Get Energy Smart! NOW!

Have you noticed? Right now, much of Iowa and the Midwest is suffering through a 500 year flooding event. Does it seem like 100 and 500 year events are becoming ever more frequent? If your answer is yes, your impression fits with the scientific analysis. Now, we have to be careful (extremely careful) in the face of denialist tendency to pounce on a single apostrophe or word out of place, but looking toward the changing weather events and their real impacts, you have to be a fool not to be scratching your head wondering whether there is something larger going on here. Now, as per always, it is near impossible to state that Iowa floods are hitting due to Global Warming. It is, however, reality that these floods are within the predictions for the types of weather events and extremes to be expected with ever increasing Global Warming.

As written for last year’s wildfires,

When discussing any particular disaster and its relationship to Global Warming, one needs to be cautious, to avoid saying “Global Warming caused X” as it is quite difficult to show a direct cause and effect relationship with a global trend to any particular activity. Thus, stronger storms are correlated with rising temperature which correlated with a storm like Katrina. Did Global Warming cause Katrina? Who knows? Was Katrina’s strength, differentiation from past storms, within what Global Warming analysis/modeling suggests could happen? Yes.

Well, be careful if anyone says that Global Waming “caused” the California fires. On the other hand, it seems clear that Global Warming is a contributing factor to the conditions in which the storms have occurred.

Repace “California fires” with “Iowa floods” and this statement remains true.

[Read more →]

It is ever so tempting to scream “GAS PRICES” and call for lowered gas prices if you are a candidate challenging for Congress or elsewhere. Ever so tempting to pander to (quite real) concerns about skyrocketing prices with counterproductive calls for cutting gasoline prices. These, however, fly in the face of the realities of Peak Oil and ever increasing demands for oil. Promising lower gasoline prices (or hinting at them) might (MIGHT) be good short-term political moves but is counter-productive in the long term and represents an abandoment of the type of leadership required in the face of Peak Oil and Global Warming.

The reality is that Bush Administration policies, such as filling in the strategic petroleum reserve even in tight supply times and fostering ever worse energy efficiency (promoting McSUVs) and going to war in Iraq, have aggravated the situation, driving prices even higher than they might have been otherwise. Thus, there are policy paths that could provide some relief and, potentially, turn the clock a bit on gasoline prices. But, even with DRILLING, the core requirement is to move toward ever more efficient use of oil. Some of this path is long term and investment required (such as moving toward electrified transport, whether rail or personal vehicles), some can be quite near term and nearly zero cost. That last (the near term, zero cost) creates a true opportunity for combing Energy Smart with Politically Smart.
[Read more →]

Last month, to far (FAR) less attention than it merited, the House of Representatives (facing an Administration veto threat) passed the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act with $20 billion for greening public schools across the nation.

Taking aggressive action to green schools is about one of the smartest steps the nation can take, action that should go beyond bipartisanship to true unity of action as it is a win-win-win-win strategy along so many paths:

And, well, other benefits. In the face of these benefits, “The White House threatened a veto, saying it was wrong for the federal government to launch a costly new school-building program.”
[Read more →]

Tired of the unending truthiness Republican cries to DRILL, DRILL, DRILL in a disingenuous truthiness efforts that turns us (US) aside from discussion of energy efficiency and moving off fossil fuels, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick J. Rahall (D-WV) and others in the House leadership issued an ultimatum to oil companies: Drill on the leases you have or lose the leases!

“Big Oil, as many Americans already suspect, are perfectly fine with high gasoline prices at the pump while they hold back domestic production on federal leases and enjoy world record profits. I am calling them on the carpet. I am calling their bluff. We are not going to continue to allow them to speculate and profiteer with public resources to the detriment of the American people.”

It turns out that massive amounts of leased land, leased for natural gas and oil exploration, are lying fallow. Lying fallow with the potential to double US oil production. In the face of this, Republicans (and Republican stooges like George Will) scream about drilling in national parks and in sensitive off-shore areas.

[Read more →]

Plug-in-Hybrid-Electric-Vehicles (PHEVs) offer “a path that can unite America,” according to David Sandalow, in his opening talk today to the Google/Brookings Institution two-day conference Plug-In Electric Vehicles 2008: What Role for Washington?

Oil prices are at record highs. The overwhelming dependence of our cars and trucks on oil strains family budgets, threatens our national security and contributes to global warming. Plug-in electric vehicles have the potential to significantly reduce the United States’ dependence on oil. Yet can this potential be realized? If so, how? Is there a national interest in putting millions of plug-in vehicles on the road soon? How should policymakers in Washington, D.C., respond?

[Read more →]

Truth be told, the title isn’t an exact quote, but it isn’t far off.  

Yesterday on Fox News, anchor Shep Smith was recounting the story of a man in Pennsylvania who was stuck in a port-a-potty. According to the York Daily Record (PA), the man was “drunk, naked and wedged up to his waist in the hole of the toilet.” Toward the end of the segment, Smith compared people who get stuck in toilets to “people who deny the whole global warming thing.” “They’re just a little crazy, you know?” said Smith. “What do you do?”

Where do the Republicans come into this? The majority don’t believe that humanity is driving Global Warming.

[Read more →]

It was just back in February when an intrepid reporter, Peter Maer of CBS Radio, asked George W. Bush about the potential for $4/gallon gasoline. Response, near blank stare with seeming confusion.
[Read more →]

Much has happened …

Last week, most American political eyes turned to questioning how Hillary Clinton would handle acknowledgment of not being the Democratic Party nominee …

Last week, a few eyes were turned toward the Senate debate on the extremely weak Lieberman-Warner Climate (in)Security Act
and the Republican obstructionism against even a discussion of what might be the most critical item on the nation’s (the globe’s) 21st century item.

Last week, few eyes were turned to events up north, events worth looking toward.
[Read more →]

Just a short post to highlight something that is going on right now that merits attention.  Courtesy of CSPAN Radio, I (and others) have the opportunity to be listening to the ongoing proceedings of the US Senate.  Why?  Because I wanted to be listening to the debates and discussions on the Senate floor related to the Lieberman-Warner Climate inSecurity Act (CiSA). As with so much of what has been going on in the House of Representatives, the Drill and Kill Republicans, engaged in a coordinated truthiness effort to falsely make it seem too expensive to do anything about Global Warming, are willing to be abusive of the Senate to disrupt legitimate and meaningful discussion of climate change and climate change legislation. What did they do today?  Refused to grant unanimous consent to waive the reading of the bill.  Thus, the poor clerk is reading the entire bill.  A long … long … long bill.  I am striving to listen, at least a little, so that she is not simply speaking into a void as it is hard to believe that a single Republican Senator is actually listening and paying attention to the reading of the bill. The refusal to accept waiving of the bill has nothing to do with good governance, has nothing to do with enabling meaningful discussion and debate about issues critical to the nation, but everything to do with disruptive political activities.

[Read more →]