In an annual symposium at the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) scientists acknowledged a recent error and reports about hacked e-mail leaving out data relative to global warming. However, “many scientists say comments from the emails were taken out of context and used in misleading ways.” Really “There has been no change in the scientific community, no change whatsoever,” in the consensus that global average temperatures have been steadily climbing since the mid-20th century,” said Jerry North, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University.

These scientists not unlike last night’s blog, found little amiss that would make much of a change in our climate future, but believe after the error and hacked emails there needs to be much more communication to the public in laymen’s terms so that the public understands the science behind climate change and doesn’t buy into the misleading spin attached to every mistake turned up. The scientists at the AAAS symposium “expressed shock at the political effects of the disclosures and said the impact was far out of proportion to the overwhelming evidence that human activity is changing the Earth’s climate.”

Meanwhile, “An independent investigation is ongoing. The Royal Society will provide advice to the University of East Anglia in identifying assessors to conduct an independent external reappraisal of the Climatic Research Unit’s key publications.” Lord Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society in the U.K. said “It is important that people have the utmost confidence in the science of climate change. Where legitimate doubts are raised about any piece of science they must be fully investigated – that is how science works. The names being put forward by the society will be acting as individuals, not representatives of the Society and the Society will have no oversight of this independent review.”

Read the article: http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2010/2010-02-20-01.html.

The cover of the same magazine was quite blunt in trying to tell readers something about the forces preventing progress in the U.S. It was titled in big red letters: “You Idiots! Meet the Planet’s Worst Enemies.” It’s simply white hat, black hat here. Say for instance, I’m a billion dollar corp., and I see that the worldwide competition and sentiment is moving toward cleaning up our acts relative to global warming. I remember Cheney’s 1% doctrine too. It was good enough to reason a war in Iraq. In the context of global warming the 1% doctrine dictates that if there is a 1% chance that we are exacerbating global warming, then we have the duty to combat the source. I see brand new innovation for fuels that looks promising like algae, methane, recycled grease, etc., and I’m reminded that America has always been a leader in innovation. We nurture that type of progress here. As this corporation I have great wealth, clout, and access to the technical ability to choose to:

A. Invest in new innovation while I’m still at the top of the game in the fossil fuel sector. By doing this I insure that I will always be a corporation associated with progress and prosperity well into the future, where I will probably advance and adapt over and over in step with newer technologies as they come up. I am still employing workers in the fossil fuel industry but am setting up programs for job transition in the future. Eventually, I phase out the polluting industry, and become totally vested in the new, and maintain my fortune while continuously providing jobs for old and new employees.

B. Use my money and clout to block progress not only to a cleaner way of life for the world, but also block the chance for all those young, eager, innovative minds to create. I would also block new jobs in a brand new green economy. Heaven forbid anyone finds out these jobs do indeed help boost the economy, and prices for alternatives begin to fall. I would continue to offer only those jobs in polluting industries that ravage the land, air, and water in my own country and eventually the world, as well as, expose workers to an unhealthy working environment. I might also affect the health of those that live in close proximity to my operations. In the end, the world moves forward and I am so far behind. But who cares, I’m still rich.

There you have it, black and white. We see what road corporations are choosing to take The very next article after “As the World Burns” is even better. It’s titled: “The Climate Killers,” and names the top 17 polluters/deniers “derailing efforts to curb global warming,” by Tim Dickinson.

After reading this, the question people should be asking themselves is, “What would have happened if the technology boom was continually stalled? What if there was a massive campaign by old school America to keep us on corded phones forever? All the Silicon Valley innovation, jobs, and even the stock market associated with it would never have been realized. We could use another immediate surge like that in the U.S., and it’s got green written all over it.

Take the time to read the articles. They are important, as the U.S. seems to become ever more increasingly ruled by corporate America

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633532/as_the_world_burns.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633524/the_climate_killers.

· Endangerment Finding: The Administrator finds that the current and projected concentrations of the six key well-mixed greenhouse gases–carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)–in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.

· Cause or Contribute Finding: The Administrator finds that the combined emissions of these well-mixed greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles and new motor vehicle engines contribute to the greenhouse gas pollution which threatens public health and welfare.

These findings do not themselves impose any requirements on industry or other entities. However, this morning the ABC News ticker read: EPA decides greenhouse gasses pose threat to Americans and should be regulated allowing officials to act without congressional authority. Hmmm. It’ll be interesting to see the outcome of this. The Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change is coming up this month too.

Read it: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment.html.

While the U.S. is still talking industry friendly carbon offsets and emissions trading, a growing portion of the rest of the undeveloped world has something completely different in mind. In a nutshell, they resent us and blame the U.S. and other industrialized countries for the climate change problems they are ALREADY experiencing. Undeveloped countries will be presenting the concept of “climate debt” at the summit. They want “rich countries to pay reparations to poor countries for the climate crisis.” This is a radical departure from where the U.S. is right now. Heck, I’m still arguing with TEFLON COATED DENIERS that mankind is indeed producing too much pollution causing accelerated climate change. Deniers simply will not admit that maybe 7 billion people and their consumption habits like millions of food animals, and industrial pollution, plus deforestation due to population increase just might be over-polluting a closed environment no longer equipped to clean up effectively.

The article explained that the U.S. thinks of climate change as a “we” problem, but a growing number of countries view climate change as a problem created predominantly by the “few.” The coalition of Latin American and African governments stress big differences between who caused the crisis and those who suffer it the most right now.
The chief economist for the World Bank says the equation amounts to “75 to 80% of developing countries suffering the most even though they contribute collectively only about 1/3 of greenhouse gases.” The article further reported, “Developed countries, which represent less than 20 percent of the world’s population, have emitted almost 75 percent of all greenhouse-gas pollution that is now destabilizing the climate.” Yes science has a way of measuring pollution output now, where it came from, and what it costs in real money. This in and of itself should put a crimp in the deniers argument that mankind isn’t the culprit, it’s just nature. But…

So as the article stated, “Climate debt is about who will pick up the bill.” It went on to explain:

The grass-roots movement behind the proposal argues that all the costs associated with adapting to a more hostile ecology — everything from building stronger sea walls to switching to cleaner, more expensive technologies — are the responsibility of the countries that created the crisis. ‘What we need is not something we should be begging for but something that is owed to us, because we are dealing with a crisis not of our making,’ says Lidy Nacpil, one of the coordinators of Jubilee South, an international organization that has staged demonstrations to promote climate reparations. ‘Climate debt is not a matter of charity.’

The U.S. alone, which comprises barely five percent of the global population, contributes 25 percent of all carbon emissions. And while developing countries like China and India have also begun to spew large amounts of carbon dioxide, the reasoning goes, they are not equally responsible for the cost of the cleanup, because they have contributed only a small fraction of the 200 years of cumulative pollution that has caused the crisis.

Did you notice that China is considered a developing country? The U.S. tends to put China up there as a super power but truth is China still has more underdeveloped rural areas of population than not. And while they may still be building coal fired plants, they are emerging as a world leader in wind and solar, and are in the midst of building the largest smart grid in the world. We gripe about lost jobs in the U.S. The politics that keeps us from moving forward for renewable energy has cost us the jobs shipped to China to produce the parts for our largest wind farm in Texas. It wasn’t just about cheaper labor or materials in this instance. We simply didn’t have the labor in place, or the manufacturing facilities.

What should really make us sit up and take notice is that the idea of “climate debt” is “supported by the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change — ratified by 192 countries, including the United States.” The framework not only asserts that “the largest share of historical and current global emissions of greenhouse gases has originated in developed countries,” it clearly states that actions taken to fix the problem should be made “on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities.” Uh oh. They’ve got us in writing on this.

But Angelica Navarro, the chief climate negotiator for Bolivia, pushed the notion farther at U.N. climate negotiations in June in Bonn, Germany presenting the argument that not only are poorer countries already suffering the effects of climate change but in this new environmental arena they will not be able to enjoy the advantages of cheap fossil fuels in order to grow as the U.S. and other developed countries were able to do. They will bear a much higher cost burden to grow economically. But Navarro just didn’t point fingers. She presented a 3-point solution.Rich countries need to:

• Pay the costs associated with adapting to a changing climate
• Make deep cuts to their own emission levels “to make atmospheric space available” for the developing world
• Pay Third World countries to leapfrog over fossil fuels and go straight to cleaner alternatives.

Third World countries are tired of promises. They see what many of us see that the U.S. is going to stall on climate change along political lines. These countries cannot afford to wait around. And the list is growing with 49 countries taking their demands to Copenhagen in December with at least 240 environmental and development organizations calling for the same. Germany has recently acknowledged the concept of climate debt by paying Ecuador millions over a course of years to leave a huge cache of oil in the ground under Yasuni National Park part of the Amazonian rain forest. Other European countries are interested in following suit.

So we have developed countries already paying Third World countries not to produce more fossil fuel but to preserve environmental assets like forests. Meanwhile, some U.S. citizens and of course our massively wealthy fossil fuel industry look ill prepared to except not only the blame for much of the world’s pollution but even the concept that mankind has indeed caused environmental problems at all.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/30841581/climate_rage/3.

New administrator declaring that global warming pollution “endangers” Americans’ health and well being
http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2009/04/epa-administrator-issues-proposed-ruling-on-global-warming/.

Being ordered by the courts to come up with mercury emission standards in two years.

http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2009/02/stricter-mercury-rules-on-the-way/.

Latest air study showed many U.S. cities flunking horribly
http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2009/04/us-cities-recent-air-quality-reports%e2%80%94not-good/.

Non-existence when it comes to enforcement of the clean water act.
http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2008/12/collapse-of-national-clean-water-act-enforcement-program/.

Plus, the largest and longest government report on the affects of global warming on the U.S. was completed and predicted bad consequences.
http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2009/07/predictions-from-completed-government-report-on-global-warming/.

Senator Voinovich (R) Ohio and Senator Inhofe (R) Oklahoma put their request for the EPA study in writing, and although Voinovich read this request, Inhofe refused to expound on what his party wanted but reiterated it was in writing and left. The reason for leaving is that there is an (EPW) Environment and Public Works rule that at least two members of the minority have to be present before opening a markup, but it is not necessarily binding.

The funny part came when I actually listened to Senator Voinovich request the EPA do this modeling first so that Republicans can be informed with the latest reports. No wonder Inhofe didn’t want to expound. Voinovich ended up complaining about the EPA that when it did modeling before it used assumptions that were unrealistic. He said the EPA’s modeling is only as good as the assumptions built into it. What? Why would one request the EPA to do all this unnecessary work when one wasn’t satisfied with the EPA’s methodology to begin with? Is this the same type of convoluted request as wanting to be included then not showing up?

I state that the Republican senator’s request is unnecessary work because of the government’s recently completed and extensive global warming study that puts many parts of our country in a precarious position. And this same committee heard 54 witnesses on nine panels relative to climate change just last week. So there is already a large amount of climate change data available for review. Senator Boxer also brought in EPA officials to answer any questions the Republican senators might have. But a lot of good any of this important and recent information is when Republicans aren’t there to hear it.

Stall or no stall, the U.S. going to be surprised at the biggest gathering on climate change to date in Copenhagen this Decemeber because the scheme of things has changed. Cap and trade isn’t going to cut it anymore. There is much more at stake as the rest of the world is focusing on reparations by wealthy nations for the damage done. Stay Tuned.

Watch part of the committee meeting:

Senator Voinovich’s Request for EPA study

What’s up with this? The same satellite data from the UK Hadley Center used by SPPI for their July CO2 Report describes global temperatures falling fast since 2001,
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/co2_report
_july_09.pdf, yet Dr. Pope of the UK Hadley Center clearly sees warming trends specifically tied to human produced green house gases. The Climate Progress article goes on to state that even “the traditionally staid and conservative International Energy Agency annual noted in its World Energy Outlook…’Without a change in policy, the world is on a path for a rise in global temperature of up to 6C.”

The same article blames poor messaging by scientists, environmentalists, progressives and bad media coverage for leading the public to think there is a broad range of global warming that could take place. In other words, it’s no biggy. I have to admit I’ve heard more than one TV personality make fun of the fact that we’re only heating up a degree or two over a hundred years. Unfortunately that degree or two conclusion depends on massive and quick CO2 reductions, which just aren’t happening. And so confusion persists in the U.S. aided by conservatives and energy companies. In the meantime, lack of acting quickly to reduce CO2 emissions leads to a more realistic scenario of a 5C or 6C rise in temperature over the next century.

Do we really understand what that means because 6 degrees Celsius is close to 50 degrees Fahrenheit? And more than likely that rise isn’t going to happen evenly in 10-year increments. That’s a lot of heat considering the west suffered temps in the 90’s and 100’s this past summer. At 150 F that area would surely become a desert wasteland by the end of the century.

Many of us are suddenly worried about debt in the U.S., and that we are leaving too much to our children. That’s not all we’re leaving them. If we don’t start cleaning up our acts, debt will be the least of their worries.

How friendly is it? The rallies are nothing more than the tangible power of polluting industries like coal and oil that are backing them and strangling the rest of America from moving forward with clean energy jobs, work on new infrastructure to deliver that clean energy, and economic turnaround, not to mention the health aspects of cleaner air and water for generations to come.

It’s ludicrous to call this movement “friendly” to America at all. Who releases invisible, and sometimes odorless, but nevertheless harmful pollutants into the air that also ends up in our water? Who dumps chemicals, drugs, and makes huge environmental mistakes like oil spills and coal slurry spills into our waterways? And did it ever occur to anyone that when we’re assured from the different polluting entities that the parts per million or PPM that is being released is well within the limits of what is healthful for humans that there are 100’s of other industries saying likewise? So the safe limits of PPM of mercury, ammonia, carcinogens from incinerators, and the thousands of supposedly controlled substances entering the air meet up with the PPM limits of mercury, lead, pharmaceutical compounds, big Ag runoff and the like found in our drinking water that meet up with the sometimes tainted food we eat full of additives like corn syrup solids that help along the Type II diabetes problem in the U.S.

The industries that do this to our air, water, and food protest global warming as way to sideline the real issue, which is their pollution, in order stop any policies that might make them clean up their mess, and to avert new green industry that is competition. It’s one of the greediest ploys ever and polluting industry is pulling out all the stops. They put saving jobs out front at these rallies to mask the bad they do to the environment and all of us including their employees in the long run. The rise in cancer rates and new diseases isn’t a coincidence but may be more of an indication of what we’re really eating, breathing, and drinking.

These anti-environmental rallies are called “grassroots” events but DeSmogBlog dubbed them “glorified company picnics.” A New Mexico blog FBIHOP reported: “The Houston Astroturf event [was] an ‘energy employee’s rally’ a more fitting description of the closed door event that drew somewhere between 2,500-3,500 oil industry employees who were bussed in and given yellow ‘Energy Citizen’ t-shirts in “‘another high-priced photo op for the oil and gas industry.’”

It was also stated that one of the rallies in Texas was organized by the DW Turner PR firm that represents BP and Chevron.

The biggest “Friends of America” rally slated for Labor Day in West Virginia is no different. It’s backed by none other than Massey Energy that is a notoriously dirty coal company. According to the Rural Blog, The Lexington Herald-Leader reported:

Massey Energy Co. will pay a record $20 million for polluting streams around its coal mines in Kentucky and West Virginia, and spend another $10 million to prevent future problems. The lawsuit filed by the Environmental Protection Agency last May charged that Massey discharged excess amounts of metals, sediment and acid mine drainage into hundreds of rivers and streams in the two states.

The Rural Blog also included Louisville’s The Courier-Journal statement:

The civil penalty [for Massey] is the largest ever for violating wastewater discharge permits, and “stems from the massive, 300-million-gallon slurry spill in Martin County, Ky., in October 2000, often described as the southeastern United States’ worst environmental disaster, as well as 4,500 violations of Clean Water Act permits at mines in the two states. Many of the violations exceeded limits by 40 percent, with some pollutants discharged at levels more than 10 times their limit, the government said.

So if you run across Massey’s CEO Don Blankenship’s invitation to the Labor Day rally on You Tube where he says: “Hello I’m Don Blankenship and I’d like to invite you to a Labor Day rally in West Virginia. We’re going to have Hank Williams and have a good time but we’re also going to learn how environmental extremists and corporate America are both trying to destroy your jobs,” beware of the devil who likes to confuse.

Massey IS corporate America at its polluting finest. These rallies support the real extremists.

BTW the rallies aren’t limited to a few states. Michigan has one slated for September 3rd, Detroit’s Burton Manor Banquet and Conference Center.

http://www.allbusiness.com/legal/trial-procedure-suits-claims/10272123-1.html
.

http://irjci.blogspot.com/2008/01/massey-paying-record-penalty-for-water.html.

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/verizon_massey/?rc=homepage.

· Clean Energy Deployment Administration – provides for increased capitalization of clean energy projects;
· Oil and gas – opens portions of the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, including Destin Dome, to oil and gas leasing, and establishes a one-stop permitting office in Alaska for offshore leasing in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas;
· Alaska natural gas pipeline – increases federal loan guarantee for the developers of a gas pipeline project from $18 billion to $30 billion, and allows access to the Federal Financing Bank;
· Energy workforce development – provides assistance to institutions of higher learning and community colleges that place an emphasis on energy jobs and help train the energy workers of the future;
· Energy efficiency – establishes new efficiency standards for several consumer products and makes changes that will allow standards to be updated more often and be market driven;
· Renewable electricity standard – requires utilities to generate 15 percent of their electricity with renewable energy by 2021, and contains consumer off-ramps for increased costs and the opportunity to petition for a variance due to transmission constraints, includes expanded definition of biomass, eligible hydropower and removes nuclear uprates from the baseline;
· Nuclear – provides clear statement of the federal government’s support for nuclear energy, as well as encourages resolution of the spent nuclear fuel issue.
· Transmission – addresses planning and siting of electrical transmission infrastructure by encouraging states to develop plans and giving FERC backstop siting authority, ties cost allocation to benefits;
· Cyber security – increases authority for both FERC and the Department of Energy to protect the nation’s electrical grid from cyber security threats and vulnerabilities;
· Carbon sequestration – allows for indemnification of up to 10 demonstration projects;
· Modification of Section 526 – allows the government, and in particularly the military, to purchase Canadian tar sand oil.

Either the two bills will collide, and end up being much ado about nothing, or meld into a bill everyone can work with notwithstanding industry lobbyists who would like all to remain status quo even though the math doesn’t add up. We use a quarter of the world’s oil, and only have 3% of the world’s oil stores. When we get into tar sand oil, the price of producing the stuff and the pollution it produces is ridiculous to even bring up in an environmental conversation. We need to move along to sustainable, renewable energy and soon.

The idea is to use as little as necessary of the old fossil fuels in the interim process of the shift to alternatives while we concentrate on funding technology that has been squeeze played for quite awhile. And what are some of the technologies that have been held up? It’s been over a year since I blogged about Centia, a process that uses restaurant sludge grease and converts it to jet fuel and other fuels at the molecular level. http://www.oilgae.com/blog/2009/01/jet-fuel-from-animal-fats-algae-oil-via.html. This fuel can be ready to go in less than 2 years if it gets proper funding. See what I mean? What’s the stall? There is a never-ending supply of restaurant grease the way America likes to eat. And what about algae for fuel? I blogged about that too. Some mighty fine progress is being made along those lines, http://earth2tech.com/2008/03/27/15-algae-startups-bringing-pond-scum-to-fuel-tanks/, but again its overlooked in the media and subject to conservative spin that it costs too much or will cost jobs. I’ve even run across someone wondering where we’re going to grow all the algae? Duh–pond scum, some of that stuff can regenerate in 24 hours in the right bog.

I thought we knew by now that anything brand new costs more. Look at mainframe computers back in the 70’s compared to laptops, or digital watches, or radios. We can buy a digital watch or radio in the dollar store now. I bought a dollar store radio for my sister in a nursing home. I couldn’t believe the sound I got out that little plastic thing when I put the earphones on. Unbelievable.

The ingenuity of invention that transpires when something is finally unleashed from the grasp of the status quo is unbelievable and could put the U.S. in a position of industrial leadership again. And that’s how I and many others picture the future. Superceding fossil fuels isn’t a downfall, but an opportunity. We’ll be saying the word, “unbelievable” about a lot of things we invent like running our cars, and heating our homes with restaurant grease or algae, or solar, or wind. Alternative energy is a diverse and growing market. If anything our environment will be a lot quieter.

Read more about both bills:

http://energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=IssueItems.View&IssueItem_ID=1fbce5ed-7447-42ff-9dc2-5b785a98ad80.

http://www.pewclimate.org/acesa

http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/18405

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/06/17/17greenwire-senate-committee-approves-broad-energy-package-9861.html

http://www.grist.org/article/broad-and-diverse-support-for-waxman-markeys-american-clean-energy-and-secu.

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/06/17/17greenwire-senate-committee-approves-broad-energy-package-9861.html