Where is that similar call when it comes to Energy / Energy Efficiency / Global Warming legislation?
At the America Future NOW conference, after hearing strong statements from Representatives about the need to keep demanding what is right (single payer) on health care, that pressure “from the left” made it easier to negotiate a better deal, I asked “What about energy? What about similar calls for strong legislation on climate to help make Waxman-Markey stronger?”
The response, in essence, ‘this is the best we can get …’
Well, a number of Progressive institutions chose to speak out yesterday … and we should strengthen/echo their call. [Read more →]
Amid the focus on Waxman-Markey’s climate-focused provisions, sometimes we (I) lose sight of the strongest and most valuable portions of the American Climate and Energy Security (ACES) Act: the Energy Efficiency elements.
It is (nearly …) without question that one of the fastest, highest payoff, and most powerful near-term (and continuing) Silver BBs to tackle our polluting energy habits is energy efficiency.
This guest post, from CPA Craig Severance who blogs at Energy Economy Online, examines how Waxman-Markey has been strengthened when it comes to building codes for energy efficiency.
It’s important to “get things right” when a new building is constructed. More so than perhaps anything else we create, new buildings will be with us for a very long time.
Mistakes We Have to Live In. Our gas guzzler cars and trucks will rust away to the scrap heap in little more than a decade. Appliances and machinery share a similar fate. This quick turnover assures us our mistakes of the past will not stay with us very long.
Not so with buildings — an energy hog building will likely still be around a hundred years from now. Thoughtlessness in design and orientation of buildings creates inefficiencies that are often impossible or prohibitively expensive to fix. As energy costs rise, such buildings will be a burden to their owners and renters.
Almost Half of Our Energy Use. While it is fashionable to talk about wind farms and hybrid cars, buildings are the “elephant in the room” seldom discussed, though they are responsible for almost half of U.S. energy use.
Climate scientists have concluded we must cut global warming emissions by at least 80% within just 40 years, or face catastrophic climate disasters. If we don’t start making better buildings now, we have no hope of meeting this goal.
Stop Doing Things Wrong. For all of these reasons, strong measures are urgently needed to stop new buildings from being built the wrong way, when we know how to build them right. [Read more →]
During the final days of the drafting of a 946-page climate bill, Rep. Gene Green (D-Tex.) won support for an amendment that deleted a single word and inserted two others. The words could be worth millions of dollars to U.S. oil refiners.
The Green amendment deleted the word “sources” and inserted “emission points.” In the arcane world of climate legislation, that tiny bit of editing might one day give petroleum refiners valuable rights to emit carbon dioxide when it otherwise might not have been allowed. Refiners could get the extra allowances in return for cutting carbon emissions by 50 percent at a single point of a vast refinery complex instead of slashing emissions by 50 percent for the entire facility.
The one word struck / two words item is likely, to be honest, simply an example of what might be embedded throughout this bill, which is now totaling out at more the two reams of paper. While others might have clearly understood this one word deleted / two words inserted item (in its full implications) prior to its insertion, this is a ‘fraud’ (yes, I think fraud is an appropriate word) put into the bill that I had no clue of impact while reading through it. Maybe this one word deleted / two words added was clearly understood by all players and clearly explained to interested parties, but excuse my cynicism for doubting that. …
But, follow me after the fold for two clear example of where I differ in my read / discussion of the implications with how the bill is ‘being sold’.
June 3rd, 2009 · Comments Off on Burning excess gas … a reason
Heading home today, something came in sight that led to a lane change, an unplanned turn, and a few miles of extra driving.
Simply put, sadly, it isn’t every day that I see a solar powered car on the road (on Route 123, McLean, Virginia, just outside the CIA headquarters).
Having no problem with the 45 miles per hour speed limit (no surprise, since it can hit 75), the XOF1 (good static page) has been on a Canada/US tour for setting a world’s record, crossing the Arctic circle and making it to both coasts.
Definitely cool … Energy COOL … with another post to follow.x
Comments Off on Burning excess gas … a reasonTags:Energy
June 2nd, 2009 · Comments Off on Paper or Plastic: 5 cents please
Plastic bags are a scourge on the globe. From the plastic ocean in the Pacific, to the stomachs of choked birds, to the fences of highways, the billions of annual bags are infrequently reused or recycled and often don’t even make it into the dump.
“The Anacostia River is one of the most polluted in the country,” [Councilwoman Mary] Cheh said. “The level of trash in the river has become so bad that if nothing is done, the district could be fined tens of millions of dollars by the EPA.”
With a high percentage of collected trash being a rainbow of colors of plastic bags, the Washington, DC, City Council voted earlier today to institute a five-cent fee for bags to help drive reduced use and, as well, to help raise funds for the cleaning of the Anacostia River.
Council member Jack Evans said the bill can be viewed as a “first step” toward the long-term goal of severely limiting plastic bags and bottles nationwide.
“There is not a river I go to, a park I go, a stream I go to, where I don’t see plastic bags everywhere,” Evans (D-Ward 2) said. “The fact is our country is becoming inundated with plastic bags and plastic bottles. . . . This is the first step to try to address this issue.”
The bill, passed unanimously by the 13-member Council, actually has a thoughtfully innovative element: rewarding businesses for giving discounts for those who bring in their own bags.
Under the plastic bag legislation, called the Anacostia River Cleanup and Protection Act, businesses would keep a penny for each bag sold, and the other four cents would go into a fund to clean up the Anacostia. If businesses offer a discount to consumers who bring reusable bags, they would get to keep two cents for each bag sold.
The plastics industry, several local businesses and the D.C. Republican Party opposed the tax. Critics said it would disproportionately affect the city’s poorest residents. The city GOP sent out a statement yesterday accusing the council of imposing a $9.5 million tax on District residents.
Isn’t it nice to see that the GOP is so concerned about the city’s poor?
Senator Jeff Merkley came to the podium during today’s luncheon session at America’s Future NOW! focused on energy. He opened, reinforcing core points from his 2008 campaign:
If I’d been here a year ago, I would have talked to you about three things: The need to transform energy economy, create jobs, and tackle global warming. … About the third, during the campaign, I spoke it about every single night. People asked me why, as it was 21st on people’s concerns. I responded: it should be first on everyone’s agenda and the only way it will be is if we talk about it.
Senator Merkley speaks, today and elsewhere, knowledgeably and forcefully about Global Warming, providing a litany of items that should part of the agenda moving ahead. Amid these items and opportunity, Senator Merkley made some key points. But, he provided a straightforward shorthand of what must happen.
If I am going to simplify the issue, we have to quit taking geologic carbon and turning it into atmospheric carbon.
Right now, Senator Merkley is looking to the developments in the House with the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act. And, evidently, he isn’t very pleased by what we see. He stated that the bill must have a strong Renewable Electricity Standard (RES), a 25% by 2025 “You’re probably all aware that we don’t have that in the current drbill.”
In the past, people have described the Senate as the place where a good House bill goes to die. … We need to change that. we need to reestablish the Senate is place where an okay bill goes to get vastly improved.
Senator Merkley also emphasized that “We need a polluter’s pay strategy … we need a price to pay if you’re putting carbon dioxide in the air. Even more, we need an incentitve to reduce putting carbon in the air.”
Clearly Senator Merkley is concerned, seriously concerned. “The number that sticks in my mind is that all the problems that we are seeing around the globe come from less than a degree of warming. … If we don’t get our act together, in 50 years we could have five degrees of warming and that would be catastrophic.”
Senator Merkley sees real potential for change for the better, but fears that we won’t seize the opportunity.
There is the possibility that we will end up with a framework that is ineffective, that has offsets, that doesn’t have a firm cap. … Or, we could end up with something that could really transform our use of energy. Obviously, we’re going to have to work real hard to get from the former to the latter.
Do Senator Merkley’s comments presage a fight to come that could result in improving the ACES Act when it comes to the Senate?
One imagines that someone at Burger King realised that the “global warming is baloney” line didn’t exactly chime with the views of John Chidsey, the company’s CEO, who believes that climate change is “an overriding issue of importance for the global community, business community and people in general”, as he stated in this short interview conducted at this year’s World Economic Forum. (How he squares this concern with his company’s drive-thru, meat-munching business model is another matter, though.)
Memphis Flyer readers have been contacting the paper since the story first appeared to say that they have noticed other restaurants across Tennessee displaying the same sign. It appears that they are all owned by a company called the Mirabile Investment Corporation (MIC) that owns more than 40 Burger Kings across Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi, as well as a handful of Popeyes and All In One franchises. Some readers have added that the signs are still up at some of the restaurants. Davis says he has requested a response from MIC, but has not yet received one.
Definitely Anti-Science Syndrome at work at Burger King.
June 2nd, 2009 · Comments Off on Energy COOL: Electrifying the Beach
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.
Now, in the path toward a prosperous and sustainable future, many would (with reason) call for shedding excess, for recognizing constraints and choosing conservation over consumption. The reality of the world that we live in is that there is much consumerism, much expenditure on what might be considered ‘frivolity’ and luxuries. Today’s Energy COOL item might outrage some even as it potentially provides a path for reducing damage done by something intruding on beach reveries of many around the world.
EcoWatercraft lays out seven reasons for “why electric” that echo reasons for electrifying transit and, well, why I have an electric lawn mower (around for when the push mower just won’t do the trick) that range from reduced maintenance costs to reduced environmental impact (due to zero (direct) emissions, no gasoline into the water, reduced noise, etc …).
As one who has had idyllic walks with the kids blasted by roars from distant jet skis, EcoWatercraft has come along with a truly Energy COOL (even if not critical) item for the globe’s beach resorts.
With new videos uploaded every second, one can lose one’s life within Youtube and constantly be falling behind. It is hard to find the wheat amid all that chaff. Perhaps this can help: Greenman3610 (Peter Sinclair) provides some pretty high-quality wheat.
Now at 13 videos, Sinclair has taken it on himself to produce “The Climate Crock of the Week”, focusing a lens on a specific element of global warming denier / skeptic misrepresentation and deception, dissecting the truthiness and providing substantive (and traceable) responses to that deceit. Whether dealing with The Myth of Global Cooling being a scientific consensus or the oft-cited petitions questioning global warming or others of this weekly series, Peter successfully weaves in amusing clips from popular culture into referencing of serious scientific studies in his solid debunking of deniers’ deceptions.
In this, Peter covers the three key long term planetary elements (Precession (change in the earth’s rotational axis); Obliquity (the change in the actual axial tilt); Eccentricity (the change in the earth’s orbit)) that work together to drive cooling and warming of the globe … that is, drive cooling and warming absent human activity. These three are cyclical and can drive major global change when the cycles amplify each other. This last occurred for an ice age 20,000-10,000 years ago. And, they will next reinforce each other 20,000-30,000 years from now. When these have occurred, for warming, carbon dioxide (and methane) begins to be released as the earth (land and oceans) begins to warm. While the CO2 helps amplify the warming signal from these Precession/Obliquity/Eccentricity combining (the Milankovitch Cycle), CO2 release ‘naturally’ follows (to begin). But the scientific studies deniers use, as Peter outlines, to argue this point highlight that human release of CO2 (and other GHG emissions) is a game changer, that they can force warming. The deniers have cherry picked and misrepresented the original scientific research … as you will see is (WHEN!) you watch Peter’s video. [Read more →]
June 1st, 2009 · Comments Off on Captured by CCS …
Carbon Capture & Sequestration (CCS) is central to a vision of a future tied, perhaps even more inextricably, into fossil fuel exploitation with at least some (constrained?) hope of turning the tide on Global Warming’s rising seas.
Whenever considering CCS, I have a basic problem. No, it is not the utter uncertainty as to whether it will work at large enough scale. Nor is it questioning when (or if) it can become a substantive reality nor even the question of the risks of potential carbon burps from stored carbon. No, not those. Nor is it the continuation of mountain top removal, nore even the 100,000+ new wells required (in the US alone) to inject carbon into the ground (and the near doubling of the current natural gas & petroleum extraction infrastructure including pipelines, etc …). Whenever considering CCS, I find it hard to get past a simple conumdrum: there will be quite real motivation for cheating at multiple levels.
unplanned turn, and a few miles of extra driving. 
the Pacific, to the stomachs of choked birds, to the fences of highways, the billions of annual bags are infrequently reused or recycled and often don’t even make it into the dump. 
(with reason) call for shedding excess, for recognizing constraints and choosing conservation over consumption. The reality of the world that we live in is that there is much consumerism, much expenditure on what might be considered ‘frivolity’ and luxuries. Today’s Energy COOL item might outrage some even as it potentially provides a path for reducing damage done by something intruding on beach reveries of many around the world.