The UK’s Independent reported today some pretty shocking news in “Exclusive: The methane time bomb“:

The first evidence that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed has been discovered by scientists.

The Independent has been passed details of preliminary findings suggesting that massive deposits of sub-sea methane are bubbling to the surface as the Arctic region becomes warmer and its ice retreats.

Assuming these findings are published in a peer-reviewed publication, as is planned, they should be taken quite seriously for four reasons. First, many fear that a huge methane release is what happened during the Permian-Triassic extinction event and the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. Second, releasing even a small fraction of the sub-sea methane would make a stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions at non-catastrophic concentrations all but impossible.

Third, as NOAA reported earlier this year, levels of methane rose sharply last year for the first time since 1998:

Fourth, the findings are apparently based on very new and credible in situ measurements:

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In 2006 the California legislature passed AB32, which required greenhouse pollution to return to 1990 levels by 2020. They left it up to state regulatory agencies to come up with the details.

Governor Schwarzenegger followed with an executive order that requires an 80% reduction from 1990 levels in greenhouse pollution by 2050 (at which time California’s is expected to be twice the 1990 population, so this represents a factor of ten per capita reduction in greenhouse pollution.)

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has been working to meet various statutory deadlines for the reduction plan. Its proposed plan will be released next month (October). As part of the process, it has made estimates of the economic costs and benefits of its plans, and it released those estimates last week:

These estimates indicated that the overall savings from improved efficiency and developing alternatives to petroleum will, on the whole, outweigh the costs. This balance is largely driven by current high energy costs and the degree to which measures increase energy efficiency throughout the economy and move California toward ultimately cheaper alternatives to fossil fuels.

The measures pay for themselves — not even counting the benefit of helping to avoid catastrophic climate impacts. The executive summary lists the key elements of CARB’s preliminary recommendation for the 2020 target:

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Last week, the Wonk Room reported that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) joined Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) in opposing mountaintop removal, an ecologically and economically disastrous form of coal mining that has devastated Appalachia. This position, expressed at a Florida townhall meeting, caught his campaign and his supporters off guard, with Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) responding that “such a stance could hurt McCain in West Virginia.”

At the same meeting, McCain also criticized the idea of building new coal plants that do not sequester their greenhouse gas emissions. He said:

We’re going to build new plants that generate energy, my friends, we’re going to build them. We’ve got to. There’s an increased demand for it. And it seems to me, it’s going to be coal, which I believe will increase greenhouse gas emissions dramatically, or it’s going to be nuclear, or it’s going to be clean coal technology.

Watch it:

Carbon capture and sequestration (sometimes described as “clean coal” technology) is still a developmental technology. Does McCain’s careful separation of coal plants that “increase greenhouse gas emissions dramatically” from “clean coal technology” mean that McCain opposes the construction of new traditional coal plants?

If so, McCain is joining activist organizations like 1Sky, the Energy Action Coalition, and the League of Women Voters, who have all called for a moratorium on new coal plants to prevent climate catastrophe.

Today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) criticized Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) for comments criticizing coal’s health threats, noting that Biden “here in Ohio recently said that they weren’t supporting clean coal either.” The comments, first reported by the Wonk Room, were picked up today by the Politico’s Ben Smith and then promoted on the Drudge Report. Sen. McCain’s blogger, Michael Goldfarb, copied the Wonk Room transcript without attribution.

Following McCain’s remarks, McCain representative George “Macaca” Allen (R-VA) spoke with reporters about coal. Allen confused traditional coal plants, advanced “clean coal” technology, and climate-killing liquid coal. In the twenty-minute call, neither Allen, Capito, Scott McInnis (R-CO) — a registered lobbyist for the mining industry — nor the other speakers mentioned any of the following:

– Global warming, which McCain considers a central priority.

– The health effects of coal pollution.

– Mountaintop removal mining, which McCain says he opposes.

Unlike his campaign, McCain seems to have no difficulty recognizing the threat traditional coal plants pose to the planet and thus to our national security and economic future.

UPDATE: The McCain-Palin campaign has announced the “Coalition to Protect Coal Jobs:”

The coalition will help spread the message about the importance of clean coal technology and the advantages of tapping the country’s vast coal reserves. As part of John McCain’s “all of the above” energy plan, the Lexington Project, clean coal will be a strong component of the drive to energy independence. In addition to providing domestic energy, the coal industry is a key part of the economy in several states.

The Obama-Biden campaign later announced the “Clean Coal Jobs Task Force”:

Today, the Obama-Biden campaign announced a Clean Coal Jobs Task Force, aimed at furthering Senator Obama and Senator Biden’s commitment to creating jobs and energy independence through clean coal. The Task Force is made up of members representing workers from key coal-producing states and will work to promote the Obama-Biden agenda to invest in advanced coal-based technologies, create more jobs in the coal sector and enhance mine safety.

If you follow peak oil — and if you don’t, you will be bitchslapped by reality — then you know of Matt Simmons. I was introduced to him several years ago by my former boss at the Energy Department. Back then Simmons was merely one of the savviest financier in the oil services business, who was presciently warning all who would listen that natural gas supplies in this country would not respond quickly to increased prices and thus we should expect some serious price spikes.

Today he is “The prophet of $500 oil” as Fortune described him Monday. Yet, long before he published his 2005 book, Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, he was a “lifelong Republican” who “helped edit the Bush campaign’s comprehensive energy plan in the 2000 election.” The word “comprehensive” of course is a laughable term that I’m sure even Simmons would mock today for a plan that focused almost exclusively on supply.

Still, Simmons remains well connected to Republicans: “Maine’s Senator Susan Collins, a Republican who recently began consulting with Simmons on energy issues, says, “I think he’s issuing a clarion call that policymakers need to listen to.”

Simmons was right about natural gas, and he appears to be (mostly) right about peak oil (see below), so the nation should listen closely when he speaks truth to power about his party’s own nominee:

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Last summer, on the one-year anniversary of Climate Progress, I put together a list of the top 10 climate blogs. For the sake of objectivity, I used Technorati, which ranks all blogs by “authority” (the number of blogs linking to it). The lower the rank the better.

One of the blogs on that list, It’s Getting Hot In Here, has updated it (old ranks in parenthesis):

10. Climate Feedback (46,821 – #9) — “An informal forum for debate and commentary on climate science.”
9. A Few Things Ill Considered (35,362 - #2) — “A layman’s take on the science of Global Warming featuring a guide on How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic.”
8. SolveClimate.com (23,600 – NEW) – Daily Climate News and Opinion
7. Climate Ark (22,922 - #5) — “Climate Change and Global Warming Portal.”
6. Climate of Our Future (15,042 – #8) — “A discussion on climate change.”
5. It’s Getting Hot In Here (13,992 – #7) — “Dispatches from the youth climate movement.”
4. Celsias (8,394 – #3) — “Cooling the planet one project at a time.”
3. DeSmogBlog (6,671 – #4) — “Clearing the PR pollution that clouds climate science.”
2. Climate Progress (4,359 – #6) — “An insider’s view of climate science, politics, and solutions.”

…and the reigning champ:
1. RealClimate (3,222 – #1) — “Climate science from climate scientists.”

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In a new video, Green Jobs Now compares Newt Gingrich’s “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” propaganda to the Green Jobs Now green recovery agenda. Newt fares poorly. Watch it:

The Green Jobs Now Day of Action is this Saturday, September 27. Thousands of Americans will be calling for investment in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and job training for people who are ready to get to work building a more just and sustainable economy.

Newt Gingrich’s “Solutions Day” is this Saturday, September 27. He’ll be calling for more drilling, privatizing health care and Social Security, and slashing corporate taxes.

Who will you join this weekend?

UPDATE: Adi at 1Sky reports: “We’re up to 558 events in all 50 states!” At SolveClimate, David Sassoon writes: “And the coalition now has a secret weapon: Patrick, and his caulk gun. Shock and Awe has met its match.”

Lobbying for his plan to sharply ramp up renewables, the billionaire oilman has been brought face to face with the Big Energy Lie — the absurd notion that either John McCain or the Republicans in Congress actually believe in an “all of the above” energy policy.

In my interview with Pickens last month, he was able to offer only the blandest reply to a question pointing out that Dems back renewables but the GOP doesn’t: “So let me ask you, how do we, how do we get Republicans to support that kind of investment in renewables.” See his rambling answer here “Pickens in a pickle: He embraces progressive policies but not progressive politicians.”

TP reports on a sadder but wiser (and far more cogent) Pickens at the National Press Club yesterday:

Q: You told the New York Times last month that you’d never vote for a Democrat. Are you finding that difficult in reaching out to Democrats then with your plan? [...]

PICKENS: So I am having no problem working with the Democrats. Having a little problem working with the Republicans. They don’t like it because I want to do more than just drill. And they, somehow have gotten it, a lot of them have, that you can drill your way out of this. But you can’t do it. There’s not enough oil there to do it.

I guess he missed the GOP convention, see “Drill baby, drill”: The moment the Republic died.

You can see the video of Pickens here:

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