Get Energy Smart! NOW!

A new NGO just launched into higher-gear with a gala presentation from Ken Livingston, Mayor of London, in London’s City Hall Reading Room. SolarAid seeks to help developing communities leapfrog through polluting energy toward a renewable (solar) energy future. It has real backing, including a commitment of five percent of solar century‘s profits.   Its core objectives:

1. To relieve poverty through facilitating the provision of solar energy to those in need.
2. To advance the education of the public in matters relating to solar energy, climate change and the protection of the environment and to carry out and disseminate the results of research into all aspects of energy generation, distribution, supply and use.

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The Maryland Commission on Climate Change reported out this Tuesday. The main recommendation:  reduce Maryland global warming pollution 90% by 2050. 

“The climate crisis is real, and while it threatens our shorelines today, its causes and symptoms threaten life on our planet in the generations ahead unless we act,” Governor Martin O’Malley

Note that O’Malley has yet to be formally briefed on the plan and has not (yet) signed up to it.

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Well, of course, providing evidence of the Bush Administration being disconnected from reality is sort of like piling on 20 minutes after someone’s been tackled, but we’ll go ahead anyway.  When asked about the implications of the Lieberman-Warner CSA (with all its problems), the lead US representative at Bali, Harlan Watson showed he was on top of things:

“In our process, a vote for movement of a bill out of committee does not ensure its ultimate passage,”

Absolutely true … 

“I don’t know the details, but we will not alter our posture here.”

Jaw dropping aghast … doesn’t know the details?

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The Lieberman-Warner “Climate Security Act” (CSA) was passed out of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee yesterday.  We (and I, strongly) have been told to shut up and celebrate. A Global Warming Bill is going to be debated on the Senate floor and, in any event, any faults don’t matter since Mr 26% will veto any climate change legislation. Thus, be quiet, be real politically, and shout our/my support for the act.

Well, the Lieberman-Warner Climate InSecurity Act (CISA) has quite serious flaws in it. And, among the most critical of those flaws is that CSA seems to most appropriately stand for Coal Subsidy Act.

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As it stands, reported out of the Senate Envronmental and Public Works (EPW) Committee, the Lieberman-Warner bill represents a Climate InSecurity Act or CISA.  Now, a core question:

• What would it take to move it from CISA to a true CSA (Climate Security Act)?

For me, a key question is what would cause severe problems in the coming years for a strengthening of action if (actually when) it is required.  If the measure puts a serious roadblock to a stronger bill, to Presidential, or even private action in the future (near or long term), then that is a serious problem.  

Thus, the question, does Lieberman-Warner have such problems? And, sadly, the answer remains yes.

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Offshore wind is a relatively underexploited resource, with obstacles ranging from Cape Wind-like NIMBYism to the high infrastructure costs (and thus total costs) for installing systems out at sea.  The idea of going toward floating wind turbines has been around awhile and BlueH Group looks to be one step closer to making that idea a reality.

Blue H offshore wind farms, are planned to be far out at sea, virtually invisible to the naked eye from shore. At such locations, the winds are stronger and are more constant, ideal for  generating large quantities of clean and inexhaustible electricity.

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Well, notice the sponsorship. That first one, Tides Foundation, seems to be getting involved with many really interesting activities.

Story of Stuff looks to be a very interesting effort, a DVD that I’m waiting to see. In the interim, the web site and teaser videos are definitely worth some time.

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As we looked toward the devastation of New Orleans, from the first moment, amid great pain, there were those of us who looked at the disaster as opening a (painful) opportunity. A chance to take a leadership position globally, to create something better out of the wreckage, to build Eco New Orleans: ‘A Shining Example for the Whole World’.

The tragedy wrought by Katrina provides a chance to do what Mayor Ray Nagin said George Bush told him after the head-bumping died down last week: New Orleans can be remade into “a shining example for the whole world.”

I don’t know if Bush actually said that, and if he did, it surely wasn’t an environmentally sound renaissance he had in mind.  In fact, I’d be willing to bet my mortgage that, when they’re not figuring how to blame somebody else for the lethal federal foot-dragging just witnessed, many in the Administration are pondering schemes to enhance their personal assets via this disaster. “Shining” to them has a distinctly different meaning than what I’m talking about.

Needed is a new city paradigm. Call it Eco New Orleans, a place attuned to the definition of “sustainability” found in the 1987 Brundtland Commission: “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

Not just the city, of course, but the other places blasted by Katrina and Dubyanocchio’s five days of indifference. New Orleans doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and the Eco New Orleans I’m talking about extends for scores of miles in every direction.

With this discussion, posted 6 September 2005, Meteor Blades put into cogent thought and organization something that I vaguely outlined in my mind. With that Eco New Orleans, Meteor Blades cemented a position in my life as someone to respect, someone to listen to, someone who merits being listened to and acted on.

Well, perhaps Brad Pitt read Eco New Orleans or perhaps he arrived at it independently or … well, in any event, Pitt’s has the soap box and the resources to help make a reality of something that the current occupant of the Oval Office has shown little interest or concern in effecting.

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Barbara Boxer is leading a call for the Lieberman-Warner Climate InSecurity Act.  This bill has many challenges, but most serious — the one that would lead me to vote NO! — is the huge amount of permits to pollute given away for free. Can we say $Trillion+ with a Capital T? 

Senator Clinton (to be differentiated with Presidential candidate Hillary) has introduced a number of amendments to the CISA that might actually make it truly a Climate Security Act.  Most importantly is the first that would

eliminate the free allocation of carbon permits to fossil fuel fired electric generators, rural cooperatives, energy intensive manufacturing, petroleum producers or importers, and HFC producers forcing this industries to buy all of these permits in an open auction.  In addition, the amendment eliminates bonus allowances for carbon capture and sequestration.

This would make the Cap and Trade what it should be: a Cap-Auction-Trade. (CAT … or the CAT’s meow, an answer to our Global Warming challenges.)

A massive giveaway of pollution permits would undercut our ability to achieve GHG emissions and would represent a massive additional revenue shift from all Americans to those invested in serial pollution.  Senator Hillary Clinton stands against this and I commend her for it.

The Democratic Party controlled Congress is attacked for inaction. Inaction in the face of Republicans who are not interested in seeing movement forward. Inaction in the face of a President who seems intent on his belief that “negotiation” is a four-letter word.  As Nancy Pelosi put it,

Democrats want to work with the President, yet he continues to engage in the same tired rhetoric that does not serve the best interests of the American people.

Instead of working with Democrats, the President is trying to prevent progress. Democrats will continue to take our country in a New Direction.

Well, the Energy Bill that is working in Congress doesn’t look to be inaction.  Like S-CHIP, it is a meaningful measure that — while far from perfect — will lay the groundwork for progressive energy policy, if adopted and if signed into law. Like S-CHIP, it is a meaningful measure that — while far from perfect — will advance the situation in meaningful ways, if adopted and if signed into law. And, like S-CHIP, this sensible legislation almost certainly will face a Presidential veto.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it… Help Nancy Pelosi, Ed Markey, and others Whip the Congress into shape to pass this legislation.

Call and write your Congressional representatives (INCLUDING REPUBLICANS!), demanding that they support this legislation which will serve as a critical downpayment for dealing with our energy and global warming challenges.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it… Give Mr 26% the choice between sensible legislation become law or stamping it with a Scarlet V to help further cement his status as the WPE (Worst President, Ever).

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