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Who do we repay for the pollution from which we have benefitted?

If I buy bread from you, when you want to sell it to me, and we agree on a price, that's a deal between the two of us. Now imagine that you getting up early to bake bread wakes two people who would rather sleep in. They are not a factor in our deal -- they are "external" to our market exchange and any effect on them is an "externality" we have ignored in agreeing on our price. The same logic holds for the greenhouse gases your ovens generated when you baked the bread. That contribution to climate change is an "environmental externality."

How many of those did you create today?

The Obama's climate dream team, new sea-level rise, less arctic ice volume, and more

What events, actions, and findings had the most positive or negative impact on the likelihood that the nation and the world will act in time to avoid catastrophic warming?

Since the No. 1 story is way too obvious to generate any drama, I will start there and then go back and count down from No. 10 to No. 2.

1. Team without rivals. A year ago, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Rajendra Pachauri, desperately warned, "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment." That means the next president and his cabinet, more than any other group, will determine my future and your future and our children's future, and perhaps the future of the next 50 generations to walk the earth. Fortunately, the American people rejected the old greenwasher and new denier nominated by the Drill, baby, Drill crowd -- and now we will be led by the greenest, most scientifically informed, radical pragmatists in the history of the Republic:

• Obama: "The science is beyond dispute ... Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response."
• Why Biden is such an important pick for those who care about the climate
• SOS trumps NSA (Hillary Clinton trumps Gen. Jones)
• Carol Browner to oversee energy and climate at the White House
• Top Five reasons Chu is a great energy pick -- No. 1: "It's not guaranteed we have a solution for coal"
• Obama picks a green jobs leader for labor secretary: Hilda Solis
• The first green secretary of commerce
• For NOAA head, Obama appoints yet another scientist who gets climate
• Obama's strongest message on climate yet: John Holdren to be named science adviser

Back to the countdown:

10. Gas pains. As NOAA reported, levels of methane rose sharply in 2007 for the first time since 1998. Methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, especially over the near term. And the tundra has as much carbon locked away in it as the atmosphere contains today. Scientific analysis suggests the rise in 2007 methane levels came from Arctic wetlands. The tundra melting is probably the most worrisome of all the climate-carbon-cycle amplifying feedbacks -- and it could easily take us to the unmitigated catastrophe of 1,000 ppm. Though you should also worry that the methane might be coming from the underwater permafrost, which is also thawing and releasing methane. Or from the drying of the Northern peatlands (bogs, moors, and mires). If methane rises again in 2008 -- and NASA reported another brutally hot year for the Siberian tundra -- then that will probably be among the top three global warming stories of 2008.

9. The thrilla in vanilla. OK, it wasn't Ali-Frazier, but Henry Waxman's smackdown of John Dingell for chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee was high drama with high consequences. Finally, we have a champion of serious action and strong regulation, someone who gets the dire nature of global warming, in charge of the crucial committee for climate and energy.

8. Ice, ice maybe not. Everywhere scientists look, ice is disappearing:

Friday music blogging: Murs

Murs is a prolific underground rapper out of L.A. He's been around for over 15 years now, as part of at least five hip-hop groups and, recently, as a solo artist. He's something of a legend in the indie rap world.

His latest album, Murs for President, is a doozy. In particular, this song, "The Science," seems to sum up basically everything there is to know about rap. I guess there aren't many hip-hop fans around here, but this one's worth listening to for the lyrics alone.

Dynegy pulls out of coal-fired power plant partnership

Today Dynegy announced the dissolution of its partnership with LS Energy, formed in 2006. The goal of the partnership was the construction of up to eight new coal-fired power plants -- as part of its dissolution, Dynegy has abandoned plans for six of the eight.

Here's the key bit from the release:

"The development landscape has changed significantly since we agreed to enter into the development joint venture with LS Power in the fall of 2006," said Bruce A. Williamson, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Dynegy Inc. "Today, the development of new generation is increasingly marked by barriers to entry including external credit and regulatory factors that make development much more uncertain. In light of these market circumstances, Dynegy has elected to focus development activities and investments around our own portfolio where we control the option to develop and can manage the costs being incurred more closely."

One of those "factors" that has made the development of new (coal) generation "uncertain" is called grassroots organizing. Along with its nonprofit partners, the Sierra Club organized a campaign targeting Dynegy, with protests and rallies that drew unwelcome attention to its plans.

Another little piece of good news in the anti-coal fight.

Is Ken Salazar 'too nice' to head Interior?

The New York Times editorial page thinks Ken Salazar is too nice to head the Department of Interior:

 

The word on Ken Salazar ... is that he is friendly, approachable, a good listener, a genial compromiser and a skillful broker of deals. That is also the rap on Ken Salazar.

What the Interior Department needs right now is someone willing to bust heads when necessary and draw the line against the powerful commercial groups -- developers, ranchers, oil and gas companies, the off-road vehicle industry -- that have long treated the department as a public extension of their private interests.

Conservationists and pretty much everyone else exhausted by the Bush administration's ideological rigidity and deference to commercial interests have welcomed Mr. Salazar's appointment. The Colorado Democrat has a solid voting record on issues involving wilderness and wildlife protection and can be expected to bring a strong conservation ethic to the top of the department.

Yet that will not be nearly enough to reform and reinvigorate the department. The Interior Department is an unusually balkanized agency, with eight separate divisions charged with managing 500 million acres of public land in a way that balances private and public claims. It is essential that Mr. Salazar find the right people to run each of these fiefs, and find ways to make them work intelligently and harmoniously in the nation's interest.

Stiffer regulation of coal ash would cost the industry billions

If I've said it once I've said it, oh, around eleven kazillion times now: "coal is cheap" because the coal industry externalizes costs.

Take, for instance, coal ash. It contains several substances that are classified as toxics individually, but the ash itself isn't thus classified. That means it can be stored in enormous pools with no liners, behind earthen dams that, as the disaster in Tennessee illustrates again, periodically fail.

What would happen if ash were classified as toxic? The answer can be found in this stellar piece from Bloomberg.

Increased regulation would bring costs to upgrade or close more than 600 landfills and waste ponds at 440 plants nationwide. While the Environmental Protection Agency put the price tag at $1 billion a year in 2000, power generators predict the cost would be as high as $5 billion, said Jim Roewer, executive director of the industry-funded Utility Solid Waste Activities Group, in a telephone interview.

Why so costly?

An EPA report in 2000 found a quarter of retention ponds and 57 percent of landfills lacked liners to prevent pollution from leaking into nearby water supplies, though the 2007 follow-up study found such controls more common at newer sites.

So much for cheap.

Also note this macabre/hilarious bit:

Scientists and other experts rattle off options for averting climate catastrophe

London’s Independent newspaper asked climate scientists to answer a simple question: should humanity “prepare a ‘Plan B’ to curb the worst effects of global warming?” Well, ask 40 eggheads a question, and you’ll get a very diverse set of responses. Geo-engineering is the answer! No, focus on carbon sequestration. Wrong again, it’s all about adapting […]

Eco-buzzwords make annual banned words list

Hush your mouth, eco-child: That green buzzword you were about to utter is probably on Lake Superior State University's annual list of banned words. "Green" itself topped the list, with it or "going green" garnering the most nominations. True that. Please, no more press releases titled "Midwives/Fighter Jets/Port-o-Potties Go Green!"

"Carbon footprint" also made the 34th annual List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness. And as for "staycation," Dan Muldoon of Omaha, Nebraska, commented with his nomination, "Let's send this word on a slow boat to nowhere."

Regulation and public investment are more efficient means to reduce GHGs than emissions pricing

When I sat down to write about why so-called "command and control" methods are often the most effective and efficient means of fighting climate chaos, I found that Kevin Drum had posted exactly the argument I wanted to refute.

After conceding that it will take more than emissions pricing to lower greenhouse gas emissions, and that response to price signals tends to be small and slow, Drum argues that a price mechanism should be the primary means to fight climate chaos: "Still, generally speaking, taxes and carbon trading are more efficient regulatory mechanisms than command and control, so the more you can rely on them the better."

I think this default conventional wisdom is just plain wrong. Not only is elasticity low, but there are also simple standards by which we can measure energy and greenhouse-gas efficiency. Further, suitable means for increasing efficiency and lowering emissions are known. Given these three conditions, price is not the most efficient way to change behavior.

As examples, consider weather and duct sealing. It's widely acknowledged that sealing buildings yields fast paybacks -- two years or less. Yet most buildings remain under-sealed, with leaky frames and ducts. How do we change this? Well, we can raise the price of energy until people become desperate and seek out contractors. But since we already have quick paybacks, any amount we raise the price is far beyond the cost of saving the energy.

If, as I have suggested in surveys of the literature, demand response to price increases is around -.5, that means it will require $200 in emissions charges to motivate each $100 of consumer investment in energy efficiency. In contrast, investing public funds could insure that a nice woman working for an energy-efficiency utility could seal your home for around $100, plus a bit for administration. Even if that $100+ came from regressive taxation, it would still cost consumers less than a primarily price-driven policy. And if the payback is really two years or less, the government could use its ability to borrow to provide low interest financing, thus bringing the cost to consumers down below the business-as-usual price.

Colorado gov. taps Denver schools chief to fill Salazar's seat

Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter has asked Denver Public Schools Superintendent Michael Bennet to take over the Senate seat being vacated by Ken Salazar, President-elect Obama's pick to run the Interior Department. An official announcement from Ritter is expected tomorrow, according to several media reports.

From Bennet's official bio:

He worked for six years prior to his tenure at the City of Denver as Managing Director for the Anschutz Investment Company in Denver, where he had direct responsibility for the investment of over $500 million. He led the reorganizations of four distressed companies including Forcenergy (which later merged with Denver-based Forest Oil), Regal Cinemas, United Artists and Edwards Theaters, which together required the restructuring of over $3 billion in debt. Bennet also managed, on behalf of Anschutz, the consolidation of the three theater chains into Regal Entertainment Group, the largest motion picture exhibitor in the world. Prior to moving to Denver, Bennet served as Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton Administration.

Bennet earned his bachelor's degree in history with honors from Wesleyan University and his law degree from Yale Law School, where he was the Editor-in-Chief of The Yale Law Journal.

Bennet served as the chief of staff to Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper for two years before being tapped to take over as superintendent in 2005. He is also a former Coro Foundation Public Affairs fellow, served as a personal assistant to Ohio Governor Richard F. Celeste, and clerked for Judge Francis D. Murnaghan on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. He worked for a brief time at the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering in Washington, D.C.

Read more on Bennet from the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News.