Articles by Joseph Romm

The four global warming impact studies Bush tried to bury in his final days

NOTE TO U.S. MEDIA: Please don't fall for the Bush administration's final climate trick -- don't ignore these important studies.

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Normally, when an administration wants to bury bad news -- such as a government report it doesn't like -- the story gets released Friday afternoon. That ensures minimal media coverage. For news it really doesn't like, the Friday of a three-day weekend is ideal.

So what subject matter is so abhorrent it would motivate the Bush administration to release multiple reports simultaneously the Friday before the four-day weekend that culminates in their loss of power, and when they can be certain the media will be focused on other matters?

Answer: The impact of human-caused global warming on Americans -- arguably the single most taboo subject in the entire Bush administration. For eight years they have avoided their statutory obligation to detail the impacts of climate change on this country. And they have systematically muzzled government climate scientists from discussing those impacts with the public or the media.

It was easier to find people in the Bush administration to talk about torture or warrantless wiretaps, than it was to get someone to speak on (or off) the record on the likely impact of Bush's policy of unrestricted greenhouse gas emissions on Americans.

On Friday January 16, the U.S. Climate Change Science Program actually released four major Synthesis and Assessment reports. You may remember the last report the CCSP released -- U.S. Geological Survey stunner: Sea-level rise in 2100 will likely "substantially exceed" IPCC projections, SW faces "permanent drying" by 2050. I was told by scientists knowledgeable about the CCSP process that all of the major impact reports were slowed down in the review process to make sure they came out after the election.

So what are the reports the Bushies have tried to bury? From the CCSP website:

President Barack Obama's call to action on energy and climate

Considering that this was an inaugural address, a speech whose aims are primarily rhetorical and visionary, our 44th president devoted more of his remarks to clean energy and global warming than anyone could have expected.

Yet it may be these muscular and optimistic lines that offer the greatest encouragement to the nation and the world:

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions -- who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

Obama believes the simple yet powerful words, "Make no small plans."

We can preserve a livable climate, but it will require the biggest of plans. It will require a memory of what we have accomplished in the past, most especially during World War II -- the only true model for the scale and speed of effort required.

Let's look at what he said specifically related to energy and climate, starting with the fourth paragraph:

The energy and climate challenge for Obama

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this day.

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The excitement here in D.C. is palpable. We have friends in town who brought their five-year-old and are walking down to the National Mall. My wife got an invitation to watch the whole thing from an office that overlooks the Capitol.

I'm an indoor type (Duh!) -- especially on a cold day with a wind chill that could only warm the hearts of anti-scientific global warming deniers. And someone needs to stay home with my 21-month-old daughter and blog.

She is so excited. She keeps saying "Where is Barack Obama?" and "Is Joe Biden here?" (Note: If you ask her who ran against Barack Obama, she'll answer "Grumpy old man." Go figure!)

So what is the great challenge for Obama?

Global warming, obviously, but what does he need to do?

Yes, he needs to pass a major climate bill and accelerate the deployment of cleantech. But those are really secondary challenges.

No, the single most important thing he needs to do is to change the political equation in this country.

GOP leader Scrooge Boehner disses weatherizing low-income homes and cutting the deficit

So what part of the economic stimulus plan did House Minority Leader John Boehner single out on PBS's Newshour:

And, if you look at the over $500 billion worth of spending, a lot of it's going to fix up federal buildings, and -- and $6 billion to community action programs to do weatherization programs.

It's just more of the same kind of wasteful spending that we have seen in the past. I was really -- I was shocked.

The Republicans dumped more than $100 billion down the black hole of Iraqi reconstruction, and Bush flushed down the toilet who knows how many tens of billions of dollars of the bailout bill. But Boehner is shocked that Democrats want to spend a few billion dollars to:

1. retrofit federal buildings to make them more energy-efficient, and
2. weatherize the home of poor people.

I actually helped oversee both of those programs when I was at the Department of Energy (DOE) in the mid-1990s. The conservatives hated them then, too. What is so galling about the GOP's ongoing efforts to cut these programs is that not only are they job creators -- they are both deficit reducers: