climatechange

The Environment Protection Agency’s landmark mercury and air toxics standards, announced in December, would reduce pollutants from coal power plants, saving 11,000 lives, prevent 130,000 asthma attacks and avoid 4,700 heart attacks. But Sen. James Inhofe has found the required 30 Senators to bring the rule to a Senate vote.

In an event with FreedomWorks, a participant posed the question to Inhofe (at 27:00): “Can we really trust companies to protect our natural resources without the institution of the EPA?” Inhofe, a climate denier who has attempted to circumvent EPA rules because they lack “science,” did not think anyone has said the EPA doesn’t have a place:

INHOFE: I don’t think anyone has said you want to eliminate the EPA altogether. If you look at the Clean Air regulations they were good. They worked. If you look back to the Bush administration we had the clear skies act that they refused to act on that would have done away with SO2, NOx, mercury, real pollutants. We’re not talking about that. There needs to be some regulation there but the regulation needs to be based on science and theirs is not based on science.

But Inhofe really doesn’t need to look far to find many Republicans who want to “abolish” the EPA. Last year, ThinkProgress spoke to six current and recent GOP lawmakers aiming to end the agency, and Senate Republicans voted to end the EPA by combining it with the Department of Energy, with 15 GOP co-sponsors. And Rep. Stephen Fincher recently said “We must cut the EPA’s legs off.”

And of course, Inhofe has attempted to block coal and oil oversight — the climate denier has claimed there’s no science for it. However, Inhofe’s interests do not lie with the hundreds of thousands of Americans who would benefit from mercury reduction, but with his oil and coal donors.

By Stephen Lacey

A version of this article originally appeared on Climate Progress.

In a long-awaited decision, the U.S. Department of Commerce has issued a preliminary decision to apply tariffs to Chinese-made solar modules being imported into the U.S. The tariffs range from 31 percent to 250 percent.

The preliminary tariffs were issued after a lengthy investigation by the Commerce Department into whether Chinese companies are “dumping” solar panels into the U.S. market below cost. These tariffs follow a March decision to issue small countervailing duties on Chinese module producers that are getting illegal domestic subsidies, according to Commerce.

Today’s issued tariffs are as follows: Trina, 31.14 percent; Suntech, 31.22 percent; and 31.18 percent for all other Chinese producers that participated in the investigation. For companies that did not participate, Commerce has slapped a massive preliminary tariff of 249.96 percent.

The combination of these new tariffs and the countervailing duties will add substantial cost to imported Chinese solar panels. With panel prices hovering in the $1 per watt range, it could add around 30 cents to each panel for leading producers, and vastly more for producers that didn’t get involved in Commerce’s investigation.

These are preliminary fines and can be negotiated and changed before Commerce makes a final decision. The solar industry’s trade group, the Solar Energy Industries Association, has called on the U.S. and Chinese governments to negotiate a settlement — potentially resulting in more moderate tariffs:

“The solar industry calls upon the U.S. and Chinese governments to immediately work together towards a mutually-satisfactory resolution of the growing trade conflict within the solar industry.  While trade remedy proceedings are basic principles of the rules-based global trading system, so too are collaboration and negotiations.

“Importantly, disputes within one segment of the industry affect the entire solar supply chain–and these broad implications must be recognized.  In addition, the U.S. solar manufacturing base goes well beyond solar cell and module production and includes billions of dollars of recent investments into the production of polysilicon, polymers, and solar manufacturing equipment, products which are largely destined for export.  If the U.S.-China solar trade disputes continue to escalate, it will jeopardize these U.S. investments.

“Given these broader implications, it is imperative that the U.S., China, and other players in the dynamic global marketplace work constructively to avert or resolve trade disputes that will ultimately hurt consumers and businesses throughout the solar value chain.” [my emphasis]

The solar industry has been on edge since last October, when the manufacturer SolarWorld and six other anonymous companies issued a complaint about illegal trade practices. They argued that China’s subsidies were allowing companies to dump panels below cost, thus driving U.S.-based manufacturers out of business.

However, downstream developers have enjoyed falling panel prices — a factor that has allowed the industry to expand 109 percent in 2011. A group of solar companies known as the Coalition for American Solar Energy has been staunchly opposed to tariffs, saying they’ll dramatically drive up the cost of solar installations in the U.S.

Filed under: Solar Power

by Michael D. Lemonick, via Climate Central

The sea ice that blankets the Arctic Ocean each winter peaked in early March this year, as usual, and is now in retreat, en route to its annual minimum extent in September. How low it will go is something scientists worry: Ice reflects lots of sunlight back into space, and when the darker ocean underneath is exposed, more sunlight is absorbed to add to global warming.

That’s the simple version of the story, but things look even worse when you dig into the details. For one thing, all that open water does re-freeze each winter, but it freezes into a relatively thin layer known as seasonal, or first-year ice. Because it’s so thin, first-year ice tends to melt back quickly the following season, giving the ocean a chance to warm things up even more in what National Snow and Ice Data Center director Mark Serreze has called a “death spiral” that could lead to ice-free Arctic summers by 2030.

But it’s worse than that, says a new analysis by scientists at the U.S. Army’s Cold Regions Research Laboratory in Hanover, N.H. “First-year ice is not just thinner, “ said Donald Perovich, lead author of a report in Geophysical Research Letters, in an interview. “We’re also beginning to realize it has other properties.” The most important: New ice is less reflective than old ice, for most of the year, anyway. It absorbs more heat from the Sun, which means it doesn’t just melt faster: It actually speeds up its own melting.

Here’s how it happens, according to Perovich. “Most of the precipitation in the Arctic,” he said, “happens at the end of summer and in the early fall.” When the snow first begins to fall, it builds on the multi-year ice, but disappears onto the patches of open ocean. Those patches eventually freeze, and the snow sticks there as well; it just forms a thinner layer. So for most of the winter, all of the ice, thick and thin, is covered with a brightly reflective blanket. That would be good as far as warming is concerned, except that for most of the winter, the Sun doesn’t rise.

When the Sun finally does rise in spring, it melts the thinner snow first, forming heat-absorbing pools on the surface of the first-year ice. The older ice eventually catches up, forming pools of its own, but since the surface is crumpled, the ponds don’t spread as widely, and they absorb less heat.

In short, the death spiral — where more melting leads to more melting — appears to be even steeper than anyone thought.

That doesn’t mean that there’s less ice literally every year. The lowest levels ever recorded happened in September of 2007; since then, coverage has been bouncing around near, but not quite at, those historic lows, and first-year ice in the winter has been near its historic highs.

“What it means,” Perovich said, “is that with more seasonal ice, the Arctic is more susceptible to an outlier kind of year.” If there’s significantly more heat in a particular year due to natural variations, in other words, there could be a huge loss of ice. It’s kind of like a staircase, Petrovic said. “It bounces around for a while, then there’s a drop to a new normal, then it bounces around.” The point, he said, is that “we now have a type of ice cover that’s even easier to knock over than it was before.”

What that means is that at some point in the not too distant future, an unusually warm summer (even for a globally warming world) could knock the ice in the Arctic ocean down another major step, and take the world closer to the time when all of it vanishes — creating a new heat-trapping region where none existed before, and pushing climate change into an even higher gear.

– Michael Lemonick covered science and the environment for TIME magazine for nearly 21 years, where he wrote more than 50 cover stories. This piece was originally published at Climate Central and was reprinted with permission.

Related Posts:

• Arctic Death Spiral Continues (9/11): Sea Ice Volume Hits Record Low for Second Straight Year
• The Arctic Death Spiral Continues (3/12): Thick, Multi-Year Sea Ice Melting Faster, NASA Study Finds

“The average thickness of the Arctic sea ice cover is declining because it is rapidly losing its thick component, the multi-year ice. At the same time, the surface temperature in the Arctic is going up, which results in a shorter ice-forming season,” explains NASA senior scientist

By David Roberts

The most important thing you can read this week is Joe Smyth’s post on federal coal leasing. I realize “federal coal leasing” is not a phrase to quicken the pulse, so let me explain why it’s a Very Big Deal.

A couple of weeks ago, I explained the situation the U.S. coal industry is in: domestic electricity use has leveled off, utilities are switching to cheap natural gas and wind, and the EPA is finally cracking down on dirty old coal plants. All that leaves U.S. coal in a pinch. Their main hope for the future is to increase coal exports. That’s why the fight over coal export terminals matters.

Arguably, though, the coal-export fight is secondary. From a climate-hawk point of view, it would be better just to leave the damn coal in the ground.

Is that even within our power as concerned U.S. citizens? As it happens, yes, it is, because we own much of the coal! The coal that companies like Peabody are itching to export comes from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana. And most of the land in the Powder River Basin is owned by the federal government — that is to say, it’s owned by you and me.

The federal Bureau of Land Management leases the land to coal companies at bargain-basement prices, so they can strip-mine it and export the coal at a profit. Does that sound like good public policy to you?

You really should read Smyth’s whole post for the details, but here’s the important bit:

The BLM’s role is critical because unlike other regions such as Appalachia, Powder River Basin coal is mostly owned by the federal government, and BLM is supposed to ensure that coal development there “is in the best interests of the Nation.” But without proper oversight, the BLM has been offering this federal coal to companies like Peabody, Arch Coal, and Cloud Peak Energy for bargain rates. Over the last 30 years, this has amounted to a $28.9 billion subsidy to the coal mining industry and helped coal maintain its large share of US electricity generation by keeping coal prices artificially low, as explained in a report [PDF] and legal brief [PDF] by Tom Sanzillo of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. These low prices have also helped the Powder River Basin soar from just 5% of US coal production in 1970 to almost half today — even though the Federal Government no longer classifies the region as a coal-producing region. If this sounds absurd, that’s because the BLM’s process for leasing US coal is skewed to benefit coal mining companies, lacks proper oversight and public participation, and is basically corrupt — check out the WildEarth Guardians for more info. [my emphasis]

Speaking of that corrupt BLM process, there’s a lease auction happening today — BLM is selling off the “South Porcupine Tract,” which contains “an estimated 401,830,508 tons of mineable coal.” But the size of this lease is modest relative to the huge expansion of leasing the administration announced last year. When all that newly leased coal is burned, it will contribute 3.9 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere, more than half what the U.S. emits in a year. (See also Joe Romm on this.)

As Smyth writes, this travesty is finally starting to get some attention from politicians like Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber (D). They are asking why U.S. taxpayers should subsidize coal companies to degrade Western port towns to export coal to Asia where it will accelerate climate change. That makes sense for no one other than the coal companies.

The BLM’s own justification for the lease doesn’t even make sense, as Smyth explains:

Keep in mind that in its Record of Decision [PDF] for [today's] South Porcupine lease, the BLM justified the decision by asserting that doing so would help “meet the national coal demand,” and that “The public interest is served by leasing the South Porcupine LBA tract because doing so provides a reliable, continuous supply of stable and affordable energy for consumers throughout the country.” At a time when coal’s share of US electricity generation has dropped 19% in one year to just 36%, and Peabody’s CEO is touting plans to profit from “the global coal supercycle,” even the twisted logic of BLM’s coal leasing process falls apart. How exactly is it in the “best interests of the Nation” to sell coal that belongs to US taxpayers at a discount so Peabody can strip mine and ship it to Asia? [my emphasis]

That’s a damn good question.

My question is, where’s the climate movement on this? More than Keystone XL, more than individual coal plants, more even than coal export plans, this seems to be where the real action is. The entire climate fight over coal is an attempt, often by indirect means, to keep the damn coal in the ground. And yet here’s a bunch of coal in the ground that U.S. citizens already own! And it’s being sold by an allegedly climate-concerned administration to coal companies for no particular public benefit! It seems like a place where concerted pressure could actually have an effect.

Why isn’t this the absolute center of the climate fight right now?

Filed under: Article, Business & Technology, Climate Change, Climate Policy, Coal, Fossil Fuels, Politics, Pollution

By Richard W. Caperton

A version of this article originally appeared on Climate Progress.

Do anti-clean energy senators have any idea what Americans want? If Thursday morning’s hearing on the Clean Energy Standard (CES) Act of 2012 is any guide, they don’t. The truth is that Americans support a clean energy target for this country. Senators should listen to the American public and pass this bill.

Let’s start at the beginning. In her opening remarks, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) asked, “To me, the biggest question … is whether Americans really want a CES?”

If that’s the biggest question, then it’s time for the Senate to pass the Clean Energy Standard Act, because the American people want more clean energy.

According to the Pew Research Center, a majority of Americans think that developing clean energy sources should be a bigger priority than expanding oil and coal production. This is exactly what a CES would do. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) testified Thursday [PDF] that the Clean Energy Standard Act would lead to increased electricity generation from all low-carbon sources of power, including renewables, nuclear, and natural gas. While the exact mix of those resources is impossible to predict, wind and solar power increase dramatically in every scenario the EIA has analyzed.

That wasn’t the end of Murkowski’s misunderstanding of what the American people want. She went on to say to the witnesses, “I think this is where the consuming public is coming from: If this is going to save me money, let’s talk about it; if it’s not, let’s not talk about it.”

In fact, that’s not where the consuming public is coming from. Researchers from Harvard and Yale have found that Americans would be willing to pay an extra $162 per year to get 80 percent of their electricity from clean sources. Conveniently, that’s exactly what the CES would do, so we know that Murkowski’s presumption about what the public wants is wrong. It’s also important to remember that while the EIA predicts small electricity rate increases from the CES, Center for American Progress’ analysis of state renewable energy standards shows that there’s no evidence that these policies increase rates.

Unfortunately, Murkowski’s thinking is stopping the Senate from passing this common-sense legislation that would clean our air, help prevent catastrophic climate change, and drive investment that can reinvigorate our economy.

Some senators are siding with the American people, though. Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), who originally introduced this proposal and is leading the fight for a CES, understands why this bill is critical. His opening statement is a welcome contrast to Murkowski’s:

The purpose of the Clean Energy Standard is to establish a national standard for electricity to make sure that we leverage the clean resources we have today and provide a continuing incentive to develop the cheaper, cleaner energy technologies of the future. By design, it would drive continued diversity in our sources of energy, and it would also allow every region to deploy clean energy using resources appropriate to that region. The Clean Energy Standard does this in a way that is intended to support home-grown innovation and manufacturing, and keep America competitive in the global clean energy economy.

Using cheaper, clean energy technologies to support innovation and manufacturing is something that everyone should get behind. That’s why the Center for American Progress (CAP) has supported this bill from the start. As Kate Gordon, CAP’s vice president for energy policy, said when the bill was first introduced:

Sen. Jeff Bingaman’s (D-N.M.) proposal would be a tremendous contribution to the United States’ clean energy economy. By prioritizing low-carbon energy sources, a clean energy standard would drive investments in renewable energy and other low-carbon energy infrastructure that will put Americans back to work while also improving our air quality and reducing the likelihood of catastrophic climate change. This bill will also create stable demand that’s critical for growing our domestic clean energy manufacturing base, and will help spur new innovations in the low-carbon energy technologies of the future.

There are legitimate policy questions about the design of this bill. It would be good to find a way to include more support for energy efficiency, although there are technical challenges with treating efficiency as a resource just like power generation. And Duke Energy explained Thursday [PDF] why it’s afraid that the CES could lead to overreliance on natural gas. These issues can and should be dealt with while still supporting the bill.

The Clean Energy Standard Act is not just good policy, it’s good politics.

Filed under: Article, Energy Policy, Politics

In a long-awaited decision, the U.S. Commerce Department has issued a preliminary decision to apply tariffs to Chinese-made solar modules being imported into the U.S. The tariffs range from 31 percent to 250 percent.

The preliminary tariffs were issued after a lengthy investigation by the Commerce Department into whether Chinese companies are “dumping” solar panels into the U.S. market below cost. These tariffs follow a March decision to issue small countervailing duties on Chinese module producers that are getting illegal domestic subsidies, according to Commerce.

Today’s issued tariffs are as follows: Trina, 31.14 percent; Suntech, 31.22 percent; and 31.18 percent for all other Chinese producers that participated in the investigation. For companies that did not participate, Commerce has slapped a massive preliminary tariff of 249.96 percent.

The combination of these new tariffs and the countervailing duties will add substantial cost to imported Chinese solar panels. With panel prices hovering in the $1 per watt range, it could add around 30 cents to each panel for leading producers, and vastly more for producers that didn’t get involved in Commerce’s investigation.

These are preliminary fines and can be negotiated and changed before Commerce makes a final decision. The solar industry’s trade group, the Solar Energy Industries Association, has called on the U.S. and Chinese governments to negotiate a settlement — potentially resulting in more moderate tariffs:

“The solar industry calls upon the U.S. and Chinese governments to immediately work together towards a mutually-satisfactory resolution of the growing trade conflict within the solar industry.  While trade remedy proceedings are basic principles of the rules-based global trading system, so too are collaboration and negotiations.

“Importantly, disputes within one segment of the industry affect the entire solar supply chain–and these broad implications must be recognized.  In addition, the U.S. solar manufacturing base goes well beyond solar cell and module production and includes billions of dollars of recent investments into the production of polysilicon, polymers, and solar manufacturing equipment, products which are largely destined for export.  If the U.S.-China solar trade disputes continue to escalate, it will jeopardize these U.S. investments.

“Given these broader implications, it is imperative that the U.S., China, and other players in the dynamic global marketplace work constructively to avert or resolve trade disputes that will ultimately hurt consumers and businesses throughout the solar value chain.”

The solar industry has been on edge since last October, when the manufacturer SolarWorld and six other anonymous companies issued a complaint about illegal trade practices. They argued that China’s subsidies were allowing companies to dump panels below cost, thus driving U.S.-based manufacturers out of business.

However, downstream developers have enjoyed falling panel prices — a factor that has allowed the industry to expand 109% in 2011. A group of solar companies known as the Coalition for American Solar Energy has been staunchly opposed to tariffs, saying they’ll dramatically drive up the cost of solar installations in the U.S.

by Richard W. Caperton

Do anti-clean energy senators have any idea what Americans want?  If this morning’s hearing on the Clean Energy Standard Act of 2012 is any guide, they don’t.  The truth is that Americans support a clean energy target for this country.  Senators should listen to the American public and pass this bill.

Let’s start at the beginning.  In her opening remarks, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) asked, “To me, the biggest question … is whether American’s really want a CES?”

If that’s the biggest question, then it’s time for the Senate to pass the CES Act, because the American people want more clean energy.

According to the Pew Research Center, a majority of Americans think that developing clean energy sources should be a bigger priority than expanding oil and coal production.  This is exactly what a CES would do.  The Energy Information Administration testified today that the Clean Energy Standard Act would lead to increased electricity generation from all low-carbon sources of power including renewables, nuclear, and natural gas.  While the exact mix of those resources is impossible to predict, wind and solar power increase dramatically in every scenario the EIA has analyzed.

That wasn’t the end of Murkowski’s misunderstanding of what the American people want.  She went on to say to the witnesses, “I think this is where the consuming public is coming from: If this is going to save me money, let’s talk about it; if it’s not, let’s not talk about it.”

In fact, that’s not where the consuming public is coming from.  Researchers from Harvard and Yale have found that Americans would be willing to pay an extra $162 per year to get 80 percent of their electricity from clean sources.  Conveniently, that’s exactly what the CES would do, so we know that Senator Murkowski’s presumption about what the public wants is wrong.  It’s also important to remember that while the EIA predicts small electricity rate increases from the CES, CAP’s analysis of state renewable energy standards shows that there’s no evidence that this policies increase rates.

Unfortunately, Senator Murkowski’s thinking is stopping the Senate from passing this common sense legislation that would drive clean our air, help prevent catastrophic climate change, and drive investment that can reinvigorate our economy.

Some senators are siding with the American people, though.  Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), who originally introduced this proposal and is leading the fight for a CES, understands why this bill is critical.  His opening statement is a welcome contrast to Murkowski’s:

The purpose of the Clean Energy Standard is to establish a national standard for electricity to make sure that we leverage the clean resources we have today and provide a continuing incentive to develop the cheaper, cleaner energy technologies of the future.  By design, it would drive continued diversity in our sources of energy, and it would also allow every region to deploy clean energy using resources appropriate to that region. The Clean Energy Standard does this in a way that is intended to support home-grown innovation and manufacturing, and keep America competitive in the global clean energy economy.

Using cheaper, clean energy technologies to support innovation and manufacturing is something that everyone should get behind.  That’s why the Center for American Progress has supported this bill from the start.  As Kate Gordon, CAP’s Vice President for Energy Policy, said when the bill was first introduced:

Sen. Jeff Bingaman’s (D-NM) proposal would be a tremendous contribution to the United States’ clean energy economy. By prioritizing low-carbon energy sources, a clean energy standard would drive investments in renewable energy and other low-carbon energy infrastructure that will put Americans back to work while also improving our air quality and reducing the likelihood of catastrophic climate change. This bill will also create stable demand that’s critical for growing our domestic clean energy manufacturing base, and will help spur new innovations in the low-carbon energy technologies of the future.

There are legitimate policy questions about the design of this bill.  It would be good to find a way to include more support for energy efficiency, although there are technical challenges with treating efficiency as a resource just like power generation.  And, Duke Energy explained today why they’re afraid that the CES could lead to over-reliance on natural gas.  These issues can and should be dealt with while still supporting the bill.

The Clean Energy Standard Act is not just good policy, it’s good politics.

Richard W. Caperton is the Director of Clean Energy Investment at the Center for American Progress.

Related Post:

• Pew Poll: Clean Energy Is A Political Wedge Among Republicans

By Lisa Hymas

OK, alright, Romney hasn’t actually picked his VP candidate yet, but we can already say with near-100 percent certainly that it’ll be someone who’s skeptical about the climate crisis and doubts that it’s significantly driven by human activity.

This is because virtually all high-level Republicans are skeptical about the climate crisis, at least judging by their public statements and actions. To find a Republican who believes that we ought to do even a little something about global warming, Romney would have to wade into the garbage bin of GOP politics and consort with losers and has-beens like Charlie Crist and Jon Huntsman. Fat chance.

Here are some of the incredibly boring white guys Romney might actually pick (along with a few outlier options who are non-white, non-boring, and/or non-guys), and some of the illuminating things they’ve said about climate change:

Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida

“I’m a skeptic. I’m not a scientist. I think the science has been politicized. I would be very wary of hollowing out our industrial base even further … It may be only partially man-made. It may not be warming by the way. The last six years we’ve actually had mean temperatures that are cooler.”

 

Mitch Daniels, governor of Indiana

“The [climate] debate, so far, has been dominated by ‘experts’ from the University of Hollywood and the P.C. Institute of Technology. … Any dissident voice is likely to be the target of a fatwa issued by one Alatollah [sic] or another of the climate change theocracy, branding the dissenter as a ‘denier’ for refusing to bow down to the ‘scientific consensus.’”

 

Bobby Jindal, governor of Louisiana

“President Obama claims to be focusing this election year on the American economy. To make that pledge true, he must make wholesale changes to his energy policy and put energy prices and energy independence ahead of zealous adherence to left-wing environmental theory.” (He didn’t say the word “climate,” but we can read between the lines.)

 

Susana Martinez, governor of New Mexico

“[T]here is disagreement in the science community concerning the causes of global warming.”

 

 

Bob McDonnell, governor of Virginia

“Humans might be part of the cause, but too often in the debate it’s missed that the Earth has been warmer in the past and it has been a lot cooler in the past. … So I would say the science is mixed on a lot of those things.”

 

Tim Pawlenty, former governor of Minnesota

“So there is climate change, but the reality is the science of it indicates that most of it, if not all of it, is caused by natural causes. And as to the potential human contribution to that, there’s a great scientific dispute about that very issue.”

 

Rob Portman, senator from Ohio

“When you analyze all the data, there is a warming trend according to science. But the jury is out on the degree of how much is man-made.”

 

 

Marco Rubio, senator from Florida

“The climate is always changing. The climate is never static. The question is whether it’s caused by man-made activity and whether it justifies economically destructive government regulation.”

 

Paul Ryan, rep from Wisconsin

“Unilateral economic restraint in the name of fighting global warming has been a tough sell in our communities, where much of the state is buried under snow … [E]mail exchanges from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit … undermine confidence in the scientific data driving the climate change debates.”

 

Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey

“I’ve always said that climate change is real … we know enough to know that we are at least a part of the problem.”

 

 

Hey, wait, that’s not total denial! But Christie said it in a speech announcing that he was pulling New Jersey out of the first mandatory carbon cap-and-trade system in the country, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, so take it with your daily recommended allowance of salt.

Filed under: Article, Climate Change, Climate Skeptics, Election 2012, Politics

By Scott Mandia via his blog

Help the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF) raise money to cover the costs of Dr. Mann’s legal defense as well as other scientists who face similar challenges. To help raise money and reward those that contribute, we have rounded up some cool designs and gifts. CSLDF thanks Nicole Martinez and Lunchbreathwho were kind enough to donate their designs for this fundraiser.

$25 gets you one of our t-shirts. They will be delivered a couple weeks after the fundraiser is over. We will check in with you about which design you want and what size.

$50 gets two of the t-shirts.

$75 gets all three of the t-shirts and our true gratitude.

$150 gets you all three of the t-shirts and a copy of Climate Change: Picturing the Science signed by Joshua Wolfe (www.picturingclimatechange.com)

$300 gets you a hockey stick signed by Mike Mann.

$1000 gets you a 16×20 signed silver gelatin print by Joshua Wolfe.

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO GET THESE COOL ITEMS PLEASE VISIT:

http://www.rockethub.com/projects/6884-help-cover-mike-mann-s-legal-bills

* A portion of your donation may be tax deductible. People interested in tax deductible donations should contact CSLDF directly at josh@climatesciencedefensefund.org

–  Scott Mandia is a meteorology professor at Suffolk County Community College who has been teaching meteorology and paleoclimatology courses for 25 years. He and Joshua Wolfe co-founded the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund.

Make your voice heard by clicking HERE to submit a favorable comment to the EPA today!

As of this morning, more than one million comments supporting carbon pollution limits have been submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).    In the first month of the commenting period these statements from families and individuals all over the country declared their support for the EPA’s new standards to cut industrial carbon pollution from power plants.   This is already the largest number of public comments sent to the EPA on any issue, with more expected in the final month of the commenting period, ending June 25.

A broad coalition of clean air, labor, and other progressive organizations – including the Center for American Progress Action Fund – delivered the following statement about the carbon pollution rule:

“Americans broadly support the EPA’s efforts to reduce dangerous air pollution that threatens the health and safety of our children, communities, and wildlife. More than one million Americans have now voiced their support for these important safeguards and called on the EPA and the White House to move forward with the strongest possible standard for new and existing power plants.”

Existing power plants are responsible for adding more than 2 billion tons of carbon and other toxic pollutants into the air each year – nearly 13,000 pounds for every man, woman, and child in the United States.   Carbon dioxide is a major greenhouse gas that significantly contributes to climate change and threatens the health and safety of Americans.  Climate change increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, causing more event-related deaths and injuries.

Next week, on May 24, EPA will conduct public hearings will take place in Chicago and Washington D.C., allowing for more public participation in the rule-making.  As big coal companies spend millions of dollars to weaken these public safeguards, it is increasingly critical that EPA continues to hear from Americans who support reducing carbon pollution from new and existing power plants.

Please join us and more than one million Americans calling for cleaner air.  Make your voice heard by clicking HERE to submit a favorable comment to the EPA today!

By Jessica Goad

Yesterday, the House Natural Resources Committee passed three bills to mandate and encourage oil and gas drilling in the West.  All of the bills throw open more public lands to drilling, mirroring the wishes of the oil lobby, the American Petroleum Institute (API).

Just two days ago, API released a report outlining its political wish list.  It included two provisions about drilling on lands that belong to American taxpayers:

We Are Calling For: The opening of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge – 1002 Area; portions of the Rocky Mountains; lifting of the drilling moratorium in New York, and timely review projects on federal land.

We Are Calling For:  The federal government to increase lease sales and adopt pro-access processes to improve development of U.S. oil and natural gas resources on public lands.

All three of the drilling bills passed by the Natural Resources Committee yesterday seek to open more lands for oil and gas development, increase lease sales, and streamline access — just as API has asked Congress to do:

-  H.R. 4381 from Rep. Scott Tipton (R-CO) requires planning for an “all of the above” energy plan on public lands and requires the relevant secretaries to meet a “domestic strategic production objective.”

-  H.R. 4382 from Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) mandates leasing and requires that at least 25 percent of the acres nominated by the oil and gas industry be leased, in essence turning land management decisions over to the industry.

-  H.R. 4383 from Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) would force the Interior Department to issue oil and gas leases within a certain arbitrary time frame, as well as punish citizens for exercising their legal right to protest oil and gas leases.

Not surprisingly, these three members have taken significant campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry. In the 2012 cycle, oil and gas has given Tipton  $44,250; Coffman:  $77,500; and Lamborn:  $31,250.

More light was recently shed on the cozy relationship between members of Congress and the oil and gas industry. A few days ago, emails from a staffer to Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) were released referring to the oil and gas industry as “our partners.”

While the three bills passed yesterday seek to increase access to public lands for energy development, an Interior Department report released on Tuesday shows that the industry already has incredible access.  Not only did the government hold “… three of the top five largest [lease] sales in the agency’s history” last year, but 56 percent of the public lands leased to the oil and gas industry in the lower 48 states were not producing any fossil fuels or being explored.

Jessica Goad is the Manager of Research and Outreach for the Public Lands Project at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

It must have been the attack ads criticizing clean energy that caused Republican Rob Hatch to speak up. A 10-year veteran of the wind industry, Hatch, who calls himself a former “Iowa farm boy” has expanded his wind business to 28 employees.

And now he’s defending his livelihood from the “oil billionaires spending millions of dollars on false smear TV commercials” in a spirited op-ed:

It is difficult to watch these people air their TV ads slapping around the president’s support of my employees’ jobs and ridiculous claims that he created jobs in Mexico and China.

The president kept our doors open and our employees working because of the wind-production tax credit and 1603 Treasury grant program.

And we were able to keep jobs in Iowa. The majority of the people I employ here in Alta are either farm kids or still working on the family farm in the evening. Today, the school district in Alta receives somewhere between 16 percent and 20 percent of its revenue from wind turbines. And almost 30 percent of the taxes paid into the county are off wind turbines.

Wind is an American success story in Iowa.

With 2,900 turbines in Iowa providing 20% of the state’s electricity, creating more than 215 businesses, 6,000 jobs, and helping spur more than $14.46 million in annual lease payments to farmers and other landowners, wind has been a major driver of economic activity. And that activity is benefiting business owners like Hatch:

I can tell you that I’m not reaping massive profits like the oil billionaires funding these ads with their billions in subsidies and tax breaks. Right now my wife and I are living invoice to invoice, praying we have enough money to make payroll every two weeks. I have missed Christmas concerts, wedding anniversaries and school plays and sacrificed so much more to keep my business going.

These economic success stories have been well documented. They involve people like Nathan Crawford, a wind technician based in Fraklin County, Iowa, who we visited in December:

A round-up of the top climate and energy news. Please post other links below.

Countries which agreed to sign a deal in 2015 to cut greenhouse gas emissions should set milestones this year to ensure the necessary work is done on time, the United Nations’ climate chief said on Wednesday. [Reuters]

The growing number of electric vehicle drivers in Los Angeles are behaving differently from the national norm. [Los Angeles Times]

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) wants to hear from two Cabinet officials — Commerce Secretary John Bryson and Energy Secretary Steven Chu — as part of an investigation into the Energy Department’s loan program. [The Hill]

A multifaceted air and ground-based scientific field campaign is underway in the Central and Southern U.S., with about 275 scientists, pilots, and technicians out to solve meteorological mysteries about how thunderstorms affect the chemistry of the upper atmosphere. [Climate Central]

Divisions have again emerged on the first few days of the latest round of international climate change talks in Bonn, with the EU and groups of developing countries clashing over the future of the controversial Kyoto protocol. [Guardian]

President Dilma Rousseff is facing one of the defining moments of her presidency as pressure builds on her to veto a bill that would open vast protected areas of forests to ranching and farming, potentially reversing Brazil’s major gains in slowing Amazon deforestation. [New York Times]

IBM’s Ehningen Innovation Center campus in Germany is about to become ground zero for the development of an advanced personal transportation system that combines Hertz’s car sharing know-how with distributed renewable energy, electric vehicles and smart microgrid technology. [TPM]

Funding cuts to squeezed local authorities are putting the UK’s carbon targets at risk, the government’s climate advisers warned in a report published on Thursday. [Guardian]

 

By Claire Thompson

Alan Flippin comes from a long line of North Carolina tobacco growers. But, a few years back, the crop just stopped making sense. His family’s operation stopped making much of a profit as the cost of fertilizer and other inputs rose. And, Flippin says, “I don’t really enjoy growing tobacco; I don’t use it. I was looking to get into something else.”

He wanted to transition to growing produce instead — something he could feel good about cultivating, eating, and selling. But shifting to a completely different crop is a hugely risky proposition. “With tobacco, you pretty much know how to grow it; you’ve got a market, and you get insurance for your crops,” Flippin says. “Whereas for produce, it’s very scary because there’s so much you don’t know.”

Flippin’s fledgling produce operation got off the ground with the help of a grant from something called the Tobacco Communities Reinvestment Fund. The grant enabled him to build a greenhouse and experiment with several varieties of organic vegetables to sell to wholesalers, farmers markets, and at a local co-op.

The fund was created in the wake of the Tobacco Master Settlement to help North Carolina’s agricultural communities transition to new sources of income. According to the terms of the settlement, announced in 1997, the country’s four largest tobacco companies would make perpetual payments to 46 states to compensate them for smoking-related health care costs and, in tobacco-growing states, economic losses (four other states already had individual agreements with tobacco companies).

A percentage of North Carolina’s settlement money goes to the Tobacco Communities Reinvestment Fund, which is a program of the nonprofit Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI).

“The idea,” says Joseph Schroeder, the fund’s director, was to “fund farmers to take that first step in discovering new, innovative ways of making money off farms. In turn we would make them share their lessons and business plans with their community.” Tobacco comes with many of the same issues as other commodity crops (those grown at a large scale and sold to the commodities market, such as corn, wheat, and cotton): It’s a monocrop that requires large amounts of pesticides, depletes soil, and is susceptible to disease. And tobacco locks farmers into a dependent relationship with the corporations who buy their crops and provide them with seeds and pesticides.

The transition from commodity crops to more diverse, locally focused operations can be jarring, and hard for farmers to make on their own. As Flippin noted, small and mid-scale farmers rarely have the security of crop insurance, which makes it much easier to get loans. “Getting that capital infusion [from the Fund] was a big boost to us,” Flippin says. “It really got the ball rolling.”

Beyond the struggle to access capital, Schroeder says, “the thing about commodity production — and tobacco is one of the best examples of this — is you don’t learn how to do everything you need to do to be an entrepreneur. All you learn how to do is grow the product.”

In addition to money, the grant gave Flippin access to guidance from a regional expert and support from a network of grantees around the state. And, true to the other end of the deal, Flippin’s business now serves as a model for how a farm can transition from tobacco to produce. “We’re one of the farms everybody’s looking towards to see if we actually make money or not,” he says.

Though the fund was originally intended for tobacco growers, it’s now open to anyone who earns the majority of their income through farming. In addition to grants for individual farmers, the fund awards community grants for collaborative efforts, and the range of projects they’ve have supported — over 500 in the last 15 years — is an inspiring testament to the potential of farmers’ innovation.

Meredith McKissick, who grows flowers, got a community grant to buy shared-use equipment for a farmers’ cooperative she belongs to near Asheville, N.C., and later served on the review board that selects grantees.

“It was a super amazing experience for me to see all the different farmers trying to be innovative,” she says of the review process. “There was one fellow who had been [raising chickens] and had been asked to make upgrades he simply couldn’t afford, so he was forced out of his contract. His family banded together and decided they would turn one of the chicken houses into a creamery for dairy goats. Despite his age, he was starting over from scratch. That made me feel like there was hope for some of these growers getting squeezed out.”

Schroeder explains that while other states often funnel settlement funds toward a few specific crops and farming practices, in North Carolina, they “trust the farmer to be the expert.”

That strategy has paid off: Schroeder says RAFI’s surveys report that over 80 percent of the projects it’s funded are successful after three years. And because of the requirement that proposals be replicable — ideas that other farmers could learn from and adapt — the success of any one project has a resounding impact. A University of North Carolina study [PDF] found that each dollar awarded to a farmer through the reinvestment fund generates a whopping $205 of local economic activity, and that each grant creates an average of 11 new jobs in one year.

The Fund is based on some pretty simple principles: Support farmers with new and creative ways to make a living off the land; encourage them to share their ideas and inspire others; and in the process, revitalize rural economies once dependent on commodity crops. It’s exciting to imagine how this model could be applied to other industries — corn, industrial livestock, even coal and oil.

Sadly, the Fund has taken a bit of a financial hit. It’s fully funded by the North Carolina Tobacco Trust Fund Commission, which was nearly eliminated in the state’s recent budget crisis; instead, it went from distributing $35 million to just $2 million. That means this year, the Tobacco Communities Reinvestment Fund was only able to give out 34 grants compared to last year’s 181 grants. But the ripple effects of the fund will hopefully continue to widen, especially as recently funded projects grow.

Flippin, for his part, feels that his years of produce-growing trial and error are about to pay off. “The broccoli’s looking great, the zucchinis are looking great, and the tomatoes are looking great,” he says. “It’s finally all coming together this year.”

Filed under: Food, Industrial Agriculture, Locavore, Sustainable Farming

By Elisabeth Kwak-Hefferan

Nothing like deprivation to muddy up your understanding of “want” vs. “need.”

For instance, here’s a sampling of items I’ve considered “needs” over the past two weeks: new sports bras, shower curtain, new couch pillows, lime-squeezer kitchen gadget, iPad case, duchess satin bridesmaid dress, cat scratching post, and a handmade silver ring shaped like a poppy. This is doubly remarkable, as I’m not really the shopping type. But I’m also in the middle of a self-imposed No New Stuff May, and we all know what happens when you start branding the fruit forbidden.

My No New Stuff month is a challenge not to buy anything brand-new for the 31 days of May (food and certain toiletries obviously excepted, you sickos). Why? I already have everything I need to stay hale and hearty, and my small apartment wouldn’t fit much more stuff, anyway. But really, it’s a small stand against a “Bigger, Better, More!” culture that tosses perfectly good items into landfills and gobbles up new resources to build still more stuff — much of which we don’t even need.

That’s not to say I’m going native, eschewing capitalism, and weaving a new wardrobe out of grass clippings. Under my challenge, buying used stuff from resale shops or Craigslist is street legal, as is repairing broken items and just plain doing without. I began without any pressing needs on the shopping front, curious to discover what desires might pop up as the month went on and how well I’d be able to satisfy them. And just as I used to hide forbidden copies of Sweet Valley High books under my bed as a kid, now that new purchases are taboo I’ve been deluged with strange wants masquerading as needs.

Take that iPad case. First off, I didn’t even buy the iPad itself — I wouldn’t have one if an employer hadn’t sent it to me for work on a media project. Its original box has provided perfectly adequate shelter for months. But now, all of a sudden, I’m gripped by the need (er, want) to tuck the iPad into a stylish, hand-sewn case. “I have the thing — shouldn’t I protect it?” I argued with myself. “Won’t that make the iPad last longer, and isn’t it therefore the greenest choice?”

I haven’t yet caved to the gadget lust, I’m happy to report — and wonder of wonders, my life is still fulfilling. Same deal with the lime-juice squeezer. (I’ve been using brute hand strength to squeeze limes since my first batch of guacamole, and dammit, on brute hand strength I shall continue to rely.) And the poppy ring and the couch pillows? I’m just fine without ‘em.

Then there are the lazymakers: worn-out items that are easy enough to refurbish, but even easier to toss and replace with new models. Who among us hasn’t been at least tempted to dump a long-in-the-tooth item in favor of a shiny new one? Or worse, throw away a still-serviceable item just because we feel like something new? Maybe nothing lasts forever, but I can’t think that way this month. This month, I’m duty-bound to attempt resurrection.

My first project was my cat’s shredded, two-year-old scratching post. Luckily, cats don’t care about having the latest thing in claw-sharpening technology, so she didn’t object to my taking a tube of Krazy Glue to it the other morning. The post — which I originally bought used at Goodwill, by the way — is just an old traffic cone wound with sisal rope. After 10 minutes of carefully reattaching the fibers to the plastic cone, voila! Good as new. Mint-condition scratching posts at my local pet shop start at $30, but this re-upholstery session cost me a cool $2.79 for the tube of glue (new, not used, I confess).

On a roll, I decided to freshen up our old shower curtain. It had put in a couple of years of solid service, and was basically fine, if rather grimy. Before No New Stuff month, my admittedly spotty thinking on the matter had been, “Shower curtains have a limited shelf life, right? At a certain point, they just get too gross to save.” Maybe, but honestly, mine was nowhere near that point. So I sighed, yanked it down, and spread it flat for a deep cleaning.

Eeew. Apparently, I’d missed a few deep crevices during my last bathroom-scrubbing frenzy. Several remote canyons among the folds were in open revolt, having been colonized by streaks of black mildew when I wasn’t looking. I took a deep breath, soaked a sponge in vinegar (so acidic, it’s like taking chemical weapons to household bugs), and went to work. To my great surprise, the grossness wiped right off. And to think, I was ready to throw the thing away.

With two weeks still go to, there are still plenty of desires left to battle, and plenty of resale shops and online swaps left to comb for the items I just can’t do without. I’ll report back on my trials and triumphs next time. Meantime, thanks to my No New Stuff challenge, I now know what Lazarus felt like — or my shower curtain does, anyway.

How about you — have you ever imposed a No New Stuff challenge? What was toughest? What tricks did you pick up along the way?

Filed under: Living

By David Roberts

The U.S. coal industry is flailing. Utilities are stampeding from coal to natural gas and coal mining companies are seeing their stock prices plunge. The industry is responding the way it always has to threat: blaming government regulation and pouring money into influence peddling.

Judging from their latest efforts, however, they have very little to work with. The latest flail is to try to make a big deal out of the fact that the Obama administration recently added a bit on “clean coal” to its “all of the above” energy page. It’s Energywebpagegate! Or something.

From such thin threads is America’s Power attempting to weave an attack:

This aims for pathos but reaches only as far as pathetic. Even putting aside the absurdity of trying to make a website update into matter of Great Significance, the attack rests on a crude bait-and-switch that only the most gullible Tea Partier is going to miss.

In his campaign, Obama talked regularly about “clean coal.” By that he meant the common understanding of the term: coal plants that capture and sequester their CO2 emissions.

The EPA regulations decried in the middle section of the video do not affect “clean coal” in any way. They impose emission rules on dirty coal — coal plants that do not control their mercury, SO2, and/or CO2 emissions. It is dirty coal plants that are retiring right now, not “clean coal.”

The administration added a bit on clean coal to its website, but it only serves to call coal’s bluff. All actually existing coal in the U.S. is dirty. If the industry can actually build “clean coal,” why, it won’t be affected by EPA regulations! In fact, Obama’s own stimulus bill set aside $3.4 billion help “clean coal” along.

The ad speaks to the coal lobby’s desperation to blur the difference between clean and dirty. When it began, America’s Power touted itself as a “clean coal” group. But as this ad campaign makes clear, that was always a fig leaf, a bit of rhetorical slight-of-hand. It’s just a lobbying group for the coal industry.

Coal with CCS remains fantastically expensive and, in the U.S., rarer than a untelevised Kardashian. In terms of U.S. electricity markets, it is a non-entity. Its use in politics, by Obama and the coal industry alike, is as a symbolic gesture.

In reality, what we suffer from in the U.S. is dozens of old, dirty, unregulated coal plants that are sickening and killing people and accelerating climate change. Obama hasn’t — politically speaking, can’t — come out explicitly in favor of getting rid of them. But he’s never spoken in favor of them either, and his EPA has done more than any EPA in decades to finally clean them up. That’s entirely separate from his support for the “clean coal” unicorn.

So, to summarize: Obama is for “clean coal” and against unregulated dirty coal. There is no inconsistency, no flip-flop or backtrack, no hypocrisy. It’s not even that complicated.

Filed under: Article, Business & Technology, Coal, Energy Policy, Fossil Fuels, Politics, Pollution

By Tim McDonnell and James West

Does worrying about fracking make you thirst for a drink? Before you raise that pint of ale to your lips, consider the source.

The brewmeister of Brooklyn Brewery says toxic fracking chemicals like methanol, benzene, and ethylene glycol (found in antifreeze) could contaminate his beer by leaking into New York’s water supply. Unlike neighboring Pennsylvania, New York state has promised to ban high-volume fracking from the city’s watershed. But environmentalists say the draft fracking regulations are weak and leave the largest unfiltered water supply in the U.S. — not to mention the beer that is made from it — vulnerable.

This story was produced as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Filed under: Article, Natural Gas

By Stephen Lacey

A version of this post originally appeared on Climate Progress.

In an attempt to keep the political war against renewable energy in the headlines, Republicans held another hearing to question the value of government investments in the sector.

Looks like 10 political sideshows on Solyndra weren’t enough.

If the hearing were being used as a chance to objectively assess where the industry stands, that would be one thing. But the title of the meeting gave away the real political intent: “The Obama Administration’s Green Energy Gamble: What Have All The Taxpayer Subsidies Achieved?”

Actually, those green energy investments have yielded substantial returns. While the political grandstanding goes on in the House of Representatives, here are five important things you should know about how promotion of clean energy has supported American businesses and consumers:

1. The 1603 grant program supported up to 75,000 jobs and 23,000 renewable energy projects during the height of the recession. When the recession hit, it was very difficult for project developers to find banks that were willing to utilize tax credits. So a cash grant program was created to give companies an easier way to finance projects. While it’s very difficult to know the exact influence of the grant on each project, the program played a major role in maintaining momentum — helping support $25 billion in gross economic activity, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

2. The production tax credit helps leverage up to $20 billion in private investment annually. With this key tax credit in place, the wind industry has dropped costs by 90 percent over the last few decades. It’s helped states like Iowa reach 20 percent wind penetration — bringing that state over 215 businesses that support 5,000 workers. Across the rest of the U.S., the entire industry supports 75,000 jobs, with 30,000 in manufacturing. However, up to 37,000 of those jobs could be at risk due to congressional lawmakers’ inability to extend the tax credit.

3. The loan guarantee program is expected to cost $2 billion less than budgeted. This program has gotten a black eye due to the bankruptcies of a few companies — most famously Solyndra — that received guarantees. But according to John McCain’s national finance chair, Herb Allison, the cost to taxpayers will likely be far less than initially thought. In fact, over the last 20 years of experience, the U.S. government has shown a knack for managing risk — with loans and loan guarantee programs only costing tax payers $0.94 for every $100 invested.

4. Home weatherization grew 1,000 percent from April to June of 2011, creating 14,800 jobs. After a slow ramp-up, efficiency programs supported by the stimulus package have helped weatherize hundreds of thousands of homes. In addition to supporting the retrofits of individual homes, the Obama administration has supported the Better Buildings Initiative, a program that has leveraged billions of private dollars to upgrade more than 4 billion square feet of public and private buildings in the next two years. That’s enough demand to support over 100,000 jobs.

5. The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E) has supported dozens of potentially groundbreaking technologies in advanced materials, renewable fuels, electricity generation, waste heat, and battery storage. Helping enhance America’s lead in technological innovation, ARPA-E — initially funded through the stimulus package — has helped inventors, companies, and university labs boost their work. This program has immense bipartisan support for promoting the “innovative research that makes America great and has fueled our economic growth for generations.”

Despite these successes, Republicans continue milking the Solyndra bankruptcy for an election-year story that doesn’t hold up — dragging the rest of the clean energy industry into the mud.

The sector has gone through some high-profile shake-ups and bankruptcies, so it’s the duty of lawmakers to understand how taxpayer dollars are being deployed. That’s a supportable endeavor. But holding yet another hearing to lambast the president for a so-called “gamble” in clean energy isn’t productive for anyone.

Filed under: Article, Energy Policy, Politics, Renewable Energy

The Heartland Institute is doubling down on its widely-condemned effort to label leading proponents of climate science as “murderers, tyrants, and madmen.”

CEO Joe Bast has sent a letter to one of the scholars who “have expressed trepidation about continuing their long-time associations with us.” Not to worry, says Bast, we’re still into wacky hate speech, same as ever, we just will use our website — and not billboards — to smear folks. He explains:

Of course, what’s fake here is, well, pretty much every single word in this letter. Heartland lecturing folks on accuracy? If you look up chutzpah in the dictionary….

Heartland posted a statement saying “We do not apologize for running the ad.” And they kept online their original defense of the billboard, which made absurd statements like, “the most prominent advocates of global warming aren’t scientists. They are murderers, tyrants, and madmen.” Some mistake.

Obviously, Bast stands by this nonsense. The uber-vindicated Michael Mann, one of the most highly regarded climatologists in the country, had this to say in reply to Bast:

Being called a “mad man” by Joe Bast & Heartland is like being called overexposed by Kim Kardashian.

I hope to have a response soon from the too-sane-for-this-world Bill McKibben.

How out of touch are Bast and Heartland? They post their beyond-the-pale extremism in a blog named “Somewhat Reasonable”:

In the Bizarro World of Hrtae that Heartland inhabits, I guess Somewhat Reasonable = Most Unreasonable.

Finally, Bast just can’t stop defending the billboard with nonsensical arguments.

Our billboard was factual: The Unabomber was motivated by concern over man-made global warming to do the terrible crimes he committed. He still believes in global warming. We simply put his picture on a billboard, pointed out the “inconvenient truth,” and asked, “do you?”

But wait, I thought Bast just said the billboard was a mistake? In any case, as Greenwire reported on the Unabomber’s manifesto (which you can confirm online):

The words “climate change” don’t appear in the manifesto, nor are there references to “global warming” or “carbon.”

Asked about this discrepancy, Heartland spokesman Jim Lakely pointed to a passage from Kaczynski’s manifesto that says the Industrial Revolution has “inflicted severe damage on the natural world.”

#FAIL