If the US Senate has, collectively, any substantive understanding of science, concern about American security, and desire for American prosperity into the future, there will be climate legislation. Sadly, with Anti-Science Syndrome suffering Haters Of a Livable Economic Society dominating one of America’s two major political parties and with Climate Peacocksmewing their way around the Senate, the propects are dim that climate legislation will be resurrected in the US Senate any time soon.
As the funeral dirge continues, there are many obituaries being written.
Let us be clear, the environment is difficult for moving forward sensible legislation on energy, the environment, and climate change.
There are serious ideological reasons that are fighting against concerted government action.
There is serious money behind fighting any change to the status quo. Oil companies, coal companies, natural gas companies, and so on earn significant amounts of money and they seek to maximize their near-term shareholder profits (and executive bonuses) no matter what the long-term costs might be.
U.S. society is energy (and, well, science) illiterate … in part because …
The media has utterly failed in its societal duty, providing faux-and-balanced coverage of climate change issues (he says, she says reporting) in a coverage of debate (horse race type coverage) rather than focusing on truthful reporting.
There is no chance unless Mr. Obama comes out fighting: calling out the Republicans, shaming and rallying Democratic laggards and explaining to the American people that global warming and oil dependency are clear and present threats to American security.
There is much power to this argument. The most significant problem with Romm’s The Failed Presidency of Barack Obama? That the question mark should have been part of the title.
Yes, the environment is quite difficult for progress and, yes, “he volunteered to take command of the Titanic after it hit the iceberg”, but, at the end of the day, does the buck stop there?
One exasperated administration official on Thursday lambasted the environmentalists – led by the Environmental Defense Fund – for failing to effectively lobby GOP senators.
“They didn’t deliver a single Republican,” the official told POLITICO. “They spent like $100 million and they weren’t able to get a single Republican convert on the bill.”
While there is much truth to the line that environmental organizations “failed” and I have had my criticisms of the tactics of many of them, it is hard to see where one can look to EDF or Sierra Club or Alliance for Climate Protection for the responsibility to leverage Just Say No Republicans to the table.
Just as Reid knew a carbon cap couldn’t get the 60 votes now needed to get anything passed in the recalcitrant Senate, ultimately the threat of global warming didn’t galvanize the public to the point where they would demand change. There are lots of reasons for this—disinformation campaigns by fossil fuel interests, the overblown controversy of “climategate,” a media corps that too rarely puts global warming in the right context. But until that changes—and the public demands change—ambitious climate legislation will remain dead.
I could blame Republicans for the fact that not one G.O.P. senator indicated a willingness to vote for a bill that would put the slightest price on carbon. I could blame the Democratic senators who were also waffling. I could blame President Obama for his disappearing act on energy and spending more time reading the polls than changing the polls. I could blame the Chamber of Commerce and the fossil-fuel lobby for spending bags of money to subvert this bill. But the truth is, the public, confused and stressed by the last two years, never got mobilized to press for this legislation. We will regret it.
It is the public’s fault …
The public wanted single payer or, at least, public option. Yet …
The public wanted accountability for Wall Street. Yet …
The public wants BP’s execs’ heads on a platter. Yet …
In the face of a vicious ideological war, massive amounts of distorting propaganda, horrid media coverage of factual issues, environmental organization playing behind-the-scenes negotiation, complicated horse-trading filled legislation, and a President who seemed disengaged (despite many speeches), it is the public’s fault that we don’t have climate legislation?
July 26th, 2010 · Comments Off on Two out of three ain’t bad …
When it comes to environmental and energy cartooning, there is no other major outlet’s cartoonists who comes close to matching the knowledgeable and insightful cartooning that Tom Toles brings to the pages of The Washington Post. As commented before,
With Toles, we don’t know whether to laugh or cry. But, he last won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 1990. His cartooning related to global warming is top notch and merits viewership … and recognition.
The Democratic Party and the Obama Administration are loudly touting up their victories, their “historic” achievements from the stimulus package to health care to otherwise. As Van Jones noted in calling on the blogosphere to reduce its criticism of the Administration:
I can’t stand it. President Obama volunteered to be the captain of the Titanic after it hit the iceberg
Yes. We’ve hit the iceberg. And, Obama faces serious challenges from a Republican Party that makes the ‘do nothing’ Congress that Truman faced look to be the epitome of thoughtful bipartisanship in seeking solutions to Americans problems. And, when it comes to movement forward on climate change, the legions and influence of Anti-Science Syndrome suffering Haters Of a Livable Economic Society cannot be exaggerated. Movement forward on climate change legislation has not been and is not an easy proposition.
However, this isn’t baseball where a .666 average is true Hall of Fame material.
But “solving” health care (okay, reducing problems & improving the situation, not “solving”) and “achieving” Wall Street reform (again, incremental steps, not nearly enough) simply won’t matter with much more significant progress to turn us (the U.S. and all of us) away from our fossil-foolish ways toward a sustainable and prosperous climate-friendly future.
Without serious movement forward, we’re not looking at Hall of Fame for America but a Hall of Infamy.
For most Americans, you don’t go to Las Vegas for truth but to escape reality.
This morning, one of America’s most eloquent, thoughtful, and passionate speakers when it comes to energy, climate, and social issues took an hour out to speak truth in Las Vegas.
Van’s eloquence is hard to capture with a speech filled with amusing but thoughtful and substantive one-liners. Van is one of the few people that I will go to listen to time and time again. I “know” what he is speaking to but he says it with such power and eloquence. I learn every time that I listen to him and I am, yes, motivated. It is difficult to do Van’s words justice … and impossible without a transcript … but after the fold are some thoughts / extracts. My recommendation: turn on the above and listen through it perhaps even if you are doing something else on the computer while listening to him.
July 22nd, 2010 · Comments Off on Are Natural Gas Vehicles destined to be the next ‘ethanol’-like boondoggle?
Despite all the green washing out there (and there is lots of it, lets be clear), corn-based ethanol is far from a panacea in terms of reducing America’s dependence on imported oil, dependency on fossil fuels, reducing greenhouse gases and representing a good investment for the taxpayer. While supporting corn ethanol is, it seems, great politics to get through the Iowa primary, independent study after independent study shows that it is not a good deal for the taxpayer, the economy, and the environment. The absolute ‘best’ case, from honest analysis, is that this is a very costly and inefficient path for very marginal reductions in fossil-foolish dependencies and minimal greenhouse-gas emission reductions. Other analysts come out with the conclusion that we actually lose ground in GHG emissions in returns for the $billions being pumped into corn ethanol.
Right now, we seem to be watching (in slow motion?) a headlong rush into another “ethanol”-like boondoggle driven, in no small part, by the $70 million or so that T Boone Pickens has put behind promotion of The Pickens’ Plan.
There are ‘bipartisan’ bills in both the House and Senate promoting various paths for incentivizing natural gas vehicles (NGVs) with quite significant resources behind them. These planned expenditures of $10s of billions seem to be moving forward with essentially zero independent analysis of their viability, GHG implications, and, perhaps even more importantly, any comparative analysis of the cost-effectiveness of a mass program for subsidizing natural gas in (for example, the trucking industry) versus the costs of other options for carving away at America’s oil addiction.
One simple question to ask, how much would it cost the nation for every barrel reduction in daily oil demand? If we price that oil at $100 barrel, every oil of reduced demand equals $36,500 per year in reduced imports. In pure dollar terms, for example, a preliminary analysis shows that it would cost:
$75,000 of cost to taxpayers per barrel cut from daily oil demand via Natural Gas for Truck Transport. This does not, however, include the additional costs for the natural gas to move the trucks (which Congressional action would subsidize) nor the additional costs of refueling infrastructure (which the Congressional action would subsidize) nor does it account for the additional cost of natural gas for other uses (such as heating our homes) nor does it account for the pollution impacts of drilling and natural gas burning
$36,000 cost to taxpayers per barrel/day cut from oil via electrification of rail without counting the cost of the electricity but also not counting many other benefits (such as safer highways, reduced maintenance costs on highways, reduced pollution…)
$10,000 cost to taxpayers per barrel cut from daily oil deman with the installation of feedback systems in cars with considerable other benefits including safer roads.
And, there are many — many — more options out there that would likely be more effective on cost, energy, and environmental terms. We should understand this field of options before leaping ahead with $billions or $10s of billions or even $100s of billions of subsidies.
“We have a responsibility – both to our constituents and our children – to take on America’s energy challenge. Many of us want to do that through a comprehensive bill that creates jobs, breaks our addiction to oil and curbs pollution. Unfortunately, at this time not one Republican wants to join us in achieving this goal. That isn’t just disappointing. It’s dangerous.
Thus, a much more limited energy bill will move forward. Sadly, one of those components looks to be inclusion of subsidizing a fossil-foolish subsidy for natural gas transportation:
our country is blessed with abundant resources and we must tap into those. That is why we will invest in the manufacturing of natural gas vehicles.
Here is a question for Senator Reid:
You have closely aligned yourself with “your friend, T Boone Pickens” and are promoting his desire for large government investment for expanding natural gas transportation. Have you had any independent organization do an analysis of the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of such a NGV program? If so, will you release it? If not, why not? And, associated, have you had an analysis done of the cost effectiveness for the taxpayer of such a program compared to other options for reducing our oil dependency?
I know of no such analysis re total GHG nor of the relative costs to the taxpayers of various options. My calculations suggest that a massive investment in natural gas vehicles would be a pretty bad deal for the planet and the taxpayer. On this, see CAP’s American Fuel: Contaminated on so many levels.
Note: Not to mention the environmental impacts of natural gas production. See FRACK YOU! Mother Earth!.
Some of these steps were, well, almost learned in the womb. One of my earliest family chores was taking out vegetable scraps to the compost pile. That moved into dumping grass clippings onto the pile when cutting the lawn came onto my ‘to do’ chart. And, well, even into getting praise from adding neighborhood clippings to enrich our soil as I grew into earning a few $s cutting laws.
Composting and a larger picture …
All this began well before “global warming” became part of my (or the world’s) lexicon. But, composting is one of those individual actions that can add up to something bigger. Take the California situation,
Compostable organics make up 30% of California’s overall waste stream, contributing over 12 million tons annually to our state’s landfills. In landfills, this material undergoes anaerobic decomposition and produces significant quantities of methane, up to 80% of which is not captured by a landfill gas system.
Reminder: methane is 23 times as strong as a GHG as Co2. And, by the way, there is all the energy to carry those organics to the landfill. In terms of household waste, a ton of food waste would be 12-16 kilograms of CO2 in centralized disposal while household treatment would be about 5 kg. Composting doesn’t eliminate that carbon footprint, but it reduces it.
Back to that household composting …
Composting kitchen scraps and yard waste has been simply part of life that continued into home ownership.
A few years after we bought our home, a near-by restaurant was torn down and the fattened rats were driven into our neighborhood. This force migration, sigh, I learned of due to rats feasting in that ‘casual’ compost pile, with the scraps simply thrown in … Aside from gassing the rats’ den, it was time to move onto something more significant.
My better 95+% wanted to abandon composting as did the county … that really wasn’t my preferred option. A neighbor’s move (a different forced) migration offered up a solution: a rotating compost holder. Great … in went scraps … in went grass clippings. And, well, flipping that compost holder was an amusing thing to do every so often. And, well, every so often, dumping would provide rich material for digging into the vegetable garden.
Ahhh … life was good … for a good five years … until …
I noticed some scraps on the ground beneath this huge contraption and discovered that something had eaten into the compost holder (which had a clearance of perhaps six inches above the ground). A little bit of searching and, well, a rat’s burrow within a few feet. Again, time for some poison and time for something better.
Some searching brought me to the Green Cone from Solar Cone. On a quick look, this looked really appealing. Rather than what seemed like an eternity for regular composting, the green cone is built to speed natural composition by raising temperatures and maintaining aerobic conditions which combine to encourage micro-organism growth. And, it can take all of the kitchen food waste — meats and fish and bread and dairy in addition to vegetable and fruit scraps. (Although yard waste doesn’t go in it …)
Oops … won’t that food attract those rats?
Well, the attraction (to me, not the rodents) grew because the green cone seals — there is essentially no order that is going to attract rodents. The only ‘exposed’ areas are underground and the design enables surrounding that exposed ‘basket’ with chicken wire to inhibit rodents.
Okay … sold … this sounded like a great path to keep composting while not feeding rats.
The box came in and there was this mesh plastic bin for underground and a two layered solid cover for above ground with quite clear and explicit instructions for installation.
Reminder to oneself: remember Boy Scout motto and ‘be prepared!‘.
The Solar Cone comes with direct instructions as to what sort of hole to dig in soil that will absorb water and how much bigger it needs to be in less absorptive soil. I went to dig that hole on a cold day in what I hadn’t realize was clay soil, with some big roots, and realized after I started that half my tools were still with a neighbor who I’d lent them too … a neighbor who was out of town. But, the hole digging had begun … after an embarrassingly long time and something like a cubic yard of soil, I declared ‘good enough’ … even though this was less than the directions recommended (okay, instructed) for clay soil. But, night was falling and having it ‘done’ was a priority.
Victory declared, the chicken-wire wrapped basket went in the ground, and the cover was screwed on, and the first dump of food went in. And, so the pile grew. The lesson, however, was following instructions matters: a heavy rainstorm and my compost ‘pile’ became a compost ‘bog’, not the best thing for that decomposition.
Sigh … hole dug … victory had been declared … not going back on that … but the neighbors forced the issue. Shortly after digging the Solar Cone in in a sunny patch hidden from us and our neighbors in bushes, up went a 7-foot high fence that eliminated 90+% of the sun on that spot. So much for “solar” of “Solar Cone”. Thus, the fence forced moving it.
And, this time, the work went on ‘prepared’ with the dug hole easily twice as large. Since then, not a problem with flooding.
Really, though, how does it work and would we recommend it to others?
Experience as to how it works …
1. The soil coming out is beautifully rich.
2. The process, with drainage of water, allows a compacting and will lead to our family-of-five needing to empty it perhaps every third year or so.
3. It truly does heat up … the ‘inside’ temperature is much warmer than outdoor temperatures (very noticeable on a sunny winter day).
4. Honestly, essentially zero smell. This is right by where neighborhood kids play and there has never been a comment. Walking up to put in materials, don’t recall ever smelling a bad odor. (Okay, as an experiment, tried throwing in the remains of a ‘celebration’ lobster dinner … 90+ degree days and there was zero odor, on opening the solar cone, of the lobster within three days.)
5. As per lobster shells, it really does seem to take all foods. (Although, better 95+% is truly not comfortable with this and, shhh, isn’t aware of the lobster (and crab) shell and fish skin and … experiments.)
6. The ‘no rodents’ policy really does seem to work well. No sign of any rodent activity.
7. Not intrusive — no visitor or neighbor has commented that it is ‘unsightly’ … as per the photos.
Okay, there have been some (minor) problems — as per above, the ‘big’ problems had nothing to do with the Green Cone and everything to do with failure to follow instructions. Honestly, the screwing in to connect the top to the ‘digestion basket’ is annoying (and screws have disappeared) and the strap holding the lid disappeared (again, screws …). Perhaps the most amusing ‘problem’: left the accelerator package in the provided waste carrier on the porch and the squirrels were attracted to it, with the package ripped to shreds the first night. Hmmm …
But, back to the question, as to whether we would recommend it: the Green Cone works, the composting is less intrusive and faster, and the Green Cone enabled us to continue (even expand) composting in face of a neighborhood rodent problem. From this household, definitely two thumbs up.
NOTE: Solar Cone graciously, at request, provided a Green Cone for review purposes.
There is no if, ands, or buts about this basic truth.
Amid the end game of trying to craft some form of energy & climate bill that has a shot of passing the U.S. Senate, which seems stalled in the face of what looks likely to be the hottest year in recorded weather history, the electrical utilities (and fossil foolish interests, e.g., coal) are trying to get a ‘deal’ for “relief” from enforcement of basic Clean Air Act (CAA) provisions to secure their agreement to (very weakened) steps to reduce US carbon emissions.
Very simply, “coal makes us sick”. Burning coal sickens human health. And, burning coal is sickening the planet’s ability to support humanity.
Harry, remember your own words, “coal makes us sick”, and just say no to those who wish to enshrine the right to sicken us indefinitely into the future.
NOTE / CHANGE OF SUBJECT: Sigh … I, for one, won’t be at Netroots Nation … for the first time. Many reasons driving this but, the straw that broke the camel’s back: trying to keep the carbon footprint from swelling. In any event, if given the chance, here are two questions to ask Senator Reid:
1. You have clearly stated your understanding that “coal makes us sick”. Will you commit to not allowing coal-burning utilities a continued pass on requirements to reduce mercury and and other poisons in their emissions?
2. You have closely aligned yourself with “your friend, T Boone Pickens” and are promoting his desire for large government investment for expanding natural gas transportation. Have you had any independent organization do an analysis of the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of such a NGV program? If so, will you release it? If not, why not? And, associated, have you had an analysis done of the cost effectiveness for the taxpayer of such a program compared to other options for reducing our oil dependency?
NOTE: RE #2, I know of no such analysis re total GHG nor of the relative costs to the taxpayers of various options. My calculations suggest that a massive investment in natural gas vehicles would be a pretty bad deal for the planet and the taxpayer. On this, see CAP’s American Fuel: Contaminated on so many levels.
Secretary Chu has directed all DOE offices to install cool roofs, whenever cost effective over the lifetime of the roof, when constructing new roofs or replacing old ones at DOE facilities. With cool roofs, these federal buildings will consume less energy, offset additional carbon emissions, and save taxpayers money.
In essence, cool roofs cost the building owner a little bit more upfront but cost far (FAR) less to own due to reduced utility and maintenance costs. They are very fast payoff upgrade investments. (Wal-Mart, according to one of its executives, counts the payoff time for the additional upfront cost in terms of a few weeks.) Putting in cool roofs also contributes to reducing the heat island impact (urban areas being warmer than surrounding rural areas) and help reduce climate change impacts.
As Secretary Chu put it in the press release:
“Cool roofs are one of the quickest and lowest cost ways we can reduce our global carbon emissions and begin the hard work of slowing climate change,” said Secretary Chu. “By demonstrating the benefits of cool roofs on our facilities, the federal government can lead the nation toward more sustainable building practices, while reducing the federal carbon footprint and saving money for taxpayers.”
Energy efficiency is one of the lowest cost options for reducing GHG emissions. Buildings account for 40 percent of U.S. energy use — and about 35 percent of the Nation’s GHGs. An effective method for reducing building energy use is installation of a cool roof, which reflects sunlight and reduces heat gain. By reducing heat gain, a cool roof lowers the need for air-conditioning and saves energy. Yet, cool roofs do even more. In an urban or campus setting, they reduce the “heat island effect,” lowering ambient air temperature and improving air quality.
Because cool roofs provide significant energy savings and environmental benefits, they should be used whenever practical. Accordingly, effective immediately, unless determined uneconomical by a life-cycle cost analysis, roof replacements and roofs for new construction shall be cool roofs.
As per the press release, DOE has already begun cool roofing:
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a separately organized agency within the U.S. Department of Energy, has already installed more than two million square feet of cool and white roofs at NNSA sites across the country. Through the Roof Asset Management Program (RAMP), NNSA currently saves an average of $500,000 a year in energy costs and expects to save more than $10 million over the next 15 years. Overall, NNSA has reduced building heating and cooling costs by an average of 70 percent annually on reroofed areas by installing cool roofs and increasing insulation.
As part of the Department’s ongoing efforts to implement cool roofs on its facilities, Secretary Chu also announced that design will begin this summer on cool roof replacements at DOE Headquarters in Washington, DC. Cool roof projects are also underway at Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls and Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York. Collectively, these projects will cover over 350,000 square feet and save thousands of dollars for taxpayers annually
.
Secretary Chu has sent a letter to all other US Departments urging them to take similar actions in their own buildings.
Secretary Chu’s step is a quite sensible one, worthy of applause.
This policy will pay off for the taxpayer, in relatively quick time frames, as cool roofing will (a) lower utility costs, (b) reduce maintenance costs (due to lower extreme temperatures stressing roofs), and (c) reduce future costs for repairing / replacing roofs. These are simply the direct ‘on budget’ paybacks, there are additional direct fiscal benefits due to lowered air conditioning costs as the ambient temperature is lowered with increased cool roof deployment. And, of course, there are the ancillary benefits of reduced urban heat island and reduced climate change impacts.
The question you might ask: why is it that you hear only one hand clapping?
First off, while great that this is happening at DOE, cool roofing should simply be building code for most of the United States. While the Federal government is large (huge), it is only a small share of all the buildings (commercial, industrial, and residential) in the nation.
Secondly, a very simple question: Why did it take so long? Why didn’t Secretary Chu take this action almost the first day he entered the office?
He said global warming could be slowed by a low-tech idea that has nothing to do with coal plants or solar panels: white roofs.
Making roofs white “changes the reflectivity … of the Earth, so the sunlight comes in, it’s reflected back into space,” Chu said. “This is something very simple that we can do immediately,”
If something so straightforward, so clearly understood as viable and valuable by the key decision-maker, takes over a year to become “immediately”, what does this suggest about more complicated and less clear-cut options?
UPDATE: A response to the question “why not sooner” from the Department of Energy:
Under Secretary Chu’s leadership, the Department has been moving toward cool roofs over the past 18 months. The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration, for example, launched a number of cool roof renovations in 2009. Secretary Chu’s order formalizes the process and is the next step in the overall effort.
Sigh … yes … but … it still would have been good to see this become US government policy a year+ ago. (Well, 10 years ago, but I’m arguing since reality-based thinking retook the reins of government.) And, it is something that should be national policy — not just USG action. Still, again, it is good that DOE is doing this … even as we need more and faster action.
July 19th, 2010 · Comments Off on Village Truthiness on the Death Gusher’s impact on public opinion … need to look behind the curtain
Progressive bloggers have been, as per David Waldman (Kagro X) at Daily Kos, quoting from a Washington Post article about how the oil in the Gulf isn’t shifting public opinion on energy issues like environmentalists desire.
Not surprisingly, The Post article is rather mediocre in a balanced journalism sort-of way: legitimate and interesting material is balanced with mediocrity and truthiness.
To be clear, David’s key point is one that I agree with:
File this for use the next time somebody tells you that the key to getting people fired up in this country is letting things go to hell so they can see for themselves how bad things have gotten.
E.g., simply saying ‘let things go to hell’ and people will wake up and magically become progressives as about as reality based as planning on the Washington Nationals making it to the World Series this year …
Uncritically accepting The Post article as truthful reinforces a Village talking point and misses the reality that the situation is not necessarily as represented in that article.
July 19th, 2010 · Comments Off on Regular Post Columnist Rejects Paper’s Climate Denial Party Line
Canada’s version of Faux News and the Washington Times, The National Post, has been a fountain of misinformation and deceit when it comes to climate science. The National Post‘s pages have been filled with truthiness dribble from those rejecting science and seeking to distort the science into the public discussion. Last week, The National Post published a piece grounded in reality, rather than partisan delusion, castigating science denial and asserting that Anti-Science Syndrome suffering Haters Of a Livable Economy are causing harm to conservative causes. [Read more →]
and natural gas burning
overnight to providing comments on national energy policy drafts to opening discussions as to 
rs forced the issue. Shortly after digging the Solar Cone in in a sunny patch hidden from us and our neighbors in bushes, up went a 7-foot high fence that eliminated 90+% of the sun on that spot. So much for “solar” of “Solar Cone”. Thus, the fence forced moving it.
energy efficiency in the built environment, reducing heat island impacts, and helping to move us forward in climate change mitigation. Yesterday, 
the Washington Times, The National Post, has been a fountain of misinformation and deceit when it comes to climate science.