Get Energy Smart! NOW!

The New Year began with a bang over at the Huffington Post: the explosion of a new poster with a diatribe meriting a solid 100 on the Inhofe scale. [To DIGG this post.]

As a reminder, thoughtful energy blogger Lou Grinzo (Cost of Energy) developed the concept of The Inhofe Scale.

The Inhofe Scale will be used to measure statements (but most definitely not the speakers who make them) that exhibit a noticeable and willing detachment from reality. The scale is calibrated so that 100 equals the detachment seen in Senator Inhofe calling global warming “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the Ameican people”, stating that polar bears “are overpopulated. Don’t worry about it: the polar bears are fine.” and having staff pass out material with the heading: “Mars has global warming despite absence of SUVs”., and Mars quotations. Extra consideration is given to positions espoused with an excessively cavalier attitude or downright meanness, and those from people or organizations that have a obligation to get it right.

Just to be clear, this is a measurement of detachment from widely accepted reality … And by “willful detachment from reality” I mean far more than simple ignorance.

On Saturday, Huffington Post published Harold Ambler‘s Mr Gore: Apology Accepted which is notable in its breadth and audacity of disinformation, truthiness, and simply wrong-headedness. Literally books and hundreds (actually, thousands) of scientific studies and analyses have been written that provide the substance to prove Ambler’s words false. What is shameful, on top of this, is that this is not just the ‘false’ and misleading material, but its deceit in support of recklessly dangerous policy concepts that would hinder our ability to move forward to greater prosperity and a stronger American future.

What is, perhaps, especially frustrating is that Huffington Post chose to give voice to this deception as if they are redefining “fair and balanced” back to the Faux News version. As Arianna wrote in her book:

Without the enabling of the traditional media—with their obsession with “balance” and their pathological devotion to the idea that truth is always found in the middle—the radical Right would never have been able to have its ideas taken seriously. .

By publishing such misleading tripe, Huffington Post is contributing to defining some form of middle when it comes to science, between those who actually believe that the scientific method has value those who seem to think that they can shape reality through loudly repeating falsehoods while holding their hands over their ears. Huffington Post has done its founder, its readership, and the larger society a disservice by giving voice to dishonesty.

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Stimulate

Etymology: From Latin stimulatus past participle of stimul? (“goad on”) .

Verb: to stimulate: To encourage into action. To arouse an organism to functional activity.

Synonyms: encourage, induce, provoke, animate, arouse, energize, energise, excite, perk up

Antonyms: de-energize, sedate, stifle

For eight long years, this nation has been de-energized, had productive advancing of the economy stifled, and good governance sedated nearly out of existence.

Change … change is sweeping us. We have been stimulated via systematic malfeasance (governmental, fiscal, environmental) into a path that offers the potential for change for the better — across all facets of society, from the White House to my House.

Barack …

Stimulate me.

Stimulate us.

Stimulate the U.S. to something better.
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As any who come to these pages are already aware, my passion is clear … helping my/your family, my/your community, my/your nation, my/our world find a path toward a prosperous and sustainable energy future. A path that will help us (US) navigate the dangerous seas of the Perfect Storm combination of Peak Oil (and other peak natural resources), Global Warming, and the Financial Meltdown around the globe.

At their core, all three of these challenges are resource challenges. And, solution paths exist to each of these challenges, even if finding our way to that solution could be extremely challenging. An even greater complexity is the simultaneity of these challenges. We must confront, tackle, solve each of these in a coordinated, reinforcing manner as the perfect solution for one challenge might be a lesser response, or even disaster, in another arena. What is the classic example of this? Investing in coal-to-liquids and tar sands could help ameliorate Peak Oil’s impact while providing the straw that breaks the camel’s back on our reckless rush into catastrophic climate change.

We must chart a course and find steady heads to navigate the treacherous seas of these converging of three major storms into the 21st Century’s Perfect Storm. We will either, in the next few years, chart and begin navigating such a course … or we can rest assured that human civilization will become shipwrecked in the coming decades, leaving behind something unfamiliar and undesirable to those currently enjoying the fruits of ‘developed’ global society.

The bright spot in this gloom: it is possible to chart a course.

And, even in the face of the immediacy of a global fiscal crisis and calls for fiscal discipline against any new spending and concerns that economic woes are chilling global warming action, even before the election, ever more voices were calling for a “green” route to a prosperous and climate-friendly global society. Back in October, Politico ran Can green jobs save us? which looked at how both Barack Obama and John McCain are speaking about “Green Jobs” as a core part of the path forward. (Even though John McCain’s rhetoric is, well, mainly hot air.) And, other voices called for ever greater boldness in the face of these crises.

this is a time to think big. We have to grow our way out of the economic depths. We have to use the money we’ll spend wisely enough to create external benefits for the next 50 to 60 years, to wire America like we electrified America in the 1930s, to fix the roads and bridges the way we built them then, to create a new, clean energy grid to replace the old one that served us well. We can not only face the biggest challenges in the world and create a sustainable economy at the same time, but they can complement each other. And we can say “hell no” to those Wise Men of Washington and the conservatives they enable, whose ideas on budgets and fiscal responsibility and supply-side economics have been totally discredited. We need only to have courage in crisis, and a willingness to lead the way.

At Grist, David Roberts articulated how the economic crisis should prompt more green infrastructure spending, not less

Before conventional wisdom hardens in the other direction, greens need to get out and start arguing that the current financial mess is not a reason to trim back our green ambitions, but to accelerate them with liberal spending on a smart grid, public transit, and other job-creating, emission-reducing, capital-intensive projects. Save the economy, save the planet.

And, Eric Pooley called this a Trojan horse approach

Say hello to Obama’s Trojan horse—a climate policy hidden inside an energy-and-economic policy. Obama takes Gore’s energy trifecta, lops off the climate message, and stores it in the belly of the beast while energy independence and economic renewal drive the contraption forward.

But it does not have to be a “Trojan horse,” a hidden agenda.

We can, we should, we must extol the power of combining these challenges and placing a path that provides “a” real solution to these (and, actually, other) very serious challenges before us.

Investing for a smart energy future would:

We saw tremendous movement in the Presidential campaign on energy issues, especially on the D side, with the candidates outbidding each other on better energy policy. President-Elect Obama has spoken strongly on climate issues and put forward a very progressive (read: realist and fact-based) team when it comes to energy and environmental policy.

Within this movement and building on it, what follows is part of the concepts that should help guide us in the coming months and years, in words that might be fit for a weekly Presidential-elect video-log.

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For far too long, at their core, core approaches on ‘both’ sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have promoted and pursued tactics and strategies that, fundamentally, undermine the achievement of long-term improvements in the situation for the overall populace of either ‘party’.

Moving ahead, amid bombings and mounting casualties, requires leadership, leadership willing to stand up and say: “continuing on this path will, for all of us, worsen the future for us, our children, and our children’s children.” While this might be beyond the leadership, might be beyond the state of the populace (on all ‘sides’, with built up anger and grievances craving revenge and release in violence), it doesn’t require even enlightened leadership to understand the bankruptcy of current approaches.

And, in fact, the outside world might have the ability to offer a serious enough carrot (perhaps with serious enough stick) to bring both Israelis and Palestinians to the table, with a desire to avoid utter bankruptcy, to change the path to foster a better future for all concerns, as ‘sides’ and as some for of larger collectivity.

The answer: the common enemy of global warming and fossil fuel energy dependency impoverishment creating the opportunity for a powerful path toward prosperity.

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DeSmogBlog has a project worth considering, a call for letters to one’s descendents a hundred years from now.

Sharon Moore offered an apology:

Most of all I want to tell you I am sorry for how short-sighted we were. I thought I was doing all that I could to leave a good world for you to inherit, but it turns out I could have done more.

Kevin Grandia offered hope.

Many people were scared of the massive changes that needed to happen, and many more refused to move on. But I’m glad to say, that in the end the world made the right decision and that’s why you today, way into the future, are enjoying a quality of life that I can only dream of.

I sought to offer both. Even though a bit late, it seemed time to post my thoughts here. To perhaps provoke others to think at a moment perhaps meriting reflection.

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Those ever so dedicated journalists have found yet another weakness inherent in renewable energy systems: if you want solar energy after a heavy snowstorm, be prepared to shovel some snow! In Solar meets Polar, Kate Galbraith lets readers know that winter can disrupt renewable energy systems.

STOP THE PRESSES: Renewable energy has warts!

To be fair, this is somewhat unfair. Galbraith’s article actually can make interesting reading (although nothing new to this reader). The challenge before us: when was there a New York Times article focusing on challenges faced by people seeking to use polluting power sources? Or, talking about how having a propange generator at home could risk an explosion or emissions that might create a health threat to your children or …?

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To a great extent, Americans are climate-change illiterate as exemplified by the continued success of the global warming denier disinformation efforts in confusing people about the science and about the realities of what is going on around the planet, humanity’s role in driving the change, and the opportunities for humanity to address these challenges both for mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. A key gap, of course, is the scientific (energy and otherwise) illiteracy of the American public. With gaps in ability to absorb and interpret scientific views of the world, there is a reliance on interpreters (journalists and propagandists) whose last science class might have been ‘science for poets, 101’ as a college requirement or maybe 7th grade biology.

In the face of this challenge, around the country, members of the Youth Climate Network are seeking to work within their communities to foster a stronger scientific education program within the school systems. A stronger science program that would incorporate climate change as a core element of studies. But, this would not mean a stovepiping of climate change studies as some form of subset of science education, but as an issue that crosses across all subject arenas, whether ‘civics’ (civil responsibility in the face of human-driven climate change) or science.

Today’s Boston Globe published an example of this effort, Put Climate Change in the Curriculum, an OPED by a Boston high school student (Queen Arsem-O’Malley) working to make climate change part of the Boston and Massachusetts educational program.
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An Associate Press article focused on the growing sales of LED Christmas lights, Efficient holiday lighting gains more converts and quoted this blog (blogger) as to the value of the more cost and energy efficient choice: LED lighting over incandescent strings. The AP reporter read Christmas Lights … scrooge or savior? and wanted to discuss the story further. “Scrooge or Savior” highlighted how LEDs can save money through reduced electricity use, longevity (perhaps never needing replacement), and are safer than traditional lights. The subtitle to the AP article, however, shows that at least the headline author seems to have missed the point:

LED lights can cost three times as much, but they save lots of energy

The classic confusion of cost-to-buy versus cost-to-own. LEDs cost more to buy but they cost far less to own over the years and could even cost less in just one holiday season. But this sort of thinking about costs clearly remains outside many people’s way of thinking.

Brian K. Nagatani, an employment attorney in the San Francisco Bay Area, said there’s no point taking a long-term view.

“I would just buy the cheapest one on the shelf,” said Nagatani, 33. “I mean, you only take it out once a year for, like, three weeks.”

Well, Brian, with deep thinking like this, don’t expect a call from me seeking help in any employment dispute. Sure, buy that “cheapest one on the shelf”, not caring that it uses many times the electricity, has that higher fire risk, and will require replacement much sooner. With San Francisco’s 19 cents per kWh, who cares that you might well pay for the LEDs with the electrical savings over those three weeks … and save money over the “cheapest on the shelf”? Oh, of course, that is without getting into that pesky little issue of consciously deciding to pollute more, rather than less. Sure, cost yourself money and pollute more. What a great deal all around. Ever hear of ‘penny wise, pound foolish’, Brian?
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The “Clean Coal” fantasy has a myriad of angles to consider. Whether we’re discussing mercury and tuna (and limitations on feeding children canned tuna fish), CO2 emissions and global warming, the atrocity of mountain-top removal, the diesel burnt in moving coal from mine to electricity plant, black lung disease, the poverty of mining regions, and so many other issues, the advertising of “clean coal” has so many disparate falsehoods that it is hard to keep track of which dishonesty is on the top of the pile at any given moment.

Considering the recent ‘clean coal’ Christmas caroling, Christmas Eve events in Tennessee remind us of another element of reality, the remnants after the burning, that pesky little out-of-sight, out-of-mind “fly ash” building up massively around the globe as the burning of coal continues to mount. While fly ash continues a myriad of pollutants (mercury, uranium, etc), it actually gets dirtier along with efforts to clean smokestack emissions. The better the filtering of the smokestack, the more dangerous materials residing in the fly ash.

One of the reckless realities of the Bush malfeasance has been eight years of ever weaker oversight and inspection of the mining industry, including of storage ‘facilities’ like that which failed in Tennessee. Was this Murray site in accordance with code? Was the company reckless in procedures and processes? These are questions that investigation in the coming weeks (maybe not, Bush Administration, after all) and months (perhaps under Barack Obama) will likely answer. In the meantime, we have a reminder of yet another ugly reality behind the false advertising of “Clean Coal (video of spill)”.
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Much is being made of Obama’s ‘moderate’ cabinet which is, somehow the middle-of-the-roaders’ dream.

President-elect Barack Obama spent the campaign fighting the notion that he’s an unabashed liberal.

Now he can point to Exhibit A: a Cabinet that’s a middle-of-the-roader’s dream

In fact, as that Politico article discusses, the mix is more complex, with some arenas ‘traditional’ / moderate, and others (labor, health care, civil rights), according to Jonathan Tasini, executive director of the Labor Research Association, “this Cabinet is going to be progressive compared to the last eight years” [not exactly a high bar].

Politico and others are missing another arena, one where the Administration looks to be so strongly related based that it clearly fits a “progressive” profile and, without a doubt, will be called ‘radical’ by the likes of James Inhofe and Marc Morano: Energy and Climate Change.

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