Political Climate Articles
Global warming heats up Ill. governor race
(AP) - SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Most of the Republican candidates for Illinois governor flatly reject the idea that human activity contributes to global warming, a position that contradicts the overwhelming consensus among climate scientists.
Five of the seven Republican candidates claim rising temperatures have nothing to do with pollution from cars, factories or power plants.
"I don't accept the premise that man is the cause of global warming, if global warming even exists," Kirk Dillard, a state senator from Hinsdale, said at a candidate forum last week.
The candidates sharply criticized "cap-and-trade" legislation, which would cap pollution then allow companies to buy and sell permission to exceed those caps. They argued that cap-and-trade would be a job-killing tax.
"We have great opportunities in this state and anyone who voted for cap-and-trade voted to penalize Illinois families and workers and should apologize for it," said state Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington.
Jim Ryan didn't attend the forum, sponsored by Will County supporters of the tea party movement, but said Wednesday he accepts that humans contribute to global warming, although how much "is a matter of spirited debate."
The seventh GOP candidate, Andy McKenna, also missed the forum and did not respond to repeated requests for his views.
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Apocalypse Fatigue: Losing the Public on Climate Change
Even as the climate science becomes more definitive, polls show that public concern in the United States about global warming has been declining. What will it take to rally Americans behind the need to take strong action on cutting carbon emissions?
Last month, the Pew Research Center released its latest poll of public attitudes on global warming. On its face, the news was not good: Belief that global warming is occurring had declined from 71 percent in April of 2008 to 56 percent in October - an astonishing drop in just 18 months. The belief that global warming is human-caused declined from 47 percent to 36 percent.
While some pollsters questioned these numbers, the Pew statistics are consistent with the findings by Gallup in March that public concern about global warming had declined, that the number of Americans who believed that news about global warming was exaggerated had increased, and that the number of Americans who believed that the effects of global warming had already begun had declined.
The reasons offered for these declines are as varied as opinion about climate change itself. Skeptics say the gig is up: Americans have finally figured out that global warming is a hoax. Climate activists blame skeptics for sowing doubts about climate science. Pew's Andrew Kohut, who conducted the survey, says it's (mostly) the economy, stupid. And some folks have concluded that Americans, with our high levels of disbelief in evolution, are just too stupid or too anti-science to sort it all out.
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Europe to easily beat Kyoto target - looks like the European Trading System has worked after all
Europe made a major commitment under the Kyoto Protocol that U.S. conservatives have been telling us for years it would never achieve. In fact, the Europeans are poised to surpass their targets under the terms of the Protocol. It is no longer plausible for those who don't want a U.S. cap-and-trade system to point to the European Trading System (ETS) as a failure. Quite the reverse.
A report by the European Environment Agency released today shows that the European Union and all Member States but one [Austria] are on track to meet their Kyoto Protocol commitments to limit and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Whereas the Protocol requires that the EU-15 reduce average emissions during 2008-2012 to 8% below 1990 levels, the latest projections indicate that the EU-15 will go further, reaching a total reduction of more than 13 % below the base year...
Looking further ahead, almost three quarters of the EU's unilateral target to cut emissions to 20% below 1990 levels by 2020 could be achieved domestically (i.e. without purchase of credits outside the EU).
The report highlights the importance of the EU ETS in helping Member States meet their targets.
That is today's news release from the European Environment Agency. The full report is here. The report notes:
Five EU-15 Member States (France, Germany, Greece, Sweden and the United Kingdom) have already achieved average GHG emission levels below their Kyoto target....
The EU ETS is expected to result in important reductions of domestic EU emissions.
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Military's growing thirst for oil is costing lives - report
A significant portion of war casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan was taken by convoys providing oil to the military, according to a report released by a consulting firm yesterday.
Deloitte LLP's study found a tenfold increase in the Defense Department's oil consumption since the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is a 175 percent increase in oil use per day, per soldier, since the Vietnam War.
The number of trucks traveling rough roads in remote areas, whose primary cargo is fuel, has "skyrocketed" in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with the rate of exposure of military personnel to "improvised explosive devices (IEDs)," the report says. IEDs accounted for about 43 percent of U.S. casualties in Iraq between July 2003 and May 2009, the study found.
IEDs also accounted for 38 percent of fatalities in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2008 and will likely account for more than half of military personnel deaths in fiscal 2009, Deloitte reported.
"Energy security is essential to reduce war time casualties," the report concludes. "With the significant numbers of U.S. soldiers supporting the transport, logistics, and deployment of fossil fuel to the front lines, there is a call to action to reduce dependence on oil in war."
Along with military lives lost, DOD's heavy reliance on oil incurs a significant financial cost, the study notes.
In 2008, the Pentagon spent $16 billion to purchase 120 million barrels of petroleum, 20 percent of which supplied vehicles, planes and other equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan, Deloitte said.
But in June of 2008 alone, the military lost 44 trucks and 220,000 gallons of fuel as long fuel convoys were waylaid by IEDs, weather, traffic and stealing, the study says. While the military purchases fuel at about $2 to $3 per gallon, the additional expense of air and ground protection and transportation pushes the price of each gallon to $45, Deloitte said.
"This study demonstrates that the development and use of alternative energy can be a direct cause for reductions in wartime casualties and may rank on par with the business cases for development of ever more effective offensive weapons, sophisticated fuel transport tankers, mine resistant armored vehicles and net-centric sensing technologies," the report says.
While the Pentagon and Congress have made progress in including energy-related planning into military bureaucracy, "significant progress is still required in consolidating its energy-related bureaucracy and formulating an all inclusive energy policy," the study says.
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Arab experts predict Mideast water wars
AMMAN, Jordan, Nov. 13 (UPI) -- A Jordanian academic has predicted that Israel will go to war with neighboring Lebanon and Egypt to get their water.
An Arab water expert warns that Yemen's worsening water shortage, which is already causing civil unrest, will bolster extremist organizations that could ignite conflicts with nearby states.
These two views reflect a widely held fear in the Middle East that global warming, dwindling water resources and burgeoning populations will trigger wars over water in the not-too-distant future.
The Jordanian, political science professor Ghazi al-Rababah, was quoted by the Amman newspaper Al-Arab Al-Yawm as saying Israel would first go to war with Lebanon over the Litani River just north of the border with the Jewish state.
David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, advocated years before the state of Israel was proclaimed in 1948, that the Jewish state should incorporate the Litani.
Israel diverted water from the Litani during its 1978-2000 occupation of south Lebanon. Al-Rababah said Israel stole "hundreds of millions of cubic meters of water" from the river.
Although Israel is currently seeking to alleviate its worsening water shortage by constructing desalination plants, reportedly scheduled to be fully operational by 2013, al-Rababah declared that Israel would go to war with Egypt, its southern neighbor, within seven years in a bid to control the Nile River.
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Energy industry gives heavily to Senate Finance panel
Energy industry well acquainted with Finance panel members
Oil and gas companies and electric utilities over the past two decades have poured $8 million into the campaign coffers of lawmakers on the Senate Finance Committee who could now look to shape climate legislation.
Senators on the committee also have received campaign money from other segments of the energy industry that would be affected by a sweeping climate and energy bill, including wind, solar, coal, nuclear power, steel manufacturing and the forest and paper industry.
All told, those likely to be affected by climate and energy legislation for the current election cycle have given nearly $390,000 to Democrats on the Finance Committee and nearly $251,000 to Republican members, an E&E analysis of campaign contributions shows.
Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has indicated the panel will likely rewrite and vote on the portion of the climate bill that caps carbon emissions and lets businesses buy and sell emissions permits. Any rewrite would affect a broad cross-section of businesses now giving contributions.
"Companies have a lot to win or lose with legislative outcomes, and they are clearly positioning themselves to be winners," said Tyson Slocum, director of watchdog group Public Citizen's energy program.
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Palin's "Going Rogue" spreads falsehoods about bipartisan clean energy legislation
During the 2008 campaign, the Washington Post itself gave Sarah Palin its highest (which is to say lowest) rating of "Four Pinocchios" for continuing to "to peddle bogus [energy] statistics three days after the original error was pointed out by independent fact-checkers." That didn't stop the Post from running a 2009 piece by her filled with bogus information attacking climate action and clean energy action, which Senators Boxer and Kerry later debunked: "The governor's new refrain against global warming action reminds us of every naysayer who has spoken out against progress in cleaning up pollution." Still Newt Gingrich said she was a conservative leader on energy issues.
So now Palin's book Going Rogue is out - hmm, the subtitle of the original Freakonomics is A Rogue Economist explores the Hidden Side of Everything – and Media Matters has two debunkings of it that I'll repost below.
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Pawlenty completes climate science flip flop, after flip flopping on support for bipartisan climate action
Speaking to the Economist recently, Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) told reporters that he questions the science underpinning climate change. Pawlenty explained that while the earth might be warming, it is unclear "to what extent that is the result of natural causes." As ThinkProgress has noted, Pawlenty has veered sharply to the right to appease a right-wing, tea party base. Although the tea party movement demands strict adherence to far right positions, as a Democracy Corps study shows, much of the movement sees political issues through a prism that is simply divorced from reality.
In appeasing the tea party base, Pawlenty not only dismisses the stark reality that human-caused carbon emissions are the largest contributor to climate change, but he also sacrifices his own credibility. Over the course of the last three years, Pawlenty has gone from an outspoken proponent of clean energy to a Glenn Beck pandering climate change denier:
Dec. 2006: Pawlenty lays out an ambitious clean energy program for Minnesotans to reduce their use of fossil fuels 15 percent by 2015. Cutting greenhouse gases, Pawlenty said, would "be good for the environment, good for rural economies, good for national security and good for consumers." He also calls for a regional cap and trade program.
May 2007: Pawlenty signs the Next Generation Energy Act of 2007, requiring the state to reduce its emissions 15 percent by 2015 and 80 percent in 2050. At the signing ceremony, Pawlenty said Minnesota was "kicking-starting the future" by "tackling greenhouse gas emissions."
Oct. 2007: Pawlenty declares that the climate change issue is "one of the most important of our time." He also brushes off "some flak" from right-wingers who doubt climate change science.
Sept. 2008: During the election, Pawlenty backs away from his own cap and trade program, says such a system would "wreck the economy." He then tells hate radio personality Glenn Beck (a climate change denier) that human activity only contributes "half a percent" to climate change.
Nov. 2009: Pawlenty backs away from acknowledging that any human activity is the cause of climate change.
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Tom Friedman on "What They Really Believe"
If you follow the debate around the energy/climate bills working through Congress you will notice that the drill-baby-drill opponents of this legislation are now making two claims. One is that the globe has been cooling lately, not warming, and the other is that America simply can't afford any kind of cap-and-trade/carbon tax.
But here is what they also surely believe, but are not saying...
That is the opening of "What They Really Believe," Tom Friedman's NYT op-ed today. Here are some excerpts from this
They believe it is much better for America that the world be dependent on oil for energy - a commodity largely controlled by countries that hate us and can only go up in price as demand increases - rather than on clean power technologies that are controlled by us and only go down in price as demand increases. And, finally, they believe that people in the developing world are very happy being poor - just give them a little running water and electricity and they'll be fine. They'll never want to live like us.
Yes, the opponents of any tax on carbon to stimulate alternatives to oil must believe all these things because that is the only way their arguments make any sense. Let me explain why by first explaining how I look at this issue.
I am a clean-energy hawk. Green for me is not just about recycling garbage but about renewing America. That is why I have been saying "green is the new red, white and blue."
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US climate bill to boost economy by $111bn
As row over climate change legislation continues to rage, new study argues low-carbon policies will deliver huge windfall to US economy
Clean Energy & Climate Policy for US Growth and Job Creation: An Economic Assessment of the American Clean Energy & Security Act
As Republican Senators attempt to delay proposed climate change legislation on the grounds that it could harm the country's economy, a major study from three influential universities suggests that a robust climate bill would have the exact opposite effect and would boost GDP by $111bn by 2020.
The study, which was undertaken by research teams at the University of California Berkeley, Yale and Illinois, also indicates that action to roll out an emissions cap-and-trade scheme and accelerate the adoption of clean technologies could create between 918,000 and 1.9 million US jobs.
Meanwhile, the average household income could grow by between $488 and $1,176 as year as a result of the bill.
The report – which is entitled Clean Energy & Climate Policy for US Growth and Job Creation: An Economic Assessment of the American Clean Energy & Security Act and was commissioned by green investors group Ceres, Environmental Entrepreneurs and the Clean Economy Network – concluded that "the stronger the federal climate policy, the greater the economic reward".
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