Last month, the White House edited climate change from Obama’s Earth Day 2012 proclamation. That was after the President omitted any discussion of climate change from his State of the Union address.

But then, in a Rolling Stone interview, Obama unexpectedly broke out of his self-imposed silence on climate change, saying he thought climate change would be a campaign issue.

Of course, it would be hard for climate to be a campaign issue if the president doesn’t actually talk about it in public. After all, his challenger Mitt Romney seems unlikely to bring it up, having Etch-a-Sketched his position on that subject many times. And Lord knows that media isn’t itching to talk about climate.

So it was disappointing again once again that on Thursday, the President reverted to form in his big speech on energy at TPI Composites, a wind-blade manufacturing plant in Newton, Iowa.

The speech never mentions “climate change” or “global warming” or even “greenhouse gases” or “carbon” or even “pollution”!

It’s a fairly long speech, over half of which is focused on energy, to argue for extending “tax credits that are set to expire at the end of the year for clean-energy companies like TPI.” Those credits are certainly worth fighting for since 37,000 wind jobs are at stake – as is leadership in a global industry that will be one of the largest job creators in the coming decades when  the world finally start taking serious action on climate.

But as Henry Waxman (D-CA), the Ranking Minority Member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said last year:

If you are a science denier, there is no reason for government to invest in clean energy.

Now it may be that in the current political climate, no argument would win. But both climate action and federal clean energy investment are classic wedge issues that have broad support with the American public, including independents and moderate Republicans, those not aligned with the Tea Party (see “Can We Stop The Collapse of Federal Clean Energy Support Without Talking About Climate Change Or A Carbon Price?” and links below).

Here, are the President’s remarks on energy in Iowa:

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by Dan Lashof, via NRDC’s Switchboard

NRDC released a report [this week] projecting that more than 150,000 additional Americans could die by the end of this century due to excessive heat caused by climate change. This startling conclusion is based on peer-reviewed scientific papers published recently by Dr. Larry Kalkstein and colleagues.

This is the kind of study that should make headlines around the country but is generally ignored when published only in scholarly journals. So NRDC is presenting the information in a more accessible manner, adding calculations of the cumulative additional death toll attributable to projected global warming by mid-century and century’s end (the report, including these additional calculations, was reviewed by Dr. Kalkstein to ensure that we have presented the information accurately)

The “Killer Summer Heat” report gives the results for all 40 cities analyzed in the original papers. The three with the highest number of projected heat-related deaths through the end of the century are: Louisville, KY (19,000 deaths); Detroit (18,000); and Cleveland (17,000). Other cities’ death tolls include:

• Baltimore: 2,900 deaths
• Boston: 5,700 deaths
• Chicago: 6,400 deaths
• Columbus: 6,000 deaths
• Denver: 3,500 deaths
• Los Angeles: 1,200 deaths
• Minneapolis: 7,500 deaths
• Philadelphia: 700 deaths
• Pittsburgh: 1,200 deaths
• Providence, R.I.: 2,000 deaths
• St. Louis: 5,600 deaths
• Washington, D.C.: 3000 deaths.

The projected deaths are based on the widely-used assumption that carbon pollution will steadily increase in the absence of effective new policies, more than doubling the levels seen today by the end of the century.

These findings bring home the fact that global climate change has a number of real life-and-death consequences in our local communities. One of which is that as carbon pollution continues to grow, climate change is only going to increase the number of dangerously hot days each summer, leading to a dramatic increase in the number of lives lost.

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by KC Golden, via Getting a Grip

Coal export proponents like to argue that, climate-wise, it doesn’t matter:  Asia will burn the same amount of coal regardless of whether we ship it from the Northwest.  This argument is weak because it: a) defies basic economics – see here; b) ignores the x-factor:  economic “lock-in” to dangerous climate disruption – see here; and c) is morally dubious – see here.  So we know coal export is bad for the climate.  Check out Eric de Place’s social math for scale.

It’s true, however, that Powder River Basin isn’t the only coal available in Asia.  Estimating the net emission impact requires some elaborate economics (forthcoming). [i] But this graph is a rough, directional guide:

Let me explain.

It all comes down to the difference between the cost of producing and transporting Powder River Basin coal and the value of that coal in Asian markets.  That difference appears to be huge.

PRB coal isn’t dirt cheap.  It’s cheaper (than, say, top soil or gravel).  Most of it lies under public land, and the federal government basically gives it away.  Strip-mining is the very definition of quick and dirty – and, yes, super-cheap.  The mine-mouth cost of “producing” PRB coal is in the range of 10-15 bucks a ton.

Transporting it by rail and mega-ship to Asia is much more costly than snatching it from federal land, but there’s still plenty of margin.  Rail costs run about a penny a ton per mile, so that’s maybe another $20 a ton to get it to port.  Throw in say $15 for ocean shipping, tack on a value-added tax and port fees in China, and we’re looking at maybe $70 per ton delivered cost.

The benchmark thermal coal price in China in January was $115 per ton.  So PRB coal suppliers could significantly undercut the market, and still make a bundle.  This also explains why Asia is “just drooling” for this coal, and why, in turn, Big Coal is drooling to get it there.  Saliva speaks volumes.

The fact that they could sell coal so much cheaper also means that other suppliers would have to lower their prices to remain competitive.  And that would mean even greater increases in emissions, and more irreversible commitments to coal infrastructure.

So, both the potential for profits and the potential for net emission increases depend on the same factor – the amount by which the value of the coal in Asia exceeds the cost of getting it there.  In other words, the coal export business succeeds roughly in direct proportion to how much it disrupts the climate.

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by Molly Rauch, via Moms Clean Air Force

Yesterday I pulled a red wagon through the streets of Washington, DC, my hometown. Inside the wagon were more than 8,000 comments from Moms Clean Air Force members supporting a proposed rule from the Environmental Protection Agency that will limit carbon dioxide emissions from newly constructed power plants. I brought those messages from people like YOU to EPA officials to let them know how much we want that rule to be finalized. I also testified at a public hearing before EPA staff on the proposed rule.

I have a public health degree, and I studied epidemiology, but I spoke yesterday as a mom.

Air pollution gets personal.

I’ve been working in the field of environmental health for several years, but the issue of air pollution became personal for me in a new way last year. I developed wheezing and respiratory symptoms. I started using an inhaler and other medications. My doctor told me to pay attention to the air quality. And I noticed that my symptoms were worse on poor air quality days. I was wheezing more, I was short of breath, I was coughing.

I had heard that air pollution is bad for our lungs, I had even studied it in public health school. But suddenly I could actually feel it, in my own body.

If this is happening to me, I thought, what is that same air doing to my children’s lungs? This is the kind of thing that keeps moms up at night. It kept me up at night. I got pretty upset about it.

The burden of asthma.

More than 7 million children have asthma in this country. Behind each of those children is a mom (or dad) taking care of their child, making sure she takes her medicine, vigilantly watching for symptoms. Asthma makes kids sick, and keeps them home from school. There are more than 14 million days of school lost each year to asthma. Behind each one of those lost school days is a mom (or dad) who is probably missing work, taking that child to the doctor, and all too often going to the emergency room. Indeed, asthma is responsible for over 600,000 emergency room visits in children each year. This is a terrible burden for families, and we know that air pollution makes it worse.

It would be one thing if we were dealing with a health problem that we didn’t understand. But scientists and doctors know what’s going on. They know how to ease this problem. They know what to do, and we have the technology to do it.

How does carbon pollution relate to asthma?

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