What is the most unsustainable activity you have ever seen?

So I was taking my daughter upstairs last night when I happened to look outside the window and saw a “Mobile Grooming Salon” for dogs and cats.  The big tricked out van looked something like this:

Anyway, while I suppose this could conceivably save the energy of individual pet owners each driving to a salon in a world of overconsumption and cheap gasoline, I don’t think I saw this van in my copy of The Transition Handbook: from oil dependency to local resilience [which I just started reading and will blog on eventually].  Though it does occur to me just now that this van could easily be replaced by a plug-in hybrid in the near future, and essentially always stay charged up as it moved from home to home.  Hmm.  Would that make it sustainable, assuming the grid goes low-carbon?

Anyway, it reminded me of my earlier post “What is the most unsustainable piece of junk you own?”

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Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who has been widely regaled as a “green” conservative for his plan to limit global warming pollution, today attacked President Obama’s clean energy plan as an “irresponsible, ill-conceived and distorted version of a cap-and-trade system.” Speaking at an energy forum convened by the Reform Institute, McCain reserved particular vitriol for Obama’s “proposal of auctioning 100 percent of the carbon credits“:

The president’s proposal of auctioning 100 percent of the carbon credits is bad economic policy that would cost businesses billions of dollars and allow for little-to-no transition into a low carbon system. I am a supporter of a strong cap-and-trade system, but I will not and cannot align myself with a giant government slush fund that will further burden our businesses and consumers.

In fact, full auctioning of carbon credits is needed to avoid polluter windfall profits. The principle is simple: Pollution permits have a dollar value, and giving them for free to covered emitters is equivalent to pork-barrel subsidies for the polluters. Economic modeling of cap-and-trade systems has found that permit giveaways do not reduce costs for consumers — they only increase polluter profits. McCain has claimed, “I oppose subsidies. Not just ethanol subsidies. Subsidies.” For some reason, this principle is being thrown out the window when it comes to subsidizing global warming pollution from the coal and oil industry.

Ironically, the Reform Institute — founded by McCain after his failed presidential bid in 2000 — is itself a slush fund, accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from corporations with business under McCain’s jurisdiction, employing McCain campaign staffers between his presidential runs.

President Obama spoke at a wind tower production facility in Iowa today.  It was another brilliant speech underscoring his commitment to climate action and the clean energy transition.

Like no President before him — indeed, like no major U.S. politician — he has stated again and again that our current path is unsustainable and doomed to fail, using language very similar to the global economy is a Ponzi scheme metaphor.

• “We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand.” (4/14)
• “We can let the jobs of tomorrow be created abroad, or we can create those jobs right here in America and lay the foundation for our lasting prosperity.” (3/19)

His speech today was equally blunt and equally visionary — testimony to the fact that the best messaging on this subject has both the positive vision of the future if we change our path and the painful reality facing us if we don’t.

And don’t miss his extended discussion at the end about “closing the carbon loophole through this kind of market-based cap” and trade system.  Anyone who thinks President Obama is not serious about passing a climate bill in the next year or so, that he is somehow softening on his campaign commitment, is simply not paying attention:

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The chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Jon Wellinghoff, said today of new coal and nuclear plants, “We may not need any, ever.”  Greenwire (subs. req’d) reported his remarks at a U.S. Energy Association forum:

“I think [new nuclear expansion] is kind of a theoretical question, because I don’t see anybody building these things, I don’t see anybody having one under construction,” Wellington said.

Building nuclear plants is cost-prohibitive, he said, adding that the last price he saw was more than $7,000 a kilowatt — more expensive than solar energy. “Until costs get to some reasonable cost, I don’t think anybody’s going to [talk] that seriously,” he said. “Coal plants are sort of in the same boat, they’re not quite as expensive.”

Between energy efficiency and demand response and wind and concentrated solar power (CSP) and biomass and even new hydro (blog post forthcoming) and natural gas — all of which Wellinghoff discussed (see below) –  we certainly have more than enough capacity to deliver as much low carbon and no-carbon power as we need whenever and wherever it is needed:  (see “Intro to the core climate solutions” and “If Obama stops dirty coal, as he must, what will replace it? Part 1” and “Part 2: An intro to biomass cofiring“).  And that’s not even counting cogeneration/recycled energy and geothermal.

Nuclear is indeed wildly expensive, more expensive than the best solar today (see “Exclusive analysis, Part 1: The staggering cost of new nuclear power” and “The Self-Limiting Future of Nuclear Power.”).  And new dirty coal is climate destroying and likely to be increasingly viewed as unfinanceable.

Wellinghof is a key climate and clean energy pick by Obama.  I will excerpt his remarks at length because they debunk many widely held myths about electric power:

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In an Earth Day hearing, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu was forced to explain to Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) how oil is found in the Arctic. Chu and other administration officials are testifying today before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Barton, the top Republican on the committee and a recipient of $1,330,160 in oil money, was flabbergasted by the concept of continental drift. After Chu explained that “oil and gas is the result of hundreds of millions of years of geology and in that time also the plates have moved around,” Barton questioned whether oil didn’t actually reach Alaska through a secret Texas pipeline:

Isn’t it obvious that at one time it was a lot warmer in Alaska and on the North Pole? It wasn’t a big pipeline that we’ve created from Texas and shipped it up there and put it under ground so we can now pump it up?

Watch it:

“No,” Secretary Chu responded, “there are continental plates that have been drifting around throughout the geological ages.” The “driving force” for Alaska’s oil formation during the Triassic era 200 million years ago, according to University of Alaska geologist Mark Rivera, “is plate tectonics, which is the unifying theory of geology.”

Ironically for someone who has called climate science “absolute nonsense,” Barton was actually onto something. During the Triassic, the entire planet was indeed a hothouse and entirely deglaciated. The carbon dioxide (CO2) content in the atmosphere was at its highest ever levels, spiking from 1000 parts per million to 3000 ppm. The end of the Triassic period was marked by one of the largest mass-extinction events in Earth’s history.

Habitable conditions for humanity, hundreds of millions of years later, are very different. Carbon dioxide levels, which had been below 300 ppm for the last 650,000 years and was stable at 280 ppm during the rise of human civilization, have skyrocketed since 1800 because of our burning of coal, oil, and natural gas to 388 ppm, a nearly 40 percent rise.

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This article is reprinted from the Center for American Progress’s website.

Religious communities across the country are celebrating Earth Day every day this year by taking long-term, sustainable steps to help reduce global warming. Faith communities are greening their houses of worship and advocating for policies and lifestyles that protect the planet and its most vulnerable inhabitants, joining scientists, policymakers and environmental advocates as good stewards of God’s creation. Here are 21 things these communities are doing to combat global warming.

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A reader points out that the front page of MSN today has an impressive story on climate impacts, “Climate Catastrophe? Here’s What the U.S. Could Look Like in 2100.”  Those impacts should be motivation enough for action as is, but in fact the story would be a much more accurate portrayal of the latest science with just the tiniest of changes:  replace “in 2100″ with “post-2050.” MSN asserts with unusual bluntness:

… you wonder, “Is climate disaster already upon us?”

Scientists say the answer is “yes.” We are now experiencing the effects of human-caused climate change and, even if we drastically alter our polluting behavior today, we’ll continue to see changes over the next two to three decades. This change is irreversible, and researchers predict it may be worse than the depressing situation Al Gore foretold in An Inconvenient Truth.

Precisely.  Here is the region-by-region warning “if we don’t act now”:

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Top Story

Republicans are still unapologetically lying about the costs of cap-and-trade versus the costs of inaction. “Democrats have released no numbers,” says GOP Conference Chairman Mike Pence. Well, that is untrue (see EPA Analysis: “the median household [would be] better off than they would be without the program”). The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has released a two-year study that concludes that climate legislation like the Waxman-Markey bill will yield an annual net gain of $900 per household by 2030.

GOP still using disputed data

GOP Conference Chairman Mike Pence is defending Republican use of a widely disputed cost estimate on a Democratic global warming proposal, even after an outcry from media, environmentalists, and climate change experts.

“We are using the numbers that are in the public domain right now,” said Pence (R-Ind.) in a Tuesday briefing with reporters. “Democrats have released no numbers.”

In speeches, interviews, and press releases, Republicans have repeatedly claimed that a cap and trade system would raise energy prices an average of $3,100 per household – a figure they got by doing some additional calculations off an MIT analysis.

MIT’s John Reilly, one of the authors of the study, slammed their use of his estimates earlier this month.

See “MIT Professor tells GOP to stop ‘misrepresenting’ his work and inflating the cost to families of cap-and-trade by a factor of 10.”   In fact, MIT found the costs on lower and middle income households can be “completely offset by returning allowance revenue to these households.” Read more

UPDATE:  RFK Jr Confirms: ABC Headline was Purposefully Provovative and Inaccurate.

Guest blogger Brad Johnson has this classic case of media-manufactured drama in a post first published by Wonk Room.

Prominent environmentalist and activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has long described the Bush administration as “indentured servants” to the oil and coal industry, in particular because “virtually all the principal environmental agencies” were “being operated by lobbyists from the very businesses they’re supposed to regulate.” In a blatant attempt to create an Earth Day conflict between President Obama and the environmental movement, ABC News’ Brian Ross and Joseph Rhee are claiming that RFK Jr.’s attacks on the Bush administration and other coal advocates apply to the Obama administration:

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Please click here to read my Salon piece, “Don’t Believe the Fossil-Fuel Lies.”

Last week, Michael Shellenberger, President of The Breakthrough Institute (TBI), wrote “Obama’s Climate Suicide Threat.”  He argued that Waxman’s and Obama’s embrace of making polluters pay for global warming pollution through a carbon cap — along with the Obama EPA’s pursuit of regulatory standards after finding CO2 a threat to Americans’ health and welfare — was political suicide for progressive politicians.

No wonder the uber-conservative deniers at the Competitive Enterprise Institute started praising and quoting the analysis in their own attacks on climate action.  Yesterday, Salon published an updated version, with TBI’s Ted Nordhaus added as coauthor:  “Obama is just blowing smoke: The White House says it’s serious about climate change. But its plan to regulate carbon emissions is doomed to fail.”

Now what is astounding about those two TBI pieces — beyond the myriad misstatements and disinformation they contain — is that in an October 2007 online debate with them, I was able to get Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus to admit (click here):

Romm asks if we embrace Obama’s plan. Not only do we embrace it, we’ve been advocating such a plan since 2002 … Obama’s energy plan, like the plan that we outline below, recognizes the need for regulatory standards and a cap on emissions.

Mind-boggling.  Just 18 months ago, Shellenberger and Nordhaus endorsed a plan — heck, they said it was their plan all along — that they now label as not serious, as political suicide and as doomed to fail.

The Waxman-Markey Bill is almost identical to what Obama campaigned on. Turns out Shellenberger and Nordhaus were for the Obama plan before before they were against it.

Both TBI pieces are filled with misstatements and disinformation that will warm the hearts of any anti-scientific conservative looking for ammunition to undermine climate action, starting with TBI’s attacks on Rep. Henry Waxman and his appearance on PBS’ The Tavis Smiley Show:

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