Business on THE ENVIRONMENTALIST

The Appalachian region has been supplying American with cheap energy for generations, a duty it has performed with a sense of pride and patriotism. But while electricity from the region’s coal has been cheap for the rest of us, the price has been extraordinarily high for the people of the mountains.

That price took on a new dimension this week in a peer-reviewed study from the Health Policy Institute at West Virginia University. Researcher Michael Hendryx reports that coal mining costs the region five times more in early deaths than it provides in economic benefits.

Hendryx’s sobering calculation is that the coal industry provides about $8 billion annually in jobs, taxes and other economic benefits -- but premature deaths attributed to coal mining and its impacts, including local air and water pollution, cost the region $42 billion.

Hendryx qualifies this estimate, saying it’s impossible to calculate these numbers with absolute certainty. But even a cursory look at how coal is extracted in Appalachia – largely now through the incredibly destructive practice of mountain top removal – leads reasonable people to conclude that Hendryx is on the right track.

I’ll write a great deal about the ongoing Appalachian tragedy in the future, but in this post I’ll focus on the ecology of decision-making in Washington D.C. that allows national energy policy to be so destructive, even deadly.

The great lesson of global climate change is that everything is connected. The emissions from a coal plant in Iowa, for example, may produce floods in Bangladesh. Or the folks in Iowa may someday suffer bigger floods because of all those new cars about to populate the streets of India.

But if the world is connected, you wouldn’t know it by watching the political process in Washington. It is the Capitol of Compartmentalization, the City of Stovepipes and the Land of a Thousand Fiefdoms. Every topic seems to have its own congressional committee, its own federal agency and its own legislation.

The stovepipes are especially evident right now as Congress moves toward its August recess and President Obama tries to accomplish as much as he can before his honeymoon is over. We are in the Summer of Big Issues before the new congressional and presidential election cycles initiate another long drought on political courage.

For example, in separate legislation, committees, hearings and processes, Congress is considering a climate change bill, a health care bill and an energy bill. It just finished work on a military spending bill and will soon begin work on a major transportation bill.

Leaders are trying to prevent gridlock in this traffic jam of separate issues competing for their time and attention, each important in its own right with its constituents begging for action.

Trouble is, all of these issues are connected. In a rational world, they could not and would not be considered in isolation from one another. There is no more obvious example than Appalachia where the adverse impacts of outdated energy policy have impacts from every home to every nation. In Appalachia, we see global climate change at its roots while national energy policy sabotages public health and environmental quality for the people living there.

It’s easy for the rest of us to ignore what’s happening in Appalachia – until we realize how connected we really are with the region. Every mountaintop that’s blown up is connected to every fetus poisoned by mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants, every child who suffers from asthma related to air pollution, and every family victimized by fire, flood or disease attributed to global warming.

Our continuing reliance on coal has an effect on national defense, too. We have just been warned by a group of retired admirals a nd generals that our use of fossil energy, in whatever form and from whatever source, is a threat to national security and military effectiveness. (Go here to see newly released video interviews with the flag officers who issued this warning.) Energy policies that continue subsidizing or promoting fossil energy consumption produce a less safe nation, driving up defense spending, which in turn takes resources from other public needs.

Meantime, scientists have connected energy policy with global climate change, and both of them with impacts on the economy, on agriculture and other key aspects of life in the United States. The new report on climate impacts from the federal Global Change Research Program makes clear that those consequences already are underway, impacting public health in ways that raise medical costs and will drive them higher in the future. As the report says:

Climate change poses unique challenges to human health. Unlike health threats
caused by a particular toxin or disease pathogen, there are many ways that
climate change can lead to potentially harmful health effects. There are direct
health impacts from heat waves and severe storms, ailments caused or exacerbated by air pollution and airborne allergens and many climate-sensitive infectious diseases.

Heat already is the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the United States, according to the report, and climate change will bring more. Chicago could see heat-related deaths quadruple under a high-emissions scenario; deaths in Los Angeles could be five to seven times higher than they were in the 1990s. Warmer weather, meanwhile, contributes to poor air quality, a problem that already threatens the health of half of all Americans – some 158 million people.

The transportation stovepipe, meanwhile, is connected to the climate, energy, health and national security stovepipes. Vehicles are a major source of unhealthy air pollutants as well as greenhouse gases. Cities designed to promote safe walking and biking can reduce childhood obesity and produce healthier citizens. So, if we’re really concerned about controlling health care costs, the top priority of national transportation policy should be mass transit and walkable communities, not highways.

In other words, you can’t accurately talk about global climate change or national energy policy or national transportation policy without talking about the rising costs of health care or national security. But in Congress, they do.

Trying to describe all of this connectedness is like trying to track the synapses in the brain. All of those polls that ask us to pick our highest priorities force false choices by making us decide between the economy, health care, national security and climate change. In realty, they’re conjoined issues. We must become a holistic worriers.

I don’t know how to change Stovepipe City into a place that recognizes the web of life or the warp and woof of the socioeconomic fabric, or that stops making whack-a-mole public policies that pound down one problem in ways that make others pop up. How do we change the fact that the Law of Unattended Consequences so often makes the Law of Unintended Consequences the supreme law of the land? Should Congress meet each day as a Committee of the Whole? Should President Obama create a Department of Connections?

More seriously, it wouldn’t hurt if Congress required each new piece of legislation to carry a whole-cost analysis, assessing net impacts on energy, water, climate, public health, national security, the economy, and ecosystem services.. The President could require the same analysis from each agency when it submits its annual budget request. The calculations may not be as complicated as they seem. Bob Costanza and his colleagues at the University of Vermont are among several experts working on full-cost calculators to support policy-making at the federal and local levels.

What we can’t do is continue assuming that because an issue has its own congressional committee, its own budget and its own lobbyists, it can be addressed in a stovepipe. Government may be organized that way, but the universe is not. Ask the good people of Appalachia.

-----------

William S. Becker is the Executive Director of the Presidential Climate Action Plan (PCAP), a project of the University of Colorado, Wirth Chair, charged with producing a 100 day action plan on climate change for the next President of the United States, and the author of THE 100 DAY ACTION PLAN TO SAVE THE PLANET, available in eBook format from St. Martins Griffin.

Articles by Bill Becker: Link

Labels: Bill Becker, Business, Climate Change, Environment, Global Warming, PCAP

Why Cities & CEOs Can’t Relax - Part 2

2009-06-11T17:04:00.000-07:00

Why Cities & CEOs Can't Relax - Part 1

The federal stimulus money flowing to America’s municipalities right now presents them with a choice and a question. The choice: Will they use the money to become cities of the past or cities of the future? The question: What is a city of the future, anyway?

The choice should be simple. A city official’s first responsibility is to ensure the health and safety of the people in his or her community. Insofar as stimulus funds are available to repair failing bridges, dams, roads and vital infrastructure, that’s where they should be invested.

But as more funds are available – for example, the $100 billion earmarked in the stimulus package for energy grants to states and localities, or the $6.3 billion targeted for clean energy grants, or the $17 billion for transit or part of the $40 billion for roads, bridges and other infrastructure -- a high priority should be to begin putting each city on the road to the future.

That means building communities that are secure from energy supply disruptions and crippling energy prices; free from the air pollution that threatens the health of 186 million Americans today; laced with safe routes for people to walk and bicycle; able to provide a variety of mobility options so that everyone – including the young, old and disabled – has access to vital services. Cities of the future condemn no neighborhood to be the dumping ground for waste, pollution or traffic; conserve vital resources such as water; prepare to withstand the anticipated impacts of climate change, including heat waves and extreme weather; protect and restore natural places so that kids of all ages have contact with nature; foster social interaction; and avoid urban sprawl, to name a few criteria.

If the benefits of building for the future are not clear, the urban leaders should think of it this way: If they plan to invest in buildings, transit systems, streets or infrastructure and those improvements are meant to last more than a decade, they are not building the city for themselves. They’re building it for their children. The goal should be to create a community that remains competitive for generations to come as a wonderful place to live and do business.

A more interesting way to define a city of the future is to see one. For example, check the work of Jonathan Arnold, an architect turned computer artist in Kansas City. Arnold shows how his home town could evolve to become greener and better in the not-too-distant future.

Or take a look at the animations for the greening of Manchester, England, produced by the global development firm Arup – the company that designed Dongtan, China, which when it’s built will become one of the most sustainable cities the world has ever known.

Or check out this animation of a new transportation system being built at London’s Heathrow Airport – a technology that may soon come to a street near you. Or look at this image of a vertical garden – a farm within a skyscraper, growing food without producing those nasty CO2 emissions that come from fertilizers and soil disturbance.

If you’d like to redesign your own street, check out Good magazine’s site. If you want to explore the features of a green home, go to the site created by Global Green and Yahoo. If you want to learn the features of a carbon-neutral neighborhood, check out the graphic by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

As these visuals demonstrate, becoming a city of the future is not out of reach. The necessary designs, tools and technologies already exist to make each community in the United States a thriving and sustainable member of the emerging clean energy economy.

To better empower cities, Congress and the Administration can do more than stimulus money. If and when if finally emerges from Congress, the Waxman-Markey climate bill should empower rather than preempt the power of urban leaders and citizens to innovate.
The climate scientists within the Administration should make sure their work is translated into terms that business and community leaders can understand and factor into their planning. Among other things, federal climate science must pay more attention to the expected local impacts of climate change so that communities and companies can prepare and adapt. That translated knowledge also will help define new markets for green and carbon-reducing goods and services, new niches for business to fill.

Let’s make sure our scarce taxpayer dollars are investing in the future rather than the past. That means de-subsidizing carbon in federal policy in favor of support for clean energy, resource conservation and the restoration of natural systems – in other words, America’s natural capital.

If you are a local leader deciding how best to invest your city’s stimulus dollars, I encourage you to contact and partner with some of the outstanding people and organizations that can help you build for the future. Among them:

Global Green is the U.S. affiliate of Green Cross International, the organization created by Mikhail Gorbachev to promote a more sustainable world. Run by Matt Petersen, Global Green has helped design homes for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, operates a green building resource center, and runs programs on green cities and schools, climate action, water conservation and other critical elements of a sustainable future.

PlaceMatters is a fascinating nonprofit operated by Ken Snyder, formerly an expert in the Department of Energy’s Center of Excellence for Sustainable Development. PlaceMatters offers a toolbox of cutting-edge software that enables more intelligent community planning and more civic engagement in urban design. Those tools include iCommunityTV – a program that allows citizens to post local news videos about developments in their communities.

I mentioned ICLEI U.S. in Part 1 of this post. Led by Michelle Wyman, it is the California-based U.S. affiliate of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives. Among other sustainability offerings, ICLEI operates one of the nation’s best programs to help communities prevent and deal with global climate change. Its Climate Resilient Communities Program trains local officials on adaptation; its Climate Mitigation program coaches cities through a five-milestone program that starts with an inventory of local greenhouse gas emissions and ends with the implementation of greenhouse gas mitigation plans.

Another important ICLEI initiative is the STAR Community Index, a national system to help cities develop sustainability indicators and to certify their progress. The U.S. Green Building Council and Center for American Progress have partnered with ICLEI on this new tool, which is scheduled to be available next year.

Three new cities are joining ICLEI every week -- but there are nearly 20,000 cities in the United States, and more of them should be working with ICLEI.

Speaking of the U.S. Green Building Council, its internationally popular LEED rating system now involves not only green buildings, but also green neighborhoods. The USGBC has built a national network of local chapters and local green building experts, including some that may be near your city.

In its 2030 Challenge, Architecture 2030 has rallied key organizations in the U.S. building industry around the goal of making all new and renovated buildings carbon-neutral by 2030. Its leader, Ed Mazria, has developed guidelines for communities to modify their building codes to meet this goal, as well as dramatic visualizations of how much of the nation’s coastal areas will be lost with climate-related sea level rise.

Rails to Trails Conservancy, led by Keith Laughlin, who helped guide environmental programs in the Clinton White House, works with communities to build hiking and biking trails. One of Keith’s goals is safe routes for children to walk or bike to and from school.

There’s no lack of vision or help for cities that want to build for the future. With the stimulus package, there’s also some money. And with the imperative that we reduce our reliance on foreign oil and our greenhouse gas emissions, there is no shortage of critical milestones.

The cities that help America create its new energy economy will be tomorrow’s prosperity places, where people will want to live and businesses will want to build.

------------

William S. Becker is the Executive Director of the Presidential Climate Action Plan (PCAP), a project of the University of Colorado, Wirth Chair, charged with producing a 100 day action plan on climate change for the next President of the United States, and the author of THE 100 DAY ACTION PLAN TO SAVE THE PLANET, available in eBook format from St. Martins Griffin.

Articles by Bill Becker: Link

Labels: Bill Becker, Business, Climate Change, Environment, Global Warming, PCAP

Why Cities & CEOs Can’t Relax - Part 1

2009-05-31T17:47:00.000-07:00

America’s mayors, governors and CEOs may be feeling a sense of relief now that Congress shows signs of movement on a climate bill. Over the past decade, some of them have stuck their necks and spent their political capital on climate policy. Now, Congress is taking the heat.

But unfortunately, there is no rest ahead for anyone, not if we’re going to cut our greenhouse gas emissions back to levels we haven’t seen in a generation or more.

Whatever agreements emerge from Congress this summer and from Copenhagen next December, the fate of the planet will remain largely in the hands of our corporations and cities. That’s a message I will deliver June 3 to corporate and local leaders from Europe and the United States at the World Investment Conference in La Baule, France, where the topic will be trans-Atlantic cooperation on building sustainable cities. We can’t count on Washington or Copenhagen to solve the climate and energy problems. The most important leadership ahead still will come from cities and CEOs.

So far in the United States, there has been good news and bad news on climate leadership from those two sectors. The good news: In the absence of coherent national policy, more than 940 mayors now have signed the Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement, committing at minimum to meet Kyoto targets for greenhouse gas reductions. Most states are implementing or developing their own climate action plans. Four regions are implementing or developing emissions-reduction schemes. Twenty-five corporations, including some of America’s largest, have partnered with environmental organizations in the U.S. Climate Action Partnership to push for carbon pricing.

Several companies are showing exemplary individual leadership. I’ve written before about Interface, the Atlanta-based international carpet manufacturer that has set a zero-waste, zero-emissions goal and is fasting approaching it. General Electric is another example. The company’s carbon-cutting products range from wind turbines to super-efficient light bulbs. GE is investing in smart-grid development. It wants its green-product revenues to grow to $25 billion next year, up from $6 billion only five years ago. It just announced it will invest $1.5 billion yearly in clean-tech research by next year.

The bad news: The 940 cities who have endorsed Kyoto are only a fraction of the 40,000 local governments and nearly 20,000 cities in the United States. At the U.S. chapter of International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), which runs an important five-step program to help mayors move beyond their photo ops to achieve real emissions reductions, only about 550 cities have signed on to date. Only about half have made it to Step 3 – meaning they’ve inventoried their carbon emissions, set reduction targets and created action plans; only 30 have reached Step 5 to implement their plans and monitor progress. More cities should be taking advantage of ICLEI’s help.

In the corporate world, the most aggressive emissions reduction target advocated by U.S. CAP – a cut of 6.75 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 – is far less aggressive than the caps put forward by the international and scientific communities. China, for example, wants developed economies to cut their emissions more than 36 percent below 1990 by 2020. The European Union has endorsed cuts of 25-40 percent.

At the federal level, the Waxman-Markey bill so far calls for reductions of only 3.26 percent compared to 1990 levels -- less than half the cuts the U.S. CAP has endorsed and only about 10 percent of the cuts advocated by China and the EU.

The International Energy Outlook just released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that global carbon emissions will rise 39 percent by 2030 if we continue business as usual.

If Washington and Copenhagen produce climate agreements, they are likely to set the floor, not the ceiling, for sufficient action. Because they are the products of compromise, laws and treaties usually codify the lowest common denominator of commitment among the parties who make them. The lowest common dominator today is not nearly enough.

If we are to do better, cities are key because that’s where most of the world’s population lives. Estimates are that up to 80 percent of the world’s population will live in urban settings by 2030. How cities are designed and constructed – from building efficiency to infrastructure and transportation systems -- will have everything to do with the world’s future energy and climate security.

As for corporations, only they may have the resources and clout to catalyze truly revolutionary changes needed in energy and climate technologies and practices.

The challenge facing corporations is illustrated in part by the national poll taken by Yale and George Mason Universities last fall. Asked who should be doing more to fight climate change, 73 percent of respondents answered corporations, making them the top choice over individuals, the President, Congress or local governments. At the same time, respondents ranked corporations as their least-trusted sources of information about climate change (scientists were first and environmental groups second).

As so many of us have pointed out for so long, companies need not sacrifice profits to exercise revolutionary climate leadership. On the contrary, carbon mitigation with green energy technologies promises to be one of the largest global markets ever. There are big profits to be made in being first to the future. There are big advantages for stockholders, too, when their companies subscribe to the GE model, not the GM model.

Companies may find that significant customer loyalty hinges on their climate commitments. The Yale/George Mason poll found that more than half the respondents had either rewarded or punished companies during the previous year by buying or not buying products, based on the manufacturer’s global warming record.

I don’t want to minimize the importance of national laws and international treaties. They are indispensible components of global climate action. At their best, they create stable long-term policies and markets that encourage the private and public sectors to invest in the skills and physical plants needed to equip the world with green products and technologies. Intelligent public policies spur research and development and help new products survive the “valley of death” – that often fatal stage before a new product becomes viable in the marketplace.

But the keys to our future still are in the hands of cities and CEOs. Their goal should be to excel far beyond carbon caps established by law or treaty, to be first to market and the leaders in their fields. Through our votes and purchasing power, we citizen-consumers must insist that our corporate and government leaders do the right thing. Stockholders should be marching on corporate boardrooms to insist that companies invest in the future.

Those who follow the GM model – short-term profits at the expense of long-term damage to the environment, public welfare and national security – are likely to end up as financially bankrupt tomorrow as they are morally bankrupt today.

------------

William S. Becker is the Executive Director of the Presidential Climate Action Plan (PCAP), a project of the University of Colorado, Wirth Chair, charged with producing a 100 day action plan on climate change for the next President of the United States, and the author of THE 100 DAY ACTION PLAN TO SAVE THE PLANET, available in eBook format from St. Martins Griffin.

Articles by Bill Becker: Link

Labels: Bill Becker, Business, Climate Change, Environment, Global Warming, PCAP

The Age of Tradeoffs

2009-04-27T16:50:00.000-07:00

The 100 Day Action Plan to Save the Planet
Struggling for Obama's Soul
Toward a New Energy Economy: Part 1 Action in 100 Days
Toward a New Energy Economy: Part 2 Tough Questions, Tough Answers
How to Plant a Christmas Tree
In Math We Trust
Small Businesses: Too Big To Fail
Economic Stimulus, Part 1: 16% Green?
Unleashing the Geeks
Climate Bill: Principle Draws Interest
Avoiding the Frankenplanet
Invasion of the Present Tense
Whistleblower's Revenge
The Really, Really Bad Debt
Best of Times, Worst of Times
Unsung Heroes of Sustainability: The Melty Awards
Vision Power, Part 1

Are green energy industries about to ruin the environment and undermine national security? Are they engaged in the ecological equivalent of mountaintop removal? Are they the new Big Oil, making us dangerously dependent on imported strategic resources?

Those questions are implied in “Clean Energy’s Dirty Little Secret”, a provocative article in the current issue of The Atlantic. Author Lisa Margonelli points out that wind turbines, hybrid cars and some other green technologies carry “their own hefty environmental price tag”, including the use of rare-earth minerals extracted from open-pit mines or imported from places like China.

I’ve encountered similar concerns among members of the U.S. intelligence community: In the pursuit of green energy, will we trade our dependence on one imported strategic resource – oil – for dependence on other imported strategic resources?

Margonelli’s piece offers some solutions. Our research on renewable energy resources should include substitutes for rare-earth minerals, particularly those that are imported or require harmful extraction techniques. We should require that strategic minerals be recycled.

But a larger question lurks between the lines: Should green technologies and products be held to the same environmental standards as other industries? Is a company that mines neodymium for Prius motors any less responsible than Peabody Coal for good environmental stewardship?

And behind that question lies another: When does a green end justify not-so-green means? When if ever do the multiple benefits of solar, wind, biomass or geothermal energy, for example, justify some environmental damage during their life cycles?

One of the objections to “clean coal” is that even if we could capture and store its carbon, it wouldn’t be clean – not so long as coal companies blow up mountain tops, dump wastes into streams, pollute aquifers and haul their product to power plants in freight trains powered with carbon-rich fuels. Coal is like an immature blood diamond – valuable in its end use, but awful in production. Can renewables be called green if making them produces caustic chemicals or carbon emissions or open-pit mines?

To Margonelli’s small list of reforms, we can add a few more. We need to analyze the full, life-cycle costs and benefits of a technology or industry before we give it public money. We need to require that life-cycle climate impacts be included in environmental impact statements for federally funded projects under the National Environmental Policy Act.

But do what we will, some trade-offs are inevitable even for green technologies. Indeed, we have entered the Age of Tradeoffs in which environmental purity must give way sometimes to eco-pragmatism.

Renewable energy production is an example. In March, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar created a task force to identify renewable energy zones on federal lands. Lands managed by the Department of Interior constitute one-fifth of the U.S. land mass and include 1.7 billion offshore acres. They contain significant renewable energy resources important to reducing the nation’s carbon emissions.

According to experts at Interior and the Department of Energy, good wind energy potential can be found on 21 million acres of public land in the 11 western states; six southwestern states have 29 million acres with good solar energy potential; good geothermal potential exits on 140 million acres of public land in western states and Alaska; 1,000 gigawatts of good wind potential can be found off the Atlantic coast; and more than 900 gigawatts off the Pacific Coast have good wind resources.

Salazar’s plan is to expedite environmental reviews and permits necessary to “connect the sun of the deserts and the wind of the plains with the places where people live." That is a welcome departure from the Bush Administration’s helter-skelter leasing of public lands for oil and gas production with little environmental review, while holding up permits for solar and wind.

It wasn’t long after Salazar’s announcement, however, that the New York Times reported “a rupture among environmentalists”. As the Times put it, “the environmental movement finds itself torn between fighting climate change and a passion for saving special places.” To their credit, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Google Earth are trying to make the impending trade-off more responsible by mapping where renewable energy should and should not be developed.

Then there is the controversy over siting wind turbines off the East Coast, where Not in My Backyard has become Not in My Ocean. Expect NIMBY, NIMO and internecine dust-ups to continue as we prepare to build high-speed rail and the new transmission lines needed to move renewable power around the country. Both are high priorities of the Obama Administration, and rightly so. Intelligent siting will resolve some conflicts, for example locating new transmission lines along existing grid and highway corridors. But there will be trade-offs. They are inevitable.

In other cases, the trade-offs are not so easy to justify or accept. An example is the ever-exciting field of geo-engineering. Early in April during his first interview since confirmation, President Obama’s science advisor, John Holdren, became the victim of a blogosphere firestorm when he was misquoted in the New York Times as saying that geo-engineering schemes are being considered by the White House to help mitigate global warming.

According to the Times: “Tinkering with Earth's climate to chill runaway global warming — a radical idea once dismissed out of hand — is being discussed by the White House as a potential emergency option.” Holdren reportedly gave the example of shooting sulfur particles into the upper atmosphere to screen out sunlight, a process called aerosol loading.

Aerosol loading is an example of trade-offs at global scale. In an article in the March issue of Environmental Science and Technology, NOAA scientist Dan Murphy reported that injecting particles into the upper atmosphere would significantly reduce the performance of solar energy systems here on Earth – for example, passive solar systems, photovoltaic panels and concentrated solar power plants. In one scenario analyzed by Murphy, power production from solar electric systems would drop 20 percent with the biggest losses occurring during peak power hours.

In other words, we would reject solar energy rather than collect it. The result is a monumental trade-off that would affect not only solar economics, but everything from suntans to photosynthesis. Still unstudied, as far as I know, are the impacts on food crops, energy crops and the plants we count on as carbon sinks.

We are experiencing a gradually expanding circle of acceptability as we become more desperate for solutions to global climate change. Nuclear power, “clean coal” and geo-engineering research are supported today by environmental leaders who would not have given any of those options serious consideration a few short years ago. Today’s crazy idea becomes tomorrow’s salvation as we continue pumping gases into the atmosphere.

The Age of Tradeoffs has been made much more difficult by its immediate and still evident predecessor, the Age of Stupid (apologies to the new movie of that title). Despite decades of warnings about global warming, despite our rich tradition of energy crises, we have not even begun to tap the full potential of energy efficiency and renewable energy. We haven’t even really tried. We paid far more attention to Jimmy Carter’s cardigan sweater than his insight that our energy problems were the moral equivalent of war.

We humans, with the possible exception of certain members of Congress, are endowed with the unique ability to see consequences and to learn from mistakes -- the intellectual equivalent of opposable thumbs. It’s time to use that ability before it atrophies. Let’s make the necessary trade-offs; reject the really bad ones; recognize stupidity as the real weapon of mass destruction; pass a game-changing climate bill; completely rewire national energy policy; stop the taxpayer subsidies that have us paying one another to produce greenhouse gases; trade in our carbon-spewing national transportation policy before it’s as obsolete as General Motors; assemble a rescue package for our children; and get on with the job of building a new economy before we become Darwin’s biggest dropouts – the species that had all the tools to survive a changing world but made itself extinct by refusing to use them.

-------------

William S. Becker is the Executive Director of the Presidential Climate Action Plan (PCAP), a project of the University of Colorado, Wirth Chair, charged with producing a 100 day action plan on climate change for the next President of the United States, and the author of THE 100 DAY ACTION PLAN TO SAVE THE PLANET, available in eBook format from St. Martins Griffin.

Labels: Bill Becker, Climate Change, Environment, Global Warming, PCAP

The Plight of the Bumblebee

2009-04-18T02:15:00.000-07:00

by Janet Ritz

Editor's note: There is news that the cause of colony collapse disorder for honeybees may have been discovered (a fungal infection). This has not, however, solved the plight of the bumblebee, which is responsible for crop pollination for many aspects of agriculture:

With all the focus on the disappearance of the honeybee, there has been little discussion about the plight of the bumblebee, one of the hardest workers in the wild world of agriculture, despite this warning issued by the National Academy of Sciences October 2006:

Long-term trends for several wild bee species -- especially bumblebees -- as well as some butterflies, bats, and hummingbirds... show population drops.

That focus may now change as word comes from scientists that at least one bumblebee species from the Northwestern region of the United States, Franklin's Bumblebee, may have gone extinct.

This is a serious development. Not only because the loss of any species due to human activity is, in this writer's opinion, unconscionable, but because we depend on this species more than we've taken the time to understand.

According to this newly released National Academy of Sciences report, the bumblebee is one of many pollinators losing their battle to survive because of 'habitat lost to housing developments and intensive agriculture, pesticides, pollution and diseases spilling out of greenhouses using commercial bumblebee hives.'

Like the honeybee, the bumblebee has been hurt by the introduction of a non-native parasite. Many pollinator declines are associated with habitat loss...

It turns out that our native American bumblebee (the honeybee was imported) does more than provide a pleasant bass note to the summer hum we hear outside our window amidst the lawn mowers, sprinklers and our children's laughter. The reality is that our humble bumblebee is one of the hardest workers in the wild, accounting for the pollination that provides food for bears and birds -- and for us -- by pollinating ~fifteen percent of U.S. crops. And that percentage has been growing as farmers turn to the lowly bumblebee to replace the disappearing honeybees.

Bumblebee advocates and the scientists raising the alarm about the disappearance of the Franklin's Bumblebee have begun to lobby congress for research money and are now asking farmers to set aside unused land for flowering plants. These requests, along with the new National Academy report, are vital calls to arms. For Franklin's Bumblebee, which has long added its bass note to the life and livelihood of the Pacific Northwest, it may be too late.

For the humble bumblebees still left, such measures are essential.

Labels: Agriculture, Bumblebee, Business, Fauna, Flora, Science

Greening your office in a recession

2009-02-11T03:31:00.000-08:00

Cross-posted from The Green Office Blog

When my consulting clients ask me why they should green their office in a recession when monetary pressures are only expected to increase, I remind them that the Chinese use two separate brush strokes to write the word 'crisis':

危機

One character stands for danger; the other for opportunity.

In a crisis, be aware of the danger-but recognize the opportunity.

Never has that been more accurate than now, for with the green approach business can not only help the planet to forestall long term danger (for which they themselves will have to pay in increased costs as resources become scarce and as business becomes impacted by inclement weather), but they also reduce their bottom line while improving morale and productivity of their workforce.

How is this done?

The first place the office can look is to technology that uses or relies upon electricity. This can range from the simple coffeemaker left on all night to the replacement of servers to a thin client resulting, in some cases, in a significant reduction of a company’s annual expense.

But other efforts can pay dividends, as well, in ways that are not quantifiable, such as organizing the workforce to come together as a green team to unplug adapters when not in use or to compete with one another for prizes or dividends by recycling ink cartridges and other expensive items.

These efforts can become rallying points for the office or cooperation which then leads to increased productivity.

Another area is with computers and monitors that use less energy and that will, eventually (hopefully) be made without the intense greenhouse gasses that are now part of the LCD and Plasma manufacture process. There are companies (note: this is not an endorsement), that are introducing a line of energy efficient models likely to drop in price over time (some are low cost now).

These products are rated to pull less electricity to run. Put that together with any sized office and one can see significant savings on their bill over time.

The paperless office is another area that has been talked about but how realistic has it become? Most work situations do require the use of paper and that is another potential for savings.

I am reminded of a scene in Robert Graves’ I CLAUDIUS, where Antonia, the daughter of Marc Antony, complains that her family has thrown away perfectly good paper that had barely been written upon.

(There’s that other part of the story where she finds a plot against Tiberius Caesar on one of those discarded scraps… while intrigue and politics can be an inevitable part of the office, I doubt we have to worry about it to the extent of the trials and tribulations of Ancient Rome).

But Antonia had a good idea that still holds true. While many companies buy 95 brightness or above virgin paper and spend a great deal to see most of it discarded, recycled paper of a lesser or equal brightness can work perfectly well for the day to day activities in an office and, again, the effort to then recycle afterward can be an opportunity to build community within the office.

Then there is telecommuting as not every community needs to be in the same physical location and here’s where significant savings can be achieved. There’s been resistance to this option in offices as managers struggle to keep their workforce motivated and in communication with one another. However, the combination of technology and incentives can help to cut the wheat from the chaff and allow an office to then reduce its energy footprint and the need to buy equipment (as many home office workers provide their own).

How is this done? Start slowly and use incentives to allow workers to take one day or half day a week at home so that you can evaluate their performance. Use meeting software (such as virtual e-rooms) that allow real time interaction and set up video to video (most computers can provide this now) for meetings. This can then be part of a reward for the recycling efforts that help to reduce the bottom line (a new ink cartridge can cost many times more than a refilled version).

When a worker does not show the discipline to turn in their work effectively or requires more communication than had been indicated by their onsite performance, offsite work can also be a valuable tool for assessing strengths and weaknesses. Such a worker can then be mentored by another who does not have performance issues with offsite effort. If that does not work, you’ve identified who you can rely upon for offsite (and reduced cost work) and who will be the worker you will assign to the office to be the anchor you will need onsite.

As for the thin client concept, this requires onsite evaluation as it is one of the most significant financial commitments a company can make to their infrastructure. The advantages are that thin client server configurations can also reduce a company’s power consumption by such a significant percentage, while upgrading the company’s systems to a more modern technology, the company will see a direct return on investment within a very short period of time while enjoying – again – increased productivity by their workforce through better systems.

Thin client technology can also eliminate the need for controlled environments, such as specialized air conditioning; quite often a company’s most significant power outlay.

It is important, however, not to rush to the thin client model in isolation. It requires, in my opinion, an experienced consultant to perform a requirements and business reengineering analysis or it could cost a company more than it saves.

One of the most rewarding areas for greening your office has to do with green space and sustainability for those who have that control over their environment. Planting trees for shade on a building’s western exposure can cut significant consumption costs in a hot climate while reducing the need to water lawns – or better yet – the drought resistant plants (known as xeriscaping) you’ve put in place instead of your lawn.

Finally, there are the easiest and most socially responsible options for greening your office. Using soy ink in your toners is an example. Furniture produced from sustainable forestry is another (this is a very important consideration as the EU has just reported that the cost of forest loss exceeds the current financial crisis). LED or compact florescent light bulbs, of course (I prefer LED; longer life, less consumption, easier on the eyes and not full of harmful chemicals). There are many cleansers and solvents that don’t pollute the earth and break room supplies that are recycled (or better yet, mugs for employees instead of paper cups!).

The list is endless as are the supplies that are now available. It only requires only the decision to order one thing over another by incentivizing your procurement personnel to choose the green option over the alternative. None of it has to cost more than you already spend and, in many cases, it will be less and that is opportunity in a recession to receive dividends for the earth.

The timing for the green office has never been better.

Labels: Business, Economy, Environment, Green Office, Green Office Blog, Recession, Sustainability

Economic Stimulus, Part 1: 16% Green?

2009-01-29T12:58:00.000-08:00

Congress is expected to give final approval to a massive economic stimulus package in the next couple of weeks. But before it does, there’s important work to be done on the color and content of the package. Lawmakers should address three questions:

o Is the package green enough?
o Is it visionary enough?
o Can the beneficiaries handle the money?

I’ll offer some thoughts on each of these questions in a three-part post, starting with the green issue.

First, it’s important to understand is that the White House has the fundamentals right: The stimulus package must do more than spark a short-term boost to the economy. It must invest in the nation’s mid- and long-term economic security – and that security must be based on a new energy economy that reverses the growth in greenhouse gas emissions and weans us from our dependence on fossil fuels.

That is the first intelligent energy policy to come out of the White House in a decade. As Congress finalizes the stimulus packages proposed by the Obama Administration and House Democrats, Job No. 1 is to keep that enlightened strategy intact.

Job No. 2 is to make the package greener. There are a couple of reasons a greener stimulus is important. First, renewable energy industries are America’s next IT revolution, with critical benefits for national security, economic stability, new industries and new jobs. In the past couple of years, we’ve seen unprecedented investments in wind and solar power worldwide. The U.S. wind industry set a record last year, installing enough generating capacity to serve more than 2 million homes and pumping $17 billion into the economy, according to the American Wind Energy Association.

But those investments are slowing in the economic downturn. HSBC Global Research, a division of HSBC Global Banking and Markets, assesses the situation this way:

In the short term, the availability of project finance remains a major stumbling block, with growth expectations rapidly deteriorating as developers find it more difficult to obtain financing. From a stock market perspective, we therefore expect the sector may well underperform in early Q1 2009 and possibly into Q2 2009…but we expect a strong rebound thereafter.

An important part of the stimulus package is to make the rebound in the green energy sector arrive sooner. HSBC continues:

Central to climate change investing in 2009 will be the interplay with the depending economic downturn. We see two forces at work – a strengthening strategic tailwind in favour of clean energy, set against a worsening financial and economic downdraft. Which will dominate is likely to depend on the extent to which climate change and sustainability are built into government plans for economic recovery.

Second, the stimulus package should send a concrete and timely signal of America’s leadership on climate action. The size and nature of our investment will have not only economic impacts, but political impacts as we approach the international conference in Copenhagen this December, where nations will attempt to reach a global accord on climate action.

The stimulus signal will be especially important if Congress does not approve an effective form of carbon pricing this year. Without a carbon tax or carbon trading, the U.S. commitment to climate action will have to be demonstrated with a number of more discreet policies and investments, which in aggregate have sufficient throw-weight to show that the United States is taking moral and material leadership.

What signal does the current stimulus package send? On January 19, HSBC Global Research issued an analysis of the economic stimulus packages passed or pending in 15 nations, including the United States. It found that these countries plan to invest more than $3 trillion to stimulate their economies over the next decade. Only about 14% of that amount will be invested in green technologies – defined by HSBC as low carbon power, energy efficiency, water treatment and pollution control.

The amount of green investment ranges from 0% in Poland (a country stubbornly dependent on coal) to 69% in South Korea. China plans to dedicate 34% of its stimulus package to green initiatives; the stimulus package approved by the European Union invests 14%. Overall, HSBC calculates, about $432 billion is earmarked for green investments among the 15 nations it studied, with about 50% of that amount expected to be invested in 2009.

The United States? By HSBC’s calculation, 16% of the proposed $825 billion stimulus package targets green investments. One of the key questions Congress must ask, and answer quickly, is whether that’s sufficient stimulus for a new energy economy and sufficient evidence of U.S. leadership. Put another way: How much of our children’s money will we spend on life-support for the old carbon economy and how much will we invest to build the new one?

Again, the answer requires more than a near-term economic calculation. Our own scientists tell us that we already are locked in to irreversible damage from climate change. The U.S. stimulus package is the first opportunity for the Obama Administration and the 111th Congress to make a substantial down payment on adapting to those inevitable changes and to keeping them from becoming immeasurably worse.

By my reckoning, a 16% share of the stimulus package is not enough.

As it puts the final touches on the stimulus bill, Congress should substantially increase the green investment, in part by making sure that every relevant element of the package gives highest priority to reducing carbon emissions and our dependence on fossil fuels.

For example, our investment in “shovel ready” road and bridge projects should take greenhouse gas emissions into account, lest we dig ourselves deeper into carbon debt. In a study commissioned by the Presidential Climate Action Project, the Center for Neighborhood Technology concluded that reducing vehicle miles traveled with mass transit and more intelligent urban planning is just as important as new vehicle technologies and fuels in reducing carbon emissions. Yet current federal policy rewards pollution by basing transportation funding on road miles, fuel consumption and vehicle miles traveled. Under current policy, the federal government pays 80 percent of road projects but only 50 percent for mass transit projects. In this case, as in many others, federal spending is moving us down the wrong road.

When it comes to economic stimulus, we’d be wise to take the advice of one of America’s most successful businessmen, Sam Walton. “Incrementalism is innovation’s worst enemy,” Walton once said. “We don’t want continuous improvement, we want radical change.”

Radical change is what we need now in federal spending. A green revolution to a new energy economy – with all of the financial security and new jobs it would create – should be the core goal of the stimulus package.

-------------

William S. Becker is the Executive Director of the Presidential Climate Action Plan (PCAP), a project of the University of Colorado, Wirth Chair, charged with producing a 100 day action plan on climate change for the next President of the United States, and the author of THE 100 DAY ACTION PLAN TO SAVE THE PLANET, available in eBook format from St. Martins Griffin.

Related articles:

The 100 Day Action Plan to Save the Planet
Struggling for Obama's Soul
Toward a New Energy Economy: Part 1 Action in 100 Days
Toward a New Energy Economy: Part 2 Tough Questions, Tough Answers
How to Plant a Christmas Tree
In Math We Trust
Small Businesses: Too Big To Fail

Labels: Barack Obama, Bill Becker, Business, Climate Change, Environment, Global Warming, PCAP, Politics,

Small Businesses: Too Big To Fail

2009-01-04T23:43:00.000-08:00

Companies that are "too big to fail" have been getting most attention in the bailout packages emerging from the federal government. But in the economic recovery plan now being considered by Congress and the incoming Obama Administration, the focus should be on small businesses.

While the Big Three have been the latest squeaky wheels to get greased by billions of dollars in taxpayer bailout money, small businesses are the real engine of job creation and innovation in the U.S. economy. With a little bit of help, they will be the locomotive that pulls us into the new energy economy of the 21st century.

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) defines small companies as those with fewer than 500 employees. If there are any doubts about their influence on the economy, consider these statistics from the SBA and the U.S. Census:

• Small companies comprise 99.7 percent of all firms with employees in the United States. As of 2004, nearly 7 million small businesses were operating in our economy, employing nearly 60 million workers.

• Small businesses provide half of the jobs in the United States and pay 45 percent of the nation’s private wages. Their total payroll approached $2 trillion in 2004.

• Over the past decade, small companies have created as much as 80 percent of net new jobs in the U.S. economy each year.

• They hire 40 percent of our high-tech workers and produce 13 times more patents per employee than large firms.

The tight credit market, toxic mortgages and lower sales are hurting these companies, as we might expect. Of special concern to the goal of building a new energy economy in the U.S. are business engaged in green industries, including renewable energy, energy efficiency and sustainable buildings. They have been fast-growing sectors of the domestic and global economies in recent years. Just a few months ago, renewable energy industries were considered recession-proof.

But as 2008 came to a close, alternative energy stocks were among those being battered by the economic crisis. In a year-end assessment, the Associated Press reports that stocks are taking a beating and credit markets have tightened for biofuels, wind and solar power, despite the federal biofuels standard and the extension of $17 billion in federal tax credits for solar and wind development.

The green building sector – ranging from real-estate developers to landlords hoping to improve the energy efficiency of their buildings – is handicapped by tight credit and deferred investments.

The AP quotes a prediction from Joseph Muscat, Ernst & Young's Americas director of cleantech and venture capital, that the renewable energy sector will be “the first to emerge when the market stabilizes”. Making that prediction come true should be a key objective of the next economic recovery package. It should help small businesses in the green sector not only survive the financial crisis, but come out of it stronger than ever to capture their share of the domestic and global green markets.

In addition to getting capital moving again and creating jobs through green infrastructure investments, Congress and the new Administration should strengthen and green the SBA. The SBA is the nation’s principal source of federal aid for small companies, but it traditionally has been a bureaucracy without much status. Its leaders too often have been appointed because of their political connections rather than their business expertise.

Obama's selection to run the agency is Karen Gordon Mills, a venture capital expert, a founding partner of a New York equity firm and chair of Gov. John Baldacci's Council on Competitiveness in Maine. Mills also is a director of Scotts Miracle-Gro, a company that produces a plant food which "grows plants twice as big organically". A healthy application of fiscal Miracle-Gro is just what the green small business sector needs right now. Here are some suggestions:

Providing Green Capital: The SBA’s loan and capital programs should give top priority to U.S. companies that design, engineer, manufacture, distribute, assemble, service or install renewable energy and energy efficiency equipment. Several of the agency’s programs can be used this way, including the Small Business Loan Guarantee, or "7A" program; the 504 Certified Development Company (CDC) program; and the Energy Conservation and Pollution Control loan programs. Green entrepreneurs should also be given priority in the Small Business Investment Center program,which leverages debt and equity capital for small companies, and in SBA’s micro loans for very small firms.

Congress should pump more capital into these programs. In addition, U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer has proposed that tens of billions of dollars be allocated to SBA for direct emergency loans for small businesses – not a bad idea.

Spurring Innovation: Mills should rally America’s small businesses to do what they do best – innovate. A green energy economy will require transformative new technologies for transportation, buildings, power production and energy storage. Mills should champion the idea of a $1 billion “platinum carrot” fund to reward breakthroughs in green technologies by small companies over the next five years. She should work with the Department of Energy to increase the number of cooperative research agreements between small companies and DOE’s national laboratories, collaborations that give small companies access to world class laboratory facilities they cannot afford on their own.

Providing Green Skills Training and Technical Assistance: SBA has special programs to help veterans, women, Native Americans and other minority entrepreneurs create small enterprises. The agency oversees a national network of Small Business Development Centers and partners with the nonprofit Service Corps of Retired Executives to help new business get started. SBA should provide training in green technologies and markets for these mentors so they are better prepared to help aspiring business owners develop realistic and successful business plans.

Capturing Global Green Markets: The world market for green energy and environmental services has been growing rapidly and will surge again when the global economy stabilizes. It will be driven not only by an international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also by the long-term increase in fossil energy prices and by efforts such as the United Nations Environment Programme’s "Global Green New Deal" – an initiative to create sustainable paths out of poverty. SBA’s Office of International Trade helps small companies secure export capital and link with overseas business opportunities. Mills should make sure that office is focused like a laser on emerging international green markets.

Mobilizing Other Federal Resources: Several other agencies offer programs for small businesses; they should be expanded and SBA should help companies participate in them. Examples include the Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star for Small Business program, which helps companies learn about energy efficiency opportunities, and the Department of Energy’s Industrial Assessment Center program, in which engineering faculty and students from 26 universities around the country conduct free energy audits for small and medium-sized manufacturers. The cost-cutting opportunities identified by these programs can be financed by SBA loan guarantees.

Creating "Climate Enterprise Zones": Some communities will be harder hit than others by climate policies. For example, the nation will use less fossil fuel if carbon pricing is successful, with an adverse impact on the workers and communities in oil and coal country. The Presidential Climate Action Project has recommended that the Obama Administration create “Climate Enterprise Zones” in which federal and state economic development assistance is used to encourage green industries to locate in these communities and to retrain workers. Several existing federal economic development programs can be refocused in this way, including SBA’s Emerging 200, and Community Express initiatives. The Community Express program streamlines SBA’s loan programs for “underserved” and economically distressed localities. The Emerging 200 program provides mentoring, training and other services to 200 of the nation’s most promising inner-city and rural entrepreneurs. In 2008, the program targeted entrepreneurs in only 10 cities (Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Atlanta, New Orleans, Memphis, Chicago, Des Moines, Milwaukee and Albuquerque). Mills should champion and expansion of these programs and the number of communities they serve.

Adapting to Climate Change: SBA provides disaster recovery loans for property owners of all types who suffer losses from natural disasters. These loans should give higher priority and lower interest rates to building owners who reconstruct to meet Energy Star or LEED standards, as well as standards suitable for withstanding extreme weather, drought, wildfires and other adverse local impacts of climate change. The disaster recovery centers SBA establishes to help disaster victims should provide information about green reconstruction. In addition, Mills should work with Congress to restrict loans to building owners who want to reconstruct in hazard areas. Extreme weather events, already increasing in the United States, will drive up taxpayer costs for disaster response and recovery. Home and business owners who want to rebuild in these areas should do so at their own expense and risk.

Helping Green the Government: SBA helps small business obtain federal contracts. One of President-elect Obama’s priorities will be to green the federal government, which will provide new contracting opportunities for companies offering sustainable products and services. SBA should redouble its effort to link small companies with those opportunities.

So far it has been the big companies that have made the most noise about what will happen if the federal government doesn’t help them survive the economic crisis. But the sector that’s truly “too big to fail” is America’s millions of small businesses. With a little enlightened assistance from Washington, they can be the engines that pull the United States into a sustainable 21st century economy.

-------------

William S. Becker is the Executive Director of the Presidential Climate Action Plan (PCAP), a project of the University of Colorado, Wirth Chair, charged with producing a 100 day action plan on climate change for the next President of the United States, and the author of THE 100 DAY ACTION PLAN TO SAVE THE PLANET, available in eBook format from St. Martins Griffin.

Related articles:

The 100 Day Action Plan to Save the Planet
Struggling for Obama's Soul
Toward a New Energy Economy: Part 1 Action in 100 Days
Toward a New Energy Economy: Part 2 Tough Questions, Tough Answers
How to Plant a Christmas Tree
In Math We Trust

Labels: Barack Obama, Bill Becker, Business, Climate Change, Environment, Global Warming, PCAP, Politics, SBA

In Math We Trust

2008-12-30T14:42:00.000-08:00

As Congress gets ready to debate an economic recovery package – and President Obama gets ready to sign one – they should use a simple test to determine who and what gets the money: Is the project friend or foe in regard to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing America’s energy security?

At some point, our energy producers, road-builders, auto manufacturers, building contractors and other sectors of the economy need an unequivocal message from Washington that public funds must pass a strict litmus test from now on. Unless there are legitimate overriding factors of national security or economic trauma, public funds will no longer support global climate change and our dependence on fossil fuels.

In other words, when it comes to taxpayer money, the carbon economy need not apply.

If climate change and the prospect of more resource wars are as urgent a set of problems as we believe – and they are – then we simply cannot justify making them worse, particularly with the money taxpayers send to Washington with the assumption it will be spent for the public good.

At the moment, the Obama transition team is being inundated with ideas – many of them good – about how to stimulate the economy with near-term green investments. Joe Romm has featured one green shopping list developed by the Center for American Progress (CAP). The Presidential Climate Action Project has created an on-line library of the policy and investment ideas sent to Obama by CAP and other elements of the “green community”.

By picking the best of these recommendations and applying some common-sense criteria (for example, has a proposed infrastructure project been given adequate environmental review; will it reduce or increase vehicle miles traveled; will it avoid development in floodplains and other hazard areas; is it socially just; will it produce or prevent carbon emissions), Congress and the next administration can do a pretty good job constructing a rapid investment program that delivers both economic and environmental progress.

Longer term, however, we need a far more sophisticated, objective and transparent standard for allocating public funds. We should develop a performance standard that counts not only easily measured factors such as carbon emissions, water consumption and energy intensity, but also counts factors critical to sustainability but still considered unquantifiable.

Theoretically, such a standard would take much of the politics out of government spending and would let math do the talking. Public works projects would not be awarded based on the generosity of lobbyists or the seniority of congressmen and women. They’d be awarded based on a sustainability standard whose rules everyone knows in advance.

PCAP has proposed that Congress develop and require the use of such a standard (see Action Item 24) to measure the life-cycle net-energy, net-carbon, net-water, net-economic and net-ecosystem service impacts of a proposed public investment. Other factors could be scored, too, such as impact on national security (i.e., oil imports), balance of trade, and the cost of delay in reducing carbon emissions.

The problem is, our understanding of some of these factors is crude today. We have not yet learned to adequately quantify the economic value of many of the services the environment provides, from food production and water purification to carbon storage, recreation and pharmaceutical ingredients. No widespread consensus exists on some other important factors, such as the discount rate that should be applied in calculating the long-term costs and benefits of environmental investments or the “opportunity costs” of delay.

While it may be a little soon to be thinking about President Obama’s legacy, his administration should begin work as soon as possible on the tools the world needs to make objective and intelligent decisions that allow economic development and environmental sustainability to be mutually supportive goals.

Some efforts already are underway. For several years now, the Council on Environmental Quality has led an inter-agency project to develop indicators that can measure national progress on sustainability. CEQ should expedite and complete that work in the Obama Administration. The results, critical in their own right, would also advance the work on a public investment performance standard.

At the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a new Strategic Energy Analysis Center is working to improve life-cycle cost assessments of energy technologies. That work, too, should be given high priority for funding.

Internationally, environment ministers from G8+5 countries have launched a project titled The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, or TEEB, to put numbers on the benefits of ecosystems and biodiversity worldwide and the costs of their degradation. Led by Pavan Sukhdev, the highly regarded senior economist from Duetsche Bank, TEEB has completed the first phase of its work to make a “comprehensive and compelling economic case for conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity.”

The U.S. should support this work. The degradation of natural capital is a clear and present danger. According to the United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 60 percent of the ecosystems examined so far have been degraded during the last half-century. Forests have completely disappeared in 25 countries; another 29 countries have lost more than 90- percent of their forest cover. The world has lost half its wetlands since 1900. One-third of the world’s coral reefs have been badly damaged by fishing, pollution and coral bleaching linked to global warming. Species extinctions due to human activity are occurring at 1,000 times the rate of natural extinctions in the Earth’s long-term history.

“We are still struggling to find the value of nature,” Sukhdev says. “Nature is the source of much value to us every day and yet it mostly bypasses markets, escapes pricing and defies valuation. This lack of valuation is, we are discovering, an underlying cause for the observed degradation of ecosystems and the loss of biodiversity.”

Understanding the value of ecosystem services wasn’t important back when the human footprint wasn’t large enough to threaten them. Now it is. We are irreversibly degrading natural systems and wasting irreplaceable natural capital that are vital to our quality of life, using a system of economics that is blind to the damage.

“This is not just a national accounting problem – it is a problem of metrics which permeates all layers of society, from government to business to the individual, and affects our ability to forge a sustainable economy in harmony with nature,” Sukhdev says.

We need a new math, a replicable and universal ability to count more and to count differently. That’s a job the U.S. government should accept under its obligation to serve the public good.

In the meantime, by thinking holistically, sustainably and long-term, we can use the math we already have to make much more intelligent judgments about where public money is best invested.

-------------

William S. Becker is the Executive Director of the Presidential Climate Action Plan (PCAP), a project of the University of Colorado, Wirth Chair, charged with producing a 100 day action plan on climate change for the next President of the United States, and the author of THE 100 DAY ACTION PLAN TO SAVE THE PLANET, available in eBook format from St. Martins Griffin.

Related articles:

The 100 Day Action Plan to Save the Planet
Struggling for Obama's Soul
Toward a New Energy Economy: Part 1 Action in 100 Days
Toward a New Energy Economy: Part 2 Tough Questions, Tough Answers
How to Plant a Christmas Tree

Labels: Barack Obama, Bill Becker, Business, Climate Change, Environment, Global Warming, PCAP, Politics

Toward a New Energy Economy: Part 2 Tough Questions, Tough Answers

2008-11-29T00:46:00.000-08:00

To lead America into a post-carbon economy, President Obama and the 111th Congress will have to revolutionize the biggest and most heavily lobbied of the government’s programs. That means taking on the armies of the status quo, who have money and inertia on their side.

It’s a battle that must be fought and won. Today, our public policy is riddled with crisis-inducing, self-defeating contradictions. The next Congress will have to resolve some tough questions that past Congresses avoided. For example:

1. What action will Congress take to prove to the world that the United States is serious about addressing climate action?

This isn’t only an issue of perception. Unless the U.S. goes to Copenhagen at the end of 2009 with a strong domestic program to cut greenhouse gas emissions, it will have little influence at the international negotiating table.

Half-hearted legislation won’t do. Barack Obama’s election has fueled hopes in the European Union and the developing world that the United States – the nation most responsible for the emissions in the atmosphere today -- will lead the global climate effort.

The approach endorsed by Obama and by members of Congress is a “market-based” cap and auction program. Congress would put a cap on U.S. emissions. The federal government would auction “emission allowances” to polluters, who would be allowed to buy and sell the allowances to one another.

But the latest scuttlebutt in Washington is that Congress probably will not pass a cap-and-auction bill next year. The reasons: There is no agreement on the architecture of a program; a carbon cap will increase the price of fossil fuels and politicians won’t vote for that in the middle of a recession; and lawmakers are concerned that if they approve a carbon-trading system before the rest of the world does, the U.S. program won’t fit and will have to be legislated all over again.

But some observers predict that if the United States doesn’t approve cap-and-auction before, there’s little prospect that other nations will agree on one in Copenhagen. Thomas Becker, Denmark’s chief climate negotiator, warns that no action by the U.S. Congress could derail international progress and result in years of more inaction.

So, if not cap-and-auction, then what will Congress do?

2. Can the U.S. have credibility in international negotiations without adopting a much higher carbon-cutting goal?

The European Union and many developing nations say that to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, industrialized economies should reduce their greenhouse gas emissions 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. That’s far more ambitious than any legislation in Congress or the target Obama proposed during the presidential campaign (1990 levels by 2020).

3. How will Congress reconcile the contradictory goals of subsidizing and producing more dirty fuels while rapidly reducing U.S. carbon emissions?

While estimates vary widely, the federal government sends the oil, coal and natural gas industries about $30 billion in taxpayer money every year to subsidize the production of carbon-intensive fuels. Earlier this year, intimidated by record high gasoline prices, politicians from both parties jumped aboard the “drill, baby, drill” bandwagon and endorsed more domestic oil production. And in the economic rescue package it passed in October, Congress approved billions of dollars in new subsidies for “dirty fuels” – liquid fuels from coal, oil shale and tar sands that are even more harmful to the climate than conventional petroleum.

In the same legislation, Congress extended tax incentives for solar and wind energy development in the United States. It’s likely that the carbon pollution from subsidized dirty fuels will cancel all or part of the carbon savings from subsidized solar and wind energy.

In addition, can a cap-and-auction regime intended to engage the marketplace in emission reductions by correcting price signals do a good job while fossil energy subsidies are distorting the same price signals?

The reality is that fossil energy subsidies cannot coexist with sane and effective climate policy. It’s time to stand up to the fossil energy lobby.

4. When will we stop investing in Futurama?

The biggest near-term opportunity for the White House and Congress to begin shaping a new energy economy will come next year when the surface transportation program comes up for reauthorization. Today, our transportation policies are still funding the vision of the car-centered society that General Motors unveiled at its Futurama pavilion at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.

As a result of current national policy, our cities are designed to move cars rather than people; transportation uses two-thirds of all the oil consumed in the United States and accounts for nearly 30 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions. The largest source of those emissions is passenger vehicles averaging 19.6 miles per gallon.

Federal transportation funding is biased toward roads and cars. Money is allocated in large part based on how many miles of road lanes are located in each city, how much fuel is consumed and how many miles vehicles travel. The federal share of capital investment in new highways is 80 percent, but it’s only 50 percent for public transit projects.

Congress should seize the opportunity next year to shift the emphasis from building roads to building mass transit systems, high speed rail, and transit-oriented communities.

5. How do we close the gap between what scientists say is necessary and what politicians say is possible? This is the biggest question of all. Congress responded to the economic meltdown with an intervention in the financial world that most of us never thought we’d see. Will Congress intervene as boldly in the carbon economy to prevent the uncontrolled growth of carbon debt?

Perverse, contradictory, entrenched, crisis-producing public policies are the norm in the government that Barack Obama will soon lead. Here, more than anywhere, we need change we can believe in.

-------------

William S. Becker is the Executive Director of the Presidential Climate Action Plan (PCAP), a project of the University of Colorado, Wirth Chair, charged with producing a 100 day action plan on climate change for the next President of the United States, and the author of THE 100 DAY ACTION PLAN TO SAVE THE PLANET, available in eBook format from St. Martins Griffin.

Related articles:

Toward a New Energy Economy: Part 1 Action in 100 Days
The 100 Day Action Plan to Save the Planet
Struggling for Obama's Soul

Labels: Barack Obama, Bill Becker, Climate Change, Environment, Global Warming, PCAP, Politics

Life Isn't Fair but Media Should Be

2008-11-10T20:16:00.000-08:00

by Sherman Yellen

A couple of years ago the autos that were parked overnight in the streets of New York City were having their car radios heisted by agile crooks. Car owners were then removing their radios from their dashboards overnight and posting hand written signs in their windows announcing "No car radio" in the hope that they would avoid a broken window.

After listening to Rush Limbaugh one day I put a sign in my old Volvo reading "No hate radio." So my car was spared by some right wing thief. Somehow this form of thievery lost its luster, and the clever crooks found more lucrative forms of boosting; flat screen TVs, Prada handbags, Florida elections, hedge funds and sub prime mortgages. But the idea of no hate radio still appeals to me - or at least balancing the preponderance of conservative hate radio with other voices.

I know that hate speech is protected as free speech by our Constitution. And no, I don't advocate imposing love radio (a yawn inducing notion) on the world but creating a forceful plain-talking progressive radio, one that should have a place on our radio airways and television. No, not another Air America which floats about the ether, lost to anyone who tries to find it, but an effective, pervasive, easy to find voice for progressive views.

The truth is that hate speech can often be funnier than reasoned talk. And it has a long tradition in our democracy going back to the Founding Fathers, Andrew Jackson, and Lincoln with their savagely mocking, duel fighting and libel tossing opponents. Hate sells. Always has. Sadly, it always will. The trouble with its use during the McCain/Palin campaign was that it teetered on encouraging serious hate action by the desperate Republican candidates by demonizing our now President elect Obama as a secret traitor, and we all know what they'd like to do to traitors.

Rush Limbaugh, Oxycodone's own Oliver Hardy, has been bringing joy and gladness to the Repubs for years by pounding on liberals relentlessly, and his rewards for doing so have been enormous. I say let him go on ranting and rolling. Let him have his ditto-heads, his mansions, his forbidden little pills and his fat cigars. Let him mock a critically ill actor, Michael J. Fox, let him rave on against the reality of AIDS, let him declare war on the environment, not for me to stop him. And that goes for his fellow right winger Sean Hannity as well in that Hannity/Comes show where Hannity, the fast talking radical right guy with the gift for gab outshines the dim bulb that is his nerdy liberal opponent, Alan Colmes. A Foxy set up if I ever saw one. I must admit that I was troubled by the debates in this election which excluded Nader who was desperately running on the Egotist Party ticket, and Libertarian Bob Bar from at least one of the debates. I felt that their absence diluted the debates and diminished the discourse.

All of this is just a preamble to my view that we must restore the old Fairness Doctrine. From 1974 until 1987 under Ronald Wilson Reagan's Presidency, it was the policy of our government to provide contrasting views over the public airways (remember that word - public - we the people as owners of the airways) so that we would have an informed electorate who voted on facts rather than rumors and lies. Equal time was not the issue, just the assurance that differing sides of an issue would be aired publicly. When Congress attempted to renew the Fairness Doctrine in '87 Reagan vetoed it. In his overall deregulation of democracy, Reagan used as allies for deregulating radio the notable Judges Bork and Scalia to rule that congress did not have to mandate the doctrine and the FCC did not have to enforce it. And so it ended. And just as the deregulation of our economy lead to this recession, unemployment and despair, so the deregulation of our airways has led to the crash of fairness and loss of intelligent debate and discourse. Rising from the sludge of deregulation was not only Rush and Sean but our Venus of the Right Wing, Ann Coulter, and her sister siren, Laura Ingraham, members of the Clairol Confederacy.

And what have we gotten as a result of losing that doctrine? A lopsided view of our democracy in which the right-wing attacks and accuses and the left plays defense. I am not advocating any restraints on the Limbaughs and the Hannitys. Let them rant on. But it's time for the Democrats to take a long and hard look at that old Fairness Doctrine, revise it and restore it for our times. Barack Obama ran on a message of change, but sometimes change has to look to the past for what was good and valuable that has been lost. And nothing better describes that loss than the Fairness Doctrine. Obama has not come out in favor of this restoration - he has far too much on his plate right now - but here he does not have to be our guide any more than he does in his reluctance to support gay marriage. Every leader has his limitations. For once Nancy Pelosi has it right in speaking about getting back that lost fairness, back to basics.

I am sure that in the coming years there will be more and more liberal voices making themselves heard even if this doctrine is not restored. I suggest it be restored not only in the name of fairness, but for the joy of giving the far right wing an old fashioned hot foot. It's fun to watch Limbaugh and Ingraham and their brothers and sisters scream about how persecuted they are. They have been screeching since the election that they will be undone if that doctrine is restored, that they will loose their programs if their networks are forced to air opposing views, and that the Fairness Doctrine is like the shark in Jaws, "it's "baack!" They certainly won't be undone if this doctrine is restored. There is always room in our Democracy for guys and gals with a talent for mockery and a swaggering anger to make a buck by abusing the truth, the sick, and the environment, but in serious times it is also necessary for thoughtful men and women to have the chance to express opposing views on the public airways.

There are more smart progressives out there like Rachel Maddow waiting to add their voices to our continuing American debate. And I would like my three year old grand-daughter, and my new grand-twins to live in a world where all sides of an issue are heard so that they can someday become informed citizens. And while we're at it how about restoring Civics as a subject in our schools so that the majority of the electorate understands that we have three separate but equal institutions, and then how about..., okay, okay, enough for today. You distract Rush while I strike the match and stick it in his shoe. Okay?

__________________________________________________________________________

Contributing writer, Sherman Yellen, screenwriter, playwright, and lyricist, has won two Emmy Awards, first for his drama John Adams, Lawyer in the PBS series The Adams Chronicles, and later for An Early Frost, a groundbreaking drama about AIDS in America. His Beauty and the Beast was nominated for an Emmy and won the Christopher Award. Yellen was nominated for a Tony Award for his book for the Broadway musical, The Rothschilds. Yellen's other plays include Strangers, December Fools and Josephine Tonight! Sherman Yellen received a lifetime achievement award in Arts and Letters from Bard College.
__________________________________________________________________________

Cross-posted on The Huffington Post

Labels: Business, Commentary, Media, Politics, Sherman Yellen

Oil prices were manipulated, government commission charges

2008-07-24T13:55:00.000-07:00

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the agency charged with "ensuring the integrity of the futures & options market," has accused the trading firm, Optiver Holding, of manipulating the prices of crude oil, heating oil and gasoline futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the first complaint announced since their recent investigation into the manipulation of oil prices began:

Washington, DC – The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced today its case against Optiver Holding BV, two of its subsidiaries, and three employees, charging them with manipulation and attempted manipulation of New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) Light Sweet Crude Oil, New York Harbor Heating Oil, and New York Harbor Gasoline futures contracts during March 2007.

The CFTC filed the civil enforcement action in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against Optiver Holding BV, a global proprietary trading fund headquartered in the Netherlands, and two subsidiaries – Optiver US, LLC (Optiver), a Chicago-based corporation, and Optiver VOF, a Dutch company. The complaint also names defendants Christopher Dowson (head trader of Optiver), Randal Meijer (head of trading and supervisor of Optiver and Optiver VOF) and Bastiaan van Kempen (Chief Executive Officer of Optiver).

In May, under the backdrop of record oil prices and calls from legislators to crack down on speculative oil trading and market manipulation, the CFTC announced a wide-ranging probe into oil price manipulation. The agency says it has dozens of investigations ongoing.

The CFTC began their probe into the manipulation of oil prices amid record prices increases in May. They say they have dozens of investigations underway. This was the first announced charge against a specific company. The implication is that there are more to follow.

According to the complaint, the defendants employed a manipulative scheme commonly known as “banging” or “marking”’ the close. “Banging the close” refers to the practice of acquiring a substantial position leading up to the closing period, followed by offsetting the position before the end of the close of trading for the purpose of attempting to manipulate prices.

More information will be forthcoming as the investigation continues.

Labels: Business, CFTC, FoxNews, Oil , Reuters

Published on: Reuters, FoxNews

Don't Fly, Levitate: German Maglev as a Travel Alternative in the U.S.

2008-07-02T09:12:00.000-07:00

by Bonnie J. Gordon

Short-haul flights, usually defined as flights of 500 miles or less, are the wallowing pigs of carbon emissions from transportation. Pretty much the only worse alternative over that distance is 250 Hummer drivers going it solo. Unfortunately for most Americans, unlike the Europeans and Japanese, there is no congenial third way to travel - like, for instance, high-speed rail.

But the silver lining is that we Americans don't have to replace an aging steel wheel infrastructure like the rest of the developed world does. We can just build a new network for the most advanced surface transportation technology available: magnetic levitation rail, or "maglev" for short.

Maglev has come a long way since it debuted for most average Americans at Disney World's Tomorrowland. There are several U.S. maglev projects in the advanced planning stages, almost all of them based on a German system called the Transrapid (www.transrapid.de).

Taking the Transrapid from Atlanta to Orlando would be just as fast as flying, if you include getting out to the airport and check-in time. And traveling via maglev would produce a fraction of the carbon dioxide emissions.

"Rail has gone as far as it can go," says Phyllis Wilkins, chairperson of the U.S. Maglev Coalition and executive director of Maglev Maryland. "If you want to take it to the next level, you have to go to maglev."

Wilkins has been working on the Baltimore-Washington Maglev Project (www.bwmaglev.com) for more than 15 years. The Transrapid-technology project would connect downtown Baltimore with the District of Columbia, stopping at Baltimore Washington International Airport on the way. Ideally, the BW Maglev line would eventually become part of an expanded route stretching from Boston to Charlotte, stimulating the creation of more efficient travel and housing patterns, making tourism more convenient and affordable, and chopping a few heads off the air and highway pollution hydra in our country's most densely-populated region.

That would be nice. Meanwhile the BW Maglev project has been waiting for the funding to complete its final environmental impact statement for three years, says Wilkins. In 2005 Congress appropriated $90 million for seven maglev pilot projects nationwide, but because of technical problems with the bill the money was never delivered. The bill was rewritten, and finally passed a few weeks ago. Wilkins says that once the funding arrives, the planning phase for the BW project can be wrapped up in about six months.

"Europe and Japan have a well-developed transportation infrastructure because they made the decision generations ago not to be dependent on foreign energy," she adds, "while Americans are only now realizing that we have to link transportation issues and environmental issues. All of us in transportation are becoming optimistic that we are finally being heard."

But ears start closing when officials hear the budget estimates associated with creating a national maglev infrastructure from the ground up. The Baltimore-Washington maglev project alone will require an investment of $3.7 billion in 2002 dollars - and that's for one of the shortest legs of the envisioned Northeast Corridor route.

The Transrapid has all but ground to a halt in Germany itself, where massive political pressure stirred up by the Green party in Munich recently killed plans to build a commercial line connecting the Bavarian capital's central railway station with the city's airport.

Objections to the project, according to extensive information on the Bavarian Greens' website and a range of materials provided by the party upon enquiry, centered primarily on the ever-rising costs of digging a special tunnel for the Transrapid under Munich's historic downtown district. The Greens did not seem to have a problem with the Transrapid on principle; the question was whether the multi-billion-euro price tag for the project was worth it to cut 15 minutes off the travel time of the relatively convenient mass transit Munich airport link.

The Greens were also using the Transrapid issue to widen a few rare cracks that had appeared in the bulwark of the ruling conservative Christian Social Union party. Their tactics included the creation of an online game picturing CSU politicians throwing euro bills off the roof of the capitol while a voracious red maglev train sped in to gobble them up. The player, armed with a virtual butterfly net, was encouraged to "Stop the Transrapid" by catching the euros before they fell into the engine's sharp-toothed jaws.

A citizen's initiative and a nature conservancy organization called a demonstration in Munich last November that attracted an estimated 13,000 people calling for an end to the Transrapid project. The CSU took it off the budget in March, and the Greens all but audibly chortled in the press statement released after their victory. Safety issues have also contributed to the Transrapid's tarnished image in its homeland. In September 2006 a train on the test track in the northern German town of Lathen, where tourists have been able to take joy rides on the Transrapid since 1984, crashed at over 100 mph into a maintenance vehicle left unsecured on the track. The accident shredded the lead car and killed 23 of the 31 people on board. Various investigations pointed to human error as the cause of the tragedy.

The accident closed the Lathen test track, which has not yet reopened. Now that the Munich track will not even be built, the only demonstration of the Transrapid available on earth is in China - an 18.6 mile-long, eight-minute connection from downtown Shanghai to Pudong Airport. The Shanghai Transrapid was the first world's commercial high-speed maglev system, starting operations in 2004 and scheduled to expand at some point after the end of the Olympics.

"We're devastated by the decision to cancel the Munich project - it couldn't have come at a worse time," says BW Maglev's Wilkins. "I'm very concerned about the decisions the Transrapid consortium is making now, because the tide is turning at last - after 20 years. If we could get rid of short-haul air traffic just in the Northeast Corridor, it will have a ripple effect across the entire country. It's still going to be a big fight, because infrastructure needs are enormous, the dollar amounts are enormous. And now you have to go to Shanghai to even have a look at the Transrapid."

The basic problem with Transrapid lines within Germany is that the country, although it is one of Europe's biggest, is still almost too small to make efficient use of top maglev speeds. That is even more true when the routes are less than two dozen miles long, like the planned Munich airport link was.

Germans' discontent with the Transrapid is also rooted in the fact that they already have a pretty good intercity rail system which, although it is more expensive to operate and maintain than the Transrapid and isn't anywhere near as fast, has the considerable advantage of existing. It will take more than the promise of surface travel times that could compete with those in aviation to get the thrifty Germans to spend a big chunk of their national budget on such a project.

But still, news reports after the Lathen accident quoted a local politician saying that the Transrapid should properly be thought of as an alternative to short-haul flights. In the long run, with the skies over Europe crowded to capacity and the continent's energy worries ballooning, a European Union investment in power-efficient maglev would make sense.

"Maglev is no more expensive [to build] than any other form of transportation," says Wilkins, "and in the long run it's a lot less expensive to maintain and operate." Transrapid International, the consortium led by electronics giant Siemens and steelmaker ThyssenKrupp that builds and markets the Transrapid, cites independent studies that peg its technology's maintenance costs at about one-third of those for high-speed rail - thanks to low wear and tear due to frictionless propulsion.

But the true wave of the future will not be found in maglev's technological superiority to old-fashioned steel wheels. The great maglev mystery is much more quotidian: How do we pay for it? The BW Maglev project is supposed to be a public-private partnership, financed by both Washington and Wall Street.

"What has to be proven is not the technology," which clearly works, says Wilkins. "It's the financing. That's what no one has seen with their own eyes."

Today, a perfect storm of skyrocketing gas and plane ticket prices, expanding environmental awareness in the U.S. and a last-century infrastructure that is literally falling apart at the seams just might whip up the political will to make the huge, long-term but desperately-needed investment in maglev.

Especially if Barack Obama, whose website says he "supports the development of high-speed rail networks across the country," enters the White House next year.

Bonnie J. Gordon is a freelance writer who has lived in Germany for more than 16 years. She is based near Munich.

Labels: Barack Obama, Business, Carbon Emissions, Climate Change, Environment, Germany, High Speed Rail, IBS, Maglev, Magnetic Levitation Rail, Transportation, World News

Published on: IBS

Corporate Plea for Climate Legislation Ignored

2008-06-06T04:05:00.000-07:00

Cross-posted on The Huffington Post

Eleven corporations issued an open letter to the Senate urging the passage of the Climate Security Act (S. 3036), stating that it "represents a real effort to establish the regulatory framework that we need."

The June 2nd plea by: Allianz of America; Catalyst Paper Corporation; FPL Group, Inc.; JohnsonDiversey, Inc.; Johnson & Johnson; Levi Strauss & Co.; National Grid, Nike, Inc; Novo Nordisk; Tetra Pak; and Xanterra Parks & Resort, working in conjunction with the World Wildlife Fund, fell on deaf ears, as Senate Democrats fell short of the 60 votes required to overcome a Republican filibuster.

President George W. Bush has consistently opposed any economy-wide cap-and-trade plan and had vowed to veto this bill if Congress approved it.

Senate leaders opposed to the bill used a variety of tactics during weeklong debate on the Senate floor, including a rare maneuver by Republicans that forced clerks to read an updated version of the 491-page bill aloud. That took 10 hours.

The bill sought to require business to reduce emissions by 19 percent before 2020 escalating to a ~70 percent reduction around 2050 along with a carbon trading scheme to help with transition and costs.

The gamesmanship involved with this bill has been overt. Specifically with actions taken by Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), labeled as "stonewalling" by Senator Reid, after McConnell forced a complete reading of the ~500 page bill on the senate floor, a process that required over eight hours to complete.

"In America change doesn't happen overnight, it takes time to turn the ship of state," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat who shepherded the bill.

She noted that Senate climate change legislation was first introduced in 2003 and the 2005 version got only 38 votes. "This is coming," Boxer said.

She said supporters planned to start work next week on a "roadmap" for the next president.

McConnell complained of a cut-off from amendments by Senator Reid after the eight plus hour reading led Reid to call for a vote. Some Democrats echoed McConnell's complaint about the lack of opportunity for further amendments. Some Republicans joined Senator John Warner (R-VA), one of the bill's sponsors, in crossing to support the legislation, which, at 48 total votes, fell short of the number required to pass.

The eleven corporations calling for the legislation join over 150 signatories of what has come to be known as the Bali Communique on Climate Change, as reported by The Environmentalist in this November 2007 article:

Q. When is it time to take climate change seriously?

A. When even Fox News' parent corporation says so.

NewsCorp has weighed in as part of the Prince of Wales's Group on Climate Change at the University of Cambridge's announcement that 150 signatory companies -- comprising many of the world's most influential corporations and accounting for trillions of dollars in trade and some of the best known global brands -- have circulated a petition in advance of the upcoming U.N. Bali Climate Conference "calling for a comprehensive, legally binding United Nations framework to tackle climate change."

The Bali Communique participants include: Shell UK, GE International, Coca-Cola Co., Dupont Co., United Technologies Corp., Rolls Royce, Nestle SA, Unilever, British Airways, Volkswagen AG, NewsCorp, AIG, ABAmro, Sun Microsystems, Nike, Nokia.

With oil prices hovering around $140 a barrel and expected to rise, Zimbabwe cutting off NGO's from food aid distribution following Mugabe's return from an emergency U.N. Conference on Hunger, NASA censored on their obfuscation of climate change results, the residents of smog-filled Mexico City losing their sense of smell, the new IEA warning that oil demand could rise by 70% in the foreseeable future, the deforestation involved with factory farming, and the continued output of greenhouse gases from China and India, the jobs in a time of growing unemployment that could be created through green technologies...

The need for the United States to lead by example through legislation has never been greater.

Unfortunately, the need for change in Washington may have superseded that consideration. An irony when you consider that resistance to solving climate change seems to have been the catalyst to finally impel some Senators to show some independence from some corporations (at least on this issue).

The supporters of the bill said they will now work on a climate change "road-map" for the next administration.

Labels: Business, Carbon Emissions, Climate Change, Congress, Environment, Huffington Post, Senate, World News

Falling Cranes and New York’s Growing Pains

2008-05-30T12:27:00.000-07:00

by Sherman Yellen

The dangerous hypocrisy of overbuilding in Bloomberg’s New York.

It happened again. A crane has fallen in New York City, killing a construction worker, wrecking an apartment building nearby, terrifying and disrupting the lives of nearby residents who must scramble about looking for someplace to stay, find their pets, try to recover their precious possessions, and hear the same blather from the current city administration. Tighter restrictions, more inspections will be called for.

This same event occurred a short while ago a few blocks down from Yorkville in the Beekman Place section of the city. And it will happen again and again because it is now a familiar part of Mayor Bloomberg’s New York where a crane hangs dangerously over the world below every few blocks. Indeed, it is a direct result of the policies in place in the city. Build! Build! And build more until they have wiped out the sky altogether. This is the way it is in Hedge Fund Heaven – a/k/a New York City.

The secret of living in this New York is to live in a protected area of historic brownstones and town houses such as the Mayor lives in; a place which cannot be taken down to be rebuilt as a monster residential building; a secret that now requires the possession of several million, no, possibly several billion dollars.

The trick for the rest of us is not to get killed or driven from our homes by the reckless overbuilding that has overtaken New York since Bloomberg became Mayor, which coincided with the great building bubble here and elsewhere. An impotent, toothless, realty based (not reality based) Landmark Commission has done little to protect the environmental, esthetic, or plain safety of the city and its citizens. A building inspection commission designed to encourage building and turn a blind eye to infractions in existing laws is embedded into the culture of the city.

Real estate is the true religion of New York and it requires constant devotion by its adherents, which means, put up yet another tower next to another tower, ad infinitum. Sure, I know that real estate is a vital part of our tax base. But this does not mean that it cannot be challenged, or replaced by other forms of revenue. The building cabals ask/warn that without the new building who will pay for the schools? The subways? The buses?

It is a city that is constantly trumped by the Trumps. A major financial institution will twist the arm of the city by threatening to leave it if it is not allowed to build yet another mega-tower to Mammon – tax free – or it will move elsewhere. My answer would be move! You guys have already screwed up the city and the world with your lending policies and your insatiable greed so take a nice hike. As of today there is no one to discourage such promiscuous building, or call a moratorium on new building until the city can get its failed act together.

And so more cranes will fall, more people will be killed and more lives shattered and disrupted. We are in Bush world where nobody learns from experience – we just keep doing more of the same, throwing more money and bodies at a problem in the hope that it will get itself fixed. The Mayor can bemoan the loss of his congestion pricing plan and what that will do to our environment without ever making the connection between the rise in pollution to a growing city population that makes intolerable demands upon a city’s resources, requires more and more delivery of food and services to the city, brings in more cars and requires more buses. The model seems to be a prosperous China where anything goes in the name of the bottom line.

Peking, smog and all, here we come.

__________________________________________________________________________

Contributing writer, Sherman Yellen, screenwriter, playwright, and lyricist, has won two Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award, first for his drama John Adams, Lawyer in the PBS series The Adams Chronicles, and later for An Early Frost, a groundbreaking drama about AIDS in America. His Beauty and the Beast was nominated for an Emmy and won the Christopher Award. Yellen was nominated for a Tony Award for his book for the Broadway musical, The Rothschilds. Yellen's other plays include Strangers, December Fools and Josephine Tonight! Sherman Yellen received a lifetime achievement award in Arts and Letters from Bard College.
__________________________________________________________________________

Labels: Business, Construction, Environment, Living, Michael Bloomberg, New York, Sherman Yellen

SF Bay Area Businesses to Pay C02 Fee

2008-05-22T18:42:00.000-07:00

Cross-posted on Reuters, IBS

The San Francisco Bay Area Air Quality Management District's Board of Directors has voted overwhelmingly (15-1) to impose a carbon fee on Bay Area businesses. The new rules will cover the nine Bay Area counties and will include refineries and power plants:

The Bay Area fees are expected to generate $1.1 million in the first year to help pay for programs to measure the region's emissions and develop ways to reduce them.
More than 2,500 businesses will be required to pay the proposed fees. About seven power plants and oil refineries would have to pay more than $50,000 a year, but the majority of businesses would pay less than $1, according to district estimates.

This follows efforts by San Francisco Mayor, Gavin Newsom, to curb emissions through an initiative proposed for the November ballot that would impose a fee on some businesses while lowering payroll taxes for those that reduce their emissions. Not surprisingly, many businesses have objected to the new rules, citing competition and, in some cases, saying the local efforts may interfere with the 2006 climate change initiative signed into law by by Governor Schwarzenegger.

Climate change is "a big issue that needs a comprehensive statewide plan to address it," said Cathy Reheis-Boyd, chief operating officer for the Western States Petroleum Association. "We believe it's premature for local air districts to design local programs before we have a state program."

The Bay Area District cites jurisdiction due to raised temperatures in the area which worsens local air quality.

"We see a direct connection between the climate and air pollution," said Jack Broadbent, executive director of the district.

The new rules are set to take effect on July 1st, 2008.

Labels: Business, C02, Climate Change, Environment, Gavin Newsom, Global Warming, IBS, Reuters

Texas oilman planning huge wind farm

2008-05-19T23:03:00.001-07:00

T. Boone Pickens, Jr., the Texas billionaire oilman, is planning to put billions into a 4,000 megawatt wind farm in Texas with the capacity to power 1.3 million homes.

Pickens said he will be purchasing GE Turbines to install in central Texas from 2010 to 2015 on a royalty share basis with landowners in order to obtain access to wind.

"The Department of Energy came out with a study in April of '07 that said we could generate 20 percent of our electricity from wind. And the wind power is -- you know, it's clean, it's renewable. It's -- you know, it's everything you want. And it's a stable supply of energy.

It will be located in [the] central part of the United States, which will be the best from a safety standpoint to be located. You have a wind corridor that goes from Pampa, Texas, to the Canadian border. And it has -- the wind, it's unbelievable that we have not done more with wind. Look at Germany and Spain. They have developed their wind way beyond what we have, and they don't have as much wind as we do. It's not unlike the French have done with their nuclear. They're 80 percent power generated off of nuclear, we're 20 percent.

A turbine will generate somewhere around 20,000 [dollars] a year in royalty income [some of which to benefit those who put them on their land]. And on a 640-acre tract, you can put five to 10 of these on the tract. And you don't have to have them if you don't want them."

This is an important offering from Pickens, the chairman of the BP Capital Management hedge fund, known as the "Oracle of Oil" with a personal net worth (in 2007) of 3 billion dollars who once offered one million dollars to anyone who could disprove the swiftboat claims against Senator John Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign. Kerry responded to the challenge, which Pickens then modified.

A curious mix of partisan politics, oil deals and company takeovers, Pickens' history has been juxtaposed with philanthropic causes -- he is listed as one of the country's top givers -- that include funding schools and universities and an effort to save wild horses from slaughter. He is also an avid sportsman who made his fortune through years as a wildcatter, an executive with Philips Petroleum, the founder of Mesa Oil and of BP Capital.

Pickens has begun speaking out on the issue of peak oil, claiming that world oil production is about to enter a period of irrevocable decline. He has called for the construction of more nuclear power plants, the use of natural gas to power the country's transportation systems, and the promotion of alternative energy.

Pickens' involvement with the natural gas fueling campaign is long-running. He formed Pickens Fuel Corp. in 1997 and began touting natural gas as the best vehicular fuel alternative because it's a domestic resource that, among many advantages, is clean (Natural Gas Vehicles or NGVs emit up to 95% less pollution than gasoline or diesel vehicles) and reduces foreign oil consumption. Reincorporated as Clean Energy in 2001, the company now owns and operates natural gas fueling stations from British Columbia to the Mexican border.

This does not mean that Pickens has given up on oil. He is heavily involved with the Canadian oil sands extraction project: "We’re managing $5 billion here. And, about 10 percent of it is in the oil sands. So, it’s the largest single investment we have," Pickens said in 2006.

His focus has widened since then, however, as evidenced by this statement on Monday: "We are going to have to do something different in America. You can't keep paying out $600 billion a year for oil."

Cross-posted on Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Fox News, Houston Chronicle, IBS, Reuters

LABELS: ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, BUSINESS, CLIMATE CHANGE, ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT, FOX NEWS, GLOBAL WARMING, HOUSTON CHRONICLE, IBS, OIL, REUTERS, T. BOONE PICKENS, JR., WIND, WIND FARMING

China quake may reduce vital carbon offsets

2008-05-15T16:07:00.000-07:00

Cross-posted on Reuters

The deadly China earthquake's toll continues to rise, with an estimated 50,000 dead and an entire region's infrastructure impacted. This includes 15 million tons of carbon that have been subject to offsets -- the barter system that allows developed nations to trade their pollution credits with developing nations, thereby providing an incentive for new infrastructure to be built in a carbon neutral manner -- within a 150 kilometer radius of Monday's quake centered in China's Sichuan province.

"We counted seven impacted companies among the world's top 20 project developers," said Laurent Segalen, Lehman head of emissions trading, who listed EcoSecurities, Deutsche Bank, Endesa and Mitsubishi Corp among developers with nearby projects.

They included projects to cut greenhouse gas emissions from chemical plants or by replacing fossil fuels using wind and hydropower.

Stockholm-based project developer Tricorona said on Thursday that it had over 10 offset projects in Sichuan that it said may have been affected and corresponded to 8 million tonnes emission cuts through 2012.

Carbon offsets are an essential part of greenhouse gas emission control of China's growing emissions caused by the ongoing development of coal-based plants and the increased automobile usage by their billions of citizens. The companies involved have not been able to assess the damage on their individual projects, but, given the scope of the destruction, it is a likely assumption that the carbon offset projects will be impacted, adding tons of greenhouse gases that would otherwise be taken out of the atmosphere, unless an alternative arrangement can be worked out in time.

The Chinese government has put out requests for assistance with the rescue and recovery effort, the scope of which, after the 7.9 earthquake that was said to have lasted approximately five minutes, has been estimated at least 50,000 dead with cities nearly leveled and infrastructure such as dams threatening to fail.
The loss of the offsets, while the least of worries in such a situation, could have a significant impact on the world at large and will need to be dealt with once the humanitarian efforts have been addressed.

LABELS: C02, CARBON, CHINA, CLIMATE CHANGE, EARTHQUAKE, ENVIRONMENT, GLOBAL WARMING, REUTERS, KYOTO ACCORD

Gourmet Boutique Brand recalls 143 Tons of Meat

2008-05-04T12:43:00.001-07:00

Cross-posted on Reuters, NBC4

A high end New York food company, Gourmet Boutique, has voluntarily recalled 143 tons (286,000 pounds) of beef and poultry for fear that it may be contaminated with the Listeria monocytogenes bacteria.

The Jamaica, NY, company manufactures both fresh and frozen foods. The problem was discovered through sampling by federal and Florida food safety inspectors. No associated illnesses have been reported.

Included are specific chicken salad and sandwiches sold under the name Gourmet Boutique, and several frozen wraps and burritos sold under the names "Jan's" and "Archer Farms."

The fresh food products have end dates of May 2 and May 3. The company had an earlier voluntary recall, last March, of 7,000 pounds of meat for the same contamination. The company said in a recorded message they had made "environmental changes" at their plants to prevent a repeat of the problem.

Listeria monocytegenes is a bacteria that exists in ground water and other sources. It is responsible for the disease Listeriosis which is most dangerous to those with depressed immune systems, although it can be a problem for whoever ingests the bacteria.

The symptoms of Listeriosis include:

Fever, muscle aches, nausea or diarrhea. If infection spreads to the nervous system, headache, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance, or convulsions can occur. Infected pregnant women may experience only a mild, flu-like illness; however, infections during pregnancy can lead to miscarriage.

If you find you have these products or have questions, you may contact the company here.

LABELS: ENVIRONMENT, NBC, RECALL, REUTERS

The Gas Tax 'Holiday' Shell Game

2008-05-03T19:30:00.000-07:00

by Janet Ritz

Cross-posted at The Huffington Post, Reuters

Senators Hillary Clinton and John McCain have challenged Senator Barack Obama over his refusal to support their proposal that would suspend the .18 Federal gas tax for three months this summer.

The problem?

A near-unanimous chorus of protests from experts, economists and environmentalists, all of whom support Senator Obama's position that the 'holiday' would net less than thirty cents a day for consumers -- if indeed any net at all -- since, historically, oil companies have absorbed the savings without passing them on, while gutting the transportation infrastructure trust fund that is the source of income for thousands of American workers and the safety net for our highways and bridges that are currently crumbling.

Environmentalists have also added that it would likely lead to more gasoline usage as at time when we need to reduce our carbon footprint due to the impact of climate change.

The lone 'expert' in support of Senators Clinton and McCain in this scenario so far?

Spokesman for the Clinton campaign and SHELL OIL LOBBYIST, Steve Elmendorf.

To which, Senator Obama responded:

“In a moment of candor, her advisers actually admitted that it wouldn’t have much of an effect on gas prices. But, they said, it’s a great political issue for Senator Clinton. So this is not about getting you through the summer, it’s about getting elected,” Obama argued. “This is what passes for leadership in Washington, phony ideas, calculated to win elections instead of actually solving problems.”

The environmental organization, Friends of the Earth, has endorsed Senator Obama, citing the gas tax issue as false and lauding the Illinois Senator for standing up to political pressure to tell the truth about it. Newspapers across the country have also weighed in with their criticism, including this quote by one of Senator Clinton's own supporters:

“I was appalled by Hillary going with the gas tax,” said Alice M. Rivlin, a budget director under former President Bill Clinton who supports Mrs. Clinton for the nomination. It “looked like pandering,” Mrs. Rivlin said.
An open letter signed recently by more than 100 economists said the proposed tax holiday would do little to reduce gas prices. In part, that is because a fall in prices would lead to more demand, which would cause prices to return to their earlier level. The result would be that overseas oil-producing governments would get money now flowing to the United States government in gas taxes.

What is also being lost in this pandering: the fact that this idea was first floated by John McCain and then picked up by Senator Clinton as a way to differentiate from Senator Obama.

It does differentiate. It was cited as the reason for the Friends of the Earth's endorsement and one of the tipping points that motivated super-delegate and former DNC Chairman, Joe Andrew, to change his allegiance from Senator Clinton to Senator Obama.

Andrew said the Obama campaign never asked him to switch his support. [...] He said Obama took the principled stand in opposing a summer gas tax holiday that both Clinton and McCain supported, even though it would have been easier politically to back it.

Nearly every expert, with the exception of a Shell Oil lobbyist, concurs: the 'Gas Tax Holiday' would be a windfall for the oil companies and offer the consumer little or nothing beyond a political advantage for Senators Clinton and McCain, which would be a win for politics as usual that, as usual, would provide next to nothing for the voter in the process.

It is a shell game.

LABELS: BARACK OBAMA, BUSINESS, HILLARY CLINTON, HUFFINGTON POST, STEVE ELMENDORF, ENVIRONMENT, FRIENDS OF THE EARTH, JOE ANDREW, JOHN MCCAIN, OIL, POLITICS, REUTERS

U.S. Identifies Tainted Heparin in 11 Countries

2008-04-22T09:17:00.000-07:00

Cross-posted on Reuters

Contamination in the blood thinner Heparin that was produced in China has been discovered in eleven countries, accounting for 81 deaths in the United States, so far.

Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the Food and Drug Administration’s drug center, said that German regulators uncovered a cluster of illnesses among dialysis patients who took contaminated heparin. She said Chinese officials had conceded that heparin produced in their country contained a contaminant, though they say it was not connected to the illnesses.
“Heparin should not be contaminated, regardless of whether or not that contamination caused acute adverse events,” Dr. Woodcock said. “We are fairly confident based on the biological information that we have had that this contaminant is capable of triggering these adverse reactions.”

Heparin is one of the oldest drugs currently still in widespread clinical use. It was discovered in 1916 at Johns Hopkins and entered clinical trials in 1935. It was originally isolated from dog's liver cells (hepar is Greek for liver"), then moved to beef membranes as a source and can be attributed to the research of Jay McLean and William Henry Howell.

FDA officials said the man-made chemical compound known as over-sulfated chondroitin sulfate is cheap and abundant. It mimics heparin when tested, but is not naturally occurring and not something that would be part of the normal production chain for heparin.

Heparin in China is made from slaughtered pigs. The Chinese, while acknowledging the contaminate, an additive that mimics Heparin but is non-functional as a drug (much like Melamine mimicked ingredients in pet food with disastrous results), have denied it has caused the illnesses and deaths. This new report contradicts that claim.

The F.D.A. warned the Chinese plant contracted to provide the drug to Baxter International that they have been using unclean tanks to make the heparin, obtained their raw materials (mucus membranes of pig intestines) from an unacceptable source and that it had no way to remove impurities.

Heparin is made from the mucous membranes of the intestines of slaughtered pigs that, in China, are often cooked in unregulated family workshops. The contaminant, identified as oversulfated chondroitin sulfate, a cheaper substance, slipped through the usual testing and was recognized only after more sophisticated tests were used.

The eleven impacted countries are: Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United States.

The problem of cheaper additives has been identified in past Chinese products, resulting in the deadly melamine in pet food and anti-freeze in toothpaste. This latest problem was discovered in Germany. The FDA does not have adequate inspectors, following budget cuts by the Bush Administration, to track more than a minor percentage (one percent in some cases) of imports into the United States from China.

LABELS: CHINA, ENVIRONMENT, FDA, HEALTH, REUTERS

Salmon fishing canceled off Oregon and California Coasts

2008-04-12T04:40:00.001-07:00