The International Energy Agency was once a staid and conservative organization that people ignored because it was staid and conservative.

Now people ignore the IEA because it has become a blunt truth teller on oil and climate (see World’s top energy economist warns peak oil threatens recovery, urges immediate action: “We have to leave oil before oil leaves us”).

Last November, Climate Progress blogged on the IEA’s 2011 World Energy Outlook [WEO] bombshell warning: We’re Headed Toward 11°F Global Warming and “Delaying Action Is a False Economy.”

Fatih Birol is the IEA’s chief economist, and later gave a great talk at the Carnegie endowment on the WEO’s implications.  You can watch it here (and view the transcript and download his PPT slides — I clipped the top image from the last slide).

Birol can’t really be considered a rabble-rouser — he worked for OPEC for 6 years before joining the IEA in 1995, so he was there during  extended period of time when nobody was much paying attention to the IEA.

He had some blunt remarks on climate and energy (starting around minute 56):

Another point on climate change is about the two degrees. With the current policies in place, the world is perfectly on track to six degrees Celsius increasing the temperature, which is very bad news. And everybody, even school children, know this will have catastrophic implications for all of us.

Of course he means school children in other countries where they are taught the basic science (see “An Illustrated Guide to the Science of Global Warming Impacts: How We Know Inaction Is the Gravest Threat Humanity Faces“).

Birol continued:

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By Jessica Goad, manager of research and outreach, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

The Western Energy Alliance, one of the biggest and best-financed oil and drilling promoters in the Rocky Mountain West, has chosen former lobbyist Tim Wigley to be its new president, according to Greenwire today.

Wigley comes to WEA after a 10-year stint at Pac/West, a public relations and lobbying firm that counts the oil and gas industry as one of its clients. Pac/West previously employed disgraced former Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA), who once attempted to sell off national parks to tackle national deficit woes. The group is also notable for having secured a $3 million contract from Alaska’s legislature to “educate” Americans on the benefits of drilling in the state’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Wigley has spent much of his career lobbying on behalf of corporate interests. But perhaps most interesting is his previous role as campaign manager for two “astroturf” groups — those that purport to be grassroots when really they are just front groups for industry. According to a 2007 investigation by Public Citizen, Wigley headed up two major astroturf campaigns while working for Pac/West:

- Project Protect (logging): “This group spent $2.9 million on media purchases and other efforts to lobby for President Bush’s ‘Healthy Forests’ initiative. The group, which billed itself as ‘a grassroots coalition of western communities, natural resource groups, labor organizations, and conservationists,’ refused to disclose its donors. It listed an address at Mailboxes, Etc., in 2003. In 2004, it listed an address identical to that of the American Forest Resource Council, a group that lobbies for public land management policies that favor industry.”

- Save Our Species Alliance (endangered species issues): “This group sought to gut the Endangered Species Act…The campaign manager for Save Our Species Alliance was Tim Wigley…[who] told a reporter that the Save Our Species Alliance was a grassroots group of farmers, labor groups and others. Wigley did not divulge the identities of the group’s funders. ‘I think this line of questioning is misleading,’ he said to the reporter who asked.”

The Western Energy Alliance is a trade group with lobbying and PAC arms whose “Blueprint for Western Prosperity” is a hit list against public health and environmental safeguards and calls for policies like a “moratorium on new federal regulations.” WEA is notorious for accusing the Obama administration for blocking drilling on public lands, despite evidence that oil and gas drilling in America is higher than ever before.

The American Petroleum Institute plans to make drilling for oil and the Keystone XL pipeline top-tier campaign issues in 2012, announcing today it will spend an undisclosed amount on its “Vote 4 Energy” campaign. API will target multiple states including Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia to achieve its wish list for the year, which includes drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. To kick off its campaign, API President Jack Gerard discussed the pipeline as a political issue at API’s annual event Wednesday:

Gerard’s comments Wednesday marked the latest attempt by proponents of the pipeline to pressure Obama to approve the project … The push by Republicans and the oil industry highlights the increasingly aggressive messaging war over the pipeline, which poses huge political risks – and potential rewards – for both the GOP and the White House.

Meanwhile, Greenpeace responded with a website parodying the API “I Vote” campaign, based on the knowledge of activists who uncovered API’s astroturfing to make commercials for the Vote 4 Energy campaign. API’s multistate pro-oil campaign has already begun in Washington, D.C., where a metro stop used by congressional staff was wallpapered with “facts” courtesy of the friends of oil.

Driven by the growing number of energy-efficiency standards in states around the U.S., ratepayer budgets for efficiency programs climbed to record levels in 2011, to $6.8 billion. That’s a 25% increase over 2010 investments, putting the country on track to invest roughly $12 billion by 2020, according to a new report from the Institute for Electric Efficiency.

The figures for energy savings aren’t out for 2011. But the IEE report explains that efficiency efforts saved 112 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2010, which is about the same amount of energy used to power more than 9.7 million homes in the U.S. By comparison, the entire German solar-PV fleet generated 18.6 terawatt-hours in 2011 — roughly six fold less than American energy savings programs.

Those savings were achieved at an average cost of 3.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, making it one of the most competitive resources on the market.

Investments in the U.S. are overwhelmingly being driven by utilities that have requirements for increasing efficiency in their territories through state targets. There are now 26 states with targets in place, and most of them are hitting their goals. A recent report from the American Council on Energy Efficiency Economy found that of the 19 states with targets in place for more than 2 years, 13 have hit 100% of those targets.

And those efficiency investments are helping save ratepayers money. According to a recent analysis of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, funds raised through carbon auctions in the utility sector and deployed for efficiency and clean energy in the Northeastern U.S. will save ratepayers in the region $1.1 billion over the life of the program, and have already created 16,000 jobs.

Related Posts:

• Broader + Deeper = Greater Savings in Energy Efficiency
• Turbocharging Energy Efficiency 1: Utility Efficiency Program Budgets Double to $5.4 Billion
• Breaking News! Energy Efficiency Programs are Working, Saving Consumers Millions

Mitt Romney certainly isn’t sitting on his lead.  After a virtual tie in Iowa last night — winning the state’s Republican caucus by eight votes — he’s moving to New Hampshire to sharpen his talking points and debating skills. And he’s got a lot of different material to choose from over his career, particularly on climate change.

As Romney’s bus rolls up Interstate 93 toward Manchester, New Hampshire, he’ll have plenty of time to watch some old re-runs of Mitt versus Mitt debates on climate. The question is, which Mitt will show up? Given the current GOP Climate-Denial Complex, we can probably guess who.

Mitt Debates Mitt on Climate from Sierra Club National on Vimeo.

The Obama White House had a major tactical victory last month in getting a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance.  Yes, it came with the Keystone XL rider, but that mainly gives them an easy out on the pipeline decision — see “House GOP Cave on Tax Cut Extension Paves Way for Obama to Deny Keystone XL Permit.”

The reason I’m bringing this old news up is that just before I went on vacation, Politico Playbook — a must read for political junkies — explained “HOW THE WHITE HOUSE POUNDED ITS MESSAGE.”

I’m excerpting the Friday, December 23 piece below so you can see how the White House uses the bully pulpit when it actually cares a great deal about an issue, which it obviously — and nonsensically — doesn’t about climate change:

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by Michael Conathan

If rhetoric from the Republican Presidential candidates is to be believed, the Environmental Protection Agency is “a tool to crush the private enterprise system” (Mitt Romney), “a cemetery for jobs” (Rick Perry), and “should be re-named the job-killing organization of America” (Michele Bachmann). But it’s a safe bet the tens of thousands of people who may soon find jobs implementing EPA regulations aimed at cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay would disagree with those assertions.

A new report released today by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation highlights the job creation numbers — 240,000 full-time jobs — expected to come from achieving new pollution goals set by the EPA’s “Total Maximum Daily Load” restrictions. Finalized in December 2010, these rules require a 25 percent reduction of pollution flowing into the Bay by 2025 and have already spurred state and federal investment in stormwater mitigation projects, upgrades at sewage treatment facilities, addition of power plant smokestack scrubbers, and improvements to management of agricultural runoff and livestock waste management.

The Bay’s watershed covers more than 64,000 square miles including all of Maryland and the District of Colombia, large areas of Virginia and Pennsylvania, and portions of Delaware, New York, and West Virginia. Therefore infrastructure projects to reduce pollution will encompass a massive region and provide a major boost to the economy.

Of course, the clock is already ticking on a newly minted, 60 day, congressional mandate for the President to issue a decision on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline that would carry dirty Canadian tar sands oil from the great white north across America’s heartland and endanger a critical aquifer. By setting up what one former pipeline inspector called a potential “disaster,” the pipeline would ultimately deliver massive quantities of oil to the Gulf Coast only to see the vast majority of it exported.

Keystone proponents, including House Speaker John Boehner, have asserted that the project would immediately create “tens of thousands” of American jobs. These claims seem just a tad hyperbolic now that the oil company itself has conceded that the actual number of jobs that would be created is closer to 6,000 to 6,500, and would only last for two years.

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Events of 2011 show that no matter how solid the science, some people will never accept that humans are causing global warming.  So how can we cut the Gordian Knot that is manmade global warming?

by Auden Schendler, reposted from the Atlantic

One version of the myth of King Midas holds that he was not greedy. Instead, he loved his daughter so much that he longed to leave her a stable future. When given the chance, he asked for the golden touch as a way to create an endowment. But when they embraced, she turned to gold as well. In trying to protect his beloved daughter, Midas destroyed her.

Some climate change deniers have the same admirable motive as Midas. The actions required to solve climate, they fear, will preclude us from capturing the wealth that can benefit or save many children today. Even the left argues that a rising economic tide lifts all boats, despite the fact that continued growth probably dooms the planet to runaway warming.  Environmentalists fear that no action on climate condemns us to an even more costly fate that threatens every child, forever.

Finding a fix, then, seems close to impossible. What we learned in 2011 –a  banner year for human understanding of climate change and its impact on our lives — helps explain why.

In October, climate-change skeptic Dr. Richard Muller released the results of a two-year study at the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project that was funded in part by the Koch brothers, leading climate deniers. Muller’s report, in his own words, found that “global warming is real.” In fact, Muller found warming to be “on the high end” of what others had found. The results were reported in the Wall Street Journal‘s editorial page.

2011 also gave a taste of what climatologists have long predicted: that a warmer world will experience more severe weather events, both droughts and storms. PBS reported on “mind-boggling extreme weather” resulting from warming, what Dr. Jeff Masters, Director of Meteorology at the Weather Underground, Inc. calls “steroids for the atmosphere.” This summer, droughts in the Southwest matched those of the dust bowl and a tornado outbreak blew away the record 1974 season. USA Today reported how natural disasters were straining FEMA’s budget. In the last week of 2011, Vermont fixed the last of the roads destroyed by flooding from Hurricane Irene.

At the same time, still more peer-reviewed science came out showing that the anthropogenic warming signal is unmistakable. Grant Foster and Stefan Rahmstorf’s paper in Environmental Research Letters stripped out the known non-human influences on climate (El Niño, volcanic aerosols and solar variability, among others) and found human-induced warming to be clear and consistent.

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As a climate-denier, GOP candidate Rick Santorum’s rise to a near-tie with Mitt Romney in Iowa does not leave much hope for the environment. The candidate has a long-standing relationship with the coal and fracking industry as a well-paid consultant for a coal mining company, Consol Energy Inc., which has donated $8,500 to his campaign.

Therefore, it isn’t a surprise that on Monday, Santorum attacked a new Environmental Protection Agency toxics rule that prevents mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants, claiming it represents the EPA’s philosophy of “We hate carbon, we hate fossil fuels, we hate blue-collar Americans who work in those area”:

He specifically took issue with the agency’s cost-benefit analysis, calling it “absolutely ridiculous” and “not based on any kind of science.”

But the EPA’s cost-benefit analysis cites peer-reviewed studies extensively in its 510-page “Regulatory Impact Analysis of the Final Mercury and Air Toxics Standards,” which has been two decades in the making.

What Santorum didn’t mention is how uncontrolled mercury pollution has harmed Americans for decades. The EPA’s peer-reviewed analysis found the mercury rule would prevent 11,000 premature deaths, 4,700 heart attacks, and 130,000 asthma attacks annually. Economically, the health benefits outweigh the costs of a few dozen old plant closures — every dollar spent on reducing the pollution would save up to $9 in health benefits.

His standing is also at odds with faith-based groups, according to Media Matters: “Over 100 evangelical leaders have signed a letter calling for stricter mercury regulations, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has spoken out in favor of tougher emissions standards. Catholics United publicly welcomed the EPA’s rule.” Unlike these groups, Santorum is willing to risk blue-collar Americans’ health to protect the coal industry.

by Eric Hananoki, cross-posted from Media Matters

This is an excerpt from a larger report by Media Matters detailing Fox News’ promotion of Newt Gingrich’s political and business groups. This piece deals mostly with energy issues. You can find the rest of the report at Media Matters.

In November 1998, following midterm losses and a Republican revolt, Newt Gingrich announced he would step down as House speaker and resign from Congress. Thirteen years after his downfall, Gingrich is now a contender for the Republican nomination for president.

During his years away from office and campaigning, Gingrich stayed in the public spotlight as a frequent contributor and occasional host on Fox News. Between October 1999, when he was hired, and March 2, 2011, when his contract was suspended, Gingrich appeared on Fox News over 600 times.

As a Fox News commentator, Gingrich regularly made incendiary and false remarks that helped ingratiate himself to the conservative base. But Gingrich’s time at Fox News went beyond conservative punditry and attacks against progressives.

Fox News was a powerful ally when it came to boosting Gingrich’s political and business groups. As The Atlanta Journal Constitution noted, Gingrich “built a network of for-profit businesses and nonprofit organizations that seamlessly promote his vision of American government and politics. … Well before Gingrich announced his candidacy, those groups were providing him with money and public exposure.”

Fox News heavily promoted American Solutions for Winning the Future, which served as Gingrich’s non-profit political organization before he ran for president. Fox News boosted the work and profile of the Center for Health Transformation, Gingrich’s for-profit health care consulting company, and The Americano, Gingrich’s Hispanic outreach organization. Fox News also served as a constant and reliable promotional vehicle for Gingrich Productions, a for-profit conservative multimedia company run by Newt and wife Callista.

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Other stories below: Climate models may underestimate extinction, say researchers; Storehouses for Solar Energy Can Step In When the Sun Goes Down

Chis Carlson (left, AP Photo) and Charlie Riedel (File)

Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney are both bad news for climate change fight

Rick Santorum, who surged at the last minute to give Mitt Romney a real run for his money in Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses, is less green than his rival, and decidedly nuttier when it comes to climate change. But let’s not split hairs here. Both men will staunchly defend fossil fuels, and neither is likely to do much of anything to fight global warming.

Mitt Romney has expressed qualified concern about climate change over the years, and then vacillated about how much of it is human-caused and whether we should try to do anything about it.

No wobbling of that sort from Santorum — he’s an out-and-out denier. “There is no such thing as global warming,” he told a smiling Glenn Beck on Fox News in June 2011. That same month, he told Rush Limbaugh that climate change is a liberal conspiracy: “It’s just an excuse for more government control of your life and I’ve never been for any scheme or even accepted the junk science behind the whole narrative.”

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