Rep. Louie “InterContinental Shelf” Gohmert (R-TX) has bashed an MIT economist for daring to say Republicans are “just wrong” about his work on clean energy policy. Dr. John Reilly, a co-author of the 2007 “Assessment of U.S. Cap-and-Trade Proposals,” has criticized the repeated misuse of his work to fabricate a “$3100 lightswitch tax” for setting global warming standards with a cap-and-trade system as “misleading,” “unrealistic,” and “silly.” In an interview with the right-wing outlet CNS News, Gohmert, a two-term representative from the Dallas area, attacked Reilly’s sanity:

Anyone who thinks you can pay $3,100 to the federal government and thinks you can get that money back completely in services — like I said — he may go to M-I-T but he is an N-U-T.

Gohmert’s uncontrolled emission is consistent with the behavior of his fellow conservatives, willfully refusing to admit they’ve been caught in a lie. Every time Reilly attempts to explain the error of their ways, starting over a month ago, the GOP and the right-wing machine redouble their efforts. The Republicans for Environmental Protection, a group of conservative conservationists, have offered one possible explanation why so many leading Republicans, from House whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) to Budget Committee ranking minority member Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), keep on lying:

Few except special interests and politicians who do their bidding would argue that limiting emissions that put human health and the environment at risk puts a burdensome “tax” on American families and businesses.

In his two terms, Gohmert has received $22,500 in contributions from the coal sector and $212,313 from Big Oil — enough to pay a mythical $3100 tax for 76 years.

Nobel prize-winning NYT columnist Paul Krugman has an excellent piece on climate economics 101, “An Affordable Salvation.”  It follows an economic lesson he gave on his blog to anti-green Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson.  Krugman explains:

It’s important to understand that just as denials that climate change is happening are junk science, predictions of economic disaster if we try to do anything about climate change are junk economics.

Yes, limiting emissions would have its costs. As a card-carrying economist, I cringe when “green economy” enthusiasts insist that protecting the environment would be all gain, no pain.

But the best available estimates suggest that the costs of an emissions-limitation program would be modest, as long as it’s implemented gradually. And committing ourselves now might actually help the economy recover from its current slump.

I do not believe climate action is all gain, no pain — and try hard not to leave that impression on this blog.  I run through what the most credible major independent studies find here:  “Intro to climate economics: Why even strong climate action has such a low total cost — one tenth of a penny on the dollar.”

Krugman cites similar findings from EPA and the Emissions Prediction and Policy Analysis Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology:

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Dear coal plants, you’re doomed

In Australia, desperate times call for hard truths. The island nation is experiencing the most severe effects of global warming of any inhabited region on earth today (see “Global Boiling: Australia’s Hellish Black Saturday Of Extreme Fire“).  Most scientists believe the continent’s extreme heat and water shortages mark only the beginning of what will be a rapid deterioration in conditions needed to sustain life (see “Australia today offers horrific glimpse of U.S. Southwest, much of planet, post-2040, if we don’t slash emissions soon“).

A group of climate scientists with intimate knowledge of these dire circumstances have written a refreshingly blunt letter to the heads of Australia’s coal industry:

Evidence is mounting that climate change is occurring faster than previously predicted and we are perilously close to a number of tipping points which, if passed, would amplify the effects of climate change and make it much more difficult to bring further warming under control. We cannot emphasize enough just how serious the situation has become.

Their bottom line:

Unfortunately, the development of carbon capture and storage technology is not sufficiently advanced and is unlikely to be deployable within the timeframe necessary to cut emissions in order to avoid unacceptable levels of greenhouse gas concentrations and associated warming.

It is our considered view that no new coal-fired power stations, except ones that have ZERO emissions, should be allowed to be commissioned in Australia. Furthermore, we need an urgent program to replace existing coal plants with zero-carbon energy sources and energy efficiency programs as soon as possible….

Genuine action on climate change will mean that coal-fired power stations cease to operate in the near future.”

Amen. How serious will the situation have to get before leaders in the big polluting nations, such as ours, come to the same conclusion.

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We desperately need a new way of thinking, a new mind-set. The thinking that got us into this bind will not get us out. When Elizabeth Kolbert, a writer for the New Yorker, asked energy guru Amory Lovins about thinking outside the box, Lovins responded: “There is no box.”

There is no box. That is the mind-set we need if civilization is to survive.

It’s not news that Lester Brown is warning about our unsustainable approach to feeding the planet.  But it is news that Scientific American has run a major article by him on how “The biggest threat to global stability is the potential for food crises in poor countries to cause government collapse.”

Brown’s “Key Concepts”:

• Food scarcity and the resulting higher food prices are pushing poor countries into chaos.
• Such “failed states” can export disease, terrorism, illicit drugs, weapons and refugees.
• Water shortages, soil losses and rising temperatures from global warming are placing severe limits on food production.
• Without massive and rapid intervention to address these three environmental factors, the author argues, a series of government collapses could threaten the world order.

Brown’s warnings, ignored for too long, are now being repeated at the highest levels.  For instance, I previously blogged on the UK government’s chief scientist, Professor John Beddington, who laid out something very close to this collapse scenario in his speech yesterday to the government’s Sustainable Development UK conference in Westminster (see “When the global Ponzi scheme collapses (circa 2030), the only jobs left will be green“):

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