Energy Secretary Steven Chu made the case that China’s heavy investment in cleantech is like the early days of the space race.Photo: NASA

A change of race: At a speech in Washington yesterday, Chu made the case that China’s heavy investment in cleantech R&D is like the early days of the space race when the Soviet Union threw down the gauntlet by launching Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the Earth. Chu argued that if the U.S. wants to stay in the game, it needs to keep pumping money into high-tech research.

Chu also tossed out some telling statistics, such as: Of the $3.6 trillion 2010 federal budget, only 0.14 percent went for energy R&D. And that in 1998, the American share of worldwide high-tech exports was nearly 25 percent and China’s was less than 10 percent; by 2008, China’s share was 20 percent and the American share was less than 15 percent. [The New York Times]

We have met the enemy and he’s not us: For her part, EPA director Lisa Jackson laid down a round of suppressing fire at Republican critics during her own speech yesterday in Aspen. She emphasized that few pieces of legislation compare to the Clean Air Act when it comes to cost versus benefit. The health benefits, she said, far outweigh the costs of compliance by more than a 15 to 1 ratio. [The Hill] And in an interview with Newsweek, Jackson also responded to suggestions that she was losing the battle to EPA critics:

You need to separate what happens inside the Beltway echo chamber here with what happens in the countryside. People expect their government to take care of them and their families. Not special interests, not highly paid lobbyists. This agency plays an important role that way. I understand that people need a villain, but this agency is not the villain. My belief has always been that you can have a clean and healthy environment and a thriving economy at the same time.

And in other green news: 

When zombies think: For a taste of what Jackson will be facing, check out the report in Climate Progress on a recent briefing for conservative bloggers by Tim Phillips, head of Americans for Prosperity. That’s one of groups that provides Washington muscle to the Tea Party movement. Phillips said it’s critical to make the EPA “a political albatross for members of Congress.” He also bragged, “If we win the science argument, it’s game, set, and match.”

Old Blood and Nuts: Then there’s Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), who’s pulling out the big guns in his last ditch attempt to be named chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. He’s sent a slideshow to all of the Republican House members in which he presents new Speaker of the House John Boehner (Ohio) as the Republican’s Dwight Eisenhower in the war against the Obama White House. And he offers himself as none other than the party’s George Patton, promising “put anything in my sight and I will shoot it.” Now that’s brilliant energy policy. [Washington Post]

Is there anything corn can’t do?: These are strange times in Washington, so strange that green groups and Tea Partiers have joined forces to lobby against extending the $6 billion a year ethanol subsidy. [The Hill]

Do your business: It’s way beyond time to move beyond the tired “economy vs. environment” debate, argues writer Jason Scorse, who says businesses now need to step up both with technological innovation and support for environmental regulation. Writing for GreenBiz, Scorse lays out the challenge:

The companies that develop the world’s first low-cost solar panels, low-cost wind turbines, low-cost electric cars, low-cost water purification plants, and most energy-efficient infrastructure will enjoy almost unlimited market potential. America could become that leader, but we are already falling behind. The profit motive is sufficient to keep Silicon Valley and many creative leaders pouring billions into new green-tech projects, but this must be complemented by sound environmental policy at the state and national levels. Ideally, this policy would place a consistent and increasing cost on polluting behavior. It would also channel government resources (which could be supported by the fees on pollution) into basic R&D in a variety of technologies, in order to remain unbiased against nascent technologies.

Grant slam: The Center for Public Integrity reveals that in its rush to spread stimulus around, the Obama administration has passed out grant money to big polluters such as BP and DuPont with little, if any, environmental oversight or review.  

I’ll have the stir fly: Next spring, Lufthansa will start using vegetable-oil based fuel along with traditional jet fuel on commercial flights between Frankfurt and Hamburg. [AFP]

See what you mythed: An electric car will drive up their utility bills. And all those plugged-in cars will overload the power grid. Myth and myth. See eight wrong notions about electric vehicles. [Mother Jones]

Plastic purgery: New research suggests that the Chinese don’t like paying for plastic bags either. Use of the bags was cut in half once people were charged for them. This, by one estimate, has kept close to 100 billion bags from turning into trash. [GOOD]

Floods, like those in Pakistan this year, and other effects of a 7 degree temperature rise could cause up to a billion people to relocate.Photo: nb77

Cast the worst stone: The research by British scientists concludes that if the Earth’s temperature rises by 7 degrees Fahrenheit the rest of this century — and some researchers think that could happen as soon as 2060 — up to a billion people would have to be relocated. And another 3 billion could end up without access to water supplies. The new reports also carry the grim message that unless countries drastically reduce their greenhouse gas emissions within the next few decades, the planet’s likely to reach a point of no return. As climate scientist Peter Stott told The Observer:

… the amount of carbon dioxide that can be absorbed decreases as temperatures rise. We will reach a tipping point from which temperatures will go up even faster. The world will then start to look very different.

Time for a little gas picking: Given the slim chance that major progress will be made in Cancun to cut carbon dioxide emissions, some think it makes more sense, for now at least, to focus on other pollutants that are easier to control, such as methane, hydrofluorocarbons, and soot. Writing in The New York Times, scientists Veerabhadran Ramanathan and David Victor make the point that small victories are needed, even if their benefits are more short-term:

Reducing soot and the other short-lived pollutants would not stop global warming, but it would buy time, perhaps a few decades, for the world to put in place more costly efforts to regulate carbon dioxide. And it would help the major economies demonstrate credibility on climate change, which has been in short supply in the diplomatic talks so far.

And in other green news:

Bottom’s up: The U.S. would be better off dealing with climate change from the bottom up — from the states — rather than banking on anything meaningful coming out of Washington. So argues Bruce Usher, former head of the EcoSecurities Group:

The United States still has a very long way to go to curtail emissions, but the states are heading in the right direction, and national energy policy must build on their efforts. Congress should extend federal financing, tax credits and loan guarantees for renewable energy projects and for upgrading transmission lines. It should also develop clear environmental standards for extracting natural gas from shale. [The New York Times]

Feel like Chinese food?: Yet another representative issues a “China’s going to eat our lunch” warning. First it was outgoing Republican Bob Inglis of South Carolina. Now it’s Democrat Jay Inslee of Washington, who tossed out a China-lunch reference while defending his opposition to drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Here’s Inslee:

China right now is preparing to roll out electric cars, lithium ion batteries, solar cells, cellulosic ethanol. This is where the future of energy is. We’ve a finite resource in oil, just like we had a finite resource in whale oil, and we made a transition. And we have to really focus our national energies in a bipartisan way, I would hope, on finding our way to compete with China to really build new energy sources of the future. [The Hill]

Slick and tired: The Justice Department has to go to court to force Transocean, owner of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded in the Gulf, to turn over safety reports that the drilling company is sitting on. [Houston Chronicle] 

Black comedy: Oh, and BP is making a feature-length film about its exploits in dealing with the massive oil spill it helped cause. Sadly, you won’t be able to see it at a theater near you; it’s primarily for an “internal audience” and is being described as “an archive of a momentous event in the company’s history.” [The New York Times]

They need their space: Wind farms of the future are only going to get bigger and bigger. But scientists say that if they’re going to be truly efficient, the turbines need to be farther apart. [Wind Daily]

The wild green yonder: NASA put up $6 million to push development of greener commercial airplanes. The goal is to have future aircraft burn 50 percent less fuel. [Los Angeles Times]

The farmer in the hell: A Minnesota farmer worries that the extreme weather brought by climate change may end up destroying farming in America’s Midwest. Farmer Jack Hedin writes: 

Climate change, I believe, may eventually pose an existential threat to my way of life. A family farm like ours may simply not be able to adjust quickly enough to such unendingly volatile weather. We can’t charge enough for our crops in good years to cover losses in the ever-more-frequent bad ones. We can’t continue to move to better, drier ground. No new field drainage scheme will help us as atmospheric carbon concentrations edge up to 400 parts per million; hardware and technology alone can’t solve problems of this magnitude. [The New York Times]

Be a good sun: Israel has taken a big step toward fulfilling its commitment to solar energy. It’s the first country in the Middle East where an electric company has agreed to buy renewable energy. [AOL]

You’re looking a little green: Does the employee handling chemicals that go into the batteries powering hybrid cars qualify as a green worker? Is a secretary at a recycling plant greener than a secretary at a coal plant? A new study tries to define what being a green worker means. [Discovery News]

The Obama administration plans to fast track the development of offshore wind farms along the East Coast.Photo: Andjohan

Not up to speed: Taking a cue from the success of fast-tracking solar energy projects in the Southwest, the feds will first identify the best locations for potential wind farms outside of shipping lanes, then accelerate the permit process so that it takes as little as 18 months. Salazar admitted that painful lessons have been learned from the Cape Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts. So far it’s taken eight years and construction hasn’t even started — not exactly a model that entices clean energy investors. [Bloomberg]

Not surprisingly, the announcement was a big hit among enviros. Typical was this response from the Sierra Club’s Bruce Nilles:

It’s encouraging to see the Interior Department taking serious steps to further accelerate the rapid development of America’s abundant clean energy resources. The Atlantic Coast holds tremendous potential for the kind of large-scale clean energy projects that will create jobs, breathe new life into our economy and help make us a leader in the global clean energy marketplace.

And in other green news:

Coal turkey: It’s relatively cheap now, but a new study in the journal Nature predicts that the days of low-cost coal are numbered. Supplies will be harder to mine, plus growing demand from China will likely drive up prices. [Discovery News]

Safety last: Even before the explosion that killed 29 coal miners last spring, Massey Energy Company had the worst safety record in the country. The Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University dug up the dirty details.

Omission accomplished: The staff of the presidential commission investigating the Gulf oil disaster prepared a slide laying out almost a dozen risky decisions made by BP and its partners before the Deepwater Horizon well blew up. But when the commission made its presentation earlier this month, the damning slide was nowhere to be seen. [Greenwire] Here’s the missing slide. [PDF]

Corn in the USA: Another battle is brewing among Republicans in Congress, this one over the huge subsidies for corn-based ethanol due to expire at the end of the year. Right-wing Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.) and Tom Coburn (Okla.) say that in the Tea Party spirit, the subsidies should go away. But Mr. Ethanol himself, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), is now asking if they also will get rid of oil and gas subsidies. Greg Sargent has more in The Plum Line.

Fred reckoning: As he tries to win the backroom battle among Republicans to become chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) is working overtime to show he’s a hard ass. Now he’s sent a letter to Energy Chief Steven Chu asking for a breakdown of jobs created by specific projects funded by the administration’s stimulus package. Here’s his snippy letter. [PDF]

Sleazy does it: Greenpeace is claiming that palm oil and timber companies are trying to take advantage of a $1 billion deal between Norway and Indonesia to cut carbon emissions. They’re reportedly trying to have forests classified as “degraded” land so that they can be replaced with palm tree plantations and biofuel crops. [Guardian]

So much for a cold dip: Lakes around the world are getting warmer, according to a new study by NASA. Warming up most quickly are lakes in northern Europe. [AFP]

Bear necessities: As climate change drives polar bears and grizzlies on to the same turf, the advantage would go to the grizzlies. A study by researchers at UCLA concluded that polar bears aren’t well suited for adapting to more of a vegetarian diet. [Reuters]

Avoid the motha ball soup: When you become an eating machine tomorrow make sure you heed a new warning from the EPA: Don’t eat the moth balls. This may seem like the a classic example of the federal “nannyism” Rush Limbaugh loves to rant about, but it turns out that the Fuji Lavender Moth Ball Tablets from China come in packaging that screams “Eat me.” See for yourself.

Even if countries cut emissions as they pledged, it won’t be enough to thwart the effects of climate change.

Mind the gap: That’s the sobering news in a U.N. report released today, leading up to the start of the climate change conference in Cancun next week. It looks like there’s an “emissions gap” of 5 gigatons of carbon dioxide between the pledged cuts and what’s thought to be needed to avoid the more damaging consequences of global warming. The bottom line is that the commitments, which, of course, are strictly voluntary, get to only 60 percent of the target. [AP]

… the more things stay the same: Here’s another bit of news leading up to Cancun: China has finally conceded that it emits more greenhouse gases than any other country in the world. Not that it will change its attitude that, as a “developing” country, it shouldn’t be held to binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions. No, its negotiators are insisting as loudly as ever that developed countries like the U.S. should be held to tougher standards because they’re more responsible for getting the planet into this mess in the first place. So it goes. [Reuters]

Gas pains: And one last ray of sunshine: Thanks to a recovering global economy, we’re on track this year to set a new record for carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere. [LiveScience]

And in other green news:

The devil made him do it: Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) who last week blasted climate change deniers in his party, now says he’s convinced he lost in the Republican primary this year because of his belief in human-made global warming. [The Hill]

For many conservatives, it became the marker that you had crossed to Satan’s side — that you had left God and gone to Satan’s side on climate change because many evangelical Christians in our district would say that it’s up to God to determine the length of Earth, and therefore, you are invading the province of God.

Breaking the ice: The Arctic meltdown gets most of the attention, but it’s the thawing of the giant ice continent of Antarctica that poses the biggest threat to the planet. Writer Fen Montaigne explains why:

The question now, as humanity pours greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at an accelerating rate, is not whether Antarctica will begin to warm in earnest, but how rapidly. The melting of Antarctica’s northernmost region — the Antarctic Peninsula — is already well underway, representing the first breach in an enormous citadel of cold that holds 90 percent of the world’s ice. [e360]

The right man for the job: A guy who used to make his living trying to discredit studies proving the dangers of secondhand smoke for Phillip Morris is now spending his time challenging corporate executives for responding to global warming. [Mother Jones]

Spare change: Don’t be shocked but neither BP nor federal agencies were prepared to deal with the massive spill in the Gulf last summer. A new report from the president’s commission investigating the spill also said that the technology to deal with large spills hasn’t changed much for many years. As Steve Mufson reported in the Washington Post: 

… federal agencies consistently spent less than they were authorized to spend on improving cleanup technology. In addition, two of the five biggest oil companies — Conoco Phillips and Chevron — spent no money at all in the past 20 years on developing better in-house ways to clean up after a spill. Two companies spent only modest amounts, and BP’s response was unclear on whether it spent money on cleanup technology.

Bye, coastal: California has released a blueprint for how the state would adapt to climate change by limiting development along the coast and relocating coastal roads and bridges. [The New York Times]

A wind win: Cape Wind, the first offshore wind farm in the U.S., which would be built off the coast of Massachusetts, has taken another big step forward. A large utility company has committed to buy energy from it. [Ecopolitology]

The way we whir: So how loud is a wind turbine? At 300 meters, the closest to a home a turbine would be erected, it would be louder than a refrigerator, but not as loud as an air conditioner. Check out the graphic at GE Reports. 

Leaf goes on: According to EPA estimates, the Nissan Leaf will get about 99 miles per gallon. [AP]

Talk about dead zones: A Dutch study suggests that wi-fi may not be so good for trees. [Treehugger]

EPA chief Lisa Jackson is getting tough on businesses dumping on poor communities.

Time for some ash-kicking: To her credit, EPA chief Lisa Jackson has made focusing on what she calls “hot spots of contamination” one of her agency’s priorities. She’s instructed regional offices to get feedback from low-income and minority groups when making decisions and has made it clear that “environmental justice” should be part of the EPA’s mindset.

Of course that has set off wails in the business community that her crusade is stirring up confrontations, something Jackson, in an interview with the Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin, describes as “nonsense.” She adds:  

I really think of this as the biggest chunk of unfinished business when you think about the environmental landscape.

But look for headhunting Republicans to use this as more ammo against Jackson when they ramp up their EPA-run-amok assault next year.

And in other green news:

That’s how we coal: A lot of countries giving lip service to cutting carbon emissions are at the same time ratcheting up exports of coal to China, which can’t burn it fast enough. China now uses half of the 6 billion tons of coal burned on the planet every year. As Elisabeth Rosenthal points out in The New York Times:

As a result, not only are the pollutants that developed countries have tried to reduce finding their way into the atmosphere anyway, but ships chugging halfway around the globe are spewing still more. And the rush to feed this new Asian market has helped double the price of coal over the past five years, leading to a renaissance of mining and exploration in many parts of the world.

A big cup of copy: It turns out that big sections of a report used by congressional global warming deniers to question the research of climate scientists were plagiarized, including parts that seemed to be lifted right from Wikipedia. [USA Today]

Down and dirty: Carbon emissions around the world dropped in 2009. But before you start popping champagne corks, you should know that due to the recession, scientists had expected them to drop much more than they did. [BBC]

California reamin’: The White House has told California Rep. Jerry Lewis — the top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee — that if his party carries out its “Pledge to America” and rejects  stimulus money, his state will lose $2 billion for high-speed rail service between San Francisco and Anaheim and also a $1.4 billion solar energy complex in the Mojave desert. [The Hill]

There’s clean, and then there’s clean: A new regulation in California will force producers of cleaning products — window sprays, over cleaners, furniture sprays — to make them cleaner. They’ll have to reduce smog-causing agents. [Scientific American]

Solar nexus: Seven of the 10 fastest growing producers of solar cells are Chinese companies. [Solar Daily]

Charge of the bike brigade: The Japanese company Kyocera has developed a recharging station for electric bikes that will be driven by solar power. [Solar Daily]

Go with the flow: MIT researchers think they may have come up with a solution to the challenge of storing solar energy — a liquid battery. [Discovery News]

The early warm catches the bird: The other day a small flock of African pelicans showed up in Siberia. Apparently confused by record temperatures in Russia, they flew north instead of south. [Treehugger]

So here’s a fresh theory on how in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence, the number of believers in cataclysmic climate change keeps dropping: People don’t want to hear about the cataclysmic part.

Slowly place fingers in ears: That’s the conclusion coming from researchers at the University of California at Berkeley who say that dire messages about the future of the planet can backfire. They found that people who view the world as a fundamentally fair and stable place often choose to tune out threatening forecasts of the future. But those same people, if presented with positive solutions to global warming, tended to become less skeptical. [HealthCanal.com]

As Andrew Revkin points out in his Dot Earth blog the study “reinforces the case that a large part of the climate challenge is not out in the world of eroding glaciers and limited energy choices, but inside the human mind.”

Round up a posse: Not so coincidentally, another call to arms has gone out to climate scientists, this one in a letter in the journal Science. It calls for a full-blown campaign to help “people, organizations, and governments make informed decisions” about climate change and adds:

The initiative should recruit a full range of climate scientists, decision scientists, and communication professionals into the effort to ensure both sound scientific information and effective communication. In addition, it should build bridges to other communities of experts — such as clergy, financial managers, business managers, and insurers — who help people, organizations, and governments assess and express their values. Scientists and nonscientists alike inevitably interpret climate science information in the context of other information and values; the initiative should mobilize experts who can facilitate appropriate and useful interpretations.

Climate Progress has more. This comes on the heels of the formation of a “rapid response team” of climate scientists who will venture into enemy territory — right-wing talk radio and TV shows — to counter distortions of scientific research.

And in other green news: 

Aka WTF: The White House’s point man for climate change, Todd Stern, says “there is puzzlement around the world” about the election of so many climate change deniers to Congress. [AFP]

It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to: Even some Republicans are puzzled. Sherwood Boehlert, a Republican member of Congress from New York for 24 years, had this to say in today’s Washington Post:

The new Congress should have a policy debate to address facts rather than a debate featuring unsubstantiated attacks on science. We shouldn’t stand by while the reputations of scientists are dragged through the mud in order to win a political argument. And no member of any party should look the other way when the basic operating parameters of scientific inquiry — the need to question, express doubt, replicate research and encourage curiosity — are exploited for the sake of political expediency. My fellow Republicans should understand that wholesale, ideologically based or special-interest-driven rejection of science is bad policy. And that in the long run, it’s also bad politics.

The pause that perplexes: Add to that one helluva of a swan song from Republican Rep. Bob Inglis (S.C.), who lost in the primary to a more conservative challenger. During a hearing of the House Science and Technology Committee, he raked over talk show hosts who declare global warming a hoax (rhymes with mush) and climate change deniers in his own party. And he issued this warning:

I would also suggest to my Free Enterprise colleagues — especially conservatives here — whether you think it’s all a bunch of hooey, what we’ve talked about in this committee, the Chinese don’t. And they plan on eating our lunch in this next century. They plan on innovating around these problems, and selling to us, and the rest of the world, the technology that’ll lead the 21st century. So we may just press the pause button here for several years, but China is pressing the fast-forward button. And as a result, if we wake up in several years and we say, “geez, this didn’t work very well for us.”

Power splurge: Now back to the dark side of Congress. Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) is making a power play to have energy policy shifted to the House Natural Resources Committee, which, it so happens, he will chair next year. Energy lobbyists would love to see that play out because the Natural Resources panel is loaded with conservative Republicans. [Politico] 

Money walks: Okay, so the death of climate legislation withered the U.S. market, but American cleantech companies are adjusting by going after business in Europe and China. [Yale e360]

Let’s go with medium rare: The bad news: As China reduces exports, analysts expect a shortage next year of rare earth elements, which are key components of many cleantech products, such as batteries used in electric cars, solar energy cells, and wind turbines. [Energy Daily] The not-so-bad news: Rare earth elements are actually not so rare in the U.S. [Energy Daily]

Just below “Don’t even think about breathing”: The air in Beijing was so polluted Friday that the U.S. Embassy described it simply as “crazy bad.” Outdoor events were cancelled as the air filled with smoke due to the growing number of industrial plants outside the city that are burning coal for the winter. Oh, and the city is adding an estimated 1,200 more cars a day. [AP]

The wind beneath their wings: The Philadelphia Eagles want their stadium to be the first in the world with self-generating renewable energy. Their plan is to install 80 spiral-shaped wind turbines and 2,500 solar panels atop the stadium. [AFP]

Thanks for “caring”: And if you need a good laugh to get you into the weekend, check out the new Funny or Die video with its latest take on greenwashing by Chevron. It features the line: “We are going to
make pretending to care the new caring.” Say no more.

Lisa Murkowski is back in the Senate, so expect more Alaska drilling talk.

Moving in for the drill: No question that Murkowski was the lesser of two weasels in her race with Tea Party Republican Joe Miller. But she’s long been a big booster of opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling — an initiative that will have a lot more support in the House come January.

Don’t think for a minute that the fact that Murkowski fell out of favor with Republican leaders when she orchestrated a write-in campaign against Miller has dulled her drive to drill. Consider this: Almost 90 percent of her campaign contributions came from out of state and most were from energy companies.

It’s not surprising, then, that the Sierra Club’s Michael Brune is calling on Barack Obama to stage a pre-emptive strike to protect the huge wildlife refuge by declaring it a National Monument. He describes what we can expect if drillers are given a green light:

… it (the Refuge) would be destroyed before ExxonMobil and the other oil companies got a single drop. Bulldozers and large rigs would roam over the delicate tundra, drilling exploratory and production wells throughout the Refuge. Several dozen oil fields would need to be constructed, plus numerous airstrips, gravel mines, water-reservoir excavations, water withdrawal sites, seawater treatment plants, utility lines, loading docks, dormitories, and garbage dumps.

Shell unleashed: Meanwhile, Alaska’s Democratic Sen. Mark Begich is pressuring the White House to say when it will allow oil companies to start drilling off the state’s north coast. Shell wants to begin drilling exploratory wells there next summer. [The Hill]

And in other green news:

Another country heard from: Cap-and-trade is dead in the U.S. for the foreseeable future, but it’s now under serious consideration in China as a way to control its fast-rising carbon emissions. [Bloomberg]

Up to speed: But wait, there’s more from China. Japanese and European companies used to dominate the high-speed train market. No more. Chinese companies are now selling trains that are the fastest in the world. [Wall Street Journal]

Getting juiced: With more than a little fanfare, the first of 500 charging stations for electric vehicles was unveiled in Washington, D.C. More than 4,600 stations will open around the country over the next two years. [Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy]

Everything old is new again: Coal plants from the ‘40s and ‘50s are shutting down, but in the Midwest they’re being replaced by new coal plants. That’s progress? [The New York Times]

Feel the sand ooze between your toes: BP is still at it cleaning Gulf beaches, but now it’s digging deeper to get at that “tar mats” buried far beneath the sand. [AP]

Why go on?: Okay, here’s something to ponder: In a truly water-stressed world, there would be no beer. [Greenbang]

Keeper of the blame: The report from the National Academy of Engineering is the result of the most comprehensive investigation yet of the Gulf disaster. And while it avoids specifics, it’s littered with damning language. Like “an insufficient consideration of risk.” Or “a lack of management discipline.” Or “lack of onboard expertise and of clearly defined responsibility.”

The Academy stops short of saying BP cut corners, but notes that many of the company’s decisions were “likely to result in less cost and less time relative to other options.”

The report also lays some responsibility at the feet of government regulators who clearly were in over their heads when it came to keeping up with modern deepwater drilling technology. [Wall Street Journal]

And in other green news:

Warning snot: One-time moderate Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) is working overtime to show he’s a changed man so Republican leaders will name him chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. His latest foray into tough talk is a letter to fellow GOP lawmakers saying he is putting Barack Obama “on notice.” Here’s a taste of the Suddenly Fierce Fred [Politico]:

Today the Obama administration is on notice. We will be relentless in our oversight duties and shine a light on regulatory policies that have been hiding in the dark. The Founding Fathers intended Congress to provide a check and balance to the power of the presidency. Nancy Pelosi has been derelict in that duty. From Day 1, we will fulfill our constitutional duty.

Them’s fightin’ words: The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has always preferred to try to find a way to work with energy companies rather than attack them. But enough is enough. In a Huffington Post op-ed, EDF chief Fred Krupp says it’s time to go on the offensive, at least against companies that “continue to choose short-term profits over public health, and who feel they are better off opposing progress.” Krupp charges on:  

As with every pollution limit ever proposed, there will be some who will work to block, weaken, or delay any rules EPA tries to put on paper. We will fight them at every turn, making their full agenda clear to the American public: they seek not only to allow unlimited carbon pollution, but to derail limits on toxic mercury, lethal particulates, and other harmful contaminants in our air. We must remind America that obstructionists are attacking the fundamental public health protections of a bipartisan law that has stood for 40 years.

Crossing the whine: While the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others keep whining that EPA regulations are a pox on the economy, research by the World Resources Institute comes to a very different conclusion. It shows that environmental regulations end up costing far less than both the industry and the EPA predict. [World Resources Institute]

A kick in the cash: From John Boehner to Joe Barton to Rand Paul, there’s no shortage of Republicans out there for enviros to demonize. But green groups aren’t expecting anything like the “Gingrich bump” they saw in donations in the mid-1990s. [Politico]

Put the gun away, Joe: Joe Manchin won’t need to be shooting holes in another pretend cap-and-trade bill any time soon. The newly elected West Virginia senator says Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid has promised him that the matter won’t come up during the next Congress. [The Hill]

The warm turns: A German scientist has found more evidence that global warming can cause colder winters in Europe and northern Asia. [Reuters]

They’re in charge: New research leads to an estimate that more than 1.4 million plug-in hybrid or all electric vehicles will be on highways in Asia within five years. More than half of them will be in China. [PikeResearch]

Shut off the gas: In what is mainly a symbolic gesture in a state experiencing a natural gas boom, Pittsburgh’s City Council has unanimously banned drilling within city limits. [Wall Street Journal]

Too much baggage: Los Angeles County supervisors have approved a ban on plastic shopping bags, one that could become a model for the rest of California. [Los Angeles Times]

Rep. Fred Upton’s (R-Mich.) support of a incandescent light bulb ban may dim his chances to chair the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Courtesy of thorinside via Flickr

They found his bulb spot: The front-runner for the top position is Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), who’s been bending over backwards recently to pump up his conservative cred. But alas, Upton has committed, in the past, a sin so vile that in the right-wing echo chamber he has pretty much become a spawn of Satan. Three years ago, he co-sponsored legislation to phase out energy-inefficient incandescent light bulbs. The horror!

These days that’s the kind of indiscretion that turns a Republican into a piñata. Before you could say, “Release the hounds!” the spewmeisters of the right were taking their whacks.

Glenn Beck cut to the chase and called Upton “all socialist.” Rush Limbaugh, ever the deep thinker, used slightly bigger words to raise the specter of big government coming into your bedroom to change the bulbs:

This would be a tone deaf disaster if the Republican leadership lets Fred Upton ascend to the chairmanship of the House energy committee. This is exactly the kind of nannyism, statism, what have you, that was voted against last week. No Republican complicit in nannyism, statism, can be rewarded this way. 

[RushLimbaugh.com]

Meanwhile, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), Upton’s chief competitor for the position, is pretending to take the high road, saying nice things about Upton — although his staff is thought to be behind documents circulating on Capitol Hill that portray Upton as too moderate, including one titled, “Fred Upton: Part-Time Republican?”

Barton is asking Republican leaders to waive their term limit on committee chairs so he can hold on to the House Energy top spot. [Politico]

And in other green news: 

Turn the fleet around: Don’t expect much in the way of energy or climate legislation to make it through Congress in the next two years. But one idea that apparently does have a shot is a conversion of the federal government’s fleet to electric cars. [The Hill]

That Jay madness lies: Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) is back at it. He’s pushing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) to allow a vote next month to stop the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases for the next two years. [Politico]

We don’t ask much: What a difference a year makes. With what little is left of this session of Congress, the wish list of an alliance of green and labor groups includes the likes of a federal renewable electricity standard and initiatives boosting energy efficiency in homes and office buildings. [The Hill]

Use it or lose it: Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood confirmed that federal money allocated for high-speed rail can’t be used for highway projects. Newly-elected Republican governors in Ohio and Wisconsin said they don’t want high-speed trains, and instead would use the hundreds of millions of dollars to fix roads. LaHood responded with a big forgettaboutit — he’ll give the money to states that do want fast trains. [Washington Post]

All downhill from here: Apparently, we’ve already reached peak oil — the point at which oil production around the world has peaked. According to the International Energy Agency, production topped out in 2006 at 70 million barrels a day. Production hasn’t dropped off dramatically, but demand, driven by China’s economic boom, is expected to shoot up by 20 percent. Not a pretty picture. [The New York Times]

Sea change: Contrary to conventional wisdom, researchers now say that ocean levels largely stayed the same for at least the past 2,000 years, but started rising when the planet became industrialized. [The New York Times]

No sucking way: Scientists used to think that deep sea volcanoes sucked up carbon. Turns out it’s just the opposite. They actually produce greenhouse gases. [Discovery News]

Scientists say ice melting in Greenland and Antarctica is accelerating.

The coast ain’t clear: Scientists had long projected that melting polar ice would cause the planet’s oceans to rise seven inches this century. Now the most common estimates are five to 10 times higher. Justin Gillis, writing for The New York Times, lays out the potential consequences:

The scientists say that a rise of even three feet would inundate low-lying lands in many countries, rendering some areas uninhabitable. It would cause coastal flooding of the sort that now happens once or twice a century to occur every few years. It would cause much faster erosion of beaches, barrier islands and marshes. It would contaminate fresh water supplies with salt.

A large majority of climate scientists argue that heat-trapping gases are almost certainly playing a role in what is happening to the world’s land ice. They add that the lack of policies to limit emissions is raising the risk that the ice will go into an irreversible decline before this century is out, a development that would eventually make a three-foot rise in the sea look trivial.

Complicating matters is that as the situation deteriorates, scientists actually have fewer tools with which to work, since neither the U.S. nor any other wealthy country has made tracking the glacial meltdown a high priority. Gillis writes:  

The consequence is that researchers lack elementary information. They have been unable even to measure the water temperature near some of the most important ice on the planet, much less to figure out if that water is warming over time. Vital satellites have not been replaced in a timely way, so that American scientists are losing some of their capability to watch the ice from space.

That sinking feeling: Climate Progress ratchets up the threat level, citing research that when it comes to infrastructure planning, coastal cities should expect a seven-foot rise in the sea level, and pointing out that “Key West and Galveston and probably New Orleans appear unsavable on our current emissions path.”

And in other green news:   

The party of slow: No matter how much scientists take the climate change battle directly to deniers, it would be a mistake, argues communications consultant Meg Bostrom, to focus on first winning the science debate. These days, she says, it makes more sense to push carbon-cutting initiatives that closet global warming believers can get behind without any taint of cap-and-trade — such as efficient cars and buildings, funding for clean-energy research, even a federal renewable energy standard. Here’s her rationale, as she writes in the Washington Post:   

… while some environmental priorities continue to be shared across the political spectrum, global warming is not one of them. Surveys show a sharp and increasing political divide on a range of beliefs involving climate change, with tea party conservatives voicing the greatest skepticism. Mention “global warming” in a room full of average Americans, as I have done on several occasions, and you will find that they quickly align with one camp or the other. The idea that global warming is a hoax is no longer a fringe perception but a part of the Republican Party brand.

Even if climate scientists manage to convince some conservative skeptics that global warming poses an urgent threat, Republican leaders have backed themselves into a corner. The issue has become so politically polarizing that it would be nearly impossible for them to retreat from their stance and to get behind legislation that is thought to concern global warming.

Heat up the grill: As expected, Republican climate change deniers, led by the king of the climate zombies, Sen. James Inhofe (Okla.), are gearing up to go after energy czar Carol Browner, using as a bludgeon the recent finding that a staffer in her office edited a document to say that independent scientists supported a moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf. [The Hill]

Take a spill pill: At least half a dozen oil companies are clamoring to start deepwater drilling off the coast of Greenland. But they’ll now have to pay $2 billion to play. It’s the first time a government has demanded an upfront payment to cover potential cleanup costs in the event of a spill. [Guardian] 

Troubled water: Nearly half of the companies in 25 countries surveyed recently said they were starting to feel the impact of droughts, flooding, or other “water security” issues. [e360]

The white stuff: This winter, for the first time, the Chinese will collect snow and melt it to help deal with Beijing’s water shortage. [AFP]

Staying on frack: It wasn’t a big surprise that Barack Obama gave a shout out to natural gas during his post-election look into the country’s grim energy future. But the Sierra Club’s Michael Brune says the president left out a key word when he brought it up: fracking. [Ecopolitogy]

It’s important to acknowledge that just because natural gas is cleaner than other fossil fuels — especially coal — does not mean we should give the industry a free pass. The exploration, production, transportation, and burning of natural gas is an inherently dirty business that disrupts local communities and pollutes the environment. There are thousands of documented cases of air and water pollution violations and human health and safety hazards. If natural gas is to be part of the mix that displaces dirtier energy sources like coal and oil, these have to be addressed.

Prop gun: The nefarious Prop 23 was throttled in California, but its less famous sister, Prop 26, did pass — it defines many fees as taxes that now require approval by two-thirds of the state legislature. And that has enviros worried that it makes it nearly impossible in the current political climate to boost industry fees for cleaning up air, water, and toxic waste pollution. [Los Angeles Times]

Don’t lead on me: So you swore off plastic bags and will only go with reusable ones.
Turns out some of those bags, made in China, contain a potentially unsafe level of lead. [Tampa Tribune]

Taking it to the street: In London they’ve started spraying busy streets with a “dust suppressant” to keep particulates stuck to road surfaces instead of floating in the air. [GreenBiz]