Most Americans like clean energy. So when conservatives wage campaigns against clean energy initiatives, they have typically resorted to fronting astroturf groups and paying fake protesters to generate noise.

Needing 100 anti-wind protesters by next week and apparently unable to find them, a mysterious firm advertised a “quick and easy $20″ on Craigslist. According to the ad, the only thing the “volunteers” would need to do for their pay is “stand next to or behind the speakers and elected officials/celebrities” at a rally against a wind turbine project in the UK.

View the screenshot (the ad was quickly pulled down after Grist made the catch):

We do not know who is behind the ad, but there is at least one wealthy opponent of windmills in Scotland, since they would obstruct the view of his golf course.

There is nothing new about anti-clean energy and anti-EPA campaigns fronted by corporate interests. Last year, coal groups threw its cash at an Environmental Protection Agency hearing, paying astroturfers $50 to wear pro-coal T-shirts. Wind has faced a particularly uphill battle against corporate interests, with a leaked strategy memo showing conservative think tanks leading an astroturf strategy to take down clean energy, at the same time a lobby group linked to the Koch brothers mobilized to defeat wind credits in Congress.

One of the more dramatic effects of global warming is shrinking glaciers around the globe. 10 to 20 percent of glacier ice in the European Alps, for example, has been lost in less than two decades, and half the volume of the mountain range’s glacier ice has melted away since 1850.

Thinning and melting rates in Alaskan glaciers more than doubled over the last decade, African glaciers have declined by 60 to 70 percent since the 1900s, and most Pacific glaciers are also receding. Summer ice coverage in the Arctic could disappear entirely within a decade, and Glacier National Park may not have any glaciers by 2030.

This isn’t just destructive to wildlife and ecosystems. Given their locations, glaciers can serve as crucial supplies of fresh water for various human populations — and as they shrink year after year, those supplies tighten.

The latest example comes from a new report by The Cryosphere, which documents the shrinkage of glaciers in the Andes mountain range of South America. The glaciers have shrunk by at least a third, and possibly as much as half, since the 1970s alone. And the worst loss has been seen in the smaller, lower altitude glaciers which supply fresh water for many of the continent’s residents, according to a round-up of the report by Reuters:

Climate change has shrunk Andean glaciers between 30 and 50% since the 1970s and could melt many of them away altogether in coming years, according to a study published on Tuesday in the journal Cryosphere.

Andean glaciers, a vital source of fresh water for tens of millions of South Americans, are retreating at their fastest rates in more than 300 years, according to the most comprehensive review of Andean ice loss so far.

The study included data on about half of all Andean glaciers in South America, and blamed the ice loss on an average temperature rise of 0.7 degree Celsius over the past 70 years. [...]

The researchers also warned that future warming could totally wipe out the smaller glaciers found at lower altitudes that store and release fresh water for downstream communities.

The plot above tracks the changes in surface area for the various glaciers in the Andes since the Little Ice Age in the mid-17th to early-18th centuries. The measurements prior to 1940 were put together from studies of debris associated with the glaciers, and reconstructed from aerial photographs after that point. The drop-off in the second half of the 20th Century is precipitous.

The Zongo Glacier (the red squares) managed to avoid the dramatic shrinkage of the other glaciers because it sits at a higher altitude. The lower altitude glaciers are more vulnerable to temperature shifts, and thus have seen the worst of the melting. They’re also the glaciers that supply fresh water for both the agriculture and consumption of large populations in the arid regions of Peru and Bolivia, serving as a buffer for those communities during the dry season from May/June to August/September.

As the glaciers recede, that buffer shrinks, leaving those water supplies ever more strained. Meanwhile, the tendency of global warming to drive more extreme weather patterns could exacerbate the severity of the dry season, dealing a double blow to the people of Peru and Bolivia.

China is trying to get a leg up on the market for clean transportation by bulking up the rate it’s been filing patents. According to a recent report in Europe’s China Daily, China filed over 2,000 patents for alternative-energy cars in 2012, placing it just behind Japan and the United States, and dead even with Germany and South Korea:

With a worldwide push for sustainable, clean transportation, patents are vital to survival in the global new-energy vehicle industry, China Intellectual Property News reported.

China had filed more than 2,000 patent applications – 8 percent of the world total – for new-energy cars by the end of last year to share the third place with Germany and South Korea, according to the statistics from Thomson Reuters.

Japan ranks the first with nearly 9,000 patents, followed by the United States with 4,000, accounting for a respective 60 percent and 22 percent of the world total.

China has actually been in the patent game for sometime. In 2011, the country’s patent office received more applications — for all forms of invention, not just green technology — than any other nation. At the same time, very few Chinese investors seek to patent their ideas abroad — less than 5 percent between 2005 and 2009. As The Economist put it, if an inventor has a genuinely good idea, they’ll seek to patent it as many places as possible. Concentrating merely on China’s office could be an indication that other incentives are driving the patent, such as the chance to snatch up a government subsidy.

The race between various countries to accrue patents in alternative-energy also raises the possibility of “patent wars,” such as those that have riled the world of software. Companies and interests attempt to round up and hoard patents in order to corner sources of revenue. That is, of course, very profitable for them, but it also tends to dampen innovation in the relevant industry. The spread of patents forces companies and inventors to spend ever more time and money making sure every conceptual aspect of the technology they’re working on is in the legal clear, or is properly licensed. That drives up costs for the companies, for consumers, and slows down the creation of new products and technologies that can raise everyone’s well-being — like cars and other forms of transport powered by sustainable energy. It arguably even drives up inequality.

The problem is especially acute in the software world, where it’s especially difficult to organize who has the rights to what into a public and easily-searchable database. But in principle the inefficiencies and transaction costs that come with over-zealous competition for patents can afflict any industry, including green tech and green transportation.

In February of 2011, for example, Butamax Advanced Biofuels, a joint venture between BP and DuPont, sued another advanced biofuels company, Gevo, for infringing their patent on a process to produce microbial-based biofuel.

At his confirmation hearing for Secretary of State, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) took a strong position on the urgent need for climate action.

Kerry’s likely confirmation is good news for confronting climate change. He has a long career as a climate hawk, taking to the Senate floor to call for action on our “biggest long-term threat” to national security. With the fate of the Keystone XL pipeline in the next Secretary of State’s hands, his remarks may mean some hope for the administration’s decision on the tar sands project. He urged senators to consider the cost of climate inaction, saying “I will spend a lot of time trying to persuade you and other colleagues of this.”

Kerry responded forcefully to Sen. John Barrasso’s (R-WY) concerns over environmental protections hampering the economy:

I would respectfully say to you that climate change is not something to be feared in response to — the steps to respond to — it’s to be feared if we don’t. 3,500 communities in our nation last year broke records for heat … and we had a derailment because of it. We had record fires. We had record levels of damage from sandy, $70 billion. If we can’t see the downside of spending that money and risking lives for all the changes that are taking place, to agriculture, to our communities, the ocean and so forth, we are ignoring what science is telling us. I will be a passionate advocate on this not based on ideology but based on facts and science, and I hope to sit with all of you and convince you that this $6 trillion market is worth millions of American jobs and we better go after it.

Watch it:

Kerry also noted the extraordinary success story renewables play in his home state’s economy. “I can tell you, Massachusetts, fastest growing sector of our economy is clean energy and energy efficiency companies. And they’re growing faster than any other sector,” he said.

by Daniel J. Weiss

Suddenly, the capital is awash in climate change fever.  President Obama launched in on January 21^st during his inaugural address when he said: “We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.”  The Washington Post reported that after the inauguration

“Obama made a point of highlighting how much emphasis he gave the issue after Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) thanked him afterward for mentioning climate change.

“‘I didn’t just mention it, I talked about it,’ Obama parried, according to Waxman.”

Follow on the heels of President Obama’s commitment, long time climate hawks Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Reps. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Waxman today announced the formation of a “Bicameral Climate Change Task Force.”

“It will be dedicated to focusing Congressional and public attention on climate change and developing effective policy responses, and will be open to all other Members of Congress interested in collaborating on this issue.”

The three legislators sent a letter to the president today to urge that he develop a plan to accomplish three main goals through executive action.

These three objectives are included in the Center for American Progress’s recommendations for “Building on President Obama’s Clean Energy Successes,” most which can be accomplished by implementing existing laws rather than seeking legislation from Congress.

Opponents of attacking climate change were quick to criticize President Obama.  Climate Wire (subscription required) reported that

Read more

By Jim Meyer via Grist

Ever wonder about the future of energy? Will it be wind? Solar? Geothermal? No wait, I got it, tar sands! (Let’s try that again — tar sands!) They’ve got everything oil does, but they’re harder to get, crappier when you get them, and leave a much bigger mark on the climate. Sounds like a winner. Let’s look a little closer, shall we?

First off, what are tar sands? Tar sands are deposits of about 90 percent sand or sandstone, water, and clay mixed with only about 10 percent high-sulfur bitumen, a viscous black petroleum sludge rich in hydrocarbons, also known as “natural asphalt.”

The Athabasca reserves, in Alberta, Canada, estimated to hold about 170 billion barrels, are the site of the only commercial tar-sands operation in the world. (Though, spoiler alert, that’s about to change.) It’s one of the largest industrial programs on the planet and could eventually cover an area larger than the state of Florida — and it’s sprouting an enormous oily ganglion known as the Keystone XL pipeline, which, if completed, would pump 1.1 million barrels ofbitumen sludge a day, crisscrossing much of the continent’s freshwater supply, all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.

Sound like a complicated way to create oil, gasoline, and diesel? Naw. Ain’t no thing. Just follow these simple instructions:

1. Change the name from tar sands to oil sands. Even though there’s no actual oil in them, you’re already that much closer to that sweet Texas Tea. I mean, tar is the reason we don’t have mastodons. Nobody wants tar. But everybody wants oil — we put it in our cars and on our salads!

2. Clear-cut all that unsightly boreal forest. This, admittedly, can be a bit of a bear — or, more likely, lots of bears, and lynxes, and trees, and anything else that creeps, crawls, grows, or flies, and, in the name of tar sands, will also need to die.

3. Get yourself some massive excavators, the biggest moveable objects on the planet, each capable of gouging out 16,000 cubic meters of earth an hour, and set about ripping pits into the planet 15 stories deep. Use the excavators to fill enormous dump trucks, 22 feet high and nearly 50 feet long, and capable of hauling 400 tons a load — which is good, because we’re far from done, and it takes a lot of sand to make a little oil.

4. To extract the bitumen from the sands, you’ll need to crush the sands with enormous machines creatively known as crushers. Mix the crushed sands with hot water to form a slurry, then agitate the slurry (interestingly, also a major step in most British cooking) so the bitumen sludge can be scooped out. The stuff is still too thick to transport, though, so you’ll need to cut it with solvents so it can be shipped via pipeline for processing.

5. Now you’re ready to get started! Of course you’ve got a problem. Somebody added solvents to our tar, so here comes the hydro-treating that removes the solvents, along with as much nitrogen, sulfur, and other metals as we can get out. The process uses a lot of water and energy in the form of natural gas and oil. (Hey, what are we trying to make again?) Next, heat it again to remove carbon and add hydrogen as part of the upgrading process to make this sludge useful.

Read more

Retired Marine Colonel Mark "Puck" Mykleby

With a new foreign policy team about to join the Obama Administration, and with the possibility of budget cuts for the Department of Defense, are changes ahead in how the United States approaches national security? That question is on the minds of thought leaders in the security and defense communities. In the discussion, a novel idea is emerging: that sustainable development at home is a critical dimension of America’s foreign policy and national security strategy. (For examples, see here and here.)

One of the thought leaders is Colonel Mark “Puck” Mykleby. Before retiring from the Marine Corps in 2011, he served as a special strategic assistant to the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen. While in that post, Mykleby and his colleague, Navy Captain Wayne Porter, proposed a new vision for a 21st Century American grand strategy in a paper entitled “A National Strategic Narrative.” They suggested that the U.S. needs to build security through sustainable development at home, creating the credibility and influence to lead the world to a more lasting peace and prosperity. That path, they suggested, is less expensive and more effective than investing solely in the traditional tools of foreign policy, which have been mostly dominated by military power.

I asked Col. Mykleby about these and other issues facing President Obama in his second term. The resulting interview is long but well worth reading. It offers a fresh approach to national security from someone who has served at the highest levels of the U.S. military. I’ll post it in two parts. — Bill Becker

Q: As Congress and the President hammer out an agreement to cut federal spending, what are your concerns about the impact on our military effectiveness and national security? Can we save money without sacrificing security?

A: To be honest, I’m not too concerned about our long-term military effectiveness. We have the finest, most professional, best-equipped, and most lethal military force the world has ever seen. I don’t think that is going to change anytime soon, with or without budget cuts. I say this simply because I believe the quality of our military is mostly tied to the quality of our people (and the quality of their training). I’m not saying budget cuts won’t be painful, but we need to have some historical perspective on this. Our national defense budget historically has been cyclical; it looks like a sine wave. We’ve survived budget cuts before; we’ll survive them again. During my career in the Marine Corps, we never seemed to have enough “stuff.” That’s why I always found it useful to remember the words of former Marine Corps Commandant General Al Gray, “Fight with what you’ve got; make what you need.”

In the face of potential budget cuts, however, I am concerned about how effective our nation will be if we don’t start getting smarter about how we pursue our national interests, including how, when, and where our military is or is not employed. In the foreign policy context, this is a political issue that needs to be first and foremost in the minds of our civilian leadership. If you want to reduce the military budget, fine. But you can no longer look to the military to serve as the convenient near-term solution to all the vexing, unforeseen problems that we are currently facing, and will continue to face.

Doing more with less has its limits and it’s not fair to keep demanding more and more out of our men and women in uniform (as well as our diplomats and intelligence professionals, for that matter), particularly if you cut their resources. We need to strike the right balance across all our national resources and tools (public, private, and civil). This means we need to actually start thinking strategically, systemically, and, most importantly, wisely about how to best pursue our enduring interests of prosperity and security within our existing resource constraints. As Cicero points out in his On Duties, “Arms are of little value in the field unless there is wise counsel at home.” Given our current national condition, we need to start leveraging some wisdom at home if we’re going to make it in the 21st Century.

To do this, we need to get our brains around the fact that national security in the 21st Century does not just mean defense.

Read more

In a blow to environmentalists’ hopes, White House spokesman Jay Carney declared yesterday that the Obama Administration has “no intention of proposing a carbon tax.” [DailyCaller]

White House spokesman Jay Carney Jan. 23 deflated environmentalists’ hope of a major federal program to counter climate change, by declaring that the “we have no intention of proposing a carbon tax.”

Carney’s statement is a letdown for progressive climate-control advocates, who say the federal government has the regulatory and taxing power to try to affect the globe’s temperature by curbing the release of carbon dioxide from cars, houses, factories, power plants….

“I think the President has long supported congressional action on climate change,” Carney said Jan. 22. But “he looks at [climate control] in a more holistic way, and he will move forward in implementing some of the [regulatory and spending] actions that he took in the first term,” he said.

The Chinese government has announced it will aim to limit the country’s total primary energy consumption to 4 billion tons of coal-equivalent by 2015, in a bid to improve efficiency and reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emission. However, the target will not be binding. [Reuters]

The European Commission has proposed new standards to encourage alternative fuel use — such as electricity, hydrogen, and liquified natural gas — throughout the European Union’s transportation infrastructure. [Bloomberg]

According to a new study, the Andean glaciers — a vital source of fresh water for millions of South Americans — are retreating at their fastest rate in 300 years, having already shrunk between 30 and 50 percent since the 1970s. [The Guardian]

Senator Lisa Murkowski, the ranking Republican on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, says she will release a “very comprehensive” energy plan next week. The blueprint was put together in consultation with the Committee’s other GOP members, and will likely not include any proposal to curb greenhouse egad emissions. [The Hill]

Oregon State University will be building the first utility-scale, grid-connected wave energy testing site in the country. [Renewable Energy World]