Articles by Joseph Romm

Republican leaders advocate domestic shale development

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."

The Republican National Committee just launched an ad called, "Balance" claiming we have "a climate in crisis." Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) introduced the Climate Destruction Gas Price Reduction Act of 2008 late last month that would repeal the congressional moratorium on shale development. In a press release today titled, "A Balanced Approach to Reducing Gas Prices for Americans," he claimed that, "Our western states are sitting on a sea of oil three times as large as the oil reserves in Saudi Arabia."

Actually, the shale ain't a sea of anything. It is a clay-like rock, organic marlstone, containing very little energy [PDF] -- per pound, it has one-tenth the energy of crude oil, one-fourth that of recycled phone books, one-third that of Cap'n Crunch. Turning it into a usable liquid fuel would require a massive amounts of energy and probably release more carbon dioxide than even liquid coal.

The best analysis of the climate risks of unconventional oil, "Risks of the oil transition," coauthored by the late Alex Farrell, has an outstanding figure that shows that from a climate perspective, shale is probably worse than liquid coal (which is pretty damn bad):

McCain’s economy plan fails to substantially address energy efficiency

John McCain takes the "conserve" out of "conservative." His entire energy efficiency strategy would fit on one side of a very small file card and can be summarized as follows: Ban Porsches, green federal buildings, and applaud homeowners who do stuff on their own!

His repackaged new economic plan, "Jobs for America" has precisely three paragraphs that deal with efficiency:

CAFE Standards: John McCain has long supported CAFE standards -- the mileage requirements that automobile manufacturers' cars must meet. Some carmakers ignore these standards, pay a small financial penalty, and add it to the price of their cars. John McCain believes that the penalties for not following these standards must be effective enough to compel carmakers to produce fuel-efficient vehicles.

Seriously. That's all he has to say about fuel economy. McCain's entire fuel economy strategy is to force a small number of "higher end auto companies like BMW, Porsche, and Mercedes" to make their cars fuel efficient. What a transformative, addiction-ending idea -- I bet it would reduce U.S. oil consumption at least one-tenth of 1 percent:

Should we question the patriotism of deniers?

Independence Day may be the best day to ask ourselves -- what is the greatest preventable threat to Americans' life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness (LLPH). The answer is simple: human-caused global warming. Certainly there are other major threats to LLPH, the gravest of which is probably terrorists using weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapon, in this country.

Between Homeland Security and the Pentagon, we spend billions of dollars every month to try to prevent terrorism. Indeed, President Bush and John McCain say Iraq is the central front in the war on terror. If so, the government spends more than $20 billion a month just to fight terrorism -- of which more than half is new money we weren't spending before 9/11 (and we spend more than $50 billion a month total on military and homeland security). Those who oppose such spending are routinely labeled unpatriotic or even appeasers.

But unrestricted greenhouse gas emissions are by far the greatest preventable threat to Americans' LLPH. Yet the government spends virtually nothing to fight global warming -- certainly no significant amount of new money has been allocated for this major threat (the Clinton administration tried, but the Gingrich Congress reversed that effort, reducing or zeroing out every program aimed at climate mitigation or even adaptation).

Indeed, most conservatives, including John McCain, oppose even continuing existing incentives for carbon-mitigating strategies like solar and wind power. Conservatives in Congress seem likely to strongly oppose any major effort at a legislative solution (see "Anti-science conservatives must be stopped").

Hmm. What should we call people who actively oppose efforts to save America from the horrors posed by the greatest threat to Americans' LLPH? Deniers? Delayers? Worse?

The main reason I bring this up today is that conservative columnist Tony Blankley, Newt Gingrich's former press secretary, questioned the patriotism of environmentalists on the Diane Rehm show yesterday:

Drought conditions in West and Southwest inspire new fireworks bans

Global warming threatens our White Chistmases with winter heatwaves. And our Halloweens with poor pumpkin crops. And our Arbor Days with record wildfires. And our immoral myopia threatens Father's Day. At this rate, the only holiday left will be the gas tax holiday -- for oil companies!

But I digress. Last year, Independence Day fireworks fizzled out for many thanks to ever worsening droughts. And MSNBC reports the droughts have done it again this year:

Authorities scared of setting off wildfires in drought conditions have imposed new bans on fireworks displays across a swath of the West and the Southwest.