Today’s guest blogger is Kyle Gracey, Chair for SustainUS and a graduate student in public policy and geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago.

In 2050, I’ll be 77, and given the pace of the climate talks in Bonn these two weeks, I’ll likely spend most of my retirement either under water or on fire.

If finalized in the next climate agreement, the weak targets offered so far by developed countries virtually ensures that greenhouse gas concentrations (and sea levels) will rise to levels well beyond what science says are safe limits to ensure the survival of peoples and nations. Over 100 youth from 6 continents (the Antarctic youth called in sick) participated in the Bonn negotiations, watching our leaders draft an increasingly costly and damaging climate for us to live through.

Daily at the negotiations, youth have shown our governments how vulnerable our generation will be to the warming and climate change they are creating with their short-sighted proposals. We literally brought two camels and tons of sand to the negotiation entrance to highlight the drought and desertification many of our countries increasingly experience. We rapped and rhymed about the threatened survival of nations and developed countries’ weak financing proposals. Youth tracked key negotiators to remind them the next generation is watching, and blogged to their peers in multiple languages.

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Personally, I’m keeping cool with a weekend trip to Newport, RI for a wedding (which is why I didn’t blog much today).  But traveling to keep cool may not be the greenest way to go.  Following the eighth warmest winter on record, the summer of 2009 is looking to be a hot one (see Breaking: NOAA puts out “El Ni±o Watch,” so record temperatures are coming and this will be the hottest decade on record). Constantly using your air conditioning to keep cool can consume a great deal of energy and release greenhouse and ozone-depleting gases into the atmosphere, but you can maximize your energy efficiency by following these six tips that will help you stay cool (from a post first published here):

Consider other options before cranking up the AC. Save energy and money by using ceiling fans or portable fans, which can make a room feel six or seven degrees cooler. On milder days, fans alone may keep you cool enough, but on particularly hot days, try setting the AC to 80 degrees and letting the ceiling fan to do the rest of work. Remember, though, fans cool you, not the room, so running them when you aren’t in the room is just a waste of energy. Before holing up inside your home and turning on the AC, you could also consider going somewhere that already has it. After all, businesses and public buildings run their AC whether you are there or not. Libraries, movie theatres, and coffee shops are just a few places you could go to keep cool and entertained.

[JR:  I have six (!) ceiling fans in my home!  We also have a retractable awning, a popular feature in Europe, but hasn't quite caught on in the U.S. -- yet.  And don't forget that white/reflective roof (see "What is geo-engineering and adaptation and CO2 mitigation all in one?"]

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Written by Alexandra Kougentakis, a Center for American Progress Action Fund Fellows Assistant, and Brad Johnson.

Rep. Diane DeGette’s (D-CO) attempt to regulate fracking — underground hydraulic fracturing for natural gas extraction — is under attack by a multimillion-dollar lobbying and public-relations campaign from the oil and gas industry. Led by the American Petroleum Institute and the Independent Petroleum Association of America, dozens of industry organizations established the Energy in Depth front group to denounce fracking legislation as an “unnecessary financial burden on a single small-business industry, American oil and natural gas producers.” The Energy in Depth blog personally attacks DeGette as being “squarely focused” on ending this “critical energy-producing practice”:

Consistent with her legislation in the 110th Congress, DeGette remains squarely focused on stripping states – who have a 60-year record of ensuring hydraulic fracturing is done safely and effectively – of their regulatory authority and enacting a one-size-fits-all federal mandate that could effectively halt this critical energy-producing practice at a time when our economy, working families, and state and local governments desperately need the boost.

The “multimillion-dollar lobbying and public-relations campaign to defend the practice” of fracking includes a website, Twitter feed, Facebook group, YouTube channel, an “aggressive ad campaign” on the Drudge Report.

Fracking, which was developed in the 1950s by Dick Cheney’s Halliburton, involves “injecting a million gallons or more of water and chemicals deep underground to pry out gas that’s locked away in tight spaces,” contaminating groundwater with toxic chemicals. A 2008 hydrogeologic study in Garfield County in Colorado, where fracking is extensively used, found evidence of methane and chlorine contamination of groundwater supplies. Under the Bush administration, fracking was exempted from the Safe Drinking Water Act by the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

Furthermore, the fracking fluids — industrial solvents including known carcinogens and endocrine disrupters such as diesel fuel, and benzene — are largely unregulated. Even after a Colorado nurse nearly died from exposure to fracking chemicals in 2008, industry officials continue to argue that their toxic formulas must be kept secret. In recent testimony, a Halliburton executive compared the chemicals which cause “heart, lung, and liver failure, plus kidney damage and blurred vision” to secret flavorings:

It is much like asking Coca-Cola to disclose the formula of Coke.

The Fracking Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act has been introduced in both chambers of Congress to close these loopholes, restoring Safe Drinking Water Act oversight and requiring that companies disclose to U.S. EPA or state agencies the specific chemicals that are injected into the ground to extract gas supplies. The sponsor of the Senate bill is Sen. Robert Casey Jr. (D-PA), while the House bill is sponsored by Reps. Diana DeGette (D-CO), Jared Polis (D-CO), and Maurice Hinchey (D-NY). “We’re not opposed to gas drilling,” Congressman Hinchey has explained. “We just want it to be done in a way that is not going to injure other people, not going to damage their property, not going to contaminate their water supply.”

The intent of the FRAC Act is to protect the public through healthy drinking water standards and greater public awareness. It would reduce some of the problems currently resulting from the unregulated use of the procedure while continuing to allow its use for production of oil and natural gas. If the technology truly has “an exemplary safety record,” as industry representatives claim, then they should have nothing to fear from a law that calls for greater disclosure and the protection of public safety.

Intern Erica Goad contributed to this post.

Sizewell nuclear disaster averted by dirty laundry, says official report

A nuclear leak, which could have caused a major disaster, was only averted by a chance decision to wash some dirty clothes, according to a newly obtained official report.

On the morning of Sunday 7 January 2007, one of the contractors working on decommissioning the Sizewell A nuclear power station on the Suffolk coast was in the laundry room when he noticed cooling water leaking on to the floor from the pond that holds the reactor’s highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel.

As much as 40,000 gallons of radioactive water spilled out of a 15ft long split in a pipe, some leaking into the North Sea. The pond water level had dropped by more than a foot (330mm) – yet none of the sophisticated alarms in the plant sounded in the main control room.

By the time of the next scheduled safety patrol, the pond level would have dipped far enough to expose the nuclear fuel rods – potentially causing them to overheat and catch fire sending a plume of radioactive contamination along the coastline.

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