Another Key Denier Tactic: Creation of “Front Groups”

by Donald A. Brown, reposted from the Penn State Climate Ethics Blog

I. Introduction.

This is the second entry in a series looking at the climate change disinformation campaign through an ethical lens. The first entry explained:

(1) Why ethics requires great care when considering, discussing, and debating uncertainties about climate change impacts.
(2) Why climate change must be understood as an ethical problem, a fact that additionally requires that scientific uncertainties about climate change be approached in a precautionary manner by those who wish to use scientific uncertainty as an excuse for putting others at risk.

(3) The consensus position on climate change science and why it is entitled to respect despite some scientific uncertainty about the timing and magnitude of climate change impacts and,.

(4) The need to acknowledge the important role of skepticism in science even if one is deeply critical of the tactics of the disinformation campaign.

As we stated in the first entry, climate skepticism should be encouraged rather than vilified provided that skeptics play by the rules of science including publishing in the peer-reviewed literature, not making claims unsupported by scientific evidence, and not engaging in tactics discussed in this series.

This entry first explains what is meant by the climate change disinformation campaign and then examines a number of specific tactics deployed by this phenomenon. These tactics are:

• Reckless Disregard For The Truth
• Focusing on Unknowns While Ignoring Knowns.
• Specious Claims Of “Bad” Science
• Creation of “Front Groups”

The third entry in this series will examine these additional tactics:

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Keystone XL protests in Texas included a mix of tea party supporters, independents, Democrats, Republicans and even Occupy Dallas protesters.

by Rocky Kistner, reposted from NRDC’s Switchboard

As Congressional Republicans and Big Oil allies allies in Washington try to resuscitate the massive Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, people on the frontlines have opened a new campaign to stop the massive $7 billion project. In Texas, landowners are locking arms to fight would-be pipeline builder TransCanada over eminent domain cases that may determine where the 1700-mile project will be built.

On Friday, protesters gathered in Paris, TX, and in Austin to voice their support for Lamar County farm manager Julia Trigg Crawford, who runs a 600-acre farms that grows corn, soybeans and wheat along the Red River near Paris, TX. More than 50 protesters traveled from nearby counties to wave flags and signs on the Lamar County courthouse steps, shouting slogans like “Don’t mess with Texas” and “This is what democracy looks like.”

Check out this video of the protest and interview with Julia Trigg Crawford:

The raucous protest included an unusual mix of tea party supporters, independents, Democrats, Republicans and even Occupy Dallas protesters. They were all there to support Crawford’s eminent domain court fight with TransCanada, which wants to run the Keystone XL pipeline through her property.

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Urgent economic need is driving a transformation of Tonga’s energy system

by Zachary Rybarczyk

Can you even imagine the United States setting a 50% target for renewable energy production by 2015?

Perhaps the U.S. could look toward the Kingdom of Tonga for some inspiration.

Tonga is one of many Pacific island nations that have set very ambitious renewable energy goals. Officials have set a goal of procuring 50% of power from renewable sources by 2015.  Ambitious? Absolutely. But the transition is a matter of economic necessity.

Launched in 2010, the Tongan government laid out its Tonga Energy Road Map (TERM) in order to reduce carbon emissions, improve its electrical grid, and cut its dependence from foreign energy sources. Because Tonga is so dependent on imported resources for its energy needs — particularly diesel, which is used for 98% of electricity production — renewable energy systems are attractive:

The Tongan economy and electricity consumers have been exposed to high and volatile electricity prices linked to oil prices over the last ten years. Between 2001 and 2004, the average price of crude oil increased from around US$25 per barrel to around US$40 per barrel, an increase of 60%. In the next 4 years to 2008, the average price of crude more than doubled to a peak of around US$100 per barrel. In late 2008, crude oil prices dropped and continued fall into early 2009 averaging around US$62 per barrel during 2009. Diesel prices tracked the price of crude oil and led to Tongan electricity rates exceeding TOP1.00/kW-h in late 2008. Crude oil price is expected to increase in the future based on projections from the United States Department of Energy.

During the oil price spike in 2008, Tonga’s economy screeched to a halt. And since then, with oil prices continuing to rise, many consumers are not able to afford electricity at all.

In order to combat this problem, the island state recently received support from different organizations to execute on the roadmap for 50% renewable electricity.

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The founder of Conservation Hawks, an organization of sportsmen dedicated to fighting climate change, will give up his gun if global warming is a hoax.

A Beretta Silver Pigeon 12 gauge shotgun

“If you can convince Conservation Hawks chairman Todd Tanner that he’s wasting his time, that he does not have to worry about climate change, he will present to you his most prized possession: A Beretta Silver Pigeon 12 gauge over/under that was a gift from his wife, and has been a faithful companion on many a Montana bird hunt,” Hal Herring writes at The Conservationist. “I know the gun, and I’ve hunted and fished with Todd for years. He’s not kidding. You convince him, he’ll give you the gun.”

Let’s say you are walking down a trail in the wilderness with your wife and kids, and you come upon a grizzly sow, standing on a carcass. She charges, flat out. You’re in front of your family. What do you do? Just give up? Pretend it’s not happening? Let her maul you and everything your care about? Of course you don’t. You take action. That is how I see climate change. It’s real, it’s threatening everything we love. Not taking action is not an option.

Tanner rebuffed the argument that action on global warming pollution just means a government takeover. “You want to talk about government intrusion, think about what it means if we don’t address this now while we have the time and resources,” he said. “We will lose the freedoms that we have because somebody—and it will be government—will be in an all out effort to try and address the effects. To try and address the effects of our neglect. We’ll face the worst thing of all—losing our freedom. And we’ll already have lost most of hunting and fishing. That’s how serious I believe this is.”

So those of you who deny the threat of global warming — Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, Rush Limbaugh, Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, David Koch—this [gun] could be yours if you can convince Tanner that there’s really just a scientific conspiracy to trick people that greenhouse pollution is dangerous.

Scientists Who Had Emails Stolen Ask Heartland Institute to End Assault on Climate Science

Heartland Institute documents revealed plans to dupe children and ruin their future, as Climate Progress reported earlier this week.

Now, seven leading climatologists victimized by the Climategate email theft in 2009 have published this letter in the Guardian:

An Open Letter to the Heartland Institute

As scientists who have had their emails stolen, posted online and grossly misrepresented, we can appreciate the difficulties the Heartland Institute is currently experiencing following the online posting of the organization’s internal documents earlier this week. However, we are greatly disappointed by their content, which indicates the organization is continuing its campaign to discredit mainstream climate science and to undermine the teaching of well-established climate science in the classroom.

We know what it feels like to have private information stolen and posted online via illegal hacking. It happened to climate researchers in 2009 and again in 2011. Personal emails were culled through and taken out of context before they were posted online. In 2009, the Heartland Institute was among the groups that spread false allegations about what these stolen emails said. Despite multiple independent investigations, which demonstrated that allegations against scientists were false, the Heartland Institute continued to attack scientists based on the stolen emails. When more stolen emails were posted online in 2011, the Heartland Institute again pointed to their release and spread false claims about scientists.

So although we can agree that stealing documents and posting them online is not an acceptable practice, we would be remiss if we did not point out that the Heartland Institute has had no qualms about utilizing and distorting emails stolen from scientists.

We hope the Heartland Institute will heed its own advice to “think about what has happened” and recognize how its attacks on science and scientists have helped poison the debate over climate change policy. The Heartland Institute has chosen to undermine public understanding of basic scientific facts and personally attack climate researchers rather than engage in a civil debate about climate change policy options.

These are the facts: Climate change is occurring. Human activity is the primary cause of recent climate change. Climate change is already disrupting many human and natural systems. The more heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions that go into the atmosphere, the more severe those disruptions will become. Major scientific assessments from the Royal Society, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, United States Global Change Research Program and other authoritative sources agree on these points.

Here’s the rest of the letter and the signatories:

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In its latest transportation bill, the House of Representatives gave a big valentine gift to Big Oil

by Jessica Goad, cross-posted from ThinkProgress Green

This week, the House of Representatives passed part of the behemoth transportation bill it is considering over the next month on a 237-187 vote.  This section consisted solely of earmarks to Big Oil including drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, opening Florida coasts to offshore drilling, a plan to develop oil shale (which isn’t even commercially viable), and building the Keystone XL pipeline.  A Congressional Budget Office analysis shows that the drilling proposals together generate only approximately $2 billion, far less than the $50 billion funding gap needed for transportation projects over the coming years.

Even if the drilling could pay for the costs, linking oil and gas development to long-term highway funding is just bad public policy, as Ryan Alexander of the nonpartisan group Taxpayers for Common Sense has explained:

Paying for a couple of years of transportation funding with expected revenues from an increase in oil and gas drilling that will likely take many years to get rolling is not a responsible budget approach… It’s like buying the Ferrari tomorrow because you are sure a raise is coming sometime in the future.”

Originally the transportation bill (H.R. 7, American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act of 2012) was one large bill that included transportation funding, drilling, and changes to federal pensions.  However, Republicans realized that they would not have the votes for the bill, and so split it into three bills to be voted on separately that will then be spliced back together and sent to the Senate.  This was an unusual procedural move designed to shield Republicans from having to take tough votes that won’t be popular with their constituents but also force the bill through.

What is most galling is that none of these bills alone or combined would be able to pay for the costs of transportation generated by this bill.  Traditionally, improvements to roads, bridges, and public transportation are funded by the federal gasoline tax, but GOP leaders in the House are taking the unprecedented step to tie funding to an unnecessary and ineffective increase in fossil fuel production.  Since it doesn’t even begin to fund our highways, the bill can be considered nothing more than a series of earmarks for Big Oil.

The proposal to fund oil shale from Congressman Doug Lamborn (R-CO) is a particularly nasty earmark.  The Congressional Budget Office found the bill would generate no revenue over 10 years and in the short term would cost money to implement the leasing program.  The Checks and Balance Project detailed this “boondoogle” in an online ad.

Last night’s vote saw some crossing of party lines, particularly 11 Florida Republicans angered by proposals to drill off of the state’s coasts who voted no on the bill’s passage.

Jessica Goad is Manager of Research and Outreach for the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

A cyber-penny for your cyber-thoughts.

There was a beacon in the smog surrounding the U.S. Capitol building this week.

While the House and Senate pushed for arctic drilling, attempted to revive the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, and tried to delay rules on mercury emissions standards — all while failing to extend a key tax credit for wind — four climate hawk Senators attempted to put these actions into a powerful climate context.

Standing on the Senate floor for an hour on Wednesday, Senators Bernie Sanders (D-VT), Al Franken (D-MN), Tom Udall (D-NM) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) delivered a wide-ranging colloquy calling on the President and Congress to address the “enormous crisis” of global warming.

Here’s a great clip featuring Senators Sanders, Franken and Whitehouse:

Senator Whitehouse has delivered three great speeches on the Senate floor about global warming since October. During his last delivery in December, he was joined by Senator Franken. This time around, they brought in two more climate hawks, Senators Udall and Sanders.

Here’s a piece of the Senator Sanders’ speech:

According to virtually the entire scientific community in the United States of America and around the world, according to virtually every agency of the United States government, global warming is real and it is significantly caused by human activity. And people are mistaken if they believe that the impact of global warming will just be in decades to come. We are seeing very negative impacts today, and what the scientific community tells us, if we do not begin to reverse greenhouse gas emissions, those problems in America and around the world will only get worse.

Now, if there is a silver lining in all of that is that, Mr. President, right now, we know how to cut greenhouse gas emissions. We know how to move to energy efficiency, mass transportation, automobiles. We get 50, 60, 100 miles per gallon. We know how to weatherize our homes so that we can cut significantly the use of fuel. And what we also know is that in the middle of this recession, if we move in that direction, energy efficiency and sustainable energy, we can create over a period of years millions of good-paying jobs.

So let me conclude by saying this. We now have the opportunity to be in a win-win-win situation. We can save consumers money. We can significantly reduce greenhouse gases and protect our planet, and we can create substantial numbers of jobs that we desperately need in the midst of this terrible recession.

When is Obama going to talk like this?

After 185,000 pages of documents, ten hearings, and two subpoenas, we still haven’t found any evidence improper behavior

by Richard W. Caperton

Today, the fruitless investigation into the Solyndra loan guarantee turns one year old. Sadly, fruit is the traditional gift on the fourth anniversary. So what do you give on a first-anniversary to someone who already demanded all the paper they could ever need for the rest of their lives?

On February 17, 2011, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns sent a letter to Secretary of Energy Steven Chu requesting all DOE communication about the decision to issue a loan guarantee to Solyndra.  Thus began the most over-hyped, over-covered, and over-examined stories in recent memory — including Tim Tebow.

Since Upton and Stearns sent their letter, the House has received 185,000 pages of documents, held ten hearings, heard from 26 witnesses, and issued two subpoenas. Despite this, they have yet to find any evidence of improper behavior.

The key figure in the House investigation has been Stearns. Not since Ponce de Leon went searching for the Fountain of Youth has a Floridian led a less successful hunt for an illusive prize. To be fair to de Leon, at least he knew what he was looking for and had he found it, his youth would have been restored. Stearns didn’t even know what a loan guarantee was as recently as October, and this investigation is definitely getting old.

It’s not as if the House Republicans are the only people pursuing this story. The mainstream press has devoted countless column inches and hours of coverage to the Solyndra non-story, while virtually ignoring real scandals that are a full order of magnitude bigger in dollar terms.

While House Republicans have wasted day after day in hearings, independent analyses continue to find that the DOE loan guarantee program is actually exceeding expectations. Most recently, Herb Allison — John McCain’s former national finance chair — led a team of accountants and auditors who found that the Program will cost a full $2 billion less than DOE initially expected. This follows analyses by Bloomberg Government, who found “The focus on Solyndra is not proportional to its impact,” and the Congressional Research Service, who found that the great majority of guarantees were extremely low risk.

Instead of wasting more staff time and taxpayer dollars on a fishing expedition for political scandal, it’s time for the House to do things that can actually move clean energy forward and put Americans back to work, like extending the Production Tax Credit, passing a clean energy standard, and creating a Clean Energy Deployment Administration. That would be a gift all Americans would welcome.

Richard W. Caperton is director of clean energy finance at the Center for American Progress.

Scientist calls coverage of his research by Murdoch media outlet “misleading” and “inaccurate”

by Shauna Theel, reposted from Media Matters

Once again, a scientist has had to correct a Fox News distortion after the network’s flagship nightly news program misrepresented a study to claim “the Earth’s polar ice is melting less than previously thought.” Dr. John Wahr, who helped lead the research, said via email that Fox’s coverage is “misleading” and “inaccurate.”

The research from the University of Colorado Boulder — the ”first comprehensive satellite study of the contribution of the world’s melting glaciers and ice caps to global sea level rise” – found that the land ice shrunk by nearly 150 500 billion tons every year between 2003-2010 (mostly from Greenland and Antarctica), adding 12 millimeters to sea level rise.

While the study found that glaciers in the Himalayan region were melting less than ground-based estimates had indicated, Professor Wahr said “our estimate of polar ice loss is roughly the same as previous estimates,” contrary to Fox News’ report. Wahr observed that Fox seemed to believe that the Himalayas are located at the Earth’s poles. They are not.

Speaking to The Guardian last week, Wahr said: “Our results and those of everyone else show we are losing a huge amount of water into the oceans every year … People should be just as worried about the melting of the world’s ice as they were before.” But somehow Fox came up with this:

BRET BAIER (host): Worried about polar ice melting? You may not be after a quick break.

Shauna Theel is a researcher with Media Matters for America. This piece was originally published at Media Matters.

Related Posts:

• JPL bombshell: Polar ice sheet mass loss is speeding up, on pace for 1 foot sea level rise by 2050.
• Greenland Ice Sheet Ties Record for Mass Loss in 2011 and “Could Undergo a Self-Amplifying Cycle of Melting and Warming … Difficult to Halt,” Scientists Find

Big win for nation’s first offshore wind farm; big loss for a Koch Brother

Will Cape Wind move forward? The developer now has contracts for 75% of electricity.

by Michael Conathan and Kiley Kroh

In a huge step toward making the nation’s first offshore wind farm a reality, Massachusetts officials announced Wednesday that energy companies Northeast Utilities and NStar have agreed to buy more than a quarter of the power produced by the Cape Wind offshore wind farm.  The Cape Wind power purchase agreement is “one portion of a broader agreement that Attorney General Martha Coakley said would save an estimated $217 million over four years for customers of NStar and Western Massachusetts Electric Co., which is currently owned by Northeast Utilities.”

With 50 percent of its power previously under contract to National Grid, the terms of the merger agreement between the two companies means Cape Wind will have a buyer for more than three-quarters of its electricity, paving a clearer path for the company to generate the investments that will allow construction to begin. The project received the green light to begin construction from the Department of the Interior last year.

The project has been more than a decade in the making, due in no small part to opposition led by Bill Koch, the founder of fossil fuel giant Oxbow Carbon, a company that spent over a million dollars lobbying against Cape Wind in the past.

Koch is described on Oxbow’s website as “an international businessman, chemical engineer, art collector, and world-class sailor.” Much of Koch’s yachting occurs on sojourns from his waterfront mansion in a gated island country club community overlooking the Nantucket Sound location where Cape Wind’s turbines are slated for construction.

And yes, he’s the brother of David and Charles Koch – the leading funders of disinformation and political action against greenhouse reductions and clean energy, including a bogus study about the economics of offshore wind energy in New Jersey.

Cape Wind’s backers, on the other hand, include the 76% of Massachusetts residents who, in a November 2010 poll said they were willing to pay higher electricity rates for renewable energy, and the 57% of Cape Cod residents who, in 2009, said they supported the project.

According to Cape Wind CEO, Jim Gordon:

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Other stories below: Recent extreme weather impacted 80% of Americans; Global warming threatens tropical birds

Image: League of Conservation Voters

Bill forces decision on pipeline, expands drilling to pay for transportation projects

The Republican-controlled House endorsed a plan Thursday to vastly expand oil and gas drilling off the nation’s coasts to help pay for a $260 billion transportation bill.

The legislation has no chance of passing the Senate and faces a White House veto. But for Republicans, the 237-187 vote showed they’re willing to go further to boost U.S. energy production than President Barack Obama. Obama lately has embraced increased oil and gas production on the campaign trail, and has touted how the U.S. in recent years has produced record amounts of oil and natural gas.

“The bill we are considering … is an action plan that clearly contrasts President Obama’s anti-energy policies with the pro-energy, pro-American jobs policies of Republicans,” said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.

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Texas Comptroller water-planning report also fails to brings up the growing role of natural gas fracking

Ironically, the cover of a major Texas report on drought and water planning points out that it’s been “dry” and “hot” and implies humans have some control over the state’s thermostat.  But the report is silent on human contribution to the heat and drought now and in the future — and is thus dangerously misleading as a planning document.

Can a state devastated by its most severe hot-weather drought on record actually release a water-planning report on the future of drought in Texas that never mentions global warming?  Sadly, the answer is yes in the case of “The Impact of the 2011 Drought and Beyond,” by Susan Combs, Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts.

The state’s climate science denial, led by Denier-In-Chief Rick Perry, is much more than purely rhetorical in nature. It is leaving the residents of Texas wholly unprepared for what is to come, including the devastation of much of the state’s agriculture, as this report unintentionally makes clear.

Texas A&M University, professor of atmospheric sciences, Dr. Andrew Dessler, writes me:

“This report is consistent with the Texas State Government’s position of ‘See no climate change, hear no climate change, speak no climate change.’ The report goes out of its way to try to suggest that the recent drought was entirely due to natural cycles, but that is an untenable scientific position.  Given how much carbon we’ve loaded into the atmosphere, the question is not whether humans are affecting the Texas weather, but exactly how.  I’m sorry the report let politics trump science.”

The state has already worked to censor efforts to inform citizens on its coast of the impact of warming-driven sea level rise — see Flood-Gate: Perry Officials Try to Hide Sea Level Rise from Texans with “Clear-Cut Unadulterated Censorship.”

But this new report is much worse since it bills itself as a planning report for the whole state on its most crucial problem — water:

As Comptroller, one of my responsibilities is to analyze trends that affect the state’s bottom line. And the terrible drought of 2011 underlined a particularly important factor that could have far-reaching impacts on Texas’ growth and prosperity.

Our water resources are finite. Planning for and managing our water use is perhaps the most important task facing Texas policymakers in the 21st century.

My office is pleased to present Gauging the Economic Impact of the 2011 Drought and Beyond, which discusses the current drought and its impacts on the state; current and future water resources in Texas; and innovative solutions governments in Texas and elsewhere are using to solve the water crisis.

The current drought is the worst single-year Texas drought since record-keeping began — and it may prove to be one of most devastating economic events in our history. Estimates by the Texas AgriLife Extension Service put Texas agricultural losses for the year at $5.2 billion. A December economic analysis by BBVA Compass Bank found that indirect drought losses to the state’s agricultural industries could add another $3.5 billion to the toll….

Drought is an ever-present concern in many parts of the state, leading to pressure on our water infrastructure. According to the Texas Water Development Board [TWDB], demand for water will rise by 22 percent by 2060. The board says that, should we experience another multi-year “drought of record” such as that of the 1950s, it could cost Texas businesses and workers $116 billion in income by 2060.

Obviously the Comptroller doesn’t really believe that planning for and managing water use could be the most important task facing Texas policymakers — or else her report on the subject would take the subject more seriously and have significant discussions of two key factors, manmade climate change and hydraulic fracking.

Natural gas hydraulic fracturing is perhaps the thirstiest new source of water consumption in the state (see here). The TWDB projects total water usage for fracking statewide was 13.5 billion gallons in 2010 and will likely more than double by 2020. In one District west of Fort Worth, “the share of groundwater used by frackers was 40% in the first half of 2011, up from 25% in 2010.” It is inconceivable one could do serious water planning in Texas without an analysis of the impact of fracking. Yet the report says nothing whatsoever about fracking except to put it in a long list of ways one could use treated wastewater.

Many, many recent studies make clear that global warming will be among the biggest drivers of drought and water-related problems in Texas and the rest of the South-West in the coming decades.  In 2007, Science (subs. req’d) published research that “predicted a permanent drought by 2050 throughout the Southwest” — levels of aridity comparable to the 1930s Dust Bowl would stretch from Kansas to California.

A 2010 literature review and analysis from the National Center for Atmospheric Research [NCAR], “Drought under global warming” warned:

“The United States and many other heavily populated countries face a growing threat of severe and prolonged drought in coming decades … possibly reaching a scale in some regions by the end of the century that has rarely, if ever, been observed in modern times.”

Another 2010 study warned the U.S. southwest could see a 60-year drought like that of 12th century — only hotter — this century:

An unprecedented combination of heat plus decades of drought could be in store for the Southwest sometime this century, suggests new research from a University of Arizona-led team….

“The bottom line is, we could have a Medieval-style drought with even warmer temperatures,” [lead author Connie] Woodhouse said.

But the Texas water planning report has nothing to say about global warming. It selectively quotes state Climatologist Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon at length on the causes of 2011′s shortfall in precipitation. It doesn’t offer even one of the numerous statements by scientists about the impact of record heat on this drought, including Nielsen-Gammon himself, who said, “There is evidence that global warming has had an effect on the drought, primarily by increasing the surface temperature, which increases the drought severity by increasing evaporation and water stress, and by decreasing stream flow and water supply.”

The report itself notes, “drought and unprecedented heat made 2011 the worst year for wildfires in Texas history” — but again is silent on how humans contribute to the unprecedented heat and the ever worsening wildfire seasons.

The report does point out that Texas has been hit by extremely severe droughts in the past:

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Reducing short-lived gases is only effective as part of broader CO2 reduction strategy

A new plan to tackle short-lived pollutants may help bridge the gap between current emission reduction pledges and what is actually needed by 2020 to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2° Celsius.

At the State Department this morning, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced a six-country initiative designed to reduce pollutants like methane, black carbon (soot), and hydroflurocarbons (HFCs) that help speed up global warming. These pollutants are often called “climate forcers” because they push temperatures up much more quickly than carbon dioxide.

Methane, a shorter-living greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide over 100-year period — and 100 more potent over a 20-year period — has contributed to roughly 50% of tropospheric ozone helping warm the planet.  Soot from burning biomass and coal travels around the world and lands on ice caps and glaciers, increasing melting and preventing the reflection of sunlight. HFCs, a common refrigerant, are thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide.

These pollutants come from inefficiently burning biomass and coal, improperly handling waste water or municipal solid waste, and poor vehicle emissions standards, among many other sources. Along with having a major impact on climate, they are also a major cause of premature deaths and crop failures.

The countries working to reduce climate forcers include Bangladesh, Canada, Ghana, Mexico, Sweden and the U.S. American officials say they will commit $10 million to the initiative, which will be run by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

The initiative will follow guidelines set forward by UNEP in a report on climate forcers last November.

While the plan to reduce these pollutants is only a short-term fix, it could put the world on a path toward faster temperature reductions and provide a needed cushion as countries grapple with slow-moving international negotiations on reducing greenhouse gas emissions like carbon dioxide.

In January, Drew Shindell, a researcher with NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, found that a strong international effort to address these pollutants could slow the rise of global temperatures by a half degree celsius by 2050, prevent 4.7 million deaths per year, and improve global crop yields by 135 million metric tons per season.

“We’ve shown that implementing specific practical emissions reductions chosen to maximize climate benefits would also have important ‘win-win’ benefits for human health and agriculture,” said Shindell, when he released his findings.

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Pro-pollution Sen. Inhofe aims to block life-saving standards

By Arpita Bhattacharyya and Daniel J. Weiss

Americans can celebrate a big step toward cleaner air and healthier communities today as the final  Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for power plants are published in the Federal Register.  This is a significant milestone for the life-saving Environmental Protection Agency rules that were announced on December 16, 2011.  However, these long overdue safeguards from the known neurotoxin mercury continue to face relentless attacks from coal heavy utilities, coal companies and their Congressional allies.  Today, Senator Inhofe (R-OK) filed a Congressional Review Act resolution to block the rule, just as it made it onto the Federal Register.

The Federal Register is the official publication for proposed and final rules.  Publication of the mercury rule begins the implementation process. The rule requires power plants to reduce mercury, lead, arsenic, acid gasses, and other toxic chemicals from their smokestacks.  The huge reduction in toxics would save 11,000 lives, prevent  130,000 asthma attacks  and avoid 4,700 heart attacks annually.   Such drastic health improvements would provide economic benefits of up to $90 billion every year.

Senator Inhofe disregards these important health benefits and calls on his colleagues to join him to “stop EPA’s destructive agenda” through a joint resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act.   The Congressional Review Act allows Congress to completely block rules it opposes.  It works like this:  Once the mercury rule is published in the Federal Register, legislators have sixty legislative days to introduce and vote on it.  According to the Library of Congress, a legislative day begins:

“when a house of Congress meets and ends when it adjourns…the Senate often does not adjourn at the end of a daily session, but instead  ‘recesses,’ so when the Senate next meets, it continues in the same legislative day. As a result, a legislative day in the Senate may extend over days, weeks, or even months.”

In addition, the resolution requires a simple majority of senators voting for it to pass – it cannot be blocked by a filibuster that requires 60 votes to end.

Albert A. Rizzo of the American Lung Association blasted Senator’s Inhofe’s attempt to block the standards, stating that “These safeguards have been delayed for far too long already.  The public cannot wait any longer for these life-saving clean air protections.”

Senator Inhofe will likely have the support of many utilities and coal companies that have ignored the health benefits.  Instead, they want to prevent, weaken or delay these vital safeguards, claiming that the cost of cleanup is simply too high.

The emitters claim that the rules will reduce electricity reliability, increase electricity prices, and increase unemployment.  Many also assert that they don’t have enough time to comply.  The Center for American Progress and other clean air defenders have proven these claims false time and time again.

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In a desperate attempt to force Keystone XL, three Senators are threatening access to a vital economic and national security safeguard, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve

by Daniel J. Weiss

Republican Congressional leaders have failed to force President Obama to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. But that’s not stopping them from trying over and over again, taking hostages in the process.

First they used the payroll tax cut extension as a vehicle to force a decision on the pipeline in sixty days, even before the final route was identified. President Obama was forced to disapprove the permit because there was no time to assess its potential pollution.

This week, several senators took a different hostage: our emergency oil supply.  On February 13, Senators David Vitter (R-LA), John Hoevan (R-ND), and Richard Lugar (R-IN) introduced the Strategic Petroleum Supplies Act, S. 2100 that would prevent President Obama from selling oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve unless Keystone is approved:

“the Administration shall not authorize a sale of petroleum products from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve… until the date on which all permits necessary … for the Keystone XL pipeline project application filed on September 19, 2008 (including amendments) have been issued.”

In other words, unless the president approves Keystone, he cannot sell our emergency oil — even if Iran causes an oil supply disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, a hurricane or other disaster disables oil production or refining facilities, or any other type of event causes gasoline prices to soar above $4 per gallon.  If any of these events happen, middle class Americans would pay significantly higher gasoline pump prices, giving billions of dollars more to big oil companies that made record profits last year.

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When it comes to government, more is not better. Less is not better.  Only better is better.  And better is what we as a society should strive for.

by Jonathan Koomey, in an excerpt from his new book “Cold Cash, Cool Climate”

Imagine a company where the CEO says “We’ll never raise prices, borrow money, or increase our expenses under any circumstances, nor will we act to expand existing or create new markets when we have a competitive advantage in doing so.” You’d think that CEO was loony.  But this is exactly what some say about government when they say that spending and taxes should never increase, that environment regulations should always be relaxed, and that government should always do less than it’s doing now.

I believe that anyone who spends money should get what they pay for, and that money (particularly public funds) should be spent prudently, wisely, and carefully. But as a father, consultant, researcher, and entrepreneur, I’m also acutely aware that sometimes families, companies, governments, and societies need to invest money for the future.  ”You have to spend money to make money,” says the old proverb.  And sometimes only government can do what needs to be done.

What we need is an honest discussion about what kind of government we want and what we want it to do for us.  Sometimes we’ll want more government, like when we find lead in children’s toys, salmonella in peanut butter, poison in medicines, an unsustainable health care system, or fraudulent assets and a lack of transparency in the financial world.  We know from experience that only government can fix those things. Sometimes we’ll want less government, like when old and conflicting regulations get in the way of starting innovative new companies. Only government can fix that too (although the private sector has some lessons to teach on that score). And sometimes we’ll want the same government, just delivered more efficiently (like the state of California has done with the Department of Motor Vehicles in recent years, the good results of which I’ve experienced firsthand).

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With every passing day, Congress outdoes its own abysmal environmental record.

Even as federal policymakers consider a transportation bill that would open up sensitive areas for offshore drilling, encourage use of dirty oil shale, force a decision on the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, and derail public investments in public transportation, they couldn’t even compromise on a simple short-term tax credit for wind energy.

Wind businesses were calling an extension of the credit an “emergency” due to looming mass layoffs in the industry. But history has proven time and time again, if it’s clean and renewable, it doesn’t force any urgency in Congress.

In recent weeks, there was a strong bi-partisan push to include the production tax credit (PTC) in an upcoming payroll tax cut bill. Unlike drilling tax credits for fossil fuels permanently embedded in the tax code, wind and other renewables only get short-term extensions of the PTC. With an expiration looming at the end of this year, wind companies are already reducing orders and laying off hundreds of people.

The effort to extend the PTC was supported by Republican governors, multi-national corporations, and a strong coalition in Congress. However, with some Congressional radicals threatening to “derail” the bill if the PTC were part of the tax cut package, the extension was not in the final bill, according to North American Windpower — effectively killing one of the only chances to revive this vital tax credit in 2012:

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There’s a cheap, abundant resource that could help consumers save money and fight climate change: rainwater.

by Zachary Rybarczyk

Residents in eight cities around the U.S. could collectively trim up to $90 million a year off their water bills with simple rainwater collection techniques, according to a new report.

Urban rooftop rainwater collection, often overlooked or discouraged by complicated regulations in major cities and neighborhoods, could help individuals and families save money while improving water quality, says the Natural Resources Defense Council in a new report.

“Even under conservative assumptions, the study demonstrates that each city modeled can capture hundreds of millions to billions of gallons of rainwater each year, equivalent to the total annual water use of tens to hundreds of thousands of residents.”

And the yearly savings could be far greater for Americans than $90 million. The eight cities profiled in the NRDC analysis are only a snapshot of the different regions around the country.

Over 44 billion gallons of freshwater are used by public water suppliers on a daily basis in the United States, with consumers representing one of the highest individual daily usage rates in the world (between 100 and 165 gallons). As climate change and population growth drain some regional water supplies, urban dwellers may be vulnerable to water shortages or price spikes.

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Other stories below: Extreme summer high temperatures expected more frequently; Leak offers glimpse into campaign against climate science

New global deal on climate change

Those concerned about climate change and greenhouse gas pollution have been justifiably frustrated in the last few years. Despite some significant moves by the Obama administration — particularly improving vehicle efficiency and creating incentives for significant investment in wind and solar power — national action has been ground down by partisanship fueled by climate skepticism.

But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton‘s announcement Thursday plants seeds of hope. The United States, with Bangladesh, Canada, Ghana, Mexico and Sweden, is launching a partnership aimed at reducing “short-lived climate pollutants” with a focus on methane, black carbon and hydroflurocarbons.

This new coalition to reduce short-lived climate pollutants aims to raise $10 million in the first year to enhance public and private efforts worldwide to reduce these pollutants and scale up as we move forward.

We know the bulk of climate pollution comes from carbon dioxide generated by burning fossil fuels for energy. Mitigating this is essential — but has met fierce resistance from fossil fuel industries.

What is less understood is that carbon dioxide is a relatively long-lived greenhouse gas, with lasting effects. About half of all carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for roughly 100 years, but some 20 percent remains for many thousands of years. It effectively locks in whatever warming we create well beyond our lifetimes.

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