The Climate Post Offers a Rundown of the Week in Climate and Energy News
A column in the National Journal points out the GOP is the only conservative party in the developed world in which denial of basic climate science is endemic, but one of the New York Times' token conservative commentators counters that this is only because political parties in Europe aren't as responsive to their constituents, who tend to be no more skeptical of man-made global warming than Americans.
Climate activist Bill McKibben says it's all about money; others believe action on climate change would be almost impossible even if the GOP were more like conservative parties elsewhere.
Whatever the cause, Joe Manchin, a Democrat running for Senator in West Virginia who as governor is suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for its regulation of mountaintop removal mining, was moved to shoot the climate bill with a high-powered rifle. Inevitably, parodies followed.
West Virginia will also be the home of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's new $27.6 million climate supercomputer center, which Manchin publicly praised.
California's Proposition 23 Isn't Going to Happen, but Proposition 26 Might
A Tuesday Reuters/Ipsos poll has Prop 23 losing by a margin of 49 percent against 37 percent in favor, despite a last-minute infusion of cash from Houston-based Marathon Oil.
The various clean tech interests opposed to Prop 23 have other problems, however, including competition from China so fierce "it's almost enough to make you want to cry," says the CEO of one solar company.
Chevron, California's largest native oil refiner, is officially neutral on Prop 23, but Grist argues it supports Prop 26 because it's a "polluters protection act."
"Post-Partisan" Effort Attempts to Transcend Failed Climate Bill
The (left-leaning) Brookings Institution and the (conservative-leaning) American Enterprise Institute teamed up with the Breakthrough Institute to release a post climate bill energy plan that relies almost exclusively on a six-fold increase in federal investment in energy innovation. The New York Times and Politico have more, while Grist's David Roberts takes issue with the premise that future climate policy is a zero-sum game in which other plans can't have a role.
A director at JPMorgan says the key to future climate agreements are targets shared by small clusters of regions and countries, not binding global agreements.
Climate Scientist Bracing for Outcome of November Elections
Some Republicans have promised to put climate science itself on trial if they take the house, and Michael Mann, a climate scientist whom many skeptics have singled out, isn't looking forward to the November elections. Meanwhile, a prominent climate-science skeptic and one of the authors of a congressional report critical of Mann's work is himself being investigated by his university for plagiarism and misconduct in the assemblage of that report.
Democrats in fossil-fuel-heavy states who voted for the climate bill might also pay for their connection to the climate come November, says the Wall Street Journal.
America's Floundering Energy Manhattan Project
The U.S. Department of Energy tacitly endorsed a Thomas Friedman column arguing the U.S. Congress is shortsighted to withhold funding from eight "innovation hubs" designed to tackle the biggest energy problems in the world.
The Climate Prisoner's Dilemma: China and U.S. Replay 'You First' Climate Skit
At global climate-change talks held in Tianjin, China, lead U.S. climate negotiator Todd Stern attempted a choke slam of China's negotiators, accusing them of reneging on pledges made in Copenhagen last December, leading China to respond by comparing the U.S. to "a mythic pig preening itself."
Observers believe the upcoming talks in Cancún will be more of the same inaction, leading Andrew Revkin of the New York Times to wonder whether there isn't something more fundamental going on here.
In all the confusion, Hezbollah seized the moment to take the lead on climate action, sort of.
Maybe the U.N. should just give up on international climate negotiations all together? The Wall Street Journal certainly thinks so.
Why Is Google Investing in Wind Farms?
The Atlantic Wire sums it up best: Basically, the company wants to create an undersea transmission backbone that will enable a huge expansion of offshore wind power generation.
The Climate Post is produced each Thursday by Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.
So what? Same has been proposed before. And it could pass, --except-- the only way to pass cap and trade is to hide it among other things like "energy innovation", that is Pres. Obama's "comprehensive" trick, a trick first played by Bush with immigration "reform."
And it did not pass because the politicians, and their finance capital and energy interests backers, want cap and trade. Cap and trade could not pass because the people first, rather than the "Republicans" (as if some Democrat pols do not smell a rat in cap and trade too), turned against it.
"Energy innovation" money is held captive for passage of cap and trade. More money for energy innovation will not be allowed unless the politicians and JP Morgan get cap and trade too.
"A director at JPMorgan says the key to future climate agreements are targets shared by small clusters of regions and countries, not binding global agreements."
See what I mean? BTW, how does Sierra Club cite JP Morgan? Do not you remember to hide that support? Also, the director is just stating facts as they are. The Kyoto Scam will die. Smaller scams, like in Europe and the UN and regional state schemes in the USA will endure.
Regardless of which side of the global warming debate you fall on, we are contaminating our world at an unsustainable level.
I'm not sure what you consider radical environmentalism or sanctimonious enviro-activism, but we certainly need people to spread the word on a global scale that actions taken to reduce polluting our environment will create new economic growth sectors here at home while at the same time reducing our dependence on dangerous foreign geo-political wars and depletion of healthful soil, water and air systems.
As with other obsession and addiction disorders, therapies and counseling in the form of “12-Step” clinical programs may be helpful in moderating radical enviro-behaviors. Here are 12 behavioral modifications that may be productive steps in recovery from ,or avoidance of, radical environmentalism:
1. Avoid the tactic of fear mongering campaigns;
2. Stop giving to taxpayer-subsidized, nonprofit eco-groups and think tanks;
3. Critically view progressive (a.k.a, liberal) enviro operatives in the media;
4. Accept that there are legitimate skeptics in debates over scary eco-scenarios;
5. Stop substituting personal compassion where science is required in environmental issues;
6. Stop assuming that another costly government regulation will fix every environmental problem;
7. Resist socialist initiatives claiming environmental justice and social justice;
8. Ignore the eco-claimed moral equivalence between human life and wildlife;
9. Reduce your associations with the union, bureaucratic, leftist and eco-terrorist political enablers of radical environmentalism;
10. Insist upon economic cost-benefit analyses in all environmental regulations;
11. Don’t accept that any government regulation can dictate any miraculous scientific breakthrough;
12. Accept that 40 years of local, state and federal environmental regulations have embedded cost increases in all of our goods, services and activities. And, understand that most of our real environmental problems are solved, or are under active management.