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In the last weeks of the Trump Administration, the Department of Navy and the U.S. Navy have released multiple significant strategy documents and long-term strategies including a decades-long force structure (shipbuilding) plan, a tri-service (Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard) strategy, and, earlier this week, A Blue Arctic: A Strategic Blueprint for the Arctic.

Commentators, including some traditional quite conservative naval analysts, have been raising questions of the political timing of these documents and strategies. Putting aside (the m)any strengths (and/or weaknesses) of these documents, a simple question to consider: Does the open publication of strategies and long-term plans amid the most contentious transition of power in (modern?) U.S. history make these dead on arrival (DOA) since they have been done without any coordination with the incoming Administration team?

These “DOA” documents seem to represent part of a purposeful Trump Administration appointee effort (across the ‘Whole of Government’) to box in the incoming Biden Administration’s operating options and spaces, creating issue and issue where Biden appointees will need to spend time and energy ‘cleaning up’ after Trump appointees, and seeking to nail policies and concepts into the ground at odds with the Biden-Harris program. And, with the military services, like the career civil servants around the government, do these actions in the waning (dying) days of the Trump Administration have the potential to stain and strain relations between those who have been closest to Trump appointees and the incoming Biden Administration?

Blue Arctic serves a strong exemplar of this challenge. This document is filled with substantive discussion of Arctic issues and challenges for the Navy in confronting the changing Arctic.

While Blue Arctic has much of substance to digest and consider, even the quickest read makes clear red flags that suggest a deeper read looking for potential ticking time bombs might be merited. Here are three “climate change” red flags:

Climate Change absent

If you search the 28 page document of the Arctic for “climate change”, “global warming”, IPCC, and related terms you will get a “No matches were found” result. While the strategy highlights climate change impacts such “melting sea ice” and that “fish stocks are expected to move northward”, there is zero indication as to why.

In line with four years of Trump Administration efforts to wipe discussion of climate change (not actual climate change) from the U.S. government, climate change goes unmentioned in this Department of the Navy strategy document on the Arctic — an already climate-changed region that will be undergoing massive global warming driven change in the years ahead.

Inquiring minds wonder whether it might it be relevant why what was once ‘a white Arctic’ is becoming A Blue Arctic?

Science glossed over

One of the compelling data streams of the reality of global warming impacts comes from U.S. Navy submarine operations in the Arctic, with decades of high-quality data as to the extent and thickness of Arctic ice. With a paragraph on “science and technology”, one might say that the Navy’s role in advancing knowledge about Arctic climate impacts is implicitly covered but, to phrase it somewhat differently from above, failing to name and discuss a relevant (significant) issue is to belittle and deny its import. Both for its own operational requirements and to support broader requirements to understand, the Department of the Navy should explicitly discuss its role in climate science (data collection and analysis) while making explicit what it requires from others.

Arctic Oil and Gas (ONG) can’t be exploited

A Blue Arctic‘s opening paragraph of the “Challenges of a New Era” reads:

The coming decades will witness significant changes to the Arctic Region. Encompassing about six percent of the global surface, a Blue Arctic will have a disproportionate impact on the global economy given its abundance of natural resources and strategic location. The region holds and estimate 30% of the world’s undiscovered natural gas reserves, 13% of global conventional oil reserves, and one trillion dollars’ worth of rare earth minerals. Fish stocks are expected to continue to shift northward, attracting global fishing fleets and creating potential challenges to the current international prohibition on Arctic fishing.

While the cited facts are true, this is a very troubling paragraph for numerous reasons even putting aside ‘why’ questioning. (Such as: Why are fish stock shifting northward? Why will there be significant changes to the Arctic Region?)

Simply put, a focus on ONG is absurd.

• All with a robust understanding of climate science and the “carbon budget” to reduce climate crisis risks realize that significant exploitation of Arctic ONG reserves will bust through that budget.
• Additionally, the growing understanding of peak oil (peak oil demand) and depressed oil prices as alternatives begin to cannibalize demand are leading to oil majors walking away from plans to exploit these resources (as exemplified in recent days by the lack of bidding for new ANWR leases). There just isn’t a plausible business case for significant investment to extract high(er) cost ONG when the alternative energy options are simply beating them on price already and, without question, a decade (plus) from now when A Blue Arctic offshore ONG reserves might otherwise have been exploited.

A Blue Arctic‘s emphasis on ONG is directly in line with the Trump Administration’s devotional promotion of fossil fuels and at odds with climate action necessities and global energy system realities.

Blue Arctic:
at odds with incoming
Biden Administration

Of course, the contrast is night and day in terms of climate science and ONG between the Trump Administration and the incoming Biden-Harris team.

• Rather than unrealistic planning for unlimited continued fossil fuel usage, clean energy deployment and a transition off fossil fuels are core to the Biden-Harris team’s vision.
• Rather than Team Trump’s determined climate-science denial and sabotaging of efforts to reduce climate impacts, climate is central to the President-Elect Biden’s plans to Build Back Better and there is clarity that the Biden-Harris Administration will pay attention to and give visibility to climate (science) issues.

It is essentially impossible to consider that the Biden Administration would approve a 28 page Arctic Strategy document that put ONG exploitation as a (the) top-tier issue, failed to mention climate change, and failed to put the strategy within the context of climate change.

Following guidance for ‘truth sandwiches’, a simple truth upfront:

• Scientists have concluded, based on multiple strands of evidence, that carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels (including in aviation operations) “damages the climate” system. This is NOT about belief.

On the morning of New Year’s day, my heart went with excitement on turning to page A16 of The Washington Post print edition and seeing the article “Team develops process to turn CO2 into jet fuel“. As an energy/climate geek and activist, paths to net zero aviation are critically important for humanity’s future. In addition, in disclosure, this is a domain where I have had some professional exposure and thus awareness of the challenges and opportunities. My excitement quickly turned to frustration and dismay.

Beyond the absurdity of discussing a university study team’s work in (essentially) breathless tones in a field where significant resources have been spent over the past decade+ with multiple paths forward, let’s take a look at just one paragraph sentence by sentence:

[1] Environmentalists have long believed that commercial flying damages the climate with the massive amount of CO2 that passenger jets emit globally; air travel accounts for about 2.5 percent of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions.

As per the opening ‘truth’, climate science isn’t about “belief” but about scientific conclusions based on significant analysis of numerous data streams and elements. To write “environmentalists have long believed” is to downplay the science and foster an opening for doubt since “environmentalists” are biased advocates and what they have “long believed” can be discounted as advocacy positions.

For a context of the absurdity, when discussing the use of barriers on a skyscraper to inhibit suicide attempts, perhaps Post reporters should write “anti-suicide advocates have long believed that gravity contributes to health risks from jumping off high buildings.”

This sentence also has provides a good example of the article’s basic and sloppy errors: slipping from “passenger jets” to “air travel contributes”. When it comes to the 2.5% figure, that is all aviation of which passenger aviation is a (major) portion — not the entirety. Also,

[2] The problem is rooted in the burning of fossil fuels, a process that essentially takes carbon buried beneath the Earth’s surface and releases it into the atmosphere.

Seriously, are we in 1970 or an elementary school classroom with a need to explain in such basic terms that burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere? Sadly, this isn’t the sole example of such shallowly pedantic material in the article. Either/or Post editors and journalists are themselves or think their readership so ignorant that they think “news” worth reporting.

And, by the way, it isn’t that “the problem is rooted in the burning of fossil fuels” but is the impact that burning fossil fuels has on the climate system.

[3] The process is thought to contribute to global warming.

Even worse than belief, here is a passive voice (who thinks this?) statement of uncertainty — that burning fossil fuels is “thought to contribute” rather than the truthful statement that burning fossil fuels does contribute to (even drive — perhaps 80% of CO2 emissions in past 50 years) global warming.

Sadly, the article’s faults aren’t limited to one abysmal paragraph:

• This article is about an interesting published academic paper about a path for leveraging renewable power and CO2 captured from the atmosphere to make synthetic fuel for aviation and thus displace fossil fuels (and enable ‘net zero’ aviation operations). Interesting and potentially even a serious breakthrough path, but an academic paper from “an experimental process” that is many steps from commercial application — if it ever gets there. As written awhile ago about the MIT press team’s skill at getting attention for press release’s about lab activity, “overhyping of items that might be years or decades from deployment (if ever to deploy) helps foster a ‘technology will solve everything’ (or ‘solution is just around the corner’) mentality (subconsciously, if not consciously) that undermines the ability to understand that we have things, in hand, to run with to help solve problems.”
• In terms of ‘breathless’, the article doesn’t provide any indication that there are many working on such CO2-to-fuel efforts and that they have been for quite awhile. As just a taste of what is out there, here are two U.S. government funded efforts: the Department of Energy’s Solar Fuels program and the Congressionally funded SEA FUELS (Securing Energy for our Armed Forces Using Engineering Leadership) program in the Department of Defense. Hype without context.
• In seeking to summarize the process, the article implies (even states) that the CO2 capture-to-fuel production would occur on aircraft. (“Essentially, a jet would extract the gas from the air while on the ground and reemit it via combustion while in flight.”) This Back-to-the-Future like concept might make a great science fiction device but isn’t in anyone’s playbook for the coming decades (if not centuries). Actually, it appears that the intent would be to have fuel manufacturing co-located with carbon capture activities at high-polluting facilities (such as steel plants).
• And, well, sigh …

Painful and problematic with a blockbuster finish:

The Oxford team wants within three years to complete a transatlantic trip based on its artificial fuel.

Wow, three years from producing a few vials in the laboratory to having fuel certified for aviation usage and producing (let’s say) 30,000 gallons for a single transatlantic flight. While it would be wonderful if such crash efforts were part and parcel of humanity’s efforts to address climate change, sadly this doesn’t comport with how governments, science, and business work. While it is a hopeful vision that the Oxford team is able to have clean fuel in production and certified for a 2024 flight, and that this lays the basis for displacing all fossil fuels from commercial aviation within a decade, that hopeful vision seems beyond far-fetched and ending with such a mistaken Silver Bullet suggestion caps off a highly problematic Washington Post commencement of its 2021 climate, energy, and technology reporting.

Pricing carbon — imposing a fee for polluting the global commons — is, as probably any economist would be glad to explain, the most straightforward, cost-effective, and efficient tool for effective climate action. Impose a price on anything and markets will respond — even if not as perfectly as a homo economicus‘ response.

This rational, efficient, and effective tool remains (indefinitely?) dead-on-arrival (DOA) within the U.S. political system — even as President-Elect Joe Biden will return respect for science and intent to lead serious moves to address the climate crisis. That DOA status seems not to be well understood by even well-informed players in climate economics based on a recent conversation with several European-based analysts who found, from what I could tell, astounding my comments that while I understand the power of carbon pricing, I just didn’t see it meriting top-billing on my agenda for analysis and time.

These serious and informed people had grounds for, from a distance, their impression that the U.S. was on the cusp of action for climate pricing.

• President-Elect Biden and the Democratic Party have major plans for climate action and pricing carbon would enable funding their program(s).
  • Response: Note that carbon fees (or, if you prefer with wrong framing, taxes) appear nowhere in the Biden-Harris Build Back Better plans and didn’t make an appearance in the Democratic Party platform.
• Aren’t there Republicans supportive of carbon pricing?
  • Response: Please show a significant Republican politician who is advocating, anywhere other than in back rooms anonymously, carbon pricing? No matter what they might believe and understand about climate science and the reality of the climate crisis, Republican politicians fear the wrath of their base in primaries and that base will punish them (with a frenzy whipped up by fossil-fuel funded disinformation efforts) for proposing any sort of carbon pricing. To the extent that there are Republicans promoting climate pricing, such as former Representative Bob Inglis, the conspiracy-theory driven Republican base views them as RINOs (Republicans In Name Only). And, Inglis is an excellent example of paying the price — his title is “former” due to a successful primary challenge from the right driven, significantly, due to Inglis calling for the GOP to take climate seriously.
• Corporations are increasingly onboard and proposing carbon pricing, such as Exxon Mobil.
  • Response: Exxon Mobil’s business model and strategy is to squeeze every last cent it can from exploiting fossil fuels for as long as possible. Exxon Mobil is a preeminent corporate strategy example of what Alex Steffen terms Predatory Delay. To the extent that Exxon Mobil gives lip service to carbon pricing, this is (a) for a price high enough to disrupt coal but not high enough to significantly dent their ONG (oil, fossil gas) revenue streams, (b) support predicated on trading off for reduced regulatory control and (even more importantly) a get-of-jail-free card for their decades of climate disinformation, and, (c) like their green-washing advertising announcements, far more public relations than substance. As an indicator of (c), try to find Exxon-Mobil lobbying expenditures making the case to (Republican) legislators about the critical importance of putting a serious price on pollution.

Somewhat reverse their logic chain … businesses will pressure Republicans to work with Democrats to move forward carbon pricing. In a rational world that makes just so much sense. However, let’s just consider “Democrats” in that equation.

• It isn’t just Build Back Better and the DNC platform where carbon fees don’t make a showing. None of the Democratic Party primary candidates had carbon pricing in their climate plans … not even the gold star plans from Governor Jay Inslee and Senator Elizabeth Warren. Many of the ‘technocrats’ involved in helping write these plans would agree that carbon pricing would be effective and efficient — they just don’t see the political support to do so and also see clearly the path for pursuing an expenditures (investment) strategy to set the United States on the road forward toward a net-zero economy with improved economic performance while addressing environmental and economic injustice.
• The most significant and aggressive vision from the progressive left, the Green New Deal, does not include carbon pricing. Many in the GND coalition view carbon pricing as regressive.
• There are significant Democratic Party politicians (starting, but not ending, with West Virginia’s Senator Joe Manchin) who will have to be brought kicking and screaming to the table for any carbon pricing. These are ‘all of the above’ Democrats who likely won’t be onboard without significant Republican and Corporate engagement, which doesn’t seem likely.
• Democratic Party politicians and political consultancy class view this as a suicidal third rail.
  • President Clinton’s Btu tax was central to GOP messaging in a massive 1994 Republican electoral gain.
  • The Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy Security (ACES) bill was a significant part of Tea Party messaging in the 2010 Republican electoral gain.
  • Attempts to price carbon have gone down to electoral defeat when proposed, such as two attempts in Washington State that failed to pass due to (a) serious disagreements between climate action supporting communities about how to do this and (b) heavy fossil-fuel interest investment in disinformation campaigns against these proposals.

In short, when it comes to the Democratic Party and pricing carbon, there is:

• nowhere near consensus within the Party (politicians, interest groups, grass roots), and
• fear that, no matter any merits, this is a losing electoral issue.

If one can’t see a path toward robust Democratic Party support for carbon pricing, why even fantasize about Republicans?

Now, with other nations around the world increasingly pricing carbon (such as Canada’s recent call for pricing that will reach $CAN170 by 2030), the reality that nations with carbon pricing will have border adjustment fees and policies that will impact countries without carbon pricing structures, and the continued understanding of the effectiveness of pricing as a (A) tool to accelerate climate action, one should expect continued interest in, promotion of, and discussion of the potential for U.S. carbon pricing. Within the U.S. political system, with the Democratic Party (at best) split and (extremely) lukewarm on the issue and the Republican Party entrenched in denialism, an actually executable road from here to there in the near-term seems to be outside reality and, thus, in the realm of fiction.

To be clear, no direct carbon pricing doesn’t mean inaction when it comes to climate. There will be actions like reducing (ending?) fossil-fuel subsidies, regulation and oversight of polluting industries, mandating clean power introduction, clean-energy innovation and production support, and many other non-(direct) carbon pricing measures that will drive down emissions — even if some might be less technically efficient than a carbon pricing structure.

UPDATE: Shortly after this posted, Dave Roberts put out Giving up on the economy-wide carbon pricing dream, a thoughtful interview with the authors of Making Climate Policy Work (Danny Cullenward and David Victor) which puts meat on the bones of the points made above about political challenges along with discussing inefficiencies of economy-wide pricing schemes.

President Elect (PEOTUS) Joe Biden lives in a far different world than PEOTUS Obama did. The differences can’t be summarized as simply Trump Virus (even though that does capture a lot). When it comes to clean energy and climate action opportunities, there are some rather stark — and encouraging — differences between the two eras.

• Twelve years ago, PEOTUS Obama faced a massively devastated economy with serious challenges in recovery. A core part of the recovery efforts (some $90B) sensibly focused on clean-energy arenas, much of this foundational work.
• In 2020, PEOTUS Biden faces a massively devastated economy with serious challenges ahead toward recovery. A core part of the Biden-Harris Administration recovery effort, to build back better, will build on the Obama-Biden Administration (and global) clean-energy foundational work.

In 2008, those (like myself) advocating for rapid clean-energy investments and deployments had to be creative in accounting (seeking fully-burdened analysis (including health implications, job creation, climate risks)) as part of the advocacy efforts. In 2020, clean-energy options are ever more clearly cost competitive with fossil-foolish options — even without considering pollution and other costs from exploiting and burning fossil fuels. These a few graphics make clear how different 2020 is from 2008.

According to Lazard,

• in 2009, onshore wind was an expensive electricity option and solar PV was an exorbitantly (literally off the charts in this case) electricity options.
• By 2019, both onshore wind and solar PV were less expensive than any other electricity option.

As Jonathan Foley, the director of Project Drawdown, reminds, this ‘got so cheap, so fast’ is happening across many clean-energy domains (efficiency, generation, data for better management, …).

To give credit where credit is due, a Zeke Hausfather tweet sparked this post:

Looking at Zeke’s tweet, at that simple graphic, really struck home even though the numbers and trends it points to are far from ‘news’.

“Clean energy has become cheap …”

In 2007, Google began the RE<C initiative.

Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (RE<C) initiative through Google.org as an effort to drive down the cost of renewable energy.

Many (most?) viewed RE<C as a quixotic and potentially unrealistic quest in the near-term, seeing a need for pricing pollution as the most critical tool since renewables were seen as potentially never being ‘as cheap’ as polluting fuel usage where the pollution wasn’t counted in the financial transactions. While Google walked away from RE<C after a few years (leaving this to others), that RE<C vision was met for much of the world within about a decade and is a more powerfully true equation with every passing day. And, as the Lazard graphic above makes clear, it is RE<C, RE<O (oil), RE<FG (fossil gas), and, increasingly, just RE<FF (Renewable energy at a lower cost than fossil fuels).

PEOTUS Obama lived in a world where RE<C / RE<O, RE<FG, RE<FF was an aspirational vision.

PEOTUS Biden lives in a world where this is reality.

Upfront truth

An electric car is a relatively low-polluting vehicle today and will be even less polluting tomorrow.

All things being equal, electric vehicles (EVs) reduce pollution loads.

Now, fossil-foolish defenders of business as usual don’t want people to understand this as part of their drive to maintain fossil-fuel dependency and their own business profits.

From the UK, a rapid fire uncovering of the truth behind a media splash of credulous reporting of yet another “report” (falsely) showing that EVs are a more polluting option than internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. For reasons that will be made clear, this is AstonGate.

Now, for some simple truths

• Glossy brochures often gloss over truth, shiny objects that distort rather than inform
• (Too) Many journalists/media outlets are ready consumers of glossy spoon-fed lies that provide easy click-bait
• Lies travel faster, with more impact, that corrective analysis
• Truth-tellers, today, are often (mainly) doing it on their own time, with their own energy, with little recognition, and,
• We do well to boost the efforts of truth-tellers to help fight back disinformation and deceit.

Before getting into Aston Gate, a tip of the hat to two truth tellers who tag-teamed to get to the bottom of the situation rapidly.

• Auke Hoekstra is a Dutch researcher who has done fantastic work on, for example, detailing how major international forecasting has been consistent in serious pessimism about the speed of renewable energy price declines and penetration into the marketplace.
• Michael Liebreich, the UK founder of Bloomberg New Energy Finance and, in addition to being an insightful analyst and effective executive, one of the best communicators about substantive financial analysis of energy trends and the future of renewable energy.

Now to #AstonGate.

How long does it take for an EV to be better than an ICE?

When it comes to energy and energy usage, a very large share of the time the better “life-cycle” option uses more energy upfront. An efficient home to operate has more insulation, better design, and higher quality heating/cooling systems that increase purchase price while lowering the annual energy costs. An LED light bulb costs more to buy than an incandescent but the energy savings means it pays for itself in months. Same is true for clean electrons (solar, wind, nuclear) compared to coal or natural gas. And, so on, a myriad of cases where there is a higher cost to buy (CtB) with a lower cost to own (CtO). That is not just a financial cost, but also pollution as ‘clean'(er) options often have more upfront energy and pollution but quickly are the ‘cleaner’ option due to lowered use of polluting energy.

This is true for EVs as well (at least right now). An electric vehicle, due primarily to battery costs and resource requirements, will cost more to buy and will have a higher pollution load the day it comes out of the factory than a similar combustion engine vehicle. However, that gap between the two of them begins to fall as soon as they are put into use: lower costs to operate and lower pollution per mile/kilometer driven. The question: how fast.

Now, reported in numerous European outlets, a shocker of a (heads-up: false) story that it takes 48,000 miles for an electric vehicle to catch up to an ICE when it comes to pollution loads. Drive 10,000 miles a year and, well, you won’t make up that embedded pollution load for nearly five years.

Up to the plate: Auke Hoekstra

As is his wont, Auke saw headlines spreading across Europe (popping into his emails and Twitter thread, almost certain), knew something was wrong with what he was seeing, and started to scratch the surface.

In short, follow Auke’s thread, this “analysis” came from a PR firm and doesn’t cite a single analyst. Taking to heart ‘lies, damned lies, and statistics’, this brochure’s data presentation:

• Distorted by using European electricity pollution for ‘manufacturing’ the ICE vehicle and Chinese for the EV;
• Only counted the pollution load of fuel after it had been delivered to the ICE’s tank, not the pollution to find, exploit, transport, and refine the fuel; and
• Assumed a very highly polluting electricity system for counting EV pollution.

As he scratches away with a more honest, apples-to-apples analysis, Auke concludes that a more honest pollution-load break-even point is about 16k, not 48k, miles.

Auke ends with a plea to journalists to “please be less gullible”.

And a handoff to Liebreich

Liebreich takes the inbound from Hoekstra seriously and starts his own digging. He documents and uncovers

• That the publishing PR firm, Clarendon Communications, was newly formed and has only one Director;
• That Clarendon is impressive in its obscure nature.
• That Clarendon’s sole director might just be the wife of Aston Martin’s Director of Global Government and Corporate Affairs (who owns the property where Clarendon is registered).

Liebreich asks (sarcasm warning):

Suppose this were a sock-puppet PR company, set up by @AstonMartin to spread misinformation about the environmental performance of EVs in general and a competitor’s EV in particular – that would be a great story for a transport correspondent like @GraemePaton, no?

And, Liebreich questions whether media outlets will own up to being owned.

Yeah, just suppose that this was a sock-puppet public relations firm to spread misinformation that has made its way broadly into public discourse via gullible reporters without the time, background, resources, nor inclination to dig deeply into material spoon fed to them. Nah … something like that just wouldn’t ever occur … Nothing to see here.

As Auke responded to Michael,

Sad thing about all this, if they’d used a professional PR firm, this would all be ‘normal’.

Hoekstra & Liebreich aren’t alone

Their are others calling foul on this flimsy disinformation and media click-baiting articles about it. James Morris, the editor of WhichEV, has an excellent piece up at Forbes: Electric Vehicles ARE A Silver Bullet For Zero Emissions – Don’t Believe The Fossil Fuel Hype. Within that, Morris suggests that the ‘break-even’ point might be ballpark 11,000 miles (rather than 48k or even Hoekstra’s 16k). He concludes

As with the self-driving hybrid con, some people will read the headlines, not dig deeper for the details, and fall for this attempt to blacken the green credentials of EVs. But taking a step back, it just seems rather sad. When you look at the constantly falling price of EV batteries, making a $25,000 Tesla possible by 2023, and the drive towards greener battery production, the mass arrival of BEVs seems inevitable. Batteries won’t replace every transportation type – they are best suited to personal cars, bikes, and scooters – but they are much, much greener than fossil fuel cars. With adequate charging infrastructure, they can decrease CO2 emissions considerably and improve air quality dramatically. They really are a silver bullet for emissions neutrality; don’t believe the hype from companies with heavy fossil fuel bias.

On a related note: Chocolate

For an excellent discussion of how easy it is to spoon feed misinformation with ‘scientific’ underpinnings into widespread media coverage, look no further than the click-baiting about how (NOT TRUTHFUL) eating dark chocolate is an excellent diet tool.

And, related note two: Dutch Coal Plants & EVs

While there are innumerable examples of such falsehoods, this item reminded me when there was a story being pushed around the globe (with stories in such minor outlets as The Washington Post) that Dutch coal plants were being built to meet electric vehicle electricity demands. False in so many ways but (a) the coal plants were contracted far before EVs started to enter the Dutch market and (b) total EV electricity demand was less than one percent of the two coal plants’ production capacity.

UPDATE (1 Dec 2020): Liebreich has published an excellent post documenting AstonGate: Astongate: fake emission figures, an embattled carmaker and a sock puppet PR company that (a) really is worth the read, (b) has substance beyond what is highlighted above, and (c) provides some backdrop that I wasn’t aware of, notably that the ‘handoff’ between Hoekstra & Liebreich wasn’t by happenstance:

Now, it’s not a secret that the “embodied emissions” involved in building an electric vehicle are higher than those of an equivalent internal combustion vehicle – all those batteries – so it is obvious you have to drive for some number of miles before an EV makes sense from an emissions perspective. But 48,000? Given that the average UK car drives around 7,000 miles per year, that means it could take seven years for an EV to break even.

One thing immediately struck me: the report (which you can find here) appears to have been sponsored by a list of transport industry players not known for their leading positions in EVs: Aston Martin, Bosch, Honda, McLaren, Optare and the Renewable Transport Fuel Association.

So I immediately shot the article over to Auke Hoekstra, Senior Advisor on Electric Mobility at the Eindhoven Technical University. Auke is the probably the world’s leading expert on life-cycle emissions of EVs, diesel and petrol cars. He has published peer reviewed papers on the topic, but on twitter he is known as the Debunker-in-Chief, famous for his threads demolishing bogus report after bogus report that claim EVs are worse for emissions than internal combustion vehicles:

UPDATE 2 (3 Dec 2020): Aston Gate is getting traction, including a front page story in the The Guardian. Honestly, I don’t know of a case of amateur debunking that got attention and reaction so broadly and quickly before. A taste of what is happening.

UPDATE 6 December:

Over a three-week period, the Clean Energy For Biden (CE4Biden) Clean Energy Summit has showcased dozens of proposals for consideration (and action) by the Biden-Harris transition team for action in the coming year(s). While, to be clear, these proposals are not all-encompassing of the opportunities and requirements for clean-energy action nor are they institutionally endorsed by CE4B, these proposals are uniformly thoughtful, substantive, and meriting of consideration.

Tomorrow evening, 30 November, is the final Summit session focused on innovation (registration).

A common theme across CE4B’s policy proposals is the need for increased funding for clean energy research, development and demonstration, accelerating domestic deployment as well as enhancing U.S. global competitiveness, consistent with the Biden Plan’s call for a $400 billion clean energy innovation investment over ten years. The proposals at this summit on innovation urge federal attention to removing barriers, enhancing U.S. competitiveness, and adopting national standards to advance clean energy deployment.

“Innovation” isn’t just in the laboratory but also in regulation, financing, and beyond. The 14 proposals reflect this and range from ‘tech-heavy’ industrial spaces (hydrogen production, advanced nuclear) to refocused finance (climate bank, valuing demand response) to fostering shifted acceptance of ‘clean’ options (such as regenerative agriculture).

With keynotes from Representative Deb Haaland, former head of ARPAE Cheryl Martin, and clean-energy financier Trenton Allen in addition to the papers, this should be an interesting and substantive evening.

About CE4Biden and the proposals/Summit

CE4Biden mobilized clean-energy professionals of all stripes (key industry business executives, front-line workers, research engineers, environmental equity activists, bureaucrats, …) to work together to help elect President-Elect Joe Biden and VP-Elect Harris. Activities included raising $millions via events show-casing clean-energy leaders and issues; and mobilizing the 11,000 members for phone and text banking. Within CE4B was an opportunity: develop policy concepts, to be reviewed and edited together as a package for submittal to the Biden transition team. (To be clear, “while CE4B facilitated the development of the recommendations , CE4B does not endorse or take a position on any of the policy recommendations, as they are [the author’s] personal/professional views and [not attributable to] CE4B.”) That package is long and substantive (16-page introduction pdf; the 442 page total document), meriting reading and consideration within the drive for fostering a rapid COVID19 economic recovery to Build Back Better with a cleaner, prosperous, and more equitable economy in the years and decades to come.

The first Summit evening, 16 November, focused on Infrastructure and the second, 23 November, on Equity. While not available for viewing at this time, the Summit team intends to have all three evenings available for viewing in the near future.

If interested in a thoughtful and substantive evening featuring CE4B members laying out their innovative thinking about proposals to innovate us (the U.S.) toward a clean, prosperous, equitable future, register for the Innovation evening of the CE4B Energy Summit.

This morning, (un)Real Donald Trump tweeted out boosting a careerist who has made a fortune in propagating climate-science denialism. Once a Jim ‘snowballs disprove science’ Inhofe staffer, that careerist — Marc Morano — merits distinction as the Andrew Breitbart of the climate-science denial world.

Breitbart [specialises in] twisting the truth,
editing video to make black look like white and up look like down —
that’s the stuff of hocus-pocus and snake oil;
it’s not the work of the journalist.

Well, when it comes to the echo chamber of deceptive truthiness and outright deceit in the arena of climate change, sadly there is a pantheon of Breitbarts to chose from who are actively disseminating confusing material and outright falsehoods with gullible (or collaborating) journalists always ready to echo their falsehoods and give them voice in “faux and balanced” Global Warming reporting.

If, however, forced to narrow down in this pantheon of anti-science syndrome sufferers, there seems to be one name that sinks to the bottom: Marc Morano.

Morano’s career path includes Swift Boating Senator Kerry, being “Rush Limbaugh’s ‘Man in Washington””, writing an article for the Family Research Council (in the 80s) attacking those seeking resources for AIDS research and funding, promoting and pushing Coronavirus denialism and dismissal of COVID19 implications & need for concerted action, etc … etc … etc …

For far too long, like Breitbart, Morano had a gold pass of access to too many journalists with lots of private conversations to influence reporting and many quotations to boost his reputation. One of the benefits of the past decade: credible outlets have reduced their credulity of Morano’s lies and ever-less frequently been giving an aura of credibility to him.

And, sadly, too many have had to spend too much time debunking his deceit to help credible journalists and outlets understand why Morano didn’t merit being given even a crumb of credibility in their reporting. Just a few tastes of this.

• Climate Hustle 2 is simply BS (and, well, a BAD mockumentary) showcasing the thinning roster of aging climate-science deniers.
• A Sourcewatch on Morano and his science denialism and DeSmogBlog’s take

Marc Morano has been called “the Matt Drudge of climate denial,” the “king of the skeptics,” and “a central cell of the climate-denial machine,” and he revels in these descriptions. Although he has no scientific expertise, he is adamant that manmade global warming is a “con job” based on “subprime science.”  … Morano is paid by an industry-funded group to run the climate denial website ClimateDepot.com. At Climate Depot, Morano serves as the de facto research department for the right-wing media’s attacks on climate science, and mobilizes his readers to target individual scientists and reporters for telling the public about climate change threats. 

Climate Change Misinformer Of The Year: Marc Morano, MMfA, 2012

As a reporter for the ExxonMobil-funded Conservative News Service, Morano helped launch the swift-boat campaign attacking John F. Kerry’s military service in Vietnam. He then went to work as communications director for the leading climate change denier in the Senate, James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), and he brought “swift boating” to climate science. Among his targets has been James Hansen, former head of the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies and an authoritative voice calling for action on climate change. Morano labeled Hansen a “wannabe Unabomber” who supports “ridding the world of industrial civilization,” “razing cities” and “blowing up dams.”

Michael Mann & Tom Toles, 2016

Morano is a long-time paid denier, which means there’s plenty of stuff out there about how he’s… not exactly a reliable expert. He even makes it into the Merchant of Doubt film trailer (and even more in the book) emphasizing ‘I’m not a scientist but sometimes I play one.”

Considering this record, it should surprise no one that Morano has remained a darling of the fossil-foolish climate deniers like DICK (Denier-In-Chief Kleptocrat) Trump.

Energy Dominance

Now, as is typical of Trump’s 10,000s of lies as President, today’s tweet is multifaceted in the ignorance and deceit — it isn’t just about climate-science denial.

To the extent that the United States has “energy dominance” (a long, complicated, and debatable discussion) due to oil and natural gas (ONG) booms, let us be clear: the path to “dominance” started well before Trump (Thank You (?), Obama) and the gains in US ONG production to date were overwhelming either prior to Trump’s occupation of the Oval Office or investment streams/planned well before Team Trump was in control. As AP put it back in 2017,

THE FACTS: … energy production was unleashed during Obama’s presidency, largely because of advances in hydraulic fracturing that made it economical to tap vast reserves of natural gas. Oil production also greatly increased, reducing imports. [Under Obama,] the U.S. for the first time in decades was getting more energy domestically than it imports. 

Turning to another space, Trump has loved to brag about stock market performance (which, again, boomed even more under Obama …). Notable: while the United States moved to (fossil-foolish) “energy dominance”, the firms core that dominance have underperformed the stock market, provided negative returns to investors, and many haven’t even been able to earn enough to pay off their loans (let alone profits).

However, really, what is ‘energy dominance’ really? Boosting oil and natural gas production and reliance (forget coal, which has fallen under Trump) is not a path for ‘dominance’ in a world that is increasingly dominated by policies and economic imperatives for low-carbon solutions. Instead, such fossil-foolish approaches create huge risks and vulnerabilities (fiscal, reputational, climate, …). True “energy dominance” will come from harnessing clean energy to create a prosperous, climate-friendly society and leveraging this to boost national security (through sharing globally) and the economy (creating jobs, boosting industries, driving exports).

To be quite clear, the Biden-Harris Build Back Better plan is serious, achievable, and will radically change the U.S. energy and climate path forward for the better. With that declarative truth done, on the eve of the last “debate” where climate is set to be a full 15 minute discussion, a moment of reflection on two framing issues from VP Biden and Senator (soon to be VP) Harris from the debate stage.

• Build Back Better & Green New Deal have a common ‘framework’ … with substantive policy and path differences
• A President can’t ban Fracking … but can do a lot to reduce its negative impacts in the near and long term.

The Department of Defense (DOD) is the largest single user of energy in the world and, directly, represents about one percent of total U.S. energy demand. Indirectly, considering the full DOD impact (workforce(s), contractors, use of commercial transportation, …), the DOD true energy demand could be well above five percent of total U.S. energy usage and thus ballpark one percent of global energy usage (as US is about 17% of total global demand).  While well below aggregated demand from transportation, buildings, and agriculture, this is an impressive figure. To paraphrase Sutton’s law, we need to focus on DOD because that’s where the energy is.

For far too long, for most in the Department, energy was simply a given — something that the logistics personnel would get to the forces and something the financiers would pay for.  While a cadre of analysts, including the Defense Science Board (DSB), sought to get DOD leadership (uniformed and civilian) to focus on “fully burdened cost of fuel” (FBCF) (what the true costs and implications of energy use are), this remained a back-burner issue until it became clear that a high share of casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq resulted from forward force fuel demands and the significant share of logistics (e.g., convoys) required to deliver fuel to forward operating forces and bases.  This also occurred during significant oscillation of and high peaking of oil prices along with increasing (and, in near term, erroneous) concerns about nearing peak oil supply. 

Thus, by the end of the Bush Administration, there were serious efforts underway to better understand energy implications (such as, again, the DSB) within DOD and to reduce the Department’s reliance on fossil fuels (from domestic installations to forward operating forces).  Those efforts accelerated under President Obama.

From Marine Corps outposts using solar panels to reduce diesel demand (and thus refueling requirements) by about 50 percent to hybrid-electric ships cutting fuel demand by about 15 percent to installing LED lights thoughout installations to solar panels proliferating on military facilities, the DOD energy picture has seen real change over the past 20 years. 

These measures, through life-cycle, almost certainly are saving the Department (and taxpayers) money as taking Energy Smart measures are typically (near universally) also fiscally smart measures. Far more importantly, these measures are improving capabilities while reducing risks.  Let’s take that hybrid-electric ship: greater fuel efficiency translates to longer range (e.g. more capability) and reduced requirements for refueling at sea (and thus less vulnerability).  With those real benefits, who cares whether it saves a penny or reduces pollution? An energy efficient domestic base with renewable energy sources within the wire might save the taxpayer money while reducing pollution but, in terms of the DOD mission, is far more resilient in the face of (either natural or manmade) threats to grid electricity.

While much has happened over the past twenty years, there are still significant opportunities to improve DOD capabilities, boost resiliency, and reduce financial burdens through Energy Smart practices, policies, and procurement.  

On 6 October, Clean Energy for Biden will host a virtual event focused on these opportunities. A panel that includes legislative, policy, and operational experience will explore Clean Energy & the Department of Defense in a Biden-Harris Administration. Speakers will include

• Representative Adam Smith (D-WA-9) House Armed Services Committee Chair
• The Honorable Dorothy Robyn, Former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Installations and Environment
• The Honorable Sharon Burke, Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Operational Energy
• Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn, U.S. Navy (retired), former Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations & Environment

This virtual discussion will focus on why clean energy matters for the Department of Defense (and the military services) and explore potential DOD clean-energy agendas and opportunities in a Biden-Harris Administration.

Yom Kippur … the Day of Atonement.

After the period of reflection and engagement with others between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, this is a moment to turn to internal considerations and the relationship between the individual and G-d.

As part of the prayers for the Day of Atonement, the Vidui, the Al Cheyt or recital of sins, is perhaps the most important. (Modern Judaism being what it is, there are a myriad of translations and modern variations on the Vidui/Al Chet.)

A key word: Ashamnu or “we have sinned”.

Ashamnu is a recognition of individual and communal failures. The Al Cheyt is a recognition and statement about sins by ourselves (and our community) against others, against oneself, against G-d through action … and inaction.

It is clear:

• One can do wrong purposefully and explicitly … and one can do wrong inadvertently and indirectly.
• One can do wrong through action and words … and one can do wrong through inaction and silence.
• And, one can … one should … one must act to recognize the wrongs that we, all — as individuals and communities, have done, seek to redress them, and work to avoid them into the future.

This Yom Kippur comes amid a divisive and ugly American Presidential campaign.

Amid the very stark difference between the two candidates, perhaps the starkest relates to climate change.

• Donald Trump, reflecting core GOP value streams, rejects climate science and promotes policy concepts (to the extent that he has actual policy concepts) that would worsen the problem (and, perhaps, be the final nail in the coffin on hopes to avert truly catastrophic climate change).
• Joe Biden, in stark contrast, accepts (climate) science, uses it to guide her policy concepts and views, and has laid out a serious agenda to have the coronavirus recovery centered on clean energy, energy efficiency, environmental justice, and other climate mitigation/adaptation programs and achievements.

Simply put, Donald Trump is to continue to act to worsen the climate crisis and Joe Biden plans to #ActOnClimate.

In our political sphere, there was once too much ‘climate silence’, a  silence in our political leadership and among too many of us in the of rabid climate science denial and on the damage we are doing to the planetary system, the risks of climate change, and the urgent necessity for meaningful change to change our path toward something that enables sustainable prosperity for humanity.  In September 2020, on this Yom Kippur, on the eve of what might be the most momentous election of U.S. (even global) history, that silence is gone.  It is replace by the stark contrast outlined above.

Yom Kippur — including the viddui — is not typically focused on politics and political action.

It is, however, a time for reflection on our relationships and actions, including setting ourselves on the paths to addressing our failures — in essence, soul-searching to lay out a self-improvement agenda.

Amid this soul-searching, the piercing challenge of climate change, one action set is clear: we must work to push the political system (politicians) to #ActOnClimate.

And, with the stark contrast in our political structure, to make that a reality requires action 3 November:

Vote #Climate.

Vote to put the Democratic Party in charge of the Senate.

Vote for Joe Biden.

Vote to #ActOnClimate

From a Yom Kippur sermon leading into a Viddui recitation,

This is Yom Kippur.

This is a night for confession.

So let us be honest.

If ever there was a time for candor, this is it.

We humans are not good with limits.

We are pushing the planet and its animal resources to the limit.

We want what we want when we want it.

We pretty much take, hunt, fish, and consume until someone or something stops us or until there is no more to be taken.

Do you remember the Viddui we will be reciting in a few minutes? It’s the Confession prayer that lists our sins alphabetically.

a…b…c…

We abuse. We besmirch. We consume. We destroy. We excuse ourselves. We forget the consequences of our actions. We are greedy.

I could continue through the alphabet, and I should go on because, as the saying goes, although religion ought to comfort the afflicted, religion also needs to afflict the comfortable. And we truly do need to be uncomfortable tonight. Remember an alternate name for Yom Kippur is Yom Ha-Din…the Day of Judgment. This night is meant to be a time for severity.

“a time of severity”.

We are living in a time of consequences, a time where humanity’s future (and our own, unless you are on your deathbed, futures) require confronting Inconvenient Truth, and acting in this regard.

The individual matters and we need, for Yom Kippur, to judge ourselves with “severity” — to push our own comfortable ways as to whether we ‘sin’ and damage and harm unknowingly or knowingly.

“I am doing what I can.”

I (and my family) recycle … I (and my family) walk and bike often where others are jumping in their cars … I engage with others to educate about climate issues and energy smart practices/opportunities … I have changed my career to work solely on clean energy / climate mitigation related opportunities …

But, judging in severity, there is certainty that “I” can do more.

“I” can find more droplets to carry as part of a larger effort to douse the mounting flames of Climate Chaos. And, perhaps most importantly, I can continued to fight to end climate silence and to have climate action/climate justice core to my vote (and political activism).

“I am doing what I can.”

Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement as individual — an individual’s reckoning. Yet … yet … yet … it is also communal, the individual is part of something larger.

We live within a society. And, while each of us has a voice and role in that society, there are things that are beyond us as individuals to control. We — whether Libertarian or Socialist, Democrat or Republican, Christian or Muslim, male or female — are part of a community. Truthfully, there is no such thing as that perfect person (take a look and reflect on the Al Cheyt) nor is there such a thing as a perfect leader. But, we should recognize our own faults and seek to change our patterns. And, we should look to our leaders’ faults and seek to help them change for the better.

Most of all, we cannot afford more of the same timid politics when the future of our planet is at stake. Global warming is not a someday problem, it is now.

Who said this? Senator Barack Obama in 2007.

Sadly, during the 2012 election, our political elite provided crickets … true  without discussion of climate in debates or speeches.

Regretfully, in the 2016 election, climate change — despite Hillary Clinton’s policy laydown and a few truly excellent speeches — was barely been an afterthought in discussions.

Here — in 2020 — we are in another political season and, yet again, the vast majority of political consultants seem to tell candidates not to talk about climate change even though the climate crisis has worsened, the vast majority of Americans want more climate news and discussion, and the vast majority of Democratic Party voters put climate as a (if not the) top-tier issue. And, far too many follow that advice. Some — some — however don’t. These include Vice President Biden, Senator Kamala Harris, and a number Climate Hawks who are taking leadership roles to help shift the political and public discussion.

Amid our horrific political environment, where one political party is dominated and control by individuals and organizations suffering from an acute case of anti-science syndrome, real (political reality, not physical reality) barriers exist to the beneficial and cost-effective paths to mitigate Climate Chaos that should be at the centerpiece of national discussion and national investment.  Erev Yom Kippur, as Donald Trump wreaks havoc on society and the climate, Joe Biden stood up to boost climate issues in national discussion.

What has been barrier to necessary action?

That too few leaders speak truthfully and forcefully on climate change. (To be clear, there are important exceptions. For example, Senator Whitehouse a shining example to others about leaning forward to speak forcefully and thoughtfully on climate change.)

We must seek ourselves and encourage our leaders to move beyond political expediency to leadership, to truthful and forceful engagement to help move the Overton Window on climate change from delusional science denial and ridicule to realistic engagement with the risks and opportunities.

We, ourselves, must be Climate Hawks. Being able to survey the entirety of the situation and see, with eagle-eyed vision, targets meriting attention. Beyond ourselves, we must encourage leaders — whether in our churches, schools, or Halls of Congress — to be Climate Hawks.

We don’t talk about it … even though we must …

As George Marshall has so eloquently discussed, not only is climate change a ‘wicked problem’ of complex interactions but it is a ‘wicked problem’ that is fundamentally at odds with how we, as humans, engage with the world around us.

Climate Change

We sin … we do wrong through action and words.

We sin, we do wrong through inaction and silence.

“I am doing what I can.”

We sin by not doing what we can …

On Tuesday, November 3th (actually, early voting likely mid-October), I can — I will — vote for climate action. I will

vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

NOTE: This is a variation of previous posts.

• 2016: Ashamnu: we have transgressed on climate change
• 2013: Listen to the Hummingbird: We have transgressed
• 2012: Ashamnu: We have transgressed with climate silence