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The prospects for ocean protection under a new president and Congress

This is a guest post by David Helvarg, an author and a coordinator of the upcoming Blue Vision Summit in Washington, D.C. His next book is Rescue Warriors: The U.S. Coast Guard, America's Forgotten Heroes (May 2009).

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America now has, among other historic precedents, its first bodysurfing president. Of course, protecting the ocean (71 percent of the planet's surface and 97 percent of its livable habitat) is still not likely to be the top priority of Hawaii-raised Barack Obama. He's got more than enough policy challenges for his first weeks in office, with the collapse of a world economy based on American consumers buying stuff, two ongoing and intractable wars, and the civilization-ending threat from fossil fuel-fired climate change.

Still, healthy oceans and coasts are essential to the nation's economy, security, and stability. About half of America's GDP is generated in its 600 coastal counties (which are home to $4 trillion of insured property). And to some degree, everyone is at risk from the cascading marine ecological disasters of overfishing (loss of food security), nutrient and plastic pollution (public health threats), coastal sprawl (increased risk of disaster), and climate change (big increased risk of disaster).

The first sign of hope is the new president's insistence that change has to come from bottom-up engagement of our citizenry. On Martin Luther King's birthday, the night before the inauguration, some 300 people participated in a seaweed shoreline restoration in my Bay Area neighborhood of Richmond, Calif., and about half of the participants had heard about it on an Obama-linked volunteer website.

Images of an evolving world by artist Don Simon

These images are from a series of drawings titled “Unnaturalism” by artist Don Simon. His work examines the impact of industrialization and sprawl on ecosystems. From his artist statement: “Throughout history, particularly since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, mankind has been less than kind to our cohabitants on the planet. We build, produce, and […]

A $4.6 billion coal gift in stimulus package, record profits for FutureGen members

While Peabody Coal, one of the prime sponsors of the FutureGen boondoggle in Illinois, announced an eightfold increase in profits in their fourth quarter reports for 2008, the Senate Appropriations Committee just approved legislation for an additional $4.6 billion in handouts to the coal industry as part of the stimulus package, in the guise of "clean coal."

There's a new detail on this "clean coal" money: $2 billion are no longer slated for zero emissions plants, but "near-zero emissions" power plants -- so much for all of those TV ads about zero emissions.

What are near-zero emissions? Sorta like near-zero coal ash ponds and accidents, near-zero 10,000 black lung cases, near-zero workplace mining accidents, near-zero 1 million acres of strip mining and mountaintop removal, near-zero watershed contamination, and near-zero coal truck accidents?

This is on top of $2.8 billion the coal industry picked up in the last bailout.

In the meantime, check out the dream team sponsors of FutureGen, the much ballyhooed poster child of the "clean coal" proponents who somehow like us to forget that before coal will ever be burned with near-zero mercury and carbon dioxide emissions, coal first needs to be extracted, processed, transported, and burned with ash piles.

FutureGen Alliance Members include:

More on conservatives and carbon taxes

Bill Chameides, all around smart guy and dean of Duke's Nicholas School, takes a look at the rash of conservatives supporting carbon taxes (which I addressed the other day in more, um, colorful terms):

Some of my colleagues believe it's the poisoned pawn ploy -- since taxes are not viable politically, kill climate legislation by favoring a carbon tax.

I have a different hunch.

His hunch is that conservatives want to raise a carbon tax (which is regressive) in order to lower income taxes (which are progressive) -- in other words, they want a regressive tax shift. These newly minted carbon tax fans are longtime champions of that agenda:

Coincidentally, Inglis and Laffer just happen to favor replacing our progressive tax system with a more regressive one (see here and here). Inglis has earned the Citizens for Tax Justice's highest rating for his opposition "to progressive taxes," and Laffer is a highly vocal proponent of the flat tax that would replace our progressive tax system with a single tax rate for all Americans.

Many things about the tax vs. C&T debate are uncertain, but one thing I have no doubt about is that James Inhofe and Rex Tillerson are not participating in good faith. If those two guys told me the earth was round I'd be rechecking satellite photos.

Take the chill off the bad economy with a frugal, delicious vegetable soup

Photo: Library of Congress In our food system, the part of the animal that delivers the most flavor — the bones — often gets thrown away. Purveyors then sell the boneless meat at a higher price. During hard times, such wasteful practices come into relief. We explore humbler, bone-in cuts of meat and underappreciated vegetables. […]

Vilsack chats up reporters about climate and ethanol

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack talked about climate change, renewable energy and ethanol blends during a conference call with reporters on Monday. Here are excerpts from the transcript:

From Vilsack's opening comments on the call:

I also want this Department to be a national leader in climate change mitigation, adaptation efforts. This of course will involve conservation, greater efficiency with the energy that we have, as well as new technologies and expanded opportunities in biofuels and renewable energy. I'm going to work to advance research and development and pursue opportunities to support the development of additional biofuels, wind power, and other renewable energy sources.

We need to make sure that the biofuels industry has the necessary support to survive the recent downturn while at the same time promoting policies that will speed up the development of second and third-generation feedstocks for those biofuels that have the potential to significantly improve America's energy security and independence.

I expect our farmers and ranchers will play a role in making progress on the great challenge of climate change and on other major environmental challenges. It's important to me that the USDA lead efforts to incentivize management practices that promote and provide clean air, clean water, and wildlife habitat, and to help farmers participate in markets that reward them for sequestering carbon and limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

It is my hope that the Farm Bill's provisions in terms of energy and conservation can be implemented promptly and properly and that we see the Forest Service as a new opportunity for us to engage in climate change mitigation/adaptation strategies.

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We also want the USDA to be a supporter of 21st century rural communities. We'll be looking at promoting the expansion of modern infrastructure, expanded broadband opportunities, affordable, energy-efficient housing in rural communities, expanded small business opportunities, and improving the quality of life through community facilities.

Senate stimulus plan looking even better for clean energy investments

Dan Weiss and Alexandra Kougentakis at the Center for American Progress take a look at the Senate's version of the stimulus plan and conclude that, on the whole, it's better in terms of clean energy investments and incentives than the House version.

While several not-so-green programs would get funding in the Senate plan -- including $50 billion in loan guarantees for the nuclear industry and $4.6 billion for the coal industry -- green projects overall would get approximately $7 billion more in spending.

The Senate's American Investment and Recovery Plan (not to be confused with the House's "American Reinvestment and Recover Act") includes $78 billion in clean energy spending as part of their $365 billion recovery package. The tax package also has $31 billion in tax incentives for renewables and energy efficiency, compared to $20 billion in the House plan.

Grid improvement funds are higher in the Senate version -- $21 billion compared with the House's $19 billion. Same with funds for renewables -- $7.6 billion, to the House's $5.1 billion.

We mistakenly wrote yesterday that mass transit fares worse in the Senate version of the bill when compared with the House's $14.6 billion. But transit gets a better deal in the Senate overall, at $17 billion. Amtrak especially fares better -- $3.1 billion to the House's $1.1 billion.

Investments in building and appliance efficiency, meanwhile, did better in the House version -- $5 billion more than the Senate plan.

Of course, the Senate's version could still change when it moves to floor for debate next week, and any differences between the bills the two chambers pass would have to be worked out in a conference committee.

New energy drink is fair-trade, organic

Youguysomigodomigodhaveyouheardaboutthisnewenergyshot? It'sorganicandit'sfair-tradeandthatmeansit'sgoodforyouANDfortheplanetnottoMENTIONthefacthtatitgivesy ouawickedsweetbuzzomigodomigodI'vebeenwaitingforthisallmylife.

Shorter work week as stimulus

Economist Dean Baker (co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and one of the good guys in that dismal profession) takes up one of my pet obsessions: a shorter work week:

One innovative policy that would provide a quick boost to the economy and jobs -- and lasting gains in reduced unemployment -- is a tax incentive for shorter workweeks or work years.

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How would this help the economy? The tax break would allow the employer to compensate workers for fewer hours up to some limit, say a maximum of $2,500 per worker. That would cut work hours but maintain staffing levels.

As a result, workers would be getting just as much money as before the reduction in hours -- but putting in 10% fewer hours. If workers have the same amount of money, then demand in the economy will be the same. At the same time, firms would then need to hire more workers to meet this demand, since they would be getting 10% fewer hours from each worker.

I once did a column in Fast Company on the ecological benefits of a shorter work week. This seems like one of those things that's substantively win-win but sociopolitically completely out of reach. People have weird attitudes about work.

Denier duo tried to tarnish Hansen and utterly misquoted Revkin

Once again, the office of Sen. James Inhofe (Denier-Okla.) has put out a press release riddled with misstatements, this one attacking the nation's top climate scientist James Hansen.

Their last release was notable for the outright lies and distortions by Inhofe and his top staffer, Marc Morano.

Now they are making stuff up about Hansen, claiming the Bush Administration did not try to muzzle him, when they clearly did, as the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee documented in a December 2007 report. Somehow I think that report -- which is based on "over 27,000 pages of documents from the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and the Commerce Department," two investigative hearings, and the depositions and interviews of key officials -- is a tad more credible than the words of some former NASA engineer.

It is absurd for Inhofe to have a blaring headline that "Hansen's Former NASA Supervisor" says Hansen "was never muzzled," when this guy does not appear to have been Hansen's supervisor (he "did not have the authority to give him his annual performance evaluation," an authority possessed by every supervisor I ever had in government -- see also NASA's Gavin Schmidt here) -- and in any case, had a position above Hansen only from 1982-1994, a full decade before the muzzling occurred!

I don't want to waste a lot of time debunking pathological make-stuff-uppers like Inhofe and Morano, but let me point out one representative lie. The Morano post blares:

NYT's Revkin chides Hansen for promoting sea level claims that are not 'even physically possible'

But let's go the link and see what Revkin actually wrote.

This is a post by David Lewis of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network on an interview Mike Tidwell did with me and Revkin that turned into a little debate. I meant to blog on this earlier but I didn't have a transcript. It gets further in to some of the disagreements I have with Revkin. But let's cut to the chase.

Revkin replied to the post as follows: