Some 1970s-era liberals and old-school enviros think massive government spending is the only way to achieve the clean energy transition.  They could not be more wrong, as a particularly uninformed post by the otherwise cutting-edge Grist online magazine makes clear.

As a climate bill, Waxman-Markey is at best a B-, but as a clean energy bill, it is a solid A — though both sides of the bill should be improved.  Together with Obama’s other climate and clean energy efforts, it would, as I’ll explain, very quickly bring U.S. investments in clean energy technologies and industries close to the record-smashing levels now being set by the stimulus bill, nearly $100 billion a year.

BACKGROUND

I have spent two decades trying to accelerate the clean energy transformation of the US (and global) economy, since that is our only hope for averting catastrophic global warming impacts, Hell and High Water.  For a number of years in the mid-1990s, I helped run DOE’s billion-dollar Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), the largest program in the world (at the time) for working with businesses to develop and deploy the core clean energy technologies.

Over the years, the work of the office has been crucial in maintaining and expanding US leadership in key areas of clean energy.  In fact, its investments have the highest documented rate of return of any federal program.  The success of the office and its analytic work, especially the 5-Lab study that I initiated, oversaw, and publicized, played a key role in convincing the White House to engage positively in the Kyoto negotations in the face of strong opposition by Clinton’s entire economic team (see “The history of the ‘safety valve’ debate“).  You can read an account by Art Rosenfeld [the first article, his autobio] now California Energy Commissioner “” then science adviser to the assistant secretary of EERE.  Kyoto was not ratified here, of course, but it has ultimately driven many tens of billions of dollars in clean energy investment in Europe and Asia.

What I came to learn in the federal government was that no matter how much money the federal government spent — money that would always be constrained by moderates and conservatives in Congress and the vagaries of presidential elections — it would always pale in comparison to what the private sector must spend in any genuine clean energy transition, by at least a factor of ten or more.  Indeed, in the 5-lab study we specifically needed to model a modest CO2 price just to return to 1990 levels of CO2 emissions by 2010 — otherwise, all of the energy efficiency that we were driving the private sector to adopt mainly squeezed out new renewables and high-efficiency gas plants, not the least efficient coal plants.

GRIST FOR THOUGHT — NOT

So I was shocked, needless to say, when Grist magazine published an anachronistic (and falsehood-filled) piece yesterday, “Joe Romm’s strategy to lose the clean energy race.”  The amazingly flawed premise of this article is that the only way to win the clean energy race is massive government spending — spending of a kind that is not merely politically infeasible, but suicidal from the perspective of the human race.  Indeed, the article actually asserts that because I would like to pass a strengthened version of Waxman-Markey, I am embracing a strategy that would lose the clean energy race.

Who would write such old-school drivel?  Let’s call them The Big-government Institute (TBI) or The Bad Idea (TBI).  But I’m far less interested taking on the authors, who are stuck in the 1970s, or even Grist, who bizarrely published it, then in addressing the old-think at the core of their argument.

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Our guest blogger is Tom Kenworthy, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

There’s something about the Endangered Species Act that brings out the worst kind of demagoguery on the right. Doubly so when climate change is involved.

Ever since the battle over the Tellico Dam and the snail darter in Tennessee in the 1970’s, the right has consistently fallen back on the same old, tired, and inaccurate construct: it’s always a tiny fish (or useless bird, or obscure snail) that is destroying jobs and threatening the economy.

The latest example has been unfolding over the past few months in California, where a three-year drought is being mis-characterized as a “manmade drought” brought on by federal efforts to protect an endangered fish, the delta smelt, in compliance with a 2007 court decision. Reductions in irrigation water deliveries by state and federal water projects to protect a 3-inch fish, scream the commentators and lawmakers, are crippling agriculture in the state’s Central Valley and throwing tens of thousands of people out of work.

“Because of this little fish, up to 80,000 people are going to lose jobs,” caterwauled Sean Hannity on Fox in mid-May. “This is madness.”

There’s madness out there all right, but it has a lot more to do with degradation of the Pacific coast’s largest estuary, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, climate change, mismanagement of the state’s water resources, and the right’s inability to look at the facts than it does with protecting a small fish.

Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute, punctures some of the myths surrounding the California drought in a blog posting that shows Central Valley farmers are getting lots more water than is commonly reported, that the jobs impact has been overstated, and that the smelt is not to blame.

As Gleick notes, a couple of weeks before Beck’s tirade, the head of California’s Department of Water Resources said that if the Endangered Species Act didn’t exist there would only be a five percent increase in water deliveries to farmers. “If the ESA goes away this afternoon, we still have a drought,” said Lester Snow.

The delta smelt is a handy whipping boy for the likes of Rep. Devin Nunes, who has tried to suspend the ESA to prevent what he calls a “government imposed dust bowl.” But the smelt is only a symptom of the collapse of one of America’s most important ecosystems, a collapse that has been building for decades and affects not just the smelt, but salmon, steelhead and about 750 other species of fish, birds and animals – 18 of which are designated as threatened or endangered by the state and federal governments.

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According to disclosures released earlier this month, oil and natural gas interests are pumping money into lobbying firms to influence climate change legislation at a furious pace. With $82.2 million spent in just the first half of 2009 — compared to $132.2 million in all of 2008 — the industry is on track to set new records.

Unfortunately, as large as this direct lobbying figure is, it represents probably a fraction of the total amount of money the oil and gas industry is pouring into the debate. Some of the money flows straight to candidates and to political action committees. Another huge, largely undisclosed portion goes to what is known as “outside lobbying” efforts — public relations and advertising firms which coordinate a pro-polluter propaganda campaign to influence public opinion. And finally much of the money goes to financing “think-tanks” to produce reports outside the realm of scientific consensus to legitimize skepticism of global warming.

The outside lobbying campaign the industry has embraced this year is the most corrosive because it is based upon deception — and increasingly, hate. Koch Industries, the oil and gas behemoth, bankrolls the astroturf groups Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks. These groups were instrumental in orchestrating the anti-Obama tea party protests, where thousands gathered to display racist signs directed at the President, absurd calls for an impeachment, and more recently, protesters hanging Democratic leaders in effigy. In addition to the anti-Obama protests, these groups provide a useful front for industries as they hire dozens of field staff to spread misinformation about clean energy and bus people around the country to create the guise of public distrust of global warming. Koch has funneled its money not only to these astroturf efforts, but has been a prolific leader in all the aforementioned strategies that industries pursue (Charles Koch even founded the Cato Institute, a leader of global warming skepticism and has spent nearly $4 million in lobbying this year alone).

Although Koch has traditionally given mostly to Republicans, E&E notes that it is giving increasingly to Democrats. In 2009, Koch gave about 28 percent of its contributions to Democrats, compared to about 15 percent last year:

Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT): $5,000 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR): $10,000 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]
Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR): $2,000 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]

Rep. Marion Berry (D-AR): $2,500 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]
Rep. Dan Boren (D-OK): $3,000 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]
Rep. Allen Boyd (D-FL): $6,500 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX): $3,500 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]
Rep. Charles Gonzalez (D-TX): $4,500 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]
Rep. Gene Green (D-TX): $3,500 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]
Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-LA): $2,500 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]
Rep. Solomon Ortiz (D-TX): $1,000 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]
Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN): $6,500 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]
Rep. Mike Ross (D-AR): $2,000 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]
Rep. David Scott (D-GA): $1,000 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]
Rep. Henry Teague (D-NM): $1,000 [FEC, accessed 7/29/09]

In accepting dirty energy Koch money, these lawmakers are legitimizing the financiers of the anti-Obama tea party effort.

I am going to do a glossary for Climate Progress, and I’d like your suggestions as to what it should include.

I’ve been planning to do one for a while.  Now it looks like I will be doing a book of best blog posts (see “What is your favorite Climate Progress post?“) — and that certainly needs a glossary.

I’ll cover everything from amplifying feedback to recycled Energy to Solar Baseload to wedges (stabilization).  I’ll try to steal borrow liberally progressively from EPA‘s and Wikipedia‘s, but hopefully be less boring.  It will posted on the sidebar and constantly upgraded.

Suggestions?

We’ve heard plenty about the mainstream media’s complete inadequacy when it comes to covering climate change (see links here).

At least one organization, the Earth Journalism Network (EJN) — whose mission is to “establish networks of environmental journalists in countries where they don’t exist, and build their capacity where they do” — is doing its part to support a better-covered future through the Earth Journalism Awards.  This video above illustrates how serious EJN is.

With the EJN’s broad goal of translating “complex issues for local audiences,” budding and established environmental journalists aged 18-to-28 have until midday, Paris time on September 7^th to submit their best climate piece. Aimed at empowering young people across the world to make up for the world media’s many gaps and failings, the awards actively push for a stronger focus on climate issues in regions both devoid and oversaturated with media coverage.

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Beijing closing coal plants in environmental move

China has taken advantage of a drop in electricity demand due to the global financial crisis to speed up a campaign to close small coal-fired power plants and improve its battered environment, an official said Thursday.

Authorities have closed power plants with a total of 7,467 generating units, meeting a previously announced goal 18 months ahead of schedule, said Sun Qin, deputy administrator of the Cabinet’s National Energy Administration….

Beijing is trying to improve its energy efficiency and reduce surging demand for imported oil and gas by closing smaller, less efficient power plants and encouraging use of wind, solar and other clean sources.

The latest closures will reduce sulfur dioxide emissions that cause acid rain by an estimated 1.1 million tons and carbon dioxide output by 124 million tons per year, Sun said. He said the closures involved moving 400,000 workers to new jobs.

China and the United States are the world’s biggest emitters of carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse gases” that scientists say trap the sun’s heat and are altering the climate.  China produced 6.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide in 2006, according to a study by the Netherlands’ Environmental Assessment Agency.

NZ apples sent to UK generate own weight in C02

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A major new study, “Impacts of climate change from 2000 to 2050 on wildfire activity and carbonaceous aerosol concentrations in the western United States” finds a staggering increase in “wildfire activity and carbonaceous aerosol concentrations in the western United States” by mid-century under a moderate warming scenario:

We show that increases in temperature cause annual mean area burned in the western United States to increase by 54% by the 2050s relative to the present-day … with the forests of the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountains experiencing the greatest increases of 78% and 175% respectively. Increased area burned results in near doubling of wildfire carbonaceous aerosol emissions by mid-century.

“This graph shows the percentage increase in area burned by wildfires, from the present-day to the 2050s, as calculated by the model of Spracklen et al. [2009] for the May-October fire season. The model follows a scenario of moderately increasing emissions of greenhouse gas emissions and leads to average global warming of 1.6 degrees Celsius (3 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2050. Warmer temperatures can dry out underbrush, leading to more serious conflagrations in the future climate.”

And this is just the mid-century prediction for the IPCC’s “moderate” A1B scenario (CO2 at 522 ppm in 2050), which predicts “mean July temperatures to increase by 1.8°C from 2000 to 2050.”  This is not the worst-case emissions path, which we are currently on (see U.S. media largely ignores latest warning from climate scientists: “Recent observations confirm “¦ the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised” “” 1000 ppm).  What would happen by 2100 on our current emissions path, when the mean July temperature increase from 2000 is triple (or more) the 1.8°C that the researchers modeled?  Turns out someone did model that a few years ago.

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