One of the most predictably irritating parts of the last week was hearing that environmental groups - including the Sierra Club - were lobbying for the bailout bill because it had tax credits for solar and wind power. Of course, as Greenpeace notes, the bill also contained "subsidies for oil shale, liquid coal, and unproven schemes to store carbon dioxide from coal and oil." The push for renewal energy tax credits is laudable, but the tradeoffs - increased liquid coal and a $700 billion bailout - are incredibly high. Penny-wise, pound-foolish, seems to be the motto of the Sierra Club.
Photo to the right is Boxer's fundraising appeal for Landrieu just after Landrieu provided the 41st vote for Bush against a historic green energy bill. And the Al Wynn primary ripples begin. Donna ran against the energy industry, with ads like this one and this one put up to the tune of a million dollars or so by her campaign and outside groups. And now, one of those outside groups, the Sierra Club, is feeling emboldened to pursue a more aggressive approach on global warming and taking on Barbara Boxer in the process.
Carl Pope, head of the Sierra Club, has come out against Lieberman-Warner, Boxer's baby. Here's how he compares the legislation with the Clean Air Act.
Fast-forward to present day: the carbon industries are lobbying to get a deal done this year that would give away carbon permits free of charge to existing polluters -- bribing the sluggish, and slowing down innovation. And politicians are telling us that while it would be better to auction these permits and make polluters pay for putting carbon dioxide into our atmosphere, creating that market unfortunately gets in the way of the politics.
We are being urged to compromise -- to put a system in place quickly, even if it is the wrong system. Given that we only have one chance to get this right before it's too late, our top priority must be to make sure that we do not settle prematurely and sign a weak bill into law in the name of doing something about global warming. With momentum for strong action and a friendlier Congress and White House building every day, it's no coincidence that some wish to settle their accounts now.
Kicking Wynn off Energy and Commerce immediately makes Congress friendlier, but significantly, it's the huge number of new liberal anti-carbon energy voters out there that are going to allow the public to get a sustainable deal on climate change next Congress. There's some evidence that Obama might make global warming his highest priority, having promised to begin negotiating a new Kyoto-style treaty even before taking office.
All of this is excellent and game-changing news that we've seen happen in the last week or so. As a reminder, here's what Boxer said just two weeks ago about Friends of the Earth, which has waged a campaign called 'Fix it or Ditch it' about the massive Lieberman-Warner bill to subsidize polluting industries.
"They're sort of the defeatist group out there," she said. "They've been defeatists from day one. And it's unfortunate. They're isolated among the environmental groups."
This nasty slur, while not true at the time (Greenpeace was opposing the bill), is now silly. At least one big green group has moved in response to Wynn's loss to get a better deal, and the business right, the coal producers, the nuclear industry, and the oil guys know they will have to deal soon. The Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth have said that we must work on global warming, but that it must be done smart and sustainably.
Good job, Donna. And great job, Sierra Club, for your work putting her into office and making everyone in Congress look over their left shoulder. I think it's pretty clear that primary challenges, while quite expensive upfront, are much more efficient than advocacy alone.
Rather than working to protect vulnerable communities like this in Southern California, the Bush administration has spent years protecting timber companies in Northern California.
If there's a message to take home from this tragedy, it's that we are woefully unprepared for the type of catastrophes we expect to see more and more of with global warming. Scientists have found that increasing temperatures in recent years have stretched the wildfire season by nearly two months. And hotter, drier conditions will lead to mega-fires unlike anything we've seen in the past.
If we want to prevent this scenario from happening again and again, we need to focus our energy and money on making communities safer, figuring out how to best respond to large-scale disasters like this, and combating global warming.
Both groups are being extremely careful about the science, refusing to demagogue excessively on climate change as the cause of these fires. Wildfires have long been a thorny issue for environmental groups, because they bring them smack dab into a political thicket of local development patterns and unfavorable Western political winds. Environmentalists are also the favorite target of the right in the media, blamed for the wildfires.
It's good to see activity around climate change, rebuilding and combating wildfires. One wonders if this pattern of disaster followed by rebuilding along more sustainable lines won't be repeated many times.
UPDATE: Gene Karpinski of the League of Conservation Voters also weighed in.
STATE BLOGS
Photo to the right is Boxer's fundraising appeal for Landrieu just after Landrieu provided the 41st vote for Bush against a historic green energy bill.