At a campaign stop today in Maumee, OH, Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) talked to Carolyn Auwaerter, a young 1Sky campaigner, about energy policy. Questioned about his campaign’s support for “clean coal,” Biden vigorously defended his record in favor of renewable energy, and outlined what he sees as the key challenge: developing carbon capture and sequestration technology (which he calls “clean coal”) to limit the pollution from China’s rapidly increasing fleet of coal plants. In his words, captured on video by the Energy Action Coalition:

No coal plants here in America. Build them, if they’re going to build them over there make ‘em clean because they’re killing you.

Watch it:

Both 1Sky and the Energy Action Coalition are opposed to the development of new coal-fired power plants. Energy Action Coalition is running Power Vote, a national youth based campaign to get 1,000,000 youth voters voting for clean energy this election season. They are also working with Green For All and the Center for American Progress on the Green Jobs Now Day of Action, this September 27.

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Phil was the rarest of people — a committed environmentalist who was also brilliant at messaging.

I worked with him many times over the years and he was a shrewd and passionate strategic thinker. As my colleague Daniel Weiss puts it:

The effort to stop global warming lost one of its leading champions with the passing of Philip E. Clapp, Deputy Managing Director of the Pew Environment Group. He was the founder and President of the National Environmental Trust, which began in 1994 and merged with Pew in 2007.

The testimonials for Clapp are pouring in:

“Phil was an environmental hero who vigorously advocated the prompt reduction of global warming pollution,” said John Podesta, President and CEO of Center for American Progress. “His was a prominent voice for action, particularly in the international arena. He will be sorely missed.”

And others can be found in Grist:

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That is a quote by me in an E&E Daily piece today titled, “Enviro groups still struggling with message, tactics in oil drilling debate” (subs. req’d). I have long been critical of messaging by the environmental community (see, most recently, “Gustav, climate, drilling, McCain, Palin — Some enviros self-censor, but should progressives?“).

I think the enviros, among others, screwed up the debate over offshore drilling vs. clean energy, mainly by not engaging coherently and realistically. I think the House made a major mistake in going beyond the Gang-of-20 compromise on drilling (see “Gang-of-10 deal, Part 4: Pick of B.O.S.S. Palin and McCain’s speech make it a must for Dems“). Now the Senate GOP compromisers are arguing that they should not be to the left of Pelosi — so, ironically, we may end up with more drilling than we needed to. D’oh!

Still, if the Democrats and environmentalist can get their messaging act together, then they will at least have neutralized the drilling issue for the campaign while delivering some vital clean energy policies. That is, of course a very big “if.” Here is the entire E&E Daily on piece:

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Our guest blogger is Daniel J. Weiss, a Senior Fellow and Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

The effort to stop global warming lost one of its leading champions with the passing of Philip E. Clapp, Deputy Managing Director of the Pew Environment Group. He was the founder and President of the National Environmental Trust, which began in 1994 and merged with Pew in 2007. He was an advocate at Clean Water Action, and worked for then Rep. Tim Wirth (D-CO) to strengthen the Clean Air Act.

“Phil was an environmental hero who vigorously advocated the prompt reduction of global warming pollution,” said John Podesta, President and CEO of Center for American Progress. “His was a prominent voice for action, particularly in the international arena. He will be sorely missed.”

Phil strived to solve a number of environmental threats to human health, including smog, acid rain, toxic air pollution, and hazardous waste, among others. He made his greatest mark as an early and forceful advocate against global warming. Phil provided leadership in the international NGO community to ensure that their voices were heard at international negotiations over the planet’s fate. He was an expert at translating complicated discussions and convoluted proposals into every day concepts that the public, media, and public officials could understand.

Phil Clapp was both a dedicated environmentalist and a savvy politician. He was a strategic big thinker and an effective tactician. His first foray into politics occurred at age 15 when he left his Los Angeles home to go to New Hampshire in 1968 to work for Sen. Eugene McCarthy’s (D-MN) presidential campaign. That was his launching pad for a life dedicated to the pursuit of a cleaner, safer, healthier nation and planet.

Digg It!

Although “This year was cooler and other weather conditions weren’t as bad” as last year, the Arctic sea ice minimum came within 150,000 square miles of last year’s record decline.

This is clear evidence that last year was no fluke and that human-caused global warming has become a major — if not the dominant — driver of long-term Arctic sea ice decline, which in turn could rapidly accelerate the destruction of a livable climate.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) reported yesterday that the 2007 minimum was probably reached Friday, when “sea ice extent dropped to 4.52 million square kilometers (1.74 million square miles),” which is “the second-lowest recorded since 1979, and is 2.24 million square kilometers (0.86 million square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average minimum.”

The NYT‘s Andy Revkin has a nice figure from the University of Illinois (above) and notes on his blog:

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A: You be the judge.

First, the big picture: The House Dems have finally exposed the House GOP’s Big Energy Lie — the absurd notion that the House GOP (or any conservative) actually believes in an “all of the above” energy policy based on bipartisan compromise (see The Big Energy Lie).

In fact, with few exceptions, the entire House GOP voted against the Comprehensive American Energy Security and Consumer Protection Act (details here and today’s Post story here) even though it contains much more drilling in it than the bipartisan Senate compromise does. Still not good enough for the House GOP.

The House GOP only believes in “Drill baby, drill” — with an emphasis on the “baby,“ which brings me to my 19-month-old daughter.

When she sees something she wants she says, “want it, want it.” If that doesn’t work, then she just repeats the name of the item over and over again. Last night, on her way up to a bath, she saw a plastic funnel. She can’t quite say “funnel,” so she just started chanting “tunnel, tunnel, tunnel, tunnel.” [Note to self: Be glad she didn't see a drill last night.]

We made the mistake of trying to get her to go upstairs without it. Needless to say, she absolutely refused, threw a little fit, and just chanted louder “tunnel, tunnel, tunnel, tunnel.” Finally, we had to give it to her. Then she calmed down. [Okay, that's probably the real difference: The House GOP doesn't calm down when you give them what they say they want.]

Last night, the House GOP didn not merely vote against the compromise bill, they actually threw a fit of their own, putting up a “motion to adjourn” — to take their ball back and go home because they didn’t get every single thing they wanted and nothing else (i.e. drilling everywhere with no support for renewables).

Like my daughter, they don’t like sharing. But then, the GOP is more than 150 years old, while my daughter is not yet two.

Lots of videos below for those who missed the floor debate:

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