Here is irony befitting a Shakespearean tragedy.  Gov. Rick Perry finally got what he called on all Texans to pray for — some rain – but it was almost entirely dumped elsewhere and the winds of Tropical Storm Lee merely served to stoke the most brutal wildfires anyone had ever seen.

This unprecedented climate impact is, indeed, Hell and High Water.  Time‘s headline is, “Texas Burns as the Rest of the Country Drowns.”  But, of course, they have no mention of climate change whatsoever.

How bad is it in Texas?  CBS reported this morning:

Since December, wildfires have consumed 3.6 million acres of Texas — an area the size of the state of Connecticut.

Unfortunately, there is no rainfall in the forecast for the foreseeable future.

The Texas Forest Service put out statement saying, “This is unprecedented fire behavior. No one on the face of this Earth has ever fought fires in these extreme conditions”….

Tom Boggus, director of the Texas Forest Service:  ”It’s historic. We’ve never seen fire seasons like this. We’ve never seen drought like this. This is  that we’re living in, and so people know and understand they’ve got to be extremely careful.”

So much for the standard denier claim that the weather extremes we’ve been experiencing now are nothing special.

Mr. Boggus obviously has one of the hardest jobs in the country, particularly working for a governor whose dual adaptation strategy is prayer coupled with cutting the budget of the Texas Forest Service.  So I hate to be the one to disappoint him — BUT this is going to be the briefest ”historic time” in history.  In a few decades, assuming we keep listening to people like his Governor, this will be a pretty average summer for Texas (see here).  Heck, next summer could be worse!

If only scientists had warned us decades ago it would get hotter and drier with ever worse heat waves, droughts, and wildfires if we kept burning all that Texas Tea…..

Actually Andrew Freedman of the WashPost‘s Capital Weather Gang has a nice run through of the climate science.  But first Freedman directs us to yet more jaw-dropping statistics of just how grim things are down in Perry-land, courtesy of state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon on his too-aptly named Climate Abyss blog:

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Despite the risks, natural gas fracking is booming. Most recently, Shell Oil Co. is finalizing where the company will build a new refinery to drill into gas reserves in the Marcellus Shale. The reserves run underneath New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and parts of other states in the Appalachians. Shell spokeswoman Kelly op de Weegh said the company will decide soon on the refinery and possible gas wells:

“For this project, we are concentrating on three states — Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio — and we expect to have a decision on a location by the end of this year,” op de Weegh told the AP.

The council, in a recent report, estimated the new petrochemical complex could attract up to $16 billion in private investment and create more than 17,000 jobs and billions in tax revenue. Shell’s investment alone could be “several billion,” op de Weegh said.

Shell’s billions may be a potential financial boon for the area chosen; estimates suggest that it could create up to 17,000 jobs. But it does not guarantee the natural gas supply. In August, the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Energy Information Administration lowered their estimates for how much natural gas could be in the reserves. And analysts aren’t even sure how fast the existing wells are depleting because reporting about natural gas drilling can vary state by state.

Beyond weighing the economic investment with the possible supply available, fracking can cause numerous environmental problems because of the process used to mine the gas: injecting toxic fluids into the ground to force out the gas. Problems such as water catching on fire or becoming contaminated, wells going dry, and spilling the toxic fracking fluid into waterways. The EPA has even documented groundwater contamination because of fracking as far back as 1987.

GOP presidential candidate and Texas Gov. Rick Perry may support fracking — even in Iowa — and companies such as Shell will spend billions on technology to keep drilling in the Marcellus Shale reserves. But that does not change the environmental dangers or the health concerns related to fracking that should make anyone pause before approving even more drilling.

“We have Saddam Hussein,” declared billionaire industrialist Charles Koch, apparently referring to President Barack Obama as he welcomed hundreds of wealthy guests to the latest of the secret fundraising and strategy seminars he and his brother host twice a year. The 2012 elections, he warned, will be “the mother of all wars.”

That’s Bradblog’s Brad Friedman reporting for Mother Jones on what Charles Koch says about the president behind closed doors.  The Koch brothers are key funders  of climate science disinformation, the Tea Party extremists, and right-wing causes.

It is beyond ironic that Koch would call the president “Saddam Hussein,” when Obama was elected in a free and fair election and has done more than any other president to reduce dependence on imported oil.  Charles Koch, on the other hand, is the unelected Petro-Boss whose money comes in large part from oil and who spends millions fighting to keep America addicted to oil.

Here’s the audio of Koch’s remarks obtained by Friedman:

Here’s a partial transcript:

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he’s “not confident” that Congress will be able to extend the production tax credit (PTC) for the wind industry this year.

In an interview with Climate Progress, Senator Reid (D-NV) lamented the breakdown of bi-partisan support for renewable energy, saying many conservative members of Congress were “making a concerted effort to thwart development” of clean energy.

When asked whether Congress would be able to pass even the most basic support mechanisms for renewable energy like the PTC, Reid answered: “I’m hopeful, but not confident we can get them passed.”

The PTC, which provides wind project owners 2.1 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced, is a fundamental incentive for the industry. However, unlike permanent credits embedded in the tax code for oil and gas producers, the PTC is only extended every couple of years. That creates immense uncertainty in the sector in the lead-up to the expiration.

If the PTC expires, the wind industry would see a massive decline in installations, effectively choking one of the fastest-growing energy sectors in the country. During previous lapses in the tax credit, national installations fell by between 70% and 90%.

The PTC is set to expire at the end of 2012. Because it can take years to plan large wind farms, many projects are delayed or abandoned if a developer is unsure about completing the facility in time to qualify for tax credits.

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Speaking at a campaign stop in his home state yesterday, Texas Governor and Republican Presidential Candidate Rick Perry announced his intentions to make the Environmental Protection Agency unapologetically pro-pollution.

His remarks were reported by the Houston Chronicle:

“I’ll tell you one thing: The EPA officials we have an opportunity to put in place, they’re going to be pro-business, and there’s not going to be any apologies to anybody about it,” he said. “Those agencies won’t know what hit ‘em.”

It’s not hard to see why Perry would want environmental regulations to be crafted by polluters, considering that he’s taken $11 million from the oil and gas industry since 1998. Meanwhile, Perry has stepped up his attacks on climate science by falsely claiming that researchers manipulated data for money.

Perry attended the town hall meeting shortly before surveying the damage from a catastrophic wildfire in central Texas. The fire was strengthened by winds from Tropical Storm Lee and a record-shattering drought in the state – two factors that climatologists agree will get worse as the world continues to warm. Wildfires have already burned a land area the size of Connecticut in state this year.

One Texas-based climatologist recently explained that “it’s likely that much of Texas will still be in a severe drought this time next summer.” Indeed, there is still no rainfall expected for the state.

Perry’s response to the disasters has been to pray for rain and to pray away successful water and air quality standards. Since neither of those strategies worked, he’s decided that stacking the EPA with pro-business officials is the easiest way to tear down decades of successful environmental regulation.

Related Posts:

• Texas Drought Now Far, Far Worse Than When Gov. Rick Perry Issued Proclamation Calling on All Texans to Pray for Rain
• After Praying for Rain, Texas Governor Rick Perry Prays for the EPA to Stop Environmental Regulations

Conservative NY Times columnist David Brooks has decided to double down on the widely debunked NY Times hit-job on green jobs with his own piece of nonsense, “Where the Jobs Aren’t.”  Both pieces chose to ignore “explosive growth” documented in the sector by a major Brookings report.

Brooks’ piece is, in some respects, even worse, since just last year Brooks was championing green jobs.  Here is what he wrote in January 2010 after a panel discussion that included business executives:

I was once again reminded how many business and investment types are thinking quite practically and capitalistically about green, job-creating technologies. For us Hamiltonian conservatives who believe in internal improvements, energy and infrastructure are obviously the two big areas where we should be investing.

Now, less than 2 years later, he writes:

In his 2008 convention speech, Barack Obama promised to create five million green economy jobs. The U.S. Conference of Mayors estimated in April 2009 that green jobs could account for 10 percent of new job growth over the next 30 years.

Alas, it was not to be. The gigantic public investments in green energy may be stimulating innovation and helping the environment. But they are not evidence that the government knows how to create private-sector jobs.

Recently, Aaron Glantz reported in The Times on some of the disappointments.

A truly head-exploding flip-flop.

First, again, the clean energy economy has seen explosive growth since 2003, according to Brookings.  From 2008 to 2009, the entire broadly-defined clean economy grew 8.3% — much faster than the whole economy — thanks in part to the stimulus.  And as Climate Progress recently reported, “America is a $1.9 Billion Exporter of Solar Products” [see figure below].

Second, Brooks is saying that a little more than 2 years into the Conference of Mayors 30-year prediction, we know they are wrong. As I wrote of Glantz’s piece:  Imagine if, in 1963, two years after JFK’s famous speech to Congress, Brooks had run a story, “Space program fails to live up to promise.  It was not to be.”

Third, at least Glantz had the decency to mention that Obama promised to create those five million green economy jobs “over 10 years“!  And, of course, Obama’s promise was based on passage of a climate and clean energy jobs bill that Brooks’ conservative buddies in the Senate killed.

You can’t shoot the horse and then blame the rider for losing.

And this is where we get to Brooks’ hypocrisy.

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GOP freshmen return, resume effort to roll back regulations

After the summer’s red-hot battles over the nation’s debt ceiling, Republican freshmen return to the nation’s capital Wednesday emboldened for one of the fights that could dominate the fall: repealing environmental and labor rules Republican leaders say have stymied hiring.

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A band of severe storms soaked several college football games during the season’s opening weekend, leading to game delays because of driving rain and stadium evacuations when lightning strikes got too close. As Chicago Sun-Times’ Herb Gould wrote, “One thing we learned during the first weekend of college football is that this continues to be one of the toughest weather years we’ve seen in a long time.”

On Saturday, fans evacuated Notre Dame‘s stadium twice when lightning struck close to the stadium. Thousands of fans in the University of Michigan’s stadium waited through rain delays before officials asked them to evacuate the Big House because of lightning strikes as well before stopping the game entirely in the third quarter. University of Iowa officials cleared their stadium because of lightning during the storm before resuming the game an hour later.

Then on Sunday, West Virginia officials cleared fans from its stadium when lightning strikes neared the field. After seven hours of rain and lightning delays, officials called the game in the fourth quarter. Here are photos from the Associated Press of the heavy downpours that soaked swaths of the Midwest and Eastern U.S. (while drought conditions in Texas continue to fuel wildfires):

Twice, fans and players emptied out of Notre Dame's football stadium because of severe weather.

While waiting during a rain delay, fans tracked thunderstorms on the jumbotron in Michigan's stadium.

While most evacuated West Virginia's stadium because of storm delays, a few fans took to the field instead.

As climate change continues, scientists say stronger rains and fiercer droughts will be the norm. Summers will grow hotter and longer, and college football fans can expect a few more rain delays in their teams’ seasons.

Leon Billings: I have been silent long enough. It is time to comment on this Administration.  It is time to unload. I have maintained silence at least in part because of the cacophony of criticism from the far right dominated GOP.

Many people who care deeply about both clean air and job creation have been stunned by President Obama’s cynical decision to do less on ozone pollution than George W. Bush proposed.

One of the country’s long-time environmental champions, Leon Billings, has had enough.  He sent around a scathing, must-read “political update” yesterday and gave me permission to repost it.

Billings deserves attention.  From 1966 to 1978, he was staff director of the Senate Environmental Pollution Subcommittee, and had primary staff responsibility for writing some of our most important environmental laws, including the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.  He was chief of staff to Edmund Muskie when Muskie was Senator and Secretary of State.  He served as Executive Director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in the 1982 cycle and served 12 years in the Maryland legislature.

Here’s Billings has to say:

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by Sarah Pavlus in a Media Matters cross-post

The state of Colorado says it will require American Shale Oil, LLC — a company backed by Rupert Murdoch and Dick Cheney — to fix several poorly cemented wells that, according to the state, appear to be endangering ground water in western Colorado.

Halliburton — the oil and gas giant once headed by Cheney — conducted the cementing and cement evaluation of the wells and rated several as having “poor” cement bonds in certain segments, according to a memo that American Shale Oil (AMSO) submitted to state and federal regulators in late July.

In the July 26 memo, AMSO claimed the poor cementing in its wells “poses little threat” to groundwater resources in the Piceance Basin on Colorado’s Western Slope, where the company is leasing federal land to pursue oil shale research and development.

But the state disagrees. When contacted about the AMSO memo, Steve Shuey, a Senior Environmental Protection Specialist for the Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety (DRMS), told Media Matters in a statement that the cementing fell short of the plans filed by the company and it “appears to be inadequate to protect” the region’s aquifers. Shuey said the state would require AMSO to fix the cementing:

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