Get Energy Smart! NOW!

In September 2009, an environmental investigator submitted a 60-page report on the risks of deepwater drilling as a public comment to the federal government’s proposed rule for oil and gas leasing between 2010 and 2015 on the outer continental shelf. Addressed to the chief of the Minerals Management Service’s (MMS) leasing division, this memorandum highlighted the risks of the drilling, with a specific focus on methane hydrates:

The primary cause of blowouts, spills and uncontrolled releases of gases from offshore operations is drilling into methane hydrates, or through them into free gas trapped below

Using material published by the MMS (accident investigations, etc), there were at least 39 blowouts between 1992 and 2006 with the drilling of nearly 2,500 deepwater wells (three times the number over the previous 20 years). As the impacts of these blowouts were declining, the internal MMS analysis actually pointed to falling human casualties as a positive sign encouraging continued (expanded) drilling.

In terms of response to the 60 page report … the sound of crickets. That is, at least until now.

For an excellent and far more detailed discussion of this report, see David Sassoon, Solve Climate, Investigator Warned MMS in 2009 About Deepwater Gas Blowouts in Gulf of Mexico.

To make it quite clear: the implication has nothing to do with the cause. the implication is that we are faced with an unexpected crisis that reveals a much ignored problem, and which can, if responded to the way it should be, change the nation and the world- for the better.

The explosion of Deepwater Horizon over a month ago and the devastating man-caused volcano of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico are a massive unfolding disaster that merit national and, well, even global mobilization. While British Petroleum and other involved players have mobilized armies of lawyers, the fleet of vessels in the Gulf seem about as effective in response to the sea of oil as using a thimble to bail water from a sinking ship.

When it comes to a chance to change the nation for the better, this is Obama’s 9/11 and Katrina rolled into one. 9/11 was an opportunity to mobilize Americans to end our addiction to oil. Katrina was an opportunity to turn the nation toward a sustainable path forward as a model for America and the Globe. Obama has the opportunity to take action where George W Bush didn’t …

Without real leadership, Americans seem to be clueless about how bad the situation truly is and how bad it could (excuse me, almost certainly, will) become. As Peter Daou wrote today (in a must read post)

A calamity is unfolding before our eyes – the greatest oil spill in history – and America’s response is little more than a big yawn.

Bob Herbert yesterday

The response of the Obama administration and the general public to this latest outrage at the hands of a giant, politically connected corporation has been embarrassingly tepid. … This is the bitter reality of the American present, a period in which big business has cemented an unholy alliance with big government against the interests of ordinary Americans, who, of course, are the great majority of Americans. The great majority of Americans no longer matter. America is selling its soul for oil.

President Obama continues to miss the opportunity to lead. In yesterday’s weekly address,

First and foremost, what led to this disaster was a breakdown of responsibility on the part of BP and perhaps others, including Transocean and Halliburton.

Sigh …

“Foremost“?

fore·most

adj.
1. First in time or place.
2. Ahead of all others, especially in position or rank; paramount. See Synonyms at chief.

adv.
1. In the front or first position.
2. So as to be most important.

While the first order cause was the, what looks to be, criminal negligence on the part of “Beyond Petroleum” and its coterie of contractors combined with technical arrogance, with a second-order cause lax oversight of the oil and natural gas drilling industries, these are far from “foremost”.

What is the “paramount” (most important, “pre-eminent”) cause of the disaster? Simply put, America’s (and the global) addiction to oil combined with peak oil driving oil exploitation into ever more difficult and dangerous environments. As long as the global thirst for oil grows, ever-riskier efforts to find resources to quench that thirst will go on. If we wish, in all seriousness, to reduce the likelihood of killing off another part of the world, we have to start our path off oil.

And, to do so requires leadership.

After 9/11, President George W. Bush had the opportunity to speak to the nation, laying out the reality that part of the reason for the attack was our oil addiction, and announcing that part of the path to “win” against those who attacked America would be to end our dependence on foreign oil. In the shadow of the World Trade Center’s flames, Americans would even have accepted a need to car pool, bike, and (yikes) to drive at 55 along with supporting an investment effort to electrify our rail system, develop electric vehicles, improve fuel economy, and a myriad of other steps to drive down our oil usage. Instead of mobilizing us toward action to strengthen the nation, he told us to take our credit cards to the shopping mall.

Following Katrina’s receding waters, President George W. Bush had an opportunity to declare a transformation of the Gulf Coast to a global model for prosperous, sustainable development. He could have highlighted the value of smart development, energy efficiency and renewable energy, and the need to reclaim the barrier islands and marshes devastated by fossil foolish interests that made New Orleans more vulnerable to a hurricane’s devastation. Instead, he gave a speech in a brightly lit square and left behind a legacy of broken promises.

President Obama — the Obama Administration — are facing a challenge as great as both 9/11 and Katrina. Sadly, to date, they seem to be playing a ‘lawyer’ and ‘media management’ game along the lines we see from British Petroleum. Legaling and PR’ing up isn’t leadership. Lawyers and Press Spokesmen won’t give us the Change we want, the Change we need.

The optimist side of my optimistic pessimism holds out a sliver of hope that we — collectively — have the opportunity to goad the President and the Administration into action. This is a case where the environmental, energy, economic, and political ‘right thing to do’ are the same thing …

We need President Obama to lead.

We need him to explain, forthrightly, not just that we must end our oil addiction but that we can.

We can and we must …

President Obama must explain the necessity and value of The Five Percent Solution.

Three notes …

1. To reiterate, go read Peter Daou’s The Great Shame: America’s Pathetic Response to the Gulf Catastrophe. You won’t be disappointed — well, you won’t be disappointed with his writing and thinking.

2. Let us be quite clear: Barack Obama is no George W Bush nor are his appointees anything like the Cheney-Bush team. The Administration is taking actions, there are people taking steps … just spend a few moments at the Deepwater Horizion Response website to see that blunt accusations of total inaction in the face of this disaster are wrong (see also the WH list of actions). As Joe Romm rightly notes, for example, the appointment of serious people to investigate Deepwater Horizon represent a desire to understand and learn from this catastrophe that stand in stark contrast to how Obama’s “immediate predecessor never showed such curiosity about his myriad mistakes, such as the response to Katrina”.

3. All analogies are difficult, with strengths and weaknesses. The, thus, perhaps ‘stretched’ analogy is that 9/11 gave Bush a perfect opening for ending oil addiction and Katrina for transforming the Gulf Coast to something different. Deepwater Horizon offers Obama these two opportunities wrapped into one package.

Among the latest front, yet another (strong) piece of evidence of the cascading impacts of climate change on eco-systems around the world and the global eco-system’s ability to sustain modern human civilization, scientists have laid out how Lake Tanganyika is heating at an unprecedented rate (at least of 1500 years of scientific analysis) and that this heating is driving down productivity.

In reaction to this, thoughtful blogger DWG commented:

This is yet another canary in the coal mine with a fever.

With frog species disappearing … with coral reefs bleaching … salamanders disappearing … glaciers melting … sea level rising … precipitation increasing and increasingly in large events … temperatures warming decade to decade … considering all of these, the comment drove me to this reaction:

When are we simply past the “canary in the coal mine” analogy?  Haven’t all the canaries already died?

“Canary in a coal mine” is a powerful image. As Clem put it,

For decades, how closely a coal miner paid attention to the canary in the coal mine was, literally, the difference between life and death. Today, the “canary in the coal mine” is a more sophisticated set of man-made monitors and biological indicators, but just as important for our long term health and welfare.

“Canary in the coal mine” is an issue of life or death …

“Canary in the coal mine” is used, in no small part, to refer to a harbinger of the future.

“One small event in an isolated area may not seem especially noteworthy, but it may offer the first tangible warning of a larger problem developing.”

What we are seeing are harbingers of a future dominated by the impacts of catastrophic climate chaos, less productive and disrupted ecosystems, disappearing species, changing habitation patterns, etc … The increasing number and complexity of the implications of climate change that we already seeing are ‘harbingers’ of far worse ‘future’ problems if we don’t begin acting seriously, well, yesterday.

But, “first tangible warming” from “one small event in an isolated area” … How many sick, dying, and dead canaries in the global warming mine must we see, must slap in the face as a human civilization before we begin to act seriously.

Sadly, the appropriate analogy for humanity might be a group of miners desperately seeking to eek out ‘just one more ton’ of coal even as the canaries collapse in the cages surrounding them.

As per DWG,

The canaries are dead and the pelicans are oiled. It all feels like a slow motion wreck. People seem to forget that the climate models have been wrong in terms of predicting adverse environmental effects – the effects are happening far more rapidly than the models  predicted. We have assumed a liner trajectory when the effects have behaved exponentially. We need to scream louder for clean energy and hope the powers that be finally listen.

This guest post from WarrenS provides a template for the commendable work that he has been doing to seek to illuminate climate and energy issues for newspaper readers across the country. One of the things, by the way, that WarrenS doesn’t mention is that his pieces fall into a context: even if he is not published, there is a ‘count’ — lots of people speaking reality about climate change and energy suggests more reality-based letters will be published.

When I began writing a Daily Letter on Climate in January, I tried doing it in the morning.  But those mornings also held a five-year-old girl who had to get off to preschool, and students and errands — whew! — it was getting harder and harder to get things done…so one day I doubled up, writing a letter in the morning and a letter at night for the next day.

It worked, and now with almost no exceptions I have an hour or so in the night after my last student has left, my daughter’s been put to bed, and my wife is either napping or grading — and that’s when I write my letter.

I thought it might be useful to share how I go about it, so as I did the letter for May 18th, I opened a diary draft here and cut & pasted successive drafts, showing my working process.

Follow me below the flip if you’re actually interested in this…

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As any who regularly read my work should be aware, I have a fascination with the power of feedback systems to foster behavioral change (and here and …) and help foster more Energy Smart practices and to hasten the adoption of Energy Smart/Energy COOL technologies. This guest post by Milly Watt (which, in this context, truly should be ‘milliwatt’) on a variety of household electricity feedback systems speaks directly to that passion …

This series is all about changing our behavior to reduce our impact on the earth. Chances are good that the electricity many of us use in our homes is generated by some fossil fuel. Whether you’re concerned about climate change, oil gushers, or just saving money on your power bill, there’s motivation to reduce the energy used in your home.  When it comes to saving energy, there is no shortage of advice (e.g., reduce thermostat settings, insulate, replace light bulbs with CFLs, keep the refrigerator full).  But how do you know what will do the most good to reduce electricity consumption in your house? You need data! Feedback is essential!

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Another guest post from the extremely thoughtful and insightful BruceMcF. Bruce’s thoughts, writ large, about transport policy and, more specifically, electrified rail merit attention and action.

If we reduce our oil consumption by 5% a year over each of the next twenty years, that allows use to be free of our oil addiction if we choose to be. But as I observed last week, since 60%-70% of our oil consumption is in transport, that means that in each decade, seven out of the ten 5% reductions have to come out of transport.

I set forward three of the seven for the coming decade last week: the Steel Interstates, national funding for sustainable power local transit corridors, and a target of 5% “Active Transport” – pedestrian and cycle transport.

I have written at some length on the Steel Interstate, but this was the first airing of the rest of the proposal. I promised to go into more depth this week … and that’s what I aim to do today.

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The obliviousness about humanity’s impact on weather patterns due to climate change continues for all too many in the media.
The Washington Post‘s Howard Kurtz provides today’s example.  Kurtz reports on the near media blackout when it comes to the recent (massive) Nashville floods.  Kurtz, just like the Post’s reprinting of the weak AP coverage, fails to note that this extreme rainfall (the greatest and third greatest 24 hour periods of rain in a 48 hour period in the history of weather data in Nashville) and the resultant flooding fit well into the climate change predictions (and realities) of increasing amounts of precipitation falling in extreme weather events, increasing total amounts of precipitation, and greater precipitation (total) for this area of the nation.

As per Jeff Masters,

Tennessee and most of the northern 2/3 of the U.S. can expect a much higher incidence of record flooding in coming decades. This will be driven by two factors: increased urban development causing faster run-off, and an increase in very heavy precipitation events due to global warming. Both factors have already contributed to significant increases in flooding events in recent decades over much of the U.S. According the landmark 2009 U.S. Climate Impact Report from the U.S. Global Change Research Program, “the amount of rain falling in the heaviest downpours has increased approximately 20 percent on average in the past century, and this trend is very likely to continue, with the largest increases in the wettest places.”

The most damning part of Kurtz’ piece is the clear statement that he is far from isolated in failing to link Nashville’s flooding to human action. Kurtz quoted Mark Silverman, editor ofthe Tennessean:

“Nuances are lost when you do fly-in, fly-out reporting,” Silverman says of the coverage. In journalism, he says, “everyone wants to have a villain. But there are no villains yet, except for Mother Nature.”

Well, Mark and Howard, at least in part there is quite likely a villain and we have nowhere further to look than in the mirror to see some of the guilty parties.

If the editor of the traditional media outlet in the center of the deluge is unable to see the climate change’s menacing clouds amid the deluge, that is indicative of the general failure of the traditional media to connect the dots between science and the real world for their readers.

Let’s be clear, there is not a universal failure. “Weather Channel expert Stu Ostro’s discussion of Georgia’s record-smashing global-warming-type deluge” provided a window on this:

Nevertheless, there’s a straightforward connection in the way the changing climate “set the table” for what happened this September in Atlanta and elsewhere. It behooves us to understand not only theoretical expected increases in heavy precipitation (via relatively slow/linear changes in temperatures, evaporation, and atmospheric moisture) but also how changing circulation patterns are already squeezing out that moisture in extreme doses and affecting weather in other ways.

Perhaps Howard Kurtz should take the time to talk with Ostro  …

NOTE / UPDATE:  See Global Boiling’s War on Country Music and Biblical Floods Devastate Nashville As Tennessee Senators Fiddle On Climate.

Despite the horrific nature of the massive man-made volcano of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, the utter absence of discussion of the evolving disaster in work and social environments has been a striking contrast to the virtual blogosphere world. Not once this month, without my starting the conversation, has Gulf oil been discussed: even when talking / working with people who live / work within miles of the Gulf Coast. More than once, after starting a conversation, someone commented along the lines “but, I thought it was getting better” or “doesn’t BP have this under control”. Even with weak (and often misleading) traditional media attention, a more accurate understanding is not far out of reach … it is unclear how many Americans are reaching.

Right now, to a tremendous extent, the havoc in the Gulf of Mexico remains in the ‘out-of-sight, out-of-mind’ category since so much of the risk is well below the surface, far out-of-reach of the (ineffective) oil booms and boats skimming (minimal amounts of) oil off the surface. A straight-forward question: How to help Americans understand and visualize what is going on in the Gulf of Mexico?

Truly, other than some National Geographic show (if they watch that), a scene from a movie, or a trip to an aquarium, underwater is out-of-sight, out-of-mind for most of humanity.

Now, this makes me wonder whether the aquariums across the country are collaborating for major discussion of the impacts of oil dumping on the undersea environment and on sea life.

Thus …

Here is a thought … here is what I and think blue and others would like to see (and, since it would be painful, perhaps not prefer seeing) as an exhibit at all the nation’s aquariums …

• Dedicate a tank to demonstrate the effect of an oil gush from the bottom and of adding dispersant under water.
• Pump crude oil and gas from the bottom of the tank, add some dispersant, and have a webcam document the result.
• Let the fish and vegetation die … have dying and dead fish within the tank.
• Have this contaminated tank be surrounded by tanks with coral and other sea life representative of the Gulf of Mexico
• Give free tickets to journalists (and their families)
• Have a web cam running 24/7, documenting what is going on, and perhaps holding an environmental film contest to see what people can make of using these webcam materials to help foster public understanding of the oilpocalyse
• And, promote real-world solutions for helping reduce the potential for future disasters … to end our oil addiction.

This might make some news and open some eyes … and have an impact.

Aquariums are sites of entertainment but, more fundamentally, also sites for communicating the complexities and science related to the marine environment, its ecosystems, its life. Providing a tool for educating about the very serious threats to those ecosystems should be on the top of the agenda for every aquarium director around the country.

A guest post from Mark Louis re alternative energy …

This was a pretty big week in energy news.  First, Senators John Kerry & Joe Lieberman introduce the American Power Act(greatest name ever).  Then, to help drive home the need for a comprehensive energy bill, the EPA announced new regulations for greenhouse gas emissions, reminding legislators that if they don’t act, the EPA will.  Unfortunately, it may not have the desired effect, as Senator Lisa Murkowski (or, as I call her, Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer), has indicated plans to bring up legislation to remove this power from the EPA.  For more info check out this diary from RL Miller. With that said, on to the energy.

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Not-In-My-Back-Yard!!!   This is perhaps one of the most natural of human reactions.

Sludge plant? I might poop but don’t put that upwind of me.

Oil Refinery? I’ll drive as much as I want but don’t let that cancer-causing behemoth ruin my view or threaten my kids’ health.

A hospital in the neighborhood? Sure, save my life but dare allow ambulances to use sirens to help save someone else’s.

Not-In-My-Back-Yard!!! Natural and understandable doesn’t make right or correct.

The Not-In-My-Back-Yard! syndrome is best known as NIMBY and, let us be clear, that NIMBYites are battling to protect, often in misguided terms, their own little neck of the woods to the detriment of others and of overall society.

When it comes to the sewage plant, when Santa Clara needed to build a sewage plant, the local environmental organizations didn’t fight it … but sought to assure that it did the least damage possible. After all, “Every community should take care of its own waste, and we should also.”

When it comes to the oil refinery or that pesky little offshore drilling platform (well, that was out-of-sight, out-of-mind, so it really didn’t matter — it wasn’t in my backyard, was it in yours?), the real answer is figuring out how to end our oil addiction while requiring safety standards be met through tough and serious inspections and oversight.

And, when it comes to public services, we all need them and we all need to share the burden … thus, balancing the hospital with LED lighting to reduce glare into neighborhoods and directional sirens to wake fewer children when transporting a critical patient to the emergency room.

Amelioration and solution … not visceral rejection.

NIMBYism and NIMBYites have, for a long time, weakened the societal framework and contributed to social and environmental injustice when they move from amelioration and solution into red-faced visceral rejection.

NIMBYism is a real challenge when it come to moving forward with clean energy systems. Whether it is homeowner associations blocking solar panels or solar dryers (e.g., clotheslines) or manufactured outrage over offshore wind turbines that would be barely visible from shore, often uninformed but passionate clamor derived from issues of “views” can delay and, sometimes, derail renewable energy systems — and wind power faces the NIMBYite challenge globally. While there is increasing opposition to coal-fired power plants, despite industry deception of “clean coal“, the ‘invisibility’ of coal’s massive pollution and the inability of most to connect that pollution to very real impacts (mercury in food, lowered IQs, asthma rates, acidification of the oceans, and, oh yeah, global warming) can make the opposition to the visible, but lower impact/higher benefit, renewable power options much greater than the passion aroused by the typically out-of-sight, out-of-mind coal plant.

NIMBYites, backed by coal money and fossil foolish interests, have been fighting the Cape Wind offshore wind projects for years. Note that poll after poll showed that the majority of local citizens supported this project.  While this looks like it might finally be moving forward, their fighting kept this from moving forward for years — raising the eventual cost of that wind electricity while enabling 100,000s of additional tons of carbon dioxide to be spewed into the air from polluting electricity plants. Rather than a (barely) visible sign of a clean energy future, local residents have been helping dig our hole deeper through out-of-sight, out-of-mind emissions from a dirty electricity plant.

While Cape Wind received national press, a lot of national press, over the years, it is far from the only misguided NIMBYite fight against sensible wind farm development.

To the extent people think ‘offshore wind’, they almost certainly think mainly about the oceans. In fact, the Great Lakes represent some of America’s best wind potential and, certainly, about the best offshore wind potential due to relative shallow waters and relatively milder seas (when was the last cyclone on a Great Lake?) along with being close to large population centers that are, in many cases, heavily dependent on coal-fired electricity.  Great Lakes offshore wind offers cost-effective clean power that can directly offset some of the dirtiest electricity sources in America.

Sigh …

But …

Not-In-My-Back-Yard scream those outraged over the potential of thumb-sized wind turbines turning quietly on the horizon, spinning away clean energy, while they are perfectly willing to live with out-of-sight, out-of-mind polluting coal-fired electricity.

One of the relatively unheralded examples of NIMBYites, resting on the thinnest of reeds, fighting sensible clean energy progress comes with the Scandia Wind Offshore Aegir Project (supported by Lakeshore Wind) which would put up over 1100 megawatts of wind turbines in the Lake near not just major demand centers but major underground pumped power storage, enabling fitting the wind power generated electricity better to the actual demand curves.

Public opinion, there, spans the range from uninformed to misinformed to enthusiastic. For example,

Grand Haven’s Karen
Murvin said she was curious about the suggestion of having a wind farm six miles off the Grand Haven pierheads.

“I’m not happy with the prospects,” Murvin said. “I guess I’m concerned about the birds and marine life and the aesthetics.”

Muskegon’s Robert Jennings, who lives close to Pere Marquette Beach, said he is interested in repeating Denmark’s development of wind energy in Michigan.

“We have to be promoting employment,” Jennings said prior to the event. “If we can do it this way, I’m all for (offshore wind). I am not all that distressed with generators offshore.”

Well, the project Jennings is speaking of projects 3000 local jobs along with substantial royalty and tax money for the local government (teachers’ salaries anyone)?

As for Murvin’s concerns, the bird threat is nearly uniformly exaggerated by wind power proponents, who conveniently seem to forget the real threats to bird life ranging from domestic cats to climate change irreversibly devastating habitats and species. As for “marine life”, offshore wind projects are proving to be rich environments for marine species, often providing protected breeding grounds. And, well, for the aesthetics … perhaps each to their own, but the polling suggests that the vast majority of people find such turbines attractive and actually boosting of tourism, rather than damaging of vistas.

Who is on the top of the list fighting this wind project? Non-resident owners of lakeshore properties, who descend on the community perhaps for a few weeks of prime summer time a year, who are fearful of their backyard (beachfront) views, unconcerned about the invisible coal-fired electricity pollution that twirling turbines on the horizon could prevent.

Simply put, this project is a particularly sensible one in terms of a good wind location, near good transmission lines, near storage capacity, near demand, in an area requiring jobs and desperate for local revenues to help pay for public services (remember, teacher’s salaries).

We need to move, ASAP, this nation from NIMBY to SIMBY: Sensible In My Back Yard. Does the project make sense and will it work for the common good? Are there paths to ameliorate any ‘negative’ impacts? Will the project, net, help the environment or hurt it? Lets figure out how to be sensible … and get these critical projects moving forward.

At a time when the United States should be accelerating our moves toward a prosperous clean-energy future, NIMBYites across the country are doing their share to throw sand in the gears of progress — whether enforcing housing association rules demanding 24/7 gas lights outside or prohibiting drying clothes with the sun or spending their dollars to delay and diminish wind projects.  In their misbegotten efforts to protect their sightlines, these people are collaborating on the destruction of the nation’s and humanity’s future prospectcs.