Political Climate

If not mistaken, I published an article on this topic in the earlier part of the year.
School Bus Idling Education Program
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) is seeking applications for the School Bus Idling Reduction Program for Westchester, Putnam, and Dutchess Counties.
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New York to Study Effects of Plug-In Hybrids on State's Grid
ALBANY, New York, August 11, 2009 (ENS) - The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, NYSERDA, has joined with the Electric Power Research Institute to conduct a new engineering study of the effects that plug-in hybrid vehicles might have on the state's electrical grid. Of particular interest is the impact on downstate, metropolitan New York grids due to the concentrated electric demand and vehicle population.
The study will complement a parallel national study that both organizations are cooperating in along with the Ford Motor Company. Plug-in hybrid vehicles combine the attributes of gasoline-hybrids and electric vehicles.
Francis J. Murray, Jr., NYSERDA President and CEO, said this effort comes at a crucial time. "This study will offer insight into the supply-side of the market where capacity is necessary to achieve wide public acceptance of these vehicles."
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Attack on Obama riles Beck's advertisers
NEW YORK – Glenn Beck returns to Fox News Channel on Monday after a vacation with fewer companies willing to advertise on his show than when he left, part of the fallout from calling President Barack Obama a racist.
A total of 33 Fox advertisers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., CVS Caremark, Clorox and Sprint, directed that their commercials not air on Beck's show, according to the companies and ColorofChange.org, a group that promotes political action among blacks and launched a campaign to get advertisers to abandon him. That's more than a dozen more than were identified a week ago.
While it's unclear what effect, if any, this will ultimately have on Fox and Beck, it is already making advertisers skittish about hawking their wares within the most opinionated cable TV shows.
The Clorox Co., a former Beck advertiser, now says that "we do not want to be associated with inflammatory speech used by either liberal or conservative talk show hosts." The maker of bleach and household cleaners said in a statement that it has decided not to advertise on political talk shows.
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Moving Cooler Study Suggests ''Bundled'' Strategies to Cut GHG Emissions
Since its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transportation grew almost two times faster than from other sectors in 1990-2006 and now account for some 28 percent of the total, the nation needs better vehicle and fuel technology, but also less vehicle travel and more mobility modes at higher operational efficiency and traffic flow for the whole network to reach the American Clean Energy and Security Act targets of 17 and 83 percent emissions cuts below the 2005 level by 2020 and 2050, states a new Cambridge Systematics study, presenting nearly 50 strategies in nine categories, the top two of which focus on pricing and taxes, and on land use and smart growth.
sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration (FTA), Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) jointly with several interest and advocacy groups, the Moving Cooler study estimates the potential effectiveness of individual strategies and strategy "bundles" to cut GHG emissions by "inducing people to use less fuel-intensive means of transportation (e.g. walking, bicycling, riding in a bus or train, or carpooling)" and by reducing fuel consumption "through transportation system improvements."
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Clinton seeks greener colleges; Prods campus officials
Former President Bill Clinton on Thursday exhorted university officials from around the country to do a better job leading the way on making their campus buildings greener.
"For all the good we're doing, we're just piddling compared to what we ought to be doing and compared to what we could be doing," Clinton told 250 college administrators meeting at the Palmer House Hilton.
"Think about it: 6.7 million jobs lost. And all this work out there is laying on the ground, begging to be done with an absolute certain high return. I am anxious to speed this up. For all the good you're doing, we should be doing three, four, five, 10 times what we're doing as a country."
Clinton has become a crusader for environmental renovation as a catalyst for energy conservation and putting people back to work.
If solar panels or green roofs could be seen going up on campus roofs around the country, other builders would follow suit and put people back to work, helping fight unemployment as well as saving energy, Clinton told the receptive audience.
"Every time somebody sees a project on one of your campuses, fixing a building, you are having an impact, even beyond the fight to produce climate change and lower your utility bills," Clinton said.
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The tragic hubris of the climate action delayers Let’s assume we keep listening to the siren song of the deniers and the climate action delayers who insist human-caused global warming is not a dire problem requiring deep reductions in greenhouse gases starting as soon as possible. So we ruin our livable climate for our children and grandchildren and countless generations after that.
When they are done cursing our name, our descendents will try to understand how “a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself,” as Elizabeth Kolbert put it. They’ll have a long time to do this since, as a major NOAA-led study concluded this year, climate change is “largely irreversible for 1000 years,” with permanent Dust Bowls in Southwest and around the globe — irreversible, that is, if we don’t stop it in the first place.
The typical reasons why people and societies have historically made such tragically catastrophic blunders don’t apply to a great many opinion makers today. Sure some are malicious or ignorant, and some, like David Broder, sultan of the status quo, are fatally uninformed about global warming.
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Zogby: 71% of likely voters support House climate bill
Zogby read 1005 voters the following statement about the American Clean Energy and Security Act:
“The House of Representatives recently passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which would require electric power companies to generate 20 percent of their power from clean, renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, by the year 2020. Also included is a global warming plan which would reduce greenhouse gases from sources like power plants and factories by 17 percent, and an energy efficiency plan which includes new appliance standards and building codes to conserve energy.”
The result:
Favorable views for the bill were high among all age and income groups and even among Republicans, with 45% having a favorable view of the bill. Seventy-three percent of Independents and 89% of Democrats also took a favorable view of the American Clean Energy and Security Act.
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Lobby Groups to Use Town Hall Tactics to Oppose Climate Bill
Taking a cue from angry protests against the Obama Administration’s health care restructuring, the oil industry is helping organize anti-climate bill rallies around the nation.
The American Petroleum Institute, along with other organizations such as the National Association of Manufacturers opposed to the climate legislation Congress will consider again in the fall, is funding rallies across 20 states over the August recess.
In template fliers for rallies produced by the API-founded alliance, EnergyCitizens, the public is warned that “Climate change legislation being considered in Washington will cause huge economic pain and produce little environmental gain.”
Other members of the alliance include the National Association of Manufacturers and the America Farm Bureau.
The flier says the bill passed by the House in June and expected to come to the floor for a vote later in the year, “will cost 2 million American jobs, raise gasoline and diesel prices up to $4,” and threaten both U.S. competition and energy security.
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Green Energy Poll Shows Support for Smart Grid
SAN FRANCISCO, California, August 10, 2009 - In a new public opinion poll on green energy, more than 1,100 Americans overwhelmingly agree that the nation’s electrical grid infrastructure should be upgraded to support new generation and further deployment of alternative energy technologies.
This agreement exists even though the poll detected a perception gap between what respondents are willing to pay for green power - 15 percent more than they currently pay for electricity - and what they think it costs - 50 percent more.
Results of the 2009 Green Power Progress Survey: A Study of Consumer Demand for Green Power Infrastructure, Renewable Energy & Technologies were released today by the public relations firm Burson-Marsteller and the research and polling consultancy Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates.
The Green Power Progress Survey was conducted as an Internet survey from May 23 to May 27, 2009 among 1,103 consumers and what the pollsters are calling "Green Elites," a group identified as active participants in the sustainability and environment sector.
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In Cold Northeast, Officials Consider Limiting Furnace Emissions
Eleven Eastern governors are expected to approve a blueprint for slashing carbon dioxide emissions from cars -- and perhaps home furnaces -- before January, according to state officials, potentially sparking a widespread shift to residential heaters that burn wood pellets.
Officials in states from Maine to Maryland are preparing the outlines of a regional plan that would limit the amount of greenhouse gases a unit of fuel, like a gallon of gasoline, could emit. That's meant to prompt oil companies, refiners and motorists to use cleaner fuels made from trash and plants and renewable electricity.
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Climate change fight seen costing $300 billion a year
BONN, Germany (Reuters) - Cutting greenhouse gas emissions to slow global warming and adapting to impacts such as droughts and rising sea levels are likely to cost about $300 billion a year, the top U.N. climate change official said.
Yvo de Boer also told Reuters on Tuesday, on the sidelines of August 10-14 U.N. climate talks in Bonn, that cuts in emissions by 2020 so far promised by rich nations were "miles away" from long-term goals set by a Group of Eight summit last month.
"Over time, according to my own analysis, we are going to need $200 billion a year for mitigation and probably in the order of $100 billion a year for adaptation ... from 2020 onwards," he said.
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One-Third of World's Biggest Firms Still Not Addressing Climate Change
Asking what investors should be doing about the unprecedented "projected impacts of climate change on the environment and society," a new report by EIRIS, a U.K.-based provider of research into the social, environmental and ethical performance of companies, compared the corporate responses to climate change of the 300 largest companies in the FTSE All World Index to its 2008 analysis.
The report, entitled Climate Change Compass: The road to Copenhagen, looks forward to what it describes as "the most important climate change-related meeting since 1997," to be held in December, 2009, in Copenhagen. If combined with stimulus packages and clear regulatory frameworks from governments, the meeting in Copenhagen offers opportunities for companies to develop low-carbon activities.
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Oil giants destroy rainforests to make palm oil diesel for motorists
Fuel companies are accelerating the destruction of rainforest by secretly adding palm oil to diesel that is sold to millions of British motorists.
Twelve oil companies supplied a total of 123 million litres of palm oil to filling stations in the year to April, according to official figures obtained by The Times.
Only 15 per cent of the palm oil came from plantations that met any kind of environmental standard. Much of the rest came from land previously occupied by rainforest.
Vast tracts of rainforest are destroyed each year by companies seeking to take advantage of the world’s growing appetite for plant-based alternatives to fossil fuel.
Esso said that it did not know the previous use of the land on which 95 per cent of its biofuel was grown. It also refused to say whether it had used any palm oil.
BP said that its biofuel included palm oil but claimed that it all came from certified plantations. It failed to declare the previous use of the land for 79 per cent of its biofuel.
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