Climate Politics

'Climate change' is climate change by any other name

In his famous essay, "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell wrote: "The English language ... becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts." He warns that "Political language ... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." The importance of language and rhetoric is a subject near to my heart.

This post is by ClimateProgress guest blogger Bill Becker, executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project.

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Washington, D.C., is to the English language what Paris is to fashion. Every season, perfectly good words go out of style and new ones are trotted out on the national runway of rhetoric. Some words are considered so worn out, politically incorrect, or laden with baggage that they can no longer be used in public discourse. When that happens, people like me find ourselves scrambling for suitable synonyms.

That was the case a few years ago with "sustainable development." I operated the Center of Excellence for Sustainable Development at the U.S. Department of Energy, helping communities understand and apply the practice. Before long, signals came down from Capitol Hill that the words "sustainable development" had become the kiss of death for any program that used them. The term "smart growth" was invented to take "sustainability's" place.

More recently, Congress has avoided using the word "climate" in legislation that clearly is meant in part to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions -- legislation such as the "Energy Security and Independence Act of 2007." The Bush people call torture "enhanced interrogation" and call kidnapping "rendition." Healthy Forests and Clear Skies became the titles of the Bush Administration's programs to cut trees and pollute the air, respectively.

Our elected leaders aren't alone in manipulating the English language. Lobbyists and extremists, left and right, regularly play the game too, to obscure facts, incite emotions, insult opponents, or get attention from the media, where conflict is red meat.

Coal executives try to persuade us there's such a thing as "clean coal" and oil executives talk about "energy independence" when they really mean more drilling. In 2003, Orwell protégé Frank Luntz counseled in a confidential memo that the Administration and conservatives should stop using the term "global warming" because it was too frightening. Luntz suggested that Republicans refer to themselves as "conservationists" rather than "environmentalists," since the latter term, in Luntz's view, is associated with tree-hugging and extremism.

Enviro and labor leaders welcome four new, green House members

The Natural Resources Defense Council and the Blue Green Alliance today hosted a meeting with several newly elected Democratic members of the House, welcoming the "next generation of green leaders."

The four new members the groups touted come to the House with experience working on green issues in their home states: Debbie Halvorson (Ill.), Steve Driehaus (Ohio), Tom Perriello (Va.), and Mark Schauer (Mich.). At the presser, each spoke about likely committee assignments and goals for the first year in Congress.

Perriello has a background in environmental and human rights issues, and previously served as the assistant director of the Center for a Sustainable Economy (which is now part of Redefining Progress) and as a consultant on youth and environmental campaigns. This summer, he could be seen campaigning on a float pulled by a biofuel-powered tractor, as his opponent cruised by in a Hummer. Perriello, who has been assigned to the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said the economic crisis should fuel the desire for an overhaul of the energy system.

"Now is the time to look for game changers. We have to get people to work right away but we have to get them to work on things that are going to make America competitive again," Perriello told Grist. "We are getting out-competed, and we are being made incredibly vulnerable by our energy dependence."

Commentary Magazine warms to Obama

Jennifer Rubin, Commentary Magazine:

So let's get this straight: Robert Gates will be the Defense Secretary, we're ramping up U.S. forces in Afghanistan and providing a reasonable period of time for a hand-off in Iraq, there isn't going to be a windfall oil profits tax or income tax hike but there is going to be a huge set of business tax cuts -- and Rick Warren is giving the invocation at the Inauguration. Who won in November?

Enviros praise Obama's stimulus package, but call for transit funding to be added

Environmental leaders gave a big thumbs-up to Barack Obama's economic stimulus proposal on Thursday, though they pledged to continue pushing to make the bill as green as possible, particularly on transportation issues.

"This morning, President-elect Obama reaffirmed his commitment to invest in efficiency and clean energy technologies as part of his economic recovery package," said League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski in a statement. "Ready to hit the ground running, he offered specific details that offer great hope for America's future success."

Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope was also effusive in a statement: "These initiatives are a win-win for a strong economy and a healthier environment. They will create good jobs here in America and reduce our dependence on dirtier energy sources like oil and coal by promoting the shift to wind and solar power and high-energy-performance, low-carbon cars and buildings."

Said Cathy Zoi, CEO of the Alliance for Climate Protection, "This increased investment in renewables, efficiency, and our energy infrastructure is a crucial first step in boosting our economy, ending our reliance on dirty coal and foreign oil, and solving the climate crisis."

Last chance to pick your top hero/villain of 2008

Just before the holidays, we put up a list of green heroes and green villains for 2008 and asked readers to vote for their favorite (or, um, unfavorite).

Readership is low around the holidays, so I just want to bring those lists to your attention one last time, because voting closes in 24 hours! At that point we will declare winners and start handing out prizes, as soon as we come up with some prizes.

Currently the top hero is Sierra Club's anti-coal activist Bruce Nilles, with 661 votes -- a healthy lead over the second place hero James Hansen at 437. (Guess it helps to have a very large club at your back.)

Third is Barack Obama with 399 and fourth is Michael Pollan with 258.

Dead last? Poor Jim Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy, with 6 votes.

Meanwhile, flaccid apparatchik Stephen Johnson, head of the EPA, is walking away with the top villain spot. He's got 397 votes, far outpacing second place Sarah Palin (240) and third place (and personal favorite) Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship (236).

Amusingly, Jim Rogers is losing this one too -- just 12 votes. Perhaps we should come up with a new category for this dude.

Anyway: Go vote now while you still can! We'll announce the final winners tomorrow.

Obama lays out his economic stimulus plan

On Thursday, President-elect Barack Obama called for doubling production of alternative energy in the United States over the next three years as part of his "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan." In a speech officially rolling out the plan, he also set a goal of retrofitting more than 75 percent of federal buildings and 2 million homes to make them more energy-efficient.

"In the process, we will put Americans to work in new jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced -- jobs building solar panels and wind turbines; constructing fuel-efficient cars and buildings; and developing the new energy technologies that will lead to even more jobs, more savings, and a cleaner, safer planet in the bargain," he said. (He did not say, nor is it entirely clear, why jobs manufacturing turbines and cars can't be outsourced.)

Obama also pledged to make major investments in infrastructure, including not just road and bridge repairs but construction of a new, national "smart grid" that "will save us money, protect our power sources from blackout or attack, and deliver clean, alternative forms of energy to every corner of our nation."

A draft of the full plan [PDF] circulating on Capitol Hill outlines more specifics, including a call for a federal renewable-energy standard of 25 percent by 2025 and an extension of the production tax credit for renewable energy.

The draft includes $50 billion in loan guarantees to help the auto industry "retool, develop new battery technologies, and produce the next generation of fuel-efficient cars here in America." This figure is double what Congress allotted last year, and the Obama plan calls for speedier dispersion of the funding as well.

The plan also calls for the creation of an Advanced Manufacturing Fund that would be used to support promising new manufacturing strategies. There's no dollar figure on the fund, but the plan says it would be based on a peer-review process and similar to Michigan's 21st Century Jobs Fund. It calls for a doubling of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, which works with manufacturers to improve efficiency and spur new technologies, but whose funding has been cut in recent years.

ZOMG BREAKING! Carol Browner is a commie!!1!

"Seriously."

Court to hear case that interprets Clean Water Act's purview over mine fill

The future of America's streams, rivers and lakes is on the agenda of U.S. Supreme Court justices this Monday, Jan. 12, when they hear arguments on whether a pristine Alaskan lake may be killed by operators of Kensington gold mine.

Earthjustice attorney Tom Waldo, who has kept the lake alive through a series of successful battles in lower courts, will again take the lead in this final showdown -- but the stakes have become much greater.

"The whole reason Congress passed the Clean Water Act was to stop turning our lakes and rivers into industrial waste dumps," Waldo said. "The Bush Administration selected the Kensington Mine to test the limits of the Clean Water Act. The Army Corps had never issued a permit like this before."

That the high court even agreed to review the case is troubling because of the damage that may be inflicted on the federal Clean Water Act. A ruling in favor of the dumping scheme would allow reinterpretation of the Act so that mining waste could be dumped into waterways throughout the United States. Should the worst happen, defenders of the country's waterways would almost certainly have to rely on Congress and the Obama administration for relief.

The case is being closely followed in Alaska because of its immediate implications for Pebble Mine, a massive gold mine proposed for development above the headwaters of Bristol Bay, the world's richest sockeye salmon fishery.

American Enterprise Institute endorses tax credits for super-efficient, furnace-free homes

If the American Enterprise Institute starts acknowledging that residential energy efficiency has a "positive rate of return" -- and advocating federal support to capture the full energy savings possible -- perhaps the world is changing.

Then again, it may just be temporary institutional schizophrenia, since others in AEI continue to assert (without any supporting evidence), "No matter what you've been told, the technology to significantly reduce emissions is decades away and extremely costly."

Kevin Hassett, AEI's director of economic-policy studies, has a Bloomberg News column that I excerpt below, because of its surprising degree of common sense -- and because he cites actual research:

Funding transit to reshape the Sunbelt

The city of Phoenix celebrated the dawning of the new year by beginning normal, paying service on its shiny new light rail line. The current 20-mile segment runs from north of central Phoenix through the city, past Sky Harbor airport, and into Tempe and Mesa. If current plans are realized, an extension to the line will be completed by 2012, and a full(ish) network will begin to take shape over the following decade.

The light rail line is part of a wave of transit construction that's bringing transit systems to a new generation of booming cities. These emergent metropolises often went through crucial development phases at a time when the highway was king. Compared to older cities in the Northeast and Midwest, the amount of space devoted to dense, gridded development in such places is quite small indeed, and it has long been unclear whether transit could work in these cities, built for the car. A dreadful chicken and egg problem seems to exist. Few neighborhoods are currently dense enough to support transit, so opponents argue that systems won't draw riders. And because opponents can make this argument and systems often die on the drawing board, these cities never have the opportunity to catalyze denser, transit-oriented growth.