Red, Green, and Blue

The Looming Immigration Battle. Not That One! The More Important One

Steve Savage — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 23:45:04 +0000

Eventually, Congress will get around to “Immigration Reform.” The process will be all too predictable. There will be a lot of huffing and puffing from angry old white men trying to conflate the issue with “National Security” and using “invasion” imagery and thinly veiled racism. There will be lots of posturing about “getting control of our borders.” Anyone who puts forward reasonable ideas will be subject to attack from the Right and Left. What will probably be missing from the discussion will be the perspective that in the not too distant future, we will need to be actively competing for immigrants. We will need to shift from talking about how to limit immigration to how finding ways to encourage it.

Kerry and Graham Renew Bipartisan Energy on Climate Bill

Joe Walsh — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 13:54:48 +0000

When Scott Brown’s Senate win in Massachusetts brought the forty-first vote against health care to the Republican caucus, Washington shifted its focus to other items that started high on the legislative agenda in 2009, but found their way to the back burner in the health care battle royale. A comprehensive energy reform and climate change bill climbed right to the top of the list.

After all, the House already passed the Waxman-Markey bill in 2009, and the Senate has its own promisingly tri-partisan gang of three (Democrat John Kerry, Republican Lindsey Graham and Independent Joe Liebermann) who seem to have the makings of a compromise bill. Now, as the White House makes it clear that the State of the Union will mark a shift in focus from deeply-detailed and controversial policy reform to bread-and-butter middle class issues (like daycare subsidies, student loan reform, and middle class tax relief), the path to Senate appproval of a climate and energy bill seems to lie in adoption of the same central principle that will drive the Obama SOTU message: JOBS!

Post-Copenhagen: Redefining Climate Progress

The jobs-first focus will inevitably push a lot of the more aggressive green tech/clean tech proposals to the side. To get a bill this year, Kerry and Graham are looking to a few trump cards that most people probably did not expect to see as the big beneficiaries of a climate change bill in this session: oil, coal and nuclear.

Their compromise bill - pitched by Graham not as a climate bill, but as a path to “energy independence” - would “provide subsidies to kick-start construction of nuclear power plants, encourage the development of technology that would bury carbon emissions created by the burning of coal, and promote offshore drilling,” according to a Boston Globe story.

How did these technologies - anything but new or green - get back on the agenda and get in line for huge government investment?

Three Words: Oil, Gas and JOBS

First, the ambitious green plays that led the Obama and Democratic agenda for a climate bill back in spring 2009 do not offer enough brisk stimulation to the economy, something that advocates of a climate bill will need to get the bill through this year. The legislative environment has been tough and bitterly-divided all year, but now - with the Massachusetts special Senate election still ringing in the perked-up ears of Democrats in vulnerable 2010 seats - even the Democratic caucus is likely to be more divided and less willing to take risky votes as an undivided whole.

Put simply, there are certain job gains to be had in established industries and with well-known companies in the more conventional fossil fuel programs. Green jobs have been - and remain, in large part - a centerpiece of the climate bill, and they hold a lot of promise for the future in even many conservative economists’ projections, but it is unclear exactly how many real and sustainable jobs those programs could create today.

The problem with going after a full-blown green bill is that 1) the technologies and companies are largely still research and development plays, and 2) too much of the the money that would be set aside for renewable energy would be eaten up by subsidies for the increase in costs for renewable energy, rather than going to coal, oil or nuke incentives, technologies and subsidies that would create jobs instantly.

Greens and Their Envy

Proponents argue that the research and development has to get underway to begin to address both the cost and capcity concerns around renewable energy conversion. Further, they add that there are plenty of nitty-gritty, not-overly-technical, still very green investments that would create immediate jobs and offer instant stimulus.

In other words, investments in places like utility efficiency programs and energy efficient retrofitting are the the equivalent of the famous “shovel-ready” projects, and would mean jobs and energy savings right now. No doubt, some money will still find its way to utilities and community-based organizations for smart grid programs and other efficiency programs, but much will be diverted to the fossil fuel projects.

Finally, as to the cost of green power, supporters of a progressive, comprehensive bill point out that the higher kWh price for green power is reflective of the true cost of a unit of energy, once cost to the environment, for clean-up and other externalities is included.

Can Compromise Appease?

It is hard to say how hardcore greens will react to this compromise. Groups like Greenpeace came out in opposition to a weakened House bill; but, as Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett noted on Meet the Press this Sunday, the White House is stepping back to take stock of its whole agenda, noting “it is the art of the possible.” Part of that calculation has obviously been the roll-out of less wonky policies and programs that will be more accessible to the disenchanted middle class voter, but will inevitably deliver less in pure policy power for industry insiders and hardcore greens.

Still, with that shift in focus by the White House and bipartisan leadership from Senate heavyweights like Kerry and Graham, Ms. Jarrett and her boss may find that as their art applies to energy and climate progress, possibilities are improving.

Flickr photo used under CCL, credit Ekey84

Looking Beyond 2050 - Some Interesting and Disturbing Trends

Steve Savage — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 01:55:41 +0000

Fertility rates are declining around the world and most of what is written about this trend casts it in a positive light. The cover story of last November’s Economist magazine carried the headline: “Falling Fertility - How the Population Problem is Solving Itself.” It claimed that countries like China are enjoying a “demographic dividend” over the coming decades. As positive as an end to human population increase might be for the planet, the question that is not getting much attention is, “what next?” After population reaches an inflection point and begins to decline, what will society be like? I won’t live to see this, but my grand daughter who was born last month certainly will.

My good friend John sent me a link to the IIASA website (International Institute for Applied System Analysis) where it is possible to download data from their models of global demographic trends (I’ve made some graphs of that data). Most such models stop at 2050 but this one goes out to 2100. If these models are correct, there are some major challenges ahead for humanity. The most immediate is how to feed the population that will continue to increase until about 2060. The next is how to deal with a population that is getting very old. If you are an American, the trends in the following graphs should be seriously unsettling. We have a dysfunctional, hyper-partisan-dominated, political establishment that is chronically unable to find reasonable solutions to the challenges of medical costs, Social Security insolvency or immigration reform, and yet addressing these very issues will become even more critical in the future pictured in these graphs.

Fewer and Fewer Children

The first thing that strikes me (see graph above) is the declining proportion of children. This global trend is well under way in the developed world and is only slightly less so in North America because of immigration. I wonder at what point colleges will start competing for the few remaining students?

Farmers Dig-In Heels Against Cap-and-Trade

Timothy B. Hurst — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 03:07:59 +0000

American Farm Bureau takes hard-line stance against climate legislation, EPA

At the opening of the four-day American Farm Bureau Federation convention in Seattle, Washington over the weekend, AFBF president Bob Stallman pushed for a tough stance against climate legislation currently being debated in Congress. Stallman called called for American farmers and ranchers to “aggressively respond to extremists” and “misguided, activist-driven regulation,” adding that “the days of their elitist power grabs are over.”

And when the AFBF’s first policy session began on Tuesday, delegates took that message to heart, approving a special resolution against both cap-and-trade legislation and the regulation of carbon by the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA’s recent endangerment finding sets the stage for the agency to regulate all greenhouse gas emissions under its existing power.

“As Congress returns to the issue of cap-and-trade this year, the message of Farm Bureau will continue to be: ‘Don’t Cap Our Future’ agricultural productivity and food security,” said AFBF President Bob Stallman in a written statement. “We will now send that message even more strongly.”

The resolution passed by the Farm Bureau states that cap-and-trade legislation would raise farmers’ and ranchers’ production costs, and the potential benefits of agricultural offsets are far outweighed by the costs to producers. Due to these and other concerns, the delegates voted to strongly opposed “cap and trade proposals before Congress” and to support “any legislative action that would suspend EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.”

“Congress should focus on renewable energy that is better for the environment and our domestic energy security,” said Stallman, “but it should not tie the hands of U.S. producers, whose productivity, historically, has provided the world’s food safety net. We should not shrink U.S. agriculture at the very time when many are concerned about how to feed a growing global population.”

The group is skeptical about climate legislation currently being batted around Congress, despite the fact that a recent study showed the agricultural industry would have more to gain than to lose if the House version of the climate bill were passed.

The American Farm Bureau was formally created in 1919 and has about 2,800 county farm organizations which in turn elect representatives to state farm bureaus.

Tim Hurst is the founding editor at ecopolitology. You can follow him on twitter @ecopolitologist
Photo: mike 138 via flickr/Creative Commons

Copenhagen Agreement Might Signal End of Post-9/11 Era

Joe Walsh — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 03:34:26 +0000

Don’t look now, but true to the cliche, the Baby New Year that Greens first met with hope (maybe even “HOPE”) nearly a year ago is now a haggard old man shuffling for the exit. Looking back to January 2009, the baby looks increasingly childish for having harbored a genuine - if now decidedly naive - belief that “this is the year, and Copenhagen is the place” for global action on climate change.

Yesterday’s announced agreement should not have surprised any moderately-close observer, neither should its vagueness nor its weakness. COP-15 was doomed to failure months ago when it became clear that the US could not even get a serious comprehensive climate bill through to the president, in spite of liberal supermajorities in both chambers and a White House believed to have “soft power” to spare.

Still, fallout is difficult to assess prospectively. But, now that the thing is actually done, it is time to tally the political score. What does failure in Copenhagen mean for US diplomacy in the context of China’s ascendancy and in the overall context of geopolitics? How will the agreement that Obama spearheaded play out in domestic politics for the rest of this session and into the mid-terms? Here are a few possibilities.

Geopolitics

Carbon is not the Issue - Cash Is

Climategate cannot claim much credit for derailing Copenhagen, the cake was already baked. But, the controversy over climate change science is sure to rage on in 2010, in part reinvigorated by the emails from East Anglia. Still, even if that fight does escalate, it will be too meager to derail the push for “environmental justice” that came into full flower in Copenhagen. Developing nations may no bones about their need - indeed, their expectation - for the West to cough up cash. Further, in part driven by domestic political pressure to “act,” developed nations like the US are committed to ponying up.

End of an Era?

With the question of dollars at the center of the table, the world is preparing to transition from the geopolitical “post-9/11″ epoch into a new one: Eco Cold War. If developing countries are to be taken at their word, the effects of climate change promise to be as problematic for security and human rights as they are in pure climate change terms. Whether those come to pass in fact is irrelevant, with no solid global agreement on climate change, regional agreements will proliferate and help to forge significant 21st century partnerships that will a) supplant the pacts that have become outdated since their creation in the post-WWII scrum, and b) fill vacuums in significant regions that were left unstable - in part - by the Cold War machinations of receding empires.

Domestic

Obama’s Shrinking Tent

Watch closely as reaction to the Copenhagen agreement plays out to see which US green groups wish to stay in the White House’s good graces. Establishment greens like Greenpeace were already angry about Waxman-Markey, and some grassroots groups like Friends of the Earth have already come out with disapproval for the two-and-a-half page pact. NRDC has stayed by his side through thick and thin this year, along with some others, but try as the White House might, this is going to be tough to spin. Obama simply cannot beat the drum for an entire year touting the existential significance of meaningful climate action and then try to reel it back when efforts fail. It won’t fly, and if they try to keep making it soar, it will only attenuate the damage.

Big Trouble in 2010’s Mid-Terms

Without a doubt, President Obama and the Democrats would have liked for something more to have come from Copenhagen - and not just philosophically, but also politically. With this agreement, they may have struck the most discordant note possible. The base is not pleased with the results on the global stage, but the deal might still be enough for the GOP to make some bones with moderates around the country who are looking at over 10% unemployment and starting to wonder just why Obama and Congressional Dems seem so concerned with a few degrees Centigrade over the next century. Brown Dogs are duking it out over the Senate climate bill and you have to wonder whether - as elections come ever closer - that bill ever even makes it to the floor now. With the Democratic house badly-divided, it could mean big trouble for Dems and a big mid-term swing in both chambers.

Climategate’s Encore

Climategate is not going to stop the global momentum for action. Too much is at stake. And, yes, I’m talking dollars. But, if the GOP does regain some footing in 2010, and the global trend toward conservatism (as evidenced in the last round of European elections) continues, this conference and this agreement could be leveraged to motivate an offensive against climate action. Until now, skeptics have been content to continue with business-as-usual and allow fringers and talking heads to fight the “junk science” fight. But, Greens have seen the first signs of more proactive cohesion from the opposition in 2009’s climate fights. Conservatives are preparing the first concerted backlash - as a movement - against energy and environmental reform.

Waxman-Markey, the Senate climate fight and Copenhagen all failed in 2009, due to the continuing legacy of ignorance, inertia and in-fighting that have marked the past thirty years of the fitful progress for the green movement. But, if they thought 2009 was a tough year, watch what happens now that the other side is actually spoiling for a fight.

Photo credit

Copenhagen: A Climactic Fairytale

Paige Donner — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 21:35:39 +0000

When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger addressed the leaders attending the Global Climate Conference in Copenhagen earlier this week, he noted Copenhagen’s Little Mermaid, its famous statue in the city center that is drawn from a Hans Christian Andersen fairytale. He also noted that his favorite fairytale as a child was “The Ugly Duckling” because of its theme of transformation.

The California Governor is lobbying hard to maintain our focus on the fact that “this conference is automatically and already a success.”

In the final hours of the historical summit, much focus was placed on a global agreement being signed by all the world’s leaders, the developing nations and the developed nations; And in particular whether China and the U.S. would be able to come to an agreement about emissions reduction inspections and national sovereignty. Much focus was also being placed on which leaders B.O. was including in his pack and which ones he was snubbing.

And while the U.S. leader declared the U.N. Conference a success before hopping onto Air Force One to jet back home, many of the participating countries simply declared they would “take note” of the signed agreement - an agreement that is not legally binding nor does it outline specific emissions reduction goals.

Schwarzenegger’s emphasis, in California, continues to focus our attention on the integral role that subnational governments and leaders - and individuals and entrepreneurs - play in this transformation of our environmental practices and some of the industries upon which we base our global economy.

[Above Photo by Peter Grigsby]

Governor Schwarzenegger:

“…the world’s governments alone cannot make progress, the kind of progress that is needed on global climate change. They alone cannot do it. They need everyone coming together, everyone working together. They need the cities, they need the states, they need the provinces and the regions. They need the corporations, the activists, the scientists and the universities. They need the individuals whose vision and determination create movements. They need everybody out there.

So ladies and gentlemen, let us regain our momentum, let us regain our purpose, let us regain our hope by liberating the transformative power beneath the national level.

That can be the great contribution of Copenhagen — that could be the great contribution of Copenhagen.

Some examples he gave of industry and entrepreneurs leading the way: A German company in Texas building and operating the world’s largest wind farm; a renewable energy company in China stating that they feel that renewables are ”good business, not a burden.” Solazyme, the firm that derives its renewable energy from algae and its recent U.S. Department of Defense contract is more evidence of successful private-public partnerships.

He also spoke about his late Mother-in-law’s pioneering efforts to create the Special Olympics. This was an effort of individuals and people. This was not an effort set forth by governments. He pointed out that it is people, friends and family, who are there at the finishing line to give the athletes participating in the Special Olympics a big hug, not governments. The Special Olympics is now in 180-plus countries.

Without the dedication of individuals, activists, entrepreneurs, there would be no environmental movement. “Movements began with the people, not with governments,” concluded Schwarzenegger.

In Photo: Gov. Schwarzenegger and Premier Campbell

The Green Blog Network

Poor Americans Most Willing to Sacrifice for Sake of Climate

Timothy B. Hurst — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 01:39:03 +0000

A new Zogby poll showing declining concern about climate change in the Unites States also shows that those who are least able to afford rising energy prices–the kind of upward movement brought on by climate legislation–are the most likely to support climate and energy policies that would have that effect.

When it comes to the personal changes that may be required as part of a national plan of action to address climate change, Zogby says that 44 percent of Americans believe the U.S. government should act to reduce energy use in the U.S. even if that means significant personal lifestyle changes.

Copenhagen Week One: Climategate, China, and the Obama Nobel Play

Joe Walsh — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 15:56:07 +0000

In this space last week, I wrote a column that I thought might draw the ire of some greens for its cynical outlook on Copenhagen. Instead, it drew a fair amount of attention from readers concerned that I had glossed over the significance of “Climategate.” Like that column, this one is not about Climategate in the broader sense, but about its impact on the goings-on this week in Denmark. And, as we look back at week one of COP-15, last week’s column looks to have been borne out in that context. Join me for this more complete review of the political freeze that has taken over the warming talks.

Climategate is Good as Gone…For Now - As expected, Climategate disappeared as fast as it rose to the top of Google’s search rankings. Worldwide, media reports are focusing on the very compelling, very well-packaged stories about climate change impact and emerging technologies that were in the can as this conference approached. The email controversy may well reemerge at the conclusion of the conference; and, as I noted in comments responding to reader comments to last week’s piece, Climategate may ultimately be seen as the sort of watershed moment that was needed to reignite some passion in this debate. But, at least in the world-within-the-world at Copenhagen this week, Climategate-stoked doubt about climate change is not the issue.

US Fizzles- After months of pressure and rhetoric in US politics, marked by doomsday scenarios that would befall the world should the US not have a climate change bill on the President’s desk before Copenhagen, the US delegation arrived with the following: an EPA declaration that was inevitable and had been dramatically undersold in favor of pushing for legislation; and, a December 10 announcement by a tri-partisan (including an independent) group of Senators, which purported to “outline the basics” for a domestic climate bill that might come to the floor in the spring. In a week when the President of the United States delivered what has to be the most impassioned defense of war in the history of Nobel Peace Prize acceptances, his delegation at the climate conference tried to claim leadership in a very tricky geopolitical negotiation after having failed to clear the relatively less complex partisan, political and special interest hurdles at home.

China Sizzles, But Where’s the Steak?- China is the Donald Trump of climate change action. Big promises, high-dollar investments. Big, big, big! 800 turbines in three gorges? Bring it on! Planting enough new trees to cover all of Norway? Why not! Just don’t ask them to cut emissions. First, it is not practical to do so, their growth makes it impossible. Second, they don’t have the money to pay for it (probably because it is all on loan to the US, but that is another column for another blog). And, the reports coming from state-controlled media do not offer much comfort. Long term, China looks like a promising green partner for the world. They are going to continue to develop clean energy technologies domestically and will continue to flood the global market with low-cost, Chinese-fabricated panels, blades and batteries.

Right now, the Chinese would be foolish to have fabricators sell those products to domestic buyers and capture the revenue in yuan when they could be sold overseas for more valuable dollars, Euros and pounds. Will they ever reach a tipping point where some of those items will stay in country instead of being produced exclusively for export? That tipping point appears to be approaching for jeans, TVs and other Chinese-made goods, but clean energy technology? Don’t hold your breath.

For signs of success in week two, watch the tail numbers of planes at Copenhagen Airport - It will be interesting to see who actually shows up in Copenhagen next week. We know President Obama is en route, but will the Russians, Chinese or Indians keep their dates to have heads of state make the trip to town? Probably. Will it move the needle? I doubt it.

In the end, the problem with Copenhagen cannot be solved by next week, no matter who is at the table. That problem can best be discerned in the verb tense most-often used in speeches, discussions and negotiations there: the future. For thirty-five years, the public (including skeptics) have been hearing about what WILL happen to the planet and about the technologies that WILL emerge to make clean energy affordable. The urgency has not come yet. The world is not ready. Let us hope that by the time we are, it is not too late.

Obama Outlines Job Creation and Economic Growth [video]

Timothy B. Hurst — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 03:02:23 +0000

President Obama outlines his administration’s economic accomplishments, hurdles it faces, and plans to overcome those hurdles today at the Brookings Institute. Among Obama’s economic plans are to continue to provide funds for small businesses - especially those that are creating jobs in energy efficiency, weatherization and clean energy manufacturing. Grab some popcorn, put your feet up and click play: (28 mins.)
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Sarah Palin’s HUGE Bus and Private Jet Book Tour (cartoon)

Joe Mohr — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:12:23 +0000

Mean Joe Green #82: Sarah Palin’s HUGE Bus and Private Jet Book Tour

The other day I came across this post (‘Is Sarah Palin’s Book Tour Killing the Planet?’) on Wend Magazine’s blog. My response after reading the headline but before reading the article was “I’m SURE it is.” But after reading the article and thinking on it a bit more, there has to be a better explanation to the reason why she is touring the country on a GIGANTIC tour bus AND a private jet plane.

Well, ENN (Earth Nightly News) broke the news on the REAL reason…

Follow Mean Joe Green on Twitter at @GreenCartoons