Media incorrectly report Google is abandoning renewables. In fact, the company is increasing clean energy investments.

Buried at the bottom of an innocuous “spring cleaning” post on Google’s blog yesterday, the internet giant made a very important announcement: it will stop funding its Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (RE<C) initiative.

But that’s not the whole story. And if you believe the headlines — “Google Abandons Renewable Energy Push” or “Are Google’s Green Days Over?” — you might think this is a negative development. But if you look at the details, it’s a story about how the company is adapting to a changing market and actually increasing investments in renewables.

Announced in 2007 by Google, RE<C was focused on driving down the cost of renewable electricity (mostly solar and geothermal) to meet the cost of generating electricity from coal. The initiative funded R&D in capital-intensive, early-stage technologies that would enable cheaper Enhanced Geothermal Systems and Concentrating Solar Power projects.

But Google says it’s now shifting its focus to project financing rather than R&D, citing the need for more sophisticated research on CSP technologies beyond Google’s scope, and the rapidly changing economics of solar PV:

Over the last few years, we’ve seen a lot of progress in clean energy. We’re excited that some technologies are so quickly approaching cost competitiveness with traditional forms of energy in parts of the US and the world. Power tower technology has come a long way, too. But the installed cost of solar photovoltaic technology has declined dramatically over the past few years, making solar photovoltaic technology a compelling choice for consumers.

At this point, other institutions are better positioned than Google to take this research to the next level. So we’ve published our results to help others in the field continue to advance the state of power tower technology, and we’ve closed our efforts. We will continue our work to generate cleaner, more efficient energy—including our on-campus efforts, procuring renewable energy for our data centers, making our data centers even more efficient and investing more than $850 million in renewable energy technologies.

Although the news was hidden at the bottom of a blog post, this is a pretty important announcement. (Only at Google would they casually “spring clean” millions of dollars in R&D investments for renewable energy).

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by Van Jones and Bill McKibben in a HuffPo repost

If you wanted one word to sum up this year, it’s “noisy.” From Tahrir Square to Zuccotti Park, people who have gotten tired of the old politics have started grabbing the microphone away from the authorities and speaking themselves. And not just speaking; chanting, drumming, singing-conjuring up a new future.

As 2011 draws to a close, diplomats from almost every country will be gathering in Durban, South Africa to talk about global warming. After the warmest year on record, and endless flood and drought, you’d think they’d be digging in for real change. But, alas, they seem likely to just go on spinning their wheels, unwilling to challenge the power of the fossil fuel industry. Leaders of the world’s major economies are privately admitting that they’re unlikely to reach a global deal until 2016 at the earliest. So here too people will need to raise their voices.

But since climate change is the first truly global problem, those people have to figure out how to raise a common message, one that crosses the boundaries of language. The best method — proven in countless social movements — may be music. Earlier this week, the global climate campaign 350.org launched “Radiowave.” It’s designed to take a single powerful song, and use it as the focus of a campaign that will sweep down Africa, one country at time, for the next few weeks, finally landing in South Africa just as the UN’s climate conference begins.

“People Power” (radio version) by 350RadioWaves. Uploaded with Gobbler

The song is written and performed by a who’s who of African musicians, from Angelique Kidjo to Maria Daulne and Ahmed Soultan. Hip Hop star Talib Kweli performs the opening verse. It’s in English and French, but also Berber, Arabic, Xhosa, Zulu, Setswana, Zolani Maholo, and Fon. But it’s not just the beat that crosses borders; the sentiment, once translated, will make sense to anyone suffering the early effects of climate change. As the South African hip hop star Jabulani Tsambo puts it:

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At least we know Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) — one of the fiercest climate deniers in Congress — won’t be making a side show out of the Durban climate talks. He won’t be attending this year.

But neither will anyone else in Congress.

Greenwire reports today that only one Congressional staffer and zero members — yes zero — have plans to attend the COP 17 climate conference in South Africa next week. With the press prematurely declaring the talks all but dead, members of Congress seem to have latched onto that storyline:

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The Environmental Protection Agency under the Obama administration has increased efforts to regulate the coal industry, using tougher environmental standards under the Clean Water Act to rein in destructive coal practices like mountaintop removal. That has sparked outrage from Republicans across the country and Democrats in coal states like Kentucky and West Virginia, where industry leaders and pro-coal politicians have decried Obama and the EPA’s supposed “war on coal.”

But even as America deals with high unemployment and a sluggish economic recovery, coal employment this year rose to its highest level since 1996, according to data from the Mine Safety and Health Administration. In 2011, there were more than 90,000 coal jobs, and the 59,059 Appalachian coal jobs are the most since 1997. According to the same data, the spike in employment correlates to the EPA’s crackdown on destructive mountaintop removal policies, the Charleston Gazette reports:

Matt Wasson, director of programs for the group Appalachian Voices, said his review of the MSHA data shows the number of coal jobs in the region has increased by 10 percent since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency began a crackdown on mountaintop-removal mining in June 2009.

“In other words, the idea of a ‘permitorium’ on coal mine permitting that House Republicans are pushing out is completely and demonstrably false,” Wasson said Friday.

As Wasson said, the industry and the politicians it contributes to most have slammed the EPA’s regulatory policies as “job killing” and anti-coal. In reality, however, mechanized practices like mountaintop removal can reduce employment while boosting production and profits. Underground mining, a less destructive form of coal extraction, actually requires more workers than mountaintop removal or strip mining.

The coal industry spends millions each year in advertising and political contributions to disseminate the myth that regulating mining and opposing mountaintop removal is akin to killing jobs. Reality, however, shows that just as in other industries, the opposite is true, and regulations to boost worker safety and environmental protection can actually have a positive effect on job creation. As Appalachian Voices’ Matt Wasson told the Gazette, “The hysterical reaction of coal companies to any and all regulations to protect the safety of workers and communities near their mines is about profits, not jobs.”

Climate disasters and unregulated commodity speculation have combined to send food prices through the roof this year. Families across the United States will be struggling to put together a celebratory feast, and food pantries will be barer even as more people are in need. The American Farm Bureau Federation has calculated that a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for ten will cost about 13 percent more this year, up to $49.20 from last year’s $43.47. The AFBF survey shopping list includes “turkey, bread stuffing, sweet potatoes, rolls with butter, peas, cranberries, a relish tray of carrots and celery, pumpkin pie with whipped cream, and beverages of coffee and milk.”

The year 2011 has been one of the most extreme ever for weather disasters. Below, ThinkProgress Green discusses a few examples of how our increasingly dangerous weather, poisoned by hundreds of billions of tons of greenhouse pollution, is jacking up the costs of the traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

TURKEY

Retail turkey prices are up 23 percent, an average $1.35 a pound instead of $1.10 last year. Wholesale prices on the East Coast for turkeys are up 26 percent this year to a record $1.18. The super-hot summer killed turkeys and slowed weight gain. The two main commodities that go into a turkey are feed corn and soybeans, and prices for both have gone up sharply. The U.S. is “reaping its smallest corn harvest in three years” after a drought and the hottest summer since 1955 in the Midwest damaged what was a record crop as recently as July, driving annual prices to record highs. Average temperatures in the Midwest were as much as 8 degrees Fahrenheit above normal in July, and a stretch from Illinois to Indiana had its driest ever conditions for that month.

PECAN PIE

The average retail price for a pound of pecans rose from $7 in 2008 to $9 last year, and it’s expected to be about $11 this year. Drought in the Southeast has dramatically reduced the pecan crop. Production in Texas, which has had a record drought, dropped the most, from 70 million pounds last year to an estimated 40 million pounds this year. In Louisiana, production plunged from 20 million pounds last year to an estimated 9 million pounds this year. The entire U.S. crop is expected to be less than 252 million pounds this year, roughly 14 percent smaller than last year. “I’ve been farming for 60 or more years, and this is the driest I’ve ever seen,” said Ben Littlepage, a grower in the central Louisiana town of Colfax.

PUMPKIN PIE

The cost of canned pumpkin is up more than 13 percent this year from last. Hurricane Irene wiped out pumpkin crops in flooded fields throughout the Northeast. Flooded fields meant not only waterlogged pumpkins that rotted on the vine but also fungus, mold and mildew.

WHIPPED CREAM, BUTTER, MILK

Dairy prices are extremely volatile, but have risen considerably, primarily because of the extreme hay shortage in the nation. Hay prices have nearly doubled because of drought in Texas, Florida, and the rest of the Southeast.

COFFEE

The sustainability director of Starbucks, Jim Hanna, said that the company’s coffee bean suppliers, “who are mainly in Central America, were already experiencing changing rainfall patterns and more severe pest infestations” because of global warming pollution. “Even in very well established coffee plantations and farms, we are hearing more and more stories of impacts,” with worse droughts, storms, and floods. Extreme weather has damaged crops from Colombia to Indonesia this year.

OTHER FACTORS

Commodity volatility is being grossly amplified by that rampant and unregulated speculation in commodity markets and their derivatives, as Wall Street financiers have sought profit-making schemse after the housing bubble collapsed. Better Markets does a good job laying out how index funds are running amok, distorting commodity markets.

The demand pressure on corn to produce ethanol is not a major factor in the extreme price spike, since that demand is known ahead of time, allowing farmers to plant enough. The biofuels mandates do help set the floor for corn prices, and speculators exploit the situation of the commodity having a price floor but no ceiling.

Sadly, the American Farm Bureau Federation — which claims to represents the interests of American farmers — is run by global warming deniers.

When Bill O’Reilly said he couldn’t find anyone on Long Island to put solar on his home, a number of organizations put out the call across New York to help him get a quote.

With hundreds of companies in the state, O’Reilly’s comments were a bit perplexing: “I want to buy solar or wind for my house this winter. Can you tell me where to do that? There’s nowhere, no one.”

Well, over 60 solar companies signed an open letter to O’Reilly telling him they’d be happy to give him a quote, and it looks like he’s now ready to take the leap. “There’s a legitimate guy on Long Island,” O’Reilly said on his show last night, to Alan Colmes.

Leading into a segment tearing apart the clean energy stimulus, O’Reilly mentioned “all the crazy people” who had been sending him messages encouraging him to back up his word.

“There is a legitimate guy on long island. He’s going to come over and give me a price and I’m going to report back to you. Because I don’t want to be dependent on OPEC and I don’t think anybody does,” he said.

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Our guest blogger is Stephan Lewandowsky, Australian Professorial Fellow, Cognitive Science Laboratories at the University of Western Australia. This post was originally published at The Conversation.

An ambulance pulls up behind you. You know it’s an ambulance because you can read AMBULANCE in your rear view mirror. But you can also read it when you look at the vehicle directly; because the human visual system has the ability to quickly correct complete inversions or left-right reversals of letters. In fact, a complete inversion is easier to read than letters that are rotated only partially.

This human ability to process complete inversions more quickly than just partial distortions, alas, lends itself to exploitation by ruthless propagandists who seek to create a chimerical world in which up is down, left is right, and good is smeared as evil.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the netherworld of attacks on climate scientists.

Remember “climategate”? The illegal hack of personal emails released just before the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009 that some columnists pronounced to be the (approximately 132nd) “final nail in the coffin” of global warming?

Remember the “errors” in the IPCC’s 2007 report? “Amazongate”, “Himalayagate”, and so on?
What has happened to “climategate”?

What’s happened is this.

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Other stories below: Climategate 2, a Weak Sequel; States Surpass Feds in Renewable Energy

Renewable energy becoming cost competitive, IEA says

Renewable energy technology is becoming increasingly cost competitive and growth rates are in line to meet levels required of a sustainable energy future, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a report on Wednesday.

The report also said subsidies in green energy technologies that were not yet competitive are justified in order to give an incentive to investing into technologies with clear environmental and energy security benefits.

The renewable electricity sector has grown rapidly in the past five years and now provides nearly 20 percent of the world’s power generation, the IEA said during the presentation of the report titled Deploying Renewables 2011.

The IEA’s report disagreed with claims that renewable energy technologies are only viable through costly subsidies and not able to produce energy reliably to meet demand.

“A portfolio of renewable energy (RE) technologies is becoming cost-competitive in an increasingly broad range of circumstances, in some cases providing investment opportunities without the need for specific economic support,” the IEA said, and added that “cost reductions in critical technologies, such as wind and solar, are set to continue.”

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