Certainly that’s how Intrade bettors see it. They also think Hillary is the 2-to-1 favorite for the Democratic nod.

Not sure why McCain is only a 1-in-3 shot for winning the White House. That looks like a good bet to me — not that I’m a betting person….

If Dems are smart, they’ll make climate a big issue in the general. Not sure they are that smart, though. I’ll blog on this later.

McCain would almost certainly push some serious action on climate change. Yes, he’s been going a bit wobbly of late and he thinks nuclear power can do more than in fact it can — and he certainly wouldn’t be as good on the issue as Clinton or Obama — but this still represents a huge leap forward for the climate.

FYI – Dr. Pachauri, Nobel-winning Climate Scientist, to Testify before Select Committee. 9:00 AM, Wednesday, January 30, 2008. Watch the live webcast on the Select Committee’s webpage, at www.globalwarming.house.gov

The Preservation Predicament – New York Times. How global warming could affect the conservation efforts to which environmentalists have dedicated so much time, energy, and resources – and which may now become obsolete.

850 companies participating in EPA ‘green power’ program – Greenwire (subs. req’d):

More than 850 companies are purchasing more than 13 billion kilowatt-hours of green power per year under U.S. EPA’s voluntary Green Power Partnership.

Fifty-three of the program participants are Fortune 500 companies. Collectively, they are buying more than 6 billion kWh of green power annually, exceeding the program’s goals by 130 percent, EPA said. Their purchases equal the avoided carbon dioxide emissions of more than 570 million gallons of gasoline per year.

Intel Corp. was the top renewable energy buyer with 1.3 billion kWh per year, followed by PepsiCo, Wells Fargo & Co., Whole Foods Market and the Pepsi Bottling Group. Johnson & Johnson, Cisco Systems, Kohl’s Department Stores, Starbucks and DuPont Co. rounded out the top 10.

Good. Great. But…

But an environmentalist, Clean Air Watch President Frank O’Donnell, warned the success of the voluntary program is designed to hide the need for enforceable regulations on greenhouse gas emissions.

“Everyone realizes voluntary efforts, though positive in some cases, are never going to be the real answer to the problem,” O’Donnell said.

Similarly… this is exactly why Bush’s major emitter’s meeting later this week is in fact a catastrophic global warming policy farce.

The American Geophysical Union, an organization of geophysicists that consists of more than 45,000 members, has issued a strong statement on human-caused global warming:

In the next 50 years, even the lower limit of impending climate change–an additional global mean warming of 1°C above the last decade–is far beyond the range of climate variability experienced during the past thousand years and poses global problems in planning for and adapting to it. Warming greater than 2°C above 19th century levels is projected to be disruptive, reducing global agricultural productivity, causing widespread loss of biodiversity, and–if sustained over centuries–melting much of the Greenland ice sheet with ensuing rise in sea level of several meters. If this 2°C warming is to be avoided, then our net annual emissions of CO₂ must be reduced by more than 50 percent within this century. With such projections, there are many sources of scientific uncertainty, but none are known that could make the impact of climate change inconsequential. Given the uncertainty in climate projections, there can be surprises that may cause more dramatic disruptions than anticipated from the most probable model projections.

Precisely. In short, the time to act is now.

Who can believe the discredited “Inhofe 400” over the world’s top climate scientists? As climate scientist Andrew Dessler has written:

Read more

Evworld has a very good article on the recent purge bloodbath personnel turmoil at start up electric vehicle company, Tesla motors:

On January 10, 2008, the Tesla Founders Blog published a list of employees who had recently been terminated from Tesla. This list included multiple vice presidents, lead engineers, and a variety of other folks from all areas of the Tesla organization. The blogosphere erupted in speculation about the future of the company.

Always worth remembering that good technology does not make a successful company — good people do.

Have you been scratching your head about the basis for the widespread claim — “to have a 50% chance to stabilize at 2ºC (global average temperature above pre-industrial) industrialized countries need to reduce their emissions 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020″?

You can find a good explanation here.

Of course this country isn’t going to cut emissions that far that fast, making clear just what a tragic mistake it was for us not to embrace the Kyoto Protocol, which history will certainly view as the best chance humanity had to start down a plausible path to sustainability. At this point, just returning to 1990 levels by 2020 would be an astonishing achievement for America, especially given our current politics.

As I discuss in my book, this doesn’t mean 2ºC is unattainable — we could still embrace a World War II type strategy starting around 2020, though conservatives would almost certainly block such an effort. Let us hope that 2.5ºC is not fatal to the planet, and that we get started soon enough to achieve it.

“… clean energy technology … advanced batttery technology … new technologies that can generate coal power while capturing carbon emissions … new international clean technology fund…. The United States is committed to strengthening our energy security and confronting global climate change, and the best way to meet these goals is for America to continue leading the way toward the development of cleaner and more energy-efficient technology.”

For Bush/Luntz energy/climate policy, “Technology, technology, blah, blah,” the State of the Union never, ever changes.

That was Bush’s only use of the word “climate” in the speech — though he did also say, “let us complete an international agreement that has the potential to slow, stop, and eventually reverse the growth of greenhouse gases.” Potential! This is the last friggin’ year of your second term and your big plan for dealing with climate is the potential of new technology and an agreement that has the potential to reverse emissions trends — which itself is just doubletalk since you’ve spent 7 years working to block any international (or domestic) agreement.

I propose a new drinking game: one shot when Bush says something that isn’t true, and a double shot when he says something that is actually the exact opposite of the truth. Unfortunately for me, before the actual SOTU, the White House released its State of the Union energy talking points, titled “Increasing Our Energy Security And Confronting Climate Change: The Administration Is Taking Steps To Reduce U.S. Dependence On Oil, And To Advance U.S. Leadership In Developing A Global Response To Climate Change.”

And I passed out shortly after finishing the headline.

It is a laugh-til-it-hurts (and I mean root-canal-without-novocaine hurts) document, as the speech was.

Lets see. After 7 years:

• Record oil imports. Check.
• Record oil prices. Check.
• Record trade deficit in oil. Check.
• Endless war in the Persian Gulf. Check.
• Iraqi oil exports below pre-war levels. Check.

Now that’s what the White House calls “Increasing Energy Security.” I’d hate to imagine what it would take for the White House to say we were Decreasing Energy Security.

And don’t get me started on “Confronting Climate Change.” The thing to always bear in mind:

President George W. Bush doesn’t just fiddle while the planet burns, he actively fans the flames and thwarts the fire-fighters.

Thank goodness this is the last Bush SOTU we’ll have to endure.