sing the same tune, check out Erika's blog on what you can do this month to protect the Clean Air Act .

And speaking of Fred Upton...

I Love Mountains Day

On Monday, you might have received some flowers or handed out candy to your sweetie pie, but Kentuckians for the Commonwealth dished out the real love. They celebrated I Love Mountains day, where hundreds gathered in Frankfort, KY to support legislation ending mining waste dumping and clean energy investment. They kicked the love-fest off early by occupying Governor Stee Beshear's office over the weekend as part of their demand to stop mountaintop removal in its tracks.

Stanley Sturgill, a retired mine safety and health administration inspector wrote a great op-ed urging his fellow Kentuckians to keep Dirty Coal out of the equation for his community. Through his time working as an underground miner, he's developed strong pride for his craft, community and beautiful mountains that surround it -- but he knows coal companies do not share that pride.

None of these coal companies is from our area. They talk a good game, but they're like any other for-profit company -- only here for the money. They get as much as they can, as quickly as they can, for as little cost as they can, then move on. Then our problems begin.

He urges those who have lived in the mining community to take a look at the sacrifices families and environments will have to make for blasting and mountaintop removal projects.

National Renewable Energy Lab

The New York Times did a story on the largest net-zero energy office building on U.S. soil, which was built by the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colorado as a template for how to do affordable, super-energy-efficient construction. Please take a moment to soak in the view on this beauty. Housing 800 engineers and costing $64 Million to construct, the building has been described as a "wonderland." The numbers behind that dollar sign might look a look big, but it still managed to be $77 below the average cost of a new super-efficient commercial office building per square foot.

The basement serves as a storage unit for radiant heat, electricity from photovoltaic panels run the elevator and window louvers fling sunbeams to white panels over the office workers heads' to minimize electricity use. They left no stone unturned. More than 400 tour groups have already made their way through this clean energy marvel. You can check out the energy and design masterpiece from the ground up in their video below.

And speaking of coal…

The Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences released a report detailing the economic, health and environmental costs associated with each stage of the life cycle of coal. Climate progress explains that a third of the costs generated costs from extraction, transportation, processing and combustion are passed directly to the public That's $74.6 billion a year in public health burdens in Appalachian communities alone. You can see their diagram of the life cycle on the Climate Progress site. The report ends by offering the final recommendations:

Comprehensive comparative analyses of life cycle costs of all electricity generation technologies and practices are needed to guide the development of future energy policies.

Begin phasing out coal and phasing in cleanly powered smart grids, using place-appropriate alternative energy sources.

A healthy energy future can include electric vehicles, plugged into cleanly powered smart grids; and healthy cities initiatives, including green buildings, roof-top gardens, public transport, and smart growth.

Alternative industrial and farming policies are needed for coal-field regions, to support the manufacture and installation of solar, wind, small-scale hydro, and smart grid technologies. Rural electric co-ops can help in meeting consumer demands.

We must end MTR mining, reclaim all MTR sites and abandoned mine lands, and ensure that local water sources are safe for consumption.

Funds are needed for clean enterprises, reclamation, and water treatment.

Fund-generating methods include: maintaining revenues from the workers' compensation coal tax;

increasing coal severance tax rates;

increasing fees on coal haul trucks and trains;

reforming the structure of credits and taxes to remove misaligned incentives;

reforming federal and state subsidies to incentivize clean technology infrastructure.

To transform our energy infrastructure, we must realign federal and state rules, regulations, and rewards to stimulate manufacturing of and markets for clean and efficient energy systems. Such a transformation would be beneficial for our health, for the environment, for sustained economic health, and would contribute to stabilizing the global climate.

Don't mind if we do.

Props to #climate champ @JayInslee, Kentuckians go after #MTR and more in this week's roundup:

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Naima Pearce — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 17:19:45 +0000

We had an action packed week. The Koch brothers are buying dirty policy; the gust of support for wind power is sweeping the nation; 1.5 million green jobs are headed our way and you still have time to visit Greenpeace's matchmaking site before Valentine's Day.

Polluter Harmony

Valentine's Day is just around the corner. If you still haven't been asked to the dance, it's time to visit Greenpeace's Polluter Harmony website - the No. 1 matchmaking site for polluters, industry lobbyists, and the politicians that love them. Okay, so maybe we wouldn't want cupid to aim his arrow at Smokin' Salmon Murkowski for us, but this is a great site to see which Dirty Energy lobbyists are getting cozy with which politicians like Representative Fred Upton, House Speaker John Boehner, and Senator Lisa Murkowski. They're even running a contest: Submit your favorite examples of polluter harmony and send an e-mail to polluterharmony@gmail.com or tweet using #polluterharmony. The cutest couple gets a special polluter harmony delivery. Who could resist? It's celebrating the best love money could buy! Take a look at their video below:

Putting the wind back in your sails

Offshore wind turbines will be making some serious waves pretty soon. The Obama administration announced plans to invest $50 million to put offshore wind farms on the fast track. The hope is to lease four Mid-Atlantic wind farms in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey by the end of the year. And they're not slowing down there; they plan on looking into putting more facilitates in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and North Carolina in the spring. USA Today reports:

The Department of Energy said it would spent up to $25 million over five years to support the development of innovative wind turbines, up to $18 million over three years to study how to optimize the wind market and up to $7.5 million over three years to fund more cost-effective turbine drive trains."

Governor Martin O'Malley is already putting into the works a head start by drafting a offshore wind bill.

1.5 million green jobs

Ceres released a report by the University of Massachusettes-Amherst explaining the Clean Air Act rules will aid in creating nearly $1.5 million jobs. The "Clean Air Transport Rule", Climate Progress reports, will reduce pollutants that contribute to acid rain and smog, while the UtilityMACT rule will require industrial boilers to cut hazardous air pollutants. Manufacturing, installing and opporatiing these pollutions controls will create a projected 290,000 new jobs each year for the next five years for Americans notably in Virginia, Illinois, Tennessee, North Carolina and Ohio. You can download the full report from Ceres here.

Tackling a Koch problem

The billionaire Koch brothers have made the dive head first into Washington's political spectrum. They've formed the largest single oil and gas donor to members of the House Energy and Commerce panel, ahead of giants like Exxon Mobil, contributing $279,500 to 22 of the panel's 31 Republicans, and $32,000 to five Democrats.

Thousands in California gathered outside the billionaire's closed door meeting to confront the Koch brothers' efforts. It's Getting Hot in Here gives us the full look at the dire circumstances.

The Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission opened the floodgates for people like Charles Koch (and other billionaires) to influence our democratic elections process through direct campaign contributions, front groups, television advertisements and more. Unfortunately, our democracy, post-Citizens United will continue to put corporate interests over people until we level the playing field."

Kate Sheppard at Mother Jones explains that the Koch brothers' empire is buying up a dangerous media presence, and even their own think tanks. All this comes at a price that's pocket change for the billionaires. Their plan for 2012? Float $88 million to conservative causes during the 2012 election cycle, POLITICO reports.

Noam Chomsky

The Nation released the sixth video in their "Peak Oil and a Changing Climate" series, this week. Below, Noam Chomsky breaks down how the Chamber of Commerce, American Petroleum Institute and countless other lobbyists are spearheading the campaigns to convince the public global warming is a liberal hoax. He takes aim at reports about meteorologist expressing their doubt in hard climate science. Just who are these meteorologists?

Meteorologists are pretty faces who read scripts telling you if it's going to rain tomorrow. What do they have to say any more than your barber? But that's presented as it's a significant contribution to discussion."

Chomsky says it's time to start paying attention to these dirty energy campaigns before it's too late. You can watch his full video below.

Quick Hits

The White House released a great post defending the Clean Air Act in their blog.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu says that when it comes to coal plants "We're going to see massive retirements within the next five to eight years."
The Guardian reported that some recently examined WikiLeaks cables from American diplomats in Saudi Arabia say that the country's oil reserves could be overstated by as much as 40%. That could means that peak oil could be coming sooner than we think.
Huffington Post has a great article on the 10 need-to-know facts about Fred Upton.
Representative Gabrielle Giffords is making significant strides in her recovery and has even began to speak, repordedly requesting toast for breakfast.

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Molly Haigh — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 22:11:44 +0000

Some of you might not know it, but I was born and raised in the great state of Alaska. In good old Anchorage, Alaska, there isn’t a lot of sun. Sometimes, local residents find themselves staring hopefully into the sky at a small spot of blue. Up north, we refer to that small patch as a “sucker hole.” Why? Because it doesn’t mean the sun is coming out, and believing anything else makes you a sucker.

There has been a bit of hubbub surrounding EPA head Lisa Jackson’s threat of a veto of any anti-Clean Air Act legislation. Like the residents of Alaska, I suggest you view it with a similar air of caution.

Let’s take a closer look at Jackson’s statement:

What has been stated from the White House is that the president’s advisers would advise him to veto any legislation that passed that would take away the EPA’s greenhouse gas authority."

Has the President actually threatened veto? No, but his advisors have threatened to advise him to veto.

That, my friend, just might be a sucker hole.

Luckily, unlike the weather, we have some control over potential political ‘sucker holes.’ This is still a step in the right direction, and just the small spot of hope we need to show us that our pressure is working.

There are people on our side within the administration, and we need to make it clear that they are not standing alone. We cannot let this be a lone ray of hope; we will keep pushing for the President to make a full vocal defense of the Clean Air Act.

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Molly Haigh — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 15:34:49 +0000

The Obama administration seems to think "climate change" is too divisive to mention, but underwriting clean energy tech? That's bipartisan.

Surprisingly, conservative commentators didn't seem to buy it. Why? Government intervention, absent a large-scale emergency, goes against basic conservative philosophy. All they see is needless government intervention into energy technology, and they have a point. Absent climate change, where is the urgency?

Let’s take coal. Absent climate change, what’s wrong with coal? OK, maybe quite a bit… For one thing, coal plants pump toxic chemicals into our air: arsenic, lead, mercury, and carbon dioxide (or global warming pollution for you climate buffs) for starters. The health effects of mercury alone have gotten more than a few communities riled up.

But we can solve that. Maybe not scientifically, but with a few dollars here on PR, and a few dollars there on lobbying, and voilà! Dirty coal is “clean,” and now it’s a part of our clean energy future. That sounds great! Oh wait, that technology is untested, unproven, dangerous, and we aren’t really sure it exists.

Well, absent climate change issues, we're still talking about competitiveness and jobs, right? Actually, coal barely rivals wind in job production. Yup, that’s right: coal, responsible for 50% of our energy, can barely rival the jobs in the wind industry, responsible currently for less than 15% of our energy.

No jobs AND weird toxic chemicals? We should intervene! That can’t be a good investment, certainly not with the competitiveness of our nation on the line. Let’s jump to David Roberts over at Grist:

…the argument for strong, focused government policy in support of clean energy -- in the absence of climate change -- is no stronger than the argument for supporting pharmaceuticals, or telecom, or any other industry that's likely to be big in the 21st century."

It’s hard to overcome the greater good argument: coal has created a health crisis, but we can’t just eliminate 50% of America’s energy. Why should the government play favorites? Back to David:

What could add the exogenous pressure to overcome the U.S. elite's general distaste for government meddling? What could add the sense of urgency necessary to justify immediate and substantial public spending? What elevates the need for RD&D in clean energy above the need for RD&D in other industries and technologies? Right: the looming threat of climate change.

Well put, David.

Right: climate change. This is your call to action. Don’t let climate change slip away. Don’t let them tell you that it’s a battle not worth the fight. There is a reason why intervening in support of clean energy is different that intervening in other industries: because coal plants are expelling excessive amounts of carbon pollution responsible for even more than millions of asthma attacks in small children: they are contributing to a full-on climate crisis. Floods, cyclones, tsunamis, droughts: all of it.

This is your moment, so yell it from the rooftops. There is a climate crisis happening right now. Right on, David:

We won't act with the scope, scale, and speed necessary unless the threat of climate change is widely understood to be real and urgent.

The Obama administration seems to think "climate change" is too divisive