So Mitt Romney posted this on the inter-webs this week:

At first glance, this appears to be a follow-up on Romney’s mockery of Obama at the Republican National Convention:

President Obama promised to slow the rise of the oceans — [pauses for audience laughter(!)] — and to heal the planet. MY promise is to help you and your family.

But then you see that picture in the video of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and say, WTF?

I’m afraid the premise of this inane ad is, well, so inane that you’ll just have to watch it yourself to see — but please put on your head vise first to avoid rapid cranial expansion:

See, Obama supposedly promised he would “heal” the world, but — and I know this is going to shock all Americans, particularly those voters so disgusted by both political parties that they are still undecided — there are still bad things happening in the world!

Darn you Barack Obama for not ending all strife, for not bringing about world peace!

I guess this is Romney’s closing argument:  “If you’re disappointed President Obama hasn’t delivered on his ‘promise’ to solve all the world problems, vote for me. I won’t promise to heal anything, so you’ll never be disappointed in me.”

This ad is ludicrous. Aside from the fact that Obama was talking about global warming, the President merely said that future generations would say “this was the moment … our planet began to heal” — not that he’d solve every problem in four years.

I suppose team Romney wouldn’t run an ad this late in the game that they had not tested with swing voters. But those kind of focus groups are flawed in part because they test the ads under ideal circumstances — people paying close attention and then thinking and talking about the ads.

In fact, many people stop paying attention to the TV screen when the umpteenth political ad comes on, so as a rule, I think, an ad ought to work for one of those low-information/low-interest voters who might be in the kitchen or on an iPad while listening to the TV. For them, this ad accomplishes very little.

I look forward to the Romney ad featuring hospitals filled with people that Obama didn’t heal.

Starting tomorrow, the world’s largest oil companies — ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, BP, and ConocoPhillips — will begin to announce their third-quarter profits for 2012. In the first half of 2012, these companies — all ranked in the top 10 of Fortune 500 Global — earned over $60 billion.

The oil industry reinvests tens of millions of these dollars for political purposes, including nearly all political contributions to Republicans, lobbying, and campaign ads. Through its enormous spending, these five and other Big Oil companies have fought to maintain $4 billion of their annual subsidies, while seeking to undermine clean energy investments:

$105 Million On Lobbying Since 2011, 90 Percent Of Campaign Contributions To GOP: The big five companies have spent over $105 million on lobbying Congress since 2011, according to lobbying disclosures through the third quarter. The biggest spenders were Shell ($25.7 million), Exxon ($25.4 million), and ConocoPhillips ($22.9 million). The five companies’ oil PACs have donated over $2.16 million to mostly Republican candidates this election cycle. Koch Industries also spends big money to pressure Congress, with $16.2 million on lobbying and more than $1.3 million from its PAC (the top oil and gas spender). In total, the oil and gas industry sends 90 percent of its near $50 million in contributions to Republicans, far eclipsing their record spending in 2008.

Misinformation Campaigns, Including Over $150 Million In Election Ads:
Over $150 million has been spent on TV ads promoting fossil fuel interests, particularly oil and coal, reports the New York Times. In addition to traditional campaign donations, the oil industry has turned to outside groups running attack ads. Earlier this year, Americans For Prosperity — founded and funded by the Koch brothers — launched a bogus ad claiming that clean energy stimulus dollars went overseas. And the oil lobby American Petroleum Institute has its own campaign promoting myths about oil production and gas prices. For example, API chief Jack Gerard, rumored to be on Mitt Romney’s shortlist for a White House or agency appointment, claimed that oil production on federal land is down. This is simply not true, since oil production is up 240 million barrels on federal lands and waters under President Obama compared to the Bush administration. And oil companies hold 20 million acres of federal oil, gas leases in Gulf of Mexico that remain unexplored or undeveloped. This is just one of the many myths Big Oil has pushed this campaign cycle.

Behind-The-Scenes Campaign To Defeat Clean Energy: Koch Industries and fossil fuel groups are mobilizing to defeat the extension of modest tax incentives for wind energy, even though oil tax breaks are permanent. The American Energy Alliance, which has Koch ties, aims to make the credit “so toxic” for Republicans it would be “impossible for John Boehner to sit at a table with Harry Reid.” The Koch-funded Americans For Prosperity is also campaigning against wind energy. Meanwhile, the industry has argued its own century-old tax breaks are necessary to maintain, despite years of record-breaking profits.

Overall, these efforts to keep their tax breaks while weakening public health safeguards from pollution have paid off in Congress and for Republican candidates. The House of Representatives is the most anti-environment in Congressional history, averaging at least one anti-environment vote per day to eliminate or undermine pollution protections, many benefiting Big Oil. And the Romney/Ryan budget plan would give the big five oil companies another $2.3 billion annual tax cut beyond existing loopholes.

After the big five companies’ second quarter profits, ThinkProgress calculated what a typical 24 hours looks like for the oil industry:

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Figure 3. The Wednesday morning 06Z (2 am EDT) run of the GFS model was done 20 times at lower resolution with slightly varying initial conditions of temperature, pressure, and moisture to generate an ensemble of forecast tracks for Sandy (pink lines). These forecasts show substantial uncertainty in Sandy’s path after Friday, with a minority of the forecasts taking Sandy to the northeast, out to sea, and the majority now predicting a landfall in the Northeast or mid-Atlantic states of the U.S. The white line shows the official GFS forecast, run at higher resolution.

by Jeff Masters, via Wunderblog

Sandy: a potential billion-dollar storm for the mid-Atlantic and New England

Hurricane warnings are flying for Jamaica and Eastern Cuba, as an intensifying Hurricane Sandy plows north-northeast at 13 mph towards landfall.

On Friday, a very complicated meteorological situation unfolds, as Sandy interacts with a trough of low pressure approaching the U.S. East Coast and trough of low pressure over the Central Atlantic. The Central Atlantic trough may be strong enough to pull Sandy northeastwards, out to sea, as predicted by the official NHC forecast, and the 06Z GFS, 00Z UKMET, 00Z Canadian, and 06Z HWRF models (00Z is 8 pm EDT, and 06Z is 2 am EDT.) However, an alternative solution, shown by the 00Z ECMWF, 06Z GFDL, and 06Z NOGAPS models, is for Sandy to get caught up by the trough approaching the Eastern U.S., which will inject a large amount of energy into Sandy, converting it to a powerful subtropical storm that hits the mid-Atlantic or New England early next week with a central pressure below 960 mb and sustained winds of 60 – 70 mph. Such a storm would likely cause massive power outages and over a billion dollars in damage, as trees still in leaf take out power grids, and heavy rains and coastal storm surges create damaging flooding. The full moon is on Monday, which means astronomical tides will be at their peak for the month, increasing potential storm surge flooding. A similar meteorological situation occurred in October 1991, when Hurricane Grace became absorbed by a Nor’easter, becoming the so-called “Perfect Storm” that killed 13 people and did over $200 million in damage in the Northeast U.S.

When might Sandy arrive in the mid-Atlantic and New England?

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by Peyton Fleming

No matter the place — California’s Central Valley, southern Nevada, the Colorado River, the Southern Plains — water is harder to find across much of the West. And, with energy demand and populations growing, once-unfathomable choices about water pricing and the future of agriculture are unavoidable.

“Agriculture cannot be sustained in the Southern High Plains,” Judy Reeves, senior hydrogeologist at Texas-based Cirrus Associates said flatly, speaking at the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ) conference in water-stressed Lubbock, Texas where drought is still a daily topic. “We really need to start talking about the next economy here.”

“Water from the Colorado River is over-allocated. Legally, there is no water left,” added Kristen Averyt, associate director for science at the University of Colorado. “You really have to ask, ‘Will there be enough water to go around?’”

Chilling words. Reeves noted that the Ogallala Aquifer, the vast groundwater supply for the Southern High Plains, is losing a foot of water each year; during last year’s devastating drought, it lost more than two feet. Even with new first-ever limits on agriculture withdrawals from the aquifer, Reeves believes West Texas farming does not have a long-term future.

But what can water managers in West Texas and elsewhere in the arid West do to navigate these dire water challenges? Some interesting — and surprising — answers were provided at last week’s SEJ workshop, “Squeezing Blood from a Desert.”

Reality-based water pricing is a critical first step. Western water has historically been under priced, in large part because the federal government financed most of the region’s expensive water infrastructure, including pipelines and dams. But, as Sharene Leurig, water program manager at sustainability advocacy group Ceres said, “the era of federal largesse has passed.” That means Western utility water rates and revenues will need to be aligned with short- and long-term expenses. That means higher water rates.

But tools are available to curb water price inflation. Among the most appealing are strong demand management programs. By using carrots and sticks to reduce water use — especially for water-sapping lawns and landscaping — utilities can avoid having to finance expensive new water supplies.

There are many success stories to point to. Lubbock reduced household water use by 25 percent by using drought restrictions and tiered pricing. San Antonio reduced its water use by 100 million gallons a day without having to raise its water rates. These efforts had enormous benefits in helping both cities weather last year’s drought. Other cities such as Midland, Texas, which paid short shrift to demand management, saw two of its three reservoirs decline below one percent, leading to the utility’s credit rating being downgraded by Moody’s, which cited reduced water sales revenues and an uncertain supply recovery. (A lower credit rating means significantly higher borrowing costs for Midland’s utility which is building new treatment facility to turn wastewater into drinking water.)

Moody’s action against Midland raises two additional important points. The first is that credit rating firms are looking more closely at financial challenges that Western water utilities are facing, including water availability constraints, infrastructure financing challenges and the extent to which they’re using water conservation as a buffer against current and future supply shocks. This is a very positive development because these issues in the past have been largely overlooked by credit rating firms, key gatekeepers in evaluating utilities’ financial health.

The second key point is declining water demand. For many years, US utilities have based their financial assumptions on growing volume sales. Depending on the water utility, as much as 80 percent of a system’s revenue can be volume dependent. But now, demand is declining — not just in Midland, Texas, but all across the United States.

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This story comes from the staff of The Daily Climate

Michael Mann, an influential climatologist who has spent years in the center of the debate over climate science, has sued two organizations that have accused him of academic fraud and of improperly manipulating data.

Mann, director of Pennsylvania State University’s Earth System Science Center, on Monday sued the National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, along with CEI analyst Rand Simberg and National Review reporter Mark Steyn.

The lawsuit, Mann’s lawyer said in a statement, was based upon their “false and defamatory statements” accusing him of academic fraud and comparing him to a convicted child molester, former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.

Neither Mann nor his lawyer, John B. Williams of the Washington, D.C.-based law firm Cozen O’Connor, were available for comment Tuesday afternoon. But on Facebook, where news of the lawsuit was initially posted Tuesday, Mann said the lawsuit was part of “a battle” to assist climate scientists in the fight against those who attack their work.

“There is a larger context for this latest development,” he wrote, “namely the onslaught of dishonest and libelous attacks that climate scientists have endured for years by dishonest front groups seeking to discredit the case for concern over climate change.”

But he faces a high bar: Mann has played a key role in climate science for decades, and the law generally requires a much higher burden of proof from public figures, said CEI general counsel Sam Kazman.

“I don’t think he’s got a shot at reaching it,” Kazman said in an interview. “Our stuff may have been debatable, but it was solidly based and we had a perfect right to say what we did.”

“We plan to defend the suit vigorously but we think it is a totally unfounded lawsuit.”

In 1999 Mann published a timeline of global temperatures stretching back almost 1,000 years. The graph showed a fairly stable trend until 1900, when temperatures spiked sharply upward. That so-called “hockey stick” diagram became a lightning rod in the debate on whether humans were influencing the climate.

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Australia’s policies to mitigate climate change and promote the use of clean energy will likely drive investment of A$100 billion ($103 billion) during the next four decades, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency Greg Combet said. [Bloomberg]

Four alternative candidates for president of the United States debated Tuesday night in Chicago and agreed America needs a good dose of what they could provide — clear, straight talk that has not been market-pasteurized. [Los Angeles Times]

A Nobel Peace Prize winner and Penn State University climate science professor has sued a Washington-based think tank and a national magazine that called his scientific findings fraudulent and compared him to Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State football coach convicted of numerous counts of child molestation. [Washington Post]

Rebuffed by Washington on bringing the Keystone XL pipeline down through the western United States, Canada now finds that its Plan B — to build a pipeline to its west coast for shipping to Asia — has become mired in domestic politics thick enough to rival the tarlike oil it hopes to sell. [New York Times]

People love to talk about the weather, especially when it’s strange like the mercifully ended summer of 2012. This year the nation’s weather has been hotter and more extreme than ever, federal records show. Yet there are two people who aren’t talking about it, and they both happen to be running for president. [Washington Post]

This year’s wildfire season was among the most destructive on record in Wyoming, with as many as 1,400 wildfires charring more than a half-million acres, state forester Bill Crapser said. [The Republic]

IKEA, the world’s largest furniture retailer, will shift to renewable energy by 2020 and grow more trees than it uses under a plan to safeguard nature that has won support from environmentalists. [Reuters]

More than 200 scientists from across the country have sent a letter to the Obama administration urging the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider a rule, in the final approval stages, that would allow two invasive grasses, Arundo donax and Pennisetum purpureum, to qualify as advanced biofuel feedstock under the nation’s renewable fuel standard. [New York Times]

The Like Minded Developing Countries (LMDCs) on climate change, a new group of developing countries, have been coordinating their positions on climate change negotiations ahead of the upcoming climate change talks in Doha, Qatar, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has said. [China Daily]