A year ago I wrote a post “Old coal’s out, can’t wait for new nukes, so what do we do NOW?” where I hypothesized:

Suppose the leaders of this country were wise enough to put a moratorium on traditional coal (the most urgent climate policy needed, as discussed here)? How will we meet our steadily growing demand for carbon-free power over the next decade? And to get on the 450 ppm path, we don’t just need to stop U.S. emissions from rising — we should return to 1990 levels (or lower) by 2020.

Well, we now appear to have leaders that wise (see “Obama EPA to act on global warming emissions from new coal plants“). And we need real reductions by the end of next decade (see “The U.S. needs a tougher 2020 GHG emissions target“).

Also, while my original post focused on the key strategies of efficiency and recycled energy (i.e. cogeneration or combined heat and power), wind, and concentrated solar thermal, I left out one of the most crucial — biomass cofiring, which is almost certainly the cheapest, easiest, and fastest way to provide new renewable baseload power without having to build any new transmission lines!

I think it is incumbent on progressives to propose a realistic alternative to new coal plants — and a path to reduce emissions from existing ones. That’s especially true since it is increasingly clear carbon capture and storage will not be a major player by 2020 (see “Is coal with carbon capture and storage a core climate solution?“). So I will revise and extend my previous analysis:

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Even as the costs of global boiling increase from Australia to California, the mainstream media continues to provide a platform for conservative polluter propaganda. In the past few days, both the Associated Press and Reuters have written news stories based on polluter misinformation without indicating their industry ties.

Reuters (2/18/09): “Western climate plan could prolong recession.” “A cap-and-trade program planned for the Western United States and Canada,” Reuters reporter Nichola Groom writes, “could prolong the economic recession and chase high technology investment to other regions, according to a new study commissioned by” the Western Business Roundtable, described only as “a group of business leaders.”

Although Groom does report that Jim Sims is not only the chief executive of the Roundtable but also “chairman of Colorado-based lobbying firm Policy Communications Inc,” nowhere does the article describe who the “group of business leaders” are. The Roundtable is, in fact, as the DeSmog Project’s Kevin Grandia has previously reported, a “fossil-fuel industry organization whose membership includes Peabody Coal, Shell Oil, and the Western Fuels Association.” Policy Communications is also responsible for these other Orwellian front groups: Partnership for America, Americans for American Energy, NextGen Energy Council, and the Conservation Science Foundation.

AP (2/15/09): “Former astronaut speaks out on global warming.” “Former astronaut” Harrison Schmitt “is among 70 skeptics scheduled to speak next month at the International Conference on Climate Change” hosted by “the Chicago-based Heartland Institute,” reports the Associated Press. Schmitt “walked on the moon and once served New Mexico in the U.S. Senate,” with a “science degree from the California Institute of Technology” and “doctorate in geology from Harvard University in 1964.”

The Associated Press story, cribbed from a piece by the Santa Fe New Mexican, fails to mention that Schmitt is a Republican who was the president and chairman of the Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy from 1994 to 1998, and remains its “chairman emeritus.” The Annapolis Center is an ExxonMobil-funded front group founded by Richard Siebert, a National Association of Manufacturers lobbyist. Furthermore, Media Matters notes the article fails to mention the “Heartland Institute receives funding from the fossil fuels industry.”

Of course, this misreporting is not special to the wire services. The Washington Post publishes the global-cooling rants of George Will; the New York Times publishes John Tierney’s radical global-warming Pollyannaism; CNN’s Ali Velshi promotes liquid coal and goes on drilling junkets with Michelle Bachmann. Igor Volsky describes the sorry state of climate-change journalism in today’s Progress Report:

Given the media’s eagerness to prop up global warming skeptics, it’s no surprise that “only 40 percent of Americans believe that ‘most’ scientists agree that ‘global warming is happening.”

In a story headlined ” ‘Blame global warming’ for higher temps,” China Daily (!) reports:

Global warming is to blame for the recent temperature rises across China, an expert from the National Meteorological Center (NMC) said on Friday.

“Spring has come early in some areas of East and Central China this year, and it’s because of global warming,” Yang Guiming, the center’s chief forecaster, told China Daily.

If only U.S. meteorologists were so … science-based [see "Diagnosing a victim of anti-science syndrome (ASS)"].

Metaphors are the Rolls Royce of figures. Or, to put it more aptly, metaphors are the Toyota Prius of figures because a metaphor is a hybrid, connecting two dissimilar things to achieve a unique turn of phrase.

Metaphor, like verbal irony discussed in Part 2, is a trope, because it alters or enhances a word’s literal meaning. The headline quote is from Aristotle, who writes in Poetics, “To be a master of metaphor is a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars.”

A 2005 study on “Presidential Leadership and Charisma: The Effects of Metaphor” examined the use of metaphors in the first-term inaugural addresses of three dozen presidents who had been independently rated for charisma. The remarkable conclusion:

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Climate Wire (subs req’d) reports this morning, “Obama says ‘technology’ can fix oil sands skirmish”:

President Obama said “clean energy mechanisms,” like carbon capture and storage, would allow the United States to continue consuming Canadian sand oil, an emission-heavy fuel that often requires strip-mining vast stretches of boreal forest in the province of Alberta.

The assertion yesterday came two days before Obama is scheduled to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Ottawa, and it promises to raise questions among environmental groups, which see the oil sands as a key contributor to climate change.

Uhh, no, no, no, and no. First, the tar sands are a key contributor to climate change — it is absurd for ClimateWire to hedge (and weaken) this fact by attributing it solely to environmental groups.

Second, the “biggest global warming crime ever seen” cannot be made green with carbon capture and storage (CCS), even in the unlikely event CCS proves practical for the tar sands. If the President wants to understand everything the tar sands would have to do to be “clean,” he should start with the pastoral letter of Canadian Bishop Luc Bouchard (see Canadian bishop challenges the “moral legitimacy” of tar sands production).

Third, Obama said, “I think that it is possible , for us to create a set of clean energy mechanisms that allow us to use things not just like oil sands, but also coal.” Did he really say “oil sands”? I can understand why greenwashing Canadian shills use the phrase rather than the traditional term “tar sands” (see “Canada tries to tar-sandbag Obama on climate“), but not why the U.S. media does, and certainly not somebody as smart as Obama.

No doubt the phrase makes it seem like, oh, I don’t know, maybe up through the sand came a bubblin crude, oil that is, black gold, Texas tea, Athabasca euphemism (see ClimateProgress commenter, Jim Eager, here).

Also, Obama has made a mistake that is all too common on the climate policy arena — confusing the benefit of CCS for generating electricity with the benefit of using CCS for making liquid fuels.

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A disturbing development in the march of global warming, revealed in science’s use of the English language.

Not long ago, most climate scientists stuck to the future tense when they talked about the impacts of global warming. Now, they are using the present tense — and using it more and more often. Now, they tell us the damages have arrived in the United States.

In other words, climate change isn’t just a problem for our kids anymore. It’s here and now and getting personal.

What concerns climate scientists today is not only that the adverse impacts are showing up faster than they expected; it’s that political leaders are moving slower than they should. Climate scientists from around the world will meet next month in Copenhagen “to warn the world’s politicians they are being too timid in their response to global warming,” according to The Guardian.

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