A blogger once said that only the ideologically-driven anti-science disinformers never admit to error, since their job is to make errors on purpose. Okay, that was me, but still.

In truth, most people rarely if ever admit to major errors. So it seemed to me that Leap Day would be a good day to run through my biggest mistakes.

I’m not going focus on the many, many small mistakes that are inevitable for anyone who blogs daily and has written literally millions of words on this subject. I work to admit and correct those mistakes as quickly as possible – see my post about whether you should cancel your subscription to the New York Times.

I do think Climate Progress presents the science more accurately and with fewer errors than the vast majority of the MSM — especially since errors include quoting people whose job it is to make errors on purpose.

I’ll end with my biggest blogging mistake, but let me start again with my biggest climate science mistake.

I have consistently underestimated the timing and speed of climate impacts and the level of greenhouse gas emissions that would likely cause catastrophic warming. In the 1990s, I was mostly a 3°C or 550 ppm guy.  In fact, looking at my 2004 book, The Hype About Hydrogen, I now see that it actually floated a scenario in which “in 2037, the the National Academy of Sciences’ Panel on Abrupt Climate Change, noting that the 3 previous years were a full 1°F warmer than the past decade, urges CO2 stabilization at 650 ppmv within 50 years.”  Ouch.

Here’s how I corrected that mistake: After my brother lost his home in Hurricane Katrina, I spent a lot of time attending seminars by the top climate scientists, talking to as many as possible, and reviewing as much of the scientific literature as I could. That’s when I realized the situation was considerably more dire than I or 99% of the public and opinion-makers realized — and that climate scientists were doing a lousy job of communicating that fact. Six years later, the situation is still considerably more dire than, oh, at least 95% of the public and opinion-makers realize, but at least my understanding of climate is more grounded in the latest science (see “An Illustrated Guide to the Science of Global Warming Impacts: How We Know Inaction Is the Gravest Threat Humanity Faces“).

Of course, now I’m a 450 ppm guy and I still may be too high! It’s also worth noting that because of our better understanding of carbon cycle feedbacks, the cumulative CO2 that humans can afford to emit to stabilize at any temperature level is considerably lower than we thought just 5 years ago (see “Hidden Bombshell in the IPCC Fourth Assessment“). So we need to act ASAP.

In that regard, my biggest political error in judgment was to believe President Obama (and his uniquely knowledgeable climate team) would be willing and able to actually pass a serious climate bill. All I can say in my defense is I wasn’t alone. Obama’s lameness on this issue is not the primary reason we didn’t get climate action — the disinformers and their political allies as well as the media deserve 90% of the blame, as I’ve said many times. Could Obama have succeeded if he had really tried?  I do believe there was a meaningful bill that could have passed had Obama made it a priority, but we will obviously never know the answer.

I shouldn’t leave out my biggest mistake at the Department of Energy — my strong support for the hydrogen and transportation fuel cell program.

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Our guest blogger is Tina Ramos, an Energy Research Associate at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Today, FEMA Administrator and former Director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management Craig Fugate reminded us that climate change and its effects are actually something that we must consider and plan for now, because the threats are not going away no matter how hard the GOP tries to convince us that they aren’t real.

“We don’t do a good job of communicating what we know [about how climate change will affect our communities],” said Administrator Fugate during the National Leadership Speaker Series on Resilience and Security in the 21st Century hosted by the U.S. Green Building Council and Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI) at the National Press Club this afternoon.

When I talk about climate resilience, I’m talking about how we need to forcefully communicate the risk we face in not building resilience to climate change at the local level, which might not have been in anyone’s experience previously.

The administrator stressed the importance of recognizing “total cost of ownership” in decision making that affects our nation’s and our communities’ futures. “People are starting to get a better sense of what total cost of ownership is. When you buy a car now, you don’t just ask how much it costs. You ask how many miles to the gallon the car gets.” You look at how present decisions have future consequences on your pocketbook and well-being.

The Administrator went on to explain that ignoring the current and future effects of climate change means not incorporating the true total cost in our decisions. “I owe you $18 billion,” he said. “The National Flood Insurance Program is underwritten by the taxpayers – did you know that? $18 billion was the money spent [on emergency services] during the hurricane season in 2005 alone,” when he was Director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management.

“We cannot afford to continue to respond to disasters and deal with the consequences under the current model,” he warned. “Risk that is not mitigated, that is not considered in return on investment calculations, oftentime steps up false economies. We will reach a point where we can no longer subsidize this.”

Tea Party conspiracy theorists have decided that ICLEI’s support for climate resilience is part of an eco-Marxist United Nations plot to build a one-world government.

Ignoring the effects of climate change — until disaster has already happened and we are forced to clean up the mess on an emergency footing — is not a sustainable strategy. If lawmakers in Washington actually intend to make the fiscally responsible decisions they preach about, then they will follow the administrator’s warning and immediately develop a national strategy that at once mitigates the negative effects of climate change and begins to build resilience on the local level. Investing in climate resilience means reducing pollution and preparing for its unavoidable effects. Failure to act now will be paid for in ever-increasing amounts of America’s blood and treasure.

Download the Green Building & Climate Resilience report by the US Green Building Council and ICLEI.

Today was a big milestone for people who care about public health and a livable climate. Two utilities announced the planned closure of nine coal plants in Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, bringing total retirements (executed and planned) since January 2010 past the 100 mark to 106.

Two plants in Chicago owned by Midwest Generation, the Fisk Plant and the Crawford Plant, had been a key target for local activist groups. These two plants have been in operation since the early 1900′s and were last updated in the late 50′s and 60′s. Along with violating “grandfathered” (i.e. lax) air quality standards and causing hundreds of emergency room visits each year, the two plants represented the largest source of local greenhouse gas emissions in 2010.

Local and national activists groups, along with the Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, put intense pressure on Midwest Generation to shut the plants down.

The second set of plant closures come from the wholesale power provider GenOn Energy, which said it will close 3,140 MW of aging plants in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. All of the plants are coal, except for one that is oil-fired. GenOn said new air quality regulations would make it difficult for the company to keep the plants operating.

A confluence of factors is making it very difficult for owners of coal plants — particularly old coal plants — to compete. A combination of high domestic coal prices, low natural gas prices, new air quality regulations, coordinated activist pressure, and cost-competitive renewables are making coal an increasingly bad choice for many power plant operators. Along with the 106 announced closures, 166 new plants have been defeated since 2002.

So just how much of an impact have these factors had on coal closures? Bruce Nilles, director of Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign sent along these numbers:

EXISTING COAL (ANNOUNCED/RETIRED SINCE JAN 1 2010)

• 106 coal plants, 319 units
• 42,895 MW (13% of fleet)
• 150 million MWh (8% of fleet)
• 162 million tons/year of CO2 (9% of fleet)
• 921,417 tons/year of SO2 (16% of fleet)
• Average age: 55 years old
• (For plants with available data – Data from Clean Air Task Force): 2,042 pre-mature deaths, 3,229 heart attacks and 33,053 asthma attacks prevented each year (about 15% of total health impacts from fleet).  All together these plants retiring will save about $15.6 billion in health care costs.

So what’s going to happen to the lights when all that coal gets phased out? According to a group of forward-thinking power providers, there’s already enough unused combined cycle natural gas capacity installed to make up for over 100 GW of closures.

Of course, with questions about the life-cycle emissions of natural gas still unanswered, it remains to be seen how environmentally effective all that gas will be. But with record amounts of investment pouring into renewables and efficiency, and progressive utilities calling increasingly cost-competitive solar “the next big thing in the industry,” the forces are coming together to close the gap.

In 2009, the US Chamber of Commerce — funded by top corporations from Google to JP Morgan Chase — called for the “Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century” on the science of climate change. “It would be the science of climate change on trial,” said a top Chamber official.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, lawyers representing the Chamber of Commerce put the science of climate change on trial before the United States Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia. The Chamber is represented by Robin S. Conrad and Sheldon Gilbert of the National Chamber Litigation Center, the organization’s in-house trial-lawyer shop, as well as Jeffrey A. Rosen, Robert R. Gasaway, Jeffrey Bossert Clark, and William H. Burgess IV of the corporate legal firm Kirkland & Ellis.

In its filings, made jointly with a cavalcade of polluter interests and Republican politicians, the Chamber makes absurd global-cooling arguments and cites the work of the Heartland Institute’s Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC).

“It is arbitrary for EPA to rely on 21 years of twentieth-century warming as near-conclusive proof of human warming but then claim that the preceding 31 years of cooling and the following 13 years of no warming prove nothing”

“Over the last 65 years, temperatures have mostly been steady or declining, while CO2 levels have steadily increased”

“empirical data from independently derived temperature records show the pattern demanded by this theory and predicted by models does not exist”

“2009 Report of the NIPCC, Climate Change Reconsidered

The Chamber’s anti-science claims are the fever dreams of conspiracy theorists and hacks for hire.

When the Chamber of Commerce stood with climate deniers instead of scientific reality, corporations like Apple, PG&E Corp., Exelon Corp. and PNM Resources quit the group. However, many corporations that supposedly value science and the challenge of climate change have decided to endorse the chamber with their stockholders’ money.

Sum Of Us has launched a campaign to challenge Google to leave the Chamber. Google CEO Eric Schmidt laughed off the campaign, saying the right-wing lobbying group represents “good American values.”

As ThinkProgress Green previously reported, oral arguments began yesterday in a landmark case that consolidates a series of challenges to Environmental Protection Agency’s 2009 finding that greenhouse gases are a threat to public health and welfare and its related rule-makings.

Today, the three-judge appeals court panel heard arguments on other challenges to the EPA greenhouse gas rules. In all, the court is considering four cases — each a consolidation of several similar challenges.

Read the dockets and main litigants for each:

–No. 09-1322 (and consolidated cases), Endangerment Finding
–No. 10-1092 (and consolidated cases), Tailpipe Rule
–No. 10-1167 (and consolidated cases), Historic Regulations
–No. 10-1073 (and consolidated cases), Timing and Tailoring Rules

The anti-science litigants include the US Chamber of Commerce, the American Petroleum Institute, the National Association of Manufacturers, Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN). In 2009, the Chamber announced it wanted this challenge to the science of climate change to be the “Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century.”

Major Federal regulations have documented vast net benefits to Americans of $90 to over $500 billion a year

by Laurie Johnson, reposted from NRDC’s Switchboard

Last week, The Economist published a series of articles on the impact of regulations on the US economy and businesses. For a magazine normally regarded for insightful analysis, the poor quality of these articles is surprising. They represent more of an ideological treatise than a critical assessment of arguments offered by different sides of the debate and their supporting evidence.

In the opening introductory article, “Over-regulated America,” the writers argue that the economy is severely hobbled by an excessive number of regulations, and overly complex legislation written by Congress. The article claims two fundamental causes. First, legislators have the “hubris” to lay down rules attempting to govern every eventuality. Second, in so doing, they create huge incentives for industry to push for endless special exemptions.

While it is undoubtedly true that there are problems with the regulatory system, this line of reasoning is naïve at best. It understates industry’s role in the legislative process, and neglects the deceitful way in which opponents are framing the issue. Separately, the articles are short on facts (and long in fiction), and lack sophistication with regards to the inherently complex nature of regulation and the important role of specialization in society.

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

Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper (D) is appearing in new paid radio ads airing across the state for the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, an industry lobby and trade group which has a history of fighting health and safety standards for fossil fuels.  In the ad the governor states:

Hi, this is Governor John Hickenlooper.  In 2008, Colorado passed tough oil and gas rules.  Since then we have not had one instance of groundwater contamination associated with drilling and hydraulic fracturing. And we plan to keep it that way.  That’s why Colorado recently passed the toughest—and fairest—hydraulic fracturing disclosure rule in the nation.  In Colorado, we’ve proven that industry and the conservation community can come together to solve problems.  We can create jobs, promote energy security, and protect our environment. [Brought to you by the Colorado Oil and Gas Association.]

Listen:

As Zaid Jilani of the Republic Report, United Republic’s new blog dedicated to exposing how money pollutes democracy, observes, “the spot is particularly remarkable because it is almost unheard of for a sitting governor to appear in a radio commercial sponsored by a certain industry.”

Hickenlooper’s background and track record may indicate why he has failed this test of good government.   Before founding Wynkoop Brewing Company in Denver, Hickenlooper was a petroleum geologist.  He took $73,666 from oil and gas interests in his 2010 election, and as Salon points out, appointed an industry campaign donor to an important regulatory position.

The governor’s smiling photo also appears on two print ads, which are greenwashed with statements like “because the environment matters.”  In response to criticism for the radio ads, Colorado Oil and Gas Association president Tisha Schuller said:

We stand by the ads, and we call them public service announcements.

However, in a strikingly public rebuke, 13 environmental groups are pushing back on the implication that drilling and hydraulic fracturing are safe and that there has been no damage from them in Colorado.  In a letter sent to Hickenlooper earlier this week, Colorado conservation groups discussed their “surprise” and “disappointment” and have asked the governor and the Colorado Oil and Gas Association to pull the ads off the air:

The ad…creates a misleading picture about the overall safety of oil and gas development…That assertion misleads the public by ignoring the high incidence of groundwater contamination from spills and releases of toxic chemicals at or near drilling sites. Since 2008, numerous instances of groundwater contamination have resulted from releases of chemicals such as petroleum liquids and produced water used and generated during drilling and hydraulic fracturing.

We need a 21st century electricity system to enable local clean energy

by John Farrell, reposted from Energy Self-Reliant States

In a New York Times SundayReview piece last week – Drawing the Line at Power Lines – Elisabeth Rosenthal suggested that our desire for clean energy will require significant tradeoffs:

There are pipelines, trains, trucks and high-voltage transmission lines. None of them are pretty, and all have environmental drawbacks. But if you want to drive your cars, heat your homes and watch TV, you will have to choose among these unpalatable options…

Perhaps the answer is simply that in an increasingly crowded powered-on world, we’re all going to have to accept that Governor Cuomo’s so-called energy highway is likely to traverse our backyard.

I disagree.

The future of American electricity policy is not about tradeoffs, but rather a chance to trade-in an obsolete, centralized paradigm for a local, clean energy future.  Utilities would have us believe that new high-voltage transmission lines are necessary to get more wind and solar power.  But the truth is that the American electricity industry refuses to embrace the fundamentally different nature of renewable energy: its ubiquity means that Americans can produce energy near where they use it, in an economically competitive manner, and at a community scale.

The 20th century electricity system was centrally controlled and centrally-owned, a necessary evil when coal, gas, and nuclear power plants had significant economies of scale and required enormous capital investments.  The supply lines for these power plants were equally large, connecting far-off mines, oil and gas fields via rail and pipeline to these remote power plants, and big transmission lines in turn carried the electricity from these power plants to big urban centers.

An electricity system primarily powered by wind and solar is fundamentally different.  Turbines and panels are always right at the fuel source, whether on a rural farm or an urban rooftop.   And because their scale is substantially more amenable to community ownership, renewable energy can be built near to and provide economic benefits to the communities it powers.

The fundamental shift means Americans should trade-in an obsolete model of centralized energy generation for one that matches and builds support for the local energy opportunity.

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In 2009, the US Chamber of Commerce called for the “Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century” to question the scientific fact of man-made climate change.

Yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia began consideration of a landmark case that consolidates a series of challenges to Environmental Protection Agency’s 2009 finding that greenhouse gases are a threat to public health and welfare and its related rule-makings. The cases, brought by energy companies, industry front groups, Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), and others, seek to stop the EPA from regulating greenhouse pollution. Their legal argument is that climate science is a hoax.

But the three-judge panel’s questions and comments during the first day of oral arguments showed enormous skepticism of the industry arguments. Acknowledging that by law, the panel must show deference to the EPA’s finding, the chief judge told one of the challenger’s lawyers: “You seem to be asking us to determine that the EPA is incorrect, but that is not the standard, ” and even that “would not be enough to win the case for you.” Other arguments were similarly pooh-poohed by the panel.

Perhaps more significant for the EPA — and the earth’s climate — is the fact that the chief judge is hardly a liberal lion. David B. Sentelle, a Ronald Reagan appointee, was a protege of the late arch-conservative Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC). Best known as the person who installed Ken Starr as the independent counsel to investigate the Whitewater scandal (and President Clinton’s sex life) and who wrote the opinion overturning the conviction of Oliver North, Sentelle has a reputation as one of the most right-wing judges in the federal court system. The other two judges on the panel were both appointed by a Democrat, President Bill Clinton.

The comments are not, of course, a formal ruling, but are certainly a strong indicator that the panel is unlikely to reject the EPA’s scientific finding that greenhouse gases are a threat.

The challengers involved with the cases include:

Industry Front Groups and Trade Associations
–American Petroleum Institute
–Coalition for Responsible Regulation, Inc.
–Industrial Minerals Association – North America
–National Cattlemen’s Beef Association
–National Mining Association
–Utility Air Regulatory Group

Coal and Energy Companies
–Alpha Natural Resources, Inc.
–Massey Energy
–Peabody Energy Company
–Great Northern Project Development, L.P.
–Rosebud Mining Company

Republican Politicians
–Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX)
–Reps. John Linder (R-GA)
–Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA)
–John Shimkus (R-IL)
–Phil Gingrey (R-GA)
–Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA)
–Tom Price (R-GA)
–Paul Broun (R-GA)
–Steve King (R-IA)
–Nathan Deal (R-GA)
–Jack Kingston (R-GA)
–Michele Bachmann (R-MN)
–Kevin Brady (R-TX)

Perhaps realizing that the law is not on their side, some of these industry groups have simultaneously taken a legislative approach to fighting EPA regulations, pushing for enactment of HR 910, the “Energy Tax Prevention Act.” The bill, sponsored by Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), would take away the EPA’s regulatory power over greenhouse gases. The Republican House endorsed the proposal last April, mostly along party lines, but the measure has stalled in the Democratic Senate. The American Petroleum Institute, Industrial Minerals Association, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, National Mining Association, Peabody Energy Company all reported lobbying on the bill in 2011 — part of their combined $13.9 million lobbying efforts on this and other subjects.

The number of people who believe that the planet is warming is at its highest level since the fall of 2009. According to a survey conducted in December 2011 by the National Survey of American Public Opinion on Climate Change, 62% of Americans say they think global warming is happening. That’s up 7% from last spring.

That matches other recent public opinion research Climate Progress has reported on (see “Gallup poll: Public understanding of global warming gains” and “Independents, Other Republicans Split With Tea-Party Extremists on Global Warming.”

Significantly, Americans are attributing their increased belief in global warming to their (correct) perception that the planet is warming and the weather is getting more extreme. Roughly half of people who believe in global warming said that these were the primary influence.

This is certainly understandable. On the one hand, the media and key opinion-makers have all but stopped talking about the subject, so it would be hard for people to be convinced by those two sources. On the other hand, it’s kind of hard to miss the extreme heat and uber-extreme weather events of the past two years.

With record-shattering droughts, floods and storms in 2011 that scientists attribute to an increasing degree to warming, atmospheric circulation changes, and extra moisture in the atmosphere driven by greenhouse gas emissions, and with 4 out of 5 Americans impacted by extreme weather since 2006, more people say that temperatures and weather changes are influencing their perception of global warming.

Even though extreme weather events are increasing in frequency and intensity, the close relationship between weather and beliefs about global warming can potentially make public opinion fickle over the short term — particularly since the continental United States comprises only a tiny fraction of the world and thus its weather is even more erratic than the Earth’s climate as a whole.

[As an aside, it isn't entirely clear to me that when people say they have "observed" warmer temperatures or weather changes, they only mean weather they personally observed locally -- as opposed to what they might have observed on TV or even heard from friends and relatives around the country -- JR.]

The Brookings Institution, which released a report on the poll, explains how the phenomenon can swing beliefs on the issue:

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In one fell swoop Tuesday afternoon, Olympia Snowe may have not only crushed Mitch McConnell’s dreams of taking over the Senate, she also wrote the epitaph for political moderates in the world’s greatest deliberative body.

Snowe’s stunning retirement announcement — she gave just a few hours’ notice to McConnell and Texas Sen. John Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee — was the latest and greatest example of Snowe throwing a monkey wrench into GOP leadership plans.

As the Politico reports, the retirement announcement by Olympia Snowe (R-ME) was a shocker. She’s being hailed as a “moderate,” but she famously — or infamously — would not step forward to publicly support a serious but modest climate bill when doing so might have mattered.

And that’s in spite of co-chairing the 2005 International Climate Change Taskforce that embraced the 2°C (3.6 F) target since, of course, if humans allow substantially higher warming, we are risking “irreversible damage to important terrestrial ecosystems, including the Amazon rainforest, the report warns. Above [that level] the risks of abrupt, accelerated, or runaway climate change also increase.”

Snowe said, “I do find it frustrating, however, that an atmosphere of polarization and ‘my way or the highway’ ideologies has become pervasive in campaigns and in our governing institutions.”

What’s particularly sad is that her move to the right on several issues in the past couple of years was widely seen as an effort to forestall a Tea Party challenger this year. Given that she isn’t even running now, she could have been a big champion of climate action and led the way for a truly bipartisan Senate climate bill during the one brief shining moment there were actually enough progressives and moderates in the Senate to make it happen.

After all, 7 years ago she co-chaired a panel that reviewed the science and concluded:

The cost of failing to mobilise in the face of this threat is likely to be extremely high. The economic costs alone will be very large: as extreme weather events such as droughts and floods become more destructive and frequent; communities, cities, and island nations are damaged or inundated as sea level rises; and agricultural output is disrupted. The social and human costs are likely to be even greater, encompassing mass loss of life, the spread or exacerbation of diseases, dislocation of populations, geopolitical instability, and a pronounced decrease in the quality of life.  Impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity are also likely to be devastating. Preventing dangerous climate change, therefore, must be seen as a precondition for prosperity and a public good, like national security and public health.

By contrast, the cost of taking smart, effective action to meet the challenge of climate change should be entirely manageable. Such action need notundermine standards of living. Furthermore, by taking action now and developing a long-term climate policy regime we can ensure that the benefits of climate protection are achieved at least cost…. By reducing greenhouse emissions and deploying new climate-friendly technologies, companies can create jobs and launch a new era of economic prosperity.

We’re already seeing much of this happen. In the last 7 years, the science, of course, has only become stronger and the cost of inaction has only become higher.  Where is our Churchill?

Interview conducted by Wendy Gordon for OnEarth Magazine

Actress Meryl Streep’s Oscar-nominated performance in The Iron Lady “nails the former prime minister’s look, sound, and spirit,” according to a former co-worker of Margaret Thatcher’s. Streep is renowned for her ability to transform herself into a character. But few know about her real-life roles as a transformative environmental health activist, geothermal energy pioneer, and veggie-pushing mother.

This queen of Hollywood, nominated for 17 Academy Awards (winner of two), went green well before it was in vogue and speaks fondly of her grandmother’s recycling habits and her parents’ resourcefulness. When I first met Meryl in 1988, she had recently returned from filming A Cry in the Dark in Australia. She had been there when the ozone hole had been found over the continent. The discovery, along with maternal concerns for the health of her then three children, pushed Meryl toward activism. She soon began helping the Natural Resource Defense Council (which publishes OnEarth) to raise awareness for environmental issues.

In the late eighties, Alar — a growth regulator used on apples — became a household name, invoking worries about toxins found on fruits and vegetables. After NRDC published the Alar report, Meryl and I worked together to create Mothers & Others, a campaign to rally citizens in the fight for tougher pesticide standards. Such standards now help protect infants and young children, who are particularly vulnerable to pesticide residues. The campaign had been transformational, using the power of the consumer to change the marketplace. And Meryl, of course, was a scene-stealer in the movement. She connected the dots for people, brought it home, and made it personal.

I caught up with Meryl last year in a quiet tea room in New York City.

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The surging price of gasoline means that the 99 percent are giving big oil companies a $5 billion windfall, a Center for American Progress analysis estimates. Oil prices, which averaged a near-record $103 per barrel in 2011, have risen steadily since the beginning of 2012. In tandem with oil prices, gasoline prices are also rising — from an average of $3.30 ending the week of January 2 to $3.59 last week.

Higher gas prices mean that money is flowing out of Americans’ wallets and pocketbooks and straight into the coffers of Big Oil companies. A Center for American Progress analysis finds that each penny rise in the average quarterly (three months) price of a gallon of gas corresponds to a $200 million increase in quarterly profits of the big five oil companies—BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Royal Dutch Shell:

Since the beginning of the year, the price for gasoline increased 29 cents per gallon. If that average increase holds true through the end of March, it will translate to $5.8 billion in additional profits for the big five.

Although those billions of dollars come from the pockets of the 99 percent, the profits stay at the top. The richest 20 percent in this country get half of all market income, with the top one percent getting 21 percent of the profits. With vanishing corporate taxes and a declining share of the gas tax, less and less of the cost of gasoline goes back into societal benefit — like creating jobs by rebuilding our roads and bridges, or investing in energy efficiency and smart growth that reduce our dependence on oil.

Instead of using their outrageous profits to invest in alternative energy sources or create jobs, the big five and other oil and gas firms spent more than $146 million lobbying Congress last year. The big five oil companies alone spent more than $18 million on federal campaign contributions. Ninety percent of these contributions went to Republican candidates and 10 percent to Democrats. Many of these politicians were the loudest defenders of oil tax breaks.

by David Roberts, reposted from Grist

Ezra Klein had an interesting post last week about the arbitrary nature of what gets coded “left” and “right” in today’s policy debates. He mentions cap-and-trade, which was the subject of bipartisan consensus from 2000 to 2008, at which point it abruptly became socialist.

Klein is right that the ideological coding of the climate debate is peculiar, but he’s barely scratching the surface. The left-right alignment on climate is completely scrambled, in part because the real battle, as we shall see, is not ideological.

On the same day, Brian Merchant had a post on Treehugger about “the right-wing case for a carbon tax.” Technically it should have been called “the right-wing case for carbon pricing,” since it cites a Washington Post op-ed from Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and two of their former Republican colleagues that advocates either “a market mechanism such as the sale of carbon allowances or a fee on carbon pollution.” Merchant also notes that legendary conservative economist Arthur B. Laffer — father of the Laffer Curve — came out last week in favor of a carbon tax as part of a “tax switch” that would reduce income tax rates. (Laffer is “agnostic” on climate change but he really, really wants to reduce the income tax.) As Joe Romm notes, in 2011, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation funded the work of six groups across the ideological spectrum to develop deficit plans. Of the six, only one did not include [or consider] a price on carbon: the hacktastic Heritage Institute.

I’m not sure I would call carbon-pricing solutions right-wing, but I do think it’s fair to characterize them as conservative. Conservative economic thinking prefers a minimum of government intervention in the economy. Sending a carbon-pricing signal via a tax or cap is a minimalist intervention, as technology and industry agnostic as policy can be. If the revenue is used to reduce the deficit or other taxes (income or payroll), then the policy is even more solidly conservative, as both are conservative priorities.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that! Just because carbon pricing is conservative doesn’t mean it’s bad or undesirable. I, like virtually everyone who’s thought seriously about the problem (which excludes Heritage), see a substantial role for carbon pricing. I’m just saying it is a solution designed to align with conservative principles, endorsed by both Chicago school and neoliberal economists.

So what would liberal climate policy be?

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Other stories below: Michael Mann’s counterstrike in the climate wars; Algae biofuels now mocked by Republicans were once supported by them

High Arctic Research Station Forced To Close

Canada’s northernmost research laboratory is shutting down due to lack of funding.

The Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) in Eureka, Nunavut, which made key measurements last winter used to detect and analyze the largest ozone hole ever detected over the Arctic, will cease year-round operations on April 30. At that time, its equipment will be removed and the building will remain available only for intermittent, short-term projects.

“When you run out of money, there’s no alternative but to close the lab,” Jim Drummond, a Dalhousie University researcher who is the principal investigator for PEARL, said Tuesday.

The station has been tracking ozone depletion, air quality and climate change in the High Arctic since 2005. But the Canadian Network for Detection of Atmospheric Change, an informal network of university researchers that runs the station, hasn’t been able to secure the $1.5 million annual funding required to continue running the station all year round.

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Bogus climate course “a source of embarrassment to the institution”

– Richard Littlemore, in a DeSmogBlog repost

An energy industry public relations man and lobbyist with no background in climate science has infiltrated Carleton University in the Canadian capital of Ottawa, teaching a course on climate change denial that other Carleton professors describe as “a source of embarrassment to the institution.”

Tom Harris, who originally trained as a mechanical engineer, has been a strategist for the climate change denial industry for at least a decade. A favourite presenter misrepresented as a PhD at the Heartland Institute’s regular climate change denial conferences, Harris has worked directly for companies like the international PR giant APCO Worldwide or for energy industry lobby firms such as Toronto’s High Park Group. More recently, he has launched or led at least three phony “grassroots organizations” – energy industry front groups that promote confusion or denial in climate science.

Now, Harris is teaching at Carleton, passing on a mix of climate denial mythology and flat out fiction, telling students that the planet isn’t really warming, that (if it is), humans aren’t to blame, that (if they are) if might be a good thing and that, regardless, it’s just too complicated for mere scientists to figure out. (“The climate problem is so difficult that we might never solve it.”)

Harris’s ridiculous claims have been laid bare in a new report by the Canadian Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skepticism (CASS), which has gone through videotapes of lectures from Climate Change: An Earth Sciences Perspective (ERTH2402), identifying 142 errors, exaggerations or outright prevarications.

The CASS report states:

“We have demonstrated that the Earth Sciences Department at Carleton University is currently running a course which obfuscates, down-plays, distorts and contradicts the overwhelming scientific consensus on dangerous, man-made climate change.  This course is run by an instructor who has been actively involved in climate change denial for many years, and involves a number of other speakers who are similarly biased in their views.  Whether the inaccurate information presented is the result of incompetence or malice we cannot comment, but we strongly advise that the course be withdrawn and corrections presented, with apologies, to the students who have previously taken the course.”

The existence of this course represents a coup for the climate change denial movement, which as documented with the release of internal documents from the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, has been trying to infiltrate the U.S. school system with a K-12 curriculum promoting the notion that climate change is not real, not caused by humans or just too confusing to understand. (Heartland, a prominent proponent on behalf of its tobacco industry sponsors, has, in fact, been promoting climate disinformation in schools for many years.)

In the Carleton course, Harris has promoted a series of irrelevant, misleading or flagrantly incorrect bromides, including:

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Nearly two years after Upper Big Branch Mine disaster, the deadliest mine accident in nearly 40 years, the West Virginia House of Delegates has just passed a mine safety reform bill that should, in theory, strengthen some of the lax laws that made the tragedy possible. Through the legislative process, the bill, already mild to begin with, has been further weakened to appease coal industry lobbyists and legislators who fear them.

Part of the bill attempts to raise the maximum fine that can be levied against mine operators who violate safety laws. While coal state legislators kowtowing to the industry is nothing new, the Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward Jr. uncovered a statistic that highlights the state’s shocking disregard for the safety of miners. Under West Virginia law, the maximum fine for a safety violation that results in the death of a coal miner is one-tenth of the maximum fine for violating West Virginia University’s trademark:

Better yet — why should someone face more serious punishment if they use the WVU logo without permission (see here and here) than if they kill a coal miners? That’s right, WVU trademark violators? Up to 10 years in jail and a $100,000 fine. Mine safety criminals? Up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

The new mine safety bill makes an attempt to raise both civil and criminal penalties for mine safety violations, but even the higher fines would be incredibly weak. The maximum civil fine for most safety violations would rise from $3,000 to $5,000 — weakened from $10,000 in the original draft of the bill — falling woefully short of the $70,000 maximum fine under federal law. And while it seeks to impose new criminal penalties on violations resulting in deaths, Ward couldn’t find a single example of county prosecutors bringing criminal charges under the existing statutes.

Last week, the West Virginia Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training released its report on the Upper Big Branch mine disaster last week, and though its tone was “tepid” compared to other reports, it became the fourth such investigation to find that lax mine safety laws and regulations were responsible for the explosion that killed 29 miners. After the disaster, West Virginia politicians and coal industry big-wigs vowed to never let such a disaster happen again.

If recent efforts to enhance mine safety on both the state and federal levels is any indication, though, the promise from the coal industry, industry lobbyists, and coal state legislators that such a disaster will never happen again is just another example of empty rhetoric.

Did you know that the landing on the moon was staged? Or that swallowing seeds will cause fruit to grow in your stomach? Or that the cost of solar power has gone up 63% since 2001?

If you are tied to reality, you’d know that all three of these statements are utterly false. And while most people know that the moon landing was real and that seeds don’t grow in your stomach, the last falsity is an easy one to slip by people who don’t follow energy — which is almost everyone.

In fact, the installed cost of solar has come down nearly 40% since 2001.

That ridiculous statement about solar comes from Dr. Ben Zycher, an economist with the Pacific Research Institute and visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, who has a new book out about renewable electricity technologies. Last week, AEI held an event for Dr. Zycher to talk about his book, in which he claims to be conducting a “fresh analysis” and a “reality check” on clean energy.

It seems Dr. Zycher needs a reality check — some of his math mistakes have introduced errors that are off by a factor of 100!  Below is a response to some of his claims.

According to the authoritative “Tracking the Sun IV” report from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the installed cost of solar has come down about 40% since 2001, from $10 a watt to $6.2 per watt. And with a scale-up in manufacturing, the market price of modules has come down an astonishing pace, with prices declining from $7 a watt in the mid-80′s to under $1 a watt today. Some analysts predict that we’ll see solar module prices at 70 cents a watt this year.

Zycher also claims that “wind energy costs have been steadily rising even though the capacity to generate electricity has expanded.” (Note: I inaccurately said that Zycher used turbine pricing data. In fact, he used data from the EIA on cost per MW installed and MWh of generation.)

It is true that the cost of wind power increased slightly since 2001 due to a rapid scaling of global capacity, a shortage of product, and a huge jump in the cost of raw materials. (Steel doubled in price and copper quadrupled in price in the past decade.)  But this is after a stunning drop in costs over the previous two decades:

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