I am predicting that U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide emissions will never exceed 2007 levels.  We have peaked.

The United States appears to be in the process of breaking its long-standing link between economic growth and global warming pollution.  I am, of course, assuming in my prediction that the United States will enact into law serious energy and climate legislation, along the lines of Waxman-Markey, sometime soon.

What would have been almost impossible to imagine even a year ago is now, I think, a pretty safe bet thanks to a unique confluence of factors.  Indeed, the main reason I’m able to make this prediction with such high confidence is the Energy Information Administration’s remarkable, if little noted, report from last month, Updated Annual Energy Outlook 2009 Reference Case Reflecting Provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and Recent Changes in the Economic Outlook.  It was Figure 3 that blew me away:

Yes, the EIA itself, which is incredibly conservative from a forecasting perspective, doesn’t foresee CO2 emissions returning to 2007 levels until 2024!  But, of course, that post-2020 return to steadily rising emissions is exceedingly unlikely to happen — thanks to peak oil and action by President Obama and Congress on energy and climate legislation.

Remember, EIA only models the “no further energy and climate policy” case and the “no peak oil” case, so the only thing one can say for certain about an EIA forecast is that there is no chance whatsoever it will come true.  Indeed, the main drivers for the EIA’s latest forecast change are just:

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Last Friday, Duke Energy announced it would not renew its membership with the right-wing trade group the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) because of NAM’s efforts to kill legislation to cap carbon emissions and invest in clean energy. NAM is one of the most aggressive business coalitions opposing legislation to address global warming. NAM has funded groups to deny the science underpinning climate change and has spent millions to derail any move to curb emissions.

Today, NAM hosted an event on Capitol Hill to update staffers on clean energy legislation Waxman-Markey. Asked if they will “modify their approach” on climate change given Duke Energy’s recent departure and the fact that other NAM coalition members are demanding climate change legislation, Keith McCoy, NAM’s Vice President of Energy and Resources Policy, apprehensively denied that NAM has staked out any position:

MCCOY: In terms of Waxman-Markey, I think its clear in anything you’ve read that the NAM hasn’t taken a position whether for or against it … As the legislation evolves, we’ll see. But right now, I don’t think there’s a position that the NAM has taken on the Waxman-Markey bill.

Listen here:

Despite McCoy’s claims of neutrality, the NAM has taken a very public position on Waxman-Markey. The NAM, in a partnership with the major oil industry trade group API, launched an advertising campaign last month using the name “American Energy Alliance.” The ads explicitly tell viewers to call their member of Congress and “Tell him that we can’t afford the Waxman-Markey Energy Tax.” Last week, NAM President John Engler appeared as a witness at the GOP mock energy hearing to denounce Waxman-Markey.

Of course, Duke Energy would not split from NAM if the trade group hadn’t “taken a position whether for or against” climate change legislation. Rather, it appears the NAM is attempting to conceal their true position on climate change legislation to deter further defections from its coalition.

UPDATE:  Energy Daily (subs. req’d) has just come out with a bunch of new details, which I excerpt at the end.  They report:

The draft bill calls for setting aside an additional 5 percent of the total amount of allowances from 2012 through 2025″”and declining percentages thereafter””for “supplemental emission reductions” obtained by funding programs in tropical forest countries to prevent deforestation.  This 5 percent set-aside would have the effect of raising the cap for regulating industries and is likely to boost the cost of allowances.

So the deal looks to be close — and close to what I wrote about here:  Waxman-Markey deal-making update: 14% cut by 2020, about half the allowances given away at first, phased out to full auction in 10 to 15 years.

You can read today’s Congress Daily story here, and I’ll excerpt tonight’s E&E News PM (subs. req’d) for climate bill junkies below:

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As a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, this “cash for clunkers” deal is probably among the least cost-effective uses of federal dollars one could imagine.  That doesn’t mean it won’t have benefits to the auto industry, but nobody should sell it as a particularly strategic GHG reducer.

‘Clunkers’ deal stirs questions about climate benefits

A deal reached by House lawmakers this week on a “cash for clunkers” provision for a proposed energy and climate bill was initially hailed as a win-win for often-competing interests of the auto industry and environmentalists.

But not everyone believes the compromise gives environmental concerns equal weight with industry needs.

The clunkers provision would pay Americans who scrap their older cars and trucks for newer, more fuel-efficient vehicles. Its supporters say it would spur car sales to help the battered U.S. auto industry while reducing the use of transportation fuel.

At first glance, the plan looks “green.” By increasing the overall fuel economy of U.S. vehicles, the program cuts fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions that accompany it. But environmentalists and some academics are warning that looking only at fuel economy fails to paint a full picture of automotive emissions.

The program, they say, fails to have a net environmental benefit unless the fuel-saving gains are greater than the environmental cost of building the new cars and trucks in the first place.

Frankly, the biggest problem with the program from a GHG point of view is that you are paying large amounts of money for relatively small incremental gains.  And that’s without even considering the fact that clunkers don’t tend to be driven as much as new cars — or, as the article notes, the environmental impact of building the new cars and trucks.

The rest of this piece is reprinted at the end of this post.

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I’d be very interested in hearing what coping mechanisms readers have developed for dealing with “climate trauma.”

The knowledge that humanity is headed pell-mell toward self-destruction is tough to deal with.  I am fortunate that I get to vent blog full time on this subject, though that doesn’t free me from the frustrations of the Cassandra syndrome. I will share one of my secrets for avoiding burnout.

Whenever I get frustrated by people refusing to see what is right before their eyes, by the success of the climate science deniers in their campaign of disinformation and delay, and by the attacks on the personal integrity of the many idealistic scientists and activists who are desperately trying to help humanities save itself from itself, from Hell and High Water — I remember one thing.  The deniers and delayers sleep well at night thanks to their blinkered ideology.  And I will be damned if I’ll give them yet one more advantage on top of their better funding, better messaging machine, freedom from having to present factual or consistent arguments, and credulous coverage by a status-quo media.  We simply can’t afford to get burned out, since the end result would be humanity getting burned up.

Guest blogger Gillian Caldwell, the campaign director of 1sky, has done all climate science activists a favor by opening up on this painful subject to my friend Lise Van Susteren, M.D. (who previously posted “Our Moral Obligation to Act“).  Caldwell’s post was originally published here.

I have spent my lifetime face to face with some of the most brutal and inhumane acts ever committed, but nothing has been as traumatizing for me as trying to get action to tackle the climate crisis.

As a long time human rights defender and prior Executive Director at WITNESS, I helped produce and direct films on rape as a weapon of war and amputations in Sierra Leone’s recent bloody conflict, I conducted an undercover investigation into the Russian mafia’s involvement in trafficking women for forced prostitution, I investigated hit squads in apartheid South Africa, and I spent countless hours in editing rooms watching first hand images of death, destruction, and devastation.

But spending my days and nights trying to get our country to tackle global warming is more emotionally demanding than any job I have ever done.

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The NYT Magazine has a pretty good piece on the Maldives, “Wanted: A New Home for My Country“:

… ever since Nasheed declared on the eve of his inauguration last November that, because of global warming, he would try to find a new homeland for Maldivians somewhere else in the world, on higher ground, local reporters didn’t miss the chance to see their unpredictable (“erratic” and “crazy” were other adjectives I heard used) president.

The citizens of the Maldives would not be the first islanders to evacuate because of global warming.  That “honor” appears to belong to the Carteret Islands, as noted on CP Friday.

But the Maldives have 100 times as many people on their low-lyng islands:

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People who live in green houses shouldn’t throw stones

Back in March, Darth Vader former Vice President Dick Cheney said Americans are “less safe” now thanks to President Barack Obama and his policies.  He repeated and expanded on the charge yesterday on Face the Nation.

Let’s set aside the fact that if a President’s actions and policies in his first 100 days make him 100% responsible for any attack on this nation, than Bush and Cheney are 100% responsible for 9/11.

Terrorism is a real threat to Americans.  But it pales in comparison to the scale and scope of the threat posed by unrestricted emissions of greenhouse gases.  In the words of IPCC head R.K. Pachauri — who was essentially hand-picked by Cheney himself to replace the “alarmist” Bob Watson:

The cities, power plants and factories we build in the next seven years will shape our climate in mid-century. We have to act now to price carbon and create incentives to change the way we use energy and spread technology “” and thereby avert nothing less than an existential threat to civilization.

As the uber-centrist Brookings Institution put it in a pre-election op-ed:

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