Get Energy Smart! NOW!

Every day, it seems, brings fresh news and fresh images of Global Warming‘s mounting impact on humanity (and human activities), local ecosystems, and the global ecosystem. Just coming across my desk are images of Global Warming refugees appearing in the nation’s capital.

These refugees provide dramatic images underlining “how global warming is making polar bears homeless by causing the sea ice they rely on to melt, threatening many polar bear populations with extinction.”

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In my neck of the woods, the local Republicans are showing a real green thumb (actually, perhaps green hammer) as there is green sprouting all over. Green signs with a gas pump are appearing with the words “Drill Now! Pay Less! Vote GOP!”

Now, other than the direct linkage of a gas pump and the Republican Party (the Grand Oil Party), it is hard to see any honesty in this poster. It is a continuation of the concerted Republican efforts to mislead and lie to the American people about critical energy issues. It is, in fact, impressive that this sign can be deceptive and simply dishonest on so many levels at the same time.

[UPDATED from Taking Deception to Extremes: “Drill Now! Pay Less! Vote GOP!
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Reflective roofing has long seemed one of the best geoengineering options to help turn the rising tides of Global Warming. An opportunity to reduce energy use through reduced cooling demand and longer lasting roofs, to improve urban life (and cut energy requirements) by reducing urban heat island impacts, and to contribute to fighting global warming by reflecting solar radiation back into space.

It seems, however, that this opportunity might be even greater than previously believed. Global Cooling: Increasing World-wide Urban Albedos to Offset CO2 (pdf) suggests that white roofing of just 100 cities could handle Global Warming temperature increases.

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In my neck of the woods, someone is showing a real green thumb (actually, perhaps green hammer) as there is green sprouting all over. Green signs with a gas pump are appearing with the words “Drill Now! Pay Less! Vote GOP!” Now, other than the direct linkage of a gas pump and the Republican Party (the Grand Oil Party), it is hard to see any honesty in this poster. It is a continuation of the concerted Republican efforts to mislead and lie to the American people about critical energy issues. It is, in fact, impressive that this sign can be deceptive and simply dishonest on so many levels at the same time.

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Republican Representatives Tom Davis and Darrell Issa sent a stern letter to Chairman Harry Waxman about the Minerals Management Service and the recent investigator general report about abuses there. It begins:

We write to convey our frustration over the Committee’s failure to hold accountable the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS),

Evidently, Davis and Issa were frustrated by all the news that John McCain and Sarah Palin are receiving for their distancing of themselves from truth as Davis/Issa’s letter is a distortion, at best, in its efforts to lay blame at Waxman’s feet.

Well, Henry Waxman would have none of it and responded strongly to their distortion. For example,

Your letter significantly distorts your own record. Because you focused your efforts on criticizing the Clinton Administration, you failed to examine the culture of corruption that developed under the Bush Administration.

Henry Waxman has long had enough with the distortions and deceptions coming from too many in the Republican Party. And, he is not scared to respond to distorted attacks … with facts. For the full letter, see after the fold.
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This nation (actually, much of the globe) is struggling economically. Earlier this year, stimulus checks went out to a good number of Americans. Not counted in taxes, these checks aren’t “letting people figure out how to spend their own money” but giving them a chance to live off the money that their children will have to be paying back. Much better options existed, with the chance to Energize America to a better economy and a better energy future. Despite the billions that flowed into the economy, foreclosures are up, unemployment is up, consumer confidence is down, the stock market is down, and the time is coming where serious discussion will occur for yet another stimulus package. We have a choice before US. We have, collectively dug a deep hole, fiscally, environmentally and otherwise. This stimulus package could help dig that hole deeper or, perhaps, help stop the digging process and turn US toward a path for filling in these holes.

Well, this past week the Center for American Progress released a study that provides a path to stop the digging process and turn US toward a better future. Green Recovery: A Program to Create Good Jobs and Start Building a Low-Carbon Economy (pdf)

demonstrates how a new Green Recovery program that spends $100 billion over two years would create 2 million new jobs, with a significant proportion in the struggling construction and manufacturing sectors. It is clear from this research that a strategy to invest in the greening of our economy will create more jobs, and better jobs, compared to continuing to pursue a path of inaction marked by rising dependence on energy imports alongside billowing pollution.

The $100 billion fiscal expansion that we examined in this study provides the infrastructure to jumpstart a comprehensive clean energy transformation for our nation

This concept is spot on. Stimulating the economy via Green path will not only create near term green but is an investment that will strengthen economic security, national security, and environmental security from today into the indefinite future.

The concept is spot on. And, while many of the elements of the plan are spot on, many doesn’t mean all.

And, perhaps the greatest item within the report: it undersells the benefits that would accrue, potentially to a very significant degree.

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The Senate held a Bipartisan Energy Summit today with some of the nation’s top experts (from MIT, Google, CSIS, CERI, and Shell’s CEO). (Although, regrettably, the nation’s top energy expert, Sarah Palin, was unable to attend and bring her deep knowledge and wisdom to the table for conversation.) And, this hearing was reasonably (even very) well attended. Senators Dorgan, Bay, Landrieu, Domenici, Bingaman, Pryor, , Conrad, Dewine, Salazar, …. It is a very rare Hill hearing that has so many of the principals at the table. The room was, in addition, standing room only with literally hundreds of people in the room and several tables full of journalists (and bloggers). And, to be honest, people actually seemed to be paying attention to questions, to speakers, with Blackberries dominating the attention of just a few of members and not that many in the audience. An indication of the political (and, hopefully, substantive) interest and importance of the issues at hand.

There is, from a session like this, reams of material to discuss. Substantive, social, political, almost without end. While there will be more to come out on this event, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse provided perhaps the best moment. His question and comment to the panel:

WHITEHOUSE: Gentlemen, we’re in the middle of a near total mortgage system meltdown in this country. We have a health care system that burns 16 percent of our GDP, in which the Medicare liability alone has been estimated at $34 trillion. We’re burning $10 billion a month in Iraq.

This administration has run up $7.7 trillion in national debt, by our calculation. And there is worsening evidence every day of global warming, with worsening environmental and national security ramifications. In light of those conditions, do any of you seriously contend that drilling for more oil is the number one issue facing the American people today?

[NINE-SECOND SILENCE]

WHITEHOUSE: No, it doesn’t seem so.

Whitehouse then went on to ask a very thoughtful question about where some of the best options might be for quick steps to change the game on our energy situation.

Note: Excellent post at ThinkProgress with video.

In her ABC interview, Sarah Palin has tried to morph herself from Global Warming denialist to simply being a Global Warming skeptic.
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My blogging beat and focus is Global Warming and Energy. And, the choice come November could not be starker in these arenas (that is, at least in fact not media framing). The contrast could not be starker … across a wide range of issues.

Among these, John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin has added a searing issue to the table:

Do we want a separtist with easy access to the centers of power in the nation?

What would it mean to have a Vice President (likely President) sleeping with a separtist?

This question is essentially absent from the pages of traditional media.

Imagine if Michelle Obama were a registered member of the Black Panthers until 2002? Imagine the drumbeat of outrage that all Americans would hear. About Todd “My Guy” Palin’s separtist credentials? Crickets chirping in the night …

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Will the nation reach a limit? Is there no limit to how far things will go? I will put aside, for the moment, McCain advertising lying to make Obama out to be some form of supporter of teaching unvarnished sexual education to kindergardeners (when, in fact, Obama was supporting efforts to teach young child how to understand and then report pedophiles). I will put aside, for the moment, the viciously deceptive attacks about “can put lipstick on the pig”. I will put aside, for the moment, the deception and lies that the McCain campaign and the Republican Party have at the core of their campaign strategy. The absurdity of calling Sarah Palin some form of “Energy Expert” has gone from ridiculous to beyond the realm of absurd. I have to ask, however, how in the world anyone could assert this with a straight face,

[Sarah Palin] knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America.

This is beyond comical and beyond insulting.

Okay, John, are you going to put her up in a debate with some lesser figure who evidently knows less?

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