"If the environmental agency determines that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant to be regulated under theClean Air Act, it would set off one of the most extensive regulatory rule makings in history. Ms. Jackson knows that she would be stepping into a minefield of Congressional and industry opposition and said that she was trying to devise a program that allayed these worries.
"We are poised to be specific on what we regulate and on what schedule," Ms. Jackson said. "We don't want people to spin that into a doomsday scenario." "
"So an underlying fact has become crystal clear. The horrendously carbon-intensive unconventional fossil fuels, tar shale in the US and tar sands in Canada, cannot be developed. The carbon emissions from tar shale and tar sands would initiate a continual unfolding of climate disasters over the course of this century. We would be miserable stewards of creation. We would rob our own children and grandchildren.
Now is a critical moment in the history of our planet. The US and Canadian governments must agree that the unconventional fossil fuels, tar sands and tar shale, will not be developed. They will thus send a message that their statements recognising "a planet in peril" are not empty rhetoric. They will provide hope to young people and nature. We can preserve our heritage with its remarkable diversity of life."
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As much as 75% of Canadian tar sands oil comes to the United States. We need to do our share to slash that demand. We should call on American workers to make more fuel efficient cars, expand our public transit systems, and design and build smart growth communities that reduce our need to drive..."
Investors will figure out that coal is growing scarce and too expensive.
It's great that the New York Times is asking "Is America Ready to Quit Coal?" but the real question may be "Will we have any choice?"
On February 12, Clean Energy Action released a report on Powder River Basin coal supplies, based in part on a 2008 U.S. Geological Survey report. The Powder River Basin matters because Western coal has been the only source of new coal production in the U.S. for the last two decades. Appalachian and interior coal production has been declining, despite mostly increasing prices and uniformly increasing prices since 2003. Northern Appalachian coal production peaked in the middle of the last century, while interior coal production peaked at the start of this decade. When production declines in the face of rising prices, constraints other than economics must be coming into play. Future increases in production in these regions seems unlikely....
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2008753860_opinc18maher.html "The irony is that the U.S. has spent a fortune to have its military weakened. Defense spending increased by nearly 40 percent since 2000. Add on top of that the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on emergency supplementals to fight the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the yearly defense budget has almost doubled in the last decade...."
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=11978 "Countless dollars in energy from limited fossil fuels are wasted – a result of aging and inefficient factories, homes not being insulated and vehicles manufactured without any regard for conservation"
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/lizbb/does_the_us_need_tar_sands_oil.html "What our analysis shows is that clean energy and energy efficiency can truly be a substitute, not simply one of multiple energy sources (or "all of the above" as its known in policy circles) needed to fuel our future. We can kick the tar sands habit and produce the energy we need. What could be better news as the President heads up to Canada?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/opinion/18wed1.html "Wrapped inside the economic stimulus package is about $80 billion in spending, loan guarantees and tax incentives aimed at promoting energy efficiency, renewable energy sources, higher-mileage cars and coal that is truly clean. As a stand-alone measure, these investments would amount to the biggest energy bill in history."
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/02/17/take-climate-change-off-the-agenda.aspx "A consideration of the evidence is not too much to ask, particularly in these uncertain economic times. If our leaders continue to refuse to face facts we must hold them accountable — people no longer buy into the global warming state of fear. Economic realities and scientific observations have pushed global warming off the agenda, and so should Harper and Obama..."
"If we need immediate action on climate change, clearly CCS is not going to be part of that mix. And frankly, despite its rhetoric that "we can be part of the solution," the coal industry is doing everything it can to be part of the problem.
The Center for American Progress reported, "The coal mining and electric utility industries spent over $125 million combined in the first nine months of 2008 to lobby Congress to delay global-warming-pollution reductions until clean coal technology is ready...."
"The tar sands of Canada constitute one of our planet's greatest threats. They are a double-barreled threat. First, producing oil from tar sands emits two to three times the global warming pollution of conventional oil. But the process also diminishes one of the best carbon reduction tools on the planet -- Canada's Boreal Forest.This forest plays a key role in the global carbon equation by serving as a major storehouse for terrestrial carbon -- indeed, it is believed to store more carbon per hectare than any other ecosystem on Earth. When this pristine forest is strip-mined for tar sands development, much of its stored carbon is lost. Canada's Boreal Forest is also the reservoir for a large fraction of North America's clean, fresh water, home to about 5 billion migratory birds, and some of the largest remaining populations of caribou, moose, bear and wolves on the planet..." http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/400431_hansen18.html
The energy-efficiency guru who cofounded the Rocky Mountain Institute advocates feebates, negawatts, and letting the little guys play.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2008/05/power-qa-amory-lovins "The U.S. lags badly; only 4 percent of our power comes from micropower—cogeneration, wind, sun, small hydro, geothermal, biomass, and waste fuel. The reason the U.S. lags so badly is that we have obsolete rules that favor big over small, supply over efficiency, and incumbents over new market entrants...."
"The national electricity grid is "the biggest, most complex machine on Earth," said Amory B. Lovins, chief executive of the Rocky Mountain Institute. It is also antiquated and largely unable to connect with places where renewable power supplies are plentiful...Yet the $2 billion in the stimulus package devoted to transmission lines is a tiny part of what's needed. "I see it as seed money," said Jon Wellinghoff, acting chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. "We need $100 billion to $200 billion worth of investment, and I believe we'll see that money coming from the private sector," he said, though current credit conditions make that difficult.There are other hurdles besides financing, including multiple steps of permitting, as well as logistics and opposition to the transmission lines that would crisscross slabs of unspoiled landscape...
Future daily updates will not likely be so voluminous.
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"We now have data showing that from 2000 to 2007, greenhouse gas emissions increased far more rapidly than we expected, primarily because developing countries, like China and India, saw a huge upsurge in electric power generation, almost all of it based on coal." Stanford's Professor Chris Field, [head] of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Actress Ashley Judd added her voice Tuesday to calls to stop a destructive mining practice that blasts away mountaintops to unearth coal.
The Kentucky native was among some 500 demonstrators who gathered Tuesday outside the state Capitol for a rally against so-called mountaintop removal coal mining.
Everyone should be paying attention to the political/fiscal catastrophe now unfolding in California. Years of neglect, followed by economic disaster — and with all reasonable responses blocked by a fanatical, irrational minority.
But, if they do NOT apply to you, YOU WOULD BE THE FIRST TO UNDERSTAND AND FORGIVE ME, because then, you too are living in the horror that all but a minuscule few of our brothers and sisters are dying in morbid apathy and inaction - from which WE ARE ALL DYING.
Over a year ago I wrote to Prime Minister Brown asking him to place a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants in Britain. I have asked the same of Angela Merkel, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd and other world leaders. The reason is this – coal is the single greatest threat to civilization and all life on our planet. Our global climate is nearing tipping points. Changes are beginning to appear, and there is a potential for explosive changes with effects that would be irreversible – if we do not rapidly slow fossil fuel emissions over the next few decades.... http://world.the-environmentalist.org/2009/02/sword-of-damocles.html <<<<<<<<
Barack Obama is a pretty busy guy these days, so to grab his attention the Canadian environmental group Forest Ethics took out a personal ad to the president in newspapers across the U.S. and Canada. The hilarious ad is designed to woo Obama into helping end the climate changing emissions of the Canadian Tar Sands:
Patriotic, busy, Chicago-Hawaiian man, must like basketball and know how to do the fist bump. I saw you on TV. You said 'Yes, we can' and talked about a clean energy future. Meet me in Canada and we'll sweep aside the world's dirtiest oil, the Tar Sands, and make sweet climate-change solutions together.
Obama's visit to Canada on Thursday will only last about 6 hours, so they'll really need to get the message across quickly, and considering Canada's Tar Sands project emits three times as many greenhouse gas emissions as conventional oil production...
Published: February 16 2009 02:00 | Last updated: February 16 2009 02:00
The world is warming far more quickly than scientists forecast just two years ago when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published its last reports, according to a series of assessments presented over the weekend...
Canadian government wants special treatment for the world's dirtiest oil. In first international trip, President Obama must stand strong on clean energy and sufficient climate policies.
(Seattle, WA) -- On February 19, President Barack Obama travels to Canada on his first international trip as President, where he will face pressure from the Government of Canada to support production of Alberta's filthy tar sands oil [search]. An international network of environmental groups has launched the "Obama2Canada" campaign[1] urging President Obama to stand strong on his new energy economy agenda and reject entreaties from Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to shelter the dirtiest oil on earth from global warming regulation...
Our third exclusive survey of international relations professors reveals they're worried about climate change, Russia's rise, and their own irrelevance.
WWF: Clinton's Asia Trip Reflects New Era of Climate Leadership by U.S., Lays Groundwork for Global Accord
Secretary of State, Climate Change Envoy to Discuss Urgency of Climate Crisis with Asian Leaders
WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Obama Administration's first diplomatic mission abroad, in which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is traveling to four Asian countries to discuss international cooperation on climate change, is a clear signal that Washington has entered a new era of leadership on the climate crisis, said World Wildlife Fund officials.
The Environmental Protection Agency inched closer to the possible regulation of emissions of heat-trapping gases from coal-fired power plants. Lisa Jackson, the new administrator of the agency, granted a petition by the Sierra Club to reconsider a controversial memorandum related to coal plant emissions that was issued in December by her predecessor, Stephen L. Johnson. Mr. Johnson's memorandum, which remains in effect, prevents the federal approval process for power plants from taking into consideration the emission of carbon dioxide. Although the agency explicitly declined to suspend the memorandum, environmentalists embraced the granting of the petition as another step in their efforts to stop the construction of coal-fired power plants. The agency now plans to seek public comment on issues in the original memorandum and related matters.
NAIROBI, Kenya, February 16, 2009 (ENS) - The Obama administration has reversed the former U.S. position on limiting mercury pollution worldwide. Before astonished environment ministers attending the United Nations Environment Programme Governing Council opening session in Nairobi today, the U.S. delegation endorsed negotiations for a new global treaty to control mercury pollution, to begin this year.
The Bush administration had opposed legally binding measures to control mercury, despite broad support among a majority of countries in the UNEP Governing Council.
UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said the mercury policy framework is the result of seven years of intense discussions spearheaded by UNEP represents the first, coordinated global effort to tackle mercury pollution.
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner share a smile on their way to the opening session of the UNEP Governing Council today in Nairobi. (Photo courtesy Earth Negotiations Bulletin)
"It covers reducing demand in products and processes - such as high intensity discharge vehicle lamps and the chlor-alkali industry - to cutting mercury in international trade," Steiner said. "Other elements include reducing emissions to the atmosphere, environmentally-sound storage of stockpiled mercury and the cleaning-up of contaminated sites."
The nervous systems of humans and wildlife are very sensitive to all forms of mercury. Exposure to high levels of mercury can permanently damage the brain, kidneys, lungs, and developing fetus. Effects on brain functioning may result in irritability, tremors, changes in vision or hearing, and memory problems. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has determined that mercuric chloride and methylmercury are possible human carcinogens.
Among the 120 other countries that have expressed support for a legally binding agreement on mercury are: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, Norway, Russia, South Korea, Switzerland and Uruguay.
Environmental groups from the United States and around the world applauded the U.S. policy change.
"The Obama administration has clearly shown a new day has dawned for U.S. leadership and engagement with the rest of the world," said Michael Bender, director of the U.S.-based Mercury Policy Project, and a coordinator of the international Zero Mercury Working Group. "And the momentum created by the U.S. appears to be galvanizing other governments around the world to step up to address the global mercury crisis."
Mercury poisoning affects about five million American women. One study in the United States has found that about one in 12 women have mercury levels above the level considered safe by the U.S. EPA.
"Skeptics doubted that the U.S. position on mercury could change so quickly, but the Obama administration made it happen in record time," said Susan Egan Keane of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "They've shown that Obama is serious about a new approach of cooperation and collaboration, rather than obstruction and unilateral action, on the international stage."
The Harrison power plant in West Virginia burns bituminous coal, emitting mercury into the air.
Mercury is a persistent, bioaccumulative, transboundary pollutant that contaminates air, soil, water and fish. Of the 6,000 metric tonnes of mercury entering the environment annually, some 2,000 tonnes comes from coal-fired power stations and coal fires in homes, says Steiner. Once in the atmosphere or released down river systems, the toxin can travel for thousands of miles.
There are also growing worries that, as climate change melts the Arctic, mercury trapped in the ice and sediments is being re-released back into the oceans and into the food chain.
"Because of this potential for global contamination, mercury pollution requires a coordinated international response, including a legally-binding treaty on mercury," said Elena Lymberidi-Settimo, project coordinator of the Zero Mercury Campaign at the European Environmental Bureau. This coalition includes 143 member organizations in 31 European countries.
Eating advisories relating to fish consumption remain in place in many European countries warning those at risk including pregnant mothers and babies not to consume fish at the top of the food chain that concentrate mercury from all the smaller fish they have eaten.
In Sweden, for example around 50,000 lakes have pike with mercury levels exceeding international health limits. Women of child-bearing years are advised not to eat pike, perch, burbot and eel at all, and the rest of the population only once a week.
The UNEP mercury policy framework has the support of 53 countries in Africa.
Rico Euripidou of groundWork, Friends of the Earth, South Africa believes that "a comprehensive solution to address mercury will directly benefit Africa through the control of unregulated and uncontrolled flows of mercury onto the continent."
Worldwide there are approximately 50 mercury cell chlor alkali plants in operation, six in the United States. This is Olin Corporation's plant in Augusta, Georgia. (Photo courtesy Oceana)
Scientists and the NGO Sharkproject are also now flagging yet another cause for concern - the increased consumption of shark meat in some parts of the world. By some estimates shark meat contains up to 40 times more mercury than recommended food safety limits and perhaps a great deal more, said Steiner.
Mercury levels in Arctic ringed seals and beluga whales have increased by up to four times over the last 25 years in some areas of Canada and Greenland with implications for communities where marine mammals are eaten.
Steiner says the good news is that both Europe and the United States have in recent months backed export bans on mercury with the European Union setting a date of 2011.
The U.S. delegation's proposal on mercury requests the UNEP Executive Director to conduct, concurrent with the work of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee, a study to inventory facilities in sectors including coal-fired power plants, cement production, and non-ferrous metals mining and production in major mercury-emitting countries.
"For all sectors, but especially coal-combustion, the study should include analysis of the levels of existing emissions controls, and the potential to achieve further mercury emission reductions," the U.S. proposal states.
"The study should also assess the costs and effectiveness of alternative control strategies, considering mercury-specific controls, and reductions that can be achieved as a co-benefit from conventional pollution control measures as well as the relationship with actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," the U.S. proposes.
The U.S. requests that the report be prepared to inform the work of the second meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee, and that the Executive Director report the findings of the study at the 2010 UNEP Global Ministerial Environment Forum.
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2009. All rights reserved.
The Obama administration on Tuesday agreed to review whether it should regulate carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants, portending a major reversal of the Bush administration's policy on global warming.
The Environmental Protection Agency granted a petition from environmental groups seeking to overturn a Bush-era EPA memo that prohibited controls of those emissions.
"I am granting this petition because we must learn more about how this memo affects all relevant stakeholders impacted by its provisions," EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a statement.
Sierra Club lawyer David Bookbinder welcomed the move, saying it "stops the Bush administration's final, last-minute effort to saddle President Obama with its do-nothing policy on global warming."
"With coal-fired power plants emitting more than 30 percent of our global warming pollution, regulating their carbon dioxide is essential to making real progress in the fight against global warming," he said in a statement.
The petition was filed by the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Defense Fund. The groups had sued to overturn the Bush-era rule in court, but said the litigation would now be put on hold as a result of the EPA decision.
Ex-chief chastised In a letter to the petitioners Tuesday, Jackson noted that on Dec. 18 outgoing EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson issued the rule despite a finding by the EPA's own Environmental Appeals Board that "EPA had not adequately explained why the program did not apply to carbon dioxide."
Bookbinder said he expects the EPA to eventually regulate carbon dioxide from coal plants, in part because the U.S. Supreme Court in 2007 said the authority to do so existed.
"Today's announcement should cast significant further doubt on the approximately 100 coal-fired power plants that the industry is trying to rush through the permitting process without any limits on carbon dioxide," Bookbinder said.
Fears of 'costly' result Industry representatives did not immediately react to today's decision, but they had earlier praised Johnson's December rule restricting emissions controls.
If the EPA had determined the Clean Air Act could be used to place limits on carbon dioxide, many other sources beyond power plants would have been impacted, Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, an association of power companies, said at the time.
"A contrary result might have caused office and apartment buildings, schools and hospitals, and over 20 different industrial sectors to be subject to costly and inflexible permitting requirements," Segal said.
Reversing Bush The Obama administration has moved quickly to reverse or reconsider Bush-era environmental policies.
On Feb. 6, the EPA said it would consider more stringent mercury controls at power plants and agreed to reconsider whether to grant California and other states the authority to cut C02 emissions by new cars and light trucks — a request the Bush administration had denied.
Four more rounds of formal negotiations are scheduled before the Dec 7-18 talks in Copenhagen. These areJune 1-12 in Bonn, Germany; Aug 10-14 in Bonn; Sept 28 to Oct 9 in Bangkok; and Nov 2-6, at a venue yet to be decided.
In addition, heads of state and government will gather in September at a U.N. climate change summit in New York and President Obama will host a major economies forum on the sidelines of the G8 in Italy in July. Two other meetings convened by the United States will take place, one probably 26-27 May in Paris and another in June.
An apprentice of Gospel Jesus I am, an ardent greedy student, because I want the supremely joyful life that he had and told me I could have, taught me how to have, and have now attained. And infinitely more than for me, I want that joyful life for everyone, healers, extreme good neighbors, most of all, for the least of these my family of humanity. And because the dozens and dozens of great souls throughout history, what they learned and embodied, all points me to his teachings and example. For the collective joyful life of it. Jesus' apprentice, James
(Seattle, WA) -- On February 19, President Barack Obama travels to Canada on his first international trip as President, where he will face pressure from the Government of Canada to support production of Alberta's filthy 
