As Lisa Hymas of Grist noted today, “Todd Akin is not only fundamentally deluded about the basic facts of women’s reproductive systems. He’s also fundamentally deluded about the basic facts of climate change.”

We have been reporting on this delusion for a long time. Three years ago, we excerpted an amazingly ignorant floor address by Akin, a Missouri House member who is now the GOP nominee for Senate.

In this address, Akin celebrates the seasonal change from winter to spring as “good climate change” and confuses “weather” with “climate.” He calls the threat of global warming a “comedy” and twice suggests his fellow climate zombie GOP congressmen are more knowledgeable than Democrats because they have “passed high school science”:

AKIN: This whole thing strikes me if it weren’t so serious as being a comedy you know. I mean, we just went from winter to spring. In Missouri when we go from winter to spring, that’s a good climate change. I don’t want to stop that climate change you know. Who in the world want to put politicians in charge of the weather anyways? What a dumb idea….

Some of the models said that we’re going to have surf at the front steps of the Capitol pretty soon. I was really looking forward to that….

We’ve been joined by another doctor, a medical doctor but also a guy who graduated from high school science as well, from Georgia, my good friend, Congressman Gingrey.… So to have actually a guy who’s passed high school science is tremendously helpful. And Dr. Fleming from Louisiana.

Here is a short clip from the speech:

Since Akin is a guy who clearly knows very little science, he was a natural for the GOP to stick on the House Science Committee. He offers more pearls of non-wisdom in his website’s discussion of global warming:

As a member of the House Science and Technology Committee, Congressman Akin has participated in hearings on global warming, including its causes and possible effects.

While the political climate change debate continues, research into the effects of human caused CO2 is ongoing. Although some of the physics and meteorology surrounding climate is well understood, the question of predicting future climate trends as well as man’s ability to definitively influence them is still an active field of scientific research.  Moreover, despite our desire for complete certainty, we must understand that global climate is very complex phenomena.  No one variable can be taken as the sole driver of climate and there exist cycles within cycles of meteorological variability.  Scientists state that the planet has gone through many natural heating and cooling cycles over the last thousand years.

Actually scientists don’t state that. Even a top disinformer, like Fred Singer, authored a lame denier treatise, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years. Akin may mean “last million years” but then it is always perilous to  try to figure out what people who don’t know what they’re talking about really mean when they fail to reproduce the “correct” version of their erroneous talking points.

Nor has Akin bothered to update his website, which states “Currently, scientists are somewhat puzzled by a current-extended minimum in solar activity.” Well, they were a little puzzled when we were still in that minimum a couple of years ago, but now we aren’t. Scientists should be puzzled by how Akin can supposedly have “participated in hearings on global warming” but know so little about it.

Then again, as Hymas noted, Akin is a guy who “categorizes rape based on its legitimacy and would oppose abortion in every conceivable scenario save his being abducted by space worms who then laid eggs in his brain. Or maybe that already happened. That would explain a lot.”

By Jessica Goad

F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.”  A story in yesterday’s Denver Post about fossil fuel magnate William (Bill) Koch’s construction of a private old western town in Colorado provides yet another example of this truism.

Koch has built for himself:

… an unpopulated, faux Western town that might boggle the mind of anyone who ever had a playhouse. Its full-size buildings come with polished brass and carved-mahogany details and are fronted with board sidewalks and underpinned by a water-treatment system. A locked gate with guards screens who comes and goes….

Koch’s project manager has told county officials that the enclave in the middle of the 6,400-acre Bear Ranch won’t ever be open to the public. It is simply for Koch’s amusement and for that of his family and friends.

Koch is building the town on his ranch in Gunnison County, Colorado.  But he has proposed highly controversial land exchanges that would swap tracts of public lands for areas that he has the rights to in order to expand his ranch and provide more privacy for the old western town.

The “Central Rockies Land Exchange” would give Koch control of 1,800 acres of land managed by the Bureau of Land Management in exchange for various other parcels that he owns in Colorado.  Local opponents say that the land exchange will deny access to public lands where they hunt and hike.  Koch has hired a public relations firm to sell local residents on the idea.

Bill Koch is brother to David and Charles Koch, conservative heavy hitters who are virulently anti-climate science and have bankrolled right-wing groups like Americans for Prosperity and the Heritage Foundation.

While Bill Koch maintains some distance from the political zeal of his brothers, he has given at least $2 million to Restore Our Future, a pro-Romney super-PAC.  He is also the founder and CEO of the Oxbow Corporation, which has interests in various energy ventures including coal, natural gas, and petroleum coke.  Forbes has listed his value at $4 billion.

Koch’s western town that will be entirely for his own benefit brings into relief the remarkable contrast between public and private lands and the value of places that belong to all Americans, not just the wealthy few.

Koch isn’t the only one who is interested in privatizing our public lands.  Indeed, Republican Vice Presidential candidate and Congressman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget contains a provision to sell millions of acres of public lands to the highest bidder.  The language is largely based on Rep. Jason Chaffetz’s (R-UT) bill that would get rid of three million acres of public lands without clarifying how taxpayers would receive a fair return for them.  And Florida Representative Cliff Stearns (R), who just lost his primary election, called for selling off national parks last March.

Jessica is the Manager of Research and Outreach for the Public Lands Project at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

By Danielle Baussan and Jackie Weidman

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals struck down the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), blocking limits to harmful air pollution.  The measure would have limited sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide pollution, the main ingredients of acid rain and smog.

Each year, these regulations would prevent up to 34,000 premature deaths and hundreds of thousands of cases of aggravated asthma (see Table 1).  It was estimated to provide up to $280 billion in annual economic benefits through health and environmental improvements alone.

Carol M. Browner, Former EPA Administrator and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, said:

“Nobody can dispute the public health benefits of preventing harmful pollutants like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from crossing state lines and impacting air quality for millions of Americans.  Congress’ intent was that polluting states be held accountable for reducing cross-state air pollution.”

Today’s ruling creates a huge amount of uncertainty for the power plant industry, which will have to act in limbo until a new rule can be promulgated.  The ruling endangers public health for all Americans.  Air pollution doesn’t stop at state borders. Once created, it quickly travels to neighboring communities and states – as far as hundreds of miles downwind.

In 2004, the Bush Administration decided to address this issue. EPA proposed the Clean Air Interstate Rule, requiring states to be “good neighbors” by prohibiting upwind states from increasing downwind states’ pollution limits and jeopardizing downward State CAA compliance.

However, a federal appeals court struck down CAIR in 2008. CAIR was permitted to continue with the understanding that it would be replaced by a new rule. CAIR’s replacement, the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (or CSAPR) was proposed by EPA in 2010 and finalized in 2011. CSAPR required EPA to identify upwind states that significantly contributed to SO2 and NOx pollution in downwind states. If a state was not “a good neighbor” and significantly contributed to downwind air pollution, all the power plants in that upwind state were required to cut emissions using a cost formula.

Today, The U.S. Court of Appeals agreed that an upwind state should be held responsible for its contributing pollution in downwind states.  However, it found that:

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by KC Golden, via GRIP

In a memorable TV ad saluting the hard work of Olympic athletes, swimmer Ryan Lochte reveals how he made it to the Games in London:  “I swam here.”

That would be one way to avoid the modest cost of carbon pollution permits required for aviation under the EU’s Emission Trading System.

Senator John Thune has a less strenuous approach: Ban U.S. airlines from participating in the system. His European Union Emissions Trading Scheme Prohibition Act (S. 1956), passed by the Senate Commerce Committee yesterday, would authorize the Secretary of Transportation to do just that.

Now, it’s one thing to stand on the sidelines of the global campaign for climate solutions with your arms folded, as our federal government has mostly done for the last 15 years.  It’s another thing to throw tomatoes at the players.  That’s pretty much what S. 1956 is about.

The EU wisely decided to include aviation – one of the fastest growing carbon emission sources – in its ETS.  The system limits dangerous carbon pollution and requires large emitters to have permits for the amount they produce.  The number of permits declines over time – as carbon emissions must.  Air travel is conspicuous carbon consumption; exempting it would be a bit like allowing Ferraris to ignore speed limits.

The cost of these permits would amount to about $6 for a round-trip flight from Washington D.C. to Copenhagen.  The ticket for that same flight on United this last April would have included a “fuel surcharge” of $496, according to testimony submitted by Annie Petsonk of the Environmental Defense Fund in answer to questions posed by Senator Maria Cantwell.    (Annie’s testimony is here.)

Since the emission limits incentivize cost-effective efficiency improvements in aviation, they reduce the risk of these large fuel surcharges.  But increasing Americans’ exposure to the growing costs of oil dependence is apparently not too high a price to pay for the Senate to flip the bird at Europe’s climate policy.  This is particularly ironic/obnoxious, since the premier U.S. commercial airplane manufacturer, Boeing, is committed to leading the industry in efficient aviation technology and lower carbon fuels.

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by Ari Phillips, via OntheroadwithAriPhillips

I meet Tom Swetnam, Director of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona in Tucson, on a Sunday morning because he’s leaving for Siberia in a few days and is otherwise totally booked. As part of the paleofire team that will be traveling to the “Alaska of Siberia, if you will” to study fire and climate, Swetnam will spend a few weeks immersed in the burn history—and possible future—of some of the largest forests on earth.

“We’re trying to understand fire, climate change and carbon emissions out of Siberia because of the huge carbon pool contained there in the soil, permafrost, bogs and forests,” says Swetnam, a sturdy middle-aged man with an outdoorsy white beard. “This giant pool of carbon is beginning to burn in a massive way—the amount of area burning in Siberia is startling.”

Here in the Southwest, the same could be said. Already this year fires have scorched unprecedented swaths of New Mexico and Colorado, and although Arizona is yet to feel anything approaching last year’s record-breaking blazes, the hiatus offers little more than a breath of fresh air. Of course Swetnam knows all this and much more. As an expert in dendrochronology, or tree-ring dating, he’s been determining historical drought, climate and fire patterns as revealed by forests across the Southwest and beyond for upwards of 30 years. Dendrochronology, said to be the only science native to the Southwest, originally gained widespread attention in the early 20^th century as a way to date ruins from lost cultures in the region, such as those found at Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde.

Swetnam runs through the fire history of the West like it’s his usual Sunday sermon. Dry years have traditionally led directly into large burn years. Fire patterns tend to correlate with precipitation patterns in the region such as those associated with El Nino and La Nina. Climate change is likely intensifying weather extremes and causing hotter and dryer weather, both exacerbating fire danger.

Then he gets into the less established theories.

“It’s not just the drying and not just high temperatures that are increasing burns, but the extraordinary wind events happening as well,” says Swetnam. “It’s possible that this is associated with weather pattern changes. Kind of like massive cold fronts, with lightning.”

Or if not wind, maybe snow.

“It might be that for the high elevation and mountain areas snowpack is very important. This summer for instance we’ve seen burning in those wetter, higher forests in Colorado and New Mexico after multiple years of drought and little snowpack.”

Swetnam sees this as a very important question: When is it going to start burning at higher elevations where spruce and mixed-conifer thrive? Since 2000 there’s been a number of big fires in the Southwest, but mostly down in the middle and lower elevations. Looking back, 2012 may provide the answer.

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The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is reporting that most of the new electric generation capacity added in the first half of 2012 used either natural gas or renewable energy.

“Other renewables” includes hydroelectric, geothermal, landfill gas, and biomass power.

This is a trend that has been going on for quite some time. As the EIA notes:

Most of the new generators built over the past 15 years are powered by natural gas or wind. In 2012, the addition of natural gas and renewable generators comes at a time when natural gas and renewable generation are contributing increasing amounts to total generation across much of the United States.

The EIA is reporting here only on generators greater than 1 MegaWatt in capacity. So it counts the big utility-scale solar plants and misses virtually all new commercial and residential systems:

Solar has shown significant growth in the electric power sector over the past two years. From the beginning of 2010 to the end of June 2012, 1,308 MW of new utility-scale solar capacity has come online, more than tripling the 619 MW in place at the end of 2009. Despite this significant increase, these additions understate actual solar capacity gains. Unlike other energy sources, significant levels of solar capacity exist in smaller, non-utility-scale applications (e.g., rooftop solar photovoltaics). These appear in a separate EIA survey collecting data on net metering and distributed generation.

Other good news is that a lot of coal-fired capacity is being retired.

More capacity was added in the first half of 2012 than was retired. A total of 3,092 MW was retired, from 58 generators in 17 states. Over half of this was coal, and another 30% was petroleum-fired generators.

If you were wondering who is building new plants running on coal or petroleum/other, here’s the answer:

Yes, it’s the President’s home state of Illinois:

Only one coal-fired generator was brought online in the first half of 2012, an 800-MW unit at the Prairie State Energy Campus in Illinois. In its 2011 annual survey of power plant operators, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) received no new reports of planned coal-fired generators. Of the planned coal generators in EIA databases, 14 are reported in the construction phrase, with an additional 5 reporting a planned status but not yet under construction. However, only one of the 14 advanced from a pre-construction to an under-construction status between the 2010 and 2011 surveys.

The Prairie State Energy Campus website proudly explains that an “on-site coal mine produces nearly 7 MILLION TONS per year.” So I suppose it’s like locally-grown food, if you grew and ate poisonous mushrooms locally, that is. You’ll be glad to know that this is “clean coal” — or it could be in some alternative universe where homo sapiens are actually sapiens:

Prairie State is part of a balanced energy portfolio that can help us transition to lower intensity carbon generation. The plant has the potential to accept greenhouse gas capture systems when the technology is commercially available.

Seriously. As for Texas, “70% of the capacity added was in the industrial sector and not the electric power sector: the Formosa Plastics Corporation added two generators burning petroleum coke.”

Bottom line: The U.S. grid is slowly cutting its carbon intensity. Unfortunately, the U.S. (and global) climate is rapidly deteriorating. Avoiding far more extreme weather and devastating droughts post-2040 would require taking U.S. electric generation carbon emissions to near zero by 2050. There just is very little room for new natural gas and no room for new dirty coal.

Graduate student Clement Cid with the Caltech team's solar-powered toilet. Credit: Caltech/Michael Hoffmann

by Tina Casey, via CleanTechnica

How’d this one slip past us? Last week, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced the winners of its Reinvent the Toilet Challenge and the top prize went to a souped up, solar-powered model that produces hydrogen and fertilizer. If you’re thinking this sounds like another pricey high-tech green gadget for next-generation McMansions, think again: the aim of the challenge is to kickstart the development of low cost toilets for the 2.5 billion people worldwide who don’t have access to modern sanitary facilities.

By Ellie Sandmeyer

Well over half the country is suffering from extreme drought, and locally, pets and animals are struggling with the effects of climate change as well. Triple-digit temperatures have gripped much of the U.S. this summer, and extreme heat, which NASA’s James Hansen wrote is “almost certainly” connected to climate change, can have a serious impact on animal biodiversity, as food grows scarcer and a wide variety of habitats dry out.

“The whole ecosystem is going to have to move north as the climate gets warmer to look for comfortable temperatures…. [L]ife events, migrations, and egg laying, and flowering and so on are changing, but they’re changing at different rates, and that makes an ecosystem that has evolved in a cooperative way over the last couple thousand, or 10,000, or 100,000 years — it throws it out of kilter,” science journalist Michael Lemonick said on NPR.

There are many ways a climate on steroids throws animals and biodiversity “out of kilter”:

Rare Canadian wildfires endanger polar bear habitats

Because food resources are typically scarce during the summer, female Hudson Bay polar bears retreat to underground dens to rest and raise vulnerable young. However, unusually warm and dry weather in the region has allowed several wildfires to spring up and weakened permafrost, putting many of these century-old refuges in danger of collapse. And, of course, “The survival of polar bears as a species is difficult to envisage under conditions of zero summer sea-ice cover,” concluded the 2004 Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, by leading scientists from the eight Arctic nations, including the United States. We are headed toward those conditions in the next decade or two.

Snow leopards lose hunting ground

Snow leopards are currently losing hunting ground as new weather patterns push treelines further into their territory. Their current habitat is projected to decrease by 40% in the next century, seriously impacting the already struggling population, thought to number just 500. WWF snow leopard expert Rinjan Shrestha says,  ”Loss of alpine habitat not only means less room for snow leopards, but also has the potential to bring them closer to human activities like livestock grazing.”

Wolverines rely on disappearing snow

A study by the Wildlife Conservation Society suggests that wolverines may rely on snow as a form of natural refrigeration for their food, the Huffington Post reports. Wolverines typically give birth during a limited period early in the year, and rely on caches of stored food to raise their young during lean times, making them particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.  Wolverines were flagged as a new candidate for protection in 2010.

Southern species travel north

Sightings of Southern animals–including Grizzly bears, red fox, white-tailed deer, Pacific salmon, and killer whales–have recently increased in arctic regions. Many scientists now believe that climate change is responsible for removing key barriers that previously prevented southern animals from traveling north, and new competition may have serious ramifications for Arctic biodiversity.  Killer whales have been known to eat beluga whales and narwhal, and a red fox was filmed killing its arctic counterpart. Observations of new hybrid grizzly-polar bears have scientists worried about the dilution of the gene pool–a change that is likely impossible to reverse.

Snowshoe hares may struggle to camouflage

Snowshoe hares rely on their camouflage for survival. They shed their coats twice a year, shifting from brown to white seasonally, and Biologist L. Scott Mills found that hares are most likely to die during the transitional periods of fall and spring, when their coloring is mixed and their camouflage imperfect. Hare coloration changes have been correlated to seasonal changes in sunlight, not snowcover, so a future of unpredictable weather patterns may leave them increasingly vulnerable to predation.

Arctic Caribou Herds on the Decline

Caribou populations are in steep decline in many Arctic regions, Environment360 reports. Of the 43 major herds that scientists have tracked in the past decade, 34 are in decline, and population numbers have fallen 57% from historical highs. Some have seen more drops in numbers: the Bathurst herd in Canada has lost 93% since 1986. Scientists say that unusually high Arctic temperatures are responsible for the decline, and that Arctic resource-development projects have compounded the problem by cutting down the caribou’s natural range. Indigenous people in the region rely on caribou populations for food and clothing resources.

Massive coral bleaching tied to warmer temperatures

Scientists have observed several cases of mass-bleaching in the world’s coral reefs in the past 20 years. In high light conditions and with unusually warm waters, the algae that coral relies on produces excessively high levels of oxygen, which can be toxic to marine life. When this happens, coral either expels the algae, losing a key source of photosynthetic fuel and often dying as a result, or dies directly from the toxin. Oceans are the world’s most significant heat sinks, and maintain a far more constant temperature than weather-exposed land habitats. This makes it difficult for their inhabitants to find ways to beat the heat.

Destructive beetles flourish in warmer temperatures

The coffee berry borer is an insect that burrows into coffee berries to lay its eggs, killing the plant. Researchers estimate that the insect causes approximately $500 million in damage to the coffee industry each year, and say that it is becoming an increasingly serious problem as temperatures rise. Research shows that the pesticide-resistant beetle produces more eggs and burrows deeper into the coffee berry when temperatures are higher. Scientists project that coffee growers will have to move up 550 feet in altitude for ever 1.8° F increase in order to stay ahead of the damage.

Oceans face an oxygen crisis

Away from coral reefs, inhabitants of the world’s oceans are struggling from a severe lack of oxygen, prompting an increase of “dead zones” around the world. A 2009 Nature Geoscience study found that these dead zones, “devoid of fish and seafood” are poised to expand and “remain for thousands of years.“ Pollution from agricultural runoff and fossil fuels are key culprits, but warming weather may have a serious impact as well. Though the heat may help surface level algae produce higher levels of oxygen, scientists say that warmer water is less able to hold the dissolved oxygen and increased temperatures makes surface water lighter, decreasing the amount of water circulation. This may deprive deeper regions of the much-needed resource, causing fish to suffocate.

Climate change has already had a marked impact on a wide variety of species. Though some may be able to adapt to the new environment, some researchers warn that the possibility of adaptation depends on the stability of the environment. An increasingly extreme environment has severe implications for biodiversity and complicate successful adaptation, seriously impeding the stabilization of these populations.

Ellie Sandmeyer is an intern with the ThinkProgress War Room.

Related Posts:

• Royal Society: “There are very strong indications that the current rate of species extinctions far exceeds anything in the fossil record.”
• Global Warming May Cause Far Higher Extinction of Biodiversity Than Previously Thought
• Nature Geoscience study: Oceans are acidifying 10 times faster today than 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred

Due to lack of water, vegetation will no longer grow at these drill sites. Photo: David Gessner

by David Gessner, via OnEarth

It was a small moment during this hottest of summers. I had already driven through the crisped cornfields of the Midwest, witnessed a smoke cloud that seemed to cover the whole state of New Mexico, and toured miles of charred ridgeline above Fort Collins, Colorado. Meanwhile, back home in North Carolina, my wife described the weeklong string of 100-degree days with 99 percent humidity as being “like living in someone’s mouth.” So I had already grown used to heat, and to scenes of heat’s destruction.

But this was the moment that got me thinking: I was flying in a small plane over the dry cracked wilderness of northeastern Utah, courtesy of Bruce Gordon, a pilot and owner of EcoFlight (see “The Plane Truth”). With us were a documentary filmmaker and two representatives of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, which works to preserve Utah’s remaining wild desert lands. We had just flown over a sight of stunning beauty: a brown river named the Green snaking through canyons of purpled gray. We banked down over Nine Mile Canyon toward great towers of rock. They looked like giant red sand doodle castles, and atop these castles the Ute Indians had built dwellings that stood high above the desert floor. If ever I had a sense of the land as remote, sacred, vast, and removed from the unrelenting assault of our own hectic time, this was it.

But then, a second or two later, I saw them: The first square of shaved land, devoid of all vegetation, that signaled another oil drilling site. Then another, and another. Earlier we had seen hundreds of them, both gas and oil, each trailing a squiggling tail, like a group of giant square tadpoles. The tails were roads, and those roads always connected to larger roads, like the new four-lane highway leading down to the Book Cliff divide, site of the U.S. Oil Sands Project, Utah’s very own tar sands. There were not as many roads or sites here, but it was stunning to see them in such a remote, beautiful place. The message was clear: we will not leave anything alone. If these lands were once sacred, we will desecrate. We simply don’t care.

I pointed out that the land was scarred, as if someone had taken a knife to a beautiful person’s face.

“They used to say that the vegetation would eventually re-claim the sites,” said Steve Bloch, the energy program director for the wilderness alliance, through the headphones. “But scientists no longer think so. Not enough water.”

These scars were permanent then, or as permanent as anything can be in nature.

We are a short-term people, hungry for now. The West is a long-term place. A place where the stones in an Anasazi Cliff dwelling sit just as they did a thousand years ago, and where nothing rots and decays. Here you can see the scars across the dryness. And here you will see the same scars in a hundred, or a thousand, years.

“Not enough water,” Steve said. There it was in three words. It is the whole country’s motto this summer, but it has been the West’s motto forever. The native people built a civilization adapting to that fact. The conquering Europeans, for the most part, tried their best to deny it. And are still denying it.  Wallace Stegner wrote: “The history of the West until recently has been a history of the importation of humid-land habits (and carelessness) into a dry land that will not tolerate them … Inherited wet-land habits have given us a damaged domain.”

In other words, there has been a history of pretending.

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Vestas Wind Systems A/S (VWS), the world’s biggest wind-turbine maker, is likely to give details this week of its plan to cut as many as 1,600 jobs mainly in Colorado amid a standoff in Congress over a tax break for the industry. [Businessweek]

Chief Executive Officer Ditlev Engel said in January that U.S. jobs would be scrapped “for sure” unless Congress extends the production tax credit, or PTC, which expires at the end of 2012. He may provide more details Wednesday when the Aarhus, Denmark-based company reports earnings for the first half of 2012. Gamesa Corp. (GAM) Tecnologica SA and other manufacturers in the industry also have announced layoffs.

Some Republicans in Congress such as Representative Mike Pompeo of Kansas are blocking President Barack Obama’s effort to extend the program, saying the companies can prosper without the PTC. He favors ending all energy tax credits. As many as 37,000 U.S. jobs could be lost if the credit isn’t renewed, according to the Washington-based American Wind Energy Association.

The departure of the Arctic-bound rig is a sign of Shell’s confidence that the company soon will be able to launch drilling in the area, despite setbacks that have shortened its window for oil exploration. [Fuel Fix]

Oil prices rose Tuesday ahead of the release of Federal Reserve minutes from last month’s meeting that will give traders clues as to the intentions of the U.S. central bank’s policymakers. [Washington Post]

Radio ads launched Monday in Colorado and Iowa tout the president’s clean-energy policies as job-creating while casting GOP vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan’s budget plan as disastrous for that sector. [The Hill]

Butterfly populations in Massachusetts have shifted north over the past two decades likely in response to climate change, new research shows. [Live Science]

Spanish researchers have discovered a novel way of removing carbon from the atmosphere – urine. [TG Daily]

The Geothermal Energy Association is working with California energy authorities to help restart the flow of state utility power purchase agreements made with geothermal electricity generators, after close to a year’s doldrums. [Renewable Energy World]

The average annual temperature in the Pacific Northwest has increased 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1920, and is projected to increase an additional 3.6 to 7.2 degrees or more by the end of the century, according to the Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington. What might that mean for plant and animal communities? [Seattle Times]

The German government’s decision to phase out all of the nation’s nuclear power plants following the 2011 Fukushima disaster has led to an increase in coal-burning within Europe’s largest economy. [Yale Environment 360]