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In this guest post, CitiSven lays out his case for why “Green” means a vote for Democratic politicians in 21st Century America.

Have you heard of the Four Dogs Defense/  If not, time to read ahead to learn about it and how it relates to Climate Change from guest blogger James Wells.

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This guest post from Barath enriches the GESN conversation begun with CNN’s celebratory misinformation about America’s energy situation. [Update:  See, more recently (18 March 2012), Zakaria error tweets its way around the world … ]

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Written prior to the SOTU, guest blogger Barath’s thoughts still ring true as to what the focus should have been …

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Sadly, across the nation (and, well, across the globe), anti-science syndrome sufferers are using a variety of tools to attack scientists who are, well, showing fidelity to science.  Whether harassing (and, to a reasonable person, threatening) emails to scientists and their wives or rogue Attorney Generals leveraging taxpayer resources for baseless (and costly) investigations,

Sadly, writ large, it is easier (intellectually, fiscally, and other resources) to lauch truthiness (and falsehood) laden attacks than it is to mount defense. Sadly, of course, such ‘defensive’ efforts come at the cost of time and resources that could (should) be spent on advancing science and helping decision-makers (at all levels, from the individual citizen to the President, from the mail clerk to the CEO) understand what the implications are of that science to help foster better decision-making.

Those who are defending the scientific method and defending science against attacks from anti-science sources have a new tool at hand:  the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund which is now supported by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

Fighting a legal battle is expensive and academic salaries can’t compete against fossil foolish interests’ deep pockets. The Defense Fund is designed to help address this resource disparity.  But, critically, this is not about “scientists” but about science.

Our goal is not only to defend the scientist but to protect the scientific endeavor. The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund was established to make sure that these legal claims are not viewed as an action against one scientist or institution but as actions against the scientific endeavor as a whole.

The CSLDF’s real objective, thus, moves beyond simply trying to pay legal fees.  It will serve a clearinghouse for information (coordination, even?) about legal maneuvers targeting the undermining of (climate) science and advise scientists who are under attack.

It is a sad state of affairs that something like is required … but it is required and merits support.  [Read more →]

Perhaps sadly, 21st Century American politics has some striking differences between the political parties in the world views and the policy constructs that derive from it.

All too often, for any number of reasons, these stark contrasts get lost in the public consciousness — whether due to fatigue, information overload, the messiness of legislative sausage making, mediocre journalism, or otherwise.

All too much of the political campaigning ends up, of course, on style rather than substance. And, well, there is strong research backing that choose to go for emotions over rational thinking.

There are Political Perfect Storm arenas, however, where that rational thinking intercepts strongly with the emotional that fall into a serious wedge arena that can be leveraged, very strongly, for political benefit.

In 2012, what is one of the most significant policy arenas that fall into this Perfect Storm arenas: Energy policy.

While, sadly, President Obama’s State of the Union address sounded at times like a speech that would have played with the 2008 Republican National Convention (“All of the above” energy policy and the loving embrace of natural gas policy), there were several arenas which showed the most striking positive public reaction in focus groups during the speech and polling afterwards:   a call to end subsidies for oil companies and a call for investment in a clean-energy future.

To be clear, these are popular concepts with Democrats, Independents, and even Republicans. 

As David Roberts put it in a (highly) recommended read,

… the Republican attempt to drag clean energy into the culture war has reached only the conservative base. Independents outside the Fox-Limbaugh loop still favor it. In other words, this is a powerful wedge issue that favors Democrats. 

Americans know that clean energy is the future. They want to embrace the future. They want to, well, win it. They certainly don’t want to fend it off for the sake of oil companies. Americans hate oil companies! (Almost as much as they hate congressional Republicans.) They don’t want to subsidize oil companies any more. Even Republicans support ending oil subsidies by a 2-to-1 margin.

Who opposes these?  The Republican Party elite, who are doubling down in their support for polluting energy industries and are wedded to attacking clean energy paths forward no matter this fiscal, national security, health, or other benefit streams.

As Brian Merchant puts it

Democrats have a huge opportunity, as Roberts notes, to take up an incredibly popular fight by rallying behind clean energy. They stand to reap major political dividends—and frankly, that’s the way that we’re going to start seeing inroads made towards better renewable energy policies. So pay attention, Dems. Bring this issue to the fore, make strong and repeated calls for more clean energy, and watch the GOP writhe while they attempt to justify favoring coal and oil.

It is time to take a sledgehammer to the wedge to make it clear to the America public who salivates over polluters’ political contributions and who supports a prosperous clean energy future.  Doing so will increase the likelihood of making the voters’ passion for a clean-energy future a viable possibility to achieve come January 2013.

Related:  An Election About Science

A major challenge exists: it is far easier to dispense truthiness (and outright deceit)than it is to have to run after and rebut it.  When it comes to anti-science syndrome suffering climate deniers and delayers, the whack-a-mole campaign of dealing with deceit, deception, and diversion is a never-ending and utterly exhausting process. And, that exhaustion is one of the powerful items in the quiver for serial deceivers — eventually the exhausted truthtellers run out of energy (and other resources) to respond. And, the deceit lives on without serious challenge.

Of course, there is the not insignificant issue that serious interests are aligned with downplaying (even dismissive) climate change risks.  Thus, it is easy for anyone with even a shred of credentials to get a powerful megaphone in, for example, the Murdoch disinformation empire.

Today’s Wall Street Journal provides (yet) another example of this sad reality.

With the publication of “No Need to Panic About Global Warming”, the editor made sure to reinforce the argument by pointing to the “authority” of “16 scientists listed at the end of the article” who signed it. (As   Yes, 16 … although not all are scientists, still a heady number of some (reasonably) well known names, such as aviation pioneer Burt Rutan.  These 16, however, are less well known for their passionate rejection of the scientific community’s understanding of climate risks and outright denial of many fundamental concepts.

After the fold is an initial look at (yet) another recklessly misleading Wall Street Journal opinion piece.

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A correspondent just provided the text of material that Greenpeace has sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) making a case that TransCanada is potentially in violation of security laws due to its use of inflated job figures as part of a strategic influence campaign to drive the Obama Administration into supporting this misguided and risky venture.

From that correspondent:

Accountability time for TransCanada’s bogus job creation claims to investors. The company has repeatedly used a number that would have it magically creating jobs at a rate 67 times greater in the U.S. than it told Canadian regulators it would in that country. Your basic lobbyists’ lie.

Some quotes from the Greenpeace material:

From the cover note:

“It’s wrong for politicians and pundits to use these false numbers, but it’s illegal for TransCanada to lie to investors. The SEC needs to take immediate action to hold TransCanada accountable for misleading investors to boost its valuation,” said Phil Radford, Executive Director of Greenpeace. “TransCanada needs to knock off the propaganda and level with people that they’d create a few temporary jobs just to move dirty oil through our country so it can be shipped to Europe for maximum Big Oil profits.”

From complaint:

“In the process, it has misled investors, U.S. and Canadian officials, the media, and the public at large in order to bolster its balance sheets and share price. We think these statements violate U.S. securities disclosure laws, notably SEC Rule 10b(5) – Employment of Manipulative and Deceptive Practices. It is incumbent on TRP to immediately and publicly correct this information – or be forced to do so by the Securities and Exchange Commission.”

I was told that the SEC has confirmed that it is now actively considering the Greenpeace complaint.

Full Greenpeace material after the fold.

Some material of potential interest

• Columbia Journalism Review, Keystone XL Jobs Bewilder Media
• Media Matters for America, The Press and the Pipeline
• Related GESN posts include:
  • Unpublished letters:  Fact Checker’s Partial Facts on Pipeline Employment
  • Tar Sands Scam: Keystone XL job claims demand scrutiny
  • Four Transport Alternatives to Canadian Tar Sands

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This guest post was originally published at DeSmogBlog from the keyboard of the diligent and thoughtful Steve Horn.

On January 16, the Los Angeles Times revealed that anti-science bills have been popping up over the past several years in statehouses across the U.S., mandating the teaching of climate change denial or “skepticism” as a credible “theoretical alternative” to human caused climate change came.

The L.A. Times’ Neela Banerjee explained,

“Texas and Louisiana have introduced education standards that require educators to teach climate change denial as a valid scientific position. South Dakota and Utah passed resolutions denying climate change. Tennessee and Oklahoma also have introduced legislation to give climate change skeptics a place in the classroom.”

What the excellent Times coverage missed is that key language in these anti-science bills all eminated from a single source: the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC.

In association with the State of the Union, the White House released “A Blueprint for An America Built to Last“. 

Within it, “A Blueprint to Make the Most of America’s Energy Resources” (full section after the fold) from which we learn that “nuclear power, efficient natural gas, and clean coal” are “renewable energy” sources.

Now, if we wish to speak in terms of 10s of millions of years, it seems true that coal, natural gas, and oil are renewable.  Today’s biomass will, over that sort of geologic time, create (renew, one might say) new fossil fuel supplies.  However, in any rational discussion, these are not “renewable” fuels within any context of human civilization.

From the White House document:

renewable energy sources like wind, solar, biomass, hydropower, nuclear power, efficient natural gas, and clean coal.

This is, almost certainly an issue of poor writing. (It could have read “nuclear power, efficient natural gas, clean coal, and renewable energy sources like wind, solar, biomass, and hydropower.”  That rewrite, however, would have put renewables at the back of the line and hurt the President among those (e.g., the majority of Americans) strongly supportive of greater investment in renewable energy deployment and research.)

This section, however, has far more serious problems. Most importantly, the President’s whole-sale throwing in the hat with the ‘natural gas is good for the environment and economy’ propaganda that is a Potemkin Village when it comes to addressing the nation’s real challenges. On that Potemkin Village, for example, see

• Joe Romm, Natural Gas Is A Bridge To Nowhere — Absent a Serious Price for Global Warming Pollution
• A Siegel, CAP’s American Fuel: Contaminated on so many levels

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