Right now the coal industry is engaged in a multi-million-dollar campaign propagating the lie that coal and so-called clean-coal technology are the answer to America’s future energy needs. Nothing could be farther from the truth. There is no such thing as clean coal.

Waterkeeper programs in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Utah, and West Virginia have been fighting the coal industry for years. Now, they have joined together with the nearly 200 programs of Waterkeeper Alliance in a grassroots campaign called “The Dirty Lie” — because none of us can afford to wait another minute to start creating a new national energy policy that frees us from a reliance on fossil fuels.

You don’t have to live in the coal fields or in the shadow of a coal-fired power plant to be affected by this filthy industry — coal causes acid rain, pollutes our water and food chain with mercury, and is grossly accelerating climate change. From mining it to the disposal of ash after it’s burned, there is no part of the coal industry that is good for the environment, good for people, or good for America.

Every year, the 1,100 coal-fired power plants in America spew 48 tons of toxic mercury into our air, poisoning hundreds of square miles of rivers, lakes and streams, accumulating in fish, and entering our bodies through fish consumption.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that one of every six women of childbearing age now has unsafe mercury levels in her blood and, potentially, breast milk, putting more than 410,000 American children born each year at high risk for neurological damage and a grim inventory of illnesses.

And while coal-fired power plants generate about half of America’s electricity, they contribute 80 percent of the total greenhouse gases from electricity production that cause global warming. Yet, even if carbon capture and sequestration technology existed to remove these emissions, it still wouldn’t make coal clean.

From cradle to grave, coal is inherently filthy. Coal mining, no matter how it’s done, devastates the environment and communities. Toxins from coal-fired power plants are spewed into our air and leach into our water, causing asthma, cancer and over 24,000 premature deaths each year. And just recently, in Tennessee, we all saw the catastrophic effects from the failure of one coal-ash impoundment on surrounding watersheds and communities.

The coal industry also is responsible for the destruction of mountains, forests and streams throughout Appalachia, where mountaintop removal is poisoning water supplies, devastating hundreds of square miles of North America’s most ancient and biologically diverse hardwood forests, and permanently impoverishing local communities.

At the current pace, the coal industry will have decimated a piece of Appalachia the size of Delaware — more than 1.4 million acres — by the end of the next decade. Imagine if instead of cutting down one more mountain or burying one more stream to support our coal addiction we instead installed solar panels on a fraction of our homes.

Yes, even harnessing renewable energy has some impact, but it isn’t the endless litany of harm that mining coal creates. Renewable energy is a gift that keeps on giving. A pile of coal is burned and only gives back polluted water, contaminated fish and tainted land.

The truth is that with responsible leadership and investment in clean, renewable sources of energy, coal is replaceable; the Appalachian Mountains and the people that live there aren’t. A national energy policy that continues to rely on fossil fuels endangers our health, environment, economic prosperity and national security. Renewable-energy technologies that can meet America’s energy needs are already available.

Putting an end to the dirty lie that coal can be the foundation of America’s energy future is a critically important first step on the path to developing a new energy policy that stops global warming, protects our environment, and promotes energy efficiency and a sustainable energy future. Visit www.thedirtylie.com and help spread the word.

Fleischli is president of the alliance, while Edwards serves as the group’s legal director.

—–

In the Odyssey, Odysseus had to be tied to the mast to resist the call of the Sirens, who tried to lure his ship onto the rocks.  These days the siren song of a carbon tax fills the ear of many commentators who urge us to recognize its beauty and steer our ship in its direction.  A Washington Post editorial is a recent example.

The premise of the Post editorial is that cap-and-trade regimes are complex and vulnerable to special pleading, and they do not guarantee success in reducing emissions, while a tax is simple and sure in its effects. But this is grass-is-greener thinking. The Post compares a flawed version of one approach (cap-and-trade) to an idealized version of the other (tax) and not surprisingly, the idealized approach wins.

The fallacy in this argument is that the same political body (our Congress) that, we are assured, will insist on putting special interest features into a cap-and-trade bill, but when presented with a tax approach, will vote only for the purest proposal, firmly rejecting all lobbyists’ pleas. Those who argue that a tax approach is less likely to be designed for special interests than a cap approach simply are ignoring the tax code. We have decades of empirical evidence in the U.S. that when Congress designs tax policies it rarely resists the entreaties of special interests.

It is worth reading the history of recent (Nixon onward) energy tax proposals done by the group Tax Analysts. It is hard to see anything in that history that suggests a carbon tax would be successful (or if something called a carbon tax were enacted that it would actually accomplish anything).

The fate of the 1993 BTU tax proposal by Bill Clinton is instructive.

It had its origins with then Vice President Gore’s support for a carbon tax. That idea never got out of the administration because of the impact it would have had on coal. Instead the administration proposed a tax based on BTUs so that the tax on coal was the same as on natural gas per unit of delivered energy even though coal’s carbon emissions were twice as high. Before the administration bill was introduced, further concessions to coal were made. The BTU tax just squeaked through the House, thanks to the addition of lots of exemptions required to get the votes.

The Washington Post summarized the exemption feeding frenzy in David Hilzenrath’s May 28, 1993 piece ($ub. req’d):

Some opponents of the energy tax have already been accommodated with exemptions proposed by the administration itself or the House Ways and Means Committee.

For example, Clinton proposed exempting grain alcohol used as fuel, a concession to grain growers, and the House tax-writing committee proposed exempting much of the electricity consumed in the production of aluminum. But such concessions seem to have fueled the demand for even more changes in the tax.

Both Boren and Breaux come from states with considerable oil and natural gas production. For Breaux, however, the greater concern may be Louisiana’s energy-intense industrial base, including chemical, glass and plastics makers that export products.

But the BTU tax was stripped completely in the Senate, being replaced by a small gasoline tax that had only modest revenue raising benefits and almost no carbon or energy security benefits.  More on this cautionary tale can be found in this New York Times news analysis and this paper [PDF] from the Center for a New American Security.

A major public policy problem with the tax approach is that the debate quickly becomes all about money. A proposal that is initially designed to achieve another purpose like energy efficiency or greenhouse gas reduction is analyzed over and over again by every interest group and member of Congress based almost entirely on its economic impact on constituents. Economic impacts will be an important topic in a cap approach to be sure but the supporters of a cap proposal have something that tax advocates do not have: the ability to keep the focus on the direct and intended effect of the legislation — how much does it cut pollution? In a tax bill, the effects on pollution are indirect and run a much larger risk of being submerged in the more easily calculated impacts of the tax provisions on various fuels, consumer energy expenses, and different regions of the country.

The Post editorial also cites results from the European Union emission trading system (EU ETS) to argue that cap approaches do not work.  What about that? Well, phase one of the EU ETS was intentionally a pilot program: it was short-term, lasting only a few years, and it was put in place quickly, before either the government or industry had a good idea of what actual emissions were.  Since it was a pilot, governments decided to err on the side of being generous with allocations and spent no time seriously considering longer-term allocation policies.  Allowances were not allowed to be carried forward from the pilot phase to the later phases, making them almost worthless as the end of the pilot phase approached. None of these flaws is inherent to a cap system and none of them is being ignored as real cap programs are being designed.

Politicians certainly can design a flawed version of a cap, though the one example of a national cap enacted by Congress (the 1990 acid rain program) fully achieved its emission reduction objectives. It was flawed in giving away all allowances for free but because reduction requirements were substantial, continuous emission monitors were required on all sources, and most power companies were still operating in regulated markets, the windfalls and market distortions that occurred in the pilot phase of the E.U. emission trading system did not happen here.

There are some issues that are unavoidable with either a cap or a tax approach that is designed by real-world politicians. One of them is an awareness of regional and interest-based impacts. There is nothing magic about a tax frame that makes these issues of distributional politics disappear. A cap program will be not be immune to these considerations, to be sure.  But there is no evidence that a tax approach has a greater potential to avoid special interest deals.

Meanwhile, the now solid awareness of the importance of allowance allocation design is causing special interests to retrench in major ways from their earlier positions seeking free allocations of allowances. For example, while just a year ago, many firms in the coal power sector were arguing for free allowances for all coal generators based on the "model" of the acid rain law, they have abandoned that and are now proposing allocations to electric distribution companies with a stipulation that all of the value of those allowances be passed through to customers. This is the approach proposed in the USCAP Blueprint. An exception for unregulated coal
plants is proposed only for the portion of compliance expenses that cannot be passed through to customers. Even the Edison Electric Institute has proposed [PDF] that nearly all allowances for the power sector be provided to distribution companies with the same requirement of pass-through of benefits to customers.  Similarly, the USCAP Blueprint (joined in by three major oil companies) does not call for any free allowances to oil and gas fuel providers to cover the emissions from the fuel they sell, a departure from what the oil industry has proposed in the past.

Cap proposals are criticized for allowing offsets and there are real problems with many offsets proposals. But offsets are in cap proposals to deal with claims that the cost of a reduction program will otherwise be "too high" for certain interests. Those same interests are not going to say "never mind" just because the cost is imposed in the form of a tax rather than an allowance price. No serious observer thinks a tax bill that moves through Congress would forbid offsets.  The carbon tax bill introduced by Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), H.R. 3416 [PDF], includes a wide open offset provision, creating a tax rebate for firms that implement offset projects. The bill also provides for tax proceeds to be dedicated for purposes similar or identical to those found in cap-and-trade bills ("clean" energy investments; negatively affected industries). These provisions reflect the political realities that are recognized by the drafters of such bills but are typically ignored by commentators who laud the apparent simplicity and certainty of hypothetical tax approaches.

What about the claim that a tax will enjoy broader political support?  It’s a statement of historical fact, not a partisan comment, that Republicans in Congress, particularly when a Democratic President has been in the White House, have overwhelmingly opposed taxes put forward for energy or environmental policy purposes. In 1993 not a single Republican voted for the Clinton BTU tax bill in the House, nor in the morphed gas tax version in the Senate. These materials on the RNC website from the 2006 [PDF] and 2008 [PDF] campaigns make for interesting reading by those forecasting a post-partisan embrace of a carbon tax. The unfortunate fact is that such tax policies are red meat for demagogues. It is very likely that a decision to actually attempt a tax approach to climate protection would be walking into a political trap. That is too big a risk to take when so much rides on enacting climate legislation without further delay.

It is perfectly possible for Congress to craft a good climate bill that relies on a cap and includes complementary policies to drive carbon intensity improvements in the key sectors of electric power, vehicles, fuels, and buildings. The fact that it is possible does not guarantee it will happen. But rather than dismiss a cap as an inherently flawed approach, is it too much to hope that commentators would resist the calls of the tax sirens and recognize that both approaches can be implemented well or poorly?  Then we could focus on the real issues that we need to address to achieve a good policy result in time to protect the climate.

—–

A couple years ago, I began to see reports that coal supplies might not last the 200-plus years we’ve all been lead to believe, so I wrote an article about what you could do to prepare your portfolio for Peak Coal.

Now two years have passed, and peak coal is undeniably two years closer. (Ever wonder why people who have been saying that we have 200 years of coal for 20 years aren’t now talking about 180 years of coal?) But more than being two years closer, the evidence continues to mount. Caltech Professor David Rutledge has been spreading the peak coal word for most of the time since. I recommend the video of his 2007 lecture on the subject.

It’s great that the New York Times is asking “Is America Ready to Quit Coal?” but the real question may be “Will we have any choice?”

On February 12, Clean Energy Action released a report on Powder River Basin coal supplies, based in part on a 2008 U.S. Geological Survey report. The Powder River Basin matters because Western coal has been the only source of new coal production in the U.S. for the last two decades. Appalachian and interior coal production has been declining, despite mostly increasing prices and uniformly increasing prices since 2003. Northern Appalachian coal production peaked in the middle of the last century, while interior coal production peaked at the start of this decade. When production declines in the face of rising prices, constraints other than economics must be coming into play. Future increases in production in these regions seems unlikely.

Of the top six coal producing states in the U.S., only Wyoming and Montana are still increasing production. West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Texas all peaked in the 1900s. With existing Wyoming mines, which dominate current production, having less than 20 years of reserves remaining, only Montana will remain … and we simply don’t know enough about the geology to know how much can be recovered. Jim Hansen, author of the Master Resource Report (not the NASA guy), tells me that available rail supply lines out of Montana are likely to be another critical limiting factor on that state’s production.

The 2007 report from Energy Watch Group (which triggered my earlier article), David Rutledge, and Clean Energy Action all found that what we don’t know about our coal reserves far outweighs what we do know. What we do know should be very worrying to anyone who hopes we might be able to replace our current coal-fired electricity generation with any sort of “clean coal.” Any attempt to sequester CO2 by pumping it underground or to the bottom of the sea would require considerably more energy than simply releasing it into the atmosphere, as we do now. That energy would come at a cost of less net energy from what will likely prove to be very limited coal supplies.

Peak coal accounting

If “clean coal” can be made to work, and we are able to replace part of our electricity supply with this technology, it seems increasingly unlikely that we will be able to supply as much electricity from coal 30 years from now as we do today. Coal plants are intended as 50 to 60 year investments, and part of the reason they are considered so “cheap” is that the construction costs are depreciated over more than half a century of payments. If in reality those construction costs must be paid over a shorter period, the effective cost of coal-fired electricity will be considerably higher … even if the accounts do not yet show it.

Transitioning away from coal now makes sense both from an economic and climatic standpoint. If new coal plants will have shorter than expected useful lives simply because of the limited supply of coal, an honest accounting cannot spread construction costs 60 years, as has been done in the past. A shorter useful life means significantly raising the accounting cost of coal power per kWh, even before we place any price on carbon emissions or other environmental damage.

Carbon capture and storage

That is not to say that improving carbon capture and sequestration technology will not be useful. Even without building new coal plants, we already have a massive fleet of coal plants spewing carbon into the atmosphere. According to a recent Inside Renewable Energy podcast, French utility EON puts current carbon capture technology costs about $40 per ton of CO2, and they hope to get the cost down to $20. This does not include the cost of pressurizing the gas and injecting it into some form of permanent storage. (Even permanent storage may not be so permanent.) Capturing CO2 for industrial uses can make economic sense today, and the economics will only get better when we begin to have reasonable prices for carbon emission. However, cleaning up the emissions of currently built fossil-fueled generation is not the same as investing money in new generation which we hope to clean up later.

We have the technologies today to begin this transition, and other promising technologies at least as near to development as “clean coal.” Wind power is nearly as cheap as coal with current accounting. If we reassess the useful lives of prospective new coal plants and put a price on carbon emissions, it will be much cheaper.

Building out the smart grid and additional transmission capacity will allow us to integrate much more wind than skeptics currently think is possible. A recent report from researchers at the Rocky Mountain Institute and the University of Colorado Boulder found that optimized diversified portfolios in the Midwest of wind and solar generation were 55 percent more reliable (measured by the variability of output) than the average individual site used in the study. For large scale baseload and dispatchable generation, concentrating solar power needs only the continued price improvement that will come from mass deployment and a more robust national grid. For large-scale clean baseload power anywhere in the U.S., enhanced geothermal systems are likely to be easier and cheaper to develop than “clean coal.”

All of these are the right investments for the country, but they are also likely to be good moves for
investors. We may still have 30 years before coal production in the U.S. peaks. The stock market reaction will not wait until the actual peak … the stock market reaction will happen when sufficiently many investors realize it’s coming.

How many more reports will that take, I wonder?

—–

Over a year ago I wrote to Prime Minister Brown asking him to place a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants in Britain. I have asked the same of Angela Merkel, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd, and other world leaders. The reason is this — coal is the single greatest threat to civilization and all life on our planet.

Our global climate is nearing tipping points. Changes are beginning to appear, and there is potential for explosive changes with effects that would be irreversible — if we do not rapidly slow fossil fuel emissions over the next few decades.

Tipping points are fed by amplifying feedbacks. As Arctic sea ice melts, the darker ocean absorbs more sunlight and speeds melting. As tundra melts, methane — a strong greenhouse gas — is released, causing more warming. As species are pressured and exterminated by shifting climate zones, ecosystems can collapse, destroying more species.

The public, buffeted by day-to-day weather fluctuations and economic turmoil, has little time or training to analyze decadal changes. How can they be expected to evaluate and filter out advice emanating from special economic interests? How can they distinguish top-notch science and pseudoscience — the words sound the same?

Leaders have no excuse — they are elected to lead and to protect the public and its best interests. Leaders have at their disposal the best scientific organizations in the world, such as the United Kingdom’s Royal Society and the United States National Academy of Sciences. Only in the past few years did the science crystallize, revealing the urgency.

Our planet really is in peril. If we do not change course soon, we will hand our children a situation that is out of their control, as amplifying feedbacks drive the dynamics of the global system.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air has already risen to a dangerous level. The pre- industrial carbon dioxide amount was 280 parts per million (ppm). Humans, by burning coal, oil, and gas have increased carbon dioxide to 385 ppm, and it continues to grow by about 2 ppm per year.

Earth, with its four kilometer deep ocean, responds only slowly to changes of carbon dioxide. So more climate change will occur, even if we make maximum effort to slow carbon dioxide growth. Arctic sea ice will disappear in the summer season within the next few decades. Mountain glaciers, providing fresh water for rivers that supply hundreds of millions of people, will disappear — practically all of the glaciers could be gone within 50 years, if carbon dioxide continues to increase at current rates. Coral reefs, harboring a quarter of ocean species, are threatened, if carbon dioxide continues to rise.

The greatest threats, hanging like the sword of Damocles over our children and grandchildren, are those that are irreversible on any time scale humans can imagine. If coastal ice shelves buttressing the West Antarctic ice sheet continue to disintegrate, the ice sheet could disgorge into the ocean, raising sea level by several meters in a century. Such rates of sea level change have occurred many times in Earth’s history in response to global warming rates no higher than that of the past thirty years. Almost half of the world’s great cities, and many historical sites, are located on coast lines.

The most threatening change, from my perspective, is extermination of species. Several times in Earth’s long history rapid global warming of several degrees occurred, apparently spurred by amplifying feedbacks. In each case, more than half of plant and animal species went extinct. New species came into being over tens and hundreds of thousands of years. But these are time scales and generations that we cannot imagine. If we drive our fellow species to extinction we will leave a far more desolate planet for our descendants than the world we inherited from our elders. We will leave a world haunted by the memories of what was.

Clearly, if we burn all fossil fuels, we will destroy the planet we know. Carbon dioxide would increase to 500 ppm or more. We would set the planet on a course to the ice-free state, with sea level 75 meters higher. Coastal disasters would occur continually. The only uncertainty is the time it would take for complete ice sheet disintegration.

The tragedy of the situation, if we do not wake up in time, is that the changes that must be made to stabilize the atmosphere and climate make sense for other reasons. The changes would produce a healthier atmosphere, improved agricultural productivity, clean water, and an ocean providing fish that are safe to eat.

Actions required to solve the problem are dictated by physical facts, especially fossil fuel reservoir sizes. About half of readily extracted oil has been burned already. Oil is used in vehicles, where it is impractical to capture the carbon dioxide. Oil and gas will drive carbon dioxide to at least 400 ppm. But if we cut off the largest source of carbon dioxide, coal, it will be practical to bring carbon dioxide back to 350 ppm and still lower through improved agricultural and forestry practices that increase carbon storage in trees and soil.

Coal is not only the largest fossil fuel reservoir of carbon dioxide, it is the dirtiest fuel. Coal is polluting the world’s oceans and streams with mercury, arsenic, and other dangerous chemicals. The dirtiest trick governments play on their citizens is the pretense that they are working on "clean coal" or that they will build power plants that are "capture ready" in case technology is ever developed to capture all pollutants. The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death. When I testified against the proposed Kingsnorth power plant, I estimated that in its lifetime it would be responsible for extermination of about 400 species — its proportionate contribution to the number that would be committed to extinction if carbon dioxide rose another 100 ppm. Of course, we cannot say which specific species should be blamed on Kingsnorth, but who are we to say that any species are worthless?

The German and Australian governments pretend to be green. When I show German officials that fossil fuel reservoir sizes imply that the coal source must be cut off, they say they will tighten the "carbon cap." But a cap only slows the use of a fuel, it does not leave it in the ground. When I point out that their new coal plants require that they convince Russia to leave its oil in the ground, they are silent. The Australian government was elected on a platform of solving the climate problem, but then, with the help of industry, they set emission targets so high as to guarantee untold disasters for the young and the unborn. These governments are not green. They are black — coal black.

On a per capita basis, the three countries most responsible for fossil fuel carbon dioxide in the air today are the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany, in that order. Politicians in Britain have asked me: why am I speaking to them? The United States must lead! But coal interests have great power in the United States — the essential moratorium and phase-out of
coal likely requires a growing public demand and a political will yet to be demonstrated.

The Prime Minister should not underestimate his potential to initiate a transformative change of direction. And he must not pretend to be ignorant of the consequences of continuing coal emission, or take refuge in a "carbon cap" or some "target" for future emission reductions. Young people are beginning to understand the situation. They want to know: will you join their side? Remember that history, and your children, will judge you.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, announced earlier this month that she hopes to have a cap-and-trade bill blessed by her committee by the end of the year. Her announcement left room for criticism.

Action advocates wished Boxer had been more specific about goals for reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. The Wall Street Journal posted a piece suggesting the Senator’s new principles were vague and stale.

Moreover, if we want Uncle Sam to wow the world with new-found religion on climate action and to do so in time for the U.S. to take its seat at Copenhagen in a morally upright position, then a committee vote by year’s end will be too little too late. A better goal would be affirmative votes by the House and Senate well before Copenhagen, along with aggressive, progressive energy legislation and continuing bold action by the Obama Administration this spring and summer.

Still, if we want principled action, then principles are a good place to start. Boxer’s are as follows:

1. Reduce emissions to levels guided by science to avoid dangerous global warming.
2. Set short- and long-term emissions targets that are certain and enforceable, with periodic review of the climate science and adjustments to targets and policies as necessary to meet emissions reduction targets.
3. Ensure that state and local entities continue pioneering efforts to address global warming.
4. Establish a transparent and accountable market-based system that efficiently reduces carbon emissions.
5. Use revenues from the carbon market to:
   • Keep consumers whole as our nation transitions to clean energy;
   • Invest in clean energy technologies and energy efficiency measures;
   • Assist states, localities and tribes in addressing and adapting to global warming impacts;
   • Assist workers, businesses and communities, including manufacturing states, in the transition to a clean energy economy;
   • Support efforts to conserve wildlife and natural systems threatened by global warming; and
   • Work with the international community, including faith leaders, to provide support to developing nations in responding and adapting to global warming. In addition to other benefits, these actions will help avoid the threats to international stability and national security posed by global warming.
6. Ensure a level global playing field, by providing incentives for emission reductions and effective deterrents so that countries contribute their fair share to the international effort to combat global warming.

These will be a hard sell. A climate bill truly guided by science, for example, would cause U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to peak and begin a rapid decline by 2015. That would require a radical turnaround by our economy.

All the vested interests that will be affected by carbon pricing, including big emitters and fossil energy producers, will define a "transparent and accountable" trading system as one that includes more protections for them than for the atmosphere. The tendency will be to fill the bill with off-ramps, price caps and giveaways that make the trading system neither transparent nor accountable.

The prospect of billions of dollars in new government revenues from carbon pricing will set off a feeding frenzy among constituents who want some of the money. The desire to send much or all of the revenues back to the American people to make carbon pricing more politically palatable will compete with the other worthy investments Boxer identified.

But I’m quite sure that when she took the chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Boxer didn’t mistake it for a rose garden. If she improves the principles and sticks to them, they can be the standard against which this year’s climate legislation should be judged.

What kind of improvements? Last November, the Presidential Climate Action Project proposed these criteria for good carbon pricing (PDF, p.7):

1. Cover all six greenhouse gases;
2. Reduce emissions at least 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, and 20-30 percent by 2020;
3. Auction 100 percent of the emission allowances;
4. Be transparent, simple and relatively inexpensive to administer;
5. Cover the entire economy;
6. Be flexible, with some mechanism to regularly review its performance and to adjust carbon caps and prices as necessary to meet emission-reduction goals, without requiring further Congressional action;
7. Be compatible with whatever international carbon-control mechanism the international community develops to succeed the Kyoto Protocol;
8. Measure carbon reductions in absolute tons rather than in carbon intensity (emissions per dollar of Gross Domestic Product);
9. Reward early adopters.

Another set of good criteria is the Wingspread Principles on the U.S. Response to Global Warming, which I wrote in 2006 based on the counsel of 40 national experts who met at the Johnson Foundation’s Wingspread Conference Center in Wisconsin. With very little publicity, the principles have been signed by scores of experts, business people, elected officials and lay citizens. They read as follows:

Urgency: Global warming is real and it is happening now. Every year that we delay action to reduce emissions makes the problem more painful and more expensive – and makes the unavoidable consequences more severe. Leaders in government, business, labor, religion and the other elements of civil society must rally the American people to action.

Effective Action: The U.S. must set enforceable limits on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to significantly reduce them within the next 10 years … Experience proves that voluntary measures alone cannot solve the problem. Aggressive government action, including mandates based on sound science, is imperative and must be implemented now.

Consistency and Continuity of Purpose: Climate stabilization requires sustained action over several decades to achieve deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions throughout the economy. With its frequent changes of leadership and priorities, however, the American political system does not lend itself to long-term commitments. Leaders in both government and civil society must shape policies and institutions that ensure sustained climate protection.

Opportunity: Mitigating and adapting to global warming offer the opportunity to create a new energy economy that is cleaner, cheaper, healthier and more secure. We must awaken America’s entrepreneurial spirit to capture this opportunity.

Predictability: Measures that signal investors, corporate decision makers and consumers of the certainty of future reductions are essential to change the economy.

Flexibility: Deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions demand and will drive innovation. Our economy will innovate most efficiently if it is given the flexibility to achieve ambitio
us goals through a variety of means, including market-based incentives and/or trading.

Everyone Plays: Measures to stabilize the climate must change the behaviors of business, industry, agriculture, government, workers and consumers. All sectors and the public must be engaged in changing both infrastructure and social norms.

Multiple Benefits: Actions to stabilize, mitigate or adapt to global warming should be considered alongside other environmental, economic and social imperatives that can act synergistically to produce multiple benefits – for example, "smart growth" practices that conserve forests and farmland while reducing the use of transportation fuels. Many actions to stabilize climate offer local, regional and national, as well as global, benefits.

Accurate Market Signals: The true and full societal costs of greenhouse gas emissions, now often externalized, should be reflected in the price of goods and services to help consumers make more informed choices and to drive business innovation. Policymakers should eliminate perverse incentives that distort market signals and exacerbate global warming.

Prudent Preparation: Mounting climatic changes already are adversely affecting public health and safety as well as America’s forests, water resources, and fish and wildlife habitat. As the nation works to prevent the most extreme impacts of global warming, we also must adapt to the changes already underway and prepare for more.

International Solutions: U.S. government and civil society must act now to reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions, regardless of the actions of other nations. Because greenhouse gas emissions and the effects of climate change are global, however, the ultimate solutions also must be global. The U.S. must reengage constructively in the international process.

Fairness: We must strive for solutions that are fair among people, nations and generations.

Congress can find more useful bricks for the foundation of climate legislation in the "State of the Climate" message the Presidential Climate Action Project submitted to President Bush before his final State of the Union address in January 2008. It also has been signed by many of the nation’s distinguished leaders in climate science and policy, including Dr. John Holdren, now President Obama’s advisor on science and technology. It’s worth reading in its entirety, but here is an excerpt relevant to principles:

1. We must recognize that global climate change is an issue that transcends politics and partisanship. No responsible leader of any political persuasion wants our nation to face a future of increasing heat waves, drought, fires, disease, natural disasters, coastal inundation, and species extinction. No responsible leader wishes to bequeath to our children a nation in peril, with far less security, fewer resources and a lower standard of living than we enjoy today.
2. We must accept that while climate science is complex, our options are simple. We have three. We can reduce greenhouse gas emissions to keep the impacts of climate change from growing far worse. We can adapt to the changes already underway. Or we can suffer. Some suffering is inevitable and we must help those least able to cope. But the more quickly we reduce emissions today and prepare for the consequences of emissions from the past, the less suffering there will be. Those are the realities that we must acknowledge and act upon now.
3. We must recognize that national climate policy and national energy policy are inextricably linked. The United States must make a deliberate and rapid transition away from carbon-based fuels whose emissions cannot be captured and stored, whether the fuels come from foreign or domestic sources. We must turn with unprecedented speed to a future of energy independence, resource efficiency, renewable energy technologies and low-carbon fuels. Public policy must support only those technologies and resources that simultaneously stabilize the climate and enhance national energy security.
4. We must acknowledge that global climate change is more than an environmental issue. It affects national security by threatening instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world. It is an urgent economic issue in which the price of action is much less than the cost of inaction. It is a public health issue in which the spread of diseases in a warmer world can have devastating implications for our well-being and the costs of health care. It is a humanitarian issue, with the prospect of hundreds of millions of people being displaced by drought, hunger, and coastal flooding. It is a population and quality of life issue, challenging us to find ways for the world’s people to achieve and sustain a decent standard of living. It is a moral issue, testing our character and our sense of responsibility to those least able to cope with climate change, as well as to future generations.
5. We must recognize not only the existence and threat of climate change, but the enormous opportunities that we can capture by addressing it. The transformation to a clean economy can open paths of possibility to all Americans, including those the old economy left behind. As the world’s leading innovator, we should become the world’s leading source of the technologies and products that will help all people in all nations — including our own — achieve dignity, security and high quality of life, while dramatically reducing effects on climate.
6. In addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we must protect the Earth’s natural ecological systems, particularly forests, which are the lungs of the planet and play a critical role in sequestering greenhouse gases. We have a global obligation to protect the world’s tropical forests and to restore those that have been degraded.
7. We must not wait for other nations to go first. Developed and developing nations both must hold greenhouse gas emissions in check. But the United States will have little influence on other nations until we lead by example with a credible, comprehensive domestic program. Our first step in constructive engagement with the international community must be concrete action at home.
8. We must break the grip of special interests that are working to perpetuate the technologies, resources and practices that served us well in the past, but that now threaten our future. Special interests cannot be allowed to prevail over the public good. We must vastly increase support for research, development and deployment of clean energy technologies, and encourage the coal, oil and gas industries to invest in these technologies for their future, as well as the nation’s.
9. We must restore federal funding for Earth sciences and expand our research into the regional, local, social and economic impacts of climate change. The national Climate Change Science Program must produce the knowledge and deliver the information the American people need to mitigate, anticipate and adapt to the adverse impacts of global war ming. We must engage the talents of our best scientists and engineers and restore respect for science in the federal
10. We must redefine "clean" and think long-term. Each product and energy resource must be evaluated for climate impact over its entire life cycle. A fuel that emits little carbon when it generates energy, but that produces significant greenhouse gas emissions when it is mined, refined and transported, is not truly clean. A biofuel that reduces oil imports but destroys our soils is not
11. Finally, we
    must recognize that global climate change is the leadership issue of our time. Given the long lag time involved in reducing atmospheric concentrations of carbon, we cannot procrastinate any longer. This is indeed the defining moment for each of us as voters and consumers, for our generation, for our leaders, and for our world. We must not fail.

These are the standards our leaders must embrace and hold on to if we are to close the gap between politics and science with a truly principled response to the climate and energy crises.

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

—–

With the recent release of a detailed comparison between different geoengineering strategies and the launch of a German-Indian joint experiment in ocean-iron-fertilization, the debate over whether geoengineering will have any place in our efforts to combat global warming is one again churning. I’ve been writing about the geoengineering dilemma since 2005, and Grist’s David Roberts — no big fan of geoengineering — asked me to give my take on where the issue stands today. My top-line summary?

Geoengineering is risky, likely to provoke international tension, certain to have unanticipated consequences, and pretty much inevitable.

Just to be clear, here’s what I want to see happen over the next decade: An aggressive effort to reduce carbon emissions through the adoption of radical levels of energy efficiency, a revolution in how we design our cities and communities, a move away from auto-centered culture, greater localism in agriculture, expanded use of renewable energy systems, and myriad other measures, large and small, that reduce our footprints and improve how we live.

This plan, or something very much like it, is required for us to have the best chance of avoiding disastrous climate disruption. Could we make it happen within the next decade? Definitely. Are we likely to do so? I really want to say yes … but I can’t.

And that’s a real problem, because we’re not exactly overburdened with global warming response plans that have a solid chance of actually doing something about it in time. We all know that half-measures and denial masquerading as caution certainly won’t be enough to avoid disastrous warming; unfortunately, neither will the kinds of ideas still coming out of the world’s capitals. Although clearly better than nothing, they simply won’t get carbon emissions down far enough fast enough to avoid a catastrophic climate shift.

Here’s why: No matter what we do, even if we were to suddenly cut off all anthropogenic sources of carbon right this very second, we are committed to at least another two to three decades of warming, simply due to thermal inertia. Add to that the feedback effects from environmental changes that have already happened: ice cap losses increasing polar ocean temperatures, accelerating overall warming; melting permafrost in Siberia releasing methane, which can be up to 72 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide; overloaded carbon sinks in oceans and soil losing their ability to absorb CO2. These factors combine in a way that could make even our best efforts too slow to avoid disaster.

So what would we do?

Now I know some of you are saying “stop right there — you’re giving up before we’ve even really tried.” I understand the sentiment, but I strongly disagree. In a complex environment, with myriad uncertainties (not about the science, but about how quickly and how thoroughly we can respond), thinking through the alternatives in case we aren’t successful is absolutely critical. Arguments that we shouldn’t even think about whether or not geoengineering will be necessary remind me of Condoleezza Rice’s argument for why there were no backup plans for Iraq: “It’s bad policy to speculate on what you’ll do if a plan fails when you’re trying to make a plan work.” I take the opposite view — the only ethical choice is to have alternative plans ready, because no plan ever works the way you intend.

No matter what, we would have to continue with emission reductions, even if we don’t work fast enough to escape serious problems. Carbon dioxide sticks around in the atmosphere for centuries; the more we add, even slowly, the longer the crisis will last. But we’d also have to decide on a more immediate strategy.

The conventional response would be to focus on mitigation, building the kinds of projects needed to lessen the very worst impacts of global warming. Even in the best scenario, we’d still see disastrous events, and many deaths; in time, however, we’d learn how to deal with the new climate. Hopefully, we’d be able to do so before too many people died from heat waves, drought, opportunistic diseases, storms, resource wars, forced migration, and the like. But make no mistake: the mitigation scenario would still be catastrophic for many around the world.

That’s why the geoengineering option appeals to many: systems that cool the planet a bit over the short run could suppress many of the more disastrous effects of warming temperatures, even as we continue with emissions reductions. Geoengineering projects are generally within our current technological and financial capabilities, and most emulate well-known natural processes. The goal would be to give us time to make the social, political, economic and technological changes needed to stop building up greenhouse gases.

Varieties of geoengineering

There are two chief forms of geoengineering under consideration: albedo management, which reduces heat in the short term by blocking or reflecting a small portion of the sunlight hitting the Earth; and carbon management, which uses a variety of techniques to gradually sequester large amounts of atmospheric carbon. Albedo management techniques include cloud brightening, stratospheric particle injection (mimicking the effects of large volcanic eruptions), and the infamous orbiting space mirrors. Carbon management techniques include biochar burial, trees and other plants engineered to absorb more CO2, and “air capture,” which uses a chemical process to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

Of the two, albedo management would be most likely to be used to give the short-term “stay of execution” to allow carbon emission reductions to take hold. Enhanced carbon sequestration, while ultimately more effective, would be too slow to make a difference in a time scale measured in months and years rather than decades and centuries.

A variety of albedo management techniques have been suggested. Some, such as putting reflective sheets in the desert to launching thousands of square kilometers of mirror fabric into orbit, don’t pass the plausibility test, either due to cost or clear draw-backs. The two approaches that seem most likely to be considered are stratospheric injection of sulfates and cloud-brightening via seawater pumps.

The sulfate injection plan is explicitly modeled on the effects of massive volcanic eruptions, such as Mount Pinatubo; global temperatures dropped by half-a-degree celsius in the months after the 1991 eruption. The favorable aspects of this plan are reasonably solid: the cooling effect would start within weeks of the injection process; the technology is readily available;
and because of the historical record around volcanic eruptions, we actually have a decent idea of what kinds of impacts this kind of geoengineering would have. The less-favorable aspects are also fairly clear: likely damage to the ozone layer (as happened after Mt. Pinatubo); the potential for health and ecological damage should the sulfate injections fail to reach the stratosphere; and a temperature “spike” if sulfate injections are stopped abruptly.

Cloud-brightening has a similar temperature impact, but is less eco-mimetic. It appears to have fewer potential drawbacks and would be used over a smaller area than sulfate injection (which is necessarily global). Its likely problems include bigger uncertainties about the technologies required, questions about the potential for as-yet unknown consequences, and the same temperature bounce-back as sulfate injection if the process is halted suddenly.

Albedo management of any kind also faces the probability of altering rainfall patterns, with the potential for inducing droughts and triggering storms in places that wouldn’t necessarily have been hit in a no-geoengineering scenario. And, of course, moderating temperatures does nothing to stop ongoing ocean acidification.

Sociopolitical issues

Any kind of geoengineering would also face a variety of non-technical issues that at best add complexity to their use. Most prominent are the political concerns. With geoengineering being global in impact, who determines whether or not it’s used, which technologies to deploy, and what the target temperatures will be? Who decides which unexpected side-effects are bad enough to warrant ending the process? Given that the expense required for sulfate injection (and likely cloud-brightening) would be low enough for a single country to undertake, what happens when a desperate “rogue nation” attempts geoengineering against the wishes of other states?  And with the benefits and possible harm from geoengineering attempts being unevenly distributed around the planet, would it be possible to use this technology for strategic or military purposes? That last one may sound a bit paranoid, but it’s clear that any technology with the potential for strategic use will be at the very least considered by any rational international actor.

There are also more mundane questions of liability. If (for example) South Asia experiences an unusual drought during cyclone season after geoengineering begins, who gets blamed? Who gets sued? Would all “odd” weather patterns be ascribed to the geoengineering effort? If so, would the issue of what would have happened absent geoengineering be considered relevant?

The broad push-back against geoengineering from many environmentalists tends to focus upon other issues, however. Some people argue that geoengineering is at best a distraction from making the necessary cuts to carbon emissions, and at worst a temptation to delay or abandon those cuts entirely. Others argue that geoengineering is simply dangerous, as the Earth’s geophysical systems are far too complex to “engineer,” and any attempt to manipulate the climate in this way is bound to have enormous unanticipated consequences.

Both are possible. I’m less concerned about the first, as geoengineering would most likely be a controversial reaction to a desperate need to avoid catastrophe, and the inevitable loud debate over the value of geoengineering would drive home the point that carbon emissions have to continue. The question of complexity and unintended results can’t be so easily set aside, however. Frankly, I would go so far as to say that problems of complexity and dangerous surprises are close to certain in any geoengineering scenario.

The bottom line

But none of those concerns matter.

If we start to see faster-than-expected increases in temperature, deadly heat waves and storms, crop failures and drought, the pressure to do something will be enormous. Desperation is a powerful driver. Desperation plus a (relatively) low-cost response, coupled with quick (if not necessarily dependable) benefits, can become an unstoppable force.

If we don’t want to see geoengineering deployed, we have to get our carbon emissions down as rapidly and as widely as possible. If we don’t — if our best efforts aren’t enough against decades of carbon growth and temperature inertia — we will see efforts to do something, anything, to avoid global catastrophe.

The choice remains ours … but time is quickly running out.

—–

Who is right when a national environmental group holds a video competition and the public and the “experts” disagree on who should win?

At the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, the jury of film experts chose Forty Shades of Blue as the best dramatic film. The Audience Award went to Hustle & Flow. I don’t know which was a better film, but I do know Hustle & Flow went on to earn $20 million in wide release in the U.S., while Forty Shades of Blue topped out at $75,000. I’m sure it doesn’t always happen that way, but it goes to show that the experts don’t always know what will succeed in the marketplace of ideas.

We at Environmental Defense Fund just finished something a bit like a film festival — a competition that challenged participants to make a 30-second ad that explains how capping greenhouse gas pollution will help cure our national addition to oil. This week we announced two winners, one selected by our staff and another chosen by thousands of voters online. Like at Sundance, the voters and the judges chose different winners … in fact, the video chosen by us “experts” came in dead last in the online voting.

I thought it might be interesting to explain our decision and see what others think.

To begin with, I’ll admit we have no idea if we’re right. We got about 100 entries to the contest, many of them very high-quality. We chose five finalists for the online competition and any one of them was worthy of winning. Our criteria had less to do with expert filmmaking than picking the video that most vividly and memorably explained a somewhat complex message. (The competition, as you might guess, was conceived when gas was $4 a gallon. But don’t kid yourself, worldwide demand will return with the economic recovery and $4 will seem like a bargain before too long.)

We’ve been trying to create clear messages on this topic for a while, with varying degrees of success. But we have learned some things along the way. The most important lesson, perhaps, is this one: Despite the millions of Americans who care passionately about global warming, making real progress hinges on winning over the folks who don’t have the time to focus on the details. That means our job is to first get their attention and second to transmit a simple and compelling message.

This task is even more difficult because the only policy solution that guarantees the emissions cuts we need, a strong cap on greenhouse gases, is a regulatory process — and the public has little time to focus on that level of detail. People may care deeply about the outcomes -,- clean energy, new jobs, less pollution, less oil dependence — but it’s hard to get them to give a lot of thought to how we should achieve those ends. Try explaining that the big money and innovation for clean energy will come from spurring the private sector through a cap, and even some Congressional staff start thinking about their fantasy football lineup.

Back to the winners. Our online voters chose Thinking Cap, a great spot that clearly explains how a cap will spark innovation.

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It uses simple graphics to show that the cap will spur investment in clean energy and result in less money flowing overseas for oil. And it’s got the memorable image of a “thinking cap”. Even before the results of the vote were in, A Siegel said “we have a winner” with “Thinking Cap,” impressed by its clear coverage of the full range of issues involved.

So why didn’t we pick it as our winner? Well, we chose it as a finalist because we agree it’s very well done. But there’s a difference between being clear to climate activists who are concentrating on videos they’ve chosen to watch on their computer and a spot that’s effective with Americans far less familiar with the topic. For them, it will be one of many commercials flying by on TV, only a handful of which will really capture their attention. In other words, we think “Thinking Cap” might work best for those who are already paying attention and care about this issue.

The video we chose, “Cursing Cap,” had two qualities that really stood out to us.

First, it immediately captures the attention of even the most casual viewer because it begins with a close-up of a man cursing (bleeped out, of course). Second, it employs an ingenious analogy to explain the carbon cap: the character in the ad says he made himself pay a dollar every time he cursed, in an effort to cut down. And that caused him to think up new, cleaner ways to express his frustrations — like “Walrus breath!” We think an analogy like that is a vivid and memorable way to explain a cap and might even get it stuck the minds of those we need to reach. None of that, of course, means we’re right and the online voters are wrong. “Thinking Cap,” or one of the other three excellent finalists, might be the most effective ad.

In fact, we are planning to use a mix of these spots on television to help convince the public (and their representatives in D.C.) that we need a new direction in our energy and environmental policies. Because, as President Obama said in reiterating his support for a cap, “Delay is no longer an option.”

Are you surprised by our choice? Since we’re now making decision about what ads to put on the air, I’d be interested to hear reaction to all the videos.

—–

Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), chair of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, along with Rep. Todd Platts (R-Pa.), has introduced legislation calling for 25 percent of U.S. electricity to come from clean energy by 2025. What will such legislation do to electricity costs?

Most pundits assume the current system is optimal, and thus claim that any mandate to change this “best of all possible worlds” will raise the price of delivered electricity. It is hilarious to think the protected and regulated electric system is optimal, but depressing to realize no one is laughing. Consider two questions:

1. Do market forces drive electricity suppliers to lowest-delivered-cost solutions?
2. What is the delivered cost of clean energy from various generation options?

What market forces? All electricity distribution systems and many generation plants enjoy monopoly protection. Subsidies abound. Profits are guaranteed. Old plants can legally emit up to 100 times the pollution of a new plant. A century of rules reward and protect yesterday’s approaches and the resulting vested interests.

Congressman Markey has never seen current generation as optimal, and now that he chairs the relevant subcommittee, he proposes to mandate cleaner and, in our view, cheaper electricity generation. Yes, we said cheaper. Anyone interested in some facts?

The chart below depicts a comprehensive analysis of the delivered cost of a megawatt-hour from old coal plants and from 12 cleaner options. The bottom bar depicts societal delivered cost from an old coal plant that has been retrofitted with pollution controls to meet 2015 EPA standards. This coal generation, the dominant form of U.S. generation, emits 1.05 to 1.25 tons of CO2 per delivered MWh. The other bars depict the cost of delivered power from 12 generation options with reduced or no CO2 emissions. The costs include capital amortization for generation, transmission and distribution and backup generation, plus fuel and operating costs and line losses, all spread over each technology’s likely operating hours per year. The costs also exclude all subsidies and thus depict full societal costs for each generation option.

Source: Internal analysis of Recycled Energy Development LLC.

The three lowest cost sources of clean energy cost less or the same as power from the dominant old coal plant generation, but these carbon-free and low-carbon options supply only 7.5 percent of U.S. generation. Instead, 56 percent of U.S. power comes from more expensive and dirtier old coal.

Every passing month sees more power industry requests to regulators and states to approve investment (i.e., guarantee returns) in integrated coal gasification plants, nuclear plants, and experimental coal plants that will attempt to sequester some of the CO2 emissions. These central generation options the power industry favors will cost the public between $127 and $212 per delivered MWh, which is three to five times the cost of power from the cheapest clean option — recycled waste energy. Sadly, some state governments are drinking this power industry Kool-Aid. Illinois just passed a law requiring distribution utilities to pay $210 per MWh (21 cents/kWh), plus delivery, for power from a new coal plant that hopes to sequester half of its CO2.

Many environmentalists lobby for a pure renewable energy portfolio standard, excluding the cheaper clean options. This mandate would effectively induce wind power, given the high cost of solar. New wind generation can deliver power at a lower cost than nuclear or coal with sequestration. What is surprising is that new wind is less expensive than delivered power from natural gas combined cycle plants. Yet the power industry has deployed 120,000 MW of new natural gas generation capacity since 1995. Capital costs for new gas turbine plants are less than half the cost of new wind capacity, but natural gas is so expensive that the plants operate less than 25 percent of the time. The capital recovery is spread over relatively few MWh. Our analysis assumed 30 percent per year load factor and still found natural gas more expensive than any technology but solar.

So much for the myth that “market forces” work in the electricity space.

Could government unleash market forces in the electricity space? Sure, but look at the changes required and then count votes:

1. End all subsidies of petroleum, coal, nuclear, wind, biomass, and solar energy
2. Repeal all electric distribution monopoly protection and allow anyone to install private wires
3. Repeal all generation monopoly protection
4. Privatize all federal power agencies, rural electric cooperatives, and rural utility service, exposing these customers to the cost of private capital
5. Remove all rate making assurances of return on utility investment in generation, transmission, and distribution
6. Remove all grandfathered permit status from all existing electricity and thermal generation plants and replace with output-based allowances that decline over time, forcing all generators to bear the cost of pollution
7. Add carbon dioxide to the list of regulated pollutants and apply the same rules as above, thus sending price signals on the cost of pollution

What is the probability of the above changes to laws and regulations? Precisely zero!

Reps. Markey and Platts propose the next best thing, forcing the deeply protected power industry to move towards cleaner (and overall cheaper) generation options.

—–

I have relearned a basic lesson re interviews — which will have to be fewer and more guarded. I recall giving only one interview to U.K. media this year, but perhaps it was two. One resulting story was that I said the climate problem must be solved in four years — of course, what I meant to say was that we needed to start moving in a fundamentally different direction during President Obama’s first term. CO2 in the air will continue to increase in those four years — we are not going to take the vehicles off the roads or shut down commerce.

I must have said something dumber in response to a question about air travel. Special apologies to people working in opposition to expansion of Heathrow Airport — I had no intention of damaging their case. All I intended to say was that aviation fuel is not a killer for the climate problem — at worst case we can use carbon-neutral biofuels (not current biofuels — there are ways to do biofuels right, for the fuel volume needed for global air traffic — ground transport will need a different energy source). When asked about the proposed added runway at Heathrow, I apparently said, in effect, that coal is the (climate) problem, not an added runway — in any case, what was reported angered a huge number of people, as indicated by my full e-mail inbox. I should have deferred questions on Heathrow to local experts — I am sure there are many good environmental reasons to oppose airport expansion. I am very sorry that I was not more guarded. You can be sure that in the future I will be more careful to avoid making comments that can be used against good causes. Telling President Obama About Coal River Mountain and the Heathrow Airport runway reminds me how important it is to keep our eye on the ball.

Coal River Mountain is the site of an absurdity. I learned about Coal River Mountain from students at Virginia Tech last fall. They were concerned about Coal River Mountain, but at that time most of them were working to support Barack Obama. They assumed Barack Obama would not allow such outrages to continue.

The issue at Coal River Mountain is whether the top of the mountain will be blown up, so that coal can be dredged out of it, or whether the mountain will be allowed to stand. It has been shown that more energy can be obtained from a proposed wind farm, if Coal River Mountain continues to stand. More jobs would be created. More tax revenue would flow, locally and to the state, and the revenue flow would continue indefinitely. Clean water and the environment would be preserved. But if planned mountaintop removal proceeds, the mountain loses its potential to be a useful wind source.

There are two major requirements for solving the global warming problem:

(1) A rapid phase-out of coal emissions, and (2) a substantial, rising price on carbon emissions. Election night euphoria is subsiding. Now we are in a tricky situation. The President faces enormous tasks, so he must be given time. But directions, once set, are hard to change. Clarity about what is needed is important. Young people (who deserve a large share of credit for helping Obama get the nomination and win the election) had better ask what is happening. The answer, or so it seems: not much. If that impression is right, there had better be a hue and cry soon, or the opportunity for fundamental change may be missed.

Action 1: The important thing needed quickly is a moratorium on new coal. Coal River Mountain is just one example of the idiocy that is proceeding. I am swamped by requests to write letters. Can you believe that Nevada, with all its sunshine, wind and geothermal energy, is going ahead with plans for new coal-fired power plants? So is South Dakota, South Carolina, etc. I could harp about the greenwashed (or worse) politicians, but what is the point of that? Now, given the election that has occurred, it should be possible to solve the problem. Solution is possible, but will it happen? The national government has all the power that it needs to, in effect, declare a moratorium on any new coal plants that do not capture and store the CO2.

Action 2: The other essential action is a rising carbon price. Is Obama going to explain the need for a substantial and rising carbon tax on coal, oil and gas in his first fireside chat? Or will the matter be brushed aside, with a pretense that the world can be moved in a fundamentally different direction by tweaking Kyoto-style approaches? In order to move to the world beyond fossil fuels, there must be a strong economic incentive to do so, and the business community must realize that we mean business. The tax does not have to start out large, though it should be substantial. It has to be a tax that covers all fossil fuels. It should not be a cap-and-trade that allows some carbon to escape and makes Wall Street millionaires on the backs of the public.

Reasons for concern:

1. The big action so far is the indication that the government will demand fuel efficient cars. That is an important action. It will not prevent the world’s major oil pools from being used, but efficiency helps buy time, so we can move toward carbon-free vehicle propulsion. Absent improved efficiency, there would be pressure to squeeze oil out of coal, tar shale, etc. — disasters that must be nipped in the bud. However, note that the vehicle efficiency action will only truly succeed if Action 2 (carbon tax) occurs. Demand for highly fuel efficient vehicles will be limited (not large enough to drive a thriving economy) unless fuel price makes them essential. People will need money in hand to buy them — one of the reasons for 100 percent dividend (another: the public will not accept a large enough tax if Washington and lobbyists are going to decide where the money goes).

2. Jesse Ausubel makes a case that government policies don’t matter much — the energy-fossil fuel situation determines things. Let’s look at data for fossil fuel emissions and the economy:

Data sources: (top) Marland, G., T.A. Boden, and R.J. Andres. 2008. Global, Regional, and National Fossil Fuel CO2 Emissions. In Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A. (bottom) U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis, National Economic Accounts.

The numbers on these graphs are misleading. Emissions and economic growth in the first year of a President’s term probably should be credited to (blamed on) the prior president. In that case the numbers become:

The CO2 emissions support Ausubel’s thesis, but the period covered was all business-as-usual. There is such a thing as free will. With coal phase-out and a rising price on carbon emissions, the curve can be changed fundamentally, and move downward fast. But it will not happen as a consequence of “goals” and weak cap-and-trade measures — and a temporary downturn of emissions due to economic slowdown should not be misinterpreted as fundamental change.

Conclusion

We are only weeks into the Obama administration. But people are getting restive. I have been asked to speak at or support several different actions, in different parts of the country, by young peo
ple and not so young. I don’t know what to say. I feel that more time must be given. But these people are right — the directions that are taken now are important. Someone needs to tell President Obama: Coal River Mountain is a symbol of the promise and the hope and the possibilities for a brighter future. As he begins to address the nation’s energy, climate and economic challenges, he needs to remember these people, among his core original supporters. They are counting on him to change direction — a real change.

—–

Southern Africa, 2030. A throng of emaciated people waits for food rations to arrive. The maize crop has failed, devastated by hot weather and drought. Yet again. A "food crisis?" Yes. That’s what we’ll call it in 22 years.

But not today. If we want to do something about future food crises, we should name them today, and name them properly. Problems unnamed or improperly named are problems left unsolved.

In many cases, what we call food crises are more precisely thought of as crop-diversity crises. That’s what history’s most famous "food crisis" — the Irish potato famine — really was.

A paper recently published Science — abstract here — by a group of scholars with whom the Crop Diversity Trust collaborates, predicts a drop in maize (corn) yields of 30 percent in southern Africa by 2030 as a result of climate change, unless new climate-ready varieties of maize are developed. A huge drop in production of the region’s most important food crop will bring instant famine.

Breeding a new variety of maize — one sufficiently drought and heat tolerant to cope with predicted new climates — can take 10 years. This means we’re only two complete crop breeding cycles away from the disaster foreseen in the Science article.

From the crop’s perspective, therefore, the time to act is now. The financial crisis is an acknowledged crisis, because it is in today’s headlines and because we are paying the price now.

But no policy maker, no TV newscaster, no philanthropist can name the crop-diversity crisis, and the failure to name a coming disaster is a real and huge obstacle to mobilizing the will and the resources to solve it.

Crop-diversity crises lead to food crises. Thus it makes sense to look at the situation from the crop’s perspective, because if crops don’t adapt, neither do we. However, plant breeding can only be as successful as the resources upon which it draws — the genetic diversity of our crops.

These are the colors on the palette of the plant breeder, the genes that code for drought tolerance, pest resistance, higher protein content, and everything else. Typically, the most threatened diversity is located in seed banks in developing countries.

The seed samples they are “conserving” are often of varieties no longer grown in any farmer’s field. The last remnants of a completely unique wheat or maize or tomato are in seed that can be held in the palm of your hands.

The Global Crop Diversity Trust is partnering with those facilities to rescue the endangered varieties and deposit duplicate seeds of each variety in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. In the next few years this effort will rescue 100,000 varieties from the brink of extinction.

It is quite possibly the biggest effort to rescue endangered biodiversity in history.

Not a bad beginning if you want to get agriculture ready for what’s coming. The next step is to put in place the funding needed to conserve this diversity, crop by crop.

Conserving the entire gene pool of maize forever would require an endowment of about $35 million. That’s roughly the same amount the National Science Foundation dispensed to sequence the maize genome, an investment made, surely, on the assumption that the full gene pool would be available. So why has the conservation of crop diversity not received the attention and support it’s due? First and most fundamentally, we are hardwired to deal with immediate threats, not ones that lie even a few years or decades out.

Moreover new crises appear to displace old but still-unresolved crises. The food crisis has been — quite predictably — pushed off the front page by the financial crisis. All successful politicians know the advantage of defining the issues, seizing symbols, and engaging the opposition on your terms.

But, as observed above, our crop diversity crisis remains effectively nameless. We who work with crop diversity bear some responsibility. For too long, many of us ailed to articulate an inspiring vision, a “solution” linked to a timetable.

In 1961, John Kennedy went before the U.S. Congress and famously stated:

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.

Kennedy understood the necessity of articulating a vision linked with a timetable. In the same speech, just moments earlier, he told the nation:

I believe we possess all the resources and talents necessary. But the facts of the matter are that we have never made the national decisions or marshaled the national resources required for such leadership. We have never specified long-range goals on an urgent time schedule, or managed our resources and our time so as to insure their fulfillment.

Kennedy could have been talking about conserving crop diversity.

Eight years Kennedy’s famous speech, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. We are now ready for an equally critical launch. There is an internationally agreed plan and legal framework for conserving crop diversity.

Willing partners stand ready. Political will and vision at high levels will be needed to complete the task; a modern day Kennedy might consider it a worthy assignment.

In the next eight years we can secure all crop diversity, forever. We can get agriculture ready for climate change. For drought. For the next disease. For more mouths to feed. We can do this and more, but only if we are willing to shoot for the moon. Now.