Columbia Journalism Review slams Times for “outright lie” about its commitment to environmental coverage.

This weekend two of the premier newspapers in the country basically abandoned the story of the century — climate change — as a specialized beat. The NY Times shut down its Green Blog (fast on the heels of dismantling its environment desk) and the Washingon Post is switching its lead climate reporter, Juliet Eilperin, off the environment beat.

These epic blunders in editorial judgment essentially signal the end of the era of great national newspapers — certainly neither the New York Times nor Washingon Post qualify anymore. One can hardly be a great national newspaper while moving to slash coverage of the single most important story to the nation (and the world), the story that will have the biggest impact on the lives of readers and their children in the coming decades.

And we can finally strip the NY Times of its vaunted title “The Paper of Record.” Now, like most others, it is just a “paper of record-keeping.”

Back in January, I reported that the Times was “Widely Cricitized For Dismantling Its Environment Desk, Eliminating Editorial Positions.” Now, to compound that mistake, the NY Times has terminated its Green Blog, with this abrupt post:

The Times is discontinuing the Green blog, which was created to track environmental and energy news and to foster lively discussion of developments in both areas. This change will allow us to direct production resources to other online projects. But we will forge ahead with our aggressive reporting on environmental and energy topics, including climate change, land use, threatened ecosystems, government policy, the fossil fuel industries, the growing renewables sector and consumer choices.

Thanks to all of our readers.

Since Sandy was a freak, once-in-a-century superstorm, we figure New York is safe for another century.

OK, I added the final sentence, but still this move is doubly head-exploding in a post-Sandy world where even the media elite now know they aren’t free from the ravages of climate change. And again, we’ve only seen the impact of slightly more than a degree Fahrenheit of warming — we’re all but certain to see at least 5 times as much warming this century as we did last century, especially if the ignorati (not-so-intelligentsia?) gag themselves on the greatest story never told.

Curtis Brainard, editor of Columbia Journalism Review‘s “online critique of science and environment reporting,” slammed the move:

This is terrible news, to say the least. When the Times announced in January that it was dismantling its three-year-old environment pod and reassigning its editors and reporters to other desks, managing editor Dean Baquet insisted that the outlet remained as committed as ever to covering the environment. Obviously, that was an outright lie.

The Green blog was a crucial platform for stories that didn’t fit into the print edition’s already shrunken news hole—which is a lot on the energy and environment beat—and it was a place where reporters could add valuable to context and information to pieces that did make the paper….

In an act of total cowardice, the Times clearly timed its announcement to avoid (for the weekend, at least) having to deal with what is sure to be widespread criticism. When I called the paper shortly after 5pm on Friday, I was informed that executive editor Jill Abramson, managing editor Dean Baquet, and corporate spokeswoman Eileen Murphy were all out of the office for the day….

Those masthead editors should be ashamed of themselves. They’ve made a horrible decision that ensures the deterioration of the Times’s environmental coverage at a time when debates about climate change, energy, natural resources, and sustainability have never been more important to public welfare, and they’ve done so while keeping their staff in the dark. Readers deserve an explanation, but I can’t think of a single one that would justify this folly.

Dr. Robert J. Brulle of Drexel University, whom the NYT called “an expert on environmental communications,” emailed me:

The NY Times coverage of the environment has continued its journey from bad to worse. It continues to abrogate its responsibility to inform the public about critical issues.

Slate has terrific piece, “The Times Kills Its Environmental Blog To Focus on Horse Racing and Awards Shows,” which lists some of the “the 65-odd other Times blogs” (!) saved from the axe while the green blog was beheaded:

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Cross-posted from Huffington Post

Given the relentless “all of the above” energy strategy pursued by the Obama Administration, the release this past Friday of a positive environmental impact report for the proposed Keystone oil pipeline was no big surprise. The U.S. State Department essentially declared that since the extra-dirty tar sands oil designated for the pipeline was going to be shipped and burned one way or another, building the pipeline down from Canada to Gulf coast refineries would not have that much impact on the environment — despite warnings from climate scientists that burning all the tar sands oil would be “game over” in the fight to stop climate change.

This conclusion by the State Department was a laughable bit of self-fulfilling logic. But perhaps the biggest surprise in the report was the tacit admission that the tar sands oil isn’t going to be burned in the U.S. at all. Instead, it is destined for refining and export overseas.

The State Department report details how Gulf Coast oil refineries will use the tar sands crude oil delivered by Keystone to replace supplies from Venezuela and Mexico, refine the crude into high-end products like gasoline, and then export the refined fuel overseas. Meanwhile, as if to add insult to injury, fuel prices paid by U.S. consumers in the Midwest are expected to jump as the pipeline will siphon off crude oil supplies that are currently landlocked in America. The U.S. State Department did not, of course, highlight these findings at the top of its report but instead buried them down in the “market analysis” section, where it left a clear trail of breadcrumbs.

Interestingly, the State Department went way out of its way to argue that the pipeline won’t be used to export unprocessed crude oil. (Though the industry clearly expects otherwise: see here.) Yet at the same time, the State Department admits, using painstakingly disconnected phrasing, that the crude oil delivered by the pipeline will be processed by Gulf coast refineries and then exported, in a shell game whereby export refineries replace declining crude oil supplies from Venezuela and Mexico with Keystone Canadian tar sands oil.

Regarding the pipeline’s impact on the export of refined crude, the State Department report says: “…future refined product export trends are also unlikely to be significantly impacted by the proposed Project.”

And what exactly are those trends? The State Department reports that: “In 2005, exports began increasing… Export volumes have increased to over [3 million barrels of oil per day] in the first half of 2012. This increased volume of refined products is being exported by refiners as they respond to lower domestic gasoline demand and continued higher demand and prices in overseas markets.”

And why use the extra dirty crude oil to be delivered by the Keystone Pipeline? The State Department says: “Gulf Coast refiners’ traditional sources of heavy crudes, particularly Mexico and Venezuela, are declining and are expected to continue to decline. This results in an outlook where the refiners have significant incentive to obtain heavy crude from the oil sands.”

And there you have it, a shell game, with Keystone as the lynchpin for the whole effort. Gas prices go up for Midwesterners, big oil refineries profit from the overseas export of fuel processed from dirty tar sands oil, and the rest of us are that much further in the hole in our fight to stop climate change. The environmental impact statement appears to be a clear signal that the Obama Administration is headed down the road to approval. However, the growing backlash against the pipeline creates a headache for the president who just made a very public commitment to protect the climate. A fight is clearly in the works.

– Hunter Cutting is a consultant and writer.

Washington, D.C. is abuzz with the news that a new storm is sweeping down towards the mid-Atlantic seaboard, already dubbed “snowquester” (or “snowquestration” if you’re a grammar stickler) in honor of the nation’s latest budget debacle.

There’s a 50 percent chance the snowquester will dump over 5 inches of snow within the Beltway, and a 20 to 25 percent chance it will immobilize the city entirely. Given Washington, D.C.’s meager snowfall in recent winters, the snowquester’s impending arrival is understandably grabbing everyone’s attention.

It’s a “teachable moment” for diving into how Washington, D.C.’s weather specifically fits what we know about climate change.

One paradox that’s emerged from climate science in recent years is the “less snow, but worse blizzards” pattern. The Associated Press recently summed up the logic behind this: “A warmer world is likely to decrease the overall amount of snow falling each year and shrink the snow season. But when it is cold enough for a snowstorm to hit, the slightly warmer air is often carrying more moisture, producing potentially historic blizzards.”

Global warming is bringing us closer to the sweet spot where moisture in the air is maximized while temperatures remain low enough to cause snow. And recent studies have confirmed that snowfalls over the last 100 years in the United States, as well as those projected for the next 100, fit this pattern.

Jason Samenow over at the Washington Post decided to dig into whether D.C.’s weather specifically has lined up with the “less snow, more blizzards” pattern. Sure enough, it does:

In the 30 winters since 1984 (including this year, assuming we don’t miraculously get 14 inches of snow in the coming weeks), only 5 winters have had above average snowfall in D.C. – compared to 25 winters with average to below average amounts (15.4 inches or less). In 4 of the 5 winters with above average snowfall, the total was 2 to more than 3 times normal – or 30.1 to 56.1 inches (in 1987, 1996, 2003, and 2010). Or, put another away, the 25 snow-deprived winters averaged 9 inches of snow, the 5 snowy winters averaged 40 inches.

At the same time, D.C. has not seen accumulating snow in November for the last 16 years, the longest stretch on record. And the 30-year average for snowfall has dropped from 24 inches in 1918, to 18 inches in 1984, to 14 to 15 inches this year.

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New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has a new piece out today on a report that investigates the web of interconnections between climate change and global insecurity, particularly in the Arab Spring.

“The Arab Spring and Climate Change” is a product of cooperative efforts between the Center for American Progress (CAP), the Stimson Center, and the Center for Climate and Security. The report “doesn’t claim that climate change caused the recent wave of Arab revolutions,” Friedman writes. “But, taken together, the essays make a strong case that the interplay between climate change, food prices (particularly wheat) and politics is a hidden stressor that helped to fuel the revolutions and will continue to make consolidating them into stable democracies much more difficult.”

Anne-Marie Slaughter, one of the report’s lead authors, used the preface of the report to lay out the idea of a “stressor” as a useful framework for thinking about these issues. Borrowed from criminal science concepts, a stressor is a “sudden change in circumstances or environment” that interacts with a complicated web of other factors (often a psychological profile, in criminal science’s case) to create sudden, unforeseen, and volatile change. In this instance, climate shifts such as drought our heat waves act as stressors on everything from crop production to food security, water security, the migration of peoples, the stability of governmental and non-governmental networks, and the informal associations and interactions of both local and more widespread communities.

As Friedman points out, these forces can layer on top of one another in ways that make the world more insecure — instigating, shifting, or intensifying geopolitical events such as the recent uprisings in the Arab world:

[T]this collection of essays opens with the Oxford University geographer Troy Sternberg, who demonstrates how in 2010-11, in tandem with the Arab awakenings, “a once-in-a-century winter drought in China” — combined, at the same time, with record-breaking heat waves or floods in other key wheat-growing countries (Ukraine, Russia, Canada and Australia) — “contributed to global wheat shortages and skyrocketing bread prices” in wheat-importing states, most of which are in the Arab world.

Only a small fraction — 6 percent to 18 percent — of annual global wheat production is traded across borders, explained Sternberg, “so any decrease in world supply contributes to a sharp rise in wheat prices and has a serious economic impact in countries such as Egypt, the largest wheat importer in the world.”

The numbers tell the story: “Bread provides one-third of the caloric intake in Egypt, a country where 38 percent of income is spent on food,” notes Sternberg. “The doubling of global wheat prices — from $157/metric ton in June 2010 to $326/metric ton in February 2011 — thus significantly impacted the country’s food supply and availability.” Global food prices peaked at an all-time high in March 2011, shortly after President Hosni Mubarak was toppled in Egypt.

As Friedman notes, the top nine global wheat importers are Middle Eastern countries, leaving them especially vulnerable to price or supply shocks brought on by climate change. And that vulnerability lines up with the potential for destabilization: in 2011, seven of those nine countries suffered political protests that killed civillians. Moreover, households in those countries spend over 35 percent of their incomes on food on average, versus less than 10 percent in developed countries. “Everything is linked,” Friedman says. “Chinese drought and Russian bushfires produced wheat shortages leading to higher bread prices fueling protests in Tahrir Square. Sternberg calls it the globalization of ‘hazard’”:

In 2009, [the study's co-editors] noted, the U.N. and other international agencies reported that more than 800,000 Syrians lost their entire livelihoods as a result of the great drought, which led to “a massive exodus of farmers, herders, and agriculturally dependent rural families from the Syrian countryside to the cities,” fueling unrest. The future does not look much brighter. “On a scale of wetness conditions,” Femia and Werrell note, “‘where a reading of -4 or below is considered extreme drought,’ a 2010 report by the National Center for Atmospheric Research shows that Syria and its neighbors face projected readings of -8 to -15 as a result of climatic changes in the next 25 years.” Similar trends, they note, are true for Libya, whose “primary source of water is a finite cache of fossilized groundwater, which already has been severely stressed while coastal aquifers have been progressively invaded by seawater.”

As ThinkProgress’ Hayes Brown reported, Friedman and Slaughter recently sat down with Michael Werz in front of a packed house at CAP to discuss the implications of the report:

Friedman implored the audience to think of the Middle East not by the current national borders, but instead envisioning as overlaid maps of culture and climate to understand the region. Slaughter took the concept a step further, adding in maps of political networks — government, corporate, NGOs, and others — and seeing where the larger “nodes” in those networks exist. Tracing where those nodes intersect, Slaughter said, shows where policy can be made.

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President Obama nominated MIT physicist Ernest Moniz as Secretary of Energy to replace outgoing Steven Chu. In his announcement, Obama called Moniz a “brilliant scientist” who “knows that we can produce more energy and grow our economy while still taking care of our air, our water, and our climate.”

Here is where the nominee stands on the most important energy issues:

Climate Change and a Price On Carbon: According to the Washington Post, Moniz is “alarmed about climate change and devoted to funding scientific research into low-carbon alternatives to fossil fuel.” In a video interview, Moniz said, “What I believe is if we squeeze down on carbon, we squeeze up on cost, and it brings along a push toward efficiency; it brings along with it a push toward clean technology; it brings along with it a push toward security,” he said. A 2011 MIT gas study calls for greenhouse pollution reductions greater than 50 percent.

Energy Efficiency: A sign the DOE will continue to prioritize energy efficiency is Moniz’s own words on the topic. “The most important thing is lowering your use of energy in ways that actually save you money,’ he said. ‘It sounds trivial, but putting out lights really does matter.”

Solar Energy: He describes himself as “bullish” on solar energy. According to Solar Freedom Now, “He ‘gets’ the practical realities of solar R&D,” and has advised a number of solar finance and technology companies.

Nuclear Energy: Moniz has been embraced by the Nuclear Energy Institute, a lobbying group, for his long-time support of the industry. In 2011, he wrote that it would be a “mistake” to allow Japan’s nuclear disaster to “cause governments to abandon nuclear power and its benefits” due to his belief that nuclear power can be a partial solution to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions in the long-term.

Natural Gas: Moniz wrote that “natural gas truly is a bridge to a low-carbon future” in an academic report. He favors its use as “bridge” to transition to renewables: “For the next several decades, however, natural gas will play a crucial role in enabling very substantial reductions in carbon emissions.” But Moniz also warned that natural gas could slow the growth in clean energy.

Fracking: The Energy Department would have no jurisdiction over fracking policy even though Moniz supports the controversial drilling technique. Moniz has been criticized for a pro-fracking MIT report bankrolled by oil and gas companies. However, the MIT study also supports mandatory disclosure of fracking chemicals.

Some groups, such as Public Citizen and Food & Water Watch, have criticized Moniz over his support for natural gas and hydrofracking, since neither are particularly good for the environment or climate. According to The Hill, none of the largest environmental organizations opposes his nomination. The Sierra Club expressed hesitancy that “an ‘all-of-the-above’ energy policy only means more of the same.”

Following Obama’s announcement, Natural Resources Defense Council released a statement of support that said, “Professor Moniz has the hands-on experience and the expertise needed to help further the climate and energy goals our country urgently needs. His background, coupled with his long history of constructive engagement with, and at, the Energy Department, will serve the American people well.” Republicans like Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AL) also back Moniz’s nomination, calling him someone “we could work with.”

ThinkProgress War Room Senior Climate/Energy Researcher Tiffany Germain contributed research to this post.

By Tiffany Germain and Matt Kasper

As the Heartland Institute and the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, continue to target states’ renewable energy standard (RES) with their model legislation — the Electricity Freedom Act — conservative lawmakers are using other unethical tactics to weaken or repeal standards.

Currently, at least five states — Connecticut, Missouri, Montana, Oregon, and Washington — have introduced legislation that would include hydropower as part of the calculation utility companies use to comply with state RES standards. Many laws already allow small hydropower facilities to be counted. But alterations allowing the inclusion of larger or already existing hydropower generating facilities essentially lowers a state’s renewable energy target — allowing utility companies to avoid investing in new wind or solar facilities, or having to buy renewable energy credits from other companies with those facilities.

Including hydropower in renewable energy standards should not be detrimental to new renewable energy projects. When produced responsibly, hydropower benefits local communities by creating jobs and is an essential part of the solution to climate change. In fact, it is the leading renewable energy source used by utilities in the United States.

However, conservative state lawmakers are not interested in developing hydropower. Their goal is only to repeal the state renewable energy standards by any means necessary. If lawmakers were truly concerned about increasing hydropower in their state, then they should add hydropower as an eligible technology and increase the percentage of the renewable energy standard by the comparable amount.

Yet bills like SB 31 in Montana, sponsored by state senator Debby Barrett, would wipe the renewable energy standard out entirely by including existing hydropower facilities. According to the Independent Record, Montana has seen more than $1.6 billion of capital investment in renewable energy, the creation of 1,500 high-paying construction jobs, 100 permanent jobs, and 650 megawatts of newly installed renewable energy since the creation of their RES. This legislation passed the state Senate 32-18 on January 31, and has been transferred to the Republican controlled House where it is expected to pass. A similar bill was vetoed last year by former Governor Schweitzer. It is unclear if current Democratic Governor Steve Bullock would do the same.

The purpose of renewable energy standards is to encourage new renewable energy development in states. Washington state lawmakers understood that when the Energy Independence Act was passed in 2006, establishing a 15 percent standard by 2020. Since the state already receives the bulk of its power from hydroelectricity — currently 66 percent of total generation — the law sought to diversify Washington’s energy portfolio. SB 5431 not only weakens the standard, but also harms the businesses that made investments in renewable energy projects, believing the law would provide reassurance for investing.

In fact, capital investments to date in Washington’s wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass exceeded $7.9 billion, according to data released this month by the Renewable Northwest Project. With stable policies in place, the renewable energy industry can continue to develop and create local manufacturing jobs. But if policies such as state renewable energy standards are weakened or repealed, then the future of renewable industry businesses and capital investments in the state are at risk.

Business leaders throughout the nation have come out in support of renewable energy standards. Julie Gorte, Senior Vice President for Sustainable Investing at Pax World Investments, wrote in the Denver Post:

In every sector, investors and businesses look for policies that are long-term, that provide a strong signal to invest and that don’t generate uncertainty by changing frequently. In other words, investors prefer policies that are long, loud and clear… Other groups are trying to paint renewable energy policies as anti-business. Our firm manages more than $2 billion in assets, and that’s not what I hear from executives at the companies we invest in. Instead, they are finding opportunities in renewable energy, not burdens.

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By Bill Becker

The conventional wisdom in Washington, DC is that President Obama has 180 days to move his agenda before the 2014 mid-term elections begin to freeze the public policy process. That means if we don’t see action on climate issues right now, we never will.

Baloney.

The Constitution establishes each presidential term at four years, not six months. Nowhere did the Founders write that when the congressional election cycle begins, the President must shift gears from the world’s most powerful leader to a mere custodian of the federal bureaucracy.

Besides, these days, members of Congress and political parties are in election mode 100 percent of the time. And with a few exceptions, Republicans in Congress were not, and still are not, inclined to act on the President’s agenda.

That won’t change as the 180 day deadline ticks closer.

The fact is, conventional belief about a 12.5 percent presidential term is contradicted by another piece of Washington wisdom: If anything is to get done on big issues such as global climate disruption, the President will have to do it himself with his executive authorities.

That conventional wisdom is correct. A fictional deadline won’t get Congress moving on climate action.

Four more years is precious little time for the Obama Administration to address the big and persistent issues on which we’ve reached the 11th hour, including America’s transition to clean energy and away from climate disruption. President Obama will need every day of his second term to tackle issues like those, and the conventional wisdom should expect no less.

-– William Becker is executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project.

On Monday, President Obama is expected to nominate Gina McCarthy to replace outgoing Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson.

Widely known as Obama’s “green quarterback,” McCarthy has helped shape landmark mercury and air toxics standards, along with greenhouse gas regulations, as the current head of the Office of Air and Radiation. In addition to serving at the EPA, she also worked under two Republican governors, including Mitt Romney. McCarthy helped implement strict standards slashing carbon and mercury pollution from the state’s “filthy five” coal-fired power plants when she served in Massachusetts.

Over her two-decade career, McCarthy has drawn unusual praise from Republican and energy industry admirers — a tough feat at an agency that is often the polluters and their allies’ favorite target.

1. GOP Connecticut Governor Rell:
Rell appointed McCarthy to lead Connecticut’s Department of Environmental Protection. ‘I have said all along that Connecticut’s next DEP commissioner must be a person of unquestioned vision, leadership and commitment to the environment,’ Rell said in a statement. ‘Gina has an outstanding record of accomplishment on key environmental issues.’”

2. Senator James Inhofe (R-OK):
Inhofe supported a temporary hold on her confirmation in 2009. Even so, he eventually embraced her confirmation (granted, the climate denier Senator hoped the EPA would chart a different, more polluter-friendly course). “I supported Regina McCarthy’s nomination today because I think she possesses the knowledge, experience, and temperament to oversee a very important office at EPA,” Inhofe said in a statement.

3. House Environment and the Economy Subcommittee Chairman John Shimkus (R-IL): Shimkus is a sharp critic of the EPA, but praised how the air chief navigated the EPA’s cross-state air pollution rule. “She was helpful in allowing that project,” Shimkus told E&E News. “It showed me, personally, some willingness to understand capital investment and assumption of risk.”

4. Former Senator George Voinovich (R-OH):
During McCarthy’s first confirmation hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Senator Voinovich of Ohio said, “Ms. McCarthy brings over twenty years of experience as an environmental regulator at the local and state level. I know those experiences are going to serve her well in the new capacity. I’m comforted by the fact that you have state experience and as a result of that I think we’ll have a better understanding of how…what the implications are…of the decisions you are going to be making on ordinary folks out in the states.”

5. Reagan EPA Official And Steel Industry Representative:
“‘At EPA, as a regulator, you’re always asking people to do things they don’t want to do,” said Charles Warren, a top EPA official in the Reagan administration who now represents industries, such as steel companies. “But Gina’s made an effort to reach out to industries while they’re developing regulations. She has a good reputation.”
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The favored Republican candidate for the Virginia governor’s race is state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a bluntly partisan firebrand who has become nationally known for his crusade against the science of climate change. [National Journal]

He launched a two-year investigation of University of Virginia climate scientist Michael Mann — which the Virginia Supreme Court eventually shut down. He has sued to block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating the fossil-fuel pollution that causes global warming. In his new book, The Last Line of Defense: The New Fight for American Liberty, Cuccinelli ramped up his attack on EPA’s climate rules, warning that they’ll slow the U.S. economy and force Americans to live in a future of brownouts and endless gas-station lines.

His likely opponent, former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, is planning to attack Cuccinelli for his hard-right views on climate change as part of a broader effort to paint the Republican as an extremist on a range of hot-button issues, including abortion, gay rights, and immigration, the McAuliffe campaign says.

But Cuccinelli’s climate crusade, in particular, will resonate with his party’s base nationally as well as with conservative Virginians. The race is kicking into gear just as President Obama declared, in his State of the Union and inaugural speeches, that he plans to aggressively fight climate change — a cause the president sees as a legacy issue. And Obama’s climate agenda is almost certain to lead to more of the EPA regulations that Cuccinelli has warred against.

The latest column by Thomas Friedman lays out the ways climate change can act as destabilizing stressor on geopolitics, especially through its effect on food prices. [NYTimes]

A new effort is underway to measure methane leakage along the United States’ supply chain of natural gas, in order to determine the full extent of the industry’s effect on climate change. [WaPo]

While the latest snowstorms to hit Kansas have been an inconvenience, they’ve also brought the area much-needed precipitation. However, without further rainfall, the drought that has plagued the state will continue. [Topeka Capital-Journal]

In a rare instance of cooperation, Russia and the United States have now joined forces to push for greater protection for the polar bears under a global treaty on endangered species, which is being reviewed this week at a conference in Bangkok. [NYTimes]

According to Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, the three summer months that ended in February were the hottest season ever recorded in the country, leading Australia’s Climate Commission to label it the “Angry Summer” in a new report. [The Telegraph]

China’s potential carbon tax may spur U.S. lawmakers “to more seriously consider what the appropriate U.S. actions should be on market-based climate policies,” according to a trader representative. [Bloomberg]

Flooding in the country of Wales last year is the likely reason a new national survey found that concern about climate change amongst the Welsh population is greater than it was two years ago. [Wales Online]