Half of Reviewed Companies Misrepresented Climate Science Despite Publicly Expressing Concerns

Union of Concerned Scientists news release

Many of the country’s leading companies have taken contradictory actions when it comes to climate change science while pumping a tremendous amount of resources into influencing the discussion, according to an analysis released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

The science advocacy group examined 28 companies in the S&P 500 that participated in climate policy debates over the past several years. All of them publicly expressed concern about climate change or a commitment to reducing emissions through websites and public statements, but half (14) also misrepresented climate science in their public communications. Many more contributed to the spread of misinformation about climate science in less direct ways, such as through political contributions, trade group memberships, and think tank funding.

“Corporations’ increased ability to influence policy should come with an increased responsibility to let the public know how they are doing so,” said Francesca Grifo, director of UCS’s Scientific Integrity Program and a contributor to the report. “Companies may play a role in policy discussions, but right now, it’s simply far too easy for them to get away with misrepresenting science to achieve their goals.”

Utilizing an array of publicly available data, the report systematically examines how corporate influence fosters confusion on climate change. The analysis found that some American companies, including NRG Energy, Inc., NIKE, Inc. and AES Corporation, accept the findings of climate science and have taken actions in support of science-based policy. Other corporations, including Peabody Energy Corporation, Valero Energy Corporation, and FMC Corporation, have worked aggressively to undermine climate policies and have misrepresented climate science to do so.

Several companies stand out for taking contradictory actions on climate change. Caterpillar Inc., for instance, highlights its commitment to sustainability and climate change mitigation on its website. But the company also serves on the boards of two trade groups that regularly attempt to undermine public understanding of climate science: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers. Caterpillar also funds the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation, two think tanks that have misrepresented climate science.

Similarly, ConocoPhillips says on its website that it recognizes human activity is “contributing to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that can lead to adverse changes in global climate.” But in comments to the Environmental Protection Agency, the company criticized scientific evidence on the ways climate change can harm public health.

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by Alice Thomas

I’m sitting in the mayor’s office in Abala, a town of about 10,000 people in Niger, West Africa. Niger is the poorest of the nine countries that comprise the Sahel, a belt that stretches across northern Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea bounded by the Sahara desert to the north.

Food insecurity and malnutrition are chronic in Niger. But things this year are worse. For the third time in just seven years, Abala and the surrounding areas have been especially hard hit by poor rains and low agriculture yields that have left a mind-boggling 16 million people across the Sahel without sufficient food.

But it is neither the recurrent drought nor the lack of food that has brought me to Abala today. Less than a mile from here, 9,000 Malian refugees are camped. They started coming in January when Tuareg separatist groups, having returned well-armed from Libya, mounted a rebellion in northern Mali.  The Mali refugees who fled to Abala are mainly pastoralists, and many have brought their animals with them. Two thousand head of livestock are now registered at the camp.

I ask the mayor how he feels about the refugees whose population will soon outnumber that of the local inhabitants. “They are our brothers and sisters. We welcome them with open arms. They need our help and we will share with them what we have.”  Given the fragile landscape and scarce resources, I am floored by the conviction and magnanimity of his response.

Getting sufficient food and water to the people of Abala – and the livestock on which many depend for their survival – are significant challenges that existed long before the arrival of the refugees. But now the influx of thousands of new arrivals has put significant additional burden on these host areas. Because there is no potable water in Abala, water has to be trucked in daily to meet the burgeoning demands of the refugees. While aid agencies are in the process of drilling wells in order to provide a local source of water to both refugees and the local community, so far they’ve been unsuccessful, turning up nothing but salty water.

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By Jessica Goad

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. just announced this morning that it is dropping out of the American Legislative Exchange Council, the right-wing corporate front group that drafts and shares conservative legislation with state legislators.  It has been behind various state “stand your ground” gun laws, voter suppression laws and efforts to teach climate change denial in schools.

ALEC has also endorsed various state attempts to “reclaim” federal public lands that belong to all Americans, which could eventually subject them to privatization and development.  As the Associated Press reported:

Lawmakers in Utah and Arizona have said the legislation is endorsed by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group that advocates conservative ideals, and they expect it to eventually be introduced in other Western states.

In March, Utah Governor Gary Herbert (R) signed an ALEC-backed bill into law that demands Congress turn over 30 million acres of public lands to the state or it will sue.  Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (R) vetoed similar legislation last month citing costs and dubious constitutionality.

Wal-Mart’s decision to drop ALEC makes sense in the context of their successful “Acres for America” program.  Since 2005, Wal-Mart has partnered with the National Fish and Wildlife Federation in an effort to conserve an acre of land for every one occupied by a Wal-Mart facility.  As of January 2012, the project has protected 687,000 acres.

As Wal-Mart’s corporate website states:

That promise reflected a company-wide dedication to sustainability and stewardship of our natural resources. With an initial $35 million commitment, Walmart expected to enroll an estimated 138,000 acres in the program by 2015. But by the end of 2010, it had far surpassed that benchmark, conserving more than 625,000 acres and connecting more than 6.7 million protected acres—an area larger than Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware combined.

Despite continued corporate defections from ALEC, its efforts to undermine public lands protection may not be over.  In Colorado, a bill has been introduced that would sell 22 million acres of national forests to the highest bidder, although one state representative is considering amending it to merely cede the acreage to the state.  And, similar bills are rumored to be in development in Montana, Idaho, and New Mexico.

As Think Progress reports:

Groups that have dropped ALEC include: Amazon.com, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Kraft, Wendy’s,Mars, Inc., Arizona Public Service, the National Board for Professional Teaching StandardsScantron, The National Association of Charter School Authorizers, Kaplan, Procter & Gamble, Yum! Brands, five Pennsylvania legislators, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Reed Elsevier,American Traffic Solutions, Intuit, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Jessica is the Manager of Research and Outreach for the Public Lands Project at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

A round-up of the top climate and energy news. Please post other links below.

The world’s air has reached what scientists call a troubling new milestone for carbon dioxide, the main global warming pollutant. Monitoring stations across the Arctic this spring are measuring more than 400 parts per million of the heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere. The number isn’t quite a surprise, because it’s been rising at an accelerating pace. Years ago, it passed the 350 ppm mark that many scientists say is the highest safe level for carbon dioxide. It now stands globally at 395. [Washington Post]

It’s been at least 800,000 years — probably more — since Earth saw carbon dioxide levels in the 400s….

Readings are coming in at 400 and higher all over the Arctic. They’ve been recorded in Alaska, Greenland, Norway, Iceland and even Mongolia. But levels change with the seasons and will drop a bit in the summer, when plants suck up carbon dioxide, NOAA scientists said.

“It’s an important threshold,” said Carnegie Institution ecologist Chris Field, a scientist who helps lead the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “It is an indication that we’re in a different world.”

Related Post:

• Science: CO2 levels haven’t been this high for 15 million years, when it was 5° to 10°F warmer and seas were 75 to 120 feet higher — “We have shown that this dramatic rise in sea level is associated with an increase in CO2 levels of about 100 ppm.”

An international coalition of nearly 100 people protested outside the Chevron shareholders’ meeting Wednesday in San Ramon. They claim the company is engaging in risky and dangerous operations overseas. [ABC]

My argument is that the same general principles that lead libertarians and conservatives to call for greater protection of property rights should lead them to call for greater attention to the most likely effects of climate change. Libertarians readily accept this principle when government planners violate property rights in the name of economic development (see e.g., Kelo v. New London). Yet they seem to abandon their commitment to property rights when it comes to global warming. [The Atlantic]

In the three years since President Barack Obama took office, Republicans have made the Environmental Protection Agency a lightning rod for complaints that his administration has been too tough on oil and gas producers. But an Associated Press analysis of enforcement data over the past decade finds that’s not the case. In fact, the EPA went after producers more often in the years of Republican President George W. Bush, a former Texas oilman, than under Obama. [AP]

American Electric Power conceded defeat on Wednesday, at least temporarily, in its push to save Big Sandy, its 49-year-old coal-burning plant in eastern Kentucky, surprising state officials there by withdrawing its $1 billion plan to retrofit the power plant so that it can meet tough new federal environmental regulations. [NYT]

A massive wildfire that has burned more than 265 square miles in the Gila National Forest has become the largest fire in New Mexico history, fire officials confirmed Wednesday.
The erratic blaze grew overnight to more than 170,000 acres, surpassing a blaze last year that burned 156,593 acres in Los Conchas and threatened the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the nation’s premier nuclear facility. [WSJ]

by Jocelyn Fong, via Media Matters

Following relentless attacks on the solar industry in the wake of Solyndra’s bankruptcy, wind power has become the latest target of the right-wing campaign against renewable energy. But contrary to the myths propagated by the conservative media, wind power is safe, increasingly affordable, and has the potential to significantly reduce pollution and U.S. reliance on fossil fuels.

FACT: Fossil Fuels Pose Far Greater Threat To Wildlife

MYTH: Wind Turbines Are Bird-Killing Machines

• Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld: “Wind power is the Ted Bundy of bird-killers.” [Fox News, The Five, 9/30/11, via Nexis]
• Marc Morano said on Fox News: “We’ve already known that windmills, as you mentioned, are killing birds. Estimates from 400,000 birds a year to almost a million… They’re called bird blenders.” [Fox News, Your World with Neil Cavuto, 4/30/12]
• The Hoover Institution’s Deroy Murdock wrote: “The dirty secret about ‘clean’ wind power is that its turbines are giant whirling machetes.” He went on to claim that the Obama administration “wants to give wind-power companies long-term permits to butcher bald eagles on the altar of green energy.” [Washington Times, 5/18/12]
• In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, the Manhattan Institute’s Robert Bryce wrote that “as the bird carcasses pile up,” “the wind industry’s unofficial license to kill wildlife is finally getting some serious scrutiny.” [Wall Street Journal, 3/7/12]

NRC: Wind Energy Accounts For “Minute Fraction” Of Human-Caused Bird Deaths. A 2007 report by the National Research Council concluded that wind turbine losses account for “a minute fraction” of bird deaths caused by human activities:

Collisions with buildings kill 97 to 976 million birds annually; collisions with high-tension lines kill at least 130 million birds, perhaps more than one billion; collisions with communications towers kill between 4 and 5 million based on “conservative estimates,” but could be as high as 50 million; cars may kill 80 million birds per year; and collisions with wind turbines killed an estimated at 20,000 to 37,000 birds per year in 2003, with all but 9,200 of those deaths occurring in California. Toxic chemicals, including pesticides, kill more than 72 million birds each year, while domestic cats are estimated to kill hundreds of millions of songbirds and other species each year. Erickson et al. (2005) estimate that total cumulative bird mortality in the United States “may easily approach 1 billion birds per year.”

Clearly, bird deaths caused by wind turbines are a minute fraction of the total anthropogenic bird deaths–less than 0.003% in 2003 based on the estimates of Erickson et al. (2005). [National Research Council, May 2007]

[JR: See also "No wonder they’re angry: 13.7 million birds are dying every day in the U.S."]

Fossil Fuels Drive Climate Change, Which Threatens Hundreds Of Bird Species. A 2008 Department of Energy report noted that wind-related bird deaths cannot compare to the threat of climate change:

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It always amazes me how many climate bloggers don’t know the scientific literature and don’t use Google to check key facts.

And so, in the annals of phony attacks on climate realists, such as International Energy Agency chief economist Fatih Birol (and me), we now have the most inane. Our bunny friend Eli Rabbet has a brilliant post nibbling on the know-nothings who foisted this inanity on the blogosphere (click here, reposted below).

But the story is so entertainingly informative (informatively entertaining?) as to how the blogosphere fabricates attacks on people that I’ll run through the key elements. On Friday, May 24, I published a piece headlined “IEA: Global CO2 Emissions Hit New Record In 2011, Keeping World On Track For ‘Devastating’ 11°F Warming.”

I have written literally dozens and dozens of posts explaining that this is what the IEA (and others) now says is possible by 2100. Here, for instance, is an M.I.T. figure I use a lot:

Humanity’s Choice (via M.I.T.): Inaction (“No Policy”) eliminates most of the uncertainty about whether or not future warming will be catastrophic.  Aggressive emissions reductions dramatically improves humanity’s chances. Note that this is 2091-2100 surface warming compared to 1981-2000 — and the mean warming during that time is 5.17°C [See Table 4], which means from preindustrial times to 2100, the total warming would likely exceed 5.7°C.

I confess I thought this was so obvious that it slipped my mind to actually put in the phrase “by 2100.” But the original Reuters story (here) did have an obvious mistake:

“When I look at this data, the trend is perfectly in line with a temperature increase of 6 degrees Celsius (by 2050), which would have devastating consequences for the planet,” Fatih Birol, IEA’s chief economist told Reuters.

Again, I thought the mistake, “(by 2050),” was so obviously one the reporter foisted on Birol with the parenthetical comment that I simply omitted it in my post:

“When I look at this data, the trend is perfectly in line with a temperature increase of 6 degrees Celsius [11°F], which would have devastating consequences for the planet.”

I (too) cleverly took out the obviously incorrect parenthetical comment by the reporter and replaced it with  Fahrenheit conversion. I had intended when I was writing the article to mention that Reuters made a mistake but it slipped my mind by the time I finished.

Note to self: Always do things when you think of them and don’t expect to remember them at some later time!

When a commenter went to the original Reuters piece and pointed out that 2050 “makes no sense,” I noted in the comments “I meant to post that 2050 is obviously a mistake by the reporter.”

What I didn’t know — because I have stopped reading the blogs of the disinformers and confusionists since their traffic and their impact hit a brick wall a long while ago — is that some easily and/or willfully confused bloggers spun up a phony attack on Birol (and me) because they assumed, nonsensically:

1. That Birol made the mistake, not the reporter.
2. That I agreed with the mistake — even though I had never posted it and in fact had obviously omitted it from my post!

Now what makes this exemplary of the kind of nonsense the disinformers and confusionists push on a regular basis is that anybody who actually had a moment’s doubt about the timeframe over which IEA believes the warming will occur could  find out the answer in under 30 seconds on Google!

Just Google “IEA 6C Warming” and the second hit is this UK Guardian piece from April 24 of this year, “Governments failing to avert catastrophic climate change, IEA warns,” about IEA executive director Maria van der Hoeven:

On current form, she warns, the world is on track for warming of 6C by the end of the century – a level that would create catastrophe, wiping out agriculture in many areas and rendering swathes of the globe uninhabitable, as well as raising sea levels and causing mass migration, according to scientists.

And just in case there was any confusion, the article quotes her directly two paragraphs later:

“Energy-related CO2 emissions are at historic highs, and under current policies, we estimate that energy use and CO2 emissions would increase by a third by 2020, and almost double by 2050. This would be likely to send global temperatures at least 6C higher within this century.”

Talk about much ado about nothing. Or is that much ado from know nothings?

I should add that whether the 11F warming is from preindustrial levels or just the warming this century or it doesn’t happen until say 2125 is beyond irrelevant. The first 4C (7F) of warming is going to destroy a livable climate, possibly for centuries, and what comes after that is, well, beyond imagining. Still, the planet would almost certainly keep warming past 2100 if we were on the high emission scenario:

• Science stunner — On our current emissions path, CO2 levels in 2100 will hit levels last seen when the Earth was 29°F (16°C) hotter:  Paleoclimate data suggests CO2 “may have at least twice the effect on global temperatures than currently projected by computer models”

Steve Easterbrook’s post “A first glimpse at model results for the next IPCC assessment” shows that for the scenario where there is (5°C) 9°F warming by 2100 (from preindustrial levels), you get another 7°F warming by 2300.  Of course, folks that aren’t motivated to avoid the civilization-destroying 9°F by 2100 won’t be moved by whatever happens after that.

I’ll end my post with Birol’s great quote from late last year, World on Pace for 11°F Warming, “Even School Children Know This Will Have Catastrophic Implications for All of Us.” If only school children blogged more!

Finally, I’ll let our hopping mad friend Eli Rabett explain the full story.

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Campaigning in Craig, Colorado yesterday, Mitt Romney’s campaign claimed that no clean energy jobs exist in the state — even though the Bureau of Labor Statistics says there are more than 70,000 of them.

Romney also made another blunder: By using the town of Craig has an example of a “hurting” community in coal country, his speech was based on a fabricated story. After the speech, town residents completely contradicted Romney’s talking points in interviews with the New York Times:

The city’s finance director, Bruce Nelson, said that tax revenue had bounced back strongly since last late year. “We are holding our own,” he said.

Terry Carwile, the mayor of Craig and a retired coal miner, went further, saying that the economy was “getting better” in the town of 9,500 as oil speculation intensified. He played down the suggestion that federal regulations had wounded the local coal industry.

“The policies of the federal government really aren’t that impactful to us so far,” he said. He acknowledged that they were “a concern,” though, and that residents were ever wary of government meddling in their biggest industry.

That was not the message from Mr. Romney, who spoke to about 1,000 residents in a park near the town’s center.

Romney also ignored another inconvenient fact: Coal production and jobs are both up in Colorado.

“I’m not going to forget Craig, Colorado,” Romney said in yesterday’s speech. “I’m not going to forget communities like this across the country that are hurting right now under this president.”

However, unemployment in the county is down from 11 percent last year to 8.3 percent this year. And state-wide, coal production was up 10.4 percent in 2011 after seven years of decline. According to the Denver Post, the industry is planning four new mines.

The story is similar in West Virginia, where coal mining employment has grown by 1,500 since 2009 — a two-decade high. Coal generation may be down 19 percent nationally, but this is largely due to the low price of natural gas, not regulation.

Peabody Energy bused 148 miners to Romney’s speech and compensated the miners for their time.

by Jessica Goad

A new study released today by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finds that in three regions, homes sited close to national wildlife refuges have a higher value than those that are further away.

The study, “Amenity Values of Proximity to National Wildlife Refuges,” provides even more evidence that protected public lands are good for local economies and communities, despite what some opponents in Congress and their industry allies might claim.

The Fish and Wildlife Service called this report “the first national study to analyze national wildlife refuges’ impact on land values.” It finds:

On average, being in close proximity to a [national wildlife refuge] increases the value of homes in urbanized areas, all else equal. Specifically, we find that homes located within 0.5 miles of a [refuge] within 8 miles of an urban center are valued:

-  4% – 5% higher in the Northeast region;

-  7% – 9% higher in the Southeast region; and

-  3% – 6% higher in California/Nevada region.

Census data was used to focus on the 93 refuges in the lower 48 states within two miles of an urban area. Additionally, they found that total capitalized value of a specific refuge can be anywhere between $1 million and $40 million.

In addition to raising home values, the Department of the Interior found that national wildlife refuges contributed $4 billion to the economy and supported 32,000 jobs in 2010.

Despite their extraordinarily valuable contributions to local economies, some Republicans in Congress have sought to roll back protections for national wildlife refuges and limit the ability to designate new ones.

Rep. John Fleming (R-LA), introduced the National Wildlife Refuge Review Act (H.R. 3009) which would prohibit the Secretary of the Interior from establishing new wildlife refuges and turn over that authority to Congress, which has not passed any meaningful land conservation bills since John Boehner (R-OH) has been Speaker of the House.

And the Sportsmen’s Heritage Act (H.R. 4089), introduced by Rep. Jeff Miller (R-FL), would roll back a number of important environmental laws for national wildlife refuges.

Despite the partisan attacks on our public lands, evidence continues to mount showing that protecting them offers a range of economic benefits. For example, a report from Headwaters Economics earlier this month determined that over 40 years jobs increased by 300% in rural Western counties with more than 30% protected lands.

– Jessica Goad is the Manager of Research and Outreach for the Public Lands Project at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

I’m drawn to “boring” ways to change energy use: things like daylighting, reducing packaging, and making company supply-chains more efficient. Without these methods to help reduce our energy demand, the “exciting” solutions like renewable energy are less valuable.

And what could be more boring than painting a roof white? Turns out, it’s also an important solution for reducing energy use and lowering carbon dioxide emissions.

A NASA survey of New York City’s rooftops last July showed that dark, heat-absorbing rooftops were up to 42 degrees F hotter than white rooftops. And that difference in heat can make a big difference in on-site energy use; painting a roof white can reduce air conditioning demand as much as 20 percent.

In February, researchers at Concordia University estimated that painting one percent of the world’s urban surfaces white (rooftops and pavement) could reduce CO2 emissions by 130 gigatons over the next 50-100 years. In 2011, global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion reached 31.5 gigatons.

Clearly, white roofs are a major opportunity. But while we’ve seen a proliferation of companies selling on-site solar and efficiency services, there’s been only modest activity in this market. Why aren’t more companies jumping on this around the country?

“I’m not sure why an organization doesn’t exist like this in every city. And it should,” says Juan Carlos, founder of the White Roof Project, a non-profit based in New York City that harnesses volunteers to provide roof painting services.

Having found a good niche with decent demand, the organization is now trying to branch out of New York and take its rooftop painting model nationwide. According to Carlos, painting 5% of the world’s rooftops white per year by 2030 could save enough emissions to equal the world’s carbon output in 2010.

“That would essentially turn off the entire world for an entire year,” he says.

The film below documents what the organization is trying to accomplish. With cities around the world adopting building codes to promote white roofs, the opportunities for this solution are increasing. But we’ve still got a long way to go before we can service so many rooftops per year.

Photo by Walter Disney

The International Energy Agency has a new report out, Golden Rules for a Golden Age of Gas. Unfortunately, the IEA buried the lede — the Golden Age of Gas scenario destroys a livable climate — so the coverage of the report was off target.

For instance, the New York Times opines, “Energy Agency Finds Safe Gas Drilling is Cheap.” And the Council on Foreign Relation headline is similar, “Safe Fracking Looks Cheap.”

That’s true only if a ruined climate, widespread Dust-Bowlification, an acidified ocean, and rapidly rising sea levels is your idea of “safe.”

Still, the IEA deserves much of the blame for this miscoverage. It’s not until page 91 (!) of the full report that the agency explains that adopting its “Golden Rules” for developing shale gas doesn’t stop catastrophe:

The Golden Rules Case puts CO2 emissions on a long-term trajectory consistent with stabilising the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse-gas emissions at around 650 parts per million, a trajectory consistent with a probable temperature rise of more than 3.5 degrees Celsius (°C) in the long term, well above the widely accepted 2°C target. This finding reinforces a central conclusion from the WEO special report on a Golden Age of Gas (IEA, 2011b), that, while a greater role for natural gas in the global energy mix does bring environmental benefits where it substitutes for other fossil fuels, natural gas cannot on its own provide the answer to the challenge of climate change.

D’oh! Or is that Duh?

The IEA was far clearer and blunter when it released its original report, as I wrote last year: IEA’s “Golden Age of Gas Scenario” Leads to More Than 6°F Warming and Out-of-Control Climate Change. At the time, the UK Guardian‘s story put it well:

At such a level, global warming could run out of control, deserts would take over in southern Africa, Australia and the western US, and sea level rises could engulf small island states.

Not exactly a champagne moment.

Also, it’s far from clear that 650 ppm is even stable, in the sense of not triggering carbon cycle feedbacks that cause further warming — or not crossing dangerous tipping points (see “New study of Greenland under ‘more realistic forcings’ concludes ‘collapse of the ice-sheet was found to occur between 400 and 560 ppm’ of CO2” and “Hansen Is Correct About Catastrophic Projections For U.S. Drought If We Don’t Act Now“).

If we risk warming beyond 3.5C, we are courting multiple, simultaneous disasters. Such warming is “incompatible with organized global community, is likely to be beyond ‘adaptation’, is devastating to the majority of ecosystems & has a high probability of not being stable (i.e.  4°C [7F] would be an interim temperature on the way to a much higher equilibrium level),” according to Professor Kevin Anderson, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change in Britain (see here).

Also, the IEA scenario assumes coal use is basically flat from from 2020 to 2035, which the report makes pretty clear would require a price on carbon. Without a carbon price, natural gas is a brige to nowhere and can actually crowd out carbon-free sources of power. That was precisely the point made by Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the IEA, at a London press conference for the 2011 report:

“While natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel, it is still a fossil fuel. Its increased use could muscle out low-carbon fuels such as renewables and nuclear, particularly in the wake of Fukushima. An expansion of gas use alone is no panacea for climate change.”

The UK Guardian focused on the crowding effect for its piece Tuesday on the new report, “ ‘Golden age of gas’ threatens renewable energy, IEA warns.”

To be clear, the “Golden Rules” proposed by the IEA still lead to a 20% rise in energy-related CO2 emissions from 2010 to 2035, a time we need to be slashing global CO2 levels. As climatologist Ken Caldeira told me in March, natural gas is “A Bridge To A World With High CO2 Levels.

Oh, and there’s a mini-bombshell that the IEA sticks in a footnote when discussing options for avoiding the 3.5+ C warming:

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by Tom Perriello and Richard Caperton

Yesterday, Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney revealed that underneath his tough talk on China, he is ready to concede the clean energy race and future jobs to America’s competitors. A broadside of misleading attack ads from his campaign and his supporters at Crossroads GPS betray a bipartisan consensus on investing in competitiveness and not resting until America wins the jobs of the future.

If the ads are any indication, a Romney administration would willingly cede American leadership in critical industries of the future to our competitors abroad. For more than two centuries, the U.S. government has made smart investments in strategically important industries such as agriculture, transportation, telecommunications, and energy—investments that have allowed American businesses and entrepreneurs to get ahead. Now is not the time to knee-cap American workers and American innovation. International competition in the industries of the future is stronger than ever—and the winners are in countries that are leading, not following.

China in particular labels clean energy as a “strategic emerging industry” and is investing tens of billions of dollars in this industry every year. The green in China’s focus is not just about the environment—it is also about their bottom line. While the Solyndra bankruptcy here in the United States was unfortunate, it would be a serious mistake to prematurely admit defeat in the race to creating a clean energy future here at home. Even an independent review conducted by Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) national finance chair found that the Department of Energy program poses very low risk to taxpayers. Romney and Karl Rove—the founder of Crossroads GPS—are attacking public investments in clean energy at the same time the Chinese government is pouring billions into renewable energy. Future generations will judge us not by particular failures but by our ultimate success in the energy race.

Here are the key facts about global economic competitiveness in clean energy:

• By 2020 clean energy will be one of the world’s biggest industries, totaling as much as $2.3 trillion. Of the seven strategic emerging industries identified by China’s State Council as focal points for government investment in economic growth, five are related to the clean energy economy.
• Ernst and Young ranks China as “the most attractive country in the world to invest in renewable energy.”
• “Investors have spent nearly $100 billion on renewable energy in China in the last two years, far outpacing the United States,” according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, referring to 2010 and 2011.
• Every Group of 8, or G-8, developed nation besides Russia has made significant government investments in renewable energy, and the countries with the most stable government commitments are leading the industry forward.

Is clean energy a good investment for America? The program supporting Solyndra began under former President George W. Bush and was carried out by President Barack Obama’s team at the Department of Energy. Here are the facts of the matter:

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A crowded encampment on Everest.

Mount Everest has become a microcosm for the rest of the planet. Once an isolated place for adventurers, the mountain is now extremely crowded, polluted, and facing dramatic changes as global temperatures rise.

As commercial climbing outfits have blossomed over the last two decades, more and more climbers are flocking to Everest. The overcrowding problem became clear earlier this month when the mountain was clogged by a traffic jam of roughly 150 people trying to reach the summit — contributing to the death of four climbers.

The traffic jam made big news. But a couple weeks before the incident, another major event took place on the mountain that only got attention from within the climbing community.

Russell Brice, head of the leading Everest climbing operation Himalayan Experience, announced that he would pull his team off Everest, citing unprecedented temperatures that made climbing too dangerous. Heeding advice from experienced Sherpas worried about the warmth, Brice decided to cancel his 2012 expedition because of unstable ice.

In a blog post, Brice’s crew explained the decision:

• Already at the beginning of the season, the Sherpas were saying that it was too warm when they were setting up base camp. They were working in T-shirts.
• Our Sherpas continuously reported that the icefall is more dangerous and the ‘popcorn area’ is more active this year. They were not worried about taking the risk but they were very aware of the increased hazards.
• In 2011, this risk of the looming seracs on the West Ridge was more acceptable as the debris fell into the Bergschrund, a deep crevasse between the glacier and the mountain. Then we were about 100m away from where debris was falling, however, this year the Bergschrund is filled and there is no protection at all. The route has dropped off and now we are only 25m to 30m away from debris, which is constantly covering the route.
• When we first arrived at base camp at the beginning of April, the crack in the ice block on the West Ridge was pretty small – now it is probably between 5 and 7 metres wide. This means that the pressure within the ice blocks is huge. So far, we only had small pieces come down, however, there is certainly the potential for a huge collapse, which could kill and injure a large number of people.
• We have been recording the temperature at 2am when the Sherpas are usually leaving to go through the icefall. There have only been a few days when it was colder than -10 C, which is unusual and not really cold enough to be moving through the icefall
• Now, it is only the beginning of May and lakes are forming at base camp. Today, on 8^th May, it is as warm as it is normally at the end of the season and it will only get warmer, which means the danger in the icefall will increase.

This is not the first warning sign for climbers on Everest. Apa Sherpa, a Nepali “super sherpa” who has been up Everest more than 20 times, has expressed deep concern for the changes he’s seen on Everest over the last two decades.

“In 1989 when I first climbed Everest there was a lot of snow and ice but now most of it has just become bare rock. That, as a result, is causing more rockfalls which is a danger to the climbers,” he recently told AFP News in an interview.

In 2011, the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development issued an assessment of glaciers in the Himalayas, finding that glaciers in the region have declined by 21 percent over the last 30 years.

Increasingly unstable ice and rock are making Everest ascents more dangerous. Greg Paul, a climber with Himalayan Experience, explained the decision to abandon the mountain this year: “Russell [Brice] expects an accident of catastrophic proportions to possibly [sic] hit the icefall.”

by Jane Dale Owen

Although few people will even know about it, one of the most powerful corporations in the world is meeting in Dallas today.

How shareholders vote on resolutions in that meeting is critical to public health and the environment. The corporation is Exxon Mobil — the largest, most profitable energy corporation in the world. The shareholder resolutions call for more information about the effects of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking; company goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions; and creating a climate future task force.

I am a shareholder in Exxon Mobil, and I have deep roots in the oil business. My grandfather, Robert Lee Blaffer, was one of the founders of Humble Oil Company, the parent company of Exxon Mobil. My grandfather was a humanitarian and fiscally responsible. At that time he was unaware of the side effects of oil extraction and the refining process. I believe he would want me to do what I can as a shareholder to influence this powerful company to move toward a more sustainable future.

Being a shareholder in an extremely profitable energy company comes with financial benefits, and it comes with responsibility. Shareholders have the right to vote, speak and influence the company from the inside. It is up to us to hold Exxon Mobil accountable for the way it does business. In this season of annual shareholders meetings, we are seeing that shareholders do have power. To use that power we must stay involved. We are more powerful as shareholders than any unnoticed vote we could make by selling our shares.

Do we really want our company to be making deals with Russia to teach them the fracking process? Or to give them a stake in the Gulf of Mexico and West Texas in exchange for oil exploration rights in the Russian Black Sea and Kara Sea? Do we want Exxon Mobil to inflict the environmental damage associated with extracting oil from the tar sands in Canada? Do we want our refineries to continue to endanger the lives of children and families living near them?

Under the banner of energy independence, Exxon Mobil is throwing caution to the wind and moving full speed ahead into fracking, off-shore drilling and in other environmentally sensitive areas. A better long-term plan for energy independence would be to steer away from fossil fuels and move toward limitless solar, wind and geothermal.

If Exxon Mobil put resources into solving public health and environmental threats, they could be positioned to innovate and compete in the fast-changing, resource-constrained global economy. This powerful company could be a leader in doing what is needed now to turn a climate catastrophe around.

As shareholders of Exxon Mobil, we are part of a company that has unprecedented influence all over the world. We must exercise our power as shareholders and insist that our company become a better corporate citizen and use its power for a life-sustaining future.

Jane Dale Owen is granddaughter of Robert Lee Blaffer, one of the founders of Humble Oil and Refining Company, the parent company of Exxon Mobil. She is president and founder of Citizens League for Environmental Action Now (CLEAN) www.cleanhouston.org, an organization that for more than a decade has been working to inform and educate the public about solutions to environmental issues.

Related Post:

• Exxon Makes $104 Million In Profit Per Day So Far In 2012, While Americans Are Stuck With A Higher Gas Bill

A round-up of the top climate and energy news. Please post other links below.

Toyota’s Prius, a niche oddity when it went on sale 15 years ago, was the world’s third best-selling car line in the first quarter as U.S. demand and incentives in Japan turned the hybrid into a mainstream hit. [The Columbus Dispatch]

Republican super PACs and other outside groups shaped by a loose network of prominent conservatives – including Karl Rove, the Koch brothers and Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – plan to spend roughly $1 billion on November’s elections for the White House and control of Congress, according to officials familiar with the groups’ internal operations. [Politico]

Romney, a former private equity executive, backed tax breaks for film makers and biotech and medical-device manufacturers. His administration promoted venture capital-style funds that extended loans to start-up companies, some of which subsequently went out of business. [Reuters]

Coal is in a corner. Across the United States, the industry is under siege, threatened by new regulations from Washington, environmentalists fortified by money from Michael R. Bloomberg, the billionaire mayor of New York City, and natural gas companies intent on capturing much of the nation’s energy market. [New York Times]

The Seattle City Council has unanimously passed a resolution opposing development of coal-export terminals in Washington over concerns about increased train traffic and potential harm to health and the environment. [New York Times]

The Memorial Day Weekend brought a rare combination of extreme weather events to much of the U.S., with everything from record heat to wildfires, plus the most intense tropical storm on record to make landfall prior to June 1. Here’s a breakdown of some of the most notable extreme weather events. [Climate Central]

The European Union’s greenhouse gas emissions rose in 2010 for the first time in six years, but the 27-nation bloc is still on track to meet its target under an international climate accord, the EU’s environmental agency said Wednesday. [Washington Post]

by Brad Johnson, campaign manager of Forecast the Facts

LKQ, an auto-parts company that had been a major contributor to the Heartland Institute, has decided to end their association with climate denial. According to calculations by Forecast the Facts, their decision means that the Heartland Institute has now lost over $1 million in expected corporate support for 2012 from 19 different corporations. According to leaked documents, Heartland expected LKQ to contribute $150,000 in 2012.

LKQ announced last week on its Facebook page that it decided to “immediately sever all ties to the group”:

LKQ has never engaged with The Heartland Institute on any issues related to climate change. In fact, LKQ Corporation is an inherently green company whose widespread, large-scale recycling efforts conserve energy and preserve valuable natural resources.

LKQ informed The Heartland Institute on May 8 of its decision to immediately sever all ties to the group. We believe that this is an appropriate step that serves our company and its shareholders.

LKQ’s Facebook announcement was overshadowed by the Heartland Institute’s climate-denial conference in Chicago, which garnered the public support of the Illinois Coal Association. As Climate Progress reported, the conference featured birther jokes and conspiracy theories, but not a single climate scientist.

Blue-chip corporations General Motors, PepsiCo, State Farm, and Eli Lilly have now responded to public outcry over Heartland’s outrageous behavior, which includes classroom climate denial, Unabomber billboards, and its embarrassing parody of a scientific conference. Corporations that continue to support the Heartland Institute include Pfizer, Comcast, and Microsoft. Greenpeace has begun a petition to challenge Nucor, a major steel company that directly funds Heartland’s climate-denial work, to drop its support.

by Jessica Goad

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney campaigned in Craig, Colorado this morning, where he slammed the Obama administration for its energy policies. Romney implied in his speech that there are no clean energy jobs in Colorado, an assertion that is blatantly untrue.

And then of course there’s his plan for energy. You see, he said he was going to create some 5 million green energy jobs.  Have you seen those around here anywhere?  No, as a matter of fact he’s gone after energy.

There are actually tens of thousands of clean energy jobs in Colorado. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the state had 72,452 jobs in “green goods and services” in 2010. In addition, the American Wind Energy Association also says that Colorado’s wind energy industry alone supported 4,000-5,000 jobs in 2011.

But these wind energy jobs could be at risk.  Vestas, the wind turbine manufacturer, which operates four production plants in Colorado, says it will be forced to lay off more than 1,600 workers if the production tax credit for wind is not extended. Up to 37,000 jobs could be at risk nationwide without an extension of this key tax credit.

President Obama was in Iowa last week urging Congress to renew the credit.

Romney has implied that he would like to see the credit expire:

…we should not be in the business of steering investment toward particular politically favored approaches. That is a recipe for both time and money wasted on projects that do not bring us dividends. The failure of windmills and solar plants to become economically viable or make a significant contribution to our energy supply is a prime example.

Meanwhile, Romney supports a Republican budget that would maintain billions of dollars in permanent tax credits for mature fossil fuel companies.

The benefits of Colorado’s renewable energy industry are not lost on residents of the state.  A January 2012 poll from the Colorado College State of the Rockies Project found that 64 percent of state residents believed increasing the use of renewable energy will be good for job growth in Colorado.

Romney’s choice of location Craig, Colorado is not a coincidence. In February, the American Energy Alliance, the Institute for Energy Research, and Americans for Prosperity — Koch-funded oil and coal industry groups — ran a video attacking the president’s energy policies called “The Perfect Storm Over Craig, Colorado.”

These and other pro-fossil fuel groups have poured millions into ads attacking clean energy. In April, a ThinkProgress analysis found that Americans for Prosperity, Crossroads GPS, the American Energy Alliance, and the American Petroleum Institute had spent more than $16 million on energy ads against the president’s energy policies. Energy issues made up 81% of campaign ads in April.

Jessica is the Manager of Research and Outreach for the Public Lands Project at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is entrusted with maintaining the balance between business interests and the delicate ecology of Florida’s precious wetlands.

But in the last several years, officials at the DEP who have sought to regulate the expansion of development in order to protect these valuable natural resources have faced retribution from pro-business officials.

The latest is Connie Bersok, Florida’s top wetlands expert. Last week, she refused to authorize a permit to a company seeking to develop a pine plantation in the northern part of the state.

The company, Highlands Ranch Mitigation Bank, is one of several across Florida that helps restore lost wetlands in exchange for credits issued by the state. Those credits are then sold to private developers who want to build on top of current wetlands. In theory, this system is meant to ensure that every acre of lost wetlands is replaced.

But as the Tampa Bay Times has reported, the credit system is deeply flawed:

In a series of articles in 2006, the Times found serious problems with Florida’s mitigation banks. Some got more than half of their wetland credits for land that was actually dry. A 2007 study done for the DEP reported that fewer than half of the banks reviewed had achieved their restoration goals.

But mitigation banking is still a big business. Wetland credits in northeast Florida have sold for up to $100,000 each, [Glenn] Lowe said.

Bersok said that Highlands was not helping build the amount of wetlands claimed, thereby stating her “objection to the intended agency action and refusal to recommend this permit for issuance.” She was suspended for her decision.

Because companies can take advantage of loopholes, some state environmental officials are reluctant to grant permits to mitigation banks like Highlands Ranch. But those decisions have resulted in negative consequences for those who speak out:

“They’re scrappy, these guys,” said Glenn Lowe, who lost his job with the St. Johns River Water Management District after he refused to give Highlands Ranch what its owners wanted. Former water district executive director Kirby Green said Lowe and other employees lost their jobs because Gov. Rick Scott’s pro-business administration didn’t like the way they treated Highlands Ranch.

In fact, environmental protection is a pro-business strategy. Wetlands are an important part of Florida’s economy. In 2009, the Everglades National Park supported 2,792 jobs and over $165 million in economic benefits, according to analysis from Headwaters Economics.

ThinkProgress reached out to Connie Bersok, who declined to be interviewed because she is still employed by the DEP.

The Romney campaign released yet another ad today on Solyndra and the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program. Romney’s ad repeats the same half-truths and lies about stimulus funding that factcheckers have repeatedly debunked.

During the campaign, Romney has routinely dismissed the nation’s 3.1 million clean energy jobs while intensifying his attacks on the industry. Ironically, the clean energy industry is booming in his home state of Massachusetts, creating 64,000 jobs across the energy efficiency and renewable energy sectors.

In a story published over the weekend, the Boston Globe highlights how solar is “flourishing” in his home state:

In the past two years alone, solar energy-generating capacity in the state has more than doubled to 105 megawatts, ­according to the state Department of Energy Resources. That’s enough to power at least 15,750 homes.

The number of solar installation firms in the state has also exploded, to nearly 200 last year from about 43 in 2007. In total, state energy officials estimate that more than 1,300 solar energy firms — installers, manufacturers, and others — operate in Massachusetts, employing about 14,000.

In addition, Massachusetts has created a market for solar renewable energy credits, which solar project owners can sell to power plant operators to meet state regulations aimed at reducing greenhouse gases.

The money from those sales helps further lower the cost of solar power.

Such policies have made solar economically competitive in the state, despite less than optimal sun, said Jim Dumas, principal at Solect Inc., a Hopkinton company with 10 employees. Solect is currently installing a 475-kilowatt solar system atop a commercial building in Northborough.

In April, the Center for American Progress filmed a short documentary on the explosion of activity in Massachusetts’ clean energy sector.

Even while solar grows quickly in Massachusetts, helping grow new businesses, Romney’s plan would reduce investments in clean energy. He would strike subsidies, loans, and research for the clean energy industry — all while endorsing a House GOP budget that maintains subsidies for oil and coal giants.

Despite a year of investigation finding no evidence of political misconduct, the GOP has hammered away at Solyndra. American Crossroads is up with its own ad today on Solyndra, following an earlier fact-challenged ad from its affiliate Crossroads GPS.

Factcheckers have called every one of these ads bogus. The Washington Post FactChecker labeled these ads a “depressing duty” because the same “erroneous assertions” had been debunked years ago. And Politifact gave a “false” to the claim that Solyndra contributed to higher gas prices.

In fact, an independent review of the loan guarantee program that supported Solyndra found that it will cost $2 billion less than originally anticipated.

The U.S. is being pummeled by a climate system on steroids. For the year to date, new heat records continue to beat cold records by a staggering 14.7 to 1, which trumps the pace of the last decade by a factor of 7!

And the U.S. southeast is being whipsawed from brutal drought to deluge (via tropical storm), which, curiously enough, is just what scientists have said global warming has started to do in the summertime, too.

Here are some charts that tells the story.

Beryl is Earliest “B” Storm on Record

“The chart shows the date of formation for the second named Atlantic tropical cyclone of the season from 1950 through 2012. The average date through 2011 was August 1, so Beryl is nearly 10 weeks earlier than average.”

While warm Gulf stream waters have helped spin up Beryl, the heat has been socking the mainland U.S. all year, as this chart from Capital Climate shows:

Following a March heat wave that was “unmatched in recorded history” for the U.S. (and Canada), heat records continued to trump cold records by a huge amount in both April and May. I like the statistical aggregation across the country, since it gets us beyond the oft-repeated point that you can’t pin any one record temperature on global warming.

A 2009 analysis shows that the average ratio for the 2000s was 2.04-to-1, a sharp increase from previous decades. Lead author Dr. Gerald Meehl explained, “If temperatures were not warming, the number of record daily highs and lows being set each year would be approximately even.”

Many of the country’s leading climatologists and meteorologists have looked at the data and concluded that like a baseball player on steroids, our climate system is breaking records at an unnatural pace (see also “March Heat Records Crush Cold Records by Over 35 To 1, Scientists Say Global Warming Loaded The Dice“).

Climate Central has a great graphic of the record temperatures for any month that you can play around with, which I’ll post at the end. But first, as Capital Climate notes with the following chart, “the U.S. is well on its way to crush the record for warmest spring since national temperature data began in 1895“:

Read more

Gas prices may have dipped in the weeks leading up to the Memorial Day weekend, but consumers are still responding to high gas prices.

According to a new poll from Consumer Reports, 37 percent of Americans say that fuel economy is their top consideration when looking for a new car. That makes efficiency the most important factor for consumers by far.

The next closest consideration was safety, which was ranked as a top priority by 17 percent of Americans.

The poll also showed that nearly three quarters of respondents were open to considering new types personal transportation like electric vehicles:

The survey, conducted by the Consumer Reports National Research Center, found that car owners were open to different ways of saving at the pump, from downsizing to looking at hybrids, electric cars, or models with diesel engines. In all, nearly three quarters (73 percent) of participants said they would consider some type of alternatively fueled vehicle, with flex-fuel (which can run on E85 ethanol) and hybrid models leading the way. Younger buyers were more likely to consider an alternatively-fuel or purely electric vehicle than drivers over the age of 55.

Electric vehicle sales in the U.S. have been slower than expected. While record numbers of Chevy Volts were sold in March, the following month saw a major dip in sales. Nissan has faced a similar pattern of sales with its Leaf.

But auto industry executives say it’s far too early to draw conclusions about the success of the electric vehicle in the U.S.

“I don’t want you to take a one-month or two-month sales result in one particular market to try to make your opinion about the evolution of a very important technology for the industry,” said Nissan’s CEO in April.

Despite the current lag in the EV market, it is clear that America’s relationship with the automobile is changing. Consumers are driving less, using less fuel, and buying more efficient cars. Indeed, many younger consumers are choosing not to buy automobiles at all.