How Green Is Al Franken?

treehugger.com:

Franken brings the number of Democratic senators to 60, meaning they'll have a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. So what does all this mean for environmental policy--and just how green is Al Franken?

Read the whole story: treehugger.com

Comments

[RomeoMD25]

The Associated Press claims that the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since Bill Clinton's second inaugural. But after it was discovered that NASA's James Hansen, Gore's chief scientific ally, had been fudging the numbers, the agency was forced to correct its data. The 10 warmest years turn out to be, in descending order: 1934, 1998, 1921, 2006, 1931, 1999, 1953, 1990, 1938 and 1939.

If there's a trend there, we don't see it. So is global warming man-made and an imminent danger? As the snow falls in Vegas, don't bet on it.

[discourse jockey]

Global warming is a non-negotiable fact here in the real world. Go to foxnews.com and preach to the choir.

[GafferTapeLvr]

Unfortunately there is nothing yet to go on so we will watch and listen.

[BabblingBrooks]

"Obama also claimed that California's paucity of power plants is evidence of its success. But California uses more electricity than it generates--some 53 terawatt-hours more in 2007, or just over 20% of total consumption, according to the federal Energy Information Administra­tion--whic­h means it has to import power from other states not subject to California's environmental restrictions.

Moreover, also according to the EIA, Californians pay an average of 14.42 cents a kilowatt-hour of electricity, the sixth-highest rate in the contiguous U.S. and more than the average of any region except New England. Obama, it seems, would like to make the rest of the country pay California prices for energy. It might be worth it if he could guarantee us California weather."
--James Taranto

[FlyingLow]

Babble on, BabblingBroook. Without forcing the issue to move to renewables, we will be even further behind the curve than we are now. Americans, unfortunately, have shown that they will not willingly move to renewables. Germany, a substantially more foresighted society, chose to focus on renewables years ago and now has the highest renewable-power-per capita in the world. President Obama is doing the intelligent thing. I'm sorry your knowledge of economics and social psychology is so limited.

[BabblingBrooks]

An Obama intellectually inept moment:

"Yesterday we noted that President Obama was touting California, with its decades-old "energy-efficiency policies," as an example to the nation. After all, the president noted, "Californians consume 40 percent less energy per person than the national average."

As Harvard's Edward Glaeser pointed out in an April New York Times blog post, the "primary reason" California's energy consumption is low is the weather:

January temperature does a terrific job of explaining carbon emissions from home heating and July temperature does almost as well at explaining electricity usage. California has the most temperate climate in the country and as a result, homes use less heat in the winter and less electricity in the summer. In hot, humid Houston or frigid Minneapolis, people use plenty of energy to artificially recreate what California has naturally.­"

Obama is not a mental midget. Neither was George W. Bush.