The Wonk Room has previously explained how the push for oil shale is like drilling for a trillion tons of tater tots. At the Global Clinton Initiative on Wednesday, Gore offered a stark criticism of the House of Representatives vote to eliminate the moratorium on oil shale development in the continuing resolution for the 2009 budget:

Now, one final point. Today, today, the US Congress is dealing with energy. They are without debate and without a single hearing preparing to lift the moratorium on the development of oil shale, which would vastly multiply the amount of CO2 from every gallon of gasoline.

This is utter insanity.

And it demonstrates the wealth and power of the entrenched carbon lobby to twist policy and to put out illusory impressions about this, is overwhelming free debate. So, we need to stop this. You know, each year, we have a great discussion here, and there’s progress made. But it’s not enough. It’s not enough.

We, the human species, have to solve this crisis.

Watch it:

Yesterday, Sen. Reid (D-NV) and Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) unveiled an economic stimulus bill (S. 3604) which would continue the oil shale moratorium, includes $500 million to support weatherization of low-income homes, $7.5 billion for loans to auto companies to manufacture advanced, more energy-efficient vehicles, $2 billion for public transit, $350 million for Amtrak, $300 million for advanced battery research, $300 million to help local governments improve energy efficiency, $750 million for environmental clean up, and $800 million for urban and rural clean water systems.

The Center for American Progress Action Fund supports the passage of this green economic recovery plan, which is coming up for a vote right now.

UPDATE: The bill was filibustered 52-42. Senators Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Evan Bayh (D-IN) joined forty Republicans to vote against the bill. Sens. Biden (D-DE), Graham (R-SC), Kennedy (D-MA), McCain (R-AZ), Obama (D-IL), and Stevens (R-AK) did not vote.

UPDATE II: Eric Kleiman, Bayh spokesman, explains Bayh’s vote against the stimulus bill:

The package included billions of dollars in deficit-financed spending of questionable stimulative value, including $925 million for a U.S. polar icebreaker and $250 million for the next generation NASA spacecraft.

Iceland has long been touted as a hydrogen economy pioneer. So it is quite shocking that electric vehicles — both plug-in hybrids and pure battery electric cars — crowded out hydrogen at a recent Reykjav­k conference.

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[Climate Progress has covered the Pickens Plan many times since Memo to T. Boone Pickens: Your energy plan is half-brilliant, half-dumb. Here Earl Killian makes a strong analytical case that the "half-dumb" part of the plan is in fact a wasteful, wildly impractical -- if not outright absurd -- distraction.]

Thomas Boone Pickens is a billionaire who made his money in oil and corporate takeovers. He began investing in natural gas in 1997, and in wind power in 2007. In 2008, he went public with the Pickens Plan via a website and a well funded advertising campaign. Here we analyze the Pickens Plan, as presented here, which begins by correctly observing:

America is addicted to foreign oil. It’s an addiction that threatens our economy, our environment and our national security.

The Pickens Plan as presented consists of two parts:

1. Take the natural gas that we currently use to generate electricity in the U.S., and use it to fuel transportation instead, and
2. Build wind power to produce the electricity lost in step 1.

The Plan As Presented — CNG vs. Electricity

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The Global Carbon Project released its “Carbon Budget 2007” [big PDF] today. The report shows a continuation of the grossly unsustainable growth rate in CO2 emissions since 2000, which is nearly four times the growth rate of the 1990s:

As reported by AP:

… it was large increases in China, India and other developing countries that spurred the growth of carbon dioxide pollution [3%] to a record high of 9.34 billion tons of carbon (8.47 billion metric tons)….

Scientists were surprised and dismayed because the increase “exceeds the most dire outlook for emissions from burning coal and oil and related activities” projected by the IPCC and because the increase occurred despite rising fossil fuel prices:

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Vice President Al Gore, speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative yesterday, called on young people to “prevent the construction of new coal plants” through civil disobedience, repeating a call he made last year in an interview with Nick Kristof. At CGI, Gore said:

If you’re a young person, looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now and not done, I believe we’ve reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration.

Watch it:

The New York Times’s Paul Vitello claimed there was only “scattered applause,” despite the boisterous reaction from the crowd.

People, young and old, have been committing acts of civil disobedience against coal plants and mountaintop coal mining across the planet — including England, North Carolina, Wise County and Carbo, Virginia, Tennessee, and West Virginia.

Bright Green Blog‘s Eoin O’Carroll responds:

Leaving aside whether breaking the law is ever justified, it seems odd that Gore doesn’t seem to include himself in the category of the “young people” he thinks should risk jail to halt global warming. After all, at age 71, Ghandi was arrested and served two years in prison. The US labor organizer Mother Jones was still facing charges of sedition in her 80s. Even TV president Martin Sheen, who is eight years older than Gore, managed to get himself arrested at an antinuclear action in Nevada last year, for what he says is the 65th time.

Climate Progress’s Joe Romm argues, “there is something young people can do that is vastly more important right now — and that is to get politically involved immediately.”

If you are in DC, don’t miss Friday’s American Meteorological Society seminar. For those who can’t attend, a video is usually put online days later (I’ll post it should that happen). Here is a program summary and the bios of the very impressive speaker list:

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UPDATE: At Energy Smart, A Siegel responds to McCain’s discussion of the “disastrous” threat of global warming; and Washington Monthly‘s Steven Benen and the Seminal‘s Josh Nelson are “a little fuzzy” on what it means to “suspend” one’s presidential campaign.

Here is the full text of Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) speech being offered this morning at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, NY. Yesterday, McCain announced he was suspending all campaign activities.

Thank you, Mr. President. It’s always good to see you, and I appreciate your hospitality to me and Governor Sarah Palin.

Let me also congratulate you, Mr. President, on the great work of the Clinton Global Initiative. It says a lot about a man that after 12 years as a governor, and another eight years at the Resolute desk, he is still working hard in service to others. Bill Clinton is a man who has achieved enough in public service, by any measure except his own. This man’s drive, and determination, and compassion for those in need are still a force for good in the world, and I am proud to call him a friend.

Your kind invitation brought me here to discuss some of the great concerns of the Clinton Global Initiative, and especially climate change, extreme poverty, and epidemic diseases. But I know you will understand if I begin by addressing a crisis of our own right here in America — a crisis that began not far from here in the financial district of this city.

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Reuters reports:

“If you’re a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration,” Gore told the Clinton Global Initiative gathering to loud applause.

I’m a big fan of the Veep, but there is something young people can do that is vastly more important right now — and that is to get politically involved immediately. If you are too young to vote, you can still knock on doors.

Yes, the CGI is nominally nonpolitical. Fine, don’t mention which candidate is most committed to solving the problem. Everybody already knows — well, almost everybody (see “Clinton Global Initiative jumps the shark, invites McCain to keynote on Energy Solutions“). Okay, so Gore will have to spell out exactly who in another speech. Fine.

I am all for civil disobedience. But this isn’t the civil rights movement or the struggle for India’s independence, where you are appealing to a general populace that will be impressed by the nonviolence of a mass of marchers and shocked by the response of a brutal establishment. Thus, the scale and nature of the problem makes civil disobedience at best a weak solution to the climate crisis — with one possible exception.

Civil rights had Dr. King and India had Gandhi to create a mass movement. If Gore really believes that civil disobedience is an important strategy — then he needs to lead the effort and go chain himself to some fences and sit in front of some bulldozers with thousands of others. If he won’t, then this is all just talk. Gandhi and King certainly never sat around with a bunch of world leaders in a big, fancy hotel and urged others to do that which they were not prepared to do any time or any place, over and over again, until the cause was won.

Gore made some other interesting statements, including a reference to Martin Luthor King. It’s Getting Hot in Here live blogged Gore’s CGI session with Bill Clinton:

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John McCain issued a remarkable statement earlier today in response to reports that runaway climate change may have begun:

America this week faces an historic crisis in our climate system. We must pass legislation to address this crisis. If we do not, the Southwest will dry up, with devastating consequences for our economy. If we do not act, every corner of our country will be impacted. We cannot allow this to happen.

Last spring, I laid out my proposal and I have since discussed my priorities and concerns. Senator Obama has expressed his priorities and concerns. This morning, I met with a group of advisers to talk about the steps that we should take going forward. I have also spoken with members of Congress to hear their perspective.

It has become clear that we are running out of time.

Tomorrow morning, I will suspend my campaign and return to Washington after speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative. I have spoken to Senator Obama and informed him of my decision and have asked him to join me.

I am calling on the President to convene a meeting with the leadership from both houses of Congress, including Senator Obama and myself. It is time for both parties to come together to solve this problem.

We must meet as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans, and we must meet until this crisis is resolved. I am directing my campaign to work with the Obama campaign and the commission on presidential debates to delay Friday night’s debate until we have taken action to address this crisis.

I am confident that before Monday we can achieve consensus on legislation that will stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations, protect taxpayers and homeowners, and earn the confidence of the American people. All we must do to achieve this is temporarily set politics aside, and I am committed to doing so.

Following September 11th, our national leaders came together at a time of crisis. We must show that kind of patriotism now. Americans across our country lament the fact that partisan divisions in Washington have prevented us from addressing our national challenges. Now is our chance to come together to prove that Washington is once again capable of leading this country.

A blogger can dream, no? I will say that I didn’t have to change very many words from his actual remarks today.

Related Posts:

• Is the financial crisis more dire than the climate crisis?
• Turns out McCain doesn’t care about global warming, the greatest threat we face
• Is 450 ppm politically possible? Part 6: What the Boxer-Lieberman-Warner bill debate tells us

The UK’s Met Office issued a blunt statement yesterday, “Global warming goes on,” that begins:

Anyone who thinks global warming has stopped has their head in the sand. The evidence is clear — the long-term trend in global temperatures is rising, and humans are largely responsible for this rise. Global warming does not mean that each year will be warmer than the last, natural phenomena will mean that some years will be much warmer and others cooler. You only need to look at 1998 to see a record-breaking warm year caused by a very strong El Ni±o. In the last couple of years, the underlying warming is partially masked caused by a strong La Ni±a. Despite this, 11 of the last 13 years are the warmest ever recorded.

Strong stuff from the UK’s official provider of climate and weather-related analysis, which is actually within the UK’s Ministry of Defence. The UK’s Guardian reported the story as “Met Office says climate change deniers deluded.”

The Met Office has put together an interesting figure to show that global warming has continued at a pace of 0.17°C per decade since 1975 (red line), although the decadal trends (blue lines) have fluctuated wildly.

As the Met Office explains:

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I have not been blogging on the new tax credit package, since it’s hard to justify getting people’s hopes up over this given how badly the enviros and the Dems messed up on coastal drilling.

But the Senate has passed out a (flawed) tax bill, and now it is in the hands of the House Dems, who have yanked out some of the dirtiest incentives. Here is today E&E Daily piece, which describes the state of play:

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I have a new article in Salon on Sarah Palin, “The fungible candidate.” But it is really about the (lack of) judgment of John McCain. He famously said of his VP pick, “She knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America.”

As we’ll see Palin lacks both breadth and depth of knowledge on the subject.

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The AP reports:

Democrats have decided to allow a quarter-century ban on drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to expire next week, conceding defeat in an month-long battle with the White House and Republicans set off by $4 a gallon gasoline prices this summer.

Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., told reporters Tuesday that a provision continuing the moratorium will be dropped this year from a stopgap spending bill to keep the government running after Congress recesses for the election….

Democrats had clung to the hope of only a partial repeal of the drilling moratorium, but the White House had promised a veto, Obey said.

Amazing, really. Would Bush have shut down the government before the bailout bill was passed — assuming the Democrats had been smart enough to do the stopgap spending bill (with limits on drilling plus a renewable tax credit extenstion) first?

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The UK’s Independent reported today some pretty shocking news in “Exclusive: The methane time bomb“:

The first evidence that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed has been discovered by scientists.

The Independent has been passed details of preliminary findings suggesting that massive deposits of sub-sea methane are bubbling to the surface as the Arctic region becomes warmer and its ice retreats.

Assuming these findings are published in a peer-reviewed publication, as is planned, they should be taken quite seriously for four reasons. First, many fear that a huge methane release is what happened during the Permian-Triassic extinction event and the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. Second, releasing even a small fraction of the sub-sea methane would make a stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions at non-catastrophic concentrations all but impossible.

Third, as NOAA reported earlier this year, levels of methane rose sharply last year for the first time since 1998:

Fourth, the findings are apparently based on very new and credible in situ measurements:

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In 2006 the California legislature passed AB32, which required greenhouse pollution to return to 1990 levels by 2020. They left it up to state regulatory agencies to come up with the details.

Governor Schwarzenegger followed with an executive order that requires an 80% reduction from 1990 levels in greenhouse pollution by 2050 (at which time California’s is expected to be twice the 1990 population, so this represents a factor of ten per capita reduction in greenhouse pollution.)

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has been working to meet various statutory deadlines for the reduction plan. Its proposed plan will be released next month (October). As part of the process, it has made estimates of the economic costs and benefits of its plans, and it released those estimates last week:

These estimates indicated that the overall savings from improved efficiency and developing alternatives to petroleum will, on the whole, outweigh the costs. This balance is largely driven by current high energy costs and the degree to which measures increase energy efficiency throughout the economy and move California toward ultimately cheaper alternatives to fossil fuels.

The measures pay for themselves — not even counting the benefit of helping to avoid catastrophic climate impacts. The executive summary lists the key elements of CARB’s preliminary recommendation for the 2020 target:

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Last week, the Wonk Room reported that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) joined Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) in opposing mountaintop removal, an ecologically and economically disastrous form of coal mining that has devastated Appalachia. This position, expressed at a Florida townhall meeting, caught his campaign and his supporters off guard, with Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) responding that “such a stance could hurt McCain in West Virginia.”

At the same meeting, McCain also criticized the idea of building new coal plants that do not sequester their greenhouse gas emissions. He said:

We’re going to build new plants that generate energy, my friends, we’re going to build them. We’ve got to. There’s an increased demand for it. And it seems to me, it’s going to be coal, which I believe will increase greenhouse gas emissions dramatically, or it’s going to be nuclear, or it’s going to be clean coal technology.

Watch it:

Carbon capture and sequestration (sometimes described as “clean coal” technology) is still a developmental technology. Does McCain’s careful separation of coal plants that “increase greenhouse gas emissions dramatically” from “clean coal technology” mean that McCain opposes the construction of new traditional coal plants?

If so, McCain is joining activist organizations like 1Sky, the Energy Action Coalition, and the League of Women Voters, who have all called for a moratorium on new coal plants to prevent climate catastrophe.

Today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) criticized Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) for comments criticizing coal’s health threats, noting that Biden “here in Ohio recently said that they weren’t supporting clean coal either.” The comments, first reported by the Wonk Room, were picked up today by the Politico’s Ben Smith and then promoted on the Drudge Report. Sen. McCain’s blogger, Michael Goldfarb, copied the Wonk Room transcript without attribution.

Following McCain’s remarks, McCain representative George “Macaca” Allen (R-VA) spoke with reporters about coal. Allen confused traditional coal plants, advanced “clean coal” technology, and climate-killing liquid coal. In the twenty-minute call, neither Allen, Capito, Scott McInnis (R-CO) — a registered lobbyist for the mining industry — nor the other speakers mentioned any of the following:

– Global warming, which McCain considers a central priority.

– The health effects of coal pollution.

– Mountaintop removal mining, which McCain says he opposes.

Unlike his campaign, McCain seems to have no difficulty recognizing the threat traditional coal plants pose to the planet and thus to our national security and economic future.

UPDATE: The McCain-Palin campaign has announced the “Coalition to Protect Coal Jobs:”

The coalition will help spread the message about the importance of clean coal technology and the advantages of tapping the country’s vast coal reserves. As part of John McCain’s “all of the above” energy plan, the Lexington Project, clean coal will be a strong component of the drive to energy independence. In addition to providing domestic energy, the coal industry is a key part of the economy in several states.

The Obama-Biden campaign later announced the “Clean Coal Jobs Task Force”:

Today, the Obama-Biden campaign announced a Clean Coal Jobs Task Force, aimed at furthering Senator Obama and Senator Biden’s commitment to creating jobs and energy independence through clean coal. The Task Force is made up of members representing workers from key coal-producing states and will work to promote the Obama-Biden agenda to invest in advanced coal-based technologies, create more jobs in the coal sector and enhance mine safety.

If you follow peak oil — and if you don’t, you will be bitchslapped by reality — then you know of Matt Simmons. I was introduced to him several years ago by my former boss at the Energy Department. Back then Simmons was merely one of the savviest financier in the oil services business, who was presciently warning all who would listen that natural gas supplies in this country would not respond quickly to increased prices and thus we should expect some serious price spikes.

Today he is “The prophet of $500 oil” as Fortune described him Monday. Yet, long before he published his 2005 book, Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, he was a “lifelong Republican” who “helped edit the Bush campaign’s comprehensive energy plan in the 2000 election.” The word “comprehensive” of course is a laughable term that I’m sure even Simmons would mock today for a plan that focused almost exclusively on supply.

Still, Simmons remains well connected to Republicans: “Maine’s Senator Susan Collins, a Republican who recently began consulting with Simmons on energy issues, says, “I think he’s issuing a clarion call that policymakers need to listen to.”

Simmons was right about natural gas, and he appears to be (mostly) right about peak oil (see below), so the nation should listen closely when he speaks truth to power about his party’s own nominee:

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Last summer, on the one-year anniversary of Climate Progress, I put together a list of the top 10 climate blogs. For the sake of objectivity, I used Technorati, which ranks all blogs by “authority” (the number of blogs linking to it). The lower the rank the better.

One of the blogs on that list, It’s Getting Hot In Here, has updated it (old ranks in parenthesis):

10. Climate Feedback (46,821 – #9) — “An informal forum for debate and commentary on climate science.”
9. A Few Things Ill Considered (35,362 - #2) — “A layman’s take on the science of Global Warming featuring a guide on How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic.”
8. SolveClimate.com (23,600 – NEW) – Daily Climate News and Opinion
7. Climate Ark (22,922 - #5) — “Climate Change and Global Warming Portal.”
6. Climate of Our Future (15,042 – #8) — “A discussion on climate change.”
5. It’s Getting Hot In Here (13,992 – #7) — “Dispatches from the youth climate movement.”
4. Celsias (8,394 – #3) — “Cooling the planet one project at a time.”
3. DeSmogBlog (6,671 – #4) — “Clearing the PR pollution that clouds climate science.”
2. Climate Progress (4,359 – #6) — “An insider’s view of climate science, politics, and solutions.”

…and the reigning champ:
1. RealClimate (3,222 – #1) — “Climate science from climate scientists.”

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In a new video, Green Jobs Now compares Newt Gingrich’s “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” propaganda to the Green Jobs Now green recovery agenda. Newt fares poorly. Watch it:

The Green Jobs Now Day of Action is this Saturday, September 27. Thousands of Americans will be calling for investment in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and job training for people who are ready to get to work building a more just and sustainable economy.

Newt Gingrich’s “Solutions Day” is this Saturday, September 27. He’ll be calling for more drilling, privatizing health care and Social Security, and slashing corporate taxes.

Who will you join this weekend?

UPDATE: Adi at 1Sky reports: “We’re up to 558 events in all 50 states!” At SolveClimate, David Sassoon writes: “And the coalition now has a secret weapon: Patrick, and his caulk gun. Shock and Awe has met its match.”

Lobbying for his plan to sharply ramp up renewables, the billionaire oilman has been brought face to face with the Big Energy Lie — the absurd notion that either John McCain or the Republicans in Congress actually believe in an “all of the above” energy policy.

In my interview with Pickens last month, he was able to offer only the blandest reply to a question pointing out that Dems back renewables but the GOP doesn’t: “So let me ask you, how do we, how do we get Republicans to support that kind of investment in renewables.” See his rambling answer here “Pickens in a pickle: He embraces progressive policies but not progressive politicians.”

TP reports on a sadder but wiser (and far more cogent) Pickens at the National Press Club yesterday:

Q: You told the New York Times last month that you’d never vote for a Democrat. Are you finding that difficult in reaching out to Democrats then with your plan? [...]

PICKENS: So I am having no problem working with the Democrats. Having a little problem working with the Republicans. They don’t like it because I want to do more than just drill. And they, somehow have gotten it, a lot of them have, that you can drill your way out of this. But you can’t do it. There’s not enough oil there to do it.

I guess he missed the GOP convention, see “Drill baby, drill”: The moment the Republic died.

You can see the video of Pickens here:

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