July 8th, 2009 · Comments Off on “Will the Senate save the Clean Air Act?”
That is the question that many Americans will see opening their newspapers tomorrow as a nationwide advertising effort begins to let Americans know that the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) has a provision restricting the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to enforce the Clean Air Act (CAA). The CAA is perhaps the premier legislative achievement to turn around environmental damage that, quite literally, affect every single American with every breath we take.
The energy bill that passed the House guts a key provision of the Clean Air Act, letting oil refineries and coal plants off the hook for their global warming pollution.
Coal plants are our nation’s oldest and dirtiest polluters.
Thanks to industry lobbying, the bill will provide a lifeline for coal.
More coal means fewer jobs in wind and solar industries, more pollution, and a worsening climate crisis.
MoveOn is calling on the Senate to change this, to maintain the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to enforce, if necessary, Clean Air Act provisions related to reducing how excessive CO2 emissions endanger Americans and the environment (not just through Global Warming impacts but also, for example, through acidification of the oceans).
The Waxman-Markety American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) targets for renewable energy and climate emissions reductions are, to put it simply, far from what they should be. And, let’s put aside “should be”, they are far weaker than they could be.
Let’s stick with 2020 targets for a moment. The bill, as passed by the House, calls for a 17 percent reduction in US CO2 emissions compared to 2005 levels. This target puts the US just a few percent below 1990 emissions levels when the (and now almost certainly outdated and not aggressive enough) International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calls for developed countries to achieve a 25-40 percent reductions in emissions from 1990 levels by 2020. Thus, the Waxman-Markey target falls far short of what the most authoritative scientific advice recommends.
It also, however, falls short of what is happening in the United States even in the absence of climate regulation.
Another piece of evidence has come out highlighting just how unambitious the ACES climate change targets are when compared to reality.
The latest Department of Energy Energy Information Administration (EIA) projection leads to a conclusion that US greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will fall by at least 4.3 percent in 2009. This comes after 2008 saw about a 3 percent drop in GHG emissions. All told, the United States is already nearly half-way to the Waxman-Markey targets nearly 11 years ahead of time and before the legislation has even become law.
Hmmm … the best scientific work strongly supports much stronger targets. Stronger targets would help boost the economy via sparking a green jobs boom. And, stronger targets are easily achievable via elements already part of law (through the stimulus package) and serious energy efficiency (such as the energy efficiency measures within ACES) and even more investment in clean energy deployment.
Why bother instituting a carbon regime, with all its overhead costs, if the set targets are so short of what they must and can be? Why bother instituting a carbon regime, with its massive subsidies to some of the worst serial polluters, if we can do better without it?
To be clear, legislation instituting a serious climate regime would be good for US security, good for the US economy, good for the future habitability of the nation, good … And, Senate action to strengthen ACES into something resembling a serious climate regime would be welcome.
According to the Washington Post, Barack Obama has a serious problem: he is too perfect. Thus, there is much press attention searching for Obama’s character flaws, ever more diligently focusing on Obama’s cigarette usage rather than asking probing questions at press conferences on irrelevancies like energy policy. Considering the fact that the last President was an alcoholic, it seems reasonble to wonder why there is all of this attention on a few cigarettes and not a word on Obama’s drinking problem. A problem, by the way, that he shares with 100s of millions (if not billions around the world) and which is documented as helping wreck havoc on global society.
Our challenges, opportunities, and solution paths are complex and interrelated. Yet, all too often, we see them individually, not linked and interacting.
I don’t have low flow shower heads, but I rinse up, turn off the water, lather up, then rinse quickly. I think this works out well. …
My response, a recommendation to get a low-flow showerhead.
Do you really think that my method doesn’t save as much as a low flow head running the whole time?
Well, actually, it likely does “save as much” … and perhaps even more. But this is postulating an either / or situation when there is greater power in “and”. [Read more →]
The potential power of feedback systems to inform consumers and, in aggregate, change behavior to greater energy (and other) resource efficiency fascinates me. When it comes to cars and automobiles, the “Prius Effect” is becoming somewhat legendary, with couples arguing about who gets greater fuel efficiency and Prius drivers’ speaking of how the system information is fostering changed driving habits.
Toyota is far from alone in this arena. One of the differentiators for the new Ford Fusion Hybrid is its “SmartGauge with EcoGuide”. Having seen material on it and crawled over a Fusion Hybrid at a trade show, I was a bit fascinated by their approach and I made a request. For the past week, I’ve had the pleasure (yes pleasure) of driving a (near) brand-new Fusion Hybrid courtesy of Ford’s test drive program for journalists. This post is a brief discussion of that feedback system.
July 1st, 2009 · Comments Off on A strategic vision to save the coal industry and save our, collective, future
Last evening, Devilstower spoke of his regrets that there had not been more attention to this post when first published last fall and that this had not pursued as a path to ‘win’ coal companies’ agreement on a path forward to tackle climate change. Thus, with Devilstower’s permission, a guest post discussion of an innovative strategic vision for continued (expanded) coal industry profits and significant cuts in US greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that is not dependent on massive investments in the chimera of “clean coal“.
Coal mining may be the most misunderstood industry in America.
Many people think of it as a Dickensian endeavor, or consign it to the realm of old Loretta Lynn songs. They certainly don’t have a coal bin at their home, and think of the industry as something that only affects poor, remote parts of the country. However, coal is actually an enormously consequential industry responsible for more than half the nation’s electricity. Just because there hasn’t been a coal stove at your house since grandpa was a kid, doesn’t mean you didn’t cook your breakfast using coal.
Others have visions of whole towns where the men-folk march off to the mines each morning carrying a lunch bucket and a carbide lamp. While there are still many underground mines, the truth is that improving technology has completely altered both the job and the numbers of coal miners. Nobody yells “fire in the hole.” Nobody shovels sixteen tons in a day. Nationwide there are now around 80,000 coal miners — about the same number as the number of autoworkers in Indiana alone. Even in the states where coal is produced, people tend to get the equation backwards. They overestimate the impact of coal on the employment picture, and discount the connection between coal and the light switch.
I understand that the reaction from many people to this title of this post will be “why?” In recent years, the two things that most people hear about coal are the increased mining deaths brought on by relaxed regulation and enforcement, and increased environmental damage brought on by… um, relaxed regulation and enforcement. Why save an industry that destroys mountains, spoils waterways, and contributes a large percentage of the greenhouse gases that are pumped into our air?
The simple answer is, because we need to. In the short term, we can’t do without either the electricity we draw from coal or the jobs the industry provides. President Obama understood this when he frequently mentioned “clean coal” as a part of his energy plan.
This should not for a moment be taken as “hands off coal mining.” Clean coal is a fuel that doesn’t exist outside theory and bench-scale lab tests. It may never exist. If we really intend to develop technology to limit CO2 emissions from burning coal, it will take an investment of billions of dollars — money that won’t be spent on alternatives. Despite the white “clean coal” hats handed out at political events across the country, the industry itself doesn’t expect to deliver on the clean coal promise for two decades.
While we wait for promise of clean coal, the industry should understand one thing clearly: they’re at risk. There are other energy sources out there, energy sources that are clean now, and as those energy sources expand and diversify, there’s a greater and greater risk that people will simply say “enough.” We might not be able to flip the switch and turn off coal today, but we can certainly put a plan in place that phases coal out. And we very likely will.
Forget for a moment the CO2 pouring from the power plants. Coal will get no support as long as it’s seen an industry that disregards both its workers and the environment. It needs to clean up the rest of its act if it hopes to be around when clean coal emerges from the lab.
So what steps should the industry take if it expect the public support it requires to survive?
Amid many frustrations re the American Climate Energy & Security (ACES) Act (climate legislation), it is like listening to fingernails on a chalkboard when people say “it will only cost X” (“just a postage stamp a day”). There is celebratory discussion of CBO and EPA numbers showing very low costs, seemingly useful to counter R false claims of $3000+ / year costs. Truly, there are others who are more expert than I on framing but but it really seems to me that once you’re discussing costs, then it becomes a ‘wonkish’ battle over details.
Again, putting aside ACES’ weaknesses, this seems a more appropriate framing:
Acting forcefully on the climate will be profitable with most Americans.
The CBO, which is explicit about excluding many of the benefits in the bill such as energy efficiency and improved health from reduced pollution, found the costs to be minimal, something like a postage stamp a day.
This seeks to structure the discussion toward the reality that, if one does a full systems-of-systems examination of costs and benefits, the benefits of action far (FAR) outweigh the costs. (Just as the costs of inaction far, Far, FAR outweigh any benefits from failure to act.)
If people are breathlessly saying “cost only a postage stamp a day”, as their lead or headline, then reporters’ stories will be about “cost” (whether that is the Republicans’ distortion of an MIT study to falsely claim a cost of $3100 a year or the CBO’s very stove-piped $180 (or so) per year) … guaranteed. If leaders are standing up saying that this will promote an economic revival and boost the economy, then stories might be “Hmmm, benefit or cost, experts disagree … and, well, as to cost, CBO says that even cost will be very low …”
Most Americans, by the way, don’t have a clue as to the most of the rather serious implications of fossil fuel burning. They hear about Co2 emissions and sort of get the link to polar bears without ice. They might (probably not) have heard about ocean acidification . How many people living in nice neighborhoods relatively near a highway have any clue how cancer statistics change as your residence gets closer to a major highway? How many people with asthmatic children know of links between coal-fired electricity particulates and asthma rates? How many people understand that If “we” don’t talk about this, ALL THE TIME, there is no way that the message that “clean energy = improved health = better life, so WTF are we debating whether or not to do this” will become a major part of the public discussion
Thus, we should be emphasizing the quite truthful “gains” and “benefits” of serious climate action rather than getting caught up in debates about the annual level of the almost certain falsehood of “cost”.
David Roberts, over at Grist, has a great discussion (imo), Why we overestimate the costs of climate-change legislation, of how and why modelers get it wrong in tough domains like this. And, Roberts highlights / underpins a strong case that the models projecting costs are probably overstating the case and getting it wrong.
And, Roberts suggests a framing (implicitly) that turns this argument against those seeking to deceive.
These blind spots are by no means unique to macroeconomic forecasts. Models simply put a sheen of scientific precision on conventional wisdom.
Still, despite their unblemished record of failure, to object to making policy on the basis of cost projections from macroeconomists is to come off as vaguely obscurantist and anti-science. Advocating policy based on historically grounded optimism is seen as ideological.
The real question is: do you believe the American people can figure out innovative, profitable ways to transition to clean energy if they put their shoulders to it? In the end, it’s an expression of faith. But as conservatives like Manzi are eager to point out in other contexts, faith in American entrepreneurialism tends to pay off.
The other thing I wanted to emphasize is the fact that as we transition into this clean energy economy we are going to see, I think, an enormous amount of economic activity and job production emerging. I know that opponents of this bill kept on suggesting this was a jobs-killer, but everybody I talk to, when we think about how are we going to drive this economy forward post-bubble, keep on pointing to the opportunities for us to transition to a clean energy economy as a driver of economic growth.
Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) loves Twitter. And, on more than one occasion, her off-the-cuff comments have caused some uproar. Not the excited notes from a sports fan (shared her same sentiments at that one), but off-hand comments about major policy issues that suggest potentially recklessly shallow understanding of critical issues. After the House voted to pass HR2454, the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act, Claire sent out the following twitter.
You say cap & trade could “unfairly punish coal-dependent states”. Does Climate Change “unfairly punish” anyone?
Missourians will save money with energy efficiency and clean energy. And, have improved employment than with coal. Hmmm …
Those two, in short, seem to capture the key failures in Claire’s framing. There is not linkage to the greater issues of climate change nor any hint that Missourians (and others) coal-burning and other polluting habits have anything to do with the problems that we face. Or, if it does, that she fears that they will be “punished” for their polluting ways. And, there is nothing there about opportunity — whether the opportunity for all Americans or, more selfishly, Missouri’s voters. And, there is a message here about running scared out falsely based fears of cost, rather than staking out a position of leadership to explain opportunity. Opportunity not just to make a choice to reduce the risks from climate change, but an opportunity to improve Missouri’s economy.
So in summary, what we have is a ragbag collection of un-peer reviewed web pages, an unhealthy dose of sunstroke, a dash of astrology and more cherries than you can poke a cocktail stick at. Seriously, if that’s the best they can do, the EPA’s ruling is on pretty safe ground.
If I were the authors, I’d suppress this myself, and then go for a long hike on the Appalachian Trail….
And reporting that Carlin was surppressed is, well, an absurdity.
They are trying to invert the “war on science” narrative.
Problem is, you would have to have actual science on your side in order for this to work.
Let’s let the Obama Administration speak about this for a moment. EPA Press Secretary Adora Andy’s on the record statement.
Claims that this individual’s opinions were not considered or studied are entirely false.
The opinions were considered and studied … too bad that they were false and blatant examples of anti-science syndrome.
This Administration and this EPA Administrator are fully committed to openness, transparency and science-based decision making.
It really is sad that CBS News allowed itself to be played, so well, by the global warming denier crowd, helping to give legitimacy to an invented story.
Try speaking with scientists at EPA and it is hard to overestimate the shift in morale in that institution. There are people who have dedicated their lives to public service, to supporting the interplay of science and policy making on environmental issues, who were beaten down for eight years. And, this isn’t solely a ‘partisan’ issue, as two acquaintances are relatively senior in the civil service at EPA and Republicans. One said to me the other day, “I had forgotten what it felt like to be happy to go into the office. I’m almost literally bouncing into the office. We’re being taken seriously in a way that I don’t think I could have imagined a year ago.”
These principles were reflected throughout the development of the proposed Endangerment finding, a process in which a broad array of voices were heard and an inter agency review was conducted. The individual in question is not a scientist and was not part of the working group dealing with this issue.
Nevertheless the document he submitted was reviewed by his peers and agency scientists, and information from that report was submitted by his manager to those responsible for developing the proposed endangerment finding.
Okay. So (1) not on the study team; (2) not on the review team; (3) not a scientist; (4) still listened to.
In fact, some ideas from that document are included and addressed in the Endangerment finding.
Oh, and despite 1-3, (5) some of his material influenced the Endangerment finding.
Additionally, his manager has allowed his general views on the subject of climate change to be heard and considered inside and outside the EPA and presented at conferences and at an agency seminar. And this individual was granted a request to join a committee that organizes an ongoing climate seminar series, open to both agency and outside experts, where he has been able to invite speakers with a full range of views on climate science.
About this, I decided to pulse some sources and find out just how much he has been able to do related to climate-change denial on his salary, despite the fact that he is not a climate scientist and climate change is not in the position description for which the American public pays his salary. I was informed that:
He wrote his diatribes (excuse me, opinions) on agency time
They were published at least four times in non-atmospheric science journals and had multiple working papers published in his department’s website.
He participates in a climate-seminar series and is able to invite other deniers to speak
And, he gave at least four presentations as an EPA employee (at an EPA seminar before other EPA employees, twice to university conferences (paid for by you and I, as EPA paid for the costs)
Five months ago, today, the Washington Post‘s Dana Milbank went to town on Al Gore in With Al due respect, we’re doomed with 18 references to the “Goracle”, a right-wing term dismissive of Gore, trying to undermine his strong, science-backed discussion of Global Warming with ridicule suggesting that his substantive work somehow relates to the Delphi Oracle. At the time, too heavily caught up in The Will Affair, taking on yet another Washington Post absurdity on climate issues seems too tiersome. Happily, Daily Kos’ Plutonium Page stepped up with a pithy rejoinder: Dana Milbank Applies for Internship With Sen. James Inhofe
The Washington Post columnist isn’t quite ready to replace GOP Sen. James Inhofe’s communications director Marc Morano, but comes close.
Thank you Page for that good dismissal of Milbank’s mediocrity of a column and the shame of its occupying valuable real estate in The Washington Post. And, thank you for letting me focus on other matters.
Sigh …
Well, Dana Milbank has stepped into –it in a different way recently. And, that reminded me that 29 January absurdity. So, time to go back and take a look. And, that look suggested that perhaps it would have better to do some dissection at the time because searching the ‘google tubes’ shows up up over 1000 references to ‘milbank goracle‘, with the vast (VAST) majority being quite favorable links or comments from members of the Global Warming wing of the Flat Earth Society.
Why did terminal anti-science syndrome sufferers find so appealing about Dana “Goracle” Milbank?
Clean Air Act, letting oil refineries and coal plants off the hook for their global warming pollution.
for the new 
(shared her same sentiments at that one), but off-hand comments about major policy issues that suggest potentially recklessly shallow understanding of critical issues. After the House voted to pass HR2454, the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act, Claire sent out the following twitter.