Even The PBS Newshour’s Coverage is “Climate” Free

Sign seen in Austin, TX.

The U.S. Drought Monitor puts it another way [click on map for detail].  Over 80% of the state is now rated under “Exceptional Drought” (darkest red):

Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon has a number of charts that provide some historical quantification and comparison.  In his Monday post, “Texas Drought: Spot the Outlier,” N-G offers “a plot of Texas average summer (June-August) temperature versus Texas summer precipitation” as far back as records go (1895):

Nielsen-Gammon explains, “Can you spot the outlier?  The year 2011 continues the recent trend of being much warmer than the historical precipitation-temperature relationship would indicate, although with no previous points so dry it’s hard to say exactly what history would say about a summer such as this one.  Except that this summer is way beyond the previous envelope of summer temperature and precipitation.“

Human-caused climate change is starting to take us outside the bounds of the recorded weather extremes.  And the Texas State Climatologist warned it is likely to get worse:

I’ve started telling anyone who’s interested that it’s likely that much of Texas will still be in severe drought this time next summer, with water supply implications even worse than those we are now experiencing.

The link to climate change is clear — record-smashing heat makes any drought more devastating — even if major media outlets, including PBS’s News Hour, choose to ignore it.

Texas climatologist Katherine Hayhoe put it this way in an email:

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I went down to the site of the Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline protest today with Bill McKibben.  No, I didn’t go to get arrested — though over 100 people did — just to cover the event.  The energy of the crowd was amazing, so to speak.

Oscar-nominated director Josh Fox (Gasland) was there, and  I will post a video of his remarks tomorrow.  McKibben invites all Climate Progress readers to the big final rally in DC at the White House this Saturday.

I interviewed McKibben on the pipeline and among my questions was one about the role of Hillary Clinton.  I did not raise the counterfactual question — which has become popular among some liberals, though not Salon’s Joan Walsh — but McKibben did.

I’ll have more to say on it below the jump, but first here’s the video of the full interview:

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The U.S. solar industry had $1.8 billion in net exports last year.  But it faces daunting challenges from both Chinese competitors and GOP budget cutters.  Not every U.S. company will survive global industry consolidation.  But the PV segment as a whole has seen more than 10% annual job growth since 2003 and is certain to continue being a big job creator — if the U.S. government doesn’t let the playing field tilt to foreign companies.

The news broke yesterday that solar manufacturer Solyndra was filing for bankruptcy.  The thin-film producer closed its California-based manufacturing facility and laid off 1,100 workers.

One more business going bankrupt in these tough times wouldn’t normally make big news and draw GOP cheers.  Solyndra, though, had received a $535 million loan guarantee from the federal government to manufacture a unique cylindrical solar module that reduced installation time, increased efficiencies, and didn’t use the most expensive material in conventional solar modules, silicon.

GTM Research Senior Solar Analyst Shyam Mehta made an accurate (if somewhat understated) observation about the coming blowback:

Unfortunately, most coverage of today’s news is likely to gloss over the market’s subtleties and conclude that supporting domestic solar manufacturing is a waste of taxpayer money. Thus, the image of the U.S. solar industry is likely to be affected negatively in the minds of both policymakers and the general public in this post-Solyndra world.

The fact is that with a glut of solar panels on the market today, depressed silicon prices, and the Chinese government lavishing huge amounts of subsidies on domestic manufacturers — 30 times the amount of loans as the U.S. in 2010 — Solyndra’s cost structure simply couldn’t compete in an increasingly-commoditized market. In a statement yesterday, the company cited “global economic conditions” as the main reason for the shutdown.

Conservatives are dancing all over Solyndra’s grave, trying to turn it into a referendum on renewable energy and green jobs.  But the U.S. invented the modern solar cell half a century ago, and the route to sustainable wealth can’t possibly be one where we invent technologies and other countries manufacture them.

No, rather than a referendum, this should be is a chance to learn the lesson of how the US can compete in one of the fastest job-creating sectors in the world.

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