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- Breaking: Carol Browner says clean energy bill without carbon cap would be a "big mistake"; Nobelist Chu agrees, warning we otherwise face catastrophe, with St. Louis above 90°F for 1/3 the year
- The Chamber claims its "Board of Directors is the principal governing and policymaking body." Nike says that's false, and American Enterprise Institute agrees, calling the Chamber board "mostly ceremonial."
- American companies tell Senate "We Can Lead" on clean energy; Chu, Locke, Browner headline clean economy forum with business leaders this a.m.
- Breaking: Mike Castle (R-DE) to run for Biden's seat. Since he voted for Waxman-Markey, will RNC Chair Steele denounce him, too — or will he run away from his vote?
- Dr. Stephen Leeb is easily duped by deniers, so why would anyone rely on his "The Complete Investor newsletter"?
- Study: 13 gigatonnes of annual CO2 cuts by 2020 — 3/4 of what is needed for 450 ppm path globally — can be met at net savings of $14 billion
| Posted: 07 Oct 2009 08:12 AM PDT
At today's Clean Energy Economy Forum, Carol Browner, Director of White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, said that it would be a "big mistake" if Congress passed a clean energy bill without a cap on emissions. Browner made clear that the country needs a comprehensive bill that creates a carbon market to incentivize clean energy over the long-term. This is the first public statement I've heard from the White House pushing back on the statements by some Senators (not Majority Leader Reid) that have suggested they would prefer to do an energy-only bill. Energy Secretary Steven Chu was even more blunt. Chu said a shrinking cap and rising carbon price was "very, very important." He said it is the part of the bill "that really means something," and "the rest is just carrots." Chu is a big supporter of carrots but was clear that the long-term signal and steady emissions reductions were critical to avoid catastrophe. He specifically refenced the recent definitive NOAA-led report on U.S. climate impacts that warns of scorching 9 to 11°F warming over most of inland U.S. by 2090 with Kansas above 90°F some 120 days a year (which that isn't the worst case, it's business as usual). Chu pointed out that on our current emissions path, St. Louis, Missouri would spend one third the year.
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| Posted: 07 Oct 2009 07:35 AM PDT Memo to media: The ever-shrinking Chamber of Commerce is not "the voice of business." Indeed, we now know that besides being anti-scientific, it is anti-democratic, not even bothering to consult with its own Board of Directors on its own climate policy — in direct contradiction to its stated policy. Greenwire (subs. req'd) reports the amazing news:
As previously documented, the vast majority of the major businesses on the Chamber's board who have a publicly stated their position on climate legislation support strong action (see here). Kenneth Green, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, defended the Chamber's anti-democratic denialism:
Well, "charismatic" isn't the first word that comes to mind. Compromised, maybe (see "Are Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue's Ties to Union Pacific Railroading the Companies that Support Climate Policy?") But what is truly stunning about Nike's charge and Green's defense is that it is in direct contradiction to the Chamber's stated policy on its website about its Board (here):
But Green, a leading right-wing denier, has blurted out what is obviously common knowledge among the conservative establishment — the Board is purely a fig leaf to cover up its own denialism, which William Kovacs, the chamber's senior vice president for environment, technology and regulatory affairs himself blurted out in August with his Luddite call for "the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century" on global warming (see also Chamber falsely claims "We've never questioned the science behind global warming"). The Chamber's entire website is filled with claims that need rewriting:
Not. NRDC's Pete Altman has this ist:
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| Posted: 07 Oct 2009 05:24 AM PDT The Clean Energy Economy Forum will be webcast live at www.whitehouse.gov/live starting this morning (Wednesday) around 9:15 am (I think). Details at the end. What follows is a Wonk Room repost.
Hundreds of business executives are descending on Washington this week in support of a clean energy economy. Calling for investment in American jobs instead of global warming pollution, the CEOs participating in the Business Advocacy Day for Jobs & Competitiveness — an effort organized by the new We Can Lead coalition — will tell the Senate to take action with strong climate legislation like the Clean Energy Jobs Act introduced last week by Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA). Several of these companies have written a public letter to Congress and the administration calling for "comprehensive legislation to cut carbon pollution":
Carol Browner, the director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy and EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are confirmed speakers before the We Can Lead companies, who will be lobbying Congress on Wednesday, October 7 on behalf of strong climate legislation. Many of the participants in the lobby day have endorsed the House legislation, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, and others have called for even stronger action. In addition, the CEOs are "scheduled to eat dinner with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Tuesday, and to hold a White House meeting with Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke on Wednesday morning." Politico reports that "28 companies and labor and green groups — including United Technologies, Johnson & Johnson, GE, Weyerhauser, the Nature Conservancy and the Environmental Defense Action Fund — are launching" a million-dollar ad campaign "in support of comprehensive clean energy and climate change legislation." We Can Lead is a collaboration between the Clean Economy Network, Ceres, and other business groups including:
JR: Details on the event this a.m.. in the White House follow.
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| Posted: 06 Oct 2009 03:04 PM PDT
This breaking news from USA Today raises two interesting questions: First, will RNC Chair Michael Steele denounce him, too? Second, will Castle continue to advocate for clean energy jobs and climate legislation, or will he try to walk away from his vote like Mark Kirk has in Illinois? After all, the climate vote is increasingly becoming a litmus test for conservatives (see "Honey, I shrunk the GOP, Part 3: RNC Chair Steele withdraws support for Rep. Kirk over his vote on climate and clean energy bill"). Some hypocrisy on the issue is already clear:
Huh. It's apparently an unpardonable sin to support climate and clean energy action in a competitive primary, but not in an uncompetitive one. Still, let's not forget top conservative blogger Michele Malkin, who put this poster on her website after the House vote:
Such is life in a party whose own intellectuals argue "maybe just brain dead." |
| Posted: 06 Oct 2009 01:42 PM PDT
He even seems to know something about energy, "His best-selling book The Oil Factor: Protect Yourself – and Profit – from the Coming Energy Crisis accurately predicted the surge in oil prices." Who didn't, though (other than Michael Lynch, who predicted back in 1996 "real oil prices FLAT for the next two decades)? But based on the following nonsense he recently wrote and circulated, investors may ask themselves whether he bothers to do the most basic kind of research needed to justify following his advice:
Sad, really.. In fact, the "consensus view," a term I don't much like — let's say, rather, "the scientific understanding as reflected in the peer-reviewed literature" — is that the next 10 to 20 years will be the hottest on record collectively (see "Exclusive interview with Dr. Mojib Latif, the man who confused the NY Times and New Scientist, the man who moved George Will and math-challenged Morano to extreme disinformation"). There is no certainly no imaginary consensus predicting "colder winters and lower average worldwide temperatures" over the next one to two decades.
Yes, the entire scientific community, including hundreds of climate scientists, all of the major scientific publications, all of the world's national academies of sciences, and the major scientific associations, are all the equivalent Scientologists or idealogues who never even bother to go outside and study, say, virtually all of the world's glaciers, which are melting far faster than predicted, Dr. Stephen Leeb.
This would be Admiral Lautenbacher, a Bush administration stooge appointee, with no climate science credentials, who muzzled actual US climate scientists from speaking out, a climate denier of whom Sen. McCain said in 2005 (back when he was still a maverick),
But I digress. Leeb continues confusingly:
Update: He apparently means, "Amplifying the Pacific Climate System Response to a Small 11-Year Solar Cycle Forcing" (subs. req'd), an explanatory study that has little bearing on climate change, as its final sentence makes clear: "This response also cannot be used to explain recent global warming because the 11-year solar cycle has not shown a measurable trend over the past 30 years."
Note how Leeb leaped from what he thinks (incorrectly) the consensus says "could" happen, to knowing that the likely net impact of future climate change will be colder weather that drives up the demand for fossil fuels. For the record, something Leeb apparently never checks, the U.S. Energy Information Administration's, Short-Term Energy and Winter Fuels Outlook, says:
Yes, that's right, Leeb believes the former head of NOAA, an anti-scientific denier, but doesn't actually bother checking NOAA's near-term forecast. And people pay money for his investment advice!
Okay, Leeb is obviously your mainstream rightwinger — the Gore reference by itself makes for an almost ironclad diagnosis of anti-science syndrome (ASS). I don't generally give out investment advice, but in this case I will make a slight exception. If you believe in disinformation and not science, if you think we are headed into a long-term cooling trend, then Dr. Stephen Leeb is obviously the guy to place all your money with. |
| Posted: 06 Oct 2009 12:21 PM PDT
New York, NY— The United Nations Foundation and the Center for American Progress presented today an analysis of "core elements" needed to combat climate change. In a press conference call, U.N. Foundation President Timothy E. Wirth and Center for American Progress President John D. Podesta also spoke about the ongoing U.N.-led negotiations toward a new international climate agreement. "This report once again demonstrates that attending to climate change is both the right thing to do and the smart thing to do. Concerted and cooperative international action to get us on a pathway to a global 20 percent renewable electricity standard and halving deforestation by 2020 is the most cost-effective way to achieve our midterm emissions reductions goals. Just as important, improvements in energy efficiency across the board will pay for it all and generate new revenue to help the world's poorest countries adapt to the impacts of climate change they are already experiencing." said Center for American Progress President John Podesta. Achievable gains in energy efficiency, renewable energy, forest conservation, and sustainable land use worldwide could achieve up to 75 percent of needed global emissions reductions in 2020 at a net savings of $14 billion, according to analysis done for the United Nations Foundation by Project Catalyst:
These actions, along with immediate investments of $1-2 billion to implement National Adaptation Programs of Action for the least developed and most vulnerable countries, would make a sizeable and immediate contribution to solving the climate problem and provide a valuable foundation for a new agreement in Copenhagen. "A new international agreement is urgently needed to address climate change," said U.N. Foundation President Timothy Wirth. "It must include emission reduction targets by developed countries, nationally appropriate mitigation actions by developing countries, financial assistance to developing countries, and technology cooperation. "Core elements of a new agreement include areas where all countries, both developed and developing, can take immediate action to reduce emissions—action that also supports sustainable development, economic growth, energy security, and public health." |
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