Members of Congress are the custodians of a sacred trust: to protect the vitality and integrity of the extraordinary experiment the Founders began.  For example, the debate about climate change isn’t just about polar bears and energy prices. It’s about whether a free people will be a responsible people, a capitalist economy will be a caring economy and a democracy will protect the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for everyone, even those not yet born.

Some of this sacred trust is codified in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Some is unwritten and implied. And although the Constitution dictates that we keep government and religion separate, there are places in public policy where secular values and moral values overlap. Stewardship of nature and its resources – called “creation care” in religious circles – is one of those places.

Government’s stewardship responsibility is recognized in the body of laws past congresses developed once we realized that burning rivers, poisoned water, dangerous air, carcinogenic fish and toxic wastes were not in the national interest.  In the  landmark National Environmental Policy Act, for example, Congress declared:

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Tomorrow, Sen. Max Baucus’s (D-MT) Finance Committee will look at the effect of clean energy legislation on the “future of jobs.” Appearing before the committee are four industry or conservative lobbyists and one coal-industry union lobbyist, Abraham Breehey. The only economist to testify will be Margo Thorning, a lobbyist for the anti-tax American Council on Capital Formation. Also testifying is Carol Berrigan, a nuclear industry representative, Van Ton-Quinlivan of Pacific Gas & Electric, and American Enterprise Institute fellow Kenneth Green.

One could point out that Breehey’s union, the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Shipbuilders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers, supports the Kerry-Boxer Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act in large part because it provides so much support for the coal industry.

One could point out that Berrigan’s organization, the Nuclear Energy Institute, is not satisfied that clean energy legislation will spur nuclear energy through free-market competition, but is demanding massive subsidies and tax breaks as well.

One could point out that ACCF and AEI have received millions of dollars in funding from Exxon Mobil alone, or that Thorning refuses to reveal her methodology and Green has tried to buy climate scientists for $10,000 a pop.

Instead, let’s just note that tomorrow’s testimony will likely rehash the talking points that these witnesses have delivered time and again for the past ten years. Other than Ton-Quinlivan, who is appearing for the first time before Congress, the witnesses are regulars on the Hill, testifying a combined 20 times on climate and energy policy since 2002. Thorning has been the most frequent guest over the years, and this will be Green’s fifth time testifying since June.

Margo Thorning:

• 3/26/09 House Ways & Means
• 3/18/09 House Energy and Commerce
• 9/18/08 House Global Warming
• 11/8/07 Senate Environment and Public Works
• 7/24/07 Senate Environment and Public Works
• 7/11/07 House Foreign Affairs
• 4/5/06 Senate Commerce & Senate Judiciary
• 4/3/06 Senate Energy and Natural Resources
• 10/5/05 Senate EPW
• 6/5/03 Senate Environment and Public Works

Kenneth P. Green

• 10/28/09 Senate Environment and Public Works
• 10/22/09 House Global Warming
• 10/15/09 Senate Foreign Relations
• 6/9/09 Senate Environment and Public Works
• 9/25/07 Senate Environment and Public Works
• 3/13/02 Senate Governmental Affairs

Carol Berrigan:

• 11/6/07 Senate Energy and Natural Resources
• 9/27/07 Senate Environment and Public Works

Abraham Breehey

• 2/14/08 Senate Finance
• 2/2/05 Senate Environment and Public Works

If the Finance Committee is really trying to learn something new about whether reforming our pollution-based energy infrastructure would create new jobs, one would think they could have put a little more effort in witness selection.

The new polls also found that large majorities believe global warming is a serious or very serious threat.

Polling from 3 key states — and 5 key districts — finds strong support for the climate and clean energy bill.  Every major recent poll has come to the same conclusion (see Swing state poll finds 60% “would be more likely to vote for their senator if he or she supported the bill” and Independents support the bill 2-to-1).  Perhaps that’s why E&E News found “At least 67 senators are in play” on climate bill.

In the new polls, likely 2010 voters were asked:

“Congress is considering an energy plan that has two key parts. One part would require factories and power companies to reduce their emissions of the carbon pollution that causes global warming by 17% (20% in MO) by the year 2020 and by 80% by the year 2050. The other part would require power companies to generate 15% of their power from clean energy sources like wind and solar by the year 2025. Would you favor/oppose this entire plan?”

The results:

• 75% of voters in Michigan favor.
• 68% of voters in Ohio favor.
• 67% of voters in Missouri favor.

And this matches every recent poll:

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Reuters reports:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has sent its final proposal on whether carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions pose a danger to human health and welfare to the White House for review, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told Reuters on Monday.

The EPA’s final finding, if it follows the agency’s earlier assessment and is approved by the Office of Management and Budget, would allow the EPA to issue rules later to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, even if Congress fails to pass legislation to cut U.S. emissions of the heat-trapping gases that contribute to global warming.

For background, see New EPA rule will require use of best technologies to reduce greenhouse gases from large facilities when “constructed or significantly modified” “” small businesses and farms exempt.

Here’s more:

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Last week I noted “El Ni±o-driven sea surface temperatures are soaring. Forecast: Hot and then even hotter.”

They are still soaring.  NOAA’s National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center has a good animation of tropical Pacific SST anomalies:

The warming in the Nino 3.4 region of the Pacific is typically used to define an El Ni±o “” sustained postive sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies of greater than 0.5°C across the central tropical Pacific Ocean.

Two weeks ago the anomaly was 1.1°C.  Last week it was 1.5°C.  This week it’s 1.7°C, as seen in this figure from NOAA’s latest weekly update on the El Ni±o/Southern oscillation, “ENSO Cycle: Recent Evolution, Current Status and Predictions“:

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Is calling global warming a religion the same thing as denying global warming science?

While the authors of Superfreakonomics, which is riddled with basic scientific errors, have started to issue some retractions, they continue to embrace self-contradictory denial of the basic science.

In mid-October, economist Steven Levitt wrote a blog post titled, “The Rumors of Our Global-Warming Denial Are Greatly Exaggerated,” which asserted:

Like those who are criticizing us, we believe that rising global temperatures are a man-made phenomenon and that global warming is an important issue to solve.  Where we differ from the critics is in our view of the most effective solutions to this problem.

Then in another red-herring-filled post from last month, “The SuperFreakonomics Global-Warming Fact Quiz,” Levitt asserted that “we believe” it is “TRUE” that “The Earth has gotten substantially warmer over the past 100 years.”  And he writes of that statement — that “fact” — (and 5 others), “It is our impression that none of the six scientific statements above is at all controversial among climate scientists.”

Duh.  In fact, the most recent survey of the scientific literature signed off on by every major government in the world, including the Bush Administration, concluded “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal.”

Unfortunately for the Superfreaks, their book is once again searchable on Amazon, so everyone can confirm it contains the following sentence — the very first one I criticize them for in my original debunking when I broke the story of their error-riddled book:

Any religion, meanwhile, has its heretics, and global warming is no exception.

That is a staggeringly anti-scientific statement.  It should be retracted.  It should certainly not be repeated, as Levitt is now doing on his blog!

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Can offshore winds spin a market for American-made turbines?

Middle Eastern oil is one energy dependency. Another, looming in the future, could be a growing array of wind turbines, situated along the Eastern Seaboard, manufactured by European companies and feeding electricity to nearby American cities. That’s what government and industry experts are trying to avoid — a new addiction.

The effort here to roll out an offshore wind industry is accelerating, but major gaps are still stopping turbine builders from opening U.S. facilities that could supply East Coast states with homemade blades, towers and nacelles. Experts expressed confidence in the United States’ ability to establish a strong offshore wind manufacturing sector, and also anxiety about the steps that aren’t being taken to get there.

The United States has yet to plant its first turbines in the seafloor, while Europe widens its lead, adding 1-megawatt every day on average, according to its industry group. Europe’s offshore winds now produce a total of 1,471 megawatts, the amount of electricity produced by a very large coal-fired power plant.

“If we don’t get on the ball and do it, the Europeans are going to do it,” Bob Thresher, a wind power expert with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, said of turbine manufacturing. “They’ll gain all the experience, and they get the privilege of selling us all their equipment. So sitting on our butts and doing nothing is just gonna cost us.”

To people like Thresher, the United States needs to hurry up and allow someone to build the first wind facility in the ocean. That, in all likelihood, would be Cape Wind, a 130-turbine project proposed 5 miles off the coast of Massachusetts. It has been stuck in regulatory quicksand for eight years — a signal that has not helped to attract manufacturers or financing sources.

“They need to see there’s a critical mass of megawatts that are sort of in the pipeline or committed,” Greg Watson, the top renewable energy advisor to Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, said of parts builders. “You’re not going to make a commitment to build a manufacturing facility unless you have some sense that there’s going to be a workload, or an anticipated number of projects.”

“We’ve had some frank discussions” with manufacturers, he added. “They might give you a quote that they need to see five or six more Cape Winds in the pipeline.”

Others say the bar is higher. Jim Lanard, managing director of Deepwater Wind, which has three offshore projects proposed in Rhode Island and New Jersey, said manufacturers want to see a decade-long outlook promising that 1,000 turbines will be installed.

“Instead of sending our dollars to countries that export oil, we’re now going to send our dollars to countries that export offshore wind equipment,” Lanard warns. “It’s billions of dollars being sent overseas. That’s thousands of jobs.”

Exelon boss Rowe thinks Senate will act on climate bill by spring

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So I’m watching an otherwise interesting story on “efforts to convert algae into clean fuel,” by the otherwise very solid Tom Bearden of PBS’s NewsHour.  Then, boom, he drops the media’s favorite wishy-washy hedge:

Wells also produce carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas thought to contribute to global climate change.

C’mon.  I think we are at least one decade, if not two decades or more, passed a time when the words “thought to” are justified.

Note to Beardon:  Why exactly do you think it is called a greenhouse gas?

This hedge remains all too common in the media — see Memo to Wall Street Journal: You can do better than “greenhouse gases, which are believed to contribute to climate change.”

As I wrote in that earlier post, this hedge is especially pointless and misinforming because of the second hedge “” “contribute to.”  All but the most extremist deniers of the basic climate science accept that carbon dioxide contributes to global climate change.

So perhaps the NewsHour might catch up with the scientific understanding and write some variation of:

“¦ carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that causes the global climate to change.

And people wonder why the public is still underinformed on this subject.

Related Posts:

• Note to media: Enough with the multiple hedges on climate science!

The California Highway Patrol say a man stole a car to make a court appearance on a previous auto theft charge.

Patrol investigator Chris Linehan says he arrested Samuel Botchvaroff Tuesday as he sat inside a stolen 2000 Range Rover at the Vallejo courthouse. The 24-year-old Botchvaroff had just left his arraignment on auto theft charges stemming from an Oct. 31 arrest.

Linehan said the Range Rover’s LoJack system helped him locate the vehicle, which had been stolen from Oakland earlier Tuesday morning.

Authorities say Botchvaroff told officers his car had been impounded, and he had no other way to get to his arraignment.

He was booked into Solano County Jail on suspicion of auto theft and possession of stolen property.

Okay it doesn’t have a lot to do with global warming directly, but for some reason, when I first read the story, I immediately thought of this:  “Is the global economy a Ponzi scheme?“

We are only just beginning to scratch the surface of the power of a positive vision of an abundant future”¦

Rob Hopkins, “The Transition Handbook”

During his 10 months in office, President Barack Obama and his team have assembled an impressive list of accomplishments on energy and climate policy.  Some might conclude the President has done about all he can do with the powers of his office.

One would be wrong. What energy and climate security require — what the future of the American Dream demands — is audacious big-picture ideas that capture the imagination, stir the emotions, speak to the souls, rally the support and win the involvement of the American people. That’s been lacking so far in the President’s climate leadership.

I suspect there is a sizeable segment of the American people waiting to be engaged, waiting to have their imaginations triggered, waiting to understand what a new energy economy looks like and what they can do to build it.  I’m not saying that citizens can’t act without top-down leadership. Indeed, as President Obama hinted recently in his “Grab a Mop” speech, there’s fundamental unfairness, guaranteed stasis and more than a little buck-passing when we citizens stand on the sidelines, some expecting the White House to do everything, others protesting it is doing far too much.

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