by Jocelyn Fong, in a Media Matters repost

For the past few weeks, we’ve had to wait patiently while our friends across the Atlantic enjoy the BBC’s seven-part Frozen Planet series on life at the poles, which won’t air in the U.S. until the new year.

This sequel to Blue Planet and Planet Earth – two of the greatest programs to have ever come through my television — took four years, dozens of cameramen, 28 helicopters and 2 ice-breaking ships to make. The effort has been described by producer Vanessa Berlowitz as perhaps “our last chance to record these astonishing wildernesses that have existed untouched by humans for millennia and that, within a century, may change beyond recognition.”

Series narrator Sir David Attenborough, who has previously been reluctant to discuss the human environmental footprint in his films, spends the final episode “on location, talking to the camera in his own measured words about shrinking glaciers, warming oceans and the threat posed by man-made global warming,” according to The Guardian.

But now we learn that after earning “massive ratings” from Planet Earth and collaborating with BBC to produce the sequel, the Discovery Channel will not air the climate change episode of Frozen Planet in the U.S. due to a “scheduling issue.”

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by Jessica Goad

This morning, the House Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on the future of oil and natural gas development — the 20^th oversight hearing that House Republicans have called on drilling, compared to only four on renewable energy development.

While Rep. Don Young (R-AK) took home the quirk prize by sporting a propeller-topped beanie that he said represented President Obama’s energy policy, one of the strangest assertions came from Representative John Fleming (R-LA), who followed up a question to Secretary Salazar about whether fracking had caused any “deaths or serious injuries to humans,” with a claim that the bankruptcy of Solyndra has “harmed more people” than hydraulic fracturing.

Watch it:

Fleming:  So, I think that it’s very easy to understand why no one’s had serious harm as a result of [hydraulic fracturing].  We can speculate, we can talk about hypotheticals all the time, but the point here is it is a regulated industry, it’s producing inexpensive energy and is doing a great job, it is not harming people.  And certainly I would say that the Solyndra affair has harmed more people than hydrofracking has in 60 years.

Surely, 1,100 people losing their jobs after the closing of Solyndra is a very sad affair. But Fleming’s comments make a mockery of the dozens of communities all around the country seeing their wells and aquifers contaminated by fracking, sometimes making people sick, and often making it impossible to drink from local water sources.

In making such a statement, Fleming ignores the documented environmental and health impact of fracking and equates it to the bankruptcy of a poorly-managed company. Neither the Solyndra layoffs nor the impacts of fracking should be taken lightly.

— Jessica Goad is manager of research and outreach for the Public Lands team at the Center for American Progress

Energy Secretary Steven Chu is going to be in the hot seat tomorrow when he testifies before a House committee investigating the Solyndra bankruptcy.

If Chu’s previous remarks to the press are any indication of what he’s going to say to Congress, he’ll be stressing the need for continued strategic federal investments in clean energy — after defending himself from accusations of political influence in the loan guarantee process.

In this week’s podcast, we’ve got a brief conversation with Secretary with Chu, who laments the political response to the science of climate change, and who reiterates his support for continued federal investments in renewables.

“Even in desperate times like the Civil War, the United States was spending money, giving subsidies to railroad companies to build the transcontinental railroad. That wasn’t free. The United States invested their resources in federal lands to generate land grant universities that would increase the productivity of U.S. agriculture and schools like the University of California Berkeley and MIT and Cornell. That wasn’t free. And so, when push comes to shove, yes we have to make tough decisions, but we never took our eye from the long view. We didn’t eat our seed corn, we didn’t sell our plow horse.”

Chu sets up our conversation with Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, who describes why the military can be a force for accelerating the commercial deployment of cutting-edge renewables.

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Today, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce aired its first ads for 2012, launching its familiar attack on behalf of big oil. The ads running in six states have a common drumbeat – repeal regulation and lower corporate taxes, even at the cost of the environment and public health. One ad singles out Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), in which the chamber claims Brown skipped on “the chance to help cut energy costs” and tried to “increase energy taxes“:

The chamber ads try to put a chill on Brown by emphasizing the coming heating bills for Ohio residents. The spot opens with a hand adjusting a thermostat as an announcer intones, “Energy costs are expected to rise,” then hits Brown for “voting to increase energy taxes.” It closes by urging viewers to “call Sherrod Brown. Tell him Ohioans need economic help, not higher energy taxes.”

Watch it:

By “energy” the Chamber means “oil.” In the two votes cited in the ad, Brown took a clean-energy stand: He opposed a GOP bill that would hasten and expand offshore oil drilling, in spite of the BP disaster last year. Also, Brown’s so-called attempt to increase taxes refers to his co-sponsorship of a bill to close $4 billion in big oil tax loopholes.

The chamber’s attack on common-sense green positions isn’t new. The chamber has a long history of trying to advance loose policy on toxic pollution, lower taxes on polluters, and a weakened Clean Air Act. It has had a fair share of controversy, especially, for denying global warming: In the past few years, it’s lost large corporate members including Apple, Pacific Gas & Electric and Exelon (and Nike as a board member) for differences on climate policy.

Marine resources — tidal, wave and ocean thermal — are ripe for providing massive amounts of energy to coastal communities. But the technologies are still budding, preventing companies from realizing that available potential.

The International Energy Agency estimates that marine resources could feasibly provide 20,000 TWh of electricity each year. That’s more than today’s entire global generation portfolio. But the engineering challenges for technology developers are immense. Getting pieces of equipment to survive for long periods of time in the harshest environments in the world is no easy task. That’s why there are only a few hundred megawatts of projects installed around the world — with many of those devices facing long periods of downtime.

There are signs, however, that the tidal industry is moving closer to an “industry” rather than simply a place for experimentation. Earlier this summer, the French nuclear giant Alstom entered the space, purchasing a 40% stake in Scottish developer AWS Ocean Energy. This month, Siemens increased its investment in the UK tidal energy developer Marine Current Turbines. And last month, a tidal turbine developed by Rolls Royce became the first in Scotland to generate 100 Megawatt-hours of electricity without being brought up for maintenance.

These all followed the announcement from another tidal developer, OpenHydro, that it was proceeding with an 8 MW capacity tidal plant in France using its open-faced turbine.

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The good news: renewable energy investments are projected to double over the next eight years and reach $395 billion per year, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. That’s up from $195 billion in 2010.

The not-so-good news: That still is not be enough to stabilize emissions and control climate change, according to the International Energy Agency.

In 2009, the IEA issued a report concluding that global investments in renewables and efficiency needed to reach roughly $37 trillion by 2030 in order to prevent dangerous global warming. Even with the strong increases in private and public financing across a range of clean energy technologies, we’re still not at the levels IEA says we need to be.

If the BNEF numbers are accurate, we’ll only be at $7 trillion in total investments. By 2030, Bloomberg researchers project that global investments in renewable energy could reach $460 billion per year. But these figures don’t count efficiency and smarter grids — two sectors that could have a dramatic impact on our ability to use less energy.

But we can be hopeful that, despite the growing number of nonsensical claims that renewable energy is a “fad,” the industry is still moving ahead.

Guy Turner, director of commodity market research at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said: “These results indicate that last year’s record renewable energy investment was no one-off despite the recent economic gloom. Big winners over the next 20 years will be the emerging renewable energy hubs in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.”

In energy generation, the fastest-growing sectors will be wind (both onshore and offshore) and solar over the next two decades. And by 2020, roughly 50% of all investment will come from outside Europe and North America, according to BNEF.

By Jorge Madrid and Matt Kasper

The modern version of the Clean Air Act turns 21 years old this week, and we have two trillion reasons to celebrate.

The 1990 amendments to the original law were specifically designed to curb four major threats to the health of millions of Americans: acid rain, urban air pollution, toxic air emissions, and stratospheric ozone depletion. The economic benefits of these amendments will reach close to $2 trillion in 2020 while saving millions of lives from premature death over the span of the law.

Marking the occasion with a special event and press conference, U.S. Senators  Tom Carper (D-DE), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and Congressman John Dingel (D-MI) joined the former Director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy and former EPA Administrator Carol Browner, along with the executive director for the Institute of Clean Air Companies David Foerter,  Chairman of the American Lung Association’s board of directors Dr. Albert Rizzo, and President and Founder of Hunter Panels Manufacturing Alma Garnett.

All of the participants at the event agreed on the need for more bipartisan support to continue protecting public health, while also growing the economy in a sustainable way.

“We’re going to work with Republicans and Democrats to better protect the health of this nation,” said Sen. Cardin, “we can’t do it without government regulations… our economy can’t grow unless our air is clean.”

As longest serving administrator of the EPA, Browner emphasized that the clean air standards helped grow the economy and drive innovation:

“Whenever we set new standards, American innovation and ingenuity rose to the occasion…we created American jobs. We don’t have to choose between clean air standards and jobs. We have to continue fighting for clean air in this country.”

 

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Bank of America, already a target of the 99 Percent Movement for its attempts to levy a $5-a-month fee on debit cards and other practices, is now under fire from environmental activists who want it to stop financing the coal industry and destructive mountaintop removal practices.

Yesterday, protesters aligned with the Rainforest Action Network and the local Occupy Charlotte rallied around Bank of America’s Charlotte, North Carolina, headquarters, chanting “Bank of America, Bank of Coal” and scaling nearby flagpoles, where they hung a sign that read, “Not with our money.” Eight were arrested as the activists sought to bring awareness to Bank of America’s ties to the coal industry, the Charlotte Observer reports:

Beka Stecky, a protester who lives in Charlotte, said the demonstrations are about pushing Bank of America to stop financing the coal industry and are a call to like-minded individuals to take their money out of the bank. A news release issued by the movement says that in the last two years, the bank has financed $4.3 billion in coal projects.

This isn’t the first time Bank of America has been a target of environmental activists. In August, 15 were arrested outside a Bank of America in St. Louis, and in May, protesters visited multiple Bank of America locations in Portland, Oregon.

Multiple banks finance the coal industry and, in particular, mountaintop removal. But after painting itself as a leader in environmental issues by announcing that it would “phase out” financing for companies that engaged in mountaintop removal in 2008, Bank of America drew the wrath of activists this year when it was discovered that it was still financing the practice. According to activists, Bank of America is among the largest financiers of the practice, underwriting loans to companies that perform 40 percent of the nation’s mountaintop removal projects.

The eight arrested activists were released from jail last night, according to RAN’s web site. But the organization promised this wouldn’t be the end of its protests targeting Bank of America. “As authorities attempt to evict Occupy protesters from public spaces across the country, those protesters are going to start showing up at Bank of America’s doorstep more and more,” the organization said on its web site. “Bank of America is in the center of the Occupy Movement because of its reckless financial practices that put profit before people and planet.”

Voting Against Children is Bad for the Political Health of a Member of Congress (MOC):

– by Pete Altman, NRDC, in a repost

Turns out dirty air isn’t just bad for kids’ health – its bad for members of Congress who vote for it.

New polling conducted by Hart Research finds:

In a policy climate that is heavily focused on jobs and economic issues . . .  pollution and clean air standards—especially when framed around public health impacts—are an important and electorally relevant issue for voters in this critical target audience.

The findings are based on an intensive polling program commissioned by the NRDC Action Fund and focusing on three members of Congress, two of whom voted to block clean air standards and one of whom voted to strengthen them.

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JR:  Obama apparently has to go to Australia to talk about the reality of climate change and the benefits of carbon pricing and emissions reductions.

Obama: Slashing carbon emissions is ‘good for our economies’

President Obama said Wednesday that policies to curb carbon emissions bring economic benefits but acknowledged that crafting an international deal that imposes commitments on China and India will be a “tough slog.”

Obama, at a press conference with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, touted U.S. policies including increased auto efficiency standards and green energy research investments.

“As we move forward over the next several years, my hope is, is that the United States, as one of several countries with a big carbon footprint, can find further ways to reduce our carbon emissions,” Obama said in Canberra, Australia.

“I think that’s good for the world. I actually think, over the long term, it’s good for our economies as well, because it’s my strong belief that industries, utilities, individual consumers – we’re all going to have to adapt how we use energy and how we think about carbon,” Obama added, according to a White House transcript.

JR:  Ya think? Here’s more from Obama, including his strongest remarks on climate in a long time:

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I hate subjecting readers to pain. But if you read this blog regularly, you’ve probably put your head in a vise more than a few times.

It’s time to get that vise out once again because Media Matters has just put together a compilation of the greatest hits (read: biggest failures) in Fox News “coverage” of the renewable energy industry. I challenge you to get through the whole thing.

Meanwhile, as these pundits sit in their high-chairs and blabber on without any understanding of what they’re talking about, entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 companies all around the world are implementing innovative ways to reduce energy use and transform our energy system. Any journalist who’s talked to these business leaders understands that it’s one of the most important wealth-creation opportunities (and moral obligations) in history.

I’d love to say it makes me happy to know how foolish these pundits will look in retrospect. But we’re talking about the stability of the world’s climate here, not a sporting match.

Here’s some debunking by Media Matters:

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