Iowa Global Warming

How Big Oil and Big Coal mounted one of the most aggressive lobbying campaigns in history to block progress on global warming

JEFF GOODELL

This was supposed to be the transformative moment on global warming, the tipping point when America proved to the world that capitalism has a conscience, that we take the fate of the planet seriously. According to the script, Congress would pass a landmark bill committing the U.S. to deep cuts in carbon emissions. President Obama would then arrive in Copenhagen for the international climate summit, armed with the moral and political capital he needed to challenge the rest of the world to do the same. After all, wasn’t this the kind of bold move the Norwegians were anticipating when they awarded Obama the Nobel Peace Prize?

As we now know, it didn’t work out that way. Obama arrived in Copenhagen last month without any legislation committing the U.S. to reduce carbon pollution. Instead of reaching agreement on how to stop cooking the planet, the summit devolved into bickering over who bears the most blame for turning up the heat. The world once again missed an opportunity to avert disaster — and the delay is likely to have deadly consequences. In recent years, we have moved from talking about the possibility of climate change to watching it unfold before our eyes. The Arctic is melting, wildfires are turning into infernos, warm-weather insects are devouring forests, droughts are getting longer and more lethal. And the more we learn about climate change, the more it becomes apparent how enormous the risks are. Just a few years ago, researchers estimated that sea levels would likely rise 17 inches by 2100. Now they believe it could be three feet or more — a cataclysmic shift that would doom many of the world’s cities, including London and New Orleans, and create tens of millions of climate refugees.

Our collective response to the emerging catastrophe verges on suicidal. World leaders have been talking about tackling climate change for nearly 20 years now — yet carbon emissions keep going up and up. “We are in a race against time,” says Rep. Jay Inslee, a Democrat from Washington who has fought for sharp reductions in planet-warming pollution. “Mother Nature isn’t sitting around waiting for us to get our political act together.” In fact, our failure to confront global warming is more than simply political incompetence. Over the past year, the corporations and special interests most responsible for climate change waged an all-out war to prevent Congress from cracking down on carbon pollution in time for Copenhagen. The oil and coal industries deployed an unprecedented army of lobbyists, spent millions on misleading studies and engaged in outright deception to derail climate legislation. “It was the most aggressive and corrupt lobbying campaign I’ve ever seen,” says Paul Begala, a veteran Democratic consultant.

Page 1 of 6  full story here

The fight for a clean energy future and a planet safe from climate change has brought me home once more to work on the Iowa Global Warming Campaign. I grew up in Ames and I’ve been going to college in Washington DC at American University. Last summer I interned with the Iowa Global Warming Campaign because I wanted to get more experience with climate issues outside of the campus or the classroom. I realized dressing up in a snowman costume and playing “wheel of warming” was, in its own peculiar way, helping to build a grassroots movement for solutions here in my home state. At the time, I had no idea how important Iowa was for the future of the world. The winds of change swept from Iowa all the way to Washington in 2008, and the future the rest of the nation desires has already begun right here. More wind power, a new passenger rail line, an educated workforce hungry for green collar jobs and a citizenry energized by the caucuses all make this one of the most important frontlines to protect our common future.
I have spent the last school year heavily involved in organizing students on my campus around the issues of clean energy and climate change. The millennial generation is hungry for a brighter future where we can have good jobs and a good environment. At this point in human history we can choose between destroying our planet or protecting it for posterity. The world doesn’t need to be ravaged by climate change, but right now it is up to us whether it will or not. The world is looking to the United States for leadership in reducing emissions and building a sustainable economy, and Iowa should be leading the nation.
I encourage every one of you reading this blog to get involved by contacting our members of Congress (http://www.gov.iastate.edu/federal/delegation.html). Right now Congress is debating the American Clean Energy and Security act, or ACES. This is the first comprehensive energy plan our country has had in 30 years.
The ACES bill has a Renewable Energy Standard, which requires utilities to generate an increasing percentage of their power from clean, renewable sources over time. The higher the target for renewable energy, the more it will benefit all Iowans.
A new national market for renewable energy will benefit Iowa greatly. Iowa is already a leader in wind energy generation. Because each state would have to use more renewable electricity, we would be able to sell our clean energy to states that are lagging behind. The possibilities for new jobs in the clean energy sector are incredible.
The bill also includes a cap on the greenhouse gas emissions that are generated by burning fossil fuels. By capping and reducing emissions we will be able to stop dangerous climate change while driving innovation in American manufacturing and energy production.
One month ago this week I woke up very early and waited in line for 5 hours to get a spot in the Energy & Commerce Committee room audience for the ACES bill. Opportunities to influence the energy future of the world do not come along very often, even in DC. Young climate activists from around the area filled the committee room with green shirts to demand a sustainable future. The dirty energy lobbyists and their friends on the committee did not expect to be joined by the future leaders of America. We heard testimony from dirty industries afraid of a bright future free from climate change and fossil fuels. We also heard testimony from clean industry pioneers asking for strong legislation to help build the green economy and make the United States an innovation leader once again.
If you feel like I do, that we need national leadership in forging a new energy economy and protecting the planet from dangerous climate change, then this summer will be an exciting chance to get involved.

Drew

An article released in Time Magazine this past month took a look at global temperatures, and found some interesting results. Is the world warming? Or cooling? Turns out, that depends on the time scale…

Read the article here

Another Time Magazine piece you might find interesting: here

Every Tuesday, I’ll publish a blog post that summarizes and compiles some of the more interesting articles from the online environmental community. Follow the links at the end of each ‘blurb’ to read more, and feel free to email any questions, comments or thoughts to me at swelch@iowaglobalwarming.org.

“Often when I’m on TV, they’ll ask what are the three most important things for people to do [to stop global warming]. I know they want me to say that people should change their light bulbs. I say the number one thing is to organize politically; number two, do some political organizing; number three, get together with your neighbors and organize; and then if you have energy left over from all of that, change the light bulb.”
-Writer and Activist Bill McKibben (from Grist)

Interested in heeding Mr. McKibben’s advice? There are plenty of ways to get involved right here in Iowa, specifically with our organization (The Iowa Global Warming Campaign) and all of its political endeavors! To start with, you might want to visit our website and sign our petition to let your representatives know you care about climate change legislation and want change here in Iowa!

A peer-reviewed study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this past week found that the effects of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions will be felt not just 200, 300, or even 500 years into the future, but possibly up to 1,000 years from today. That would mean that carbon emitted during Leif Ericson’s first journey to North America is still affecting our atmosphere now, and might continue to in the future as well. Assuming that we are able to cap CO2 levels somewhere in the 450-600ppm range in the next few decades, the study predicts that rising sea levels, reduced snow-pack and Dust-Bowl Era farming conditions could continue well into the 3rd millennium. All the more reason to ensure the levels never get that high in the first place! Read more here (MSNBC), and make sure to check out this cool feature too!

An article in National Geographic Magazine this month called attention to a new study that contradicts the recent cooling trends reported for some areas of Antarctica. In recent months, Global warming skeptics have rallied around data that claimed only the peninsular area of the Antarctic had undergone dramatic warming in recent years, but now must contend information that says otherwise. Read more about the Western Antarctic warming here.

Proponents of home energy efficiency sill be excited to hear about the new “Architecture 2030: Challenge Stimulus Plan” announced earlier this month. The goal od the project is to ensure that “new and existing buildings meet energy consumption reduction targets, below an established benchmark of 30 percent, 50 percent, 75 percent and carbon neutral,” on a tiered timeline. Read more here (Green Energy News)

Interested in carpooling? Looks like plenty of other cities in the Midwest are already engaged in projects that limit unnecessary travel and single-car commuters. One project in Kansas City involving only 71 employees successfully prevented “2,169 pounds of hydrocarbons; 15,498 pounds of carbon monoxide; 930 pounds of nitrogen oxide; and 278,373 pounds of carbon dioxide” from being emitted into the local atmosphere. Read more here (EPA RSS Feed)

Finally, those interested in saving money and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the work place should visit this site for information on how to make sure your office isn’t wasting valuable energy. Hosted by Energy Star and the EPA, the site will walk you through simple, cost-effective strategies to reduce your carbon footprint AND your energy bill, all at the same time.

That’s it for now. Remember to sign our petition and get involved in the fight to stop global warming!

See you next week!

Something very exciting is going on right now. As I write this, there are almost 40 volunteers out in the Des Moines area helping members of our community reduce their energy use. They’re participating in the ‘Iowa Winter Weatherization Challenge’, an effort organized by the Iowa Global Warming Campaign and our partner group Iowa Interfaith Power and Light; as well as community groups such as the Central Iowa Recovery Network and Wesley Meals on Wheels.

Volunteers are covering windows and doors with plastic, weatherstripping and caulk as well as insulating behind electrical outlets and replacing old light bulbs with energy-saving CFLs. These weatherization measures can save up to 30% on energy bills – at a time when the deepening recession is causing Americans to worry about their finances, this is a very cost effective way to provide relief.

Obviously, weatherizing eighteen area homes is a very small way to address our wasteful energy use. But it shows homeowners things they can do at home to save energy and help solve our energy needs, and perhaps more importantly it highlights these opportunities for our decision makers. Energy Efficiency is the best and cheapest way to meet our energy needs and reduce greenhouse gases, and we need our leaders to make sure that we’re achieving all possible savings.

We support the proposed state and national EE legislation that is moving forward right now, and are going to need your help to get strong measures passed. I’ll let you know more about that soon, so stay tuned… and, in the meanwhile, tune in to the evening news tonight. You might see a neighbor’s home, or a friend volunteering to help someone in your community!

There’s much to like in Obama’s plan. But there are two important ways he may have to go further. Most economists agree that what finally pulled the U.S. out of the Great Depression was military spending for World War II. Some liberals argue that if the Roosevelt administration had not abandoned a Keynesian stimulus strategy in 1937-38, the U.S. might have gotten out of the depression without a war. But in 1936, unemployment was still at 16.9 percent; by 1942, after two years of war spending, it was 4.7 percent, strongly indicating that it was war spending that did it. I am not suggesting that the United States start a world war in order to solve the world’s economic problem. But I am suggesting a strategy that could be called the fiscal equivalent of war.

It would consist not merely of updating or repairing the nation’s infrastructure, but in undertaking massive new investments that would expand the scope of American industry, and address other urgent problems in the process: global warming, over-reliance on petroleum, and the need to revive America’s domestic manufacturing capabilities–not just to provide jobs, but also to provide tradeable goods that can reduce the country’s current account deficit.

One area that is ripe for such investment–and that is not, from what I have seen, a declared priority of the Obama administration–is high-speed rail. Amtrak’s Acela trains–the closest thing we have to one–average less than 100 mph between Washington D.C. and Boston, whereas trains in Western Europe and Japan go more than twice as fast. Many of them also run on electricity. They would be the most energy-efficient and quickest means of getting between places like Boston and New York, or Los Angeles and San Francisco. But they would require a massive investment. For instance, installing high-speed rail in the Northeast corridor could cost about $32 billion, while California’s high-speed rail system would require up to $40 billion. A system that would address the other areas of the country could easily raise the cost to the hundreds of billions. The House transportation and infrastructure committee has currently proposed $5 billion in stimulus funds for intercity rail–not even a down payment on what it would cost to convert the U.S. to high-speed rail.

Investing in high-speed rails would be very expensive, but unlike tax cuts–the benefits of which can be siphoned off in the purchase of imported goods–the money spent would go directly to reviving American industry and improving the country’s trade balance. That doesn’t just mean jobs creating dedicated tracks or new rail stations: Though the U.S. abandoned train manufacturing decades ago to the French, Germans, Canadians, and Japanese, this kind of production could be undertaken by our ailing auto companies or aircraft companies–if the federal and state governments were to place orders. And building trains that would run on electricity would be a paradigmatic example of the “green jobs” that Obama often touts.

Excerpt from a larger article – read the full story here

The scent of fast money in Washington has all manner of corporate interests scrambling to show they can create jobs, especially green ones. The prize is a slice of the Obama Administration’s stimulus package, expected to range from $675 billion to $775 billion in scale. But the President-elect’s transition team is warning interest groups that they won’t see any of the money unless their pet projects meet strict criteria.

First, the projects must be “shovel-ready”—that is, ready to go immediately. “They told us that for business to get anything, we have to prove there’s a short-term job impact—within six months,” explains Brent Erickson, vice-president of the Biotechnology Industry Assn. (BIO), which is pushing for biofuels production incentives. But the projects can’t put Uncle Sam on the hook to spend money for more than a year or two. “They have to be temporary, not creating a permanent need for funding,” says Dow Chemical (DOW) lobbyist Peter Molinaro.
A “Feeding Frenzy” of Proposals

Hiring ditch diggers would get shovels in the ground fast, of course. But Obama’s team is most interested in projects that will speed America toward a greener, cleaner future, reducing both energy dependence and the emissions that cause global warming.

Read the full article here

Climate change caused by greenhouse gases is warming the United States, though unevenly, government researchers said Thursday.

“The continent as a whole is warming, mostly as a result of the energy sources we are using,” William J. Brennan, acting administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said at a briefing on the nation’s climate since 1951.

But there is a “warming hole” where no change occurred in the center of the country, roughly between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians, added Martin Hoerling of NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory.

Last year the International Panel on Climate Change, studying the planet as a whole, concluded that global warming is “unequivocal, is already happening, and is caused by human activity.”

Read the full story here

As the sun sets on a new farm bill, a recent study reported the energy title has been and has further potential to offset CO2 emissions, which scientists believe will aid efforts to curb global warming.

As climate change concerns creep into new laws, a recent study shows farm policy already is aiding the cause and has potential to further curb gases that cause global warming.

“Mitigating Global Warming through the Farm Bill,” a study released by the Chicago-based Environmental Law and Policy Center (ELPC), is the first to examine the potential greenhouse-gas savings as a result of the farm bill’s energy title programs.

“This study shows how robust clean-energy programs in the farm bill can counteract global warming while helping farm families and rural communities,” says Charles Kubert, the study’s co-author and ELPC’s senior environmental business specialist.

In a conference call, researchers cited energy crops, wind power, solar power and other clean-power sources as reasons the energy title and on-farm efforts already are making a difference in reduced emissions and has the potential to reduce emissions more if fully supported in the farm bill.

For example, among other figures, the study found:

Read the full story here

Solving our global-warming problems is the moral, economic, policy, political and technological challenge of our times. Fortunately, there are smart, clean renewable-energy and energy-efficiency developments and clean-car innovation strategies that are good for the economy, create new green jobs and improve the environment.

The naysayers keep arguing that reducing global-warming pollution is too expensive and too difficult. We’ve heard this refrain before: Seat belts supposedly would dramatically increase the costs of cars, make no safety difference and wouldn’t be used by drivers and riders. Catalytic converters wouldn’t really reduce pollution and would make cars unaffordable. Reducing sulfur dioxide that causes acid rain would cause electric rates to skyrocket and not help the environment very much.

Read the full article here