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Oscar-related news and musings

The Oscars are this weekend! With the usual amount of Hollywood splashiness -- though p'raps less than in years past -- there are green efforts going on, from Global Green's star-studded pre-party on Thursday to the first-ever use of dry-cleaning bags to hold swag (!) at an after-party. Eco-leaning films have garnered nominations, including Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World and the I-was-there Katrina film Trouble the Water. Ultimate eco-lesson-with-a-heart Wall-E even got a few nods, though it was -- as one Grist staffer put it -- "screwed over for best picture."

On top of that, yummy host Hugh Jackman has racked up some eco-cred of his own over the years.

Alas, none of the five films nominated for best picture are particularly greenish. But just for fun, I've reimagined them as such below the fold, with a little help from Oscar's own synopses.

MoveOn preps for gigantic green economy campaign

This hit my inbox yesterday:

When FDR became president, a group of progressive activists asked him to push for some really big changes. His response? "I agree with you. I want to do it. Now make me do it."

President Obama gets that we need to transform our economy. He's passionate about creating millions of green jobs and investing billions in renewable energy. And he's appointed great leaders like Energy Secretary Chu to help him.

But unless we create a massive green-economy movement across America, Obama won't have the mandate he needs to overcome the oil companies and make fundamental change. As president, Obama's extraordinary power comes from the people outside Washington. And that's us.

So we've worked up a big plan to build a green-economy groundswell. It'll mean tripling our field organizing team, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of MoveOn members to take local action, and running ads targeting powerful interests that stand in the way. It'll be MoveOn's biggest long-term campaign ever.

If President Obama is going to transform our economy, he needs all of us standing behind him giving him strength. Are you in?

I'm in!

(But, just to be picky, it's overcoming coal companies that will be the biggest challenge ...)

What is the 'best available control technology' for CO2 from coal plants?

My monster post on EPA regulation of CO2 yesterday seems to have scared everyone away. So let me ask a simpler question.

As things stand, regulating CO2 at power plants under the Clean Air Act would require that such plants install "best available control technology" (BACT) for reducing or eliminating CO2 emissions.

Here's my question: for a coal-fired power plant, what is the best available technology for limiting CO2 emissions?

Carbon sequestration might be "best," but it's not "available," despite all the hype. It hasn't been tested; there are no clear regulations governing it; it's horribly expensive; etc.

Far as I know, though, that's basically the only way to reduce CO2 emissions at a coal plant.

So if that's not available, and nothing else is available, what can a coal plant do but ... stop burning coal?

Does that mean a BACT requirement under the Clean Air Act would effectively shut down every coal plant in the country in one fell swoop, thereby eliminating 50 percent of the country's electricity generation? Will it force all coal plants to switch to natural gas, causing natural gas prices to skyrocket? If not, what does it mean? Anyone? Bueller?

Sales tax shortfall could affect Seattle's public transit

This whole "economic downturn" thing is tricky business. As I've mentioned, it may be helping boost transit ridership numbers as cash-strapped folks abandon their cars.

But those same cash-strapped folks are also buying less stuff (even if they are buying locally). Buying less stuff means less sales tax generated in Washington state. And because Seattle's Metro bus service gets more than half of its revenue from a dedicated sales tax, this is not good news for Seattle's primary mode of public transit.

To give it to you in (rather depressing) numerical form, King County administrators have said that Metro's sales tax revenue losses over the two-year 2008-2009 period could total $100 million -- that's 800,000 to 1 million hours of bus service. (And that doesn't count the time you'll spend standing around at bus stops waiting for a ride.)

Ocean dead zones to expand, 'remain for thousands of years'

I doubt geoengineering will ever be practical as a primary strategy for dealing with climate change (see here and here). That said, I don't consider most of the efforts to pull CO2 out of the air geoengineering -- that is ungeoengineering our self-inflicted climate wound. And those efforts are only plausible with super-aggressive mitigation that keeps concentrations close to 450 ppm.

It's strategies like injecting sulfur into the atmosphere that should worry people the most. Those strategies have many flaws, but among the worst is that they do nothing to stop humanity from turning the oceans into one giant acidic deadzone.

A new study in Nature Geoscience, ($ub. req'd, abstract below) makes crystal clear why very serious mitigation must always be humanity's primary strategy for averting climate catastrophe. As AFP reported on the study:

Global warming may create "dead zones" in the ocean that would be devoid of fish and seafood and endure for up to two millennia ...

Its authors say deep cuts in the world's carbon emissions are needed to brake a trend capable of wrecking the marine ecosystem and depriving future generations of the harvest of the seas.

Precisely. This study makes a matching pair with NOAA stunner: Climate change "largely irreversible for 1000 years," with permanent Dust Bowls in Southwest and around the globe.

Even worse, of course, is that while there are many plausible, albeit expensive and untried on large scale, strategies for removing CO2 from the atmosphere, it is far from clear how one does that from the ocean.

Here is more detail on this important study and on oceanic dead zones:

Memo to Obama: CCS won't make tar sands clean. Memo to all: They ain't 'oil sands.'

Climate Wire ($ub. req'd) reports this morning, "Obama says 'technology' can fix oil sands skirmish":

President Obama said "clean energy mechanisms," like carbon capture and storage, would allow the United States to continue consuming Canadian sand oil, an emission-heavy fuel that often requires strip-mining vast stretches of boreal forest in the province of Alberta.

The assertion yesterday came two days before Obama is scheduled to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Ottawa, and it promises to raise questions among environmental groups, which see the oil sands as a key contributor to climate change.

Uhh, no, no, no, and no. First, the tar sands are a key contributor to climate change -- it is absurd for ClimateWire to hedge (and weaken) this fact by attributing it solely to environmental groups.

Second, the "biggest global warming crime ever seen" (see here) cannot be made green with carbon capture and storage, even in the unlikely event CCS proves practical for the tar sands. If the President wants to understand everything the tar sands would have to do to be "clean," he should start with the pastoral letter of Canadian Bishop Luc Bouchard (see here).

Third, Obama said, "I think that it is possible, for us to create a set of clean energy mechanisms that allow us to use things not just like oil sands, but also coal." Did he really say "oil sands"? I can understand why greenwashing Canadian shills use the phrase rather than the traditional term "tar sands" (see here), but not why the U.S. media does, and certainly not somebody as smart as Obama.

No doubt the phrase makes it seem like, oh, I don't know, maybe up through the sand came a bubblin crude, oil that is, black gold, Texas tea, Athabasca euphemism (see ClimateProgress commenter, Jim Eager, here).

Green groups outline ideal environmental budget for FY ’10

With President Obama expected to release his first federal budget plan on Feb. 26, environmental groups today pitched their ideas about what should be included. The proposed “green” budget, which comes from a coalition of 27 environmental groups, includes more than $72 billion for green projects. The Green Budget 2010 [PDF] proposal seeks multi-billion-dollar investments […]

Will coal fight continue if governor is tapped for Obama Cabinet?

Coal-battling Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D) is reportedly the top choice to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. So if Obama taps her for the Cabinet post, what exactly does this means for the coal fight in her home state, since as a few weeks ago we mentioned that Kansas’ coal lovers […]

NYC's Scott Stringer releases a plan for remaking the urban food system

For those of us wondering what it would take to "localize" urban food systems, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has some answers. In a just-released study called "Food in the Public Interest," Stringer's office analyzes the New York City "foodshed" (a term we'll be hearing a lot of in the future) and comes up with a lengthy set of recommendations. If it does anything, the report emphasizes just how daunting a task it will be to reform food policy in this county.

Much of what Stringer hopes to accomplish (especially in the area of nutrition programs) will be handled at the federal level. Still, the report emphasizes the outsized impact on issues that involve land use and commercial development that the control over zoning and business licensing regulations gives to local authorities. Attempting to eliminate food deserts in low-income areas by creating "Food Enterprise Zones" and reducing red tape in the permitting of food processing companies is exactly the kind of thing that zoning and licensing reforms can address.

Interestingly, the report's conclusions on food deserts align with a recent study by two SUNY-Buffalo researchers. They suggest the solution may lie in thinking small (increase the number of neighborhood grocery stores) rather than big (spending tax money on attracting chain supermarkets). Indeed, the same focus on local regulations applies to the expansion of urban agriculture (first step: overturn New York City's beekeeper ban!) and to the development of a wholesale farmers' market and food storage network (so that industrial and commercial buyers can better take advantage of local agricultural output).

Umbra on beer and wine

Hi Umbra, Due to, among other things, (organic) beer, I ended up in a rather heated discussion on the environment the other day. I’m wondering if you could help clear up a couple of these more or less classic micro-level questions. Which is more environmentally friendly: lighting a cigarette with a match or a lighter? […]