Europe’s Brisk Energy Transition

Europe’s evolution toward a heavier reliance on renewable energy is nicely documented in a report released this week by Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency. The study, “Statistical Aspects of the Energy Economy in 2009,” provides a wealth of interesting detail without a lot of editorializing.

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Eric Pooley has written a spell-binding political thriller about who killed the climate bill and how they did it. It’s called THE CLIMATE WAR. Journalist Francesca Rheannon interviewed him for the radio show, Writers Voice. Pooley largely blames the fossil fuel lobby and its PR men for the failure to get a climate bill through the Congress. But in this excerpt from the full interview, he also points the finger at the White House.

Eric Pooley: When I started this book, I thought I was going to be writing a story with a happy ending. It would be the story of how we finally took the first step. But a funny thing happened on the way to the presidential signing ceremony: we didn’t take that first step. We managed to pass a bill in the House of Representatives and then the Senate and the President decided that they weren’t willing to fight it. They didn’t want to go to the mat for this bill in 2009 or 2010. And the Senate pulled the plug on the latest attempt to get something done. The President did not make so much as a peep about it. And they’re also claiming that they’re going to be doing it someday, but they keep kicking the can down the road, and at this point it’s a very old can, very battered from many kicks and a very long road and we’re not making a lot of progress.

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NH GOP Senate candidates (l-r): Jim Bender, Gerard Beloin, Bill Binnie, Kelly Ayotte, Dennis Lamare and Ovide Lamontagne

Every single Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) is a global warming denier. Appearing at a debate hosted by the Seacoast Republican Women in Portsmouth, NH on Wednesday, the six candidates — from millionaire businessmen Bill Binnie and Jim Bender to former attorney general Kelly Ayotte — were unanimous in their denial of man-made climate change, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence and the obvious changes that have already hit New Hampshire:

It was symbolic when the six Republican candidates for U.S. Senate stood up together side-by-side during a debate Wednesday. It resembled their positions on major issues. All said they would have voted against extending long-term unemployment benefits. All argued Elena Kagan should not have been appointed to the Supreme Court. All said man-made global warming hasn’t been proven.

With greenhouse pollution from fossil fuels building up in the atmosphere at an increasing rate, the world is now hotter than it has ever been in recorded history. New England is unambiguously warming. Fueled by the warmer world, catastrophic rainfall is rising, as “exemplified by the ’100-year’ floods that have occurred in southern New Hampshire in 2005, 2006, 2007.” It also seems that the crop of anti-reality Republicans fueled by allegiance to coal and oil polluters is also on the rise.