Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us, and training them into a better race to inhabit the land and pass it on. Conservation is a great moral issue for it involves the patriotic duty of insuring the safety and continuance of the nation. Let me add that the health and vitality of our people are at least as well worth conserving as their forests, waters, lands, and minerals, and in this great work the national government must bear a most important part….

President Obama is no Teddy Roosevelt, even though he’d like people to think he is.  Needless to say, the GOP front-runner is no Roosevelt either (see Romney: I Don’t Know ‘What The Purpose is’ of Public Lands — a line that would set the Lion spinning.)

Roosevelt was a true progressive.  In his famous, “New Nationalism” speech of 1910, he uttered the remarks that open this post along with these timeless statements:

I stand for the square deal. But when I say that I am for the square deal, I mean not merely that I stand for fair play under the present rules of the games, but that I stand for having those rules changed so as to work for a more substantial equality of opportunity and of reward for equally good service….

Now, this means that our government, national and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests….

There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done….

The prime problem of our nation is to get the right type of good citizenship, and, to get it, we must have progress, and our public men must be genuinely progressive.

Obama has turned out to be “the most moderate Democratic president since World War II.”  Nonetheless, back in December, Obama delivered a speech in Osawatomie, Kansas, because it was where Roosevelt gave his 1910 speech.  Obama gave a good speech, as far as it went, focused on “the best way to restore growth and prosperity, restore balance, restore fairness”:

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In a hearing to mark up Republican legislation to expedite the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA) accused the foreign company TransCanada of misleading the American public that the pipeline would be built with American steel.

Doyle submitted an amendment that challenged TransCanada to certify its claim that 75 percent of the pipe comes from North America is actually true. Discussing his amendment, Doyle expressed his frustration about his attempts to get a straight answer from the tar sands company about where the steel for the 1700-mile pipe was made. Doyle found that the Indian company Welspun Corp appears to be the pipeline supplier, using its Little Rock facilities to store India-manufactured pipe and steel. “I don’t believe there’s a lick of US or Canada steel in this pipeline,” Doyle said:

I’m asking for a bit of truth in advertising here. It’s been my frustration throughout this debate. We hear a lot of claims about the pipeline and I just want to be honest with the American people. My amendment just says this: TransCanada has told us they have made every effort to source as much steel through North American mills as they can. I’m simply asking them to certify that claim. Through my little amateur investigation, I don’t believe there’s a lick of US or Canada steel in this pipeline. But I would love to be proved wrong.

Watch it:

Doyle revealed that he found that 148 miles of pipe have already been constructed in India and shipped to Welspun’s subsidiary Welspun Tubular in Little Rock, AR.

The steel being used comes from the same Indian manufacturer behind the original Keystone pipeline, which has already seen 12 spills in one year, possibly because of defective steel.

The United Steelworkers oppose the pipeline, as another case of manufacturing outsourcing by multinational companies.

An Interview with Weather Underground’s Dr. Jeff Masters

The laws of physics demand that the huge amount of heat-trapping gases humans are pumping into the atmosphere must be significantly altering the fundamental large-scale circulation pattern of the atmosphere.

Stronger hurricanes, bigger floods, more intense heat waves, and sea level rise have been getting many of the headlines with regards to potential climate change impacts, but drought should be our main concern. Drought is capable of crashing a civilization.

by Christine Shearer, reposted from the Conducive Chronicle

If you are interested in weather, chances are you have visited Weather Underground and read the posts of its director of meteorology, Dr. Jeff Masters. The consistently reliable Masters has been a rare voice in helping make sense of, rather than cloud (zing!), the increasingly strange weather events hitting the planet.

Masters has studied weather both on the ground and in the air. He received his bachelors and masters degrees in meteorology from the University of Michigan, and then worked as a Miami-based flight meteorologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Hurricane Hunters team. It was there that Masters and his crew, having lost temporary control of their radar and thinking they were heading toward a mild twister, flew right into the eye of Hurricane Hugo — a category 5 storm and the most destructive of its time.

Masters later wrote of the event in “Hunting Hugo“: “I look out my window, and behold the eye of Hurricane Hugo in its full fury. It is awesome, terrifying, supernatural.”

Although two engines of the plane were damaged, the crew made it out, which Masters attributes to the navigating of the team, the strength of the P3 plane, and luck. Masters returned to Ann Arbor for his PhD at U-M in 1991, continuing his work on the more applied science of air pollution meteorology: “I had a lot of concerns back then about how human activities were harming the environment and people who rely on the environment for jobs or for a strong economy.” He studied smog, but his attention soon turned to the growing issue of climate change.

He also started an earlier version of Wunderground in 1991, before it went online as the first weather site in 1995. Today, Wunderground.com is fed by the world’s largest network of 17,000 individual weather stations, and is the second most visited weather site in the world.

Masters shared some of his thoughts on meteorology, the effect of increasing greenhouse gases on weather and weather cycles, and the future of the earth’s climate.

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Protests Increase Against Canada’s Alternative to Keystone XL

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is currently visiting China to forge alliances and open up the Asian market for Canada’s environmentally-disastrous tar sands crude.

Harper may be making friends in China. But he’s certainly not making any friends in the environmental and conservation communities in the U.S. or Canada.

As Americans fight an increasingly intense political battle over the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, Canadian groups are stepping up their opposition to a proposed domestic pipeline that they say would destroy pristine wilderness and jeopardize the way of life of First Nations living in the path of the project.

This past weekend saw a new round of protests in British Columbia against the Northern Gateway project, a proposed 731-mile pipeline that would transport crude from a terminal near Alberta’s tar sands to the Douglas Channel — located in a sensitive rainforest — for export to China and other countries.

More than 1,000 people gathered in Prince Rupert, British Columbia to voice their deep concerns about the project. The demonstration was organized by First Nations and featured a variety of local politicians who said that the protests were “bringing people together” to protect British Columbia’s environment.

The groups were demonstrating against both the pipeline and the proposed shipping route that would allow hundreds of massive oil tankers to travel a treacherous path through pristine wilderness.

The Natural Resources Defense Council released a report last fall detailing the route:

At Kitimat, a tank farm at the edge of the water would facilitate the transfer of oil to holding tanks and then into large oil supertankers. These supertankers would then traverse 185 kilometres of inner coastal waters, including the Douglas Channel, before reaching open ocean in the unpredictably dangerous Hecate Strait, Queen Charlotte Sound, and Dixon Entrance. There is a reason that large oil supertankers have not used these waters in the past: the route poses many navigational challenges for large vessels, even under ideal conditions.

…To export tar sands oil, supertankers called “Very Large Crude Carriers” (VLCCs), with a capacity of 2.2 million barrels of oil (320,000 tonnes), would be required on a much more frequent basis. There is already strong opposition to large oil tanker traffic in coastal waters among local citizens, First Nation communities, and organizations concerned about the potential impacts of an oil spill in the ecologically sensitive marine habitats of the coast.

The people of the Gitga’at First Nation who live in the area have expressed deep concerns about the shipping route. In 2006, a ferry transporting 101 people ran off course and sank while sailing these inner coastal waters, killing two people. The vessel was only a fraction of the size of the supertankers that would be carrying crude:

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Our guest blogger is Catherine Woodiwiss, a Special Assistant with the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative at the Center for American Progress.

In a reflection of the Jewish community’s ongoing commitment to caring for the planet, 50 Jewish leaders from across denominations signed the Jewish Energy Covenant Campaign to protect the environment in a ceremony in Manhattan on February 6, on the eve of Tu Bishvat, the Jewish festival of trees. The campaign’s declaration, titled the “Jewish Environment and Energy Imperative,” reads:

Out of concern for the wellbeing of all nations, and with a particular concern for the poorest among them as well as for future generations, our support for more sources of clean, renewable energy and for energy efficiency is a matter of justice. Enlightened stewardship is not only a religious and moral imperative; it is a strategy for security and survival.

The Covenant Campaign sets a bold vision for the Jewish environmental community. To support their commitment to cutting greenhouse-gas pollution by 14 percent in 2014, signatories pledge to support clean-technology innovation, encourage investment in Jewish environmental organizations, conduct energy audits, promote sustainability in their own communities, and advocate for the reduction by 83 percent of 2005 emission levels by 2050.

Led by the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, or COEJL, a network of nearly 30 national organizations and over 100 community groups, the campaign has brought together leaders from the Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and Reconstructionist movements in a unified effort to protect the environment.

“There’s a growing ecological consciousness in the Jewish community—a lot of concern about global warming, our energy policy, and energy security,” says Sybil Sanchez, COEJL’s director.

The declaration came on the eve of Tu Bishvat (or Tu B’Shevat), the Jewish festival of trees. The holiday, this year falling on February 7 and 8, traditionally involves a celebration of fruit trees and the coming of spring. Many communities observe the day by planting trees.

Over the years, environmental groups have elevated Tu Bishvat to something of a Jewish Earth Day, moving beyond planting trees to actions and advocacy that support the environment as a whole.

“Recently people are talking more and more not only about trees but about nature and the environment in connection with Tu Bishvat,” says Evonne Marzouk, founder of Canfei Nesharim, an Orthodox environmental-education organization. “‘What does it mean to appreciate trees today?’ The Jewish environmental community has both caused and responded to that.”

Though Tu Bishvat is the most overtly “green” festival, most Jewish holy days have an ecological undercurrent. “Each holiday is tied to the seasons; but [with Tu Bishvat] you can’t get more environmentally connected than trees and the land,” says Sanchez.

Tu Bishvat seders, or feasts, use symbols, through various fruits and wines, to represent the planet’s complex system that requires careful stewardship to maintain ecological balance and support life. A verse spoken at seders reads:

Look at My works! See how beautiful they are, how excellent! See to it that you do not spoil and destroy My world, for if you do, there will be no one after you to repair it. (Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:13)

Jewish environmental groups are redoubling efforts to put this charge into action as addressing climate change and carbon emissions becomes more urgent. Tu Bishvat, the springtime holiday, is seen as a symbolic season of renewal. This week Jewish leaders in New York and around the country called for renewal of the planet as well as the soul.

I’d love your comments on Clint Eastwood’s awesome ad for Obama Chrysler:

Seriously, though, I’m not going to spend much time on the rather absurd issue of whether Clint’s gritty optimism means he is channeling Obama’s gritty optimism, as the Washington Post and conservative commentators claim:

An an ad touting the resurgence of the American auto industry, Clint Eastwood declared that it’s “halftime in America and our second half’s about to begin,” which could be interpreted as a reference to Obama’s second term.

The ad’s themes seem to echo Obama’s own argument that his administration brought the auto industry back from the brink of disaster.

“They almost lost everything,” Eastwood says of Detroit. “But we all pulled together. Now Motor City is fighting again.”

Oh, no, we all pulled together to save Detroit.  And it worked.  I guess Eastwood is a socialist, too, albeit one of those socialists who is tough and successful.  I wonder if he was born in Kenya.

Obviously, anything that offends Karl Rove, “Bush’s brain,” can’t be all bad.  But the reason I’m highlighting the ad is because it is an extended metaphor — arguably the single most effective kind of advertising possible.

I’ll be publishing my book on messaging and persuasion later in the year.  It focuses on the figures of the speech.  As Aristotle said, “The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor” (see “How to be as persuasive as Lincoln, Part 3.”  So I’ll be focusing more on the use of rhetoric in  politics and popular culture this year.

Extended metaphor is, for me, the most important rhetorical device. This figure is at the heart of some of Lincoln’s greatest speeches and Shakespeare’s greatest plays (see “How Lincoln framed his picture-perfect Gettysburg Address“).

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GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum doesn’t mince words when it comes to his energy plan: humanity’s purpose is to dominate the environment.

Speaking at an energy summit in Colorado yesterday, the former Pennsylvania Senator explained his belief that humans were “put on this earth … for our benefit, not for the Earth’s benefit.”

In his speech, Santorum also blamed human-caused global warming — which played a role in making 2011 the most disastrous year ever for extreme weather in America — on the “vagaries of nature.”

“If you leave it to Nature, then Nature will do what Nature does, which is boom and bust. We were put on this Earth as creatures of God to have dominion over the Earth, to use it wisely and steward it wisely, but for our benefit not for the Earth’s benefit.”

“We are the intelligent beings that know how to manage things and through that course of science and discovery if we can be better stewards of this environment, then we should not let the vagaries of nature destroy what we have helped create.”

It’s no surprise that Santorum is a proud global warming denier. More surprising was his call for “science and discovery” to “be better stewards of this environment.” In the same breath, however, Santorum casually swept aside the consensus among 97% of climate scientists actively publishing peer-reviewed research in the field that human activity is warming the planet:

“I for one never bought the hoax. I for one understand just from science that there are one hundred factors that influence the climate. To suggest that one minor factor of which man’s contribution is a minor factor in the minor factor is the determining ingredient in the sauce that affects the entire global warming and cooling is just absurd on its face.

Santorum is a devout Catholic and uses his religious beliefs as a major platform in his candidacy for president. However, his position on global warming is completely opposite that of the Catholic church, which has called for a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions “without delay” in order to protect “the whole of creation.”

Santorum clearly hasn’t read about the physics of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which he dismissed as a “minor factor.” In fact, the radiative forcing of our CO2 emissions is the equivalent of 1 million Hiroshima nuclear bombs per day in the atmosphere.

“When there’s more energy radiating down on the planet than there is radiating back out to space, something’s going to have to heat up,” explained Mike Sandiford, Director of the Melbourne Energy Institute, in a recent article.

But if Santorum thinks that humans were created with the sole purpose of dominating the earth, no amount of science may be able to shake that belief.

Appearing on NBC’s Meet The Press this Sunday, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich attempted to shift blame away from oil companies for rising gasoline prices. Asked by host David Gregory how he would attack President Obama given positive news about the economy, Gingrich falsely claimed that the Environmental Protection Agency has a plan to “raise the price of gasoline by 25 cents a gallon”:

His policies have consistently, I think, weakened the country. He has an Environmental Protection Agency proposal that would raise the price of gasoline by 25 cents a gallon. There are very few Americans who want to see the price of gasoline raised by government to 25 cents a gallon.

Watch it:

Gingrich’s claim was generated last July by the oil industry’s lobbying arm, the American Petroleum Institute. On behalf of API, oil industry consulting firm Baker & O’Brien analyzed a proposal by the auto industry’s lobbying arm, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, for “a single national (excluding California) summertime gasoline specification that they referred to as National Clean Gasoline (NCG).”

According to the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, their proposed National Clean Gasoline standard would cost about one to 5 cents per gallon, while cutting smog and other air pollution by 10 to 20 percent. The oil-approved Baker & O’Brien study argued — using a proprietary and opaque methdology — that the proposal “could boost the cost of making gasoline by up to 25 cents per gallon and could shutter up to seven U.S. refineries.”

The EPA has been working on a plan to require cleaner new passenger vehicles and cleaner, low-sulfur gasoline – a move that could cost less than a penny a gallon. Reducing the sulfur content of gasoline would make every catalytic converter on the road today more effective. Every car in America would emit fewer smog-producing emissions. In fact, reducing sulfur is the single quickest and most effective step that EPA could take to reduce smog levels from coast to coast.

In summary, Gingrich’s claim that the EPA has a proposal to raise the price of gasoline by 25 cents a gallon ignores a number of facts. The proposal to which he’s referring came from the auto industry, not the EPA. The charge that the auto industry’s clean-gasoline proposal would increase prices by 25 cents per gallon is based on an oil-industry study that gave costs five times higher than other analyses. The EPA’s actual proposal for cleaner gasoline would have significant health and economic benefits for Americans with minimal effect on gas prices.

(HT Frank O’Donnell)

BP’s 2010 Gulf of Mexico spill is still affecting the lives of many Americans, particularly the tens of thousands that have not settled lawsuits with the company. Yet the company has bounced back from the billions it lost in the wake of the spill.

BP announced today that its 2011 profit totaled $26 billion, a 114 percent jump from the year before, when the company’s “failure of supervision and accountability” caused the worst oil spill in U.S. history. As the company prepares for its upcoming trial, let’s take a look at how BP has made out after the Deepwater Horizon disaster:

• BP earned $3 million every hour in 2011. Its fourth-quarter profits reached $7.69 billion, which is up 38 percent from 2010.
• The company is sitting on another $14 billion in cash.
• The company continues to scale back its production in the wake of the spill, producing 10 percent less than 2010 levels.
• BP contributions to federal candidates totaled more than $98,000 in 2011, with more than half (65 percent) to Republican candidates.
• BP spent $8 million lobbying Congress in 2011, down from the record $15 million the company lobbied in 2009 – one year before the oil disaster.
• For every dollar the big five oil companies use in lobbying, they effectively receive $30 in subsidies. This could mean BP potentially gained up to $243 million in subsidies, although the exact amount for an individual company is undisclosed.
• In the third quarter, BP’s Bob Dudley announced the company had reached a “definite turning point” of boosted profits. However, nearly two years following the Deepwater Horizon disaster, BP has still only paid $7.8 billion of the $20 billion fund they created to compensate individuals and businesses for losses incurred by the spill.
• In order to pay the $40 billion cleanup costs and additional penalties, the company has committed to selling $38 billion worth of assets before 2014.

Despite being found “ultimately responsible” for the most devastating oil spill this nation has ever seen, BP has spent millions lobbying on bills that would speed offshore drilling and leases. This includes filing a total 24 reports on bills undermining safety regulation in the Gulf of Mexico, H.R. 1231 “Reversing President Obama’s Offshore Moratorium Act” and H.R. 1229 “Putting the Gulf of Mexico Back to Work Act.”

At the time, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar accused House Republicans of having “amnesia” about the oil spill. No doubt the total $137 billion profits in 2011 for the five big oil companies had something to do with it.

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

During a stop in Elko, Nevada last week, presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) said that he opposes the federal ownership of any public lands.  After stating that he wanted to disband the U.S. Department of Interior (which manages 500 million acres of surface land including nearly 400 national parks), he responded to a question about a travel management plan in a national forest by stating:

Paul:  I want as much federal land to be turned over to the state as possible—the regulatory approach to tell people how to do and what to say.  So I was essentially other than the other members of Congress from this state — I very early on opposed the dumping of nuclear waste in Nevada, so I want the state to make a decision—

Questioner:  This plan pertains to using ATVs and things like that on federal land.

Paul:  Well, I’d be opposed to that.  I don’t want the federal government dictating to Nevada, period.  I’d rather see the land owned and controlled by the states.

Watch it:

This is not the first time Paul has called for public lands to be turned over to states or private entities.  In October he told the Western Republican Leadership Conference that public lands “should be returned to the states and then for the best parts sold off to private owners.”

The existence of public lands managed by the federal government is actually provided for in the Property Clause of the Constitution which states: “Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States, and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.”

Our federal public lands are important assets for many reasons.  Interior Department lands alone provided $363 billion in economic activity in 2010, some of which goes to states and counties.  Indeed federal lands in Nevada pumped $1 billion into the state’s economy in 2010.

Additionally, public lands are managed for the public good.   They are owned by every single American, and are places we all can go to picnic, hike, fish, and get outside with our families.  They also provide important benefits like clean air and clean water.

Perhaps most importantly, public lands are protected so they can be enjoyed for future generations.  Just imagine what the Grand Canyon would have been like if mining interests and the Arizona Territory had had their way in 1903 and mined it rather than preserved it.

BP’s 2010 Gulf of Mexico spill is still affecting the lives of many Americans, particularly the tens of thousands that have not settled lawsuits with the company. Yet the company has bounced back from the billions it lost in the wake of the spill. BP announced today that its 2011 profit totaled $26 billion, a 114 percent jump from the year before, when the company’s “failure of supervision and accountability” caused the worst oil spill in U.S. history. As the company prepares for its upcoming civil trial, let’s take a look at how BP has made out after the Deepwater Horizon disaster:

BP earned $3 million every hour in 2011. Its fourth-quarter profits reached $7.69 billion, which is up 38 percent from 2010.

The company is sitting on another $14 billion in cash.

The company continues to scale back its production in the wake of the spill, producing 10 percent less than 2010 levels.

BP contributions to federal candidates totaled more than $98,000 in 2011, with more than half (65 percent) to Republican candidates.

BP spent $8 million lobbying Congress in 2011, down from the record $15 million the company lobbied in 2009 – one year before the oil disaster.

For every dollar the big five oil companies use in lobbying, they effectively receive $30 in subsidies. This could mean BP potentially gained up to $243 million in subsidies, although the exact amount for an individual company is undisclosed.

In the third quarter, BP’s Bob Dudley announced the company had reached a “definite turning point” of boosted profits. However, nearly two years following the Deepwater Horizon disaster, BP has still only paid $7.8 billion of the $20 billion fund they created to compensate individuals and businesses for losses incurred by the spill.

In order to pay the $40 billion cleanup costs and additional penalties, the company has committed to selling $38 billion worth of assets before 2014.

Despite being found “ultimately responsible” for the most devastating oil spill this nation has ever seen, BP has spent millions lobbying on bills that would speed offshore drilling and leases. This includes filing a total 24 reports on bills undermining safety regulation in the Gulf of Mexico, H.R. 1231 “Reversing President Obama’s Offshore Moratorium Act” and H.R. 1229 “Putting the Gulf of Mexico Back to Work Act.” At the time, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar accused House Republicans of having “amnesia” about the oil spill. No doubt the total $137 billion profits in 2011 for the five big oil companies had something to do with it.

Framing Matters: How Polls and the Media Misrepresent the Keystone XL [Tar Sands] [Oil] Pipeline

by Liz Barrat-Brown, reposted from NRDC’s Switchboard

First of all, you won’t find tar sands mentioned in any of the polling.  And in most polls, you won’t even find oil.  It’s just the Keystone XL pipeline, no context, no mention of what it will carry, and certainly no mention of the environmental risks of building a massive pipeline to carry toxic tar sands sludge through the heartland of America to the gulf of Mexico, where it would be exported out of the U.S.

The question asked by two recent polls, one by Rasmussen and the other by the National Journal, was more or less, “Do you support or oppose building the Keystone XL pipeline?”   And the Rasmussen poll also asks if job creation is more important than protecting the environment, posing these two goals as  oppositional.

Most Americans don’t see it that way.  In our opinion research and other opinion research, such as the major new survey in the West, Americans overwhelmingly believe that a strong economy and the environment can go hand in hand.  And they show a real concern for protecting resources, such as our water supply, from degradation.  But both the Rasmussen and the National Journal polls show a majority of Americans in favor of the Keystone XL pipeline.

But are they really?

What if the pollsters changed the question to more accurately represent the actual project and inserted “tar sands oil pipeline”?  What if they described to the public that the pipeline would jeopardize one of America’s most important freshwater aquifers, the Ogallala?  What if they were told that a first pipeline just like the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and built by the same foreign company, TransCanada, had had over 12 spills in the U.S. (30 if you count Canada) in just its first year of operation?  What if they were told that the oil is not really oil but a toxic sludge that is largely strip mined from under the Boreal forest in Canada and has to be diluted with toxic chemicals and pushed through pipelines at high temperature and pressure in pipelines only regulated to carry conventional oil?  And what if the public were given the opportunity to choose a tar sands oil pipeline or increasing our reliance on homegrown renewable energy?

No poll has set this tar sands pipeline in any kind of context.

Instead most of the questions are preceded or followed by generic questions about jobs and the economy or with questions about whether the country is going in the right direction.

So, without context, what do you think most Americans would first think of when asked about a pipeline?

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Other stories below: Average U.S. gas prices near record levels

Wind Power Market Rose to 41 Gigawatts in 2011, Led by China

The global wind power market rose 6 percent to 41 gigawatts last year, led by China, which captured more than two-fifths of the total, the Global Wind Energy Council said today in a report.

China installed 18 gigawatts of turbines in 2011, followed by the U.S. with 6.8 gigawatts and India’s 3 gigawatts. Germany, the U.K., Canada and Spain followed, according to the Brussels- based industry lobby group.

Growth in the market occurred as European governments cut subsidies to tighten budgets and heightened competition among manufacturers as Chinese companies such as Sinovel Wind Group Co. and Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co. grabbed market share outside China.

“Despite the state of the global economy, wind power continues to be the renewable generation technology of choice,” GWEC Secretary-General Steve Sawyer said in an e-mailed statement. “2011 was a tough year, as will be 2012, but the long-term fundamentals of the industry remain very sound.”

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