Author: Grist – the Latest from Grist

by Todd Woody

Photo: NREL/Iberdrola RenewablesAs Paul Krugman’s New
York Times Magazine cover story on environmental economics, “Building the
Green Economy,” was ricocheting around the
enviro blogosphere last week, the American Wind Energy Association released
its
annual report [PDF] on the state of the wind industry.

It was an interesting juxtaposition—Krugman’s deep dive
into the macroeconomics of an aggressive cap-and-trade or carbon-tax policy to
limit greenhouse-gas emissions alongside a report from the frontlines where the
green economy is actually under construction.

What’s striking is that the wind farm–building boom
continued through the depths of the Great Recession in 2009, with a record
10,010 megawatts of new capacity added last year in the United States.
In fact, wind energy accounted for 39 percent all new electricity generation
that came online in 2009.

Sure, the renewable energy tax incentives in the Obama
stimulus package and various state renewable-energy requirements certainly
helped prime the pump. But even absent a national cap on greenhouse-gas
emissions, the strength of the wind industry indicates the decarbonization of
the economy is already underway, if haltingly.

According to AWEA, 90 percent of new power generation
built over the past five years has come from renewables and natural gas. In
other words, you are not likely to see many, if any, new coal-fired power
plants built in the coming years. California
regulators have prohibited big investor-owned utilities from signing long-term
contracts for electricity generated by coal plants in places like Utah and Arizona, while
the Golden State’s biggest coal-consuming utility,
the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, has pledged to wean itself from
that particular fossil fuel.

And if carbon caps don’t do in other coal-fired power plant
projects, their voracious appetite for water may well halt expansion in the
desert Southwest. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that a coal-fired
power plant equipped with carbon
capture and storage could consume twice as much water as a conventional
power plant.

Kristin Mayes, chair of the Arizona Corporation Commission,
the state’s utility regulator, told me last year that all power-plant projects
are being closely scrutinized for their water use. “If one of our utilities wanted to build a new coal plant, we would be
talking very much about water issues as well as cap-and-trade,” she said.

Wind-turbine farms,
of course, use no water in electricity production. AWEA estimates that by
displacing fossil-fuel power, wind farms saved 15 billion gallons of water in
2009.

Where the wind do blow

The knock against
wind is that despite the huge increases in capacity that have made the U.S. the
world’s biggest wind power—with more than 35,000 megawatts installed—all
those turbines still satisfy less than 2 percent of the nation’s demand for
electricity.

True enough, but the
picture changes if you take a state-by-state look. Iowa, for instance, relies on wind farms to
generate 14.2 percent of its electricity, according to the wind industry
report. Wind power supplies 9.4 percent
of Minnesota’s electricity, 8.1 percent of North Dakota’s, and 6.4 percent of Oregon’s.

In the report,
there’s a series of color-coded maps of wind-farm installations in the United States
between 2000 and 2009. Those states with significant numbers of turbines are
colored in shades of blue, those with few or none are white. At the beginning
of the decade, broad swaths of the country were blank slates, with California the only dark
blue state along with a handful of light blue states.

Maps: AWEA

By decade’s end,
most of the West and wind-swept Great Plains
states as well as parts of the Northeast were a sea of blue of varying hues.
Only the wind-poor Southeast and a handful of other states remained as white spots
on the map.

So, is the wind boom
only benefiting the blue states?

Not at all. Turn to
a map of wind-related manufacturing and the red states are a pincushion of red
dots from Arkansas to Georgia to Virginia, each dot indicating a factory.

Map: AWEA“Currently, over 200
facilities across the U.S.
supply to the wind industry, and this figure does not capture the many
additional facilities at the sub-supplier level,” the report states. “Wind manufacturing
facilities can be found in every region of the United States, and include major
new wind-dedicated facilities and established businesses that have diversified into
the wind-energy industry.”

Since 2005, the
number of turbine makers doing business in the U.S. has tripled from five to 15.
The wind industry currently employs 85,000 people, according to the report, a
figure that remained flat in 2009 after growing rapidly in previous years. Texas
remains the place to get a wind job, with more than 10,000 people employed in
the industry.

A cap-and-trade
market would certainly boost the fortunes of the wind industry, but emissions
trading probably can’t solve one of the biggest obstacles to further expansion—the lack of transmission to connect far-flung wind farms to population centers.

“The inadequacy of
the nation’s electric grid is a major impediment to the continued growth of the
wind industry,” the report noted. “Many wind projects that have connected to
the grid are forced to curtail a significant amount of their output or are
facing low or even negative electric prices because there is inadequate
transmission to carry their full output.”

There’s an
astounding 300,000 megawatts worth of planned projects seeking connection to
the grid, only a fraction of which is likely to get built due to transmission
constraints, according to the report.

Constructing that
transmission will be akin to building the interstate highway system of the past
century, and will involve juggling a slew of competing local, state, and federal
interests—a task the market alone is unlikely to facilitate and finance.

“These are daunting tasks,” the report concluded. “But the
progress made in 2009 suggests an industry that is at the cusp of new growth,
and new opportunity.”

Related Links:

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Krugman says what political media won’t: economists agree climate action is necessary, affordable

Paul Krugman on ‘Building a Green Economy’

by Agence France-Presse

LA PAZ—The alternative “people’s conference” on climate change called by socialist Bolivian President Evo Morales is expecting 7,500 delegates from more than 100 countries, officials said Monday.

Among those set to attend the gathering in Cochabamba April 20-22 include Presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Rafael Correa of Ecuador, and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, according to Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca.

Named the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, the gathering is intended to “give a voice to the people” on climate change after the perceived failure of the United Nations-sponsored Copenhagen summit on the same issue, organizers say.

In addition to government leaders, those attending will include delegates from social movements and nongovernmental organizations. Organizers say they expect attendees to include anti-globalization activists Naomi Klein of Canada and Jose Bove of France, and James Hansen, a U.S. scientist who was among the first to warn about climate change. Also invited to the event was James Cameron, the Canadian-born director of the blockbuster film “Avatar.”

Government delegations will be coming from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, Dominica, Antigua, and Barbudas as well as St Vincent and the Grenadines, officials say.

The conference will seek to refine proposals put forward by Morales in Copenhagen, including the creation of a world tribunal for climate issues and a global referendum on environmental choices.

Chavez and Morales were among the harshest critics of the December 2009 Copenhagen conference, arguing that developing countries were largely ignored in the U.N. climate debate that set an objective for limiting global warming.

Bolivia’s Environment Minister Juan Pablo Ramos said the Cochabamba conference may be “a major mobilization to fundamentally influence the next climate summit in Mexico in December.”

Other delegates said the conference may be constructive.

“The notion of more input from civil society is welcome,” said Luis Alfonso de Alba, who will be Mexico’s delegate to the Bolivia conference. “I believe that the meeting can produce positive results.”

Brice Lalonde, the French delegate to the climate conference, added that “we have to talk with everyone.”

Related Links:

Australia refloats Barrier Reef oil-spill ship

U.N. climate talks in Bonn wrap up after fresh fights

What the John Paul Stevens retirement means for energy progress

by Agence France-Presse

The Shen Neng 1 ship has been refloated after a nearly devastating oil spill at the Great Barrier Reef.Photo: Australian Maritime Safety Authority

SYDNEY—Australian authorities refloated a huge Chinese ship on Monday that had been stranded on the Great Barrier Reef for over a week after running aground, averting a potential environmental crisis.

Emergency workers successfully moved the 750-foot Shen Neng 1 coal carrier without adding to the two-ton oil spill that spread a two-mile slick after the ship crashed on April 3.

The general manager of Marine Safety Queensland, Patrick Quirk, confirmed that no more oil had been lost and said the ship was being towed to an area east of Great Keppel Island, Australian news agency AAP reported.

“The refloat was a success. Salvors spent an hour and a half assessing the vessel’s stability and watching for any evidence of further oil spills,” he said. “Our intention has always been to keep oil loss to a minimum so we could take it to safe anchorage.”

Emergency workers had pumped most of the 970 tons of heavy fuel oil from the vessel before they were forced to rush the after-dark refloating due to approaching stormy weather and high seas. Once the ship has been safely anchored, divers will inspect its hull so that a decision can be made on its future movement, Quirk said.

Australia’s transport minister has accused the ship’s crew of taking an illegal route at the heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef, by far the world’s biggest, and said prosecutors would be “throwing the book” at those responsible. The ship strayed about 15 nautical miles from the recognized shipping lane before ploughing into Douglas Shoal at full speed, sustaining heavy damage.

Australian officials immediately promised to investigate allegations that ships were taking shortcuts through the giant reef, which sprawls along 1,800 miles of coast and is a major tourist attraction.

On Monday, three crew members from another large carrier appeared in court on charges of entering a restricted part of the reef without permission, and were bailed to reappear on Friday. South Korean Gang Chun Han, the 63-year-old master of the Panama-flagged MV Mimosa, and Vietnam’s Tran Tan Thanh and Nguyen Van Sang face maximum fines of $205,000.

Conservationists say the incidents highlight the risk to Australia’s environment posed by rocketing resource exports to Asia, which are fuelling a strong recovery from the global financial crisis.

The reef, which is visible from space and is one of the world’s foremost ecological treasures, has already come under pressure from rising sea temperatures and pollution.

The government of the northeastern state of Queensland on Monday announced dramatically increased penalties for oil spills on the Great Barrier Reef, including fines of up to $10 million.

The accident comes after a ruptured cargo ship leaked 70,000 gallons onto Queensland beaches last March. In August, a well platform caught fire, dumping 28,000 barrels of oil into the seas off northern Australia.

Related Links:

Bolivia’s alternative climate conference to kick off next week

U.N. climate talks in Bonn wrap up after fresh fights

What the John Paul Stevens retirement means for energy progress

by Agence France-Presse

BONN, Germany—Three days of talks aimed at putting a new gloss on U.N. climate talks ended here late Sunday after new textual trench warfare, less than four months after a stormy summit in Copenhagen.

Countries wrangled for hours beyond the scheduled close over the work schedule under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and what blueprint to adopt for further negotiations.

“The negotiations were very tense. There is a lot of mistrust,” said French chief negotiator Paul Watkinson. “Some delegates don’t seem to have taken onboard what happened in Copenhagen and the need to gain quick, concrete results.”

As the 194-nation forum struggled with a sour mood, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer warned that the process would be dealt a crippling blow if it failed to deliver a breakthrough at a Nov. 29-Dec. 10 meeting in Cancun, Mexico. Cancun had to yield a “functioning architecture” on big questions, including curbs on carbon emissions and aid for poor countries, de Boer said in an interview with AFP.

“We reached an agreement in Bali [in 2007] that we would conclude negotiations two years later in Copenhagen, and we didn’t,” he said. “The finishing line has now been moved to Cancun, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the final finishing line in terms of a legally binding treaty ends up being moved to South Africa,” at the end of 2011.

“Copenhagen was the last get-out-of-jail-free card and we cannot afford another failure in Cancun,” de Boer said. “If we see another failure in Cancun, that will cause a serious loss of confidence in the ability of this process to deliver.”

The Bonn talks exposed a rift between developed and developing countries over whether to pursue or quietly bury Copenhagen’s main outcome. This is the so-called Copenhagen Accord, brokered by a couple of dozen countries in frenzied late-night haggling as the summit faced collapse. It sets a general goal of limiting warming to 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F), earmarks some $30 billion in fast-track aid from 2010 to 2012, and sketches a target of mustering $100 billion annually by 2020.

But the agreement came under fire from countries excluded from the small drafting group and failed to gain the endorsement of a 194-nation plenary. Around two-thirds of UNFCCC members have now signed up to it, though.

Some of the faultlines opened up again in Bonn.

The United States and the European Union said the Copenhagen Accord, despite its flaws, should be included in draft text for negotiations. “We need a different paradigm and that’s what emerges from Copenhagen,” said top U.S. delegate Jonathan Pershing to journalists.

Other countries were not keen about incorporating the Copenhagen Accord in the negotiating blueprint, reflecting concern about the document’s purely voluntary emissions pledges and the way the deal was brokered. Left-led nations in the Caribbean and Latin America attacked the Accord as undemocratic and a betrayal of U.N. principles. They called for negotiations to resume on the basis of a draft that was put on hold halfway through the Copenhagen meeting, delegates said.

After hours of debate, delegates agreed to give the chairwoman of the main working group, Margaret Mukahanana-Sangarwe, latitude to draw up a negotiating text. The Copenhagen Accord was not specifically mentioned in this mandate, but Mukahanana-Sangarwe said orally it would be taken into account, along with other documents.

Two extra rounds of talks will take place before Cancun, the conference agreed.

Wounds of Copenhagen still fester

The three days of talks in Bonn at times resembled the movie “Groundhog Day,” where a grumpy skeptic is doomed to live the same events over and over again.

Almost as if the shock of Copenhagen had never happened, delegates squabbled afresh over the minutiae of the UNFCCC’s work schedule, over which bits of draft text to use as a blueprint for negotiation, and over the fate of a document widely dismissed as a threadbare compromise.

“Old habits die hard,” Greenpeace observed acidly. “Too many of the negotiators present chose to focus on divergence and problems.”

“There’s still strong disagreements about how to move this process forward … to demonstrate that the UNFCCC can deliver in the end, because there is a lot of debate in the public about that right now,” admitted E.U. negotiator Artur Runge-Metzer.

Developing nations barely masked their mistrust of rich countries, which many suspected of seeking to ditch the carbon-curbing Kyoto Protocol after 2012 and replace the benchmark treaty with a wishy-washy voluntary deal.

The United States and other rich countries, for their part, at times struggled to hold back exasperation at a consensus-driven negotiation format that, in their view, had dangerously slowed progress. They lobbied for Copenhagen’s one semi-success, the Copenhagen Accord, to be given life rather than cast into limbo.

“Some delegates don’t seem to have taken onboard what happened in Copenhagen and the need to swiftly gain concrete results,” said French chief negotiator Paul Watkinson.

The latest talks at least showed unity in one area: the realization that dealing with climate change is going to be a grinding and very long-winded business indeed. No one is holding out any guarantee that the post-2012 pact will be wrapped up in Cancun.

A better chance lies with the 2011 get-together in South Africa, but only after patient and cautious progress, said de Boer, who himself will soon be leaving the UNFCCC to pursue a career in the private sector. “It is important to bear in mind that this quest to address climate change is a long journey, that generally achieving perfection takes practice, that the scientific community is telling us we need to achieve huge emissions reductions by the end of the century,” he said.

Overladen, fiendishly complex, and apparently unreformable, the UNFCCC roadshow will crawl on, but there is now a growing interest in smaller, nimbler fora, gathering major emitters, donors, or key countries fighting carbon emissions from deforestation.

“We will continue to take advantage of venues that promote candid and constructive dialogue,” said Pershing, carefully stressing that the work would only be “complementing” the UNFCCC process.

“There is still momentum in the U.N. process, but it is fragmenting,” commented Annie Petsonk of the U.S. green group Environmental Defense Fund.

Related Links:

Bolivia’s alternative climate conference to kick off next week

Australia refloats Barrier Reef oil-spill ship

Bonn to Cancun … negotiators agree to continue efforts on international global warming

by Eric de Place

My co-presenter at last weekend’s Carbon Neutrality Unconference, smart-guy Pete Erickson of Stockholm Environment Institute,
used four slides that are worth sharing again. Taken together, they’re
an excellent—if somewhat wonky way—to think about the basic
structure of reducing emissions.

1. What are the cheapest reductions?

(Click for larger version)

This McKinsey Institute chart depicts the cost of various carbon “abatement” (i.e. “reduction”) strategies given current technology. The bars that fall below the horizontal axis depict abatement opportunities that pay for themselves (such as energy efficiency). The bars above the x-axis show the strategies that cost money (such as sequestering carbon from coal plants), at least given the current state of technology. The width of the bars depicts how much carbon reduction is available.

(Source: McKinsey & Company, “Pathways to a Low-Carbon Economy”)

2. How far do the reductions get us?

(Click for larger version)

Another chart from McKinsey. This one uses a “wedge” diagram to
illustrate how much carbon reduction we can achieve from several major
categories of abatement strategies.

(Source: McKinsey & Company, “Pathways to a Low-Carbon Economy”)

3. Who takes responsbility?

(Click for larger version)

Based on each country’s population and historical contribution to
climate change, this chart depicts how much carbon “budget” countries
have if we were to equitably distribute the right to emit carbon in the
future. The pale color shows how much a country has “consumed” (i.e.
“emitted”) and the dark color shows how much budget remains. The United
States has a negative carbon budget, shown by the dark bar below the
horizontal axis, implying that an equitable distribution of carbon
resources would require the U.S. to go beyond carbon neutrality.

(Source: German Advisory Council on Global Change, “Solving the Climate Dilemma: The Budget Approach” )

4. What does “carbon neutral” mean if we take greater responsibility?

(Click for larger version)

A closer look at the carbon responsbility for the United States
under an equitable distribution of carbon resources. Notably, the red
line—showing the “fair share” for the U.S.—dips below zero (net
carbon neutral) by around 2025, and continues on a downward path. A
significant share of the U.S. reductions, however, are “mitigation”
actions (i.e. “offsets”) funded in other countries.

(Source: Greenhouse Development Rights Book, second edition)

This post originally appeared at Sightline’s Daily Score blog.

Related Links:

Carbon neutral caution

by Jen Harper

I know you were probably a little worried that these guys
had gone extinct, so I have some excellent news: Insane Clown Posse just came
out with a new song! And that’s not all. It teaches us about science—with a twist—so
no need to fret any longer about our flagging education system. It’s a little ditty
called Miracles. And I suppose the
takeaway here is that ICP doesn’t believe in science, per se, since, as the band
sings (sort of), “I don’t want to talk to a scientist. Y’all motherfuckers
lying and getting me pissed.” Do I smell climate deniers? Hmm, I’ll let you
decide. Oh, and some examples of those unexplainable, non-science-related
mysteries (i.e., “magic”)? Giraffes, the sun, the moon, planting seeds, “fucking
rainbows,” “fucking magnets,” water, fire, air, and dirt.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

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by Brad Johnson

Cross-posted from the Wonk Room.

The death toll from Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch mine explosion last week has reached a total of 29 miners, the worst coal disaster in 40 years. When the disaster occurred, Massey was contesting millions of dollars in major safety violations levied against the mine. At his Labor Day anti-union rally last year,
Massey CEO Don Blankenship attacked the Mine Safety and Health
Administration (MSHA), claiming it “seeks power over coal miners.” He
mocked both “Washington politicians” and local elected officials who
attempt to ensure miner safety, calling their efforts “as silly as
global warming:”

We also endure a Mine Safety and Health Administration that seeks power over coal miners versus improving their safety and their health. As someone who has
overseen the mining of more coal than anyone else in the history of
central Appalachia, I know that the safety and health of coal miners is
my most important job. I don’t need Washington politicians to tell me
that, and neither do you. But I also know—I also know
Washington and state politicians have no idea how to improve miner
safety. The very idea that they care more about coal miner safety than
we do is as silly as global warming.

Watch it:

Don Blankenship—who uses his position on the boards of the National
Mining Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to promote his conspiracy theories about global warming—said he spent one million dollars to put together the “Friends of America”
right-wing rally and rock concert in Holden, W.Va. on Sept. 7, 2009,
which starred Ted Nugent, Hank Williams, Jr., and Fox News host Sean
Hannity. In 2009, Blankenship also complained that “politicians get emotional” about disasters and establish “nonsensical” safety rules.

Related Links:

Before the Massey mine disaster, there was Crandall Canyon

Grist: hating on Don Blankenship before hating on Don Blankenship was cool

What does coal mining have to do with geoengineering?

by Jake Schmidt

The first global warming negotiations post Copenhagen have just wrapped up here in Bonn (as I discussed here). It was a 3 day session and was mostly focused on establishing the
process and expectations for negotiations this year. While there was
some complaining about the Copenhagen Accord from some quarters, the
complaining was timid compared with my expectations. That was positive
so countries could focus more on what could realistically be achieved
in Cancun (the expectations for the year) and how to get there (the
process).

So where do things stand on the process and expectations for the year?

Process—how are things organized and what “text” do we use? Countries are grappling with two questions related to the process of the negotiations this year.

Could you streamline the negotiations by creating a more formal “smaller group” negotiating session? One proposal would have created a 40 country negotiating group that
would sit around the table and be the only ones speaking in the formal
plenary. These countries would get input from the other countries not
“sitting around the table” as they would be representing some regional
or other country grouping (e.g., the least developed countries,
Alliance of Small Island States, etc). This would create a format
where not all 194 countries provided input at every moment in the
process. Such a smaller setting is critical to achieving progress in
global warming negotiations but lost a lot of trust in Copenhagen (as I
discussed here).

How would you integrate the Copenhagen Accord into the other negotiating texts that were produced throughout the year and were presented with lots of
[brackets]—disagreements—in Copenhagen? Since the Accord was
“taken note of” by all 194 countries and only some 110 of the 194
countries have “associated with the Accord” (as I discussed here)
there is pushback from some countries to inclusion of the Accord
agreements into the process in a more formal manner—notably the ALBA countries (led by Venezuela with Bolivia and Cuba also weighing-in for this group) countries and League of Arab States (led by Saudi Arabia with Egypt as their spokesperson). Saudi Arabia
has a long track record of blocking progress in the global warming
negotiations (as Andy Revkin discusses here) so this was no surprise.

So given these divisions countries agreed to let the Chair produce a
text “under her own responsibility” and present it before the next
meeting of this process—back here in Bonn this coming June. There
was a huge debate about whether she could draw upon the Copenhagen
Accord to inform the development of this text (I tweeted the play by
play on this at jschmidtnrdc). It was painful and there were times that it looked like we weren’t
going to agree, but the Chair basically said I’m going to produce
whatever text I think appropriate no matter what texts you allow me to
look at. So that framework was agreed and she’ll produce a draft
negotiating text which will help the world focus on the implementation
of key building blocks. Luckily many countries aren’t waiting for this
text before implementing actions to address global warming as I
discussed here.  

Expectations for the year—“all or nothing” (comprehensive) or make progress on what can be agreed? As I discussed here,
there is huge value in agreeing to the details on individual pieces—such as deforestation reductions, transparency, and finance—at the
meeting in Cancun this December. I would call this the “agree to what
can be agreed” method. I’m skeptical that we can agree to everything
in Cancun and also to the legal form of the future agreement, which is
why I argued to implement key building blocks necessary for international agreement and to focus on actions in Cancun. Under the alternative framework—“all or nothing”—agreement on one piece is only allowed if everything else is agreed
(this stalled getting agreement on deforestation and adaptation in
Copenhagen and we can’t afford that again).

This wasn’t expected to be resolved in Bonn, but there were some
emerging themes. The U.S. argued that the Copenhagen Accord reflected a
balanced set of agreements and were all woven together—you can’t
eliminate one without the others also falling apart.

Stay tuned on how this debate unfolds this year as it will be
critical to determining whether Cancun can be used to rebuild trust and
to begin the critical work of implementation. Too much dependence on
“all or nothing” will likely result in stalemate as some individual
pieces are unlikely to progress as far as others this year. I think
this comes down critically to ensuring that there are decisions to
implement the transparency (a key for the U.S.) and finance (a key for
developing countries) provisions of the Copenhagen Accord. So those
two interwoven issues need to be agreed with greater detail in Cancun
in order to provide confidence to the U.S. to move on finance and for the
developing countries to move on transparency. Once those two groups
feel comfortable that these issues are resolved, the other “building
blocks” of the international effort—reducing emissions from
deforestation and adaptation—can be resolved this year.

————————

All of this effort towards Cancun depends on whether the U.S. passes a
comprehensive clean energy and global warming legislation this year. Without the U.S. driving forward with implementing solutions to global
warming it will be hard to have any positive outcome in Cancun this
year.

I feel like a broken record, but please leader’s in the Senate now
is the time to act. You have ample reasons to find solutions that put
the U.S. on a path to creating clean energy jobs, reduce our dependence
on foreign oil, and reduce our global warming pollution.

Others are acting whether or not the U.S. does (as I discussed here), so it is time for the U.S. to get in the game for real.

Related Links:

U.N. climate talks in Bonn wrap up after fresh fights

U.N. climate talks in Bonn are off to a rocky start

Major economies to hold climate talks in U.S. this month

by Tom Laskawy

This is Part 2 of 2 posts of in-depth analysis into the breakthrough work on High Fructose Corn Syrup and weight gain by Princeton researchers.

_______________

How much “proof” do we need that the pervasiveness of cheap, HFCS-sweetened junk is making us ill? As a follow-up to my email exchange with Princeton HFCS study lead author Dr. Bart Hoebel, I thought I might dig into some of the underlying issues surrounding the HFCS Wars. I understand and accept that a healthy skepticism is necessary in scientific debate. But reading the responses from “independent” voice (i.e. people not affiliated with Big Food or King Corn), it’s hard not to feel that some of this skepticism is far from healthy.

Some of it, I fear, involves many critics having bought in to generalized industry demands of absolute certainty when evaluating the risks presented by industrial additives (and yes, though derived from corn and defined as “natural” by our government, high fructose corn syrup is nothing if not an industrial additive). We allow corporations to wield this requirement of absolute certainty as a shield against any reasonable use of regulators’ “precautionary principle,” i.e. the point where the need for government regulation to protect individuals or the environment trumps corporate interests.

A good definition comes from the European Commission, which requires government regulation of a substance or industrial practice when “scientific evidence is insufficient, inconclusive, or uncertain.” The existence in Europe of such a strong precautionary principle is the reason that millions of people there are protected from a slew of toxic chemicals and dangerous practices—from GMOs to atrazine to artificial food coloring (yes, there is a large body of research on the dangers of artificial food coloring)—while we remain exposed.

In fact, I think there’s even more at work here. One way to look at the effect of something like HFCS is at the individual level—how does it affect your health to consume it? What additional risk (or not) of disease or early death does it confer on you? For many, that difference compared to table sugar is relatively small and thus is deemed irrelevant—perhaps even dangerous to discuss. Cut way back on all sweeteners and you’re better off, goes the logic, so what’s the point in fighting over which sweetener is worse. This, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, is a large part of the objection many have to continued research into the health effects of HFCS.

But it’s also important to look at population-level effects. The increase in an individual’s health risks in consuming HFCS rather than table sugar may indeed be small, but when you scale it up to a nation of 300 million people (much less billions of people worldwide), those small individual increases in risk may add up to tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of cases of diabetes and heart disease and billions of dollars in additional health costs to society. And while there may be some cases where HFCS severely and acutely affects an individual’s health, the largest effects probably happen at the population level and over a longer time frame. That fact, however, shouldn’t make the study results any less valid—but I suspect that, to many analysts, it does.

I’d add one more thing—why exactly does HFCS need any defenders? I mean, why shouldn’t the bar to ban it be incredibly low? It was introduced on a mass scale 1) as a means to soak up excess corn—corn that humans couldn’t eat unprocessed—and 2) as an unintended consequence of the continued existence of a powerful sugar cartel. ADM—otherwise not in the sugar business—has become one of the top supporters of continued sugar quotas and tariffs since they have kept sugar prices high and thus kept HFCS competitive.

HFCS is the love-child of misguided protectionist trade polices along with misguided agricultural policies and by no means does it represent real “innovation.” In my view, even the hint of health issues should be enough to invoke the precautionary principle. But not in the US, where if something sickens us (or even kills us) slowly enough, companies get to market it, profit from it and, if and when it ever does get banned, receive full immunity from future lawsuits.

If the debate over climate change is any indication, there is no scientific result of sufficient clarity or certainty that can overpower huge financial or political incentives to ignore it. And that’s where we find ourselves with HFCS, as well with dozens, if not hundreds or thousands, of other industrial chemicals. We ignore this phenomenon at our growing peril.

Related Links:

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A high-fructose corn syrup researcher answers his critics

Ask Umbra’s Book Club: Are you a possum?

by David Roberts

When it comes to energy reform, the American South has often been a deadweight, anchoring the country to the status quo. There are any number reasons why: It’s oil, coal, and nuke country. It’s heavily Republican. Many of the affluent white men who dominate its politics view energy as part of the culture war, another attack by hippies on the American way of life. Plus they like trucks.

But one phenomenon more than any other shapes the South’s attitude toward energy policy. It lies beneath all the others, yet it’s the least well-understood and the most rarely discussed. What is it?

Instead of ruining the surprise, let’s take a quick detour that will help make the point.

Energy efficiency in the South

According to a report released this morning, for every dollar the South invests in energy efficiency, it will receive an average of $2.25 in benefits over the next 20 years in jobs, economic growth, and lower bills.

“Energy Efficiency in the South” is a detailed new study from researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Duke University’s Nicholas Institute; it uses models based on U.S. Energy Information Administration forecasts to estimate the benefits of various energy efficiency policies across three sectors: residential, commercial, and industrial. The conclusions, while in keeping with past research on the subject, are nonetheless pretty jaw-dropping.

According to the study, an aggressive set of energy efficiency policies in the region could:

1. Prevent energy consumption from growing over the next 20 years. In the absence of such initiatives, energy consumption in these three sectors is forecast to grow by approximately 13 percent between 2010 and 2030.

2. Generate new jobs, cut utility bills and sustain economic growth.  Overall utility bills would be reduced by $41 billion each year in 2020 and $71 billion in 2030; the average residential electricity bills would decline by $26 per month in 2020 and $50 per month in 2030; electricity rate increases would be moderated; and 380,000 new jobs would be created by 2020 (annual job growth increases to 520,000 new jobs in 2030). The region’s economy is anticipated to grow by $1.23 billion in 2020 and $2.12 billion in 2030.

3. Reduce the need for new power plants.  Almost 25 gigawatts of older power plants would be retired and the construction of up to 50 gigawatts of new plants (equal to the amount of electricity produced by 100 power plants) would be avoided.

4. Result in substantial water conservation. The reduction in power plant capacity would save southern NERC regions 8.6 billion gallons of freshwater in 2020 and 20.1 billion gallons in 2030.

(Left off this list are the incredible health benefits of reducing fossil fuel use.)

The reason efficiency has such potential in the South is that it’s the least efficient region of the country and the most fossil-fuel dependent. Low-hanging fruit abound. And it’s not just that the region as a whole would benefit, it’s that the benefits are incredibly egalitarian. Virtually everyone in the region would see their fortunes improved.

So, let’s see: Create jobs, save ratepayers money, save businesses money, save state governments money, save lives, spur economic growth … seems like a no-brainer! A case study for forward-looking public policy. And yet, despite their obvious benefits, such policies are not forthcoming in the South, and they’re unlikely to appear any time soon. Why is that?

Southern means Southern Company

Here we return to the single biggest factor in the South’s energy intransigence: the energy companies that dominate it are not participants in a competitive market. Most of the region’s utilities are regulated monopolies, which means their customers and their profits are guaranteed by law. They don’t compete; they manage state regulators, which is a whole different kind of skill. They are involved in cozy, good ol’ boy relationships with those regulators that in some cases stretch back generations. They have their way of doing things and it works for them. Why would they want change?

In particular, regulated monopoly utilities have one way to make more money: build more power plants and sell more power. They convince regulators to offer a set return on capital, and then they deploy the capital to get the return. So all that decreased consumption? All those savings on power bills? All those avoided power plants? That’s all bad news for southern utilities. It translates directly into lost revenue for them.

That’s why Southern Company, the region’s largest utility, has more lobbyists in D.C. than any other energy company, almost double the runner up. Its position has always been secured through influence over politicians. It’s got a bunch of dirty old power plants grandfathered under the Clean Air Act. It’s got guaranteed access to a growing rate base. It’s trying its damndest to keep any hint of market competition or other radical changes as far away as possible. And the last thing it wants is for its customers to start using less of its product.

It’s a damn shame. If we treated efficiency as an energy source, we would see that the South has access to an enormous reserve of it. It’s an abundant supply, and it’s cheap—cheaper than coal, cheaper than nukes, cheaper than natural gas. The South is a veritable … dare I say it? … no, I shouldn’t … but I must … Saudi Arabia of energy efficiency.

But the presence of huge demand and cheap supply means nothing unless there is a market set up to bring the one to the other. And there’s no market in the South. Energy incumbents control policy in the region, and they’ve been publicizing costs and privatizing profits for decades. They don’t want a new competitor. It’s that simple.

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Tapping the power of energy efficiency

by Umbra Fisk

Send your question to Umbra!

Q. Dear Umbra,

In
light of Lisa Hymas’ current
series on GINKing,
can you fill us in on the most eco-friendly forms of birth control currently
available?

Keeping
It Kid Free
Seattle

A. Dearest Kid
Free,

Indeed the “green inclinations, no kids” (GINK) posts have caused quite the stir. I’ve only dared to
poke the issue with a 10-foot pole a few times in the
past, but I think it’s a topic that deserves its place in the sun. I’ve also
broached the subject of contraception previously,
but it’s been several years and is totally worth another look.

Any form of birth control is greener than no birth control at all, as it aims
to prevent the addition of yet another human to our already overburdened planet
and its resources.

But let’s say that going permanent with a vasectomy or tubal ligation (truly green, GINK-approved, no more condom waste) is not yet a commitment you’re ready to make.  Fair enough. No judgement here. I’d certainly hate to have to eat my words should a mini-Umbra pop into the picture down the road.

Also, I completely understand if you are abstaining from abstinence. The next best option, effectiveness-wise would be an IUD, which either contains copper or releases the hormone progestin, as do implants. Both IUDs and implants are quite small and last for years; however, I’d probably opt for the copper as the greenest choice, what with synthetic hormone production and all.

But not comfortable with the IUD? Birth control shots, rings, pills, and patches work just fine—they all release progestin or a combo of progestin and estrogen. Aside from the hormone issues, the plastic film over the plastic cover in the paper box, which contains a zillion-page booklet of all the awful things that can happen if you take the drug, seems like overkill packaging-wise for something you use every single month. Hey, birth control companies, can’t you just give each patient one little booklet for the duration of the prescription?

My second fav option behind the copper IUD in terms of eco-ness is a reusable barrier—a diaphragm or cervical cap. Both basically get in the way of the sperms’ journey to the egg and can last a couple of years. However, in terms of effectiveness, 15–25 pregnancies result each year out of 100 women with this method—the same as with male and female condoms. And speaking of old faithful, ah, the condom. Indeed they do produce
some waste, but in the grand scheme of things (i.e., possibly producing another
human being), I’d say it’s somewhat inconsequential. Especially given that
condoms, most of which are made of biodegradable latex (though chemical
additives can complicate the process), represent 0.001 percent of trash
American households produce annually. But whatever you do, don’t flush that
condom: In addition to wasting water, it’ll just end up as a sewage solid, and
the sewage staff will have to pick it out and put it in the trash themselves.
Vom.

And if you
feel slightly stifled by your BC options, take this stroll through the evolution
of birth control, and thank your lucky stars that we’re no longer bound
into chastity belts, having to blow up condoms before use, or using a
vagina-scalding gem called Lysol douche.

Ouchily,
Umbra

Q. Hello,
Umbra!

The
massive company I work for recently got Keurig machines. I noticed that the K-Cups are not recyclable and are made from
“other or #7 plastic” which is not healthy when heated.

Anything
in mind that can be done (e.g., posting about them on Grist!) other than me calling them and asking them to change it
(which I have four times now)?

Have
a good one!

Ron
M.

A. Dearest
Ron,

So annoyed myself with these little individual-cup-producing plastic
buckets of coffee, despite the fact that the company says it’s “researching alternatives
to the K-Cup portion pack’s petroleum-based materials.” Normally
I would consider this one of those small things not to sweat so much, but it’s so easily avoided. According to parent company Green Mountain Coffee Roasters’ website, more
than 2.7 million K-Cup portion packs were brewed every day in 2008 alone. That’s
a lot of unnecessary plastic whiling away the years (and years and years) in
the landfill—not to mention the petroleum that went into making them.

You
said you’ve called “them” four times and asked them to change it—who are you
calling? Your supervisor? HR? Maybe talk to your boss to make sure you’re
contacting the right people within the company first. Then get a posse
together. Several voices are much louder than just one—even if it’s heard four
times over. Start a petition or draft an email everyone can send to show the
peeps in charge that there are lots of employees that feel the same way you do.
And be sure to offer an alternative—like coffee grounds and a reusable filter
(actually, I see that K-Cups even has a reusable
filter option). It always chaps my hide when people say they disagree with
an idea but don’t offer up any sort of alternative.

Or
perhaps some guerilla-marketing-style, anti-single-serve-coffee posters near
the machines would do the trick. Additionally, I always find it helpful to
include cute pictures of puppies when
I want to get a point across. Best of luck to you!

Javaly,
Umbra

Q. Dear Umbra,

Some
years ago I read about a study that recommended a nontoxic way to sanitize
counters: two spray bottles—one with vinegar, one with peroxide. Spray till damp;
the order doesn’t matter. Let dry.

I
can’t find a reference for this. It seems like the USDA did the study.

Kathy
Salt
Lake City

A. Dearest
Kathy,

Good
memory—that was more than a decade ago! However, it wasn’t the USDA; it was
Susan Sumner, a food scientist at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State
University, who discovered vinegar and peroxide’s combined sanitizing power,
which she found would kill almost all Salmonella, Shigella, and E. coli
bacteria. And it’s not just for counters; you can use it to clean cutting
boards and vegetables too (just give the veggies a rinse with water after
spraying them).

Sumner in Science News Online in 1996: “If
the acetic acid got rid of 100 organisms, the hydrogen peroxide would get rid
of 10,000, and the two together would get rid of 100,000.”

All you
need is regular white vinegar and 3 percent hydrogen peroxide (the same stuff
you’d buy at the drugstore) in two separate spray bottles—don’t mix the two in
one container, as it can form a weak peracetic acid, which can be highly
corrosive. Spray one and then the other onto the surface; the order doesn’t
matter. And voila!

Bacteria-freely,
Umbra

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by David Roberts

I grew up listening to my dad’s vinyl. (Kids, point your iThingies here to learn more!) He was a fan of late ‘50s and early ‘60s Brill Building-style pop—early Beatles, Little Richard, The Coasters, The Everly Brothers, The Shangri-Las, Frankie Avalon, and compilations with names like “At the Hop.” (Kids, a “sock hop” was a school dance!)

On the surface it was all innocent doo-wopping and shoo-wopping, but underneath was that reverby “Be My Baby” kick drum, the threat of real heartbreak and loss. That stuff wormed its way into my skull and has shaped my musical tastes ever since. I still can’t resist good harmonies.

I’ve been enjoying the comeback of that sort of production in everything from The Pipettes to Lucky Soul to She & Him. Now Vancouver offers its version with Maintenant (French for “now”), an album made over five years by producer Colin Stewart, singer/songwriter Nick Krgovich, and a guest list of almost 30, under the collective name Gigi. Singers and players (many Vancouver locals) dropped by to do what is effectively play acting—pretending to be back in the Brill Building, even down to the era-appropriate lyrics.

The 15 track running list could have stood some trimming, but for the most part the album’s a breezy delight. This track, “The Marquee” (with Katie Eastburn) is one of my favorites.

Related Links:

Friday music blogging: Rogue Wave

Friday music blogging: She & Him, again

Friday music blogging: Sarah Jaffe

by Jonathan Hiskes

Stevens (center) with President Obama and Justice Anthony Kennedy last September.Collection of the Supreme Court of the United StatesSupreme Court Justice
John Paul Stevens announced his long-expected retirement Friday, meaning we can expect another testy/goofy/“contentious”
confirmation process in the Senate this summer. Stevens’ retirement means a few
other things too:

1. The court loses an environmental rock star.

Stevens, appointed by
Gerald Ford in 1975, amassed an impressive record on environmental protection
cases. He consistently upheld the ability of federal agencies to regulate
pollution, as Dan Farber details
on Legal Planet. In the influential Chevron
v. NRDC (1984), he wrote the majority opinion defending government
agencies’ ability to interpret ambiguous legislation, which enabled the EPA to
set effective clean-air standards.

His crowning environmental
achievement was writing the majority opinion in Massachusetts
v. EPA (2007), which ruled that heat-trapping pollutants endanger
public health and the EPA has an obligation to regulate them. (The Obama EPA is
working on it.)

But Stevens’ influence as
the court’s longest-serving member went beyond his votes. Wrote The New York Times, “beneath his amiable manner lay a canny strategist and
master tactician, qualities he used to win victories that a simple
liberal-conservative head count would appear to be impossible.” Whichever new guy or gal
Obama chooses won’t be able to immediately replace that.

2. The new justice will be a key vote on critical environmental cases.  (You don’t get scoops like that just anywhere!)

The state of Texas has already sued the EPA for seeking to limit CO2 emissions. The National Association of
Manufacturers, the American Petroleum Institute, and other manufacturing groups
say they will do the same. Any climate action the EPA undertakes will face a
torrent of litigation. Same for any climate/energy legislation, should it ever pass out of Congress. You can expect at least some of these key cases to eventually be argued in front of the highest court in the land.

3. Bad timing for a clean-energy bill, unless it’s already screwed.

The summer confirmation
process adds to an already cramped Senate calendar, which won’t make things
any easier for a climate/energy bill (or financial regulation or immigration reform). And potential energy deal-broker
Lindsey
Graham (R-S.C.) sits on the Senate
Judiciary Committee, so he’ll be spending time on confirmation hearings and dealings.

Then again, time may
have already run out for a climate/energy bill in 2010. Once a bill is finally
introduced (soon, they say), it will face five to six weeks of EPA review. That
puts things perilously close to midterm election season, when lawmakers become
even more skittish about tackling major legislation.

 

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by Josh Nelson

When President Obama announced recently that he’d open new coastal areas to offshore drilling, there was considerable speculation as to what the political fallout might be. Most progressive pundits were baffled by the decision, and the general consensus seemed to be that it was a political move designed to influence key decision makers. The immediate reaction from the right was apoplectic, with Republican leaders like John Boehner (Ohio) taking great offense. Senator Murkowski (Alaska), whose vote some Democrats consider possible on climate legislation, is exactly the type of oil/gas friendly legislator this move was likely intended to influence. Within days of the decision, though, she went out of her way to make it clear that she was not impressed.

Sometimes in situations like this it makes sense to work backwards, by determining which segments of the American population a political decision actually appeals to. To that end, I took a look at the latest Economist/YouGov poll, which provided considerable data on who exactly among the American populace favors offshore drilling. Several folks have already taken a look at various aspects of this poll, but as far as I know no one has taken a close look at the offshore drilling data.

Using data from page nine of the full results of the Economist/YouGov 4/3-4/6 poll, I created a quick chart:

As you can see, the decision to increase offshore drilling for oil and gas is most popular among Republicans, people who are 65 and older, whites, and males. It is least popular among Democrats, people under 30, Latinos, African Americans, and females. Aside from political identification, this decision seems to appeal most to a similar demographic to that of the current United States Senate. Consider the Demographics of the Senate:

83 percent male
97 percent white
About 50 percent over the age of 65 and 90 percent over the age of 55

Now, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out the obvious here. The segment of the American population that truly stands to benefit from Obama’s foolish decision on offshore drilling is quite small: a handful of multinational oil and gas companies. These companies are among the most profitable in the world, and they spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually lobbying in order to hold policymakers hostage. Judging by Obama’s decision on offshore drilling, they seem to be getting their money’s worth.

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by Auden Schendler

I’m reposting an essay I wrote in 2007 about another mine disaster. It’s relevant to what’s happening now in West Virginia.

In March 2007, I testified before a House subcommittee on energy and mineral resources about the impact of climate change on public lands. There were seven witnesses, and one was Robert Murray, founder of Murray Energy and owner of the Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah. This, as everyone knows, is the mine that later collapsed, burying six miners; then it killed three men who were attempting a rescue when the mine collapsed again.

Murray, who sat next to me, shouted most of his testimony as he reiterated one point: Carbon regulation of any sort would hurt poor working people and the families who depend on his coal mines for their livelihood. He said, “The unfolding debate is totally skewed and one-sided, and it is preoccupied with possible speculative environmental disasters of climate change. Few are giving adequate attention to the destruction that we will definitely see … for American working people from … climate change proposals that have been introduced in the Congress … ” Murray is apparently so adamant on this point that he used a press conference after the mine cave-in to continue his lobbying.

Robert Murray became the public face of the mine disaster, but he’s also an American success story, a free-market wunderkind and a darling of the right. “I am the founder of Murray Energy Corporation from a mortgaged home,” he told Congress proudly. “The United States of America is a wonderful country. Today, I have 3,000 employees working in the most depressed areas of the United States of America.” The mine disaster, and Murray’s position on climate change, can also be seen as American entrepreneurship gone bad; it’s the story of how one’s balance sheet slowly becomes corrupted by the drive to get more, or get it faster, or get it cheaper.

People have been working in the Crandall Canyon Mine for more than 60 years. In 1997, the company bought a longwall, an advanced piece of mining equipment, which dramatically increased production. But then the coal ran out. According to the industry newsletter, Coal & Energy Price Report, the mine was near the end of its life, producing 604,000 tons in 2006, down from 1.6 million tons in 2005. Production dropped by more than half in the last 12 months. Unwilling to just shut it down, Murray’s company embarked on a new plan to extract every last bit from the mine. According to an expert quoted by the Deseret Morning News, the Crandall Mine before the recent disaster was pulling out coal that should have been left standing to support the roof. The operators used a tactic known as “retreat mining,” where miners pull the remaining pillars of coal and collapse the mine behind them. The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration may have allowed the mine to remove too much.

When he lobbies in Washington against any action dealing with climate change, Robert Murray stakes out a position in defense of the American working family; yet his own mines are notorious for safety violations. Crandall Canyon has received 325 citations since January 2004, 116 of them “significant and substantial,” according to the government. This year alone, inspectors issued 32 citations, 14 of them significant, and last month, inspectors said the mine violated a rule requiring the maintenance of two separate emergency escape passages in any given workspace. Ironically, MSHA found that this was one of the country’s safer mines, with fewer fatalities and fewer safety violations last year than the national average.

Murray’s other mine, in Ohio, also has a long history of safety violations, including five deaths in the last decade, according to a report by the Columbus Dispatch.

Carbon regulation could hardly hurt mining families more than killing off a member of the family. But Murray has painted himself as the friend of miners, showing his scars to say he is one of them. He presents himself as patriotic, humble and well intentioned. But speaking at televised news conferences during the Utah mine disaster, he appeared just the way I saw him in a Washington, D.C., hearing room—boastful, self-righteous, and arrogant.

You could say that Murray has fathered twin disasters. The underground disaster cost the lives of nine men and injured six others. The other disaster will occur in the atmosphere if his lobbying continues to be successful, and it will permanently affect the lives of the miners’ children. In both cases, Murray is doing what it takes to make his business flourish. Finished with the Crandall Mine, which he has now closed forever, Murray intends to begin retreat-mining the sky, pulling the very heavens down upon us all with the misguided sense that this is what his country wants of him.

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by David Roberts

Rachel Maddow absolutely nailed the Massey mine story, with some help from Jeff Goodell:

The tragedy at the Upper Big Branch Mine has prompted lots of folks in the national media to take a close look at Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship for the first time, but I wrote my first post on Blankenship (”Massey Energy CEO is a really bad dude”) in 2006, and Goodell wrote about Blankenship is his 2007 book Big Coal, and so all I can say is: we told you so.

I consider myself a fair and balanced kind of journalist. I like to let both sides have their say. So in that spirit, let’s acknowledge up front that Blankenship may not, in fact, be a sociopath. Medically speaking. There’s been no clinical diagnosis.

That said … c’mon.

I mean right? If there’s anything worse than dead-eyed disregard for human life, it’s dead-eyed disregard for human life delivered from beneath an almost aggressively unpleasant mustache.

My first and still best piece on Blankenship was written for a now-deceased magazine called Old Trout. Though the magazine didn’t headline it as such, in my mind it always bore a title which I thought really captured the nuances: “Don Blankenship is an evil bastard.”

My favorite Blankenship story is the one where he was caught canoodling in Monaco with a West Virginia Supreme Court justice and some, er, younger female companions … while Massey had a case before the court. And then Massey won! Later, when the canoodling became public, the court agreed to rehear the case. Then the canoodling judge agreed to recuse himself from the case (he later lost his re-election bid). Then another judge tried to get a third judge to recuse himself over ties to Blankenship (as in $3.5 million of campaign support), but then Blankenship bullied that judge off the case. The one who took $3.5 million from Blankenship refused to leave.

Then … wait for it … the court found Massey innocent again. Shortly thereafter, in a Massey parking lot, Blankenship threatened an ABC camera man, saying, “If you’re going to start taking pictures of me, you’re liable to get shot.” I mean right?

(The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled, based on an appeal from Massey’s West Virginia case, that judges have to recuse themselves from cases in which participants are large campaign contributors. Now they’ll never be able to try Blankenship in West Virginia!)

More recently Blankenship’s megalomania has driven him to become a kind of spokesman for climate skepticism and anti-regulatory ideology. He even took the ill-advised step of publicly debating Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which was like watching the 1988 Tyson-Spinks fight, but for an hour.

And now, only four years after a mine disaster for which Massey pled guilty to 10 criminal charges, only two years after a catastrophic Massey coal-ash spill, Blankenship’s company has allowed more miners to die, through what appears to be gross negligence. Sounds like Appalachians are sick of it:

As the families of the miners waited on Tuesday, frustrations grew. State and mine officials were taking a long time to confirm the names of the dead, many of the miners said. Families also voiced frustration that they had learned about the disaster from news reports rather than from Massey officials.

Some of these tensions boiled over around 2 a.m. Tuesday when Mr. Blankenship arrived at the mine to announce the death toll to families who were gathered at the site. Escorted by at least a dozen state and other police officers, according to several witnesses, Mr. Blankenship prepared to address the crowd, but people yelled at him for caring more about profits than miners’ lives.

After another Massey official informed the crowd of the new death toll, one miner threw a chair. A father and son stormed off screaming that they were quitting mining work. And several people yelled at Mr. Blankenship that he was to blame before he was escorted from the scene.

Even most banks won’t touch Massey any more. Outside of West Virginia the company’s a pariah. But inside the state, they still dance to Blankenship’s tune, even as his lawlessness leaves more and more grieving families in its wake.

Here’s some recent Blankenship coverage:

From Bloomberg: “Massey’s Blankenship Fought Regulators, Town, Maid” (the maid story is classic)
From The Washington Post: “Massey Energy has litany of critics, violations”
Unsurprisingly, unions hate Blankenship: “AFL-CIO rips company that owns site of deadly mine blast”
Mayor of Charleston, W.Va., says Blankenship is widely disliked within the coal industry
Blankenship was one of Rolling Stone’s “Climate Killers”
Even die-hard coal supporter Rep. Nick Rahall is chastising Blankenship
Naturally the fact that decent people loathe Blankenship means that right-wingers like Rush Limbaugh and Chris Stirewalt love him
Here’s some Blankenship bashing from back when he was sponsoring and speaking at teabag rallies

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by Tom Philpott

When my info-larder gets too packed, it’s time to serve up some choice nuggets from around the Web.

————————

Get ‘em while they’re hot. 

• Time’s Michael Grunwald on a truly absurd twist in U.S. farm/trade policy: in order to maintain subsidies to U.S. cotton farmers and avoid a trade war with Brazil, the U.S. government has essentially agreed to start subsidizing mega-scale Brazilian cotton farmers.

• Who wins when King Kong and Godzilla go at it? The audience—at least those folks who can avoid getting stomped by the behemoths. And here we have an entertaining cage match between two powerful, entrenched lobbies: King Corn and Industrial Meat. The topic is ethanol. The corn lobby wants the federal government to keep ramping up the goodies for corn-based ethanol. The meat lobby will accept ethanol goodies to a certain point—but roars like an abused CAFO pig when government ethanol goodies push up the price of corn significantly. The meat industry, you see, can only turn a profit when corn is cheap.

My take: a pox on both their camps. We need less corn and less low-quality, resource-intensive meat. The government should eliminate all ethanol goodies and give Corn Belt farmers incentives to transition to other crops: grass-finished beef, vegetables, etc. But of course, no one in Washington listens to me: I don’t represent a powerful, entrenched industry. Here’s what we’re likely to get instead: more ethanol goodies, and more incentive for farmers to increase corn production—soil, climate, Gulf of Mexico be damned. Corn prices will hover in the $3-$5/bushel range, and the meat industry will slash costs in other areas to maintain profitability. In other words, pretty much business as usual.

• But … Corn Belt farmers and their surrounding communities would benefit economically if they at least partially exited the co(r)n game, transitioned some of their land to fruits and vegetables, and sold the produce within the region. So says a new study from the Leopold Center. The study focused on the Upper Midwest: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

In one scenario, the researchers estimated what would happen if farms in those states supplied seasonal fruits and vegetables to the region’s 28 metropolitan areas with at least 250,000 people. (Currently, the vast bulk of produce consumed in the region is trucked in from elsewhere.)

To do so, about 200,000 acres would have to be transitioned from corn and soy (that’s a tiny amount of land in Corn Belt terms—about two-thirds the size of a typical Iowa farm county). “Considering all relevant multipliers, that farm-level production would support 6,694 jobs and $284.61 million in labor income in the six-state area,” the researchers conclude. Meanwhile, keeping that same amount of land in corn and soy supports 1,892 jobs and $42.517 million in labor incomes. In other words, there would be a massive net economic gain from transitioning that much land to fruit and veg.

Seems like many farmers in the Midwest would do well to cancel their National Corn Growers Association memberships and start thinking about what it would take to grow and market veggies.

• Okay, it’s Friday. Some straight foodiness. More than 30 years ago, an obscure young woman published a cookbook on a country that few Americans thought of in culinary terms. That woman was Paula Wolfert, and that book was Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco. What followed was arguably the greatest career in cookbook writing of her generation: something like six classic texts. My stomach literally grumbles when I think of the creations I’ve made guided by Wolfert’s books. Here she is, in a Food and Wine profile,  going back to Morocco. Note well: The piece includes recipes. It’s a little early in the season for eggplant and tomatoes, but I can’t wait to try this one.

 

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by Brad Johnson

Cross-posted from Wonk Room.

A strong cap on carbon would significantly cut the flow of petrodollars to Iran’s hostile regime, a Wonk Room analysis shows. The economic and political strength of Iran’s dictatorship is a threat to the national security of the United States and the world, and its nuclear ambitions threaten to destabilize the Middle East. Yesterday, diplomats from “six world powers have met for the first time to discuss imposing new sanctions on Iran for its failure to suspend work on its controversial nuclear program,” but negotiators have not yet figured how to achieve President Barack Obama’s goal of being “consistent and steady in applying international pressure.”

Iran, “which holds the world’s second-biggest oil and gas reserves and supplies about 4.5 percent of the world’s oil production,” uses its oil power “as a strategic asset.”  Even though oil is “one of history’s Big Levers concerning Iran,” the idea of gas sanctions to control Iran’s oil income is not likely to succeed, and could even backfire.

One mechanism to control the flow of petrodollars to Iran — whose oil production is worth $120 billion a year at current prices — is for the United States to control its appetite for oil. Based on an economic analysis by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology of a carbon cap that reduces global warming pollution by 80 percent by 2050, the Wonk Room has found that Iran would lose approximately $1.8 trillion worth of oil revenues over the next forty years — over $100 million a day:

 

The United States is by far the world’s biggest consumer of oil, accounting for 25 percent of world production. Our demand is more than the four next biggest consumers — China, Japan, India, and Russia — combined, despite having only 11 percent of their population. Unilateral action by the United States to reduce oil consumption has a profound effect on the world market, and is the first step towards global climate policy that builds a zero-carbon economy.

If the world moves away from oil dependence, Iran’s regime will no longer be able to rely on petrodollars to stay afloat. Other unfriendly regimes propped up by carbon-fuel money, such as Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela, will also feel the pinch, improving our national security and making it less likely our armed services will fight battles amid the oil fields.  For that to happen, the United States must pass comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation as fast as possible, the stronger the better.

A note about methodology:

Iran’s oil production is assumed fixed at 2008 oil production levels of 4,174,000 barrels/day [EIA]. Iran’s lost oil production value is calculated by the projected effect of strong global climate policy on the world oil price for producers, as determined by the 2007 Massachusetts Institute of Technology report Assessment of U.S. Cap-and-Trade Proposals, which calculated a reference scenario crude oil price and a 167 bmt scenario producer crude oil price [see reference data]. That difference is multiplied by Iran’s annual oil production to estimate lost production value. The 167 bmt scenario has cumulative US carbon dioxide emissions between 2010 and 2050 of 167 billion metric tons, equivalent to emissions targets of 1990 levels by 2020 and 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. These targets are similar to those in current legislation. Under the reference scenario, global CO2 concentrations reach 880 ppm and temperatures increase 3.5 – 4.5°C over current temperatures, a global catastrophe. Under the 167 bmt scenario, CO2 concentrations reach 520 ppm, and temperatures increase only 1.8 – 2.2°C.

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by Jonathan Hiskes

Courtesy

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by David Roberts

Well now isn’t this interesting.

Throughout the seemingly endless battle over climate-change legislation, not once have the folks behind the biggest source of climate pollution—coal executives—been asked to publicly account for their industry’s role. Now it looks like they will.

On Wed. April 14 at 9:30am, the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming will hold a hearing called “The Role of Coal in a New Energy Age.”

For the first time in recent memory, the CEOs of America’s top two coal mining companies, and a leading international company, will come to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to answer questions on their positions on climate change, clean energy policy, and the challenges that currently face their industry.

Testifying will be:

Gregory Boyce, President and CEO, Peabody Energy Corp
Steven Leer, Chairman and CEO, Arch Coal Inc
Preston Chiaro, Chief Executive for Energy and Minerals, Rio Tinto
Michael Carey, President, Ohio Coal Association

These are big dogs. Peabody is the largest private-sector coal company in the world; Arch Coal is the second largest supplier of coal in the U.S. Both are heavily invested in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, the nation’s largest source of low-sulfur coal, which is expected to expand and prosper in coming years, climate legislation or no climate legislation. Both are among the top industry contributors to U.S. Congresscritters. Rio Tinto is also one of the largest coal mining companies in the world and the second largest producer in the U.S.

The Ohio Coal Association is a trade group that advocates for Ohio’s coal industry and has supported efforts to block EPA regulations of CO2. After the House vote on the Waxman-Markey bill, the OCA bought billboards throughout the state attacking Ohio Rep. Zack Space (D) for voting yes. They read, “Like a puppet on a string, Congressman Space danced to Nancy Pelosi’s tune in voting for the National Energy tax.”

Notably absent: Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy and owner of the Upper Big Branch Mine, site of the recent disaster that saw the deaths of at least 25 coal miners.

Regardless, these are some of the big players. It will be very revealing to see them asked publicly, as far as I know for the first time, whether they believe in climate change and, if they do, how they account for their industry’s role in it.

I’ll be watching with popcorn!

Related Links:

Before the Massey mine disaster, there was Crandall Canyon

Grist: hating on Don Blankenship before hating on Don Blankenship was cool

Massey coal miner suspected safety problems might prove fatal