Lawmakers and business leaders need to rekindle a spirit of cooperation if the U.S. wants to lead in clean energy and address climate change, says Former President Bill Clinton.

Speaking at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, President Clinton attempted to cut through the contentious political fights picked by the “denialists in Congress” and highlight the importance of cooperation in fostering smart, forward-thinking clean energy policy.

“The great winners of the world are the cooperators. Why is this important? Because cooperation gets lousy news coverage and people don’t know about it. We have to both think large and have a bias for action even if it’s small,” said Clinton.

He also encouraged the industry to continuing telling local stories of successful projects around the U.S., which he believes can diminish some of the political push-back against clean energy policy.

“If we want to do these projects, we need to make sure that more people know. Even in this highly partisan time we need to struggle for public-private cooperation. Even if the news in Washington might be disheartening because of the denialists in Congress. But across the rest of the country, the news isn’t so bad.”

Clinton outlined efficiency and renewable energy projects around the country, including the efficiency retrofit of the Empire State Building and the Ivahpah concentrating solar power project, which cumulatively created thousands of green jobs.

“Every place people do things the power of example changes consciousness,” said Clinton.

He pointed to all the construction workers he met in California working on building the 392-megawatt Ivanpah solar project — people of “all races” with some of the “best tattoos” he’d ever seen. Those construction workers are the people who are going to make the difference in moving the clean energy industry forward, said Clinton.

“Think about the tattoos. You win the tattoo vote, we’ll have the damnedest environmental policy you ever saw.”

When asked about the partisan politics stalling comprehensive climate and energy policy, Clinton said he believes that some of it will pass after November. “I think people will start thinking instead of just trying to tear the house down.”

In his final statement, Clinton encouraged people on the local level to continue working for a bipartisan consensus.

“Where ever you live, find something to do. Keep working until you find somebody of a different political persuasion with the same goal, and then figure out how to achieve it. So while you lobby for political change on the national level, it’s important to do something. Even if it seems small, it will have a big impact. Differences of opinion are important. If your purpose is to reach an agreement than your disagreements become much more valuable. We are going to have to become a stakeholder society again — that’s the only thing that works.”

Natural gas cannot be credited with the reductions in the US CO2 emissions observed in the last half-decade. Most reductions, nearly 90%, were caused by the decline in petroleum use, displacement of coal by mostly non-price factors, and its replacement by wind, hydro and other renewables. Where low price of natural gas saved some CO2 by displacing coal, it was quickly offset by its increased use in other sectors—highlighting the pitfall of justifying the current market for natural gas as a “bridge” or an interim phase of transition towards clean energy.

by Shakeb Afsah and Kendyl Salcito, via Co2 Scorecard

Between 2006 and 2011 the US cut its CO2 emissions by nearly half a billion metric tons—more than any other country in the world. This remarkable decline overlaps with the boom in shale gas production, triggered by the large-scale commercialization of fracking technology. The production of natural gas has since soared, and the price has tumbled. Suddenly natural gas has emerged as a more attractive fuel for electricity generation than coal.

This is a new trend. For decades coal was the favored fuel for electricity generation. Particularly after the 1973 Arab oil embargo, the US government limited natural gas use in industries and power plants out of fear that we would exhaust our domestic reserves and be unprepared for the next crisis. This restriction on natural gas led to a steep rise in electricity generation from coal.

As oil crisis fears subsided, the market for natural gas revived, beginning when the Powerplant and Industrial Fuel Use Act of 1978 wasrepealed in 1987. For the next two decades, domestic production of natural gas made limited gains in the energy market, but in 2006, the year shale gas began to flood the market (Exhibit-1), it set the stage for the price of natural gas to hit the floor. This boom in shale gas correlates with a national drop in CO2 emissions. Read more

by Ben Bovarnick

As the drive for oil forces companies into increasingly risky environments, major oil companies are failing to disclose the risks associated with their endeavors, according to a group representing global investors.

A new report released by Ceres found that ten of the world’s largest publicly-owned oil and gas companies failed to fully report risks associated with deep water drilling and climate change to the SEC or their investors.

Of the ten companies, eight “provided minimal or no information about safety or environmental statistics,” or “investments in safety related R&D.”  In fact, ExxonMobil received ratings of poor or no disclosure on 8 of 10 categories, only receiving a “Fair Disclosure” evaluation for corporate governance.

Such poor disclosure practices should concern investors and the public as oil companies race to tap wells thousands of miles beneath the sea in the Gulf of Mexico and in the ice-covered Arctic Ocean.

Despite the high risk of operating in the extreme and unpredictable environment, Royal Dutch Shell is preparing to drill exploratory wells off the coast of Alaska’s North Slope this summer.  While drilling will occur in shallower water than the Gulf of Mexico, the harsh conditions — coupled with a stark absence of infrastructure throughout the region — would significantly complicate any major oil spill response effort.  The area lacks roads, railroads, permanent Coast Guard facilities, and the nearest deep water port is over 1,000 miles away.  Therefore, any cleanup resources not already on hand would have a difficult time responding quickly.

The Ceres analysis noted that Shell has provided poor disclosure of its oil spill response strategies.  Though Shell touted the many cleanup tools at its disposal, the Arctic is too remote to realistically “call upon significant resources” in the event of a spill, and the containment equipment referenced has not been tested in Arctic waters.

Recognizing these dangers, major insurance company Lloyd’s of London characterized offshore drilling in the Arctic as “a unique and hard-to-manage risk,” and German bank WestLB has refused to finance Arctic oil and gas development because the “risks and costs are simply too high.”

An oil spill in the untested Arctic Ocean could be devastating to the fragile marine environment and Alaska Natives who rely on the ocean for survival. If we have indeed learned our lesson from the tragedy of Deepwater Horizon, companies seeking to work in such extreme environments should demonstrate an ability to confront any and all possible risks, and should be prepared to inform their investors of these risks.

Sen. Reid: “… deniers still exist, fueled and funded by dirty energy profits. These people aren’t just on the other side of this debate. They’re on the other side of reality.”

It appears that advocates of clean energy are getting the message: If you want to talk about clean energy in a political context, you must talk about the environmental imperative.

In a speech opening up this year’s 5th National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid gave one of the most powerful public speeches on climate that any national policymaker has made in years.

Reid joins Senators Al Franken, John Kerry, Bernie Sanders, and Sheldon Whitehouse, all of whom have made excellent climate speeches on the Senate floor in the last year. However, today’s speech was done in a much more prominent public forum in front of top journalists, regulatory officials, and policymakers.

Here’s the climate portion of the speech, which was used to set up the pressing need to develop more renewable energy and efficiency:

Twenty-five years ago, President George H.W. Bush promised to use the “White House effect” to combat the “greenhouse effect.” Yet a quarter century later, too many elected officials in Washington are still calling climate change a liberal hoax. They falsely claim scientists are still debating whether carbon pollution is warming the planet.

Of course, if those skeptics had taken a stroll along the Potomac River on a 70-degree day this February, they would have seen cherry trees blossoming earlier than at any time since they were planted 100 years ago. Washington experienced its warmest spring since record keeping began in 1895.

And back in the skeptics’ home states, the harbingers of a changing climate are just as clear as those delicate February blossoms – and infinitely more perilous.

This year alone, the United States has seen unparalleled extreme weather events – events scientists say are exactly what is expected as the earth’s climate changes.

The Midwest is experiencing its most crushing drought in more than half a century – or maybe ever. Presently, disasters have been declared in the majority of U.S. counties. More than half the country is experiencing drought, and seventy-five percent of the nation is abnormally dry this year.

Corn crops are withering and livestock are dying – or going to slaughter early – as heat waves parch America’s breadbasket, breaking records set during the Woody Guthrie Dust Bowl years.

Now ravaging wildfires have replaced the dust storms of the 1930′s. Devastating fires have swept New Mexico, Idaho, Colorado, Nevada and other parts of the Mountain West, destroying hundreds of homes and burning millions of trees. These fires are fed in part by vast areas of dead forest ravaged by beetles and other pests that now survive through warmer winters.

On the East Coast, extreme thunderstorms and high winds called “derechos” – literally meaning straight-line storms – have eliminated power for 4.3 million customers in 10 states in the mid-Atlantic region. One 38-year veteran of the utility industry told the New York Times this: “We’ve got the ‘storm of the century’ every year now.” At the height of this storm – while the power was out and the air conditioning wasn’t working – the East Coast experienced record high temperatures.

Down south, the Mississippi River is nearly dry in various places, with shipping barges operating in only 5 feet of water. Just Friday, barges were grounded because the water level was so low. And New Orleans’ water supply is now being threatened by salt water moving up the Mississippi due to extremely low water.

But while record drought has struck many parts of the United States, torrential rains have poured down in others. In June, the fourth tropical storm of the hurricane season – a season which typically begins in the fall – dropped 20 inches of rain on Florida.

And our nation’s infrastructure is literally falling apart because it wasn’t designed to withstand these conditions. Runways are melting, trapping planes. Train tracks are bending, derailing subways. Highways are cracking, buckling and breaking open. The water used to cool power plants – including nuclear power plants – has either run dry or reached dangerously high temperatures.

And that’s just in the United States – just through the month of July.

Read more

So team Obama has decided the way to win votes in Ohio is with a very targeted radio ad touting his pro-coal record.

They actually attack Romney for his 2003 remarks about a Massachusetts coal plant that was responsible for dozens of premature deaths and 14,400 asthma attacks each year (according the Harvard School of Public Health):

I will not create jobs or hold jobs that kill people. And that plant kills people….

A year ago Climate Progress used the exact same clip that Obama does in his ad — except we were slamming Romney for having Etch-a-Sketched away his previous pro-environmental record, whereas team Obama is slamming Romney for supposedly not being as pro-coal as the President is!

I hope you have multiple head vises on for this ad:

I asked Bill McKibben for a comment. He wrote:

Romney says so many untrue things that it’s deeply ironic and deeply troubling when he gets attacked for one of the few straightforward and accurate charges he ever made.

In “The Toll from Coal,” The American Lung Association found that coal-powered electricity alone caused “over 13,000 premature deaths in 2010, as well as almost 10,000 hospitalizations and more than 20,000 heart attacks per year.”

What next for team Obama — bragging about boosting coal exports to China, the only country with higher emissions of carbon pollution than we have?

Related Post:

• Life-cycle study: Accounting for total harm from coal would add “close to 17.8¢/kWh of electricity generated”
• Top Economist Prove “Coal-Fired Power Plants Have Air Pollution Damages Larger Than Their Value Added.”

If conservatives are concerned about the role of government in deploying climate solutions today, they haven’t even begun to realize the scope of government influence when the severity of climate change catches up to us.

Writing in the Washington Post in 2010, Bracken Hendricks, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, put it this way:

Today’s conservatives would do well to start thinking more like military planners, reexamining the risks inherent in their strategy. If, instead, newly elected Republicans do nothing, they will doom us all to bigger government interventions and a large dose of suffering – a reckless choice that’s anything but conservative.

As Benjamin Franklin famously said: “an ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure.”

In a 2006 report, British economist Sir Nicolas Stern concluded that a ton of CO2 damage is worth at least $85, but those emissions can be cut at a cost of roughly $25 per ton. And without cutting those emissions, our business-as-usual scenario could cost the world between 5 percent and 20 percent of GDP in the coming decades.

Given that stark choice, conservatives have a unique opportunity to make a decidedly conservative decision: help deploy solutions today that can keep manage the cost of climate change mitigation and adaptation. If not, the future costs will be considerably higher and the role of government considerably larger.

Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp understands this framing. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed today, Krupp encourages conservatives to stop dismissing the problem and start seriously proposing solutions that can compete/co-exist with those proposed by progressives:

Many conservatives start out as climate skeptics for understandable reasons. To begin with, it’s an issue that’s long been associated with liberal Democrats. We’re all skeptical about issues presented by leaders with whom we normally disagree. Secondly, conservatives naturally insist on extensive evidence when a claim seems to justify more government action.

But one of the hallmarks of modern conservatism is to try to see the world as it is, not as one hopes it would be. Skeptics who make their decisions based on the best available information have long said they would reconsider their conclusions as the facts dictate. And many of them are concluding that the planet is warming in ways that outpace its natural rhythms. In a recent University of Texas poll, 70% of Americans, and 53% of Republicans, accepted the reality of climate change. This is not just a function of the summer’s brutal heat.

…We’ll have a much better shot at developing solutions to our climate and energy problems that are good for our economy if leaders from across the political spectrum get re-engaged in the debate. It is time for conservatives to compete with liberals to devise the best, most cost-effective climate solutions. Solving this challenge will require all of us.

Read more

When infamous industrial billionaire Charles Koch funded a study to review the science of global warming, it’s very likely he didn’t expect the chief scientist, Richard Muller, to conclude that “humans are almost entirely the cause” of an accelerating warming trend.

So will Charles Koch ignore the study he supported? Greenpeace’s Executive Director Phillip Radford sent a letter to Charles Koch yesterday, asking him if the science he funded is enough to convince him of the urgency of climate change. Here’s the letter in full:

As you know, one of your grant recipients – Dr. Richard Muller of University of California Berkeley – recently published an op-ed in the New York Times about his “total turnaround” from climate skepticism based on the results of his latest study. The Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation granted at least $150,000 to Dr. Muller’s Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) study. Dr. Muller’s results are consistent with decades of scientific evidence, fully convincing him that global warming is happening and “humans are almost entirely the cause.”

Based on Dr. Muller’s evidence and the views of virtually all climate scientists, I am writing to inquire about the influence of these findings on your previously expressed skepticism about climate change.

Dr. Muller explained in a recent Greenpeace Radio interview that he spoke directly with you about the BEST project and your personal interest in his analysis:

“I did talk to Charles Koch. He emphasized from the beginning that he was concerned about valid issues in the science. He wanted us to straighten out those issues. He didn’t know what answer we would get. He just wanted it to be put on a solid, firm foundation. That’s what we’ve done.”

For years, you and your brother, David Koch, have directly provided over $61 million to organizations that deny science and cast doubt on global climate change, in addition to millions more in hidden funding through your “Knowledge and Progress Fund.” This includes support for the Heartland Institute, which is currently supporting a project run by the retired TV weatherman Anthony Watts in attempts to discredit the results of the BEST study. You may recall that the Heartland Institute ran the infamous billboard comparing the Unabomber with those who acknowledge the existence of global warming.

Organizations you finance continue to delay action to curb global warming even as the United States is experiencing unprecedented heat records, drought, wildfires, and violent storms. Your own home state of Kansas is at the center of the summer’s extreme drought, which has led to prairie fires and forced ranchers to sell their cattle due to lack of grass and water. Your oil and gas business activities, not to mention the political funding you can afford, have helped ensure that these all-too-real disasters will become more frequent as the global climate continues to warm.

Our country desperately needs to reduce carbon pollution in order to take a lead on the global stage, and you have an opportunity here to stop obstructing such leadership. Please tell us, Mr. Koch: do you now consider anthropogenic global warming to be on a “solid, firm foundation” as Dr. Muller does? Will groups that deny climate science continue to receive support from Koch Industries and its associated foundations? If so, will you urge them to discontinue such unscientific and unproductive interference in policy-making focused on addressing climate change?

We look forward to your response and urge you to take this inquiry seriously. Too much is at stake to continue delaying solutions to civilization’s largest challenge.

Meanwhile, Charles and his brother David say they plan to raise and spend nearly $400 million this election season — with most of those millions going toward ads designed to cut down the clean energy industry.

Related Post:

• The most Orwellian op-ed of the year

The President of Black Diamond Equipment has been very critical of Utah's Governor for threatening the state's recreation industry.

by Tom Kenworthy

Even by the dismal standard set by many western state officials on management of public lands, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert stands out.

Earlier this year Herbert signed a clearly unconstitutional measure passed by the state legislature asserting that Utah can lay claim to 30 million acres of federal lands within the state’s borders and appropriating $3 million in scarce state funds to fight that hopeless battle in court. He has also brought a lawsuit to gain state control of 12,000 miles of  “roads” that cross federal parks, monuments, wilderness areas and red rock wonderlands managed by the federal Department of Interior – many of which are nothing but cow paths and nearly invisible trails.

Herbert and others would like to see Utah seize those rights of way so they can stop the creation of any more wilderness in Utah and allow off-road vehicles to tear up protected federal lands. You can see pictures of those so-called roads here.

Those positions may appeal to some in Herbert’s far right wing constituency. But Herbert is getting some serious push back from folks he needs, and he’s discovering that demagogic Sagebrush Rebellion talk may carry a sizable economic price.

Last week, the nation’s outdoor recreation industry gave Herbert a very public beat down for his positions on public lands, and made an explicit threat to take its two annual trade shows – located in Salt Lake City since 1996 – elsewhere. The summer and winter shows – even though closed to the public and open only to outdoor industry members – bring 46,000 visitors to Utah’s capital and pump more than $42 million a year into the local economy.

That reality shouldn’t be lost on either other western politicians or the U.S. as a whole.

After a private meeting with Herbert, Frank Hugelmeyer, the president and CEO of the Outdoor Industry Association, released a scathing statement from the trade group’s board about “Utah’s unfavorable positions on public lands policy”:

“These policies threaten the recreation infrastructure that is fundamental to the outdoor industry…Of greatest concern is the governor’s lawsuit challenging the federal government over jurisdiction of the federal public lands and some road claims within national parks, monuments and wilderness areas. We have not and will not sit silently on threats to the nation’s recreation infrastructure.”

Herbert emerged from the meeting uttering happy talk about how OIA and the state could work together to solve the problem of not enough exhibition space for the annual trade shows.

What Herbert apparently doesn’t fully understand is that trashing federally protected lands in Utah is a very real threat to the state’s economy, which relies greatly on tourism and recreation tied to those very federal lands. Outdoor recreation employs 65,000 people in Utah, generates $5.8 billion in economic activity and produces about $300 million in state tax revenues, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

Read more

The Pentagon and Interior Department have inked an agreement aimed at developing green electricity projects to feed power-thirsty military bases, a plan that officials said would help ensure energy for bases if the commercial grid is disrupted. [The Hill]

The National Weather Service on Monday issued an excessive heat warning for parts of Southern California, as well as Nevada, as a significant heat wave moved into the region. [Los Angeles Times]

U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe downplayed the latest claims by climate-change activist James Hansen on Monday, calling the National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientist an extremist in his own camp and admonishing the press “to be balanced in its representation” of Hansen’s claims. [Tulsa World]

Some Oklahoma residents have returned to emergency shelters despite evacuation orders in many areas of the state being lifted, as wildfires continued to burn. [Associated Press]

The worst drought in more than half a century has analysts expecting the smallest U.S. corn crop in five years, which will translate to smallest ending stocks next summer in 17 years, a Reuters poll of 21 analysts showed on Monday. [Reuters]

Cornflakes won’t necessarily be more expensive as a result of rising corn prices, but the milk you pour over them might be. [Buffalo News]

Ocean acidification caused by climate change is making it harder for creatures from clams to sea urchins to grow their shells, and the trend is likely to be felt most in polar regions, scientists said on Monday. [Reuters]

A meeting of 17 non-European nations hosted by the U.S. State and Transportation departments in Washington last week ended with assurances that the participants were working toward curbing their emissions from aviation. [International Herald Tribune]

Firefighters have contained a blaze at Chevron Corp.’s Richmond refinery in California, but the fire, which broke out Monday, is still burning. [Wall Street Journal]

The U.S. will offer South Africa up to $2 billion in loans to fund renewable energy ventures involving American companies, a top official said Monday, a potential boon for both the electricity-hungry nation and U.S. business interests. [Washington Post]