Here are excerpts from two erroneous and contradictory pieces in today’s dreadful NY Times special section on energy:

NYT 1:  According to the most recent estimates of the Energy Department, world energy demand is going to increase by 50 percent by 2035, largely because of increased consumption in China, India and the rest of the developing world.  Renewable energy will rise as a percentage of energy used, to 15 percent from 10 percent [by 2035], but that will not provide for the growing demand.  “The fossil fuel age will be extended for decades,” said Ivan Sandrea, president of the Energy Intelligence Group, a research publisher. “Unconventional oil and gas are at the beginning of a technological cycle that can last 60 years. They are really in their infancy.”

NYT 2:  And as for the jobs [solar] creates, there may be a price elsewhere, Dr. Axelrod said. He described the energy world as being like a child’s squeeze toy: “You squeeze it and the eyes pop out. If you push in one area, something else is going to happen.” … Build enough solar plants and some coal plants will shut down; that would amount to firing Peter to hire Paul….  Solar panel fabrication was intended as an export industry….

I think it is now worth seriously contemplating canceling your subscriptions to the one-time paper of record [see further discussion of this at the end]. While there are 1 or 2 reporters at the New York Times who get climate and energy, it’s obvious that most don’t and, more importantly, the editorial staff simply don’t know what they’re doing.  The Matt Wald piece, #2, is so biased and self-contradictory as to be simply unpublishable.

Are there even editors who oversee reporters any more or try to give coherence to special sections and the paper’s larger coverage — or who write headlines that reflect the content of the stories?  Apparently not.  Apparently the paper can simultaneously assert that energy demand is growing, that renewables’ share of the market will grow — and thus its absolute growth rate will be very fast — but that U.S. solar jobs will come at the expense of U.S. jobs elsewhere, even though the paper says it’s an export industry.

Seriously NY Times editors and reporters, if you’re going to publish self-contradictory attacks on some energy technology, couldn’t you at least pick on one your size, one that also happens to threaten civilization?  Or wait a few years, until the solar industry surprises you and actually is your size.

The future of humanity is being written now — but you just won’t find very many of the stories in the Gray Lady.  That is painfully clear from their uninformed, self-contradictory, and virtually climate-free special section on energy.

I have been bombarded with e-mails from people baffled by  just how dreadful these stories are.  Here is one from a leading expert who works with environmentally responsible businesses:

Hey Joe,

Please tell me if I’m missing something here:

You may have seen the NYT special section today on energy. The lead story, maybe 60-65 paragraphs, devotes exactly one paragraph to saying that the unleashing of numerous new forms of fossil fuels worldwide “is a devil’s bargain, probably making solutions to climate change … even more difficult.”

Nary another word in that story, and only tiny passing mentions in others in the special section, about the climate threat.

So, I ask you this question dead seriously: Am I stupid — am I actually missing something about climate change that these knowledgeable reporters get? Can we have serious talk in the NYT – from many, many industry and other sources – about these new fossil discoveries extending the fossil fuel for decades WITHOUT taking into account my understanding that we can’t do that without unleashing the worst of climate change?

I’m serious — the reporting is so oblivious that it leads me to ask if I myself am missing something about climate change’s severity and onset. Can you explain this to me?

Or is this just almost breathtakingly lame reporting?

Perplexed

Dear Perplexed:

The latter, I’m afraid.

You are plenty smart, and the science couldn’t be clearer about climate change’s severity and onset — see  my review of 50 recent studies “An Illustrated Guide to the Science of Global Warming Impacts: How We Know Inaction Is the Gravest Threat Humanity Faces” or my new Nature piece on Dust-Bowlification.

The threat of climate change isn’t “news” to the Times.  There is one tireless climate reporter who keeps reporting on the increasingly dire picture of the science, Justin Gillis.  You can see his recent articles here.  He writes articles explaining things like “Why Climate Scientists Are So Perturbed:  Society has put off the task of reducing carbon dioxide and other emissions for so long that it is on the verge of running out of time, a report argues” and “Food Supply Under Strain on a Warming Planet” and “Global Warming Hinders Crop Yields, Study Finds” and “Even as the situation in the world’s forests starts to look precarious, scientists do not really have the capability they need to monitor the problems” and the like.  Individually, the pieces are worrisome and cumulatively they are pretty good picture of the gravest threat to human civilization.

But for the rest of the people at the paper, I guess Gillis is just that guy who keeps reporting all that dreary science stuff.  He probably gets the same readership internally at the paper that the obituaries do.  The rest of the paper goes on as if  every major climate scientist, science journal, national academy, and  indeed most governments weren’t  screaming at the top of their lungs “We are in big trouble and business as usual is suicidal” (see Lonnie Thompson on why climatologists are speaking out: “Virtually all of us are now convinced that global warming poses a clear and present danger to civilization”).

And so we get the special section on energy, pieces which, individually, are worrisome indicators about the Times editorial judgment but cumulatively are a pretty good picture of how modern journalism has collapsed in its coverage of the story of the century (see Silence of the Lambs: Media herd’s coverage of climate change “fell off the map” in 2010).

As I noted above, it is obvious that solar is becoming a massive job creator and has a huge potential upside (see “National Solar Jobs Census: Over 100,000 Americans Work in Fast-Growing Solar Industry“).

But Wald wants to find a downside since who really wants to read a sappy “good news” story even if it fits the facts.  What sells, apparently even to NY Times editors, is bullshit contrarianism, a headline like, “Solar Power Industry Falls Short of Hopes in Job Creation.”

Yes, the industry is undeniably doing well, even in the face of the greatest recession since the Great Depression — oh, but it isn’t doing as well as people had hoped.  Who are these people?  Not Wald or the NY Times, that’s for sure.  But people.  You know them.  Those hopeful folks who are always hoping things will get better, including the paper’s hopeless coverage.

You’d better know who the heck these hopers are because Wald doesn’t name a single person who said we would get more a lot more solar jobs than we have.  Nor does he even point to one study that said we would get more solar jobs.  So this is yet another BS headline from the editors at the Times (see “Crappy Headline” Ruins New York Times Story on Link Between Climate Change and Extreme Weather).

The correct headline would be “Solar Power Industry Job Growth Greatly Exceeds that of the Rest of the Economy,” as Wald himself admits in a couple of sentences buried in the article, far, far past the headline and thus far, far past the point most people will read:

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“Feeding some 9 billion people by mid-century in the face of a rapidly worsening climate may well be the greatest challenge the human race has ever faced.”

The journal Nature asked me to write a Comment piece after they read one of my posts on prolonged drought and “Dust-Bowlification.”  The article is here (subs. req’d).

This is my first piece ever in the journal itself.  I did have an online piece, “Nature publishes my climate analysis and solution.”  This is not a peer-reviewed article but rather a “Comment” piece.

I sent it to five of the world’s leading authorities on climate change and drought and the hydrological cycle:  Kevin Trenberth, Aiguo Dai, Michael Mann, Peter Gleick and Jonathan Overpeck.  I endeavored to incorporate their comments, but unfortunately Nature has a 10-reference limit for their Comment pieces so I wasn’t able to include as many references as they suggested or as I would have liked.  I will probably do a later piece with more references.  If you want links to most of the articles I refer to, go here.

I was particularly delighted that Overpeck liked the term “Dust-Bowlification.”  He really was an inspiration for me to begin studying this topic many years ago when I saw a 2005 presentation of his, “Warm climate abrupt change–paleo-perspectives,” that concluded “climate change seldom occurs gradually” (see The “global-change-type drought” and the future of extreme weather).

I am equally delighted Nature has basically endorsed this term through its multiple appearances in this article and felt that the overall issue warranted more attention.

I do not believe that most Americans — and that includes most policymakers and the media — understand the convergence of the recent scientific literature on the extreme threat posed directly to this country of Dust-Bowlification.

During the last Dust Bowl era, hundreds of thousands of American families fled the impacted regions. Now, those same type of arid conditions could stretch all the way from Kansas to California within the next forty years.  America’s financial future and the health and safety of our people are at serious risk if greenhouse gas pollution is not brought under control.  The food security of all of humanity is at risk. Denial is simply not an option, the time for action is now.

Here are some key excerpts:

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by Cole Mellino

Food prices are rising so consistently, Americans are starting to do crazy things.

Earlier this month, the UN predicted food prices would continue to get more volatile. Now, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is predicting an increase of 3.5% to 4.5% for American retail food inflation this year. Retail inflation increased just 0.8% last year.

The changes in retail prices are making many cash-strapped shoppers go to great lengths to get good deals, according to a recent story in the Wall Street Journal.

“If I don’t think it’s a good deal, I don’t buy it,” Evelyn Jackson, a student at Columbia College in Chicago said Tuesday as she loaded groceries into her car, which she uses for comparison shopping despite the high cost of gasoline. She said she had not only turned up her nose at okra recently offered at $4.99 a pound in a Jewel supermarket, but had taken a picture of lower-priced okra in a competing store and showed it to a manager at Jewel, a unit of Supervalu Inc. She has also balked at Asian pears offered at $2.99 apiece.

“Oprah Winfrey wouldn’t pay $2.99 for one of those pears,” she said.

If Oprah wouldn’t pay it, good luck getting most Americans, who make a fraction of her income, to pay for it.

Let’s not forget about the tens of millions of people around the world who barely have access to food today. The price increases in America are symptomatic of what’s happening in the rest of the world — creating food-access problems that even Oprah can’t solve.

While the global economic slowdown tempered the dramatic rise in food prices, they’ve still been at levels not seen since the late 1970s. In 2008 alone, food prices rose 5.5%. Prices of staples including milk, beef, coffee, cocoa and sugar have risen sharply in recent months. Many of these price hikes, such as the one in cocoa, are being linked to temperature and weather shifts due to climate change.

As the world heats up and causes worsening food crises that disproportionately impact the poorest people, a lot crazier things are going to happen than Americans taking multiple trips to the grocery store to find cheap fruit.

— Cole Mellino, Center for American Progress intern, with Stephen Lacey

By Jessica Goad, Manager of Research and Outreach, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Today, Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) asked a set of companies that profit from minerals on public lands to let American taxpayers see if they are getting a fair return. As ThinkProgress reported last month, Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) and Grijalva sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office asking for a comparison of corporate profits and taxpayer benefits from mineral extraction on public lands. Because the GAO report will take over a year to complete, today Grijalva hastened the investigation and sent letters to 14 oil, gas, and mining companies asking them to outline the financial value of the leases on public lands that they own.

In the letters, Grijalva explained his rationale:

I believe in transparency and effective public regulations that balance corporate and taxpayer interests. As I’m sure you’ll agree, taxpayers deserve a full accounting of the economic activity that takes place on land they own, including the public financial benefits.

Grijalva continued in his press release:

Our mineral wealth and public lands belong to the American taxpayers and held in trust by the federal government, but for too long they’ve been handed out to private companies that only care about the short-term bottom line. It’s time they open their books to public scrutiny and show us how much they’re making from cheap leases and how much they’re giving back to the public.

By December 15, the companies are asked to provide a detailed analysis for fiscal year 2010 of: the value of the minerals extracted from public lands, the cost to lease the lands, the royalties and fees paid to American taxpayers, and the projected value of extraction on the public lands mineral leases the companies hold. Most mining companies are not required to pay a royalty to the federal government due to the 1872 Mining Law.

Companies on the list are not exhaustive of all of those that own public land mineral leases, but are a sample of the different corporate interests—oil, gas, coal, copper, gold, and others. They are: Alpha Natural Resources, Barrick Gold Company, BG Americas & Global LNG, BHP Billiton, BP America, CONSOL Energy, Denison Mines, ExxonMobil, Freeport McMoRan, Peabody Energy, Rio Tinto Minerals, Rio Tinto Copper, Shell Oil, and Total Holdings USA.

These letters asking about the profits of some of the wealthiest companies in the world comes just as the House of Representatives will be voting on a bill today to give the third-largest copper deposit in the world to a mining company, without any royalties or returns to the taxpayer from the mineral development. The Resolution Copper Company, which stands to benefit from Congressman Paul Gosar’s (R-AZ) bill facilitating the land transfer, is a multinational mining conglomerate owned by Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, both of which are on Grijalva’s list to receive letters about their profits.

A few years ago, a heated debate started within the U.S. solar industry about which was more cost-effective:  Solar Renewable Energy Credits (SRECs) or Feed-in Tariffs (FITs).

Now that we’ve had more experience with both policies, the question is again being asked. Researchers at the Institute for Local Self Reliance attempted to answer this question, and released a report earlier this month concluding that long-term contracts for clean energy are more cost-competitive than tradeable credit markets.

NOTE:  Some are now calling Feed-in Tariffs “CLEAN Contracts.” Since the report we’re writing about references CLEAN Contracts, we’ll use both terms in this post.

So what does that mean exactly? Considering that solar still has a long way to go before we reach the double-digit penetration, this kind of research helps us understand which solar policies are most effective.

Let’s start with the background on how these programs work.

Modern FITs were started in Germany in the 90′s and have spread to dozens of other countries around the world. The policy sets a price per kilowatt-hour that utilities must pay an owner of a renewable energy system over a certain period of time — typically 15 to 20 years. Those rates are stepped down over time as the cost of technologies come down. FITs also give a system owner priority access to the grid, meaning the utility must allow them to interconnect in a short period of time.

Although the policy is hailed as a simple, transparent way of promoting renewables, it has not gained traction in the U.S. like it has around the world.

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Republicans are circling the wagons to destroy green collar jobs and the clean energy industry. The GOP seized the Solyndra controversy as an excuse to cut all clean energy loan programs. The inquisition has even led to the suspension of a program that employed veterans in clean energy jobs.

Bucking the trend, at least for a day, Rep. Chris Gibson (R-NY) participated in a publicity event on Monday to celebrate the success of a government-backed solar energy initiative. Gibson spoke at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering at the University of Albany to announce a deal to keep 17 solar energy research jobs. The research center hopes to boost an effort to develop “thin-film” solar cells to be built in a 18,000-square-foot manufacturing facility near the campus. Speaking at the event, Gibson applauded the investment, but failed to credit how much of the money was authorized:

“Today’s announcement continues our region’s growth as the next place for 21st Century technology. This facility will preserve existing jobs and ensure that our area remains at the forefront of research into clean energy technologies that are so vital for our future. I applaud CNSE’s efforts to invest in our local communities and look forward to continuing to work with them to expand public-private partnerships here in Tech Valley.”

Earlier this year, the research center received a $5 million grant made possible in part by President Obama’s Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the stimulus. During the election last year, Gibson made the stimulus a campaign issue and blasted his Democratic opponent for supporting such a “failed” policy.

The solar jobs are also made possible by the SunShot Initiative, a Department of Energy program started by the Obama administration to spur solar energy technological developments.

A recent ThinkProgress investigation found at least 60 Republicans writing letters to Secretary Steven Chu to request clean energy grants and loans for favored companies.

by Daniel J. Weiss

It’s understandable, though indefensible, that Texas Governor Rick Perry’s energy plan is little more than Big Oil’s wish list.   What’s much more surprising is that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s energy proposal differs little from Perry’s Petroleum Pollution Plan.

Like Perry, Romney would continue our dependence on foreign oil rather than develop 21^st century vehicles that use little or no petroleum, while giving big oil $4 billion annually in big tax breaks; hee would oppose regulations for mercury, smog, and cancer causing pollutants; and he would let other nations develop the clean energy technologies of the future rather than restore America’s manufacturing might.

The Romney energy plan “Believes in Big Oil” rather than believing in American ingenuity and innovation.  It’s no surprise that Romney has received more big oil campaign cash than any other candidate for federal office, according to Open Secrets.

Romney claims that he believes that “government has a role to play in innovation in the energy industry.”  Yet in an op-ed this Monday, Romney advocated ending a federal loan program to help companies develop and produce ultra-efficient cars, signed into law by President Bush.  This program has provided $9 billion in loans to five companies, and created 42,000 jobs in nine states.  CAP research identified another 13 pending loan applications for projects to build hybrid vehicles, advanced batteries, and super-efficient engines.  Nine of these projects would create another 11,000 jobs. (We could not identify job figures for the other four proposals.)

One of the companies with a pending loan application –Next Autoworks – plans to build cars that go 40 miles per gallon with a modest sticker price.  Its plant in Louisiana would create 1,400 jobs.

Meanwhile, Romney completely ignores efforts to make vehicles go much further on a gallon gas to reduce imports. The Obama administration, auto companies, the United Auto Workers, the state of California, and a variety of environmentalists reached a tentative agreement to require cars and light trucks to average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.   This proposal would reduce oil use by 24 billion gallons of oil by 2030.  Romney seems oblivious to the implementation of these fuel economy standards signed into law by President George W. Bush.

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To see or not to see, that is the question about the new conspiracy movie Anonymous that asserts William Shakespeare did not write the plays attributed to him.  As a NY Times magazine piece by Stephen Marche puts it:

“Was Shakespeare a fraud?” That’s the question the promotional machinery for Roland Emmerich’s new film, “Anonymous,” wants to usher out of the tiny enclosure of fringe academic conferences into the wider pastures of a Hollywood audience. Shakespeare is finally getting the Oliver Stone/“Da Vinci Code” treatment, with a lurid conspiratorial melodrama involving incest in royal bedchambers, a vapidly simplistic version of court intrigue, nifty costumes and historically inaccurate nonsense. First they came for the Kennedy scholars, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Kennedy scholar. Then they came for Opus Dei, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Catholic scholar. Now they have come for me.

Professors of Shakespeare — and I was one once upon a time — are blissfully unaware of the impending disaster that this film means for their professional lives. Thanks to “Anonymous,” undergraduates will be confidently asserting that Shakespeare wasn’t Shakespeare for the next 10 years at least, and profs will have to waste countless hours explaining the obvious. “Anonymous” subscribes to the Oxfordian theory of authorship, the contention that Edward de Vere, the 17th earl of Oxford, wrote Shakespeare’s plays. Among Shakespeare scholars, the idea has roughly the same currency as the faked moon landing does among astronauts.

The good news is that “Anonymous” makes an extraordinarily poor case for the Oxfordian theory.

Yes, Shakespeare scholars, like climate scientists, must now suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and decide whether or not to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them.

Readers know that I am a long time Shakespeare buff — see “William Shakespeare special: Why deniers out-debate smart talkers.”  Indeed, a quarter-century ago I even published a journal article on Hamlet, and I have an unpublished manuscript that explores how Shakespeare uses rhetoric and the figures of speech to communicate his meaning.  So I’m well aware of the snobbish myth that Shakespeare was supposedly too uneducated to have written so many diverse masterpieces.

That merely reflects a complete lack of understanding of basic grammar school education in Shakespeare’s day — where students were taught rhetoric, the figures of speech, and Latin poetry and grammar hour after hour after hour year after year.  That’s why they called it grammar school.  The book I am intending to publish next year on messaging devotes a page on this very subject, how Elizabethans like Shakespeare and the authors of the King James Bible came to their mastery of the English language.  Understanding how they did it is key to understanding how you can do it.

This new movie goes one step further and ascribes the plays to a person who simply could not have written them.  I haven’t seen it yet — I’m quite conflicted since I’m confident it will be as head exploding as your typical denier movie.  Marche actually makes a direct connection in his piece between Shakespeare deniers and climate science deniers.  But first he briefly explains why no serious Shakespeare scholar buys the Oxford theory:

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Rick Perry released his first paid campaign advertisement for the 2012 election in Iowa today. Talking exclusively about energy jobs, Perry grins as he explains his plan to open up every crevice in the U.S. to oil, gas and coal extraction — all while stripping the environmental protection agency of its ability to keep the environment clean.

Yes, that’s an inspirational plan all right.

Perry’s campaign doesn’t even bother throwing in an obligatory wind turbine or solar panel to show half-hearted support for an “all of the above” strategy. Nope. This is Perry’s “Drills Gone Wild” fantasy.

Amazingly, this ad is being released in Iowa, a state that gets 20 percent of its electricity from wind.

by Noreen Nielsen

This morning, ConocoPhillips announced their 2011 third-quarter earnings, reporting profits of $2.62 billion — a 14 percent drop due to  production losses in China and Libya — bringing their total profits in 2011 to $9 billion. Below is a quick look at some other facts about ConocoPhillips:

• ConocoPhillips has spent over $10.5 million lobbying Congress in 2011, ranking in as the sixth largest spender this year – and number one in the oil and gas industry.
• ConocoPhillips has contributed $94,953 to federal campaigns in 2011, with 84 percent of the contributions going to Republicans.
• Conoco Phillips devoted $1.6 billion of its $3 billion 2011 first-quarter earnings to stock buybacks—more than 50 percent of its profit.
• In the second quarter 2011, ConocoPhilips spent over 90 percent of its $3.4 billion profit on stock buy backs — $3.1 billion.
• ConocoPhillips is sitting on $6 billion in cash on hand. Added together, the Big Five oil companies — BP, Exxon, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell — are sitting on cash resources of $59 billion and made nearly $1 trillion in profits over the past decade.
• Despite this, ConocoPhillips and its other Big Oil allies continue to aggressively lobby Congress to maintain their billions of dollars in oil industry tax breaks.
• ConocoPhillips’ Chairman and CEO James Mulva received a 25-percent hike in compensation last year, earning him a total compensation of $17.9 million.

Other important stories: China Urges End to Climate Talk Deadlock; Cleantech Venture Capitalists Split on Strategy

Kuwait Sets Biggest Gulf Clean-Energy Goal to Free Up Oil

Sun-drenched Kuwait, a desert nation with no solar-power plants and electricity demand that’s growing about 8 percent a year, has set the most ambitious target for using renewable energy in the Gulf region.

OPEC’s fifth-biggest oil producer, whose air conditioners run cheaply off state-subsidized oil-fired power plants, aims to generate 10 percent of its electricity from sustainable sources by 2020, said Eyad Ali al-Falah, assistant undersecretary for technical services at the Ministry of Electricity and Water.

Kuwait is trying to free up oil for export and expand its generation capacity to support increased tourism, manufacturing and home building in a $112 billion development program. To meet its clean-energy target, which exceeds the 7 percent goal set by Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait next must gather data on sunshine and wind speeds, al-Falah said.

“Renewable energy is a new subject for Kuwait,” al-Falah, who coordinates alternative energy for the ministry, said in an interview at its headquarters outside Kuwait City. “That’s why there’s a lack of information regarding the suitability of renewables for our weather.”

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