Climate Politics

Oil in the ocean: light as a feather!

“These [oil] firms have learned a lot over the past two decades and three decades about their ability to go out and put a platform in water and extract oil and do it in a way that they’re not causing any environmental harm at all.” — White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto

Ex-EPA official details White House interference on climate action

In a letter [PDF] made public today, former deputy EPA administrator Jason Burnett indicates that both the Office of the Vice President and the Council on Environmental Quality have attempted to censor discussion of the consequences that global warming poses to human health.   Burnett, who went public about the administration’s obstruction after leaving the […]

New Obama ad knocks McCain’s energy policy

Barack Obama’s campaign has released a new ad to counter those from the Republican National Committee criticizing his energy plan. Obama’s ad, called “New Energy,” accuses opponent John McCain of being “part of the problem” and hits on his support of drilling and tax breaks for oil companies. The ad says that energy independence is […]

E.U. committee vote signals backstep from biofuels

The European Union took another step back from biofuels late Monday, as the Parliament’s environment committee approved 36-0 a proposal to lower the E.U.’s original target for biofueled transportation. The committee’s proposal would have the E.U. source just 4 percent of transportation fuels from biomass by 2015, then do a major review before jumping to […]

Bush administration, other G8 leaders agree to halve emissions by 2050

Today at the G8 summit, which began yesterday in Hokkaido, Japan, world leaders reached a landmark deal: agreeing to cut emissions in half by 2050. The leaders agreed to “seriously consider” this goal last year, and six of the eight leaders have been trying desperately to get George Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper […]

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):

Lag in water-pollution enforcement traced to muddled court decision

The U.S. EPA has neglected to pursue hundreds of potential violations of the Clean Water Act because of regulatory uncertainty, according to an internal memo. The lack of clarity stems from a 2006 Supreme Court ruling that left plenty up in the air about the types of waterways and wetlands that fall under EPA jurisdiction. […]

Economics, policy, and vision for fighting global warming

Z magazine has published an extended article by me on the politics and economics of global warming. It begins:

Nobody, except for a small lunatic fringe, still disputes that human-caused climate chaos endangers all of us. Further, most serious scientific and technical groups who have looked at the question have concluded that we have the technological capability today to replace greenhouse-gas emitting fossil fuels with efficiency improvements and clean energy -- usually at a maximum cost of around the current worldwide military budget, probably much less. The question therefore is: What's stopping us?

To answer that we need to look at the causes of global warming -- not the physical causes, but the economic and political flaws in our system that have prevented solutions from being implemented long after the problem was known.

One driver is inequality and the maintenance of power that keeps inequality in place produces perverse incentives in resource use.

Read the whole thing. (Note this will disappear behind a paywall eventually. I urge you to buy a copy of Zmag or subscribe to the electronic edition to support alternative media. But if you want to read it for free, grab your electronic copy now.)

Minority leader proposes spending cuts to pay for renewables tax-credit extension

Yet another episode in the drama that is the renewable-energy tax-credit extensions. Last week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) sent a letter [PDF] to Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asking that the Democrats agree to spending cuts in order to fund the extension of tax credits for renewable energy. […]

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: