The argument against natural gas got a boost this week, when a congressional investigation turned up evidence that oil and gas companies were using diesel gas to extract gas from the ground.
Natural gas companies have insisted that their newly popular hydraulic fracturing (known as "fracking") techniques are safe, but as Care2's Kristina Chew reports, "environmentalists and regulators have become increasingly concerned that the fracking chemicals-including toluene, xylene and benzene, a carcinogen, which are all from diesel gas---are seeping out into underground sources of drinking water, in violation of the Safe Water Drinking Act."
The mix-up
The Environmental Protection Agency is conducting an inquiry into the environmental impacts of fracking, and some states are considering more stringent regulations of the practice, including disclosure of the chemicals that go into fracking fluid. Gas companies have argued that the blend of chemicals is a trade secret and must be kept private, but the findings of the congressional investigation suggest otherwise. Eartha Jane Melzer reports at The Michigan Messenger, "In a letter to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson... Reps. Henry Waxman, Edward Markey and Diana DeGette reported that although the EPA requires permits for hydraulic fracturing that involves diesel none of the companies that admitted using diesel have sought or received permits."
And, as Melzer reports, diesel is the only chemical used in fracking that's currently regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act. That companies have been sneaking it into the ground does not strengthen the industry's case for independence.
Ensuring that natural gas companies do their work without threatening water supplies is becoming ever more crucial, as the fuel becomes one of the go-to replacements for coal. In Massachusetts, for instance, some legislators are pushing for a coal plant in Holyoke to start using natural gas or renewable energy, rather than being shut down, as Nikki Gloudeman reports at Change.org.
Supporting renewables
And although renewables are thrown in there as an option, right now the clearest way to replace the amount of energy generated by coal is natural gas. This year's line on energy policy from Washington, however, is that the country should support innovations in clean energy.
Will Obama's new direction on this issue go anywhere? Grist's David Roberts has been arguing that any energy policy that leaves out climate change is missing the point.
However, Teryn Norris and Daniel Goldfarb (also at Grist), of Americans for Energy Leadership, a California-based non-profit, have a smart rebuttal. They argue that clean energy needs the boost in research and development that Obama is promising. Ultimately, they, write, "these investments will drive down the price of low-carbon energy and pave the way for stronger deployment efforts - perhaps even including a strong carbon price at some point - both here and in the developing world, where the vast majority of future emissions will originate."
But, about climate change!
And to be fair, the federal government is trying to lead the way on investing in renewables. As Beth Buczynski reports at Care2, the Department of Energy is working on a $2.3 million solar energy project that would power its Germantown, Md., location.
Not every one is willing to wait for investments to take hold, however. On the National Radio Project's show, "Making Contact", Andrew Stelzer examines what climate activists are doing, post-Cancun, to push forward debates on climate change. Ananda Lee Tan, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alterantives argues, for instance, "Community-led climate justice in the U.S. has been winning. The largest amount of industrial carbon that has been prevented in this country has been prevented by community-led groups, grassroots groups fighting coal, oil and incinerators."
Cause and effect
Whether the solution comes from industry, government, or grassroots groups, the country's energy policy will change over the next few decades. And what's troubling is that it's not clear what the impact will be. Take natural gas: Washington favors it right now because it's thought to have lower carbon emission than coal. But any time humans introduce new factors into the environment, they can have unexpected consequences.
That's not only true for the energy industry, too. In Texas, for instance, the government is trying to eradicate an invasive plant species, a type of giant cane called Arundo that is growing all over the Rio Grande Valley. As Saul Elbein reports for The Texas Observer, it's been hard to eradicate:
There are three primary ways to control invasive plant species: Kill them with herbicides, clear them with bulldozers and machetes, or attempt to introduce a new predator. The least controversial approach, clearing the cane, is not going to work. There are thousands of square miles of the stuff, and Arundo cane is nearly impossible to cut out. Each stalk has a thick taproot that sends shoots in every direction. You can bulldoze or chop the cane down, and it will grow right back. Worse, any stress on the plant-say a machete blow-causes it to send out more root stalks. Every chopped-up joint of cane that floats downstream can sprout another stand.
But, Elbein reports, scientists have come up with a different solution: They've bred wasps that originate in the same region as the cane to come in and eat it. They've also taken precautions that the wasps won't have their own adverse impact on the environment by ensuring that they can only survive on this particular type of plant. But even then, it's a tricky business.
"The wasps have to survive," John Adamczyk, an entomologist running the project, told Elbein. "They have to not all get eaten. Then it becomes a question of whether they can keep the cane in check."
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
There won't be any national or international movement on climate policy for the rest of this year, at the very least. And while Washington waits to act on climate change, at least one group is benefiting. The natural gas industry is flourishing, despite reports that its practices lead to flammable tap water, poisoned aquifers, and multiple health problems.
Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), who is emerging as a new leader in Congress on these issues, said this week that a comprehensive climate bill had little chance of passing through the Senate in the next two years. Furthermore, the expectations for the next round of international climate negotiations, to be held this winter in Cancun, are abysmally low, as Inter Press Service reports.
Say no to the status quo
In the past, the volatility of gas prices limited the industry's share of the energy market, but now, hydrofracking techniques guarantee a more steady supply, meaning steadier prices. It helps that green leaders have talked up natural gas as a clean energy source.
Natural gas does emit less carbon than coal, but the process of extracting it through hydrofracking-pushing chemical-laden water into the ground to create cracks and allow gas to bubble up to the surface-has serious environmental impacts.
Sandra Steingraber, in Orion Magazine, calls the rise of hydrofracking "the environmental issue of our time." Environmentalists based support for natural gas production on the premise that natural gas would serve as a "bridge fuel" while renewable energy infrastructure grew enough to provide much of the country's fuel needs. But without stronger support from Washington for renewables, that bridge may never reach the other side.
The high cost of hydrofracking
The alliance between the environmental movement and the natural gas industry has always been uneasy. Both sides regard each other suspiciously. As evidence mounts that hydrofracking pollutes air and water, posing health risks, the worries of local environmentalists are beginning to outweigh the advantages of gas.
"Fracking is linked to every part of the environmental crisis-from radiation exposure to habitat loss-and contravenes every principle of environmental thinking," Steingraber writes in Orion. "It's the tornado on the horizon that is poised to wreck ongoing efforts to create green economies, local agriculture, investments in renewable energy, and the ability to ride your bike along country roads."
On the ground, fracking is frightening, as Kate Sinding, an attorney with the National Resources Defense Council told Change.org's Jess Leber.
"Drinking water wells are being contaminated, livestock are being poisoned, explosions are occurring when methane has gotten backed up inside a drinking water well after the underground water supply became contaminated," Sinding said.
Facing down gas companies
Steingraber argues that these effects-the true impact of natural gas extraction-should be factored into the cost of gas and that the public health implications deserve the benefit of the doubt. Even weighed against a lower level of carbon emissions, these considerations make gas look much more like a bridge to nowhere.
In New York, the state government is trying to reign in the industry, Sinding says. "Culturally and politically, I think New Yorkers may be more skeptical about a new heavy industry coming in," she told Leber. While the promise of jobs is as tempting in New York as it is in places like Pennsylvania and Wyoming that had rushed ahead with fracking, New Yorkers are seeing, Sinding says, that "now residents still face the same problems as they did before, but now, in addition, also can't drink their water."
Outside of New York, there are other initiatives that could slow the momentum behind fracking. The Nation's Peter Rothberg suggests supporting United for Action, a group that's fighting the practice, or pushing congressional reps to support the FRAC Act, which would increase regulation of the fracking process. (FRAC stands for Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals.)
Fracking and flammable tap water
Fracking can pollute water supplies, as the flammable tap water in fracking areas demonstrates. But the process also demands huge volumes of water as a matter of course. Fracking companies mix chemicals into the water and use it to keep the cracks in the earth open in order to access gas.
But fracking isn't the only water-guzzling energy process. Keith Schneider, speaking for a network of journalists and scientists called Circle of Blue, told Inter Press Service that "the competition for water at every stage of the mining, processing, production, shipping and use of energy is growing more fierce, more complex and much more difficult to resolve."
More than 200 billion gallons of water go to cooling power plants each day. Harvesting solar energy also demands huge quantities of water.
As water resources grow scarcer, this demand could drive huge conflicts, both internationally, and in the United States. As Making Contact reports, in Michigan, lawmakers are weighing the idea of putting water resources into a public trust, but already the ecological arguments for that idea and the economic arguments against it are clashing. Imagine how much harder it will be to divvy up water if energy companies got involved.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
Maybe it's time for environmentalists prioritize do-it-yourself climate fixes instead of looking to politicians. There are all sorts of options, including, for those dedicated enough, switching to an insect-based diet, as Change.org reports.
But in the private sector, inventors, corporations, and small businesses - farmers in particular - are finding more palatable ways to scale down their environmental impact. In short, politicians aren't the only ones with the power to make high-profile statements and strong choices on climate change.
No solar on the White House
Environmental crusader Bill McKibben had already given up on Congress; now the White House has disappointed, too. McKibben and other leaders in the climate change movement are eschewing lobbying on legislation in favor of pushing for more visible, direct action on climate issues. To that end, McKibben, along with three students, asked the White House last week to reinstall one of Jimmy Carter's solar panels on the roof. The answer was no.
McKibben describes the Obama administration's response to his request as "uncool...Asked to do something easy and symbolic to rekindle a little of the joy that had turned out so many of us as volunteers for Obama in 2008, they point blank said no," according to Truthout.
The administration officials that they met with, though, wanted to make sure that the climate activists knew something was being done to improve the country's environment. They touted the president's initiative to green the federal government-federal buildings in particular. One official, McKibben says, spoke more than once about a Portland, Ore., building that would soon have a "green curtain," likely a hanging garden.
It's not that McKibben disapproved. "Actually, it's kind of great," he wrote. "Still, I doubt many people are going to build their own vegetated fins."
The talking cure
That's the ultimate question: What will people build on their own? Solar panels could be one answer, although they haven't quite caught on yet. There are all sorts of technologies, though, that could help us minimize our carbon footprint. Grist's Ashley Braun checks out one new idea: drawing energy from sound waves:
Using that standby found in sunscreen, zinc oxide, to turn sound waves into electricity, these scientists have heard the bells of success starting to ring in their ears. Similar to other technologies aimed at harvesting energy from walking or dancing, this concept could also turn the roar of traffic into the hum of low-carbon electrons. How sweet the sound of renewable energy.
Scientists are considering using this technology in cell phones, creating, ideally, a device that would never have be plugged in, assuming, of course, that its owner used it frequently enough, and used it as a phone, rather than an e-mail/web-surfing/GPS device.
Go private?
Another option for climate reformers could be focusing on the private sector. Corporations have gotten the message that consumers buy green products, and more are churning out sustainable, climate-friendly offerings.
Care2's Emily Logan points to Nestle, eBay, and Sunny D as three companies that have heard the green gospel. Nestle is investing in sustainable coffee; eBay is pushing out reusable shipping boxes; and Sunny D, the beverage company, met its zero-waste goal three years ahead of schedule.
"Of course, like most large corporations who are making efforts toward sustainability, some of these companies have a long way to go," Logan writes. "But giving credit where credit is due is increasingly important when it comes to the environment."
You are what you eat
The farm sector is one private industry that deserves more scrutiny and pressure. Recall that agriculture interests ran one of the most successful campaigns to be exempted from the cap-and-trade bill, when it was working its way through the House. Even among liberals, the industry has its defenders: local, sustainable agriculture just won't work to feed the masses, the argument goes.
The problem with that line of reasoning is that we still haven't seen how large sustainable farms can grow. Take Joel Salatin, the crusading farmer made famous by Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. Salatin has been running a successful operation, Polyface Farm, for years while relying on organic and sustainable methods. As David E. Gumport reports at Chelsea Green, Salatin's farm has only grown:
Standing in front of a group of about 50 romping pigs, [Salatin] proudly revealed that Polyface has hit the the $2 million annual sales level, while sticking to Salatin's policy of not shipping food outside a 100-mile radius. The effect, he says, has been to strengthen local businesses-everything from a local breakfast diner serving visitors to his farm to local feed and supply companies.
Salatin is convinced his methods can be used to feed the entire population. What's certain is that there is room for more of this sort of growth in the agricultural system.
Here, too, would-be reformers run back into politicians: Salatin's food safety practices are not exactly FDA-approved, and to reseed his methods elsewhere, the government would need to relax safety standards for smaller, alternatives operations.
But for now, this sort of effort, and others outside of Washington seem to be making the largest impact.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
Tuesday's Republican primary in Alaska may still be undecided, (currently incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski trails her tea-party challenger Joe Miller by approximately 2,000 votes) but that hasn't stopped anti-environment pundits from speculating that if Murkowski loses, it will be because of her support for climate legislation. Now I follow the climate debate pretty closely, (even if it wasn't my job, as a political junkie I'd follow it nonetheless) and I just don't remember Murkowski being a climate champion. That isn't to say she's another James Inhofe in the Senate, but being open to negotiations on climate legislation does not make her the zealous supporter her opponent portrays her to be.
Fact is that Lisa Murkowski is far from an environmental champ. The League of Conservative Voters(LCV) gives her an 18% career rating, meaning that she votes the right way on less than one out of five environmental issues. And, more recently, she gave us environmentalists heartburn by leading an assault on the Clean Air Act - only one of the most successful environmental laws of all time.
Murkowski's effort to overturn the Environmental Protection Agency's scientific finding that global warming threatens our health and welfare was bad, but at least she was polite enough to claim her attack "has nothing to do with the science of global warming." That's a far cry from her opponent, Joe Miller, whose campaign website says that "The science supporting manmade climate change is inconclusive." The last thing that Alaska needs is a climate denier representing it in the Senate. Even the late Ted Stevens, never an environmental champ himself, recognized that "Alaska is harder hit by global climate change than any place in the world."
To say this primary suggests that climate change is a political non-starter in Alaska shows a selective memory. Just two short years ago, Alaska elected a real climate champ, Mark Begich, to the Senate. Climate change was a top issue during Begich's campaign, when he called for an 80% reduction in carbon pollution by 2050 and adaption strategies to help Alaska deal with the effect of climate change. Since coming to the Senate, he has continued to work to advance clean energy and climate solutions, earning an 82% rating from LCV in his first year. Last August, he introduced a package of seven bills aimed to help Alaska prepare for the changes and challenges created by a warming planet. And, in June, he voted against Murkowski's Clean Air Act attack.
This is just another case of anti-environment pundits not letting the facts get in the way of propagating their backward agenda. I'm interested to see how they'll change their tune if the absentee ballots put Murkowski in the lead. If she wins in the end, I wonder if they'll claim her victory was due to her steadfast support for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge? Or maybe it'll be her support for offshore drilling?
The only thing I know is if she wins, they won't be crediting her position on climate.
This is the fourth article in a continuing series by the NRDC Action Fund looking at candidates' environmental stances in key races nationwide.
Michigan's 7th Congressional District takes in five counties in southern Michigan plus parts of two others. Though the 7th gave birth to the Republican Party in 1854, today it's represented in the House by Democrat Mark Schauer. This fall, Schauer will face former Representative Tim Walberg, whom Schauer narrowly defeated (48.8%-46.5%) in 2008.
In his first term in Congress, Rep. Schauer proved to be an environmental champion. He received a 100% rating from the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) in 2009, and voted in favor of the historic American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), the first global warming bill to ever pass a chamber of Congress. Following the vote, Schauer said he supported ACES because his "top priority as a member of Congress is to fight for Michigan jobs, and this bill will help put our people back to work...This is the jumpstart we need to turn Michigan's economy around and help break our dependence on foreign oil." In a statement, he added that ACES will "allow us to crack down on polluters while reducing deadly emissions that contaminate the water we drink and pollute the air we breathe."
This was a marked change from Walberg, who carried the banner for Big Oil during his time in DC. In his own words, he: "introduced, fought for and demanded votes on legislation to immediately drill in places like the Gulf of Mexico, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the Outer Continental Shelf off the Atlantic coast and to increase our refinery capacity." In fact, in 2008, the LCV named him to their "Dirty Dozen" list of the worst environmental actors in Congress. According to the LCV, Walberg "distinguished himself as one of the most anti-environment members of the 2006 Congressional class...voted against clean, renewable energy and is an adamant supporter of the failed Bush/Cheney energy policies that serve only to increase profits for ExxonMobil and the other big oil companies." The LCV added that Walberg "voted against repealing subsidies to Big Oil, against increasing the use of renewable electricity and against efforts to help American drivers go further on a gallon of gas."
On the campaign trail Walberg is attacking Rep. Schauer for standing up for the environment, and questioning the science behind global warming. At a town hall meeting in 2008, Schauer responded to a question about climate change by questioning the scientific evidence: "I read scientists, editors...an equal number at the very least that say just the opposite that this is something that's gone on for eons, that we go through these cycles," and by joking that "if this isn't warming, give me more warming!" Judging by his vote in favor of ACES, one hopes he figured out the difference between junk science and expert climate scientists. Let's hope Walberg gets the memo.
The NRDC Action Fund believes that it is important for the public in general, and the voters of specific Congressional districts, be aware of this information as they weigh their choices for November.
Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) introduced a limited energy bill that responds to the oil spill and promotes energy efficiency. Reid's action is a signal that the Senate will not pass climate legislation before November, although Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) said that a climate bill could come up in the lame-duck session following the election.
"The Senate's climate bill is officially dead," Kate Sheppard writes at Mother Jones. "And given that Democrats will almost certainly hold fewer seats in Congress next year, major action on the climate is unlikely to be revived anytime soon."
Since 2009, expectations for a bill regulating carbon emissions have steadily declined. After this latest failure in the Senate, the best near-term hope for addressing climate change comes from the Environmental Protection Agency, which still has the power to regulate carbon emissions.
At the Washington Independent, Andrew Restuccia reports that Sen. Reid's bill will likely hold oil companies more financially accountable for spills by lifting the cap on their liability for economic damages and will nudge homeowners towards energy efficiency.
But, Restuccia writes, a sources tells him that "significantly...the bill might not include a renewable energy standard." Such a standard would require an increasing percentage of the country's electricity to come from sources like wind and solar.
The energy bill could create jobs
Sen. Reid has often emphasized that an energy bill is also a jobs bill: Innovation in the clean energy sector creates employment opportunities at a time when they're sorely needed. Dropping the renewable energy standard could also mean diminishing the potential for job creation.
"The Department of Energy says, if we get to 20 percent of the nation's electricity from wind by the year 2030"-one of the less ambitious standards proposed-"it would mean 3,000 to 4,000 new jobs in most of our states," Chuck Hassebrook, executive director of the Center for Rural Affairs, said. "There's not a lot of things out there bringing that kind of new economic opportunity to rural America, so it could be a great thing for us."
The Gulf Coast connection
The need for job opportunities extends beyond rural areas. In the Gulf Coast, for instance, even fishermen left idle by the oil spill are hoping the oil industry resumes drilling soon. Their communities need those jobs. As Jerome Ringo, who worked for two decades in the oil industry, writes at The Progressive, "With unemployment still in the double digits across the nation, and the people on the Gulf Coast struggling to survive, we need far more clean energy job growth than what we're seeing right now."
That's not going to happen without a long-term commitment to clean energy from the government, Ringo argues. "Businesses need this signal to know how to invest, and, with this signal, they will move in a direction that creates many more jobs in areas like renewable energy and electric cars for people like me who once worked in oil and gas."
Climate refugees
That transition won't happen overnight, but it's important to start in that direction as soon as possible. In the United States, the effects of climate change are affecting people-farmers dealing with strange weather, for instance-but the impact is not obvious in the every day lives of Americans.
Not everyone has that luxury, though. LinkTV's Earth Focus reports on the plight of climate refuges in New Guinea. In a new film, Jennifer Redfearn documents the story of the country's Carteret Islanders-the first group to organize a community-wide evacuation of their home in the face of climate change. As the sea level rises around their island, storm surges increase and fresh water becomes salty. Carteret Islanders are looking to move to Bougainville, a neighboring island recovering from civil war.
"I've heard about you Carterets. You are an easy-going people," one leader tells them. "Here it is totally different."
The longer Americans wait to start scaling back our energy use, the more people around the globe will be displaced.
Hydrofracking
When moving towards clean energy, however, it is important that leaders in Washington and on the state level watch emerging energy companies closely. For instance, The New York Times reports that Reid's bill will promote natural gas production. But as natural gas grows more popular as a bridge fuel, communities and legislators are discovering more dangerous environmental impacts from the hydrofracture drilling process that companies use to extract the gas from shale deposits.
Josh Fox's recent documentary, Gasland, showed that residents across the country in fracking areas have had their drinking water contaminated. The natural gas industry is pushing back hard against the claims his film makes. Truthout reports that "Energy In Depth (EID), an information service created and funded by the oil and gas industry, recently posted 'Debunking Gasland,' a point-by-point argument against the Fox's startling discoveries. EID paints Fox as a 'purveyor of the avant-garde' who is guilty of 'flat-out making stuff up.'"
Fox isn't the only one to voice concerns about water quality, either. GritTV recently heard from residents in the Delaware River Basin about their concerns. "No water for gas" is their rallying cry.
Water, water, everywhere
Fox is fighting back, but the response to his film shows that the industry is ready to push back against any criticisms of its practices. It has also resisted effects by regulators to require disclose of the chemicals it uses in its extraction process.
But as the Washington Independent's Restuccia reports, "Momentum is building in the House to pass new regulations on the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing, in which water, sand and a mixture of potentially harmful chemicals are injected into the ground in order to gain access to natural gas."
Unfortunately, if the fate of the climate bill is any indication, any environmental legislation, even with momentum, has little chance of moving through Congress right now.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
At present, oil saturates the Gulf Stream. An official six-month cessation of permits for new drilling did not actually affect the industry or government decisions. Despite Moratorium, Drilling Projects Move Ahead. To explain such an authorization and waiver, the Department of the Interior and the Minerals Management Services Division which regulates drilling, pointed to public statements by Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar. He did not intend to forbid all first cuts in the Earth's crust. Absolutely not. The Federal Government approved wells off the coast of Louisiana in June. Regardless of the day, or realities that are anathema to our citizenry, little has truly changed. Today, just as in yesteryear, we, the people of the United States of America, in order to form a more perfect Union, polishpolicies to appear as though our civilization would wish to protect and defend all beings, equally.
For more than a century, in unison, the planets' population proclaimed, thankfully petroleum flows. Oil powers our machines. The refined product has helped us manufacture massive quantities of clothing, aluminum sheet, and photovoltaic (PV) solar cells. "Plastics." As was professed in a popular film decades ago, "There's a great future in plastics." Presently, and in the past, BP understood this and much more. The company's Executives knew petroleum could and would provide endless profits, power, and a perpetual presence.
In his first State of the Union address, President Barack Obama touched on climate issues only briefly. He called on the Senate to pass a climate bill, but did not give Congress a deadline or promise to veto weak legislation. Nor did he mention the Copenhagen climate conference, where international negotiators struggled to produce an agreement on limiting global carbon emissions.
The Obama administration's attitude towards climate change still represents a remarkable shift from the Bush years, when global warming was treated as little more than a fairy tale. But in the past year, Congressional squabbling has stalled climate legislation, and international negotiators nearly gridlocked in talks over carbon admissions at the multinational Copenhagen conference. Without strong leadership from the president, work to prevent this looming environmental crisis will stall.
Obama did address global warming skeptics, saying that they should support investment in clean energy, "because the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy."
Despite his combative language, the president did not challenge Congress to push for real solutions to ballooning carbon emissions and energy consumption. As Forrest Wilder of The Texas Observer notes, Obama "uttered the phrase 'climate change' precisely once."
The Senate has already wait-listed the climate bill: Health care came first. With health care reform now in line behind work on jobs and bank regulation, climate legislation has little chance of passing the Senate in the coming months, let alone making it to the president's desk.
If Congress lets this work wait until after the midterm elections, the United States will show up at international negotiations in December 2010 as a leader in carbon emissions yet again, but with little in hand to show a way forward.
Clean energy, not renewable energy
When the president did bring up climate issues, he focused on their connection between climate reform and potential job creation. Obama highlighted areas for growth, not in renewable energy fields like wind or solar power, but in nuclear power, natural gas, and clean coal.
Yes, these fuel sources could decrease the country's carbon emissions. But they are not solutions that will revolutionize energy production. Grist's David Roberts was floored that the speech omitted renewable energy entirely and kowtowed to a more conservative litany of energy projects. "I suppose it was done to flatter conservative Senators that will have to vote for the bill Kerry, Lieberman, and Graham are working on," he writes. (The three Senators are working on a version of the climate bill designed to appeal to Republicans.)
"But the SOTU is not a policy negotiation," Roberts says. "It's a bully pulpit, a chance to shape rather than respond to existing narratives."
Roberts argues that progressive supporters would benefit from a stronger message. If activists knew that the White House stands behind a real shift in America's energy policy, they could use that prompt to drive action on climate change.
What was missing
While touting the virtues of off-shore drilling, Obama overlooked other policies that could broker real change. Although he admonished Congress to pass a climate bill, he did not pressure the legislature on what he'd like that bill to include. He did not mention cap-and-trade, the mechanism the House bill relies on to tamp down emissions and dirty energy use.
President Obama did touch on transportation reforms that could decrease the country's use of fossil fuels.
"There's no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains," Obama said. He cited a high-speed rail project that broke ground on Tuesday in Tampa, FL, as evidence that America could best the rest of the world in creating new energy-efficient technology.
But one or two high-profile projects won't be enough to challenge Europe's network of high-speed trains or China's investments in solar power. The White House could put the country at the forefront of sustainable technologies, but it'll take more money than the president has committed. In AlterNet's ideal state of the union, projects like the railway would merit sustained attention and funding. Funding for the high-speed train came from this year's stimulus bill, and there's no guarantee that similar projects will find federal funding in the future.
"Continued support is still needed" for green jobs and clean energy, Alternet's editorial staff argues. "It's unclear yet how Obama's new proposal for a three-year spending freeze will apply to this sector, but a boost is what is needed, not cuts."
Green jobs
Michelle Chen argues for In These Times that the president is right to subordinate climate issues to economic policy. "The jobs angle is more than sugar-coating," she says. A recent Pew Research Center poll put climate change at the end of Americans' long list of cares, and a Brookings Institution study found that they're no longer willing to pay as much for greener products.
Jobless workers need green in their pockets most of all, and so far politicians' promises haven't made up for the slack economy.
"No matter how slick the marketing, confidence in green jobs may wilt even further absent real investments in the beleaguered blue-collar workforce," Chen writes.
Copenhagen accord losing momentum
The small role that climate change played in the state of the union address only emphasized the downward momentum of the issue since the United Nations conference on global warming in Copenhagen. Grist's Jonathan Hiskes talked to six leaders in climate change activism, and none of them offered a different strategy than they had last year.
That same stasis is showing up in Europe, as well. Spain, which currently leads the European Union, proposed that the European Union's negotiating position should remain the same as its position before the Copenhagen conference, according to Inter Press Service.
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), who's working on climate change legislation in the Senate, offered advice to climate activists at a clean energy forum in Washington, DC on Wednesday. Mother Jones' Kate Sheppard reports that Sen. Kerry encouraged his audience to get angrier, louder, and more active, in the mode of the conservative Tea Partiers, who have earned plenty of attention. After his speech, he also recalled the tactics that pushed landmark legislation like the Clean Air Act through Congress.
If climate change is going to play a larger role in the next state of the union, the citizens and groups concerned about this issue need to do something to put it on the agenda. Otherwise, next year, the president may find it just as easy to skim over it again.
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A recent change of the guard in the Massachusetts Senate race force the President to reveal he is working. We, the American people, are waiting, just as we have been for months and months. For a full year, countless citizens have felt as though they were patient. Yet, the President did not seem to have their interests at heart. True change has not come. Countless constituents anticipate none is forthcoming. Three hundred and sixty five plus have gone by and the American people are tired of being patient.
Yesterday, was the 39th anniversary of Earth Day and to mark the occasion, President Obama was in Newton, Iowa to speak about clean energy. Newton is one of those towns where most of the residents are employed by one major employer, and until October 2007, that employer was Maytag. So when Whirlpool bought Maytag and shut down the Newton plant, over 12% of Newton’s 16,000 residents lost their jobs. If you didn’t lose a job, your husband, sister, or neighbor surely did.
But now Newton’s a shining example of what’s possible. Instead of dishwashers and washing machines, the people of Newton are making wind turbines. That’s why President Obama chose Newton and Trinity Structural Towers to argue that “the choice we face is not between saving our environment and saving our economy. The choice we face is between prosperity and decline.”
But towns like Newton aren’t just losing jobs, they are losing talent too. Young people have been hit hard by this recession. According to the Education and Labor Committee, of the 1.2 million jobs lost last year, 60 percent were held by workers under the age of 25. Mobile and in search of opportunity they are moving to bigger cities and mega regions that promise greater opportunity. Iowa, in particular, has been hurt by this “brain drain,” losing more college graduates than any other state in the country.
So while we replace dishwashers with wind turbines, and re-open empty auto manufacturing plants with solar manufacturing facilities, let’s also work to build truly whole communities. The communities that define themselves by one industry or one employer will be increasingly at risk. A healthy, 21st century economy demands that we become increasingly self-sufficient in the resources we use—the food we grow, the water and energy we consume, and the products we build. Revitalizing local living economies can create jobs, conserve energy, and keep young talent in the community.
For those of you who had to cut checks and wait in long lines at the Post Office yesterday, here's a stat to darken your already gloomy week. According to the National Priorities Project (NPP), 37.3 cents of every tax dollar went toward military spending last year. NPP has a site set up where you can actually see the breakdown of where your tax dollars went in 2008, based on your city and county info. For instance, in Philly where I live, the median income family paid $1,958 in federal income taxes last year. Of that, $576 went to military spending and another $155 went to military interest on debt, while education received a paltry $59 and environment, energy and science combined got just $55. Why are these numbers so skewed?
Thankfully, the Obama administration has called for substantial investment in woefully underfunded areas like education, healthcare reform, and renewable energy. And investing in renewable energy will translate into more jobs, even though the NPP notes that 30 percent of military spending currently goes toward securing fossil fuels. Here's the thing though, if our country is simultaneously escalating the war in Afghanistan, calling for a long-term military commitment, how can they possibly deliver on their economic agenda?
One of my biggest frustrations with Democratic leaders is their refusal to embrace the energy policy Al Gore outlined this summer, which could "end our reliance on carbon-based fuels" in the next decade.
Barack Obama has offered an energy policy that's a big improvement on what George Bush has done. Unfortunately, Obama still supports more investment in so-called "clean coal" and has not ruled out expanding nuclear power.
On the plus side, Obama also calls for generating 10 percent of our country's electricity from renewable sources by 2012--which sounds great until you learn that the U.S. has already surpassed that goal.
Last week Dr. Benjamin Brewer, who writes "The Doctor's Office" column for the Wall Street Journal, put a face on a disturbing trend in U.S. health care. A lack of insurance and high health care costs are forcing many Americans to miss out on preventive care: people are skipping check-ups, discontinuing medication, even refusing annual screenings like mammograms and colonoscopies.
For example, a patient of Dr. Brewer's had quit smoking in order to afford gas for his 40-mile commute to work. Unfortunately, he still developed pneumonia. The patient refused to let an ER doctor admit him, in fear of the costs, and he decided not to fill an antibiotic prescription, because his insurance had a $50 drug co-pay, which he said he simply couldn't afford.
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