Part 1: Duh!

Here’s your opportunity to vent about the Massachusetts Senate race. It should have been an easy progressive win to replace Ted Kennedy, on the eve of passing health care reform – the cause he worked so hard for.  But the anti-progresssive won, and, sadly, he seems unlikely to support climate action, as he once did (see “MA Senate candidate Scott Brown pushes anti-science nonsense, flip-flops on clean energy action“).

I was talking to a highly respected newsman last week, and he just lit into what he saw as the dreadful messaging of progressives on the climate and clean energy jobs bill.  “Massive botch” was his phrase. In particular, he was baffled about why we don’t talk about the clean air benefits of reducing pollution or focus on the benefits for real people (and yes, I know we do the latter I bit).

Readers know that I am baffled about much of progressive messaging (see “Can Obama deliver health and energy security with a half (assed) message?“).

Those in power right now do messaging poorly — and that certainly extends to most of team Obama.  The President is an exception, but since the administration as a whole lacks a compelling and consistent narrative, his great speeches mostly become unechoed one-0ffs without an enduring power to move the nation.  That is doubly the case because many progressives out of government seem hell-bent on beating up the President and progressives in Congress for trying to achieve the achievable.  Ironically, in so doing, they actually shrink the political space of what can be done.

I’m starting on a multipart messaging series that will focus on the bipartisan clean air, clean water, clean energy jobs bill.  But first I wanted to stir things up with extended excerpts from two recent pieces that go to the heart of these two great failings.  Let’s start with one of the best-known progressive columnists, EJ Dionne of the Washington Post, from his Monday column, “Mass. Senate race’s lesson for Obama,” on the flawed messaging  of the insiders:

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Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) plans to offer an amendment tomorrow that would block enforcement of the Clean Air Act for greenhouse gases. Her “Dirty Air Act” amendment threatens Alaska and the hopes for a clean energy economic recovery for the nation. At Mother Jones, Kate Sheppard reports that at least one Democrat is supporting her climate catastrophe campaign:

Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski has gained co-sponsorship for her effort to block the EPA from regulating carbon dioxide from at least one Democrat, her office confirmed Friday evening. Spokesman Robert Dillon said that one Democrat has signed on, though he was not able to confirm the identity of the Democrat. There are, however, plenty of ideas about who this Democratic cosponsor may be. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Jim Webb (D-VA), Byron Dorgan (D-ND), and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), all previously on record voicing concerns about carbon regulation, have been floated as possible sign-ons.

In April 2009, Dorgan, Landrieu, Lincoln, Nelson, and Webb voted to preserve the filibuster threat against any “clean energy” legislation, even though they represent states on the front lines of the climate crisis. Below, the Wonk Room takes a closer look at these Murky Democrats:

BYRON DORGAN

Dorgan, buoyed by coal interests, has emerged as one of the strongest critics of President Obama’s plan to limit global warming pollution, saying it “makes no sense.” He opposes action even though his state has been ravaged by record floods and has vast renewable energy resources. Dorgan’s “preference is that Congress address this issue and not the EPA.” The senator told National Journal that “how the amendment is crafted — most notably whether it suspends the agency’s regulatory power or completely removes it — is crucial.”

BLANCHE LINCOLN

Lincoln has claimed that limits on carbon pollution would create “really high, higher food prices” and said when she took over the Senate Agriculture Committee that it isn’t her “preference to move on cap-and-trade legislation in the Senate this year.” Lincoln has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in polluter cash, including $10,000 from the right-wing extremists at Koch Industries.

MARY LANDRIEU

Landrieu has taken an oil-soaked stand “against forcing petrochemical companies” to “bear the brunt of new costs.” Her state, Lousiana, is still devastated by the widespread destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, a global-warming-fueled storm.

BEN NELSON

Nelson worries that climate legislation “could have a negative impact on our economy.” Unusual heat waves killed thousands of cattle last year, and a recent five-year drought was even more destructive.

JIM WEBB

Since 2008, Webb has opposed “things like emission standards.” Webb also opposes President Obama’s global warming plan, instead working with Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) to promote a nuclear-industry subsidy plan. Coal and nuclear utility Dominion Resources is Webb’s fourth largest corporate contributor. Sea level rise is already eating away Virginia’s coastlines.

Murkowski’s move is expected to be attached to legislation to raise the federal debt ceiling. If it comes in the form of a binding amendment, 60 votes would be required for passage. She may instead offer a disapproval resolution, which would not block the EPA but would help senators pledge allegiance to coal and oil interests as the 2010 election season nears. A disapproval resolution would only require 51 votes to pass.

“The severity of the ‘Big Dry’ has been exacerbated by recent warmer air temperatures over the past few decades…. In a warmer world, the severity of droughts would likely become far worse.” (Duh)

Australia is most definitely getting hotter, much as the entire planet has, much as climate scientists have been predicting would be the inevitable result of unrestricted emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

The figure is from the “Annual Australian Climate Statement 2009,” which notes:

2009 ends Australia’s warmest decade on record, with a decadal mean temperature anomaly of +0.48°C (above the 1961-90 average). In Australia, each decade since the 1940s has been warmer than the preceding decade. In contrast, decadal temperature variations during the first few decades of Australia’s climate record do not display any specific trend. This suggests an apparent shift in Australia’s climate from one characterised by natural variability to one increasingly characterised by a trend to warmer temperatures.

At the same time, parts of Australia are getting drier, much as as climate scientists have been predicting would be the inevitable result of unrestricted emissions of GHGs.  And Dr. Bertrand Timbal, of the Bureau of Meteorology’s Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research (CAWCR), concludes in his paper, “The continuing decline in South-East Australian rainfall: update to May 2009“:

The recent 12 year, 8 month period is the driest in the 110 years long record, surpassing the previous driest period during WWII….

This change in the relative contributions by the autumn and spring seasons now more closely resembles the picture provided by climate model simulations of future changes due to enhanced greenhouse gases.

So it was odd that Andy Revkin tweeted to disagree with the following statement in a recent guest essay by Auden Schendler and Mark Trexler (“The coming climate panic?  Will U.S. conservatives usher in the era of permanently big government?“):

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Journalism has been melting down faster than Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier.  Science journalism is “basically going out of existence,” as one top science reporter recently put it.  And Columbia University suspended its Environmental Journalism Program even though “our graduates have done well in their careers.” If you want to hear from some of the reporters themselves, here is a piece by Tyler Hamilton, first published here.  Tyler is senior energy reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest daily newspaper.  He’s written some great stories — see “Toronto Star: ‘Why media tell climate story poorly’ ” and “Nuclear Bombshell: $26 Billion cost “” $10,800 per kilowatt! “” killed Ontario nuclear bid.”

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Even Plants May Not Like a Warmer World

Most of the fallout from climate change is likely to be disruptive, to put it mildly. It’s hard to put a positive spin on rising seas, increased drought and wildfires, shrinking water supplies and more acidic oceans. For the plants that form the very foundation of the food chain, though, an argument can be made that both global warming itself and the rising carbon dioxide levels that cause it are actually a good thing. CO2, after all, is essential for the photosynthesis that most plants depend on for nourishment. And as winters get milder and shorter, plants will have longer growing seasons. More food plus more time to eat it seems like a recipe for very happy vegetables.

But the story is a lot more complicated than that. “There’s a big range of very powerful interactions in nature,” says Chris Field, director of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University. “It’s very risky to make strong projections based on single-factor explanations.”

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Plus the NY Times on “Ms. Murkowski’s Mischief”

One of the Senate’s most vocal critics of U.S. EPA’s climate rules is also Congress’ top recipient of campaign funds from the electric utility industry.

Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski, who was elected to Senate GOP leadership last year and holds a key post on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, received more campaign contributions from the utility industry than any other lawmaker during the 2009-2010 election cycle, according to data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Last year, Murkowski received $157,000 from electric utilities, and since 2005, she has received more than $244,000, according to the center’s data.

So Greenwire (subs. req’d) reported yesterday in its piece “Senate’s top EPA critic raked in utilities’ campaign cash.”

We’ve also learned in the past week just who Murkowski has been getting help from for her dirty air amendment (see Polluters work with Lisa “fiddle while Nome burns” Murkowski on amendment to thwart EPA GHG regulations that might help save her state).

Today the NY Times editorialized on “Ms. Murkowski’s Mischief“:

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