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Green Corps

I once bought Nancy Skinner (then executive director of the Climate Group, now my state assemblywoman) a coffee in exchange for hiring advice. Her latte's worth of wisdom: Don't stop interviewing until you find a campaigner -- someone who knows how to rally people behind an idea and make change happen.

If you want to be that kind of person, I can think of no better path than to join Green Corps. Some of the best campaigners I know came out of their training program -- Vote Solar's Claudia Eyzaguirre and Bernadette Del Chiaro of Environment California immediately come to mind. Their alumni parties are like the who's who of the progressive movement. Applications are due soon, so get on it ...

A closer look at current U.S. CO2 pricing

Kevin Drum over at Mother Jones blogged on my recent Grist post, joining my mom in the list of people who publicly praise my math skills. Thanks!

Much more interestingly, he raises this question:

Are we wiling to charge [a price for CO2 emissions] openly, with the carbon charges going to the public, [or] inside a complex giveaway to a favored corporation?

(The question is in response to my estimate here that the recently passed Illinois Clean Coal Portfolio Standards Act represents an implicit $300-$500-per-ton payment in the name of CO2 reduction.)

It's a great question because the truth is that under current federal and state policy, we do pay people for their actions to reduce CO2. But we do so in a horribly inconsistent way, providing not only inconsistency between technologies and "favored corporations," but also wild disparities in price.

For instance, suppose you're getting $0.03 per kWh from your state renewable portfolio standard. Those kWh displace -- on average -- 1,300 lb per MWh of U.S. power, and you are therefore being paid $46 per ton of CO2 you reduce. CO2 reduction is not the only justification for RPS policies, but would we ever have an RPS if we didn't care about CO2? I doubt it.

The good news there is that people are, today, being paid in the U.S. for reducing CO2. But is there any rhyme or reason to their price? And is it at all consistent with what others are getting for the same environmental service?

More math below the fold.

The idiocy of crowds or, rather, the idiocy of (crowded) debates

Once again, three climate activists who are not terribly good at debating agreed to participate in a decidedly unscientific format against people who mostly make stuff up. And what a shock, it had a bad outcome -- although this one seems to be partly a result of gaming the vote as much as anything else.

In 2007, it was the now-infamous climate science debate, broadcast by NPR on the proposition "Global warming is not a crisis." The pro-science side lost to the anti-science make-stuff-up side (Michael Crichton, Richard Lindzen, Philip Stott) on that one.

So you can imagine what happened when the debate proposition moved over to economics, "Major Reductions in Carbon Emissions Are Not Worth the Money" -- especially with the 'pro' (i.e. delayer) side handled by three world-class economist-loving liars make-stuff-uppers: Bjorn Lomborg, Peter Huber, and Stott (details here, transcript here [PDF] and, for true masochists, NPR audio here).

(Note No. 1 to all pro-climate-action debaters: It is very hard to win a staged debate with people who make stuff up. It is next to impossible to do so if they are skilled debaters. And you are guaranteed to lose if it isn't a one-on-one debate. Why? The only way to out-debate somebody who makes stuff up is to call them out on it. And if they keep doing it, you have to keep calling them out. Even the most skilled debater has difficulty publicly questioning the honesty and integrity of opponent again and again (which is why you rarely see anyone attempt it). But you'll never convince an audience that multiple 'experts' are making stuff up.)

The final result of this absurdly unscientific and meaningless activity was preordained. It was also so bogus that even the organization that put on the pointless debate actually acknowledged in its own press release (here) that part of the audience (the conservatives, of course) gamed the system:

Deep thought

Reliance on oil brings a stream of calls to "break our addiction" and find "alternative sources." Reliance on coal brings a stream of paeans to the importance of coal.

A sandstorm of renewable energy news from the World Future Energy Summit

Abu Dhabi hosted its second World Future Energy Summit earlier this week, with some 16,000 business leaders, green-tech researchers and politicians bravely forgoing northern winters for the Persian Gulf state's subtropic sun. Judging by news reports, attendees forgot the world economy is supposed to be in a panicky, keep-your-money-in-your-mattress mode, and instead engaged in a three-day fiesta of deal-making and bold renewable energy announcements. Here's a run-down:

* The host city pledged that 7 percent of its energy would come from renewable sources by 2020, up from zero today.

* GE announced plans for its Ecomagination Centre, an R&D showcase of wind, solar, water purification, and energy efficiency technologies. It will be built in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi's car-free, carbon-neutral metropolis powered completely by renewable energy. The capital of the United Arab Emirates used the summit to show off the $22 billion Masdar project, which is under construction.

* Hometown English-language newspaper The National framed the summit as a coming-out party for solar power, saying the industry has been growing "much faster than official institutions and the public think":

Long dismissed as a peripheral contributor to the world's energy matrix, technologies harnessing the sun's energy are now benefitting from billions of dollars of investment, which has rapidly increased their efficiency and cut their costs.

That optimism doesn't jibe with dire reports of the U.S. solar industry faltering amid the credit crisis and declining oil prices. But consider that the Emirates have the distinct advantages of year-round sun and the crazy amounts of oil money that enable underwater hotels, man-made islands and a $63,000 per capita income in Abu Dhabi. A $15 billion solar investment from the Masdar initiative won't hurt the local industry either.

* Several news outlets noted the unlikelihood of the oil-rich emirates becoming renewable energy leaders, including Time's Bryan Walsh, who sees it as a logical diversification strategy:

In the long term, developers of renewables know they'll win. Climate change aside, the simple fact that energy demand will continue growing rapidly once the downturn has ended means that new supplies will be needed. And no one including oil giants of the Middle East believe that fossil fuels alone will meet that gap.

Carbon price volatility is a real issue

Both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal were at it this week, flogging stories about how falling carbon prices are threatening clean technology. I've written before about how easy it is to get distracted by carbon prices, which, under cap-and-trade, are more of a symptom of a broader issue, not a cause.

The Journal piece is fairly defensible. The Times piece is fairly hopeless:

Another blow to the sector is the tumbling price of permits for emitting carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. In countries where emitters must buy these permits, like those in the European Union, low prices mean emitters have fewer incentives to make their production process more efficient or move to less greenhouse gas intensive fuels.

Grist grades the best/worst in climate change news

Today we kick off a regular feature in which Grist’s editorial team celebrates — and carps about! — notable climate-related steps taken by businesses, politicians, and individuals. Think we patted the wrong back or slapped down the wrong pol? Jump in the comments section to let us know. This week’s grades: A big green thumbs-up […]

Oval Office lights connected to mountaintop removal

When President Barack Obama's staff turns on the lights to the Oval Office this week, a signal will be sent from the Potomac Energy Company to the Chalk Point Generation Station, where the coal-handling facility service of the power plant will shovel in coal that has been strip-mined from the clear-cut, toppled-over, and exploded mountains of West Virginia.

At least, in theory.

In effect, President Obama and his administration are now connected to one of the most tragic environmental and human rights disasters in American history -- the employment of mountaintop-removal mining methods in Appalachia that have eliminated over 470 mountains and adjacent communities, 1 million acres of hardwood forests, and 1,200 miles of streams from our American maps.

This includes Coal River Mountain in West Virginia, the last great mountain in a historic range that has been on the forefront of the clean-energy movement. Citing the unique wind potential of Coal River Mountain, local citizens and coal miners have pushed for an industrial wind farm that would provide 200 jobs, enough megawatts for 150,000 homes in the area, and $1.7 million in tax revenues. Last week, however, as Obama visited a wind-turbine parts factory in Ohio, the first bulldozers arrived to clearcut the forest and open the way for the next mountaintop-removal tragedy.

If Michael Pollan ruled the world …

"If it had been President Pollan, I probably wouldn't be here right now."

-- USDA chief Tom Vilsack

Media Matters commenter provides one of the greatest snarks at the denier wingnut mentality

Craig C. Clarke made one of the all-time great comments about delayers and deniers over at Media Matters: