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Labor and environmental leaders come together in D.C. to talk jobs

I’m going to be at the Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference for the next few days here in Washington, D.C., where environmental activists, labor leaders, and politicos will be discussing how to make those jobs a reality. The Blue Green Alliance, United Steelworkers, and Sierra Club are coordinating the conference. They’re also set to give […]

CO2 and the Clean Air Act

We are rapidly approaching national greenhouse gas legislation, either through a congressionally-led cap-and-trade bill or an EPA-led amendment to the Clean Air Act. However passed, these regulations will then immediately face a practical problem: how do you enforce a law that is in conflict with itself?

This problem arises because of the Clean Air Act's core failing: It compels businesses to increase their CO2 emissions. The moment we compel businesses to reduce those same emissions is the moment we expose this flaw and invite waves of litigation that will not only delay the implementation of CO2 policy, but also invite compromise and negotiation that will likely be forced to sacrifice some of the Act's environmental intent. How on earth did we get here? And what are we to do about it?

The clean air act mandates greenhouse gas pollution

Broadly characterized, the Clean Air Act does three things:

1. It sets limits on the concentration of regulated pollutants at regulated point sources;
2. It steadily tightens those limits over time, and;
3. It requires any new pollution sources to meet the most current (stringent) pollution standards.

By any measure, the act has done a commendable job of reducing non-CO2 air pollution. But it has unwittingly increased CO2 pollution as well.

Scientists find source of gregarious behavior (in grasshoppers)

This week's edition of Science has an interesting paper on the swarming behavior of desert locusts. It's initiated by high levels of serotonin. I'll wager E. O. Wilson is very excited about this.

From an informative article in the BBC News:

"Serotonin profoundly influences how we humans behave and interact," said co-author Dr Swidbert Ott, from Cambridge University.

"So to find that the same chemical is what causes a normally shy, antisocial insect to gang up in huge groups is amazing."

Indeed. Got me to wondering about other examples of swarming behavior. I'm thinking Super Bowl. Which got me to wondering about the Super Bowl ads mentioned by Kate Sheppard.

The Ecomagination ads made me smile. They made me feel good inside. Given the opportunity, I may find a way to thank GE for making me feel good. Drinkability made me laugh. I may subconsciously decide to buy a Bud Light the next time I'm at a bar just to rekindle that feeling.

James Hansen apologizes to U.K. environmentalists

This is a guest post by noted NASA climate scientist James Hansen.

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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:

Transit budget cuts are disasters in the making

Here is the lowdown: Transit fares generally don't cover operating expenses. Transit systems do not, unfortunately, turn a profit. In many conservative circles, this is considered a damning indictment of the whole idea of public transit -- which is itself a damning indictment of the analytical powers of the guilty conservatives.

We should expect those who benefit from a technology to pay for it. This is the basic idea behind a market economy -- people aren't in the habit of giving away something for nothing, and the best way to allocate scarce resources is to let buyers and sellers agree upon a price, which is then paid by the buyer who, we expect, will benefit from the purchase.

But sometimes, when a buyer decides to spend money on a good or service, other people benefit as well. If I build an exceptionally attractive house in a neighborhood, I benefit, but so too do my neighbors, who get to look at the house and whose own homes may appreciate thanks to their location in what is now a more attractive neighborhood. When I pay college tuition and get a degree, I benefit, but so too do future colleagues, who will enjoy greater success as part of a highly educated labor pool. If government does nothing in such situations, then we will get the level of attractive homes or college educations that suits the direct beneficiaries of such investments -- but that doesn't mean that we have provided the number that maximizes the benefit to society as a whole.

A proposal to integrate international and domestic climate policy development

Joe Romm is fond (well, maybe "fond" isn't the right word) of saying that there's no way a substantial international climate treaty could get to 67 votes in the U.S. Senate, which is the constitutional requirement for such treaties. And he's right. This is an enormous barrier not only to ratifying but to developing such a treaty -- why should the 150+ countries involved in international climate negotiations deal with us in good faith when they know there's no way we can follow through?

Last week, William J. Antholis and Nigel Purvis of the Brookings Institution offered some intriguing thoughts about how to get around this dilemma.

They propose a "Climate Protection Authority" that would work like so:

First, in consultation with Congress, the president would decide that future climate and energy agreements are to be approved by the United States by statute rather than as treaties. Statutes require a majority in both houses of Congress, whereas treaties require two-thirds of only the Senate. Federal courts have repeatedly upheld the constitutionality of bicameral statutory approval of international pacts. In fact, the United States enters into more international agreements this way than by treaty, including some arms control agreements and environmental pacts and almost all trade deals.

Second, Congress should spell out in cap-and-trade legislation the conditions necessary for U.S. participation in new climate and energy agreements. For example, it should describe the role we envision for China, India and other major developing countries.

Third, cap-and-trade legislation should preapprove new climate and energy agreements that meet these congressional preconditions. Agreements that do should come into effect for the United States either without further congressional review or pursuant to the streamlined approval process Congress has used for most trade agreements.

No. 2 sounds a bit high-handed to me. Perhaps India and China might like to have some say in the role the play, no?

But the basic idea -- lowering the barrier to treaty approval and integrating international negotiations into the domestic policy process -- seems well-worth pursuing.

On the importance of getting personal with your food

Real food doesn't often compete with the delicious paper-and-ink smell of bookstores, but last Saturday, chefs, farmers, photographers, and writers filled Seattle's Elliott Bay Book Company with their wares: two appetizing reads. The back-to-back book events featured the authors of Chefs on the Farm and Edges of Bounty.

One lesson I walked away with that day was that food is only as good as the relationships on which it's based. These relationships can be between soil and seed, eater and herb, farmer and goat, or even you and your neighbors. Both books' authors reinforced this idea and went on to suggest that diverse, well-tended, and personal relationships produce the best meals and the best stories.

By naming the root cause behind food crises, we stand a chance at solving them

This is a guest post by Cary Fowler, executive director of the Rome-based Global Crop Diversity Trust and co-author of Shattering: Food, Politics, and the Loss of Genetic Diversity.

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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.

How the U.S. can stay the global wind leader

The Global Wind Energy Council reported Monday:

The United States passed Germany to become world #1 in wind power installations, and China's total capacity doubled for the fourth year in a row. Total worldwide installations in 2008 were more than 27,000 MW ... 36% more than in 2007 ...

Global wind energy capacity grew by 28.8% last year, even higher than the average over the past decade, to reach total global installations of more than 120.8 GW at the end of 2008.

It just goes to show what this country can do with intelligent and (somewhat) consistent government policies -- state-based renewable electricity standards and a federal tax credit (see "U.S. wind energy grows by record 8,300 MW").

But the race is on for global leadership, and China is poised to be our major contender, as it "once again doubled its installed capacity by adding about 6.3 GW, reaching a total of 12.2 GW":