Iowa Global Warming

On July 21st, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart focused extensively on the American Clean Energy and Security Act and then Jon interviewed Secretary of Energy Steven Chu.

Watch the episode on Hulu here.

DES MOINES — U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced Monday that Iowa will get $16 million for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects, an amount that likely will grow to $40 million as the state ramps up its efforts.

Chu said officials will monitor the initial state spending before allocating the rest of the money, but that the funding — part of the federal stimulus package — needs to be spent quickly.

“I want to shove this money out the door as quickly as possible,” Chu said at a news conference with Gov. Chet Culver and U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell, both Democrats.

Chu said Iowa is among the first states to receive the energy money. He planned to travel to Michigan later Monday to make a similar announcement.

Culver said Iowa has prepared a detailed plan for the projects and that he was confident the state would receive the remaining money from the Energy Department.

Read the rest of the story here.

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu made clear the Obama administration will be taking a markedly different path to approach global warming today in his first national interview. He took a hard line on global warming, affirming his belief that it’s real, dangerous, and needs to be addressed right now.

“I’m hoping that the American people will wake up,” he said, “I don’t think the American public has gripped in its gut what could happen.” Foretelling action on his part and that of the Energy Department, he compared the current American state of mind to that of “A family buying an old house and being told by an inspector that it must pay a hefty sum to rewire it or risk an electrical fire that could burn everything down.”

Chu went on to cite specifically the serious droughts being experienced out west due to increasingly diminished snow packs in the Sierra Mountains, painting a grim picture of a potentially farm-less California.

The solution? Chu advocates more clean energy research, infrastructure, a national renewable electricity standard, and a greenhouse gas cap-and-trade system. Sounds good to us.

Read more here

I’m back from the two day RE-AMP conference, and I’m both excited and tired. Tired because it’s been a long two days – an early breakfast-to-night, fully loaded, nonstop kind of long. Excited because two days of meeting people and learning about all the work being done throughout the entire RE-AMP midwest network has left me feeling inspired.

There’s a lot happening – in all of the eight states represented our partner organizations are advancing climate solutions, and progress has never been more tangible. Renewable energy, energy efficiency, passenger rail and other mass transit options are moving forward – and dirty coal projects are being shelved or reconsidered.

For me, a highlight of the conference was Heaster Wheeler of the Detroit NAACP. Heaster may not seem a likely ally, but he made clear that we have common obligations, common challenges, and common opportunities. We’re all in this together, and we’re all going to have to work together; while there may be challenges and difficulties, the opportunity is great.

One last piece of encouragement: President-Elect Obama has named Nobel Prize winner Steven Chu to the post of Secretary of Energy, a position that will oversee the crucial issues of energy and climate for the Obama Administration. Not only does Chu have the knowledge, he has vision, and this selection is a clear signal that Obama is serious about reform, scientific integrity, and the new energy economy.

But it’s not over yet – now comes the heavy lifting, and we’ve got to carry the load. So… time to crash, because it’s back to work tomorrow. Can’t wait!

“Many of our best basic scientists realize that this is getting down to a crisis situation.”
-Steven Chu on global warming

President-elect Barack Obama has chosen Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who heads the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, to be the next Energy Secretary, Democratic sources said today. He also has picked veteran regulators to fill out his environmental and climate team.

Obama plans to name Carol Browner, who led the Environmental Protection Agency for eight years under President Clinton, to fill a new White House post overseeing energy, environmental and climate policies, the sources said.

Obama has also settled on Lisa P. Jackson, chief of staff to New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D) and former head of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, to head the EPA. Nancy Sutley, a deputy mayor of Los Angeles for energy and environment, will chair the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

The son of highly educated Chinese immigrants, Chu won the Nobel Prize in 1997 for his work in the “development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light.”

But, in an interview last year with The Post, Chu said that he began to get more interested in energy and climate change several years ago. “I was following it just as a citizen and getting increasingly alarmed,” he said. “Many of our best basic scientists realize that this is getting down to a crisis situation.”

Read the full article here