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

This afternoon presidential contender Mitt Romney’s campaign announced the endorsement of Rob Keck, the Director of Conservation at Bass Pro Shops and a “conservationist and renowned hunter.”  In his statement, circulated by the Romney campaign, Keck said that:

Mitt also understands the importance of wildlife conservation, as well as hunting and angling’s economic and political engine that powers America. He will ensure that this tradition continues and is strengthened.

“He will fix America and lead the way in helping protect and preserve our rich hunting and fishing heritage,” Keck concluded.

But just two weeks ago, Romney admitted in an interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal that he doesn’t know ‘the purpose’ of public lands, which are incredibly important to hunters, anglers, and western economies.

As Dietmar Grimm of Trout Unlimited wrote recently in response to Romney’s unfamiliarity with public lands:

Unfortunately, it seems there is a fundamental misunderstanding among the candidates of what public lands do for us beyond their extraction values. In contrast, we as sportsmen and women know that public lands are much more. Every time we go into a fly or tackle shop before we go out on the water, we see the value we’re creating as sportsmen conservationists. Every time we head out to our jobs in our local communities, whether it is in the gas field, a local restaurant, or at a local community college, we see the value we’re creating as sportsmen conservationists.

As a money man like Romney should know, hunting and fishing on public lands provide enormous economic benefits.  In 2006, hunter and anglers visiting Interior Department-managed lands spent $2.4 billion in equipment expenditures plus even more in hotels, gas, and food costs. However, the connection that hunters and anglers have with public lands goes far beyond their economic value.  As Sean of the hunting and fishing blog Up the Poudre wrote:

Political winds blow hard during election years, and seldom align perfectly with the values of the people for which speech writers and pundits entertain. Red, blue, green, or other, it doesn’t matter. Common sense needs a place at the table. It was disheartening to listen to Mitt Romney last week, discuss his idea of value as it pertained to public land in the west.

In his endorsement, Keck also says he is “very concerned about the future of America and the ability we have to pass along our rich hunting and angling heritage to the next generation.”  But Romney has not shown any indication that he is willing to make tough decisions to preserve hunting and fishing for the next generation.  In fact, he has gone so far as to deny the greatest generational threat to this uniquely American tradition -– man-made climate change.  As Todd Tanner of Climate Hawks, a group founded to “harness the power of sportsmen to address climate change,” told Field and Stream recently:

Let’s say you are walking down a trail in the wilderness with your wife and kids, and you come upon a grizzly sow, standing on a carcass. She charges, flat out. You’re in front of your family. What do you do? Just give up? Pretend it’s not happening? Let her maul you and everything your care about? Of course you don’t. You take action. That is how I see climate change. It’s real, it’s threatening everything we love. Not taking action is not an option.

I’ll be the first to admit that cheap natural gas prices are one of the biggest short-term threats to deployment of renewable energy in the U.S. today. With a glut of gas dropping prices to historic lows, the competitiveness of technologies like wind, solar PV, and solar hot water are facing significant challenges.

But here’s the important thing to remember: The industry is being challenged, not beaten. Amidst all the hand wringing over what cheap natural gas will do to investment in renewables, we often lose sight of the fact that the cost and price of renewable energy technologies are still chasing the record price drops in natural gas. When the price of natural gas starts to climb back up (according to many estimates, it will fairly soon), renewables will be more competitive than ever.

Over the next couple of years, I believe that the age-old idiom will again be proven true: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

Below are my top three reasons why natural gas won’t be the death of renewables.

1. Cheap gas won’t stay “cheap” for too much longer

Source: Slate.com

It’s often said that America has a 100-year supply of natural gas. However, those figures, which are based on estimates from the Potential Gas Committee, factor in “proved” reserves, “possible” reserves and “speculative” reserves. If we narrow these figures down to proven, technically-exploitable resources based upon current natural gas consumption rates, more cautious estimates put our supply at roughly 11-21 years.

With mature gas plays like the Barnett Shale and Marcellus Shale in decline or appearing to be nearing a peak, and drillers scaling back on operations because it’s not profitable to drill with such low prices, a growing number of analysts are questioning whether the U.S. gas industry is approaching peak production. Petroleum Geologist Arthur E. Berman recently wrote about the decline rates in conventional and unconventional gas fields at the Oil Drum:

“This development may expose the notion of long-term natural gas abundance and cheap gas as an illusion. The good news is that this adjustment will lead to higher gas prices in a future less distant than most believe. Higher prices coupled with greater discipline in drilling will allow operators to earn a suitable return and offer the best opportunity for supply to grow to meet future needs.”

In its latest Annual Energy Outlook, the U.S Energy Information Administration also cut estimates of unproved technically recoverable resources by 42%. As energy analyst Chris Nelder recently wrote: “Everything you know about shale gas is wrong.”

2. Renewable energy is challenged, but still competitive

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The Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN) recently began a major advertising and outreach campaign to advocate for various environmental regulations and has targeted Republican attempts to delay regulations on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. EEN specifically appealed to one of the GOP’s most fervent ideological positions, saying, “We believe protecting the unborn from mercury poisoning is a consistent pro-life position.”

Despite those attempts, “pro-life” lawmakers like Reps. Bill Johnson (R-OH) and Ed Whitfield have blasted the proposed regulation as “far-left liberal ideology.” And this week, more than 30 advocates from the religious right, led by notables like the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins, slammed EEN for its attempts to protect the environment, the unborn, and any human who could be affected by poisonous mercury emissions:

The 30-plus religious-right advocates, in a joint statement Wednesday, said that “most environmental causes promoted as pro-life involve little threat to human life itself, and no intent to kill anyone.”

Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) criticized the Rev. Mitch Hescox, EEN’s president, at Wednesday’s House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the EPA rule, which Republicans and some business groups call burdensome.

“The ‘life’ in ‘pro-life’ denotes not the quality of life, but life itself. The term denotes opposition to a procedure that intentionally results in dead babies,” said Shimkus, echoing the statement from the conservative leaders.

The religious right’s “pro-life” stance may cover invasive procedures on women, preventing access to contraception, and a host of other injustices. What it doesn’t cover, apparently, is a regulation opposed by the GOP’s big-business interests that would keep infants and children from getting poisoned by the air they breathe.

David Wilkins, a lobbyist for Canadian oil interests and a prominent supporter of the Romney presidential campaign, has guaranteed approval of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline if President Obama is defeated. In an interview with the Financial Post, the former ambassador to Canada during the George W. Bush administration said that the risky tar sand project would “absolutely be approved if a Republican gets elected president”:

Q: What will be the fate of the Keystone XL pipeline, in your opinion?

WILKINS: It will absolutely be approved if a Republican gets elected president. I am hopeful it will be approved [under Obama]. There are two schools of thought on this: If Mr. Obama gets re-elected, he will listen to his base and never approve it. The other school of thought believes Mr. Obama will approve it as he no longer has to rely on his environment base – I don’t know which one it is.

A long-time South Carolina legislator, Wilkins chaired the 2004 Bush re-election efforts in that state before being picked as ambassador to Canada. He then joined the Nelson Mullins lobbying firm, where he advocates for Alberta, Canada oil and timber interests. Wilkins is a registered lobbyist for the province of Alberta, the tar sands company Nexen Inc., Alberta Energy, and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

Wilkins supported the candidacy of Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) before joining the Romney campaign in January. Announcing his endorsement of Romney, Wilkins cited the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

This Sunday, Republican presidential candidate and conspiracy theorist Rick Santorum argued that climate science is President Barack Obama’s “phony theology.” On CBS’s Face The Nation, Santorum was asked to justify his recent controversial claim that President Obama has a “phony theology” that’s not “based on the Bible.” Santorum replied that he was describing the Obama administration’s actions based on the science behind man-made global warming. Obama’s acceptance of science, Santorum said, is a “worldview that elevates the Earth above man“:

When you have a worldview that elevates the Earth above man and says that we can’t take those resources because we’re going to harm the Earth; by things that frankly are just not scientifically proven, for example, the politicization of the whole global warming debate — this is all an attempt to, you know, to centralize power and to give more power to the government.

Watch it:

On Monday, Santorum expanded on his conspiracy theories, saying that global warming is “political science,” not “climate science.”

Elizabeth Kolbert: It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing.

Humanity’s Choice (via M.I.T.):  Inaction (“No Policy” — the policy aggressively advanced by most professional disinformers and tacitly accepted by most in the intelligentsia and media — eliminates most of the uncertainty about whether or not future warming will be catastrophic.  Aggressive emissions reductions dramatically improves humanity’s chances.

Humanity is putting its foot on the accelerator even though the world’s top scientists and governments have repeatedly explained we are headed over a cliff. The people who will suffer the most are people who have not contributed to this  impending catastrophe —  future generations and the poorest among us.

This is such a colossally immoral and unethical act —  collectively and in many cases individually — that most people, including the overwhelming majority of the so-called intelligentsia, simply choose to ignore it on a daily basis. That won’t save a livable climate, however, nor it will stop future generations from cursing our names.

And so it is not surprising that many immoral and unethical acts that regularly occur on a far less grand scale are condoned or winked at or simply ignored.

Every day, countless organizations spread misinformation aimed at delaying the action needed to avoid destroying a livable climate, which will cause billions to suffer — and needlessly, since every major independent study makes clear that the cost of action is incredibly low. Many of the disinformers routinely attack and smear climate scientists. Some routinely publish their e-mails, encouraging their readers to cyber-bully scientists who are doing nothing more than trying to inform the world of the consequences of its untenable choices.  But we have become inured to it — heck, there’s a whole TV network devoted to spreading lies — yawn, let’s change the channel to something we like.

The media continues to reduce coverage of the story of the century — “Silence of the Lambs 2: Media Herd’s Coverage of Climate Change Drops Sharply — Again. The three network news stations broadcast 14 climate change stories with a total air time of 32.5 minutes in 2011,  down from 32 stories and 90.5 minutes last year and well below the 2007 peak of 147 segments totaling 386 minutes. This is a stunning collective lapse in judgment by editors and producers. But the media — in a classic act of circular benchmarking — sees everyone else in the media doing it, so the inconceivable becomes an accepted norm.

Many in the media who do cover the story continue to downplay the science or fail to connect the dots, even between extreme heat waves and global warming. Worse, many in the media, including some at New York Times, quote long-debunked disinformers and confusionists who routinely smear climate scientists — people who should have zero credibility.  This is also a collective lapse in judgment that merits multiple apologies and retractions, but it has become the “norm” in journalism. Future generations will marvel at how the once lofty  profession of journalism destroyed its own credibility and misreported the story of the century.

In this sewer of unethical and immoral activity, we all have tough choices, most especially climate scientists, the victims of many of the worst attacks. These modern day Cassandras have become increasingly blunt and outspoken for obvious reasons — they understand best what is likely to happen if we keep listening to the disinformers and their enablers in the media.

Even the formerly reticent Lonnie Thompson explained why he and other climatologists are speaking out: “Virtually all of us are now convinced that global warming poses a clear and present danger to civilization.” He continues:

That bold statement may seem like hyperbole, but there is now a very clear pattern in the scientific evidence documenting that the earth is warming, that warming is due largely to human activity, that warming is causing important changes in climate, and that rapid and potentially catastrophic changes in the near future are very possible. This pattern emerges not, as is so often suggested, simply from computer simulations, but from the weight and balance of the empirical evidence as well.

That is simply what the science says, as my review of 50 recent studies makes clear (see “An Illustrated Guide to the Science of Global Warming Impacts: How We Know Inaction Is the Gravest Threat Humanity Faces“).

What is a scientist to do in such a casually self-destructive world? The prestigious journal Nature editorialized 2 years ago, “Scientists must now emphasize the science, while acknowledging that they are in a street fight.”

That is all prologue for the events of the last week or so.

As Climate Progress reported earlier this week, Heartland Institute documents revealed plans to dupe children and ruin their future. The AP worked to independently verify the documents and concluded, “The federal consultant working on the classroom curriculum, the former TV weatherman, a Chicago elected official who campaigns against hidden local debt and two corporate donors all confirmed to the AP that the sections in the document that pertained to them were accurate. No one the AP contacted said the budget or fundraising documents mentioning them were incorrect.”

Subsequently, several climate scientists who “had their emails stolen [in 2009], posted online and grossly misrepresented,” slammed Heartland for “spreading misinformation” and “personally attacking climate scientists to further its goals.” The scientists specifically noted:

In 2009, the Heartland Institute was among the groups that spread false allegations about what these stolen emails said. Despite multiple independent investigations, which demonstrated that allegations against scientists were false, the Heartland Institute continued to attack scientists based on the stolen emails. When more stolen emails were posted online in 2011, the Heartland Institute again pointed to their release and spread false claims about scientists.

You can read Heartland’s reply to similar charges here.

Last night I, and I imagine everyone else, was stunned to learned that Dr. Peter Gleick was the one who put these documents into the public domain. In a Huffington Post piece, he acknowledged “a serious lapse of my own and professional judgment and ethics,” an assessment I would not disagree with. He then apologized for his mistakes, a move that distinguishes him from Heartland or his critics in the media, like Andrew Revkin, whose too-rapid response to these events certainly crossed the line.

As an important aside, when considering whether the boundary between ethical violation and criminal act has been crossed, we should in all fairness use the Revkin rule. When someone posted on Climate Progress that the Climategate emails were stolen — the assertion made by the University of East Anglia and others — Revkin himself posted:

Just to be clear, no British law enforcement agency has yet said whether a crime has been committed. I have called the Norfolk Constabulary more than once and mum’s still the word.

Seriously! So we’ll just have to wait until some law enforcement agency makes its judgment — and I’m going to make a wild guess that we’ll have a long wait on that.

Here is Gleick’s statement:

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How we can use tax breaks to help rebuild our infrastructure

by Donna Cooper, Richard W. Caperton, Kate Gordon , Daniel J. Weiss

Last year was a bonanza for the top five oil companies—BP plc, Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil Corp., and Royal Dutch Shell Group—posting combined net-income earnings of $137 billion, a new record. Undeterred, Republican leaders in Congress are seeking to pass transportation legislation that will expand oil and natural gas drilling and will force the construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project. House Republicans hope the Senate will concur and give these companies access for oil and gas production to some of our natural crown jewels.

Republicans in the House want to boost drilling offshore and on protected lands so that the federal revenues gained by this expansion of drilling can be used to pay for the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act—the House Republican five-year highway funding bill.

The Center for American Progress has a better idea: Tap the geyser of oil company earnings by imposing a tax on imported oil and ending antiquated federal subsidies for oil companies. Doing this will pay for an environmentally and fiscally sound plan to upgrade our crumbling transportation, water, and energy infrastructure.

CAP’s new report, “Meeting the Infrastructure Imperative,” recommends doing just that, among other things, to put more federal funds and state, local, and private money to work investing in infrastructure over the next 10 years. Our report details why $129 billion more per year is needed to meet our country’s infrastructure capital repair and improvement needs. CAP found that direct federal spending for infrastructure would need to rise by $48 billion a year, or about a 1.3 percent increase in total federal spending. Boosting federal spending by $48 billion would mean an increase approximately the same size as what was spent on the Iraq war in fiscal year 2011.

CAP projects that with this level of increased federal investment, as much as $60 billion in private infrastructure investment and $11 billion in new state and local investment could be mobilized as well. But where will the new federal money come from?

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More than 1 in 3 U.S. counties could face a “high” or “extreme” risk of water shortages by 2050

by Dave Levitan, reposted from OnEarth

When the heat turns up in an overcrowded bar, patrons waiting for service tend to get thirstier. In the coming decades, a similar scenario may play out in the United States. According to a new study, more than a third of U.S. counties may be at “extreme” or “high” risk of water shortages by 2050. This won’t be due to a dearth in bartenders, of course, but the result of a swelling population, along with the potential temperature increases and precipitation changes associated with climate change.

The research, funded by the Natural Resources Defense Council (which publishes OnEarth), appeared last week in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

The first strike against water supplies comes from increases in population. Projections suggest fairly linear growth between now and mid-century, meaning the U.S. will have about 419.9 million people in 2050 (up from its current population of 313,000,000). All of those additional Americana will have to drink, and eat food grown with water, and turn on lights powered by water-guzzling power plants.

Then there’s climate change. Temperature is expected to increase somewhere between 1.5 and 3° Celsius, and the warming air will be able to hold more water. The resulting changes in precipitation aren’t uniform by any means. Models suggest that Texas and the Gulf states will lose more than one inch per year, while the northeastern U.S. could get between two and four extra inches per year.

Notably, the study’s results are not meant to be taken as strict prognoses. “This is not intended as a prediction that water shortages will occur, but rather where they are more likely to occur, and where there might be greater pressure on public officials and water users to better characterize, and creatively manage demand and supply,” said the study’s lead author Sujoy Roy of Tetra Tech Research and Development, in a press release.

The end result of all this — hotter temperatures, changed precipitation, more people withdrawing more water — is that 412 of 3,141 counties (13 percent) in the lower 48 might be at “extreme” risk of water shortages in 2050. Another 608 counties will be at high risk, while 1,192 and 929 will be at moderate and low risk, respectively. Without climate change? Just 29 counties (less than 1 percent) would be at extreme risk, 271 at high risk, and more than 2,000 would be at low risk. It’s enough to make you thirsty for real action on this whole climate change thing. I’ll cheers to that.

Dave Levitan is a freelance journalist based in Philadelphia. This piece was originally published at OnEarth.

Other stories below: Civilization faces a “perfect storm of ecological and social problems”; California leads the nation in cleantech venture capital funding

Climate change increased likelihood of Russian 2010 heatwave – study

The extreme Russian heatwave of 2010 was made three times more likely because of man-made climate change, according to a study led by climate scientists and number-crunched by home PC users. But the size of the event was mostly within natural limits, said the scientists, laying to rest a controversy last year over whether the extreme weather was natural or human-induced.

The 2010 heatwave broke all records for Russia – temperatures in the central region of the country, including Moscow, were around 10C above what they should have been for the time of year. More than 50,000 people died from respiratory illnesses and heat stress during that time. The temperatures also had a substantial impact on that year’s Russian wheat harvest, leading to economic losses of more than $15bn.

Two studies published in 2011 looked at the causes of the extreme weather, but they disagreed on whether it was a natural event or whether it was a result of anthropogenic climate change.

See also “Bombshell: Study Finds 80% Chance Russia’s 2010 July Heat Record Would Not Have Occurred Without Climate Warming.”

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