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In a recent Politico OPED, Representative John Linder calls on the US to not jump off the cliff for climate. Looking at his truthiness-laden and error-filled opinion piece drives to the conclusion that Linder doesn’t want Americans to jump off the cliff, but more simply to wear blindfolds and walk over the cliff into catastrophic climate chaos.

As will be shown after the fold, Linder’s arguments simply don’t stand up to reasonable scrutiny and provide yet another example of a news outlet ready to published utterly deceptive material seemingly under the umbrella of ‘its an opinion and thus its legitimate’. This, again, leads to a basic question: Would the Politico editors seek to assure that the Flat Earth Society was quoted in a piece discussing a sailboat circumnavigating the globe or would they provide OPED space to someone asserting that Apollo moon landings were faked on the day an Astronaut was buried? After all, these are opinions and opinions with about the technical and scientific literacy and accuracy as Linder’s oped.

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A leaked document from COP15 negotiations shows that the concept of putting civilization on a path toward survival simply isn’t even on the table. Until a few years ago (including in the IPCC reports), the ‘consensus’ seemed to be that flattening CO2 levels at 550 ppm might be acceptable in terms of the planetary system’s ability to support humanity and that 450 ppm seemed a reasonable target leveling off point. Increasingly, leading scientists are concluding that turning the colossus of the global economy away from growing CO2 levels isn’t enough but that growing understanding of climate disruption drive a conclusion that we must cut actual Co2 levels in the atmosphere. That 550 ppm represent massively catastrophic climate disruption and 450 ppm will have unacceptable impacts on modern civilization. The call is to drive down, from today’s 387 ppm, down to 350 ppm.

If 350 ppm is where we should be headed, 450 is very high risk, and 550 creates unacceptable risk (and damage), the leaked UN documents show that current proposals would lead to a CO2 concentration of 770 ppm by 2100. That global four (okay, 3.9) degree Celsius temperature increase would doom significant coastal areas to inundation, global agriculture to almost inevitable declined productivity due to disrupted weather patterns, huge percentages of species to extinction, and our children (or children’s children) to a much harder existence than would be the case with a FAB (fair, aggressive, binding) climate agreement.

As Jon Warnow put it

A leaked copy of an official UN assessment just emerged from the talks–it says quite clearly that the proposals now on the table will yield temperature increases of at least 3 degrees Celsius. This is what the Climate Interactive folks have been saying all along, news that’s been reflected on the front of our website. But now the UN is saying it, and they’re adding–in one of the classic examples of bureaucratic understatement of all time, that

the estimated temperature rise of 3 degrees “will reduce significantly the probability to stay within a temperature increase of 2 degrees Celsius.”

You think?

From SolveClimate, Deal-Breaking Splits Remain over Global Warming Temperature Target provides a somewhat more optimistic look at this.

UPDATE: See Andrew Light at ClimateProgress who views this as not such an important document or “leak”.

UPDATE 2: Heading into the final negotiations, another document leaked. A key issue is what numbers replace X and Y in the draft with the implications of those numbers. See: Filling in the X-Y draft.

NOTE: RE “ClimateGate“, after the fold a few places to look for more information.

Unfortunately, the reactions to this headline in the pubs, on the climate lists, and in the media who have picked up this sucker of a story demonstrates how knee jerk our community has become, and frankly, how hungry we are for bad news.

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Across the globe, yesterday, church bell towers chimed 350 times in a mass call for COP15 negotiators to achieve a fair, aggressive and binding (FAB) climate agreement. As the bell tolled, key environmental organizations were being locked out of the negotiations building (despite being accredited to enter) and a group of young climate activists sat down in the middle of the negotiating hall in a call for a FAB deal as they began reading the names of 11,000,000+ people, from around the globe, who have signed up supporting a FAB goal.

Sympathy sit-ins are beginning to appear.

Today, a group of climate activists staged a sit-in at the US Department of State.

“So far, the talks have been mired by conflict and low ambition from the United States and other countries. We welcome today’s announcement from Secretary Clinton to a global fund of $100bn in climate finance – but the US still has huge distance to travel on other areas, especially our short-term emissions reductions,” said Julie Erickson, one of the activists in the State Department.

It took less than 20 minutes before they were all detained …

At the Department of State, today, the bells tolled for us in the voices of these climate activists …

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“Ask not for whom the bell tolls”, since, today, it is for us, our children, and our childrens’ children for whom the bells toll across Denmark.

As Danish police assaulted peaceful climate activists, as non-governmental organizations accredited to the COP15 face lockouts, and youth activists sit in protest inside the building calling for a FAB (not fabulous, but Fair, Ambitious, and Binding) climate treaty, Danish church bells tolled.

Today, the bells tolled for us.

Danish church bells rang 350 times (as did many around the globe) in a call for the international community, a call on international leaders to set themselves (and all of us) on a path to not just slowing the growth of CO2 emissions, not just eventually stabilizing CO2 emissions at some higher number than today’s levels, but actually striking a path to getting us back under 350 parts per million (ppm) of CO2.

(Quick reminder: for a million+ years, the earth oscillated between 185 (massive ice ages) and 285 ppm (world climate in which human civilization developed). Today, we are at 387 and already seeing serious climate disruption chaos. Once, the scientific community thought that we could safely stabilize at 450 ppm (and, maybe 550 ppm). Current trajectory (BAU — business as usual) and we hit 950 ppm or so by the end of the century. There is nothing being seriously discussed by the ‘major’ powers in Copenhagen that would stabilize us below 550 ppm, let alone get us back below 350.)

Will the world’s leaders heed the calls for action?

Will the world’s leaders heed the island nations’ pleas for assistance?

Will the world’s leaders hear the tolling bells?

Will the wold’s leaders wonder for whom the bell tolls?

Try an experiment with paint. Paint one side of a piece of wood with low-VOC (volatile organic compound) paint and lay it to dry somewhere in the house. Wait a day or two, paint the other side with traditional. The difference will be clear.

When it comes to cleaning, however, too many of us have become accustomed to associating a strong chemical smell (that bleach) with ‘clean’ rather than realization that the smell (and associated headache, breathing problem, etc) is an indication of a problem, not a solution, and a problem for which the solution is readily in hand.

Now, while many are aware of this in our own homes, we send our children off to school with an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mentality. And, however well-meaning they might be, many working in school systems’ supplies or maintenance organization remain with that old (20th) century think of ‘the chemical smell is a sign of a clean, disinfected space’. In the face of H1N1 and other health risks, they strong chemical smell is associated, for many, with safety even though in fact those chemicals create risk.

Greening the Schools is perhaps the most cost-effective path toward improving school education. This includes better lighting, better heating controls, fresher and higher-quality food, and ‘green cleaning’.

As for the last, the Environmental Working Group recently released Greener School Cleaning Supplies = Fresh Air + Healthier Kids”.

As part of this work, EWG tested 20 cleaners used in Califronia schools. They

“detected hundreds of contaminants, including six that cause asthma, 11 tied to cancer in people, and many more that have never been evaluated for safety.”

Some testing categories didn’t seem to extreme. Three disinfectants, none with more than eight detected contaminants, only 1 asthamagen detected, no carcinogens. Not perfect, by any means, but seemingly nothing to be too excited about … especially when looking at other areas. Of the three, bathroom cleans, 3M’s didn’t scale too badly (no detected asthamagens or carcinogens), but NABC’s had two astmagens. The ‘do you want this around your children’ red line came from Comet disinfectant powder (which used to be in my home and is certainly in many schools), which

“emitted 146 contaminants when used as directed, including formaldehyde, benzene, chloroform and four other chemicals identified by the state of California as causing cancer or reproductive harm”.

At what cost, you might ask, in health a chemically induced feeling of cleaniness?

Writ large, although far from perfect, “green” cleaners emitted lower numbers of air contaminants (roughly 1/5th to 1/3rd traditional cleaners), with about 1/6th the level of VOCs.

As EWG concluded,

The alarming truth is that we know far too little about what’s in the cleaning supplies used in schools – and in our homes. Legally, nearly any chemical can be used as an ingredient, and cleaning product labels are not required to list ingredients. Lacking a legal definition of words like “non-toxic,” manufacturers can make misleading claims

EWG has resources to help achieve greener school cleanign via their ‘greener school cleaners = healthier kids’ page. (By the way, to make clear, ‘healthier kids’ (and teachers and school staff) translates quite directly into better student performance and lower cost education.)  Looking through the report makes me want to contact the school board and, well, EWG makes it easy to do with a draft letter and

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This is a guest post from GMoke, who has a life-long passion for making solar power and energy efficiency a reality. Here are his thoughts for the holidays.

We live in a “time of consequences.” We, as individuals and collectively, are setting the path which will determine the living conditions for millenia to come. This time of consequences is both long term and quite immediate.

This is true for the individual. Do you invest in an energy efficient future life? Will you unplug the computer before going to sleep?

And, it is true for society. What is the transportation infrastructure we want 30 years from now? And, what is the legislation that will emerge in coming weeks and months on, for example, Health Care Reform (HCR) and Global Warming?

We live in a Time of Consequences. And, we can chose to live through this time, buffeted by the consequences, or we can seek to act to drive change in a positive direction.
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Every Progressive should recognize and incorporate, deep in their soul, the plain fact: Global Warming is the single most serious threat to Progressive ideals, concepts, policies, and aspirations through the 21st century … AND today.

This is not just a let’s wait until tomorrow issue, that should be put in the back of the line to deal with after other issues, we must address it with urgency today if we hope for a progressive world tomorrow.

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While too much of the world’s attention turned to the falsehoods from climate deniers (such as Sarah Palin) about ClimateGate (Swifthack), there are people from around the world in Copenhagen seeking to find a path toward a global agreement to mitigate climate change. And, around the world, there are people striving to find and execute real-world actions to achieve that mitigation. These included the thousands in Washington, DC, for the annual EcoBuild conference.  With hundreds of presentations and discussions, no single person can more than get a flavor for the substance across all the sessions (especially if only possible to be there for a few hours) … this post isn’t, however, about those sessions.

Since diving into the deep end when it comes to energy issues, almost every day sees new fascinating concepts, approaches, and technologies. Fascinating … exciting … even hope inspiring at times. And, as well, as the passion builds, so many of these are truly Energy COOL.

At a show like EcoBuild, the exhibition halls usually have a smorgasbord of items to fascinate EcoGeeks. This show was no exception.

As a core believer that there are no (or, at a minimum, we should act as if there are no) Silver Bullets, but lots of Silver BBs and orders of magnitude more Silver Specks of Dust, wandering EcoBuild’s exhibition hall illuminated many interesting (and valuable) Specks of Dust. Let’s take a brief look at a few specks of dust after the fold.

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As laid out in Fast Food Nation, the industrial agriculture/food industry have been able to so pressure the government that school lunch programs represented essentially the lowest of the low of American food quality and safety of supply.  While perhaps that rat-infested restaurant, open because of cash into a crooked inspector’s hands, might be worse, the fact remains that the fast food industry has set higher standards for its food supplies than what occurs in nearly all of American school lunch programs.  Thus, private food supplies are often better than public — not due to any ‘incompetence’, but due to private interest twisting of food safety regulations and demands to keep standards low in the school food system to maximize market and profit opportunities.

Quality of food can relate quite directly to energy demands, environmental quality, and climate change. Applying sensible energy standards to incoming school food supplies could be one part of turning the tide toward better food.

This is a guest post from Ellinoriane about the state of school food today.