Bill requiring ‘teaching the controversy’ on evolution and global warming opposed by leading science groups

A National Center for Science Education repost

“The Senate approved a bill Monday evening that deals with teaching of evolution and other scientific theories,” the Knoxville News-Sentinel (March 19, 2012) reported, adding, “Critics call it a ‘monkey bill’ that promotes creationism in classrooms.” The bill in question is Senate Bill 893, which, if enacted, would encourage teachers to present the “scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses” of “controversial” topics such as “biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.”

Among those expressing opposition to the bill are the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, the American Institute for Biological Sciences, the Knoxville News Sentinel, the Nashville Tennessean, the National Association of Geoscience Teachers, the National Earth Science Teachers Association, and the Tennessee Science Teachers Association, whose president Becky Ashe described (PDF) the legislation as “unnecessary, anti-scientific, and very likely unconstitutional.”

The Senate vote was 24-8. According to the Tennesseean (March 20, 2012), Andy Berke (D-District 10) “noted the state’s history as a battleground over evolution — the so-called Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925 drew national attention and inspired the Oscar-winning film Inherit the Wind — and said the measure would cast Tennessee in a bad light.” Berke also objected that the bill would encourage inappropriate discussions of religious matters, saying, “If my children ask, ‘How does that mesh with my faith?’ I don’t want their teacher answering that question.”

The bill now proceeds to the House of Representatives, which passed the counterpart House Bill 368 on April 7, 2011. SB 893 was amended in committee before it passed the Senate, however, so the two houses of the legislature will have to resolve the discrepancies between the bills. Tennessee’s governor Bill Haslam previously indicated that he would discuss the bill with the state board of education, telling the Tennesseean (March 19, 2012), “It is a fair question what the General Assembly’s role is … That’s why we have a state board of education.”

– NCSE has said of creationism that “students who accept this material as scientifically valid are unlikely to succeed in science courses at the college level.”

Related NCSE Post:

• Tennessee’s top scientists, including Stanley Cohen, Nobel Prize winner in physiology of medicine, oppose “monkey bills”: ”By undermining the teaching of evolution in Tennessee’s public schools, HB368 and SB893 would miseducate students, harm the state’s national reputation, and weaken its efforts to compete in a science-driven global economy.“

After months of speculation and debate about unfair Chinese subsidies to domestic solar manufacturers, the U.S. solar industry finally has an answer to one piece of the ongoing trade case: Solar panels imported from China will be hit with a small tariff.

The Department of Commerce issued a preliminary decision today based upon the agency’s impartial review of Chinese subsidies to domestic solar companies.

The tariffs range from 2.9 percent to 4.73 percent — dramatically lower than the 20 percent expected by many industry analysts. It is important to note, however, that today’s decision from Commerce is the first of two key tariff rulings: subsidies and dumping. The second decision on whether Chinese companies are dumping panels into the U.S. market below cost is expected in May.

The complaint was filed in October by SolarWorld and a small group of unnamed solar manufacturers that called themselves the Coalition of American Solar Manufacturers, or CASM. It sparked a contentious debate in the solar industry between upstream panel manufacturers getting squeezed by rapidly falling prices and downstream developers benefiting from cheap equipment.

The Center for American Progress has taken a nuanced stance on the issue — understanding the value of falling solar prices and free trade, but also supporting trade enforcement mechanisms when needed. Melanie Hart, CAP’s China Energy and Climate Policy Analyst, explained the importance of the case in a statement:

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Our guest blogger is Daniel J. Weiss, Senior Fellow and Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress.

American families have been plagued by higher oil and gasoline prices over the past several years despite a significant increase in domestic oil production and rigs, and decline in consumption. But while high prices threaten the economy and family budgets, they enrich American oil companies with huge profits. Yet it appears that House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) proposed FY 2013 budget resolution would retain a decade’s worth of oil tax breaks worth $40 billion. And his budget would cut billions of dollars from investments to develop alternative fuels and clean energy technologies that would serve as substitutes for oil and help protect middle-class families from volatile energy prices as well as create jobs. In short, the Ryan budget compounds the cost of high oil and gasoline prices on the middle class.

Last year the average gasoline price was $3.58 per gallon — the highest since at least 1976 — so it’s little surprise that the big five oil companies — BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell — made a combined record profit of $137 billion in 2011. These companies had nearly $60 billion in cash reserves, too. Yet under the Ryan budget it seems that these and other Big Oil and gas companies would continue to benefit from $4 billion in annual tax breaks.

Instead of ending Big Oil tax breaks, Rep. Ryan’s proposed FY 2013 budget would slash funding for investments in clean energy research, development, deployment, and commercialization, along with other energy programs. The plan calls for a $3 billion cut in energy programs in FY 2013 alone. From 2013 to 2017 the Ryan budget would spend a paltry total of $150 million over these five years on these programs—which is barely 20 percent of what was invested in only 2012.

The latest House Republican budget plan asks low-income and middle-class Americans to shoulder the entire burden of deficit reduction while simultaneously delivering massive tax breaks to the richest 1 percent and preserving huge giveaways to Big Oil. It’s a recipe for repeating the mistakes of the Bush administration, during which middle-class incomes stagnated and only the privileged few enjoyed enormous gains.

Each component of the new House Republican budget threatens the middle class while doing nothing to add jobs or grow our economy. It ends the guarantee of decent insurance for senior citizens, breaking Medicare’s bedrock promise. It slashes investments in education, infrastructure, and basic research, all of which are key drivers of economic growth and mobility. And it cuts taxes for those at the top, asking the middle class to pick up the tab. It’s a budget designed to benefit the top 1 percent at everyone else’s expense.

Read Daniel Weiss’s full article on the Ryan budget.

With panel prices hitting record lows and performance of projects steadily improving, solar photovoltaics have become increasingly attractive to large investors. Investment in solar has surged to unprecedented levels due to interest from large Wall Street banks, investors like Warren Buffett, and technology firms like Google.

In 2011, the solar PV industry brought in $93 billion in revenues globally, raising $8 billion in corporate equity and debt. That’s a 12% increase over 2010, according to NPD Solarbuzz.

In the U.S., the value of solar PV installations grew from $5 billion in 2010 to $8.4 billion in 2011, according to analysis from GTM Research. Much of that increase came from the installation of large projects. Last year, there were 28 individual projects that amounted to more than 10 MW a piece, up from only two in 2009.

Two major factors drove this surge in U.S. investment. One was the 1603 grant program, which replaced tax credits, thus making it easier and cheaper to finance projects. Congress allowed that incentive to expire at the end of last year.

The other was the loan guarantee program, a tool that became politicized after the high-profile bankruptcy of the solar manufacturer Solyndra and the failure of a few other clean energy companies. Although the loan guarantee program is expected to cost taxpayers $2 billion less than originally budgeted for, some political leaders have latched onto these bankruptcies and falsely claimed that they hurt clean energy investment.

Trying to match his party’s huffing and puffing over Solyndra on the campaign trail this winter, Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney bizarrely claimed the loan guarantee program stalled investments in solar: “instead of encouraging solar development, the Obama administration hurt it.”

Actually, the U.S. solar industry grew 109% last year — with a record 61,000 systems installed around the country.

And today, Congressman Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, released a report claiming that the loan guarantee program “robbed taxpayers of genuine investment toward renewable energy.”

Again, experience in the field — particularly in solar, which has been a major focus of Congressional attacks — simply doesn’t back up that conclusion. Not only did the loan guarantee directly help developers attract private capital for first-of-a-kind solar projects during the economic downturn, it also had an indirect impact on others.

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The U.S. solar power industry is one of the great success stories of President Barack Obama and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu’s Recovery Act focus on the clean-energy economy. Following the kickstart of funding from the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program, U.S. solar developers are now “luring cash at record rates from investors ranging from Warren Buffett to Google Inc. and KKR & Co. by offering returns on projects four times those available for Treasury securities,” Bloomberg reports. “Once so risky that only government backing could draw private capital, solar projects now are making returns of about 15 percent, according to Stanford University’s center for energy policy and finance”:

“After tax, you’re looking at returns in the 10 percent to 15 percent range” for solar projects, said Dan Reicher, executive director of Stanford University’s center for energy policy and finance in California. “The beauty of solar is once you make the capital investment, you’ve got free fuel and very low operating costs.”

“A solar power project with a long-term sales agreement could be viewed as a machine that generates revenue,” Marty Klepper, an attorney at Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP, which helped arrange a solar deal for Buffett, told Bloomberg. “It’s an attractive investment for any firm, not just those in energy.”

by Stephanie Wang

The collapse of Solar Renewable Energy Certificate markets, coupled with state and local government budget shortfalls, have resulted in unreliable funding for clean energy projects.  In these lean economic times, Clean Local Energy Accessible Now (CLEAN) Programs have emerged as the most cost-effective solution for building stable clean energy markets.

Across the country, local and state policymakers are rolling out CLEAN Programs.  Leaders in Gainesville, Florida ignited the trend by adopting the nation’s first CLEAN Program in 2009.  Since launching their program, Gainesville has experienced a 3,400% increase in solar power capacity.  In fact, the city’s 11.45 megawatts (MW) of installed solar capacity make it the national leader in per capita rate of installed solar.  Over the last few years, policymakers in Indiana, Hawaii, Vermont, California, Rhode Island, and Maine have enacted innovative CLEAN Programs.  Silicon Valley leaders approved Palo Alto CLEAN on March 5, signaling that forward-thinking leaders view CLEAN Programs as an ideal policy for expanding production of cost-effective, clean local energy.

CLEAN Programs, based on feed-in tariffs, are the most effective policy for bringing renewable electricity online.  Feed-in tariffs require utilities to enter into standard contracts to purchase renewable electricity from any eligible generator at a pre-defined fixed rate for a long period of time, generally 20 years.  Deutsche Bank Climate Change Advisors has found that these policies are successful because they provide “TLC” for clean energy markets: transparency, longevity, and certainty.

CLEAN Programs, which can be designed for the local, state or national level, increase local production of clean energy through a combination of standard contracts, predefined rates, and streamlined access to the grid.  These programs reduce the risks, transaction costs, and complexities involved in selling renewable energy from under-used spaces in our communities, such as rooftops, parking lots, and landfills.

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by Jackie Weidman

Contrary to coal industry spin, coal is not the cheapest resource for electricity generation — and it is only becoming more expensive, according to a new report titled “Coal is not Cheap Power.”

The study, put together by the Alaskan non-profit Groundtruth Trekking, looked at 20 years of power generation and price data and found:

• 35 of the 48 coal-burning states show no significant correlation between proportion of coal fired electricity and electricity prices
• Less than 10 out of 48 coal-burning states show positive correlation between proportion of coal-fired electricity and electricity prices [1]
• States experiencing high energy prices cannot solve the problem by burning more coal
• States reducing coal use will not necessarily see prices rise
• For newly constructed plants, coal is not the cheapest option

The study found that there is very little correlation between coal use and the cost of electricity.  Other factors – particularly regional energy supply — are what influence consumer prices.  The states with the lowest electricity prices (using 2009 data) are Idaho, with an average price of 5.7 cents per kilowatt-hour, and Kentucky with, 5.8 cents per kilowatt-hour. Those low prices are due to their abundant hydropower and coal resources, respectively. However, that doesn’t mean that other states can simply increase production of those resources to lower electricity prices.

States must make decisions about electricity generation based on available resources and energy needs. For example, burning coal in Arizona is correlated with higher energy prices.  This is because Arizona’s coal deposits are small and other electricity sources, like nuclear, gas, and hydro are more cost-effective.

Some states have reduced their coal use without electricity price increases. Florida and Colorado, for instance, reduced coal use by over 20 and 30 percent respectively, with no price hike.

The study found that coal is the most expensive energy when “externalized costs” are factored in. These are the costs of coal use paid for by society, rather than by ratepayers.  This includes the impact on public health and property from increased air pollution. Our reliance on coal has cost the economy between $345 and $534 billion, according to the “Full Cost Accounting for the Life Cycle of Coal” study by the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School:

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How hot is it? It is so hot that the low temperature for the normally frigid International Falls only hit 60°F yesterday, which tied the previous record high for the date!  meteorologist Dr. Jeff Masters wrote he’s never seen that happen station with a century-long data record. Monday was “the seventh consecutive day that International Falls broke or tied a daily record.”

How hot is it? Seasoned meteorologists have said of the current super-charged heat wave, “it’s surreal” and “this is not the atmosphere I grew up with” and it’s “not just breaking but obliterating records” and “OFF THE SCALE WEIRD; even for Minnesota.”

How hot is it? ABC ran a story on extreme weather that linked it to global warming for the second time in 12 days — see “ABC News (3/7/12) Explains Warm Winter, ‘Wild Swings In Weather’, Driven by Global Warming, Only Going to Get Worse.” Here is last night’s story, which quotes Masters and NOAA on global warming:

Like a baseball player on steroids, our climate system is breaking records at an unnatural pace. As Weather Channel meteorologist Stu Ostro says of the current heat wave, “there is a high probability that global warming is having an influence upon its extremity.”

Of all the kinds of extreme weather linked to global warming, the most obvious — the extreme events that climate scientists and the scientific literature have said for decades is the most inevitable — are longer and stronger and geographically bigger heat waves.

But somehow this is lost on NBC.  Brian William opened the evening news with a 3:48-long story, noting this is ”the strangest season many folks can remember,” which has set “thousands of new records.”

Williams says “it has confused plants and animals and a good many humans.” That apparently includes the folks at NBC, whose meteorologist asks “has the weather lost its cool?” and then asks “what is causing these extremes?” and answers, “it’s the jet stream”:

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by Robert Stavins, cross-posted from An Economic View of the Environment

In my December 12^th essay – following the 17^th Conference of the Parties (COP-17) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which adjourned on December 11, 2011 – I offered my assessment of the Durban climate negotiations by taking note of three major outcomes of the negotiations:  (1) elaboration on several components of the Cancun Agreements; (2) a second five-year commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol; and (3) a “non-binding agreement to reach an agreement” by 2015 that will bring all countries under the same legal regime by 2020.   Subsequently, in my January 1^st essay – The Platform Opens a Window: An Unambiguous Consequence of the Durban Climate Talks – I focused on the third outcome of the talks, the “Durban Platform for Enhanced Action.”

Some Necessary History

The U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, adopted at the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development (the first “Earth Summit”) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992, contains what was to become a crucial passage:  “The Parties should protect the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations of humankind, on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. Accordingly, the developed country Parties should take the lead in combating climate change and the adverse effects thereof.” [emphasis added]  The countries considered to be “developed country Parties” were listed in an appendix to the 1992 Convention ­– Annex I.

The phrase – common but differentiated responsibilities – was given a specific interpretation three years after the Earth Summit by the first decision adopted by the first Conference of the Parties (COP-1) of the U.N. Framework Convention, in Berlin, Germany, April 7, 1995 ­­– the all important Berlin Mandate, which interpreted the principle as:  (1) launching a process to commit (by 1997) the Annex I countries to quantified greenhouse gas emissions reductions within specified time periods (targets and timetables); and (2) stating unambiguously that the process should “not introduce any new commitments for Parties not included in Annex I.”

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by Rebecca Friendly

California, a state that’s historically been at the cutting edge of environmental and climate policies, continues to take bold steps in order to address climate change.

Climate studies and projections indicate that California will be hit hard by climate change, losing a great deal of its snow pack (a vital source of freshwater), and experiencing at least one meter of sea level rise by 2100. With the most advanced climate plan of any state, California is taking these threats very seriously (see “Study Confirms Optimal Climate Strategy: Deploy, Deploy, Deploy, Research and Develop, Deploy, Deploy, Deploy“).

What if the rest of the country were as motivated as California? The answer: we’d definitely be one of the leading countries in leading the fight against climate change.

California-based author Mark Hertsgaard recently wrote an eye-opening piece for Yale Environment 360 asking that question. He highlights the various mechanisms California has implemented, including aggressive greenhouse gas reduction goals, vehicle emission standards, and renewable energy targets.

In fact, if the rest of the United States had done what California has over the past 40 years, the world might be well on the way to slowing climate change. For in that case, the U.S. today, like California, might be consuming the same amount of energy as it did 40 years ago….  What’s more, the international community might have had a better chance of reaching a deal at the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009, because the U.S. might have embraced rather than shunned the goal of 80 percent emissions reductions by 2050.

As we move through this vapid period in America’s national clean energy strategy, it’s important to remember what California has done in recent years.

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Speaking at the University of Chicago on Monday, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney argued that young people should embrace the Republican Party, because his party is willing to attack Social Security and Medicare, even though it denies the existential threat of fossil fuel pollution. “I don’t see how a young American can vote for a Democrat,”

I don’t see how a young American can vote for, well, can vote for a Democrat. Ha ha. I apologize for being so offensive for saying that but I catch your attention but I mean that. In the humor there’s some truth there. And I say this for this reason. That party is focused on providing more and more benefits to my generation and amounting trillion-dollar deficits my generation will never pay for.

Watch it:

Man-made climate change, now painted as a “pseudo-religion” by the Republican Party, is one of the greatest threats to prosperity for young Americans. The accumulation of carbon pollution from unlimited fossil fuel burning represents a generational debt of almost inconceivable proportions.

When he was governor of Massachusetts nine years ago, Romney supported limits on coal-plant pollution, saying he wouldn’t support “jobs that kill people.” Now, like the rest of the Republican Party, he has embraced the fossil-driven anti-science ideology of the Koch brothers and Sarah Palin, questioning climate science and pushing a drill-baby-drill agenda.

Without any apparent sense of irony, Romney concluded that the Republican Party is dedicated to preserving “this extraordinary unique nation” from threats that include a “lack of a willingness to deal with the challenges we have.”

Other stories below: Florida inland residents may pay with sea level rise; It’s the GOP vs. the Navy — on Clean Energy Use

Climate change could wipe out rarest forests

Many of the world’s rarest and richest forests, located in high-altitudes, could be all but wiped out by the combined impact of man-made climate change and habitat destruction.

An international scientific team has warned of the near-total loss of one of the world’s most delicate ecosystems, the Mexican cloud forest, along with 70 percent of its plant and animal species, as a result of human pressures.

“Cloud forests occur only at certain high altitudes and their species are exceptionally vulnerable to the loss of the cool, moist environment that sustains them,” explains Rocio Ponce-Reyes of ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED), who led the study.

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