UPDATE:  Since Obama is in a media down-cycle, the herd has been falling all over itself to turn this amazing honor into some sort of a millstone.  Please, give me such millstones.  The winner of the most inane statement by a major news outlet is also the winner of the most inane headline, “The Last Thing Obama Needs Is the Nobel Peace Prize,” by Time’s Nancy Gibbs, who writes, “At this moment, many Americans are longing for a President who is more bully, less pulpit.” Yes, “many” Americans are longing for bullies like George Bush and Dick Cheney.  We call them conservatives.

In a stunning announcement (full text below), “The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize  for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

Obama won, in part, for reversing the immoral efforts of the Cheney-Bush administration to block and subvert international climate negotiations:

Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting.

We already knew that “Obama was willing to attend Copenhagen climate talks,” if he were invited.  In an exclusive interview, Andrew Light, Center for American Progress Senior Fellow and an expert on international climate talks, explained to CP that now, effectively, he has been:

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U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Thursday applauded companies that have quit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because they disagree with the business group’s climate change policy. “I think it’s wonderful,” Chu told reporters at a solar energy event on the National Mall. He said companies that left the Chamber object “to foot dragging, to denials” and realize that efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses are “part of our economic future in the United States.”

… “I would encourage the Chamber of Commerce to realize the economic opportunity that the United States can lead in a new industrial revolution,” said Chu, a supporter of alternative fuels and strong regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.

You just can’t keep up with all the news about the nano-Chamber of Commerce.  But here are the key points:

• BusinessWeek asks, “Does the U.S. Chamber Speak for Big Business?”  The answer, on climate policy, is “no.”
• The Chamber has not been following its own stated guidelines (see The Chamber claims its “Board of Directors is the principal governing and policymaking body.” Nike says that’s false, and American Enterprise Institute agrees, calling the Chamber board “mostly ceremonial.”)
• The Chamber has been lying to the public (see The incredible, shrinking industry group falsely claims “We’ve never questioned the science behind global warming”)
• The Chamber has been lying it is members, as this repost from Wonk Room makes clear.

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The WashPost of course didn’t use my headline, since for them, every silver lining has a cloud.  Obviously Michigan has had massive job losses in the auto industry, but how exactly does that translate into a “yellow light” for green jobs, except as a too-cute play on words at the expense of the real story:  Granholm has done her best to embrace the fastest growing source of new jobs in the nation and the world — clean energy jobs.  It’s hard to hold her responsible for the incompetence and shortsightedness of the US auto industry, whose collapse has been decades in the making, but she clearly deserves a lot of the credit for making Michigan hospitable to clean energy industries.

In Michigan, A Yellow Light For Green Jobs

If the future of American manufacturing lies in green industries, the Michigan governor’s pursuit of jobs offers a cautionary tale.

Four years ago, Jennifer M. Granholm set out to remake her state, which took an exceptional walloping with the decline of the auto industry, as a pioneer in creating environmentally friendly jobs. Today, however, jobs are still disappearing much faster than she can create them, raising questions about how long it will take Michigan and other hard-hit states to find new industries to employ their workers.

Since taking office in 2003, Granholm has created 163,300 positions, her office says. She expects that a recent infusion of more than $1 billion from the Obama administration aimed at nurturing car battery and electric-vehicle projects will generate 40,000 more positions by 2020….

In her effort to attract employers, the governor has taken up the latest arms in the economic arsenal — tax credits, loans, Super Bowl tickets and a willingness to travel as far as Japan for a weekend to try to persuade an auto parts company to bring more jobs to Michigan. She has won solar and wind energy, electric car batteries, and movie production jobs. About 10,800 of the new positions came from overseas companies, according to her office, the fruits of visits to seven countries.

Religious Groups Lobby for Climate Bill

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Our guest blogger is Andrew Light, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of International Climate Policy, Center for American Progress.

Barack Obama is now the third sitting president to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This is an enormous honor, awarded in part for “playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting.” The timing on this for those following the future of a new international climate treaty could not be more critical. The Peace Prize is presented in Oslo on December 10th. The UN climate talks, where the agenda will feature decisions on replacing the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012, start in Copenhagen on December 7th. The expectation that President Obama will now go for at least part of the UN climate talks is enormous as he’ll already be in Scandinavia.

Remember that Al Gore went immediately to the UN climate meeting in Bali after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007. Gore’s speech at the Bali meeting, and closed door sessions with climate negotiators for two days following, is credited by some as having saved those talks from failure. Before Gore arrived the EU was about to walk out over protests that the US was holding up progress on the “Bali Action Plan,” the document that set the parameters for what success at Copenhagen is supposed to look like this December. It’s hard to imagine a more directed appeal for President Obama to come to Copenhagen and achieve a similar success.

This guest post on the Solar Decathalon is excerpted from The Dirt, the blog of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA).  The Solar Decathalon homes are open to the public from October 9-13 and 15-18.  Future posts will feature other finalists.

Solar Decathalon 2009 kicked off on the National Mall Wednesday. After receiving more than 40 student-generated proposals from universities in the U.S. and worldwide, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) narrowed the field down to 20 finalists that offered the most innovative, high-tech, high-efficiency, solar-powered homes. More than 800 students are competing this year. This is the fourth time the DOE has sponsored the biennial competition.

Each of the 20 student teams received $100,000 from the DOE but still had to raise some $400,000-500,000 to pay for the 800-square feet homes. The DOE spokesman said that by teaming up with a range of companies, the students were learning “real world experience” that will make them the “energy leaders of tomorrow.” Now in its fourth-generation, the Solar Decathalon is “pushing innovation and systems engineering.” Some homes include microgrids that can be run through an iPhone.

The homes will be judged by a team of architects, engineers, systems engineers, lighting specialists, and communications specialists on the overall architecture, engineering, comfort, marketability, appliances, lighting, and other aspects. The DOE said that not only must the homes be aesthetically appealing, but “they must also work.” Using only solar power, the homes must heat 15 gallons of water to 150 degrees twice a day; run all appliances; heat and cool the homes; and maintain temperatures of 72-76 degrees with 40-60 percent relative humidity. The judges have also added a home entertainment component. TVs, powered by solar energy, must be able to run for six hours per day. Additionally, six team members must live, eat, work within the homes from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM every day during the competition.

The homes are being wired by local D.C. energy provider, Pepco, which has connected the homes to the central energy grid. Zero net homes will get 100 points at the end of 10 days but will receive an extra 50 bonus points if they return surplus to the grid, creating an additional incentive for energy-efficiency. The DOE says, “Solar is here to stay, and these homes prove that it works.” What the contest will prove is what technologies work best.

A number of student homes included integrated systems with landscape elements at their core:

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