steffofsd, via Flickr
A round-up of the top climate and energy news.
The planet may be getting hotter, but Washington’s debate on climate change isn’t heating up. Amid a summer marked by droughts, wildfires, record temperatures and freak storms, Congress is squeezing in just one hearing on the changing climate before it dashes out for a hot August recess. [Politico]
And that hearing, set for Wednesday, is unlikely to be a show-stopper: No federal officials will testify, and no big-name witnesses will appear — none of the elements that could help this gathering compete for an Olympics-mad public’s attention.
It’s a reminder of how much things have changed for Democrats in Congress since their hopes for passing a major cap-and-trade bill died in 2010, reducing the entire climate issue to second-tier status. Now, Republicans are eager to argue, Democrats are reluctant to even talk about the issue in an election year.
“The Obama administration wants to stay silent about global warming,” said Matt Dempsey, a spokesman for Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Republicans, citing the roster of witnesses for Wednesday’s hearing as evidence….
And some environmentalists say the White House hasn’t lived up to expectations on the topic either. Obama promised Rolling Stone in April that the climate would hold a prominent place on the campaign trail, but so far it hasn’t.
“I’m very disappointed that the president after the Rolling Stone interview has done nothing to inject climate change into the presidential campaign,” said Clinton-era Energy Department official Joe Romm, who blogs for the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress.
“It’s a chicken-and-egg thing,” Romm told POLITICO. “Obviously, if the political leadership of the country doesn’t talk about the problem, … the public isn’t going to care a lot about the problem. Because Obama has not talked about it in two years nor has anyone in the senior leadership of the Democratic Party.”
California’s electricity sector is more vulnerable to climate change than previously thought, as higher temperatures will impede the state’s ability to generate and transmit power while demand for air conditioning rises, a report said Tuesday.[Reuters]
Nearly a year after the remnants of Hurricane Irene unleashed devastating floods in much of Vermont, a new report by an environmental group says extreme downpours and snowfalls are the new normal — up 85 percent in New England since 1948. Nationally, Environment America’s report found that storms with extreme precipitation increased in frequency by 30 percent across the contiguous United States from 1948 to 2011. It said the largest annual storms produced 10 percent more precipitation, on average. [USA Today]
The biggest U.S. drought in half a century is devastating farms across the Midwest. Crops are wilting. Food prices are set to rise. Under the circumstances, does it still make sense for the government to divert a hefty portion of the nation’s corn output into making fuel? [Washington Post]
Archer Daniels Midland, the corn processing company, posted a 25 percent decline in quarterly profit on Tuesday, hurt by record corn prices and a decline in profit from its ethanol operations. Refining, packaging, biodiesel and other operations generated a profit of $84 million for the quarter, down $6 million, mainly on weaker biodiesel results from Europe, where half of the monetary union has slipped into recession. Corn processing took a hit from negative ethanol margins. Operating profit in the segment was down $48 million from last year, to $74 million. [New York Times]
As environmentalists and industry groups bicker over the costs and benefits of pollution rules, a new study finds that we may actually be underestimating the value of clean air in at least one respect: Cutting pollution can allow people to spend less on prescription drugs. [Washington Post]
New Jersey’s largest utility wants to more than double down its investment in solar power, with customers footing the bill.Public Service Electric & Gas Co., which two years ago generated headlines with its ambitious program to install solar panels atop utility poles, on Tuesday proposed to install 136 megawatts more of photovoltaic systems over the next five years and to provide loans to residential and commercial customers to develop an additional 97 megawatts. [Philly]
The great summer storms—which provide three-quarters of India’s annual rainfall—came late to the country this year, leaving much of northern India gripped in a killer drought and unrelenting heat. While the slow monsoons are unlikely to have directly caused the blackouts—the rains finally began to fall recently, enough to reduce temperatures—parched farmers in agricultural areas are turning to electric pumps in large numbers to bring groundwater to the surface for irrigation. If the monsoons continue to be erratic and slow in a global warming future, the demand for electricity to compensate for the heat and the drought will only increase. [Time]
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
The Real Reason for Germany’s Industrial Expansion?
Did Germany experience rapid industrial expansion in the 19th century due to an absence of copyright law? A German historian argues that the massive proliferation of books, and thus knowledge, laid the foundation for the country’s industrial might.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/no-copyright-law-the-real-reason-for-germany-s-industrial-expansion-a-710976.html
Copyright and the whole ‘intellectual property’ scam is just the latest rip-off by the rentier parasite caste. It is part parasitism, often by parties that had no intellectual input to the creations, and part a blatant attempt to sabotage the development of science and technology in the non-Western world. All ‘invention’ these days rests on centuries of scientific and technological advance by numerous individuals and societies, who, naturally, are simply forgotten by the rent-seekers.
Re CC as campaign issue:
Well i have become a bit skeptic about this topic to be a major issue for this campaign, since Romney is so good in self destruction. However Obama gave a time window of a bout 6 month, quote Obama: “I suspect that over the next six months, this is going to be a debate that will become part of the campaign”
So he still is in the green.
I think that he can and should start to make this topic a priority. There are so many options for messaging, like when tied to job creation, economical and health benefits and such. I cannot see that Romney will have any advantage in further denial or just pointing out failed projects. I think Romney has already lost the election.
Millionaire Mitt still whining about how hard it was ‘to make ends meet’ http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/31/1115399/-Millionaire-Mitt-still-whining-about-how-hard-it-was-to-make-ends-meet
Obama’s six months are simply the time in which he will pretend, again, as in 2008, to be concerned, so he can perform his ‘rope a Hope dope’ routine again. Once re-elected he will return to serving his real masters. I really think that you must call his bluff, and vote Green.
more on drought in Iowa here
http://thegazette.com/2012/08/01/2012-iowa-drought-now-worse-than-88/
“Amid a summer marked by droughts, wildfires, record temperatures and freak storms…”
I wonder who is suffering? The politicians?? No, they don’t suffer. They are not impacted in the same way the general public is. Did any politicians have to evacuate due to wildfires? Did any politicians get flooded out by extreme rain events? Did any politicians have to slaughter livestock because they could not be fed or kill livestock because they suffered sever burns from the fires? Do you ever hear of any politicians complaining about the changing climate? Do you ever hear of any politicians complaining about extreme weather events? –Except those liberal Democrats who want to force big government down the throats of hard working Americans I mean. NO YOU DO NOT!
“…if the political leadership of the country doesn’t talk about the problem, … the public isn’t going to care a lot about the problem.”
So the suffering public don’t really care when their car gets washed away or their corn withers to dust. They need to be led by the nose by politicians…yeah, that’s how the civil rights act got passed, old Johnson just decided enough is enough…No, wait, I’m pretty sure it started with a few brave INDIVIDUALS: One brave lady refusing to move to the back of the bus; a few brave teens peacefully refusing to leave a lunch counter; Eventually a minister, someone the public could trust, took interest. Finally a politician form a Southern state, a Southern Democrat whose party had been a staunch defender of the status quo, finally, after years of public outcry and demonstrations, decided to take up the cause.
When the public demonstrates for change and finally is organized at the local level by people they trust, when they demand government to step in, the politicians will begin to take notice. But, due to the massive distrust of politicians, the public will resist a top down big national government solution.
I agree. You are exactly right, MT.
The NGOs that raise money and recruit talent for addressing this issue need to cut to the chase and stop relying on 20th Century Progressive political tactics by hoping (and waiting) for a national government solution. If you get that “solution,” great, but in the meantime NGOs and activists need to be reaching out directly to the people (who are steadily connecting the dots and getting concerned, some getting very concerned).
There should be a central, non-political resource for outlining the basic facts of climate change and explaining both simple and ambitious things people can be DOING to start adapting to climate impacts and to start mitigating their GHG emissions on a personal and business level. This has to be more than changing lightbulbs — people need to install double-pane windows to keep out heat, install solar panels, buy hybrids, drive less, etc.
Ideally, this resource would be one or more websites which do NOT invite blogging or allow advertising.
NGOs and other well-financed activists should also get the message out — with directions to these website resources — via television ads, internet spot ads, viral stories/video clips in the social media, and billboard signs. State the simple facts of what is happening now, along with how it will likely get worse, and then make a call to action.
California has done things along these lines in dealing with regional drought conditions. I saw a television ad just the other day by, I think, some NGO (did not note the name, unfortunately) with basic suggestions on energy conservation. People are going to respond at different levels, and at different times, but there needs to be some real momentum generated here. We cannot wait for Washington to lead. They are too incompetent and too preoccupied with campaign financing to lead.
What people forget is that even if the federal (US) government does “do” something, the effect will be the same — people will have to change on a very fundamental level, giving up their energy-intensive, mobility-minded lifestyles at an accelerating pace as things really start getting obvious (and rough).
As for politics, anyone seriously engaged in this matter should devote their time, energy, talent, and resources at those state or local levels where things ARE getting done.
JMHO
The politicians are just exhibiting two essential features of their character formation-lack of human empathy and indifference to the suffering of others. If it was their house burned they’d be blubbering, and we, soft-hearted fools, would feel human compassion for them. Once they rebuilt, using their considerable wealth, they’d go back to their previous behaviour-well most of them would. Some might grow a conscience out of their suffering. A few.
Just received my Obama mailer from the DNC. It contained a three and a half page letter signed by him but doesn’t contain the word ‘climate’.
Maybe I’ll get another letter next month…
Over at Climate Central, you can read Michael Lemonick’s take on James Anderson’s paper whether super thunderstorms inject water vapor into the ozone layer and if that will form holes in that layer.
http://www.climatecentral.org/blogs/like-ozone-layer-holes-in-study-on-thunderstorms/
President Obama’s failure to raise the visibility of climate change for the last two years is not just a political mistake, a very strong case can be made that is a serious moral failure even if there was no chance of getting climate legislation through congress. This is so because nations, including the United States, have duties to prevent transboundary harm. There can be no doubt about this, it was agreed to in the preamble to the UNFCCC which all nations ratified including the United States. The President, as chief administrative officer of the US should be encouraging, cajoling, inspiring US citizens to reduce gig emissions even if he had to rely upon voluntary or sub-national government action . We have lost two years since President Obama went silent. In the meantime atmospheric concentrations have risen dangerously. If a nation has a duty to prevent harm, the President has a duty to lead on preventing harm. Even though the EPA is proceeding with rule making, the US is far, far, far above its fair share of safe global emissions. Silence on climate change from the President is not just a tactical mistake, it is a failure of global responsibility about a civilization threatening problem.
Donald A. Brown, Scholar in Residence, Sustainability Ethics and Law, Widener University School of Law
Very well said, Donald, but since when have US Presidents obeyed international law? I thought that there was an absolute prohibition on torture and and absolute requirement to prosecute those guilty of torture. In the ‘real world’, might makes right, political power grows out of the barrel of a gun, and the law is what the biggest thug on the block says that it is.
I couldn’t agree more. Obama’s failure to speak up and lead Americans from danger on this issue is a violation of natural law.
A one-hour speech from the Oval Office, done right, could put the world on safer path forward. Rather, Obama is putting his own desire to be re-elected ahead of our future.
This would be illegal if had ever happened before. That not being the case, we must rely on one man’s character and morality…
CP readers who want to help, by lifting a finger or two, can sign this petition asking President Obama to educate and lead on climate:http://www.change.org/petitions/obama-please-educate-and-lead-on-climate-change.
Thanks,
Roger
Day by day we see the ecological and economic forces converging and spiraling downwards towards the botton of the whirlpool. Everyday, the forces required to pull us out of that spiral grow greater. How late is the USA going to leave it before it joins the international effort? Surely no one can be deluded enough to believe there will be any ‘winners’ here? ME
Oh, yes they can, Merrelyn. Just because you are not bonkers, doesn’t mean that ‘They’ are not.