Posted by watthead on December 15, 2007 at 03:38:30 AM

Apparently the United States delegation to the Bali International Climate Negotiations - well the fake delegation, not the real delegation - has finally been dragged, kicking and screaming, into some kind of agreement on a road map to proceed on post-Kyoto Protocol international climate change negotiations.

Details on what that deal is are emerging, and I hope to hear more soon from our "correspondent" at Bali, Richard Graves. However, for now, this is from Reuters:

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - The United States on Saturday dropped opposition to a compromise plan to launch talks on a new U.N. climate treaty after pleas from other nations.

"We will go forward and join consensus," Paula Dobriansky, heading the U.S. delegation, told the 190-nation meeting to cheers from many in the audience, minutes after triggering boos by saying Washington was opposed.

The proposed compromise, breaking a deadlock between rich and poor nations, had been supported by all other previous speakers, including the European Union.

The Bali Negotiations these past two weeks have revealed as the farce it is the US arguments that point the finger at China and other developing nations rising emissions as an excuse for the world's largest emitter* to sit on it's hands while our chances to build a sustainable, just, and prosperous future slip away.

This line "What about China?" has been heard for a decade, every time someone even utters the words "international climate agreement" or "binding emissions reductions" in the United States. Well, in the words of Richard Graves,

"At Bali, the Chinese government and many other developing countries came forward with real proposals to act. They came in all seriousness, recognizing the urgency of action, and the United States and Canada blocked CHINA and other developing countries from acting. If the Bali conference puts a stake in the heart of that dirty little lie, it will at least have done something positive."

Check out ItsGettingHotInHere.org for tons of dispatches from Bali, written by several members of the international youth delegation to Bali, the true stakeholders at the negotiations. There's been dozens of posts over the course of the past couple weeks. Look for the "BaliBuzz" tag in the headlines for stories from Bali.





*OK fine, China may have surpassed the US in terms of total annual emissions, but a) the United States effectively "offshores" all of the emissions associated with the goods we import - much of it from China; and b) since carbon dioxide sits in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, cumulative emissions what drive climate change, and the US is responsible for the most cumulative emissions and will be for some time. So the US is still the nation most responsible for global warming.

Posted by watthead on November 8, 2007 at 10:17:39 PM

[This is a guest post by Alex Tinker:]

The powers that be in Washington DC heard loud and clear at Power Shift 2007 this weekend that the Youth Climate Movement will not be sated with lip service and policy band-aids that don't address the true scope of the climate crisis.

This movement is made up of hundreds of thousands of dedicated individuals, but dedication alone isn't what's forcing our leaders to listen and act. We must engage millions of constituents across the country, and turn the heat up on every politician who isn't already a leader on climate change.

The raw enthusiasm unleashed in the capitol this weekend is just a sliver what's happening nation-wide; what we're witnessing is a movement that will change the world. Wondering what's next?

Well in less than 90 days, millions of students, educators, citizens and people of faith will combine the knowledge of academia with the drive our generation has sparked to create the largest teach-in in U.S. history: Focus the Nation, a nationwide day of education and civic engagement on climate solutions on January 31st, 2008..

Not only will we help more people get educated on the issue, we will take that knowledge into a solution-oriented discussion with politicians where we get to grill them on how well educated they are on this crisis. And then, we'll vote on top solutions and send the word back to Washington DC and our state capitols.

Will your campus and community make history? Is your community a part of the solution yet? How can you make it happen there?

Check out our new Organizer's HQ with all the tools you need to harness this weekend's excitement back at home and lead your community to the brighter, cleaner, more just future we deserve and demand.

Consider this a call to all are inspired by this growing momentum to Focus the Nation so we can hit DC with another wave of the ongoing power shift on February 1st.

Let's keep the heat on: Focus the Nation!

Posted by watthead on October 29, 2007 at 11:48:30 PM

Bill McKibben has three pieces of advice for people who want to make a difference in the fight against global warming:

"1: Organize. 2. Organize. 3. Organize," says the well-beloved author, educator, climate activist and co-founder of Step It Up.

Only then does he add his fourth piece of advice: "After that, if they have some energy left, by all means change the light-bulbs."

And to the young climate activists who are putting together a growing and increasingly sophisticated youth climate movement, McKibben says, "Keep it up!" This weekend, over 5,000 young leaders will converge in Washington D.C. for Power Shift 2007, the first-ever national youth climate summit, organized by the Energy Action Coalition. Back at home, tens of thousands more youth will be joining in hundreds of actions in their home communities as part of the second nationwide Step It Up day of action, November 3rd.

Energy Action Coalition and the Power Shift organizing and outreach team caught up with Bill McKibben for a quick interview today to get his perspective on the upcoming youth climate events in DC and around the nation:

Energy Action/Power Shift Team: With Power Shift on the horizon, what stage of development do you see the youth climate movement at? Where is it going next?

Bill McKibben: This wave has just begun to build, and it's not even close to cresting. This will prove to be the biggest student movement—and the biggest social movement in general—since the end of the war in Vietnam.

What do you consider the youth climate movement's biggest task after Power Shift?

I think that it will increasingly join with the broader activist movement around climate change exemplified by the new 1Sky coalition. Important as it is to change campus policies, etc., the real fight is over federal policy.

What kind of impact do you see the youth climate movement having on electoral politics (especially the 2008 elections)? How can youth maximize their impact?

By making it clear that they are casting their votes on one primary issue—the transition to a new energy system.

If you could give one piece of advice/say just one thing to the members of the youth climate movement, what would it be?

Keep it up!

What, in your estimation, will be the biggest deciding factor/have the biggest impact on making positive legislative as quickly as possible?

How much political pressure we can muster. So far so good—efforts like StepItUp have changed the Capitol Hill debate a lot already, but they are nowhere near where they need to be be.

What are you personally working on after Power Shift?

We're trying out figure out how to help support an international grass roots movement.

When you talk to people about climate change, what do you encourage them to do to make a difference?

1--organize. 2--organize. 3--organize. 4--if they have some energy left, by all means change the light-bulbs.

What is your favorite aspect of the "1 Sky" Principles?

That they've been agreed on by the widest possible range of activists. We have a real chance to have a movement that doesn't factionalize, split apart on the basis of age, etc.

Anything else you'd like to add?

This weekend—the culmination of StepItUp, the glory of Power Shift, the launch of 1Sky—will be the most exciting and important few days in the history of the American fight for action against global warming!

Thanks Bill for the interview and for all you're doing to help spark a movement, get organized, and make a difference!

____________________________ Bill McKibben is an author, environmentalist, activist and educator. His most recent books are Fight Global Warming Now: The Handbook for Taking Action in Your Community and Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. He is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College in Vermont and the co-founder of Step It Up successfully led the organization of the largest demonstrations against global warming in American history. McKibben and the Step It Up crew are at it again, organizing another nationwide day of actions for this Saturday, November 3rd, 2007.

More information, agenda and registration for Power Shift are available at www.powershift07.org and information on Energy Action Coalition is available at www.energyaction.net.

Posted by watthead on October 27, 2007 at 03:03:55 PM

The 2,000 residents of the Carteret Islands in Papua New Guinea are now some of the world's first climate change refuges, as rising sea levels driven by global warming have claimed their island homes. The residents of the low-lying South Pacific atolls have given up their 20-year losing fight against rising seas and will be resettled elsewhere in Papua New Guinea.

[From Pacific Islands Report:]

The Carteret Islands are almost invisible on a map of the South Pacific, but the horseshoe scattering of atolls in eastern-most Papua New Guinea is on the front line of climate change, as rising sea levels and storm surges eat away at their existence.

For 20 years, the 2,000 islanders living there have fought a losing battle against the ocean, building sea walls and trying to plant mangroves. Each year, the waves surge in higher, destroying vegetable gardens, washing away homes and contaminating fresh water supplies.

[Image: View of Huene Island in the Carteret's. Huene used to be one island but has now been bisected by rising seas. Fallen coconut trees in the foreground (on Iolassa Island) are also caused by the erosion of the coastline. Han Island, the largest in the group is in the distance.]

Recently, Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare appropriated PGK4.1 million [US$1.4 million] to resettle PNG villagers affected by global warming.

The funding was part of a PGK1.6 billion [US$569 million] supplementary budget handed down by Treasury and Finance Minister Patrick Pruaitch.

Out of the PGK4.1 million funding, PGK2 million [US$712,000] will go to the Bougainville Autonomous Region’s Carteret Islanders.

The local Bougainville government has an ongoing resettlement program which it hopes to complete by the end of the year.

Rising sea levels will not only displace human populations. Coral reefs are expected to be affected by changes in ocean levels and sea surface temperatures.

As a result, the communities that depend upon these marine resources will be affected as well.

PNG’s Carteret islanders are destined to become some of the world’s first climate change refugees. Their islands are becoming uninhabitable, and may soon disappear below the waves.

A decision has been made to move the islanders to the larger nearby Bougainville Island, a four-hour boat ride to the southwest.

Ten families at a time will be moved once funds are released for the resettlement program.

An IPCC has predicted that average sea levels are likely to rise between 9cm and 88cm (3.5 to 35 inches) by 2100.

Posted by watthead on October 26, 2007 at 04:39:42 PM

The White House is at it again, censoring expert testimony on Global Warming. This time the Bush Administration cut out over half of Center for Disease Control Director Julie Gerberding's Senate testimony on the public health effects of climate change.

The White House PR machine first tried to pass the Administration's edits off as "minor edits." DeSmogBlog blows away that argument with a comparison between the Gerberding's original testimony and the final version after the White House got through with it.

The White House cut the original version down from 3,100 words to only 1,500, completely wiping out whole sections on health related effects due to extreme weather, air pollution-related health effect, allergic diseases, water and food-borne infectious diseases, food and water scarcity and the long term impacts of chronic diseases and other health effects.

Then the White House shifted tune, saying that they had removed the sections because they conflicted with findings from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Several Congressional Democrats, including Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair, Barbara Boxer (D-CA), promptly called bull$h!t.

Boxer's office published a paragraph-by-paragraph comparison of the deleted sections of Dr. Gerberding's testimony and the IPCC report on how climate change will affect public health.

Needless to say, the comparison reveals striking similarities, not conflicting reports.

According to NewsDay.com:

Both [Dr. Gerberdin and the IPCC] raised virtually identical concerns: heat stress on vulnerable populations; the likelihood of respiratory illnesses from increased air pollution; the spread of waterborne infectious diseases; and more injuries from severe weather events such as wildfires.

Nice try President Bush. What's the next lie ... er ... "spin", you want to put on this story?

[A hat tip to the crew at DeSmogBlog's excellent muckraking.]

Posted by watthead on October 24, 2007 at 06:15:32 PM

80 million teens and twenty-somethings are ready to make their mark on American politics. Is the growing youth climate movement - now poised to explode off campuses and into the nation's capitol for Power Shift 2007, the first national youth climate summit - the vanguard of a new progressive, pro-environment youth political movement?

By 2010, another 17.3 million young Americans will come of age, swelling the already sizable ranks of voting-age "Millennials" – those teens and twenty-somethings coming to age in the early years of the 21st century. At 80 million strong, the Millennial generation outnumbers even the Baby Boomers by 3 million and represents the single-largest demographic age group in electoral politics, according to a recent Mother Jones article ("The 50-Year Strategy", in the Nov/Dec 2007 issue - not online yet).

Polling data, recent voter turnout, and the swelling ranks and increasing coordination of the youth climate movement all demonstrate that this young generation is remarkably engaged, overwhelmingly progressive and pro-environment, and has largely rejected the "government-is-the-problem" conservative mentality that still dominates the general population (see table below).

General Population	Voting-age Youth (age 18-25)	Issue
58%	32%	agree that the federal government "is usually inefficient and wasteful"
52%	40%	say regulating business "does more harm than good"
49%	68%	say protecting the environment is at least as important as protecting jobs
47%	62%	favor tax-financed, government-administered universal health care

This young generation is razing the old stereotypes of the apathetic, unengaged youth that may have accurately characterized Generation Xers, as youth turnout in the past two elections hit the highest level in at least 20 years.

And the Millennials aren't simply waiting for politicians to take notice and seemingly won't content themselves with limiting their impact to the ballot box. In fact, they're demanding to be noticed, as thousands get ready to storm our nation's capitol to flex some political muscle in the first-ever national youth climate summit, Power Shift 2007, and rally at nationwide Step it Up actions in November.

According to www.PowerShift07.org, over 3,300 youth and students from across the country will soon explode off of campuses and converge on D.C. for Power Shift 2007, November 2nd-5th. With all 50 states represented, youth attending the conference will engage with solutions to global warming and learn how to effectively put solutions into practice as they cement the core of an increasingly sophisticated and coordinated nationwide youth climate movement.

Power Shift's agenda includes issue briefings from leading scientists and policy experts, training sessions, an opportunities fair, and additional networking opportunities, all designed to connect young leaders and use their collective experience to focus action on America's greener, more prosperous future.

That same weekend, tens of thousands more student and youth activists will join in hundreds of actions in their home communities as part of the second Step It Up nationwide day of action, Saturday, November 3rd (see www.StepItUp07.org).

Founded and organized by a group of Middlebury College students, recent grads, and their mentor, Bill McKibbon, Step It Up successfully organized 1,400 actions across the U.S. involving hundreds of thousands of citizens in their first nationwide day of action, April 14th, 2007. Thanks largely to these highly visible and well-attended actions – which demanded Congress “step it up” and cut carbon emissions 80% by 2050 – virtually all of the 2008 Democratic candidates for president are chanting the 80x2050"mantra in their stump speeches these days and striving to out-compete each other for the meanest, greenest energy plan. Sponsorship and support is also building behind bills in Congress that would tackle the climate crisis and put the 80x2050 plan into action.

This November, the young minds behind Step it Up 2 will be at it again, this time joined by the thousands of participants at Power Shift 2007 to demand real action to address the climate crisis and secure the future of today's youth. On Monday, November 5th, the youth at Power Shift will carry reports and pictures of the hundreds of Step It Up actions into the offices of their senators and representatives, as thousands of young people descend on Capitol Hill to make their voices heard.

If the increasing coordination, sophistication and activism of the youth climate movement is any indication, the Millennial generation has arrived on the political scene, and they are sure to make their mark.

According to Mother Jones authors Simon Rosenberg and Peter Leyden:

"[The Millennial] generation is politically engaged, votes in high numbers, and leans overwhelmingly Democratic. ... But the millennials' impact will show up beyond the ballot box. Polling data indicate that they are unusually civic minded (they volunteer at the highest level recorded for youths in 40 years, according to one study) and hold a wide range of progressive values ... [they] even believe in government again (Sixty-three percent think government should do more to solve the nation's problems)."

As the authors conclude, "This generation is poised to become the core of a 21st century progressive coalition."

It's clearly time for today's politicians to start paying serious attention to the Millennials – especially candidates in the 2008 elections.

According to Rosenberg and Leyden, if people under age 29 had been the only voters in the 2004 election, John Kerry would have won by a landslide with 372 electoral votes. And in the 2006 midterms, "the same age group went for Democrats over Republicans by 22 percent - an almost unheard-of margin."

When thousands of young people take to the streets in Step it Up actions and head to D.C. for Power Shift in a couple of weeks, politicians would be wise to take note. If they don't, they just might find themselves looking for a new job, as millions of young voters throw their support behind more progressive, pro-environment candidates committed to ending the climate crisis and protecting the future of the Millennial generation.

Posted by watthead on October 22, 2007 at 09:35:40 PM

The Youth Climate Movement is poised to explode off of campuses and into our nation’s capitol for PowerShift 2007, November 2nd-5th.

Thomas Friedman, the popular New York Times columnist, recently labeled teens and twenty-somethings coming to age in the early years of the 21st century the “Quiet Generation.” Accusing today’s young people of being “too quiet, too online for [their] own good, and for the country's own good,” Friedman went on to say that today’s students and youth are “so much less radical and politically engaged than they need to be.” (See “'Generation Q' - the Quiet Americans,” New York Times, Oct. 10th, 2007)

Well, in two weeks, Mr. Friedman – and the rest of the nation – will hear what this young generation really sounds like, and it will be anything but quiet! More than 3,300 young people will explode off of their campuses and away from the internet, descending – in person and in droves – on the nation’s capitol for Power Shift 2007, the first-ever national youth summit on global warming, November 2nd-5th.

Power Shift will bring together thousands of students and youth from all 50 states to wrestle with our generation’s greatest challenge and our greatest opportunity: The climate crisis. At the conference, attendees will learn new skills, share ideas, connect with fellow activists and ultimately use their collective experience, enthusiasm and commitment to forge a powerful movement to end the climate crisis and make their innovative and inspiring new vision of a sustainable, just, and prosperous future a reality.

The conference will be held November 2nd-5th in College Park, Maryland, just outside of Washington D.C. Power Shift’s agenda includes: keynote addresses from seasoned and inspiring activists, politicians, and leaders; up-to-the-minute issue briefings from the nation’s leading scientists and policy experts; expert-led training sessions on crucial movement-building skills including organizing, advocacy, and media relations; an “opportunities fair” featuring some of the country’s leading environmental employers; a lobby day on Capitol Hill; and plenty of opportunities for young activists to network and strengthen the bonds of a nationwide youth movement (see www.PowerShift07.org).

On Saturday, November 3rd, the activities of the thousands of young people attending Power Shift will join with and be amplified by the hundreds of actions taking place in communities across the nation as part of the second nationwide Step It Up day of action (www.StepItUp07.org).

April 14th, the first Step It Up day of action, saw over 1,400 events across the country involving hundreds of thousands of community-members, activists, and yes, youth, all calling for steep cuts in carbon emissions: at least 80% by 2050. The weekend of Power Shift, Step It Up activists will be at it again, and this time they’ll be asking who our nation’s real leaders are as they challenge politicians again to Step It Up!

The attendees at Power Shift will join with the Step It Up organizers on Saturday night for the joint keynote events of both Power Shift and Step It Up. Many thousands more young people who aren’t going to make the trip to Power Shift will be back home organizing, recruiting for, and attending Step it Up events in their communities. Wherever there’s a successful Step It Up event, you can bet that there’s the fire, passion, and innovative ideas of a member of “Generation Anything-But-Quiet” somewhere behind it.

And as if there won’t be enough packed into a weekend of organizing, training and action, on Monday, November 5th, more than a thousand youth and students will converge on Capitol Hill to flex their collective political muscle and do exactly what Mr. Friedman seems to think today’s young people are too timid to do – something most citizens are too timid to do – sit face-to-face with their representatives and senators, and speak the truth to power, demanding committed action to end the climate crisis.

Monday’s giant lobby day will begin with a morning rally on Capitol Hill’s West Lawn featuring members of the House and Senate leadership and leaders in the youth climate movement as speakers before teams of young citizens head for scheduled lobbying meetings with House and Senate members from all 50 states. The House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming has also scheduled a hearing Monday afternoon where young people directly affected by climate change will speak out on the issue. Youth witnesses representing the Arctic north, Appalachia, the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, and other locations will testify on the urgency of the crisis and the importance of bold action.

Throughout the Power Shift conference, at lobby day, and at Step It Up events across the nation, young people will join with concerned citizens of all ages to demand Congress takes immediate action to implement the “1Sky” Climate Initiative (www.1skycampaign.org/) including:

• creating 5 million new “green” jobs in the clean energy sector working to help save 20% of our energy by 2015;
• immediately freezing climate pollution levels and cutting them at least 30% by 2020 and 80% by 2050;
• and transforming our energy priorities from dirty, depleting, and often-imported fossil fuels to clean, renewable, and local energy sources, beginning with a moratorium on all new coal plants until they can safely dispose of their pollution.

Lobby day attendees will also demand that Congress pass a strong energy bill this fall as a down payment on the serious cuts in carbon emissions we urgently need. A bill that includes the best elements of the energy packages passed earlier this year by the House and Senate (including strong fuel economy standards, a national renewable electricity standard, and the reinvestment of federal subsidies from fossil fuels into renewable energy and energy efficiency) will be a critical first step towards the sustainable, just, and prosperous future today’s young climate activists are committed to making a reality.

After the Power Shift conference and lobby day, students and youth will return to their campuses and communities. They’ll probably be temporarily exhausted from all the action, but at the same time, they’ll be energized, empowered, and equipped to strengthen their nationwide movement and push for bold solutions on their campuses, in their communities, and in their state and national capitols.

How’s that for quiet, Mr. Freidman?



_________________________



Power Shift is organized by the Energy Action Coalition (www.energyaction.org), an alliance of more than 40 organizations from across the United States and Canada, founded and led by youth to help support and strengthen the student and youth clean energy movement in North America.

Energy Action Coalition groups have successfully launched campaigns on over 600 college and high school campuses through the Campus Climate Challenge and successfully won commitments from 400 college and university presidents to work towards complete climate neutrality at their institutions.

The blog “It’s Getting Hot in Here” (www.ItsGettingHotInHere.org) is the Energy Action Coalition’s outlet for the voices of the growing youth movement on climate change, is regularly visited by tens of thousands of readers from across the globe.

For more information on the Energy Action Coalition and its partners in Power Shift 2007:

• www.powershift07.org
• www.energyaction.net
• www.campusclimatechallenge.org
• www.itsgettinghotinhere.org

For information on Step it Up and the 1Sky Campaign:

• www.stepitup.org
• www.1skycampaign.org

Posted by watthead on October 16, 2007 at 01:36:58 PM

New Zealand electricity producers face a 10-year moratorium on all new gas- or coal-fired power plants to help the country reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The nation's Prime Minister also commits to 90% renewable electricity by 2025.

Electricity producers in New Zealand are now barred from constructing any new fossil fuel power plants for the next ten years, according to Bloomberg.com.

New Zealand already produces about 70 percent of its power from non-polluting and renewable energy sources, including wind, hydro-electric and geothermal generators. New Zealand's Prime Minister, Helen Clarke, recently announced intention to commit to 90% renewable electricity by 2025 and the government is blocking construction of new gas-fired power plants to speed investment in wind and geothermal energy.

Eventually, the Prime Minister (pictured below) would like to see the country carbon-neutral. “I have set out the challenge to our nation to become the first truly sustainable nation on earth … to dare to aspire to be carbon neutral," Prime Minister Clarke said.

The Prime Minister also gave a brief outline of further goals, which included a 2040 target of reducing by half per capita emissions from transport and widely introducing electric vehicles. She also stated the goal of achieving a net increase in forest area of 250,000 hectares (617,000 acres) by 2020.

“The long-term benefits of becoming a sustainable nation will spread beyond our national reputation and success in business to benefit all New Zealanders,” Prime Minister Clarke added.

Both announcements come as the government releases the New Zealand Energy Strategy, the New Zealand Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy and the Transport Strategy Implementation Plan.



Well there's an example of how you set your priorities if you are truly committed to the sustainable, just, and prosperous energy future we should all be striving for. Complete carbon neutrality is the ultimate objective for developed nations, and New Zealand seems committed to showing us the way. Bravo!

Posted by watthead on September 20, 2007 at 02:22:34 PM

Hill Heat's the Cunctator takes a look at which 'congress critters' have been writing global warming legislation, and it's probably not who you'd want!

When it comes to perhaps the most important legislation of the century - legislation to solve the climate crisis - who's holding the pen?

You would hope it would be people like Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair, Senator Barbara Boxer, or House climate change champion Henry Waxman. Well, while the two have sponsored the best climate change proposals currently floating around Congress, it's unfortunately not the likes of Boxer and Waxman who are drafting the default global warming legislation that will likely be taken up by both the House and Senate this fall/winter.

According to the Cunctator, it's actually the pro-coal, pro-Detroit, anti-environment type who's got the pen, and that spells trouble for all of us. From the Cunctator's DailyKos journal:

"In the House, jurisdiction over cap-and-trade legislation is under Energy and Commerce chairman John Dingell and Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee chair Rick Boucher.

In the Senate, Harry Reid and EPW chair Barbara Boxer are letting Joe Lieberman and John Warner write the default global warming bill.

-Dingell literally represents Detroit. His wife works for General Motors.
-Boucher is a coal-district representative who supports coal-to-liquids and tried to make California's greenhouse gas emissions law illegal.
-Lieberman used to be a Democrat.
-Warner has a 14% lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters.

Unless they're stopped, these people will write polluter-protection legislation.

...

Carbon cap-and-trade legislation cannot be progressive if the greenhouse gas emissions credits (the pollution credits) are given to polluters. That protects polluting industries with a subsidizing give-away of a common resource, the atmosphere's capacity for GHG pollution.

If the credits are auctioned, however, polluters have to pay. Furthermore, this means that the taxpayers of the United States receive the fair market value of privatizing this resource (as long as the government properly allocates the auction revenues). "

The "bipartisan" Lieberman-Warner climate change proposal currently plans to give away 76% of the emissions allowances under the cap for free. The proposal would amount to a giant wind-fall for polluters, violating the "polluter-pays" principle that's key to effective environmental legislation and essentially giving away a public good - the atmosphere - for free.

Additionally, the emissions reduction targets in the Lieberman-Warner proposal are mediocre and are a slow start to cleaning up our act. Unlike Boxer and Waxman's proposals, the Lieberman-Warner proposal doesn't put us on a track to a carbon neutral and prosperous America, which should be our ultimate target.

Lieberman recently indicated he's thinking about reducing the amount of allowances given away for free (and auctioning more of them), but at this point he's just thinking about it. And so far, the mediocre emissions reduction targets haven't budged.

As Adam Siegel writes, with the likes of Dingell, Boucher, Lieberman and Warner in the drivers seat, "we -- that means you -- should be contacting your representatives to influence the process."

"Start with, if you wish, Congress.ORG, write your representative, send in a letter to the editor [and I would add, send a letter to Lieberman too].

Action items for today's letter:

1. Support Citizen, not special interest, Ownership of Pollution Credits -- it is our air that we are seeing polluting, make them pay us for dirtying our air. NO GIVEAWAYS OF POLLUTION CREDITS in Climate Change legislation.

2. The 2050 target: a Climate Friendly Prosperous Society that will enhance human security for millenia to come. 70% by 2050 is, simply, slowing the onset of catastrophic climate change. 80% is an absolute minimum, 90% becomes reasonable, and Carbon Neutrality (actually carbon negative) should be our target. Let us reach high, for the sky, and protect ourselves and future generations."

Other people to contact:

Senators on the Environment and Public Works Committee

* Barbara Boxer (Chairman) * Max Baucus * Joseph I. Lieberman * Thomas R. Carper * Hillary Rodham Clinton * Frank R. Lautenberg * Benjamin L. Cardin * Bernard Sanders * Amy Klobuchar * Sheldon Whitehouse

Environmental Lobbying Groups (most haven't taken a public position on auctions and targets or on specific proposals)

* Environmental Defense * League of Conservation Voters * U.S. PIRG * Sierra Club * NRDC * Union of Concerned Scientists

As Seigel writes,

Act ...
Now ...
If not us, who?
If not now, when?

Posted by watthead on September 6, 2007 at 02:41:46 PM

Like his earlier work, The Skeptical Environmentalist, which prominent Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson called a "sordid mess" and was found to have cherry-picked the facts, Bjorn Lomborg's latest effort, Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming is just more hot air.

Lomborg's basic thesis, that "scare-monger" environmentalists have over-hyped the threat of climate change and that we shouldn't take any serious action to tackle the climate crisis because doing so would harm economic growth that poor people need requires a particularly slanted view of the world and rests on 'facts' selectively picked to support his arguments as he ignores a vast body of science.

As economist Eban Goodstein's writes in his review of Cool It in Salon:

"In "Cool It," Lomborg has three messages. First, the planet will warm up no more than 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit this century, and on balance, this will be bad, but not too bad. Second, all benefit-cost models show that serious limits on global warming emissions are too costly, and therefore we should pollute with virtual impunity. And -- surprisingly -- we should invest a decent amount ($25 billion per year) in clean energy technologies now so that, starting in a few decades, we will have tools to slow down global warming just a little bit through 2100."

While I can't agree more with the third point, his first two messages are quite frankly bull sh!t. Lomborg's first argument assumes that global warming will be held to "only" 4.7 degrees F. First off, that's a swing of temperatures halfway to ice age proportions (the last ice age was only 9 degrees F colder than today). Not a big deal, eh?

Lomborg argues that as the temperatures heat up, deaths from heat waves will be offset by less deaths from cold exposure. This contradicts the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's authoritative Fourth Assessment Report, released earlier this year. The report does agree that cold deaths will decrease with warming, but says that while "climate change is projected to bring some benefits, such as fewer deaths from cold exposure ... overall it is expected that these benefits will be outweighed by the negative health benefits of rising temperatures, especially worldwide" (see pdf).

So sure, Mr. Lomborg, less people will die of cold exposure in rich countries in Northern climes. But at the same time, the IPCC report warns that literally billions of people will be affected by water and food shortages, droughts, floods, storms, etc. People in poorer developing countries, the people Lomborg supposedly cares so much about, will be most severely affected. For more on the human face of climate change that Lomborg's cold calculus brushes aside, see this post.

These aren't the made-up scenarios of "fear-mongering environmentalists." They're the warnings of an international body of the world's top climate scientists, literally hundreds of them, and the report they produced is truly a consensus document; every word in the "summary for policymakers" report I referenced above (pdf) has to be approved by representatives of 130+ countries (including representatives of the Bush Administration)! In fact, throughout his book, Lomborg cites the IPCC report like gospel, all the while selectively ignoring much that doesn't serve his arguments.

For example, in assuming that temperatures will not warm by more than 4.7 degrees, despite the inaction that he advocates, he ignores the fact that the IPCC includes a range of temperature estimates going all the way up to 10.5 degrees.

The most crucial error in the book - the most glaring oversight that disqualifies the book as a serious examination of the risks and tradeoffs of climate change - is that Lomborg ignores the existence of powerful climate feedback loops hidden within the climate system. As Eban Goodstein writes,:"The global warming "alarmism" that Lomborg finds so distasteful is motivated by a serious, science-driven concern that hidden within our global climate system are powerful positive feedback loops. So that as we inch up from 3 to 4 and then 4 to 5 degrees of warming, we may very well cross some temperature threshold that would trigger a couple of degrees of further warming, causing a catastrophic upward spiral in global temperatures. For example, if the Amazon heats up and dries out too much, much of it could burn down, flipping to savannah, and releasing tens of billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. Similarly, as the permafrost in the Arctic melts, a huge pulse of methane may be released. The science is clear that, interacting, these and other biophysical and socioeconomic factors could drive planetary temperatures far beyond the range that Lomborg addresses. By ignoring the vast uncertainty underlying these forecasts, and every alternative outcome except his preferred "moderate" warming scenario, "Cool It" reduces to an uninteresting discussion of why folks alive today should choose 4.7 degrees of warming rather than 4.4 as the optimal outcome for our grandkids."But there is no sound scientific reason to assume that as we sit inactively, following Lomborg's advice, that temperatures will stop rising at 4.7 degrees. In fact, there is every reason to worry that if we don't begin a proactive, concerted effort to halt warming temperatures within the next few years, we will lock ourselves in to a degree of warming that will push us past what America's top climate scientist, Dr. James Hansen, calls 'the Tipping Point' where temperatures and greenhouse gas levels will have increased enough to set off a chain reaction of these feedback loops that will push global warming beyond our control.

Once we pass the Tipping Point, warming will simply spin out of control and no matter what we do, we won't be able to halt or reverse the changing climate. We could stop using all fossil fuels entirely, but if we did it one day after crossing the Tipping Point - think of it as the Point of No Return - it wouldn't do a damn bit of good.

But don't take my word for it. Let's hear what Dr. Hansen has to say:

"In my opinion," he testified in 2006, "there is no significant doubt (probability > 99%)" that projections for warming in a business-as-usual future (one that Lomborg advocates) "would push the Earth beyond the tipping point and cause dramatic climate impacts including eventual sea level rise of at least several meters, extermination of a substantial fraction of the animal and plant species on the planet, and major regional climate disruptions."

Translation: unless we act soon to change course and avoid this business as usual future, we will almost certainly pass the Point of No Return.

By ignoring this fundamental and critical characteristic of climate systems, Lomborg's thesis that waiting to tackle climate change until technology develops is fundamentally flawed.

In a supposed 'rational discussion' of risks, trade-offs and benefits of climate change, Lomborg ignores the biggest risk of all: that in sitting idle, we will cross the Tipping Point. As a result, Lomborg advocates for delayed action against climate change, essentially arguing that we play Russian roulette with our lives and the fate of all future inhabitants of the planet.

There are other flaws with Lomborg's book, and I'd encourage you to read Goodstein's review for more, but I'll leave it at that for now.

Don't pick up Lomborg's book unless you're looking for more misleading, heel-dragging hot air.