Even The PBS Newshour’s Coverage is “Climate” Free

Sign seen in Austin, TX.

The U.S. Drought Monitor puts it another way [click on map for detail].  Over 80% of the state is now rated under “Exceptional Drought” (darkest red):

Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon has a number of charts that provide some historical quantification and comparison.  In his Monday post, “Texas Drought: Spot the Outlier,” N-G offers “a plot of Texas average summer (June-August) temperature versus Texas summer precipitation” as far back as records go (1895):

Nielsen-Gammon explains, “Can you spot the outlier?  The year 2011 continues the recent trend of being much warmer than the historical precipitation-temperature relationship would indicate, although with no previous points so dry it’s hard to say exactly what history would say about a summer such as this one.  Except that this summer is way beyond the previous envelope of summer temperature and precipitation.“

Human-caused climate change is starting to take us outside the bounds of the recorded weather extremes.  And the Texas State Climatologist warned it is likely to get worse:

I’ve started telling anyone who’s interested that it’s likely that much of Texas will still be in severe drought this time next summer, with water supply implications even worse than those we are now experiencing.

The link to climate change is clear — record-smashing heat makes any drought more devastating — even if major media outlets, including PBS’s News Hour, choose to ignore it.

Texas climatologist Katherine Hayhoe put it this way in an email:

Read more

I went down to the site of the Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline protest today with Bill McKibben.  No, I didn’t go to get arrested — though over 100 people did — just to cover the event.  The energy of the crowd was amazing, so to speak.

Oscar-nominated director Josh Fox (Gasland) was there, and  I will post a video of his remarks tomorrow.  McKibben invites all Climate Progress readers to the big final rally in DC at the White House this Saturday.

I interviewed McKibben on the pipeline and among my questions was one about the role of Hillary Clinton.  I did not raise the counterfactual question — which has become popular among some liberals, though not Salon’s Joan Walsh — but McKibben did.

I’ll have more to say on it below the jump, but first here’s the video of the full interview:

Read more

The U.S. solar industry had $1.8 billion in net exports last year.  But it faces daunting challenges from both Chinese competitors and GOP budget cutters.  Not every U.S. company will survive global industry consolidation.  But the PV segment as a whole has seen more than 10% annual job growth since 2003 and is certain to continue being a big job creator — if the U.S. government doesn’t let the playing field tilt to foreign companies.

The news broke yesterday that solar manufacturer Solyndra was filing for bankruptcy.  The thin-film producer closed its California-based manufacturing facility and laid off 1,100 workers.

One more business going bankrupt in these tough times wouldn’t normally make big news and draw GOP cheers.  Solyndra, though, had received a $535 million loan guarantee from the federal government to manufacture a unique cylindrical solar module that reduced installation time, increased efficiencies, and didn’t use the most expensive material in conventional solar modules, silicon.

GTM Research Senior Solar Analyst Shyam Mehta made an accurate (if somewhat understated) observation about the coming blowback:

Unfortunately, most coverage of today’s news is likely to gloss over the market’s subtleties and conclude that supporting domestic solar manufacturing is a waste of taxpayer money. Thus, the image of the U.S. solar industry is likely to be affected negatively in the minds of both policymakers and the general public in this post-Solyndra world.

The fact is that with a glut of solar panels on the market today, depressed silicon prices, and the Chinese government lavishing huge amounts of subsidies on domestic manufacturers — 30 times the amount of loans as the U.S. in 2010 — Solyndra’s cost structure simply couldn’t compete in an increasingly-commoditized market. In a statement yesterday, the company cited “global economic conditions” as the main reason for the shutdown.

Conservatives are dancing all over Solyndra’s grave, trying to turn it into a referendum on renewable energy and green jobs.  But the U.S. invented the modern solar cell half a century ago, and the route to sustainable wealth can’t possibly be one where we invent technologies and other countries manufacture them.

No, rather than a referendum, this should be is a chance to learn the lesson of how the US can compete in one of the fastest job-creating sectors in the world.

Read more

Last week, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) shockingly demanded that Congress should not approve emergency aid to states battered by Hurricane Irene unless it makes offsetting budget cuts elsewhere first. Several other congressional Republicans have made the same demand since then.

Now, Rep. Nan Hayworth (R-NY) has joined this chorus of disaster aid hostage takers. Hayworth, who represents a portion of New York that the hurricane hit, said Congress has to have budget cuts before it allocates more disaster aid because the “challenges we face with the national budget have not changed,” and likened it to a family skipping a vacation:

Only days after a record-setting storm destroyed her district, Rep. Nan Hayworth and her House colleagues threatened to withhold disaster money if lawmakers don’t cut additional spending from the federal budget. “We’re facing a natural disaster in the middle of an economic disaster,” Hayworth said Wednesday. “Certainly, the challenges we face with the national budget have not changed.”

Hayworth, R-Mount Kisco, said she would only vote to replenish the federal disaster fund if new spending was offset by budget cuts. She said those cuts should come from “non-defense discretionary spending.” Hayworth likened her position to a family skipping vacation if it was overwhelmed by bills. “We have to control spending,” she said. “There’s no question about it.”

Hayworth represents a number of cities, including Yorktown, that were battered by Irene. Thousands of her constituents were left without power and there was widespread flooding and damage to water systems, as some towns are now warning their residents to boil their water before consumption. Orange County alone said it received three times as many emergency phone calls as during a major snowstorm in February 2010, and 36,000 people were left without access to electricity. A resident of the town of Monroe in Orange County posted a YouTube video of the streets outside, where natural waterfalls had formed from flooding and cars were stuck in water:

Both Govs. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) and Chris Christie (R-NJ) have called on their fellow Republicans to immediately deliver disaster aid and put aside hostage taking about complimentary budget cuts.

On Monday, the Center for American Progress issued the following statement on the Keystone XL pipeline permit:

The State Department’s assessment that the proposed Keystone XL pipeline will have only a limited environmental impact should not be the final word from the Obama administration on the plan to sharply increase imports of dirty tar sands oil from Canada to the United States. But it is unfortunate because it builds momentum for a final permit approval by the end of this year.

At a time when the United States should be doing everything in its power to reduce carbon dioxide pollution and speed the transition to cleaner fuels, the Keystone XL pipeline would be a step backward. Getting oil from Canada’s tar sands is a dirty business, considerably dirtier in terms of carbon pollution than producing conventional oil. That is why hundreds of protesters have been gathering at the White House in recent days, subjecting themselves to arrest on behalf of a cleaner planet. While some will argue that their actions are for naught, since with or without U.S. cooperation the Alberta tar sands will get developed, the United States should not be morally implicated in the acceleration of bringing this dirty product to market and the climate impacts it will have.

President Obama has demonstrated leadership in reducing American’s oil use by modernizing vehicle fuel economy and tailpipe standards that will reduce oil use by 2.5 million barrels daily. Americans look again to his leadership to continue along this path by rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline permit. It is not in the national interest, nor is it in humanity’s interest.

Hear!  Hear!

No, seriously, President Obama, hear!

John Podesta, CEO of the Center for American Progress, told Climate Progress that climate change deniers are the “Know Nothings” of this generation.   The former Chief of Staff to Bill Clinton was referencing the American nativist political group in the mid 1800’s that spread irrational fear about immigrants.

“I’d call them the know nothings of the 21^st Century – the people who are really just denying reality,” he said in an interview at the National Clean Energy Summit.  Watch it:

Podesta has pushed hard to keep climate change action at the forefront of policy, a key reason he launched this blog five years ago.  He called on President Obama to step up and fight the “damaging initiatives from House Republicans,” asking: “At the end of the day, does he beat back this assault on the science?”

I think it’s really quite critical. It’s one of the most important issues that the country will face and the world will change…  I think one of the reasons that you saw a drop in support or some questioning of whether this should be a priority … people stopped talking, they stopped educating, they stopped making this a high-priority issue.  The press stopped dealing with it…  So we need to be constantly educating on this issue.

While the President has indicated he will stand behind the EPA’s decision to regulate carbon emissions and other pollutants, he has given the issue very little rhetorical support, allowing leading Republicans to hijack the “debate.” His most high-profile stance on climate came in a recent interview with a child reporter from Scholastic News, in which he explained the basic science and said that it’s “going to be something that we’re really going to have to focus on.”

If Obama is to help make the “Know Nothing” climate deniers a relic of history like the last Know Nothing party, he needs to talk about the issue in much higher-profile setting.

• Energy Secretary Steven Chu: It ‘Saddens Me’ That Political Leaders Don’t Understand Climate Science
• Biden: ‘If We Don’t Develop Renewable Energy, We Will Make the Biggest Mistake in this Nation’s History’
• Navy Secretary Ray Mabus: ‘Our Responsibilities Have to be Tied in to the Effects of Climate Change’

by John Walke, via NRDC’s Switchboard Blog

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R–Va.) recently announced his legislative priorities for the upcoming months and they consist of the same old reckless attacks on health and environmental safeguards for all Americans. Creating an apocalyptically-titled hit list of his “Top 10 Job-Destroying Regulations,” Rep. Cantor takes aim at an astonishing twelve clean air safeguards and 5 other labor, environmental and health care standards. But problems with basic arithmetic are the least of the concerns with this “top 10″ list.

For every year that these twelve clean air safeguards are blocked by Rep. Cantor and his House GOP colleagues, the harmful consequences would be:

• Up to 38,600 additional premature deaths;
• Over 19,000 more heart attacks;
• Over 205,000 additional asthma attacks;
• Over 4 million more days when Americans will miss work or school due to the health hazards of air pollution; and
• The elimination of Clean Air Act authority to reduce dangerous heat-trapping air pollution from the biggest industrial polluters.

This terrible health toll is the consequence of just a single year under the irresponsible House GOP agenda. The truth is, however, that the legislative attacks announced by Rep. Cantor block the various clean air safeguards for longer than one year, in most cases indefinitely.

In this post I will address each of the targeted clean air safeguards and explain the harms and irresponsible consequences that the House GOP’s dirty air agenda would cause.

These twelve clean air safeguards provide Americans with the clean and safe air that we rely on every day so that our asthmatic children can go to school and we are healthy enough to go to work and lead productive lives. Allowing polluters to dump millions of tons of dangerous air pollution into our communities and lungs every year does not create jobs; it just makes people too sick to go to work or school.

The Clean Air Act has been shown, time and time again over its 40-year history, to be one of our nation’s most successful pieces of legislation. The Act not only protects our families from dangerous air pollution, but offers an astonishing return on our nation’s investment in clean air. According to a peer-reviewed EPA study earlier this year, the Clean Air Act is expected to deliver $12 trillion in net economic benefits between 1990-2020. The specific standards Rep. Cantor decries as “job-killing” have been shown to have a net positive increase in job creation, with benefits to Americans that outweigh costs to polluting industries.

The House Republican dirty air hit list reflects a baseless and ideological tirade against clean air protections that would put Americans’ lives at risk while doing nothing to create jobs. American families cannot afford to see these clean air standards rolled back.

Read more

The National Football League would not seem to be an industry embracing environmentally friendly practices, what with soaring stadiums, huge screens and lights, and piles of food wrappers left behind by fans. But with the advent of a new season, teams are starting new programs, such as Reliant Energy’s plan to buy renewable energy credits for the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium, or continuing existing ones, like the Philadelphia Eagles recycling programs.

Here are examples of what some teams are doing:

-PHILADELPHA EAGLES: At the Eagle’s Lincoln Financial Field, they have added 2,500 solar panels and 80 20-foot wind turbines — and they are the first NFL team to run a stadium entirely on sustainable energy.

-NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS: The Patriots installed 2,800 solar panels at Gillette Stadium in December to help power the stadium, and they put in solar-powered compactors to collect and recycle cans and bottles around the stadium.

-ARIZONA CARDINALS: In 2010, the Arizona Cardinals’s University of Phoenix Stadium used EarthWise Energy program to provide more than 1 million kilowatt-hours of renewable energy during eight regular season home games and two pre-season ones.

-DENVER BRONCOS: The Broncos have purchased renewable energy to offset 100 percent of the electricity used at Sports Authority Field for the 2011 season. And after implementing an energy management program, the team cut energy use at the stadium by 11 percent.

-DETROIT LIONS: In the construction of Ford Field in downtown Detroit, the Lions incorporated part of the old Hudson’s warehouse in the design, used 20 million pounds of recycled steel, and built the parking lot partially out of recycled rubber tires.

-HOUSTON TEXANS: The Texans introduced the NFL’s first interactive media guide in 2009, putting the guide on USB sticks instead of printing books. The change saved an estimated 2.6 million printed pages that year, and the team has continued this practice.

-NEW YORK GIANTS/NEW YORK JETS: The Giants and the Jets will kick off the 2011 season in one of the greenest stadiums at the new MetLife Stadium after an agreement that the MetLife Stadium Company signed with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which outlined plans for water conservation, energy management, and green construction.

And the NFL is not the only organization with green initiatives. The NBA and WNBA, the NHL, and MLB have also launched a variety of programs to promote environmentally friendly practices, which hopefully will help fans of these sports to adopt these practices in their everyday life.

by Arne Jungjohann via Grist

Germany set another record with renewable energy. A new report by the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW) highlights, in the first half of 2011, renewables accounted for fully 20.8 percent of power production, as Der Spiegel reports.

Throughout the past decade, Germany has fundamentally transformed the way it produces electricity. The country increased its share of renewable electricity from 5 percent in 2000 to 18 percent in 2010. Over time, Germany has consistently met its legislated targets ahead of schedule, and appears poised to outdo itself again in the next years. The goal by the current center-right government of Chancellor Angela Merkel is to draw at least 35 percent of production from renewables by 2020. The opposition parties claim that 40 percent or even more is realistic.

Today, wind and biomass are the pillars of Germany’s renewable sector. The main driver of the 2011 development, however, has been photovoltaic — in a country that is as sunny as the state of Alaska. Reports Der Spiegel:

Read more

When Solyndra, a California-based solar energy company, announced that it was filing for bankruptcy and laying off 1,100 workers at its last factory, it served as the latest example of the troubles American clean energy companies face — and those faced by the Obama administration.

The company, which made solar-cells, received $527 million in government loans as part of the 2009 stimulus, but now Republicans are using its failure to attack President Obama for “wasting” money. The House Energy and Commerce Committee opened an investigation into the government funds the company received because of a link between the company and a donor to Obama’s 2008 campaign. Solyndra was the first to receive stimulus funds from the Energy Department, which has made 40 loan guarantees totaling $18 billion so far.

Energy Department officials cited China’s billions of dollars in subsidies to solar energy companies as one factor threatening American firms. The price of a solar array has dropped, decreasing the profit margins for solar cell manufacturers, while Chinese subsidies have increased rapidly. A chart from greentechsolar compares the government loans provided to Solyndra and its Chinese competitors:

In August, two other U.S. solar energy companies, Evergreen Solar and SpectraWatt, also filed for bankruptcy, and cited Chinese competition as a factor in their financial woes. While the U.S. once dominated to solar energy market, it now makes up 10 percent. “The Chinese have really done an incredible job of eating everyone’s lunch,” said Stephen Simko, a senior stock analyst who covers the solar industry for the Morningstar research firm. “I would assume there are going to be other upstart solar companies that won’t make it.”

But despite Solyndra’s recent bankruptcy on top of the other U.S. companies that made solar cells, Stephen Lacey reported earlier this week that the U.S. has a $247 million trade surplus with China when it comes to solar energy overall — even with China’s massive subsidies for its firms. Solyndra and other start-ups may have failed despite government investment, it worked for other companies, as Lacey points out on Climate Progress:

Due to the successful Treasury Grant Program and Loan Guarantee Program that made it easier for developers and manufacturers to finance facilities, the solar sector grew faster than ever before.

And all that solar — particularly solar PV — brings immense value to the domestic economy.

According to the trade assessment report, around 73% of the value of an installed solar system (equipment, labor, site management) is created domestically. When looking at the total solar-sector contribution to the economy, solar PV represents about 82% of the domestic value, with concentrating solar power and solar heating and cooling representing about 9% a piece.

And these calculations don’t even consider the potential value to the electricity system. A report released in June by three solar researchers found that solar PV offers 15-40 cents per kilowatt-hour in added “value” due to its ability to match peak demand, reduce the need to build expensive transmission lines and provide local environmental benefits.

But whether or not policymakers will recognize these tangible benefits is very uncertain. With basic support mechanisms like the Treasury Grant and Loan Guarantee programs set to expire, and the House set to slash funding for various energy programs, America’s solar trade surplus could close quickly.

Coal Shortages Speed Up China’s Clean Power Plans

The Chinese government continues to expand its clean energy production plans, to replace increasingly expensive coal power that is shutting down coal plants and causing power shortages of at least 16 GW. China’s twelth five-year plan unveiled this week plans for 70 GW for wind, and 5 GW of solar by 2015.

Read more