Author: Grist – the Latest from Grist

by Grist

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Developing nations continue to lead post-Copenhagen

India, Italy, Brazil can fill America’s blanks

Climate success in 2009 should inspire the new year

by Daniel Moss

How does improved water stewardship fit into cooling our
planet? How well were the water-climate connections made at the recent Copenhagen climate
deliberations?

If you’re like me, you only have a lay person’s
understanding of ecology—and global politics for that matter. But I do know
that the CO2 reduction and carbon sequestration strategies that were batted
around in Denmark—caring for our tropical forests and fighting desertification, for example—will require copious amounts of clean water.

I’m beginning to understand that the role of water in
climate change is not just about adapting to accelerating droughts and floods. Michal
Kravcik, a Slovakian hydrologist, said in advance of the Copenhagen talks,
“My expectations are simple: to incorporate in the Copenhagen Protocol a
mechanism of using water for recovery of the climate … Until now, all
initiatives for solution of climatic changes addressed only CO2 reduction.”

Kravcik’s research suggests that
climate stabilization requires ensuring that water is absorbed into the earth. That
absorption and the subsequent recharging of groundwater reserves prevent
landscapes from drying and allows water to play its essential temperature
regulating role.

What’s becoming clearer is that getting
to 350 parts per million of CO2 isn’t a goal that can be separated from careful
and massive restoration of the earth’s ailing watersheds. And that means
grappling with thorny questions of who owns and manages the water commons we all share—a
conversation unfortunately not had in Copenhagen.

That’s not a complaint; it makes a lot of sense that
emissions reduction was the principal focus at the climate talks—and truly tragic
that nations didn’t take the necessary bold steps in that area. But water can’t
remain at the edges of the climate change conversation for very long. It’s too
important in bringing the earth’s climate back into balance.

Our well-intentioned attempts at climate correction are hurt
by not looking at the full picture. Salvation is much more likely when our
remedial steps are based on basic principles of ecology—inter-relationship—not
of a separate air or water or forest program.

What steps can we take towards this kind of holistic climate
stabilization strategy that revives water’s critical role in cooling our planet?
Here are a few ideas:

Build
on Michal Kravcik’s research. It makes
intuitive sense that water facilitates cooling—just think about how you pour
it into your car’s radiators. But let’s nail down water’s specific contribution
to global cooling and come up with a specific goal for hydrological health akin
to the very tangible and campaignable 350 parts per million for the atmosphere.
This
hydrological health relies on health watersheds. Maude
Barlow proposes declaring not only water, but watersheds themselves, as a
commons so that property rights don’t disrupt ecosystem health and a
water-cooled planet.
We
must push back on climate change mitigation strategies that don’t depart from a
holistic understanding of the planet’s interdependent ecosystems. For example,
it makes little sense to have a forest-based, carbon sequestration strategy
unless the water necessary for forest life is safeguarded.
Ensuring
that adequate water is available to cool the earth means to take a hard look at
current water use and abuse. We must hold industry, agriculture, and sprawling
municipalities to sustainable water use and non-contamination standards—which
in many cases simply means implementing existing water and public health
regulations.
Our
actions ought to be informed by a worldview that holds that water is a commons
shared equally by all of humanity and all of nature. That means proposing
models of water ownership and management compatible with a commons concept—heavy on citizen engagement and light on privatization.

Water activists like Anil Naidoo of the Blue Planet Project were vocal in Copenhagen to make the
climate-water link. The Copenhagen Water and Climate Justice Statement’s call
to action begins, “Whereas the abuse, over extraction and displacement of water
to promote a global economy based on unlimited growth and corporate power is a
major cause of climate change … “

There’s clearly much to be learned from the Copenhagen experience. It’s a good time to step
back and hammer out new strategies. Managing water as a commons is one important
step towards a healthy climate. It not only makes a lot of ecologic sense, but
may make good movement-building sense as well. Imagine the power of the climate
change movement when it includes not only associations of water engineers—but
6 billion water consumers worldwide.

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‘Water’ author Stephen Solomon talks resource intelligence

Everyone Poops – – and a few spin gold

Chicken or Egg – – Health Care or Climate Change?

by Tyler Falk

Seattle, Wash.—Attending the American Farm Bureau’s annual meeting in the Emerald City on Sunday, I felt like a Red Sox fan at a Yankees game. It did nothing to calm my nerves when I heard Farm Bureau President Bob Stallman say this:

A line must be drawn between our polite and respectful engagement with consumers and the way we must aggressively respond to extremists who want to drag agriculture back to the day of 40 acres and a mule … Who would blame us for thinking that the avalanche of misguided, activist-driven regulation on labor and environment being proposed in Washington is anything but unfriendly?

American Farm Bureau President Bob Stallman speaks at the opening general session.Photo: American Farm BureauYikes! I was at the meeting to see what role sustainability and environmental concerns play in the Farm Bureau’s philosophy, and Stallman was giving me a pretty good idea.

With its 6 million members, the group is highly influential. It’s traditionally friendly to agribusiness, and in the past year has played a notable role in bogging down and opposing climate legislation. During his opening speech, Stallman touted the Farm Bureau’s corny anti-cap-and-trade slogan:

At the very same time that we need to increase our food production, climate change legislation threatens to slash our ability to do so. The exact level of land that will shift to trees will depend on the price of carbon … the USDA suggests we could easily be talking about 59 million acres … Stop by our tradeshow booth, sign a petition, pick up a farm cap. Our message to Congress about cap-and-trade is clear—Don’t CAP Our Future.

OK, he’s clearly not a cap-and-trade fan. So later, at a press conference, I asked Stallman if there were climate change legislation that he would support. His response:

Attendees signed a petition to tell Congress “Don’t CAP Our Future.”Photo: Tyler FalkThere are a lot of people who say the only thing you can have is a
carbon tax or a mandatory cap-and-trade program. We disagree with that.
We think we can move forward with a renewable electricity standard,
more incentives for solar and wind energy, voluntary tax-based
incentives, or subsidy based incentives, continue with a renewable fuel
standard, create more supplies of natural gas to displace some of the
electricity generation done by coal, research and development of carbon
capture and storage to be sure we’re able to use these vast coal
reserves we have in this country in a way that keeps carbon from being
emitted into the atmosphere. And then sort of a Manhattan Project, if
you will, for nuclear power … But all of those things could be done and put in place through
government policy at a much lower cost to the economy [than cap-and-trade] in a manner that
wouldn’t downsize American agriculture. So we think that’s a much
better approach.

The tradeshow floor.Photo: Tyler FalkAfter all that talk about renewables, I headed over to the tradeshow to see for myself what kind of exciting green innovations are happening in the agriculture world. Well, let’s see. There’s a John Deere tractor, and of course John Deere apparel. Here’s a Stihl weedeater. I smell some ham cooking somewhere. Oh wait, look over there—an ethanol booth! That’s a start—if only it didn’t take so much energy to make ethanol in the first place. There’s a guy promoting “going green” by using propane. And another “environmental” guy who seems primarily interested in manure. Nothing organic or actually sustainable in sight. Keep looking. Wait, what’s that over there in the corner? I can’t quite see it past the glare of shiny new Dodge Rams. Hey, it’s the European Union booth!

Shiny trucks!Photo: Tyler FalkTurns out the Europeans have the only display promoting sustainable agriculture. When I tell the woman at the booth about my interest in sustainable agriculture, she eagerly loads me up with more literature than I can carry (plus all of the other E.U. memorabilia that she clearly doesn’t think she’ll be able to give away during the meeting). 

Feeling disappointed with the state of modern U.S. agriculture, I decided to get kicked while I was down and subject myself to some good old fashioned climate change denial.

Before a standing-room-only crowd of about a thousand white-haired farmers, the charismatic Christopher C. Horner, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, was there to give us the “story behind the story about global warming.” He hit on “Climategate,” global cooling, Al Gore’s cherry-picked data, and just about every other denialist argument you’ve ever heard. After the presentation a woman I overheard on the escalator said: “He was great. I wouldn’t want to debate him though. He talks so fast. Boy, does he know his stuff though.” Thank you for smoking, anyone?

So there you have it from the American Farm Bureau’s annual meeting: Don’t cap our future, don’t bother us with “sustainable” ag, and global warming isn’t real.

I’m going to put on my XL E.U. T-shirt and dream of a sustainable world, because from what I saw on Sunday that’s about as close as I’ll get.

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Industrial farming head just says ‘no’ to call for civility

Is the Obama administration about to eat the foodies’ lunch?

Scientists demand meeting to talk climate with head of American Farm Bureau

by Tom Laskawy

For those of you wondering if we can have a more civil discourse over food and agriculture in this country, American Farm Bureau President Bob Stallman has an answer for you: Fat chance!

According to Stallman [MS Word], the top challenge facing farmers isn’t the rising cost of seed, fertilizer, and pesticides. Or the alarming growth of superweeds (a new report says that over 50 percent of fields in Missouri harbor weeds resistant to the herbicide RoundUp, upon which the entire GMO production style is based). Or the threat posed by climate change, which could reduce U.S. grain yields substantially soon and by 80 percent within decades.

No, the top challenge facing farmers is, and I quote, “the nonstop criticism of contemporary agriculture.”

Hoo boy. And Stallman’s just warming up:

[A] line must be drawn between our polite and respectful engagement with consumers and the way we must aggressively respond to extremists who want to drag agriculture back to the day of 40 acres and a mule.

Our adversaries are skillful at taking advantage of our politeness. Publicly, they call for friendly dialogue while privately their tactics are far from that.

Who could blame us for thinking that the avalanche of misguided, activist-driven regulation on labor and environment being proposed in Washington is anything but unfriendly.

The time has come to face our opponents with a new attitude. The days of their elitist power grabs are over.

General George Patton was very quotable. He said that in times of war, “Make your plans to fit the circumstances.”

To those who expect to just roll over America’s farm and ranch families, my only message is this: The circumstances have changed.

I would humbly submit that one does not invoke General Patton (a guy who liked to smack his underlings around when the mood struck) if one is seeking to establish a more civilized discourse. And in case you were wondering which extremists Stallman was referring to, it’s the ones that use “emotionally charged labels such as: monoculture, factory farmer, industrial food, and big ag.” You know, people like Barack Obama.

A good portion of Stallman’s speech was a call for unity among farmers—whether they are organic, grass-fed types or GMOers—and against, well, us. But that wasn’t all. There was also an attack on climate change legislation—and this is an angle I think proponents of the bill need to be prepared for—because it will “cut the number of acres devoted to food production”—possibly up to 59 million acres, he said—in favor of trees. This number is highly suspect, of course, having come from a USDA analysis that Ag Chief Tom Vilsack himself has declared flawed. There was also a hit on developing nations disguised as clear-eyed “realism” when Stallman suggested that they would never be able to take responsibility for feeding themselves:

Unfortunately, the hard facts are, that for parts of the world, we cannot improve the depth of topsoil, create rainfall, make the climate more temperate, or ensure economic and social justice for farmers.

Best just to send the GMOs and Roundup, I guess. Oh, and Stallman, representative of the part of the industry that benefits most from direct, cash payouts from the federal government—on the order of $12 billion a year—called for budget austerity for everyone else. Yes, the AFB is starting its own Deficit Reduction Task Force no doubt to do for the rest of government spending what they’ve done for agriculture. And remember, said Stallman, the only “sustainability” that matters is “economic sustainability.” Is that before or after you cash your subsidy check, Bob?

But most of the speech involved an extended, if veiled, suggestion that an attack on conventional agriculture is an attack on abundant, reasonably priced food. This is, of course, demonstrably false. The data shows that non-chemically intensive practices yield almost exactly the same. Yet another inconvenient truth that industry tries to ignore and anyway is sort of beside the point. What Stallman is really doing is setting the stage for the coming battle over agricultural subsidies, set for renewal in 2012. The way things are must not change, suggests Stallman. And lucky for Stallman, they probably won’t.

We received a taste of what’s to come just the other week when the USDA announced minimal changes to an eligibility rule for subsidies. It involved the current loose definition of what it means to be “actively engaged” in farming and was something that Obama had promised to fix during his campaign, even to the point of making it part of his Rural Agenda. What happened? Well, my sources suggest that none other than Senate Ag Chair Blanche Lincoln, she of the sub-40 percent polling numbers, couldn’t stomach the financial loss to her large-scale rice and cotton-growing constituents that tightening eligibility would entail. And so, reform got a sucker punch from bare-knuckled politics, which is pretty typical where ag policy is concerned. Sadly, there remains no political upside to opposing the agricultural status quo.

What’s truly discouraging in Stallman’s speech is that he and his compatriots don’t see the opportunity here. Forget throwing off the chains of industrial agriculture, what about calling for more farmers? Or trying to tap into the growing excitement over food and how it’s grown? Or touting agriculture as a promising and under-appreciated engine of future job growth? Or even reveling in the coming financial and technological windfall from climate change mitigation? Instead we get paranoid fantasies, accusations of climate hoaxes and even calls to privatize Social Security. Ah, well. Better luck next year, eh, Bob?

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[UPDATED:] FDA’s food safety blogger doesn’t think meat safety is a problem

Seeking sustainability, finding skeptics at the American Farm Bureau meeting

Gates Foundation throws its lot with agribusiness

by Daniel J. Weiss

During President-Elect Barack Obama’s transition, the Center for American Progress proposed a 10-point clean-energy agenda for the president and Congress that would speed the economic transformation to a clean energy economy.
A review of these items today finds that all were adopted or are
working their way through the process. This is a startling achievement
amidst the worst economy in 70 years, two wars, and an opposition party disinterested in cooperation. President Obama did much of what he promised, and he can do more in 2010 by cajoling Congress to do its part.

These achievements will have real world impact. By 2011, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, P.L. 111-5, will double the generation of renewable electricity from the wind, sun, and earth. ARRA will also lead to energy efficiency retrofits in 1 million homes by 2012. And President Obama’s new fuel economy standards would save 1.8 billion barrels of oil. Additional benefits will accrue
as the president and Congress finish some 2009 clean-energy initiatives
and additional efforts are launched in 2010.

Here’s a review of progress made by the president and Congress over the past year.

1. Wish they all could be California cars

The Bush administration blocked efforts by California and 16 other states to reduce greenhouse gas pollution from motor vehicles. On May 19 of last year, President Obama announced an agreement with California, the auto
companies, and the United Auto Workers to establish the first-ever
greenhouse gas limits for motor vehicles. The plan would increase fuel economy standards by one-third by 2016, which would
save 1.8 billion barrels of oil. It would also cut greenhouse gas
pollution by nearly 1 billion metric tons, which is equivalent to
removing 177 million cars from the road. The plan should be final in
March 2010.

2. Global warming is a real and present danger

The Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts vs. EPA that the Clean Air Act gives the Environmental Protection Agency the
authority to require greenhouse gas reductions from power plants and
other sources. But first the EPA has to make an “endangerment finding”
that global warming poses a threat to Americans’ health and safety.
Despite a recommendation from EPA scientists to do so, the Bush
administration refused. Under President Obama, EPA followed the science
and the law by making the endangerment finding on Dec. 7, 2009.

In March, EPA should finalize its big polluter rule to focus greenhouse gas reductions on large sources-those facilities that emit 25,000 metric tons of GHG pollution annually. The pollution limits will only apply to about 7,500
facilities, and they’ll exclude farms, small businesses, and other
relatively small emitters. Unfortunately, big oil and its allies continue to lie by claiming the EPA pollution reduction rules will apply to farmers and Mom and Pop stores.

3. Green stimulus and recovery

As the economic hurricane gathered force last winter CAP recommended
that any recovery plan include $100 billion for clean-energy programs.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act, or ARRA, which became law on Feb. 17, 2009, includes $70
billion for clean-energy investments in the Weatherization Assistance
Program, energy-efficiency in government buildings, states’ efficiency
and renewable energy programs, public transit, high-speed rail,
advanced battery research, and other programs. ARRA also includes $20
billion in clean-energy tax incentives for residential efficiency
measures, wind and solar power, and super-efficient cars. The New York Times called this program “the largest energy bill ever passed.”

The Department of Energy and other agencies adopted safeguards to
ensure that these funds are well spent given the unprecedented size and
scope of the programs. This took longer than anticipated, so a large
portion of clean-energy funds have been allocated but not spent. DOE received $33 billion, nearly half of the clean-energy funds,
and it has awarded $23 billion, or about two-thirds of these funds, to
eligible states and other grantees. As of December 31, less than $2
billion—or 6 percent—was spent.

The rate of spending, job creation, and energy savings will
accelerate in 2010 after the awarded funds are spent. On Jan. 8, for
instance, President Obama announced the award of “$2.3 billion in Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credits,” which
should leverage another $5 billion in private investments. These funds
will go to “One hundred eighty three projects in 43 states [that] will
create tens of thousands of high-quality, clean-energy jobs and the
domestic manufacturing of advanced clean-energy technologies including
solar, wind, and efficiency and energy management technologies.”

Vice President Joe Biden released an analysis in December showing that just two ARRA programs—investments in
renewable and smart manufacturing, and smart grid technologies—would
create more than 800,000 jobs. And based on past experience the $5
billion ARRA investment in low-income home weatherization projects
could create another 160,000 jobs.

4. Mercury falling

The Bush administration’s proposal to delay reductions in mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants was struck down by a federal court because it was less protective of public health than required by the Clean Air Act. The Bush EPA, according to The New York Times, “ignored its legal obligation to require the strictest possible controls on the toxic metal.”

EPA reached a settlement in the lawsuit that led to the mercury rule’s rejection, which would
require it to propose mercury limits by March 16, 2011, and finalize
the limits by Nov. 16, 2011. Power plants would have to meet plant
specific mercury reductions.

5. Curb the enthusiasm for greenhouse gases

Scientists recommend developed countries reduce their greenhouse gas
pollution 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to stave off the worst
impacts of global warming. They should also reduce emissions 80 percent
below 1990 levels by 2050. These reductions should prevent a
temperature rise of 2 degrees C.

In order to work more closely with Congress the Obama administration
did not propose its own numeric pollution reductions. Instead, it supported House passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act, or ACES, H.R. 2454, which passed the House of Representatives on June 26, 2009. The World Resources Institute, or WRI, estimates that this bill would achieve an overall pollution reduction of 28
percent below 2005 levels and a 16 percent reduction below 1990 levels.
By 2050 it would reduce pollution by 71 percent below 1990 levels.

The administration also supported the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, S. 1733, which the Senate Environment Committee passed on November 5, 2009.
WRI estimates this bill would reduce emissions by 17 percent and 68
percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and 2050, respectively. Sens. John
Kerry (D-Mass), Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.), and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) are
developing comprehensive compromise energy and global warming
legislation that would reduce greenhouse gas pollution by 17 percent.

6. The answer is blowing in the wind (and shining in the sun)

Twenty-eight states—including the District of Columbia— require
utilities to produce a proportion of their electricity from the wind,
the sun, the earth’s core, and other renewable sources. In 2008, CAP
recommended that President Obama support and Congress pass a nationwide
renewable electricity standard of 25 percent by 2025.

ACES would require utilities to generate 15 percent of their
electricity from renewable sources by 2020, with utilities allowed to
meet 3 percent of the target via energy-efficiency measures. The bill
also requires utilities to reduce demand by an additional 5 percent.

A wind turbine at the Fowler Ridge Wind Farm in Benton County, IndianaVaxomatic via FlickrOn June 17, 2009, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee passed the American Clean Energy and Leadership Act, S. 1462.
It would require a 15 percent renewable electricity standard by 2021,
which allows utilities to meet 3 percent of this requirement via energy
efficiency measures. The bill, however, has a weak enforcement
mechanism that may ease noncompliance. An analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists determined that “the amount of renewable energy required under the RES
would be less than this level [15 percent], between 7.4 and 10.7
percent. This is worse-or at best-only marginally better than the
amount of renewable energy generated without a national RES.” To
significantly boost investments in wind, solar, and other renewable
power, the Senate must include a more aggressive renewable electricity
standard in its energy and global warming bill expected on the floor
this spring.

7. Bridge loans to the 21st century

General Motors and Chrysler sought federal assistance to prevent bankruptcy after the November 2008 general election. President George W. Bush provided $17 billion in loans before he left office, and President Obama provided another $62 billion to prevent the destruction of the domestic auto industry, which is
responsible for 1 in 10 American jobs. During this process, CAP urged
that the companies use this assistance to pursue the development,
production, and sale of more fuel-efficient automobiles.

The Obama administration provided loans to these two companies with the provision that they
restructure their operations and manufacture “the fuel-efficient cars
and trucks that will carry us towards an energy-independent future.”

GM’s assistance and restructuring plan requires it to “have a significant focus on developing high
fuel-efficiency cars that have broad consumer appeal because they are
cost-effective, have good performance and are reliable, durable, and
safe.” Chrysler’s merger with Fiat “could lead to Chrysler
manufacturing fuel-efficient vehicles using Fiat’s technology.”

Last year the federal government also launched a “cash for clunkers” program to help speed the recovery of the auto industry, create jobs, and
reduce oil use. It created an economic incentive to spur the trade in
of old gas guzzlers for new, efficient models, and 700,000 clunkers
were taken off the roads. The Department of Transportation determined that the average fuel economy of the new cars was 9 miles
per gallon more-nearly a 60 percent improvement. The program also saved
or created more than 40,000 jobs.

8. Pick the low-hanging energy fruit

Energy efficiency is called the “low-hanging fruit”
of clean energy since technology can be employed in myriad ways to
reduce energy consumption and also save money. Efficiency would also
reduce global warming emissions to boot. Last year, CAP proposed several
new efficiency programs including incentives for states to put energy
efficiency on equal footing with new power plants; establishment of a
federal “energy efficiency resource standard” that requires utilities
to reduce energy consumption; and fully funding the Deployment of
Combined Heat and Power Systems, District Energy Systems, Waste Energy
Recovery Systems, and Efficient Industrial Equipment program to capture
and reuse industrial waste heat.

Photo courtesy kimberlyfaye via Flickr The Obama administration understands the economic and energy
benefits of efficiency, and it demonstrated this by investing
significant resources in it over the past year. ACES, which the
administration supports, includes a 5 percent energy efficiency
resource standard. ARRA provided incentives for states to “adopt certain utility regulatory policies to encourage
utility-sponsored energy efficiency improvements.” It also included
$150 million for nine “combined heat and power” and other industrial
waste energy recovery projects. There were 358 other applications for
similar eligible shovel-ready projects that would cost $9 billion and
create 57,000 jobs. These projects would save the energy equivalent of
160 million barrels of oil annually.

ARRA included a total of $25 billion in spending for private efficiency measures and government programs. President Obama also issued Executive Order 13423 to promote “federal leadership in environmental, energy, and economic performance.” It would require federal agencies to slash their greenhouse gas pollution, “increase energy efficiency,
reduce fleet petroleum consumption,” and take other steps to promote
efficiency and sustainability.

On Dec. 8, 2009, President Obama proposed including residential and industrial efficiency programs as
part of any job creation package considered by Congress to combat
unemployment. The program would create economic incentives for owners
to retrofit their homes or buildings to become more energy efficient.
On Dec. 16, the House passed the Jobs for Main Street Act, H.R.
2847, which expands existing energy loan guarantee programs to include
large-scale residential and commercial energy efficiency projects. The
Senate should include a more vigorous version of the House measure with
a “Home Star” or “cash for caulkers”
program in its job creation package. The programs would provide
economic incentives to homeowners to make their homes more energy
efficient via improved air sealing and insulation, advanced building
materials, and state-of-the-art appliances. This would quickly create
hundreds of thousands of jobs in construction and manufacturing. It
would slice participants’ energy bills by 20 percent or more.

9. Green the wires

The lack of transmission capacity is a significant impediment to the broad expansion of renewable energy.
Grid modernization must accompany increasing renewable energy
generation, including the ability to incorporate intermittent renewable
electricity generation. ARRA provided $4.5 billion to DOE for smart
grid deployment and transmission line enhancement, and DOE just awarded $60 million for “transmission planning for the country’s three interconnection
transmission networks.” This is the first step to enhancing the U.S.
electricity transmission network.

What’s more, the American Clean Energy and Leadership Act,
includes an “‘interstate highway system’ for electricity by creating a
new bottoms-up planning system for a national transmission grid.” The
bill allows “states to take the initial lead in deciding where to build
high-priority national transmission projects,” but if this process

doesn’t yield siting and construction of high-priority transmission
projects then the federal government can step in. This proposal should
significantly hasten the planning, siting, and building of new
transmission capacity. It should be included in the energy and global
warming bill the Senate plans to debate this spring.

10. Rise of the new machines

Research, development, and deployment of new clean-energy technologies were woefully underfunded by the Bush administration.
An important element of the clean-energy agenda for the incoming Obama
administration was to resume significant investments in the
clean-energy technologies of the future. ARRA included nearly $9
billion for the Advanced Research Project Agency for advanced energy
technology research, carbon capture-and-storage technologies to remove
and store carbon pollution from power plants, advanced batteries, and
other projects.

The year ahead

Overall, President Obama’s first year included unprecedented
successes and efforts to speed the transformation to a 21st century
clean energy economy. In addition to launching the aforementioned
investments, he overturned a number of energy decisions made by the
Bush administration that ignored sound science while favoring big oil
and other special interests.

His success was led by a clean energy all-star team, including
Assistant to the President Carol Browner, Agriculture Secretary Tom
Vilsack, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Environmental Protection Agency
Administrator Lisa Jackson, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, NOAA
Administrator Jane Lubchenco, and Science Advisor John Holdren.

The unprecedented achievements in year one must continue in year
two. The top priority is enactment of comprehensive clean-energy and
global warming legislation that would create jobs, increase American
energy independence, restore our economic competitiveness, and cut
pollution.

To build on the outstanding first year, President Obama and Congress should accomplish the following goals:

Congress should enact clean-energy jobs and global
warming pollution reduction legislation, beginning with Senate passage
of a bill.

The final bill that lands on Obama’s desk should include:

At least a 17 percent reduction in greenhouse gas pollution by 2020 and an 80 percent reduction by 2050.
A robust renewable electricity standard.
Significant investments in energy efficiency.
Clean-energy job creation programs.
Significant investments in clean-energy manufacturing competitiveness.
Jumpstarting electricity transmission siting and construction efforts.
An independent Clean Energy Deployment Administration (green bank).
Incentives to increase natural gas use for transportation and electricity with new safeguards for shale gas production.
Pollution reductions through strong participation in international efforts to cut deforestation in half by 2020.
Aggressive oil savings measures.

Strengthen the Copenhagen Accord as a legally binding
agreement that makes sure developed and developing nations commit to
sufficient pollution reductions to keep global warming to 2 degrees C by 2050.

Launch a “Home Star” or “cash for caulkers” program as a center element of job creation legislation.

Make sure EPA finalizes the clean car and major greenhouse gas polluters rules.

Ensure EPA proposes greenhouse gas pollution limits for large industrial polluters.

Other items on Obama’s energy to-do list should include investing in
clean-energy research, implementing efficiency measures, boosting
renewable energy production, and implementing clean-energy job training
programs. The administration should continue to pursue clean-energy
economic development strategies for inner cities and rural areas.

Obama and Congress’ efforts on clean energy over the past year were
an unprecedented about face from the Bush administration’s big oil
approach. They should continue to speed along the clean energy path
this year.

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by Todd Woody

Forget Red China. It’s Green China these days—at least when it comes to making big renewable deals.

eSolar power plant. Friday night, a Chinese developer and eSolar of Pasadena, Calif., signed an agreement to build solar thermal power plants in the Mongolian desert over the next decade. These plants would generate a total of 2,000 megawatts of electricity. It’s the largest solar thermal project in the world and follows another two-gigawatt deal China struck in October with Arizona’s First Solar for a massive photovoltaic power complex. Altogether, the eSolar and First Solar projects would produce, at peak output, the amount of electricity generated by about four large nuclear power plants, lighting up millions of Chinese homes.

Is China the new California, the engine powering the green tech revolution?

Yes and no. When it comes to technological and entrepreneurial innovation, Beijing lags Silicon Valley (and Austin, Boston, and Los Angeles)—for now. But as a market, China is likely to drive demand for renewable energy, giving companies like eSolar the opportunity to scale up their technology and drive down costs.

[We’ll pause here to state the obvious: China’s investment in renewable energy and other green technologies is miniscule compared to the resources devoted to its continued building of coal-fired power plants and efforts to secure dirty oil shale supplies in Canada and elsewhere.]

“All the learning from this partnership will help us in the United States,” Bill Gross, eSolar’s founder and chairman, told me. “I think as soon as the economy improves in the rest of the world and banks start lending, there will be a lot of competition in the U.S. and Europe. But, until then, China has the money and the demand.”

In a one-party state, a government official saying, “Make it so,” can remove obstacles to any given project and allocate resources for its development. Construction of the first eSolar project, a 92-megawatt power plant, in a 66-square-mile energy park in northern China, is set to begin this year

“They’re moving very fast, much faster than the state and U.S. governments are moving,” says Gross, who is licensing eSolar’s technology to a Chinese firm, Penglai Electric, which will manage the construction of the power plants. Another Chinese company will open and operate the projects.

For the past two-and-a-half years in California, meanwhile, the state’s first new solar thermal power plant in two decades has been undergoing licensing as part of an extensive environmental review process.  The goal is to maximize production of carbon-free electricity from BrightSource Energy’s 400-megawatt Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System project in the Mojave Desert while minimizing its impact on fragile ecosystems.

The end game begins Monday in Sacramento at a public hearing where BrightSource will face off with environmental groups that argue the project will harm the imperiled desert tortoise and destroy the habitat for a host of plants and animals.

In contrast, it was only six months ago that executives from Penglai Electric first contacted eSolar as they scoured the world for a technology to use in that nation’s first big foray into solar thermal power.

China leads the world in production of photovolatic panels like those found on residential and commercial rooftops, but the country has had little experience with solar thermal technology, which uses arrays of mirrors called heliostats to heat a liquid to create steam that drives an electricity-generating turbine.

Penglai executives flew to Los Angeles last fall to meet with Gross and examine a five-megawatt demonstration power station called Sierra that eSolar brought online in August in the Southern California exurb of Lancaster. “A parade of people came over—we probably had 20 different government officials from China come to look at Sierra and review its operation,” said Gross.

“The most convincing aspects of eSolar’s technology is the fact that it is the only commercially operating technology in North America,” Eric Wang, a Penglai Electric spokesman, told me in an email.

That’s not quite correct—a solar trough plant was recently built in Nevada and solar power plants from the 1980s continue to operate in California—but eSolar’s technology is particularly suited for China.

As I wrote in a Green State column about eSolar last year, eSolar’s innovation is its sophisticated software controls systems and imaging technology which controls heliostats that focus the sun’s rays on a tower that contains a water-filled receiver. That allows the company to use small mirrors packed closely together as the software positions them to create a virtual parabola to focus sunlight. The mirrors are cheap to make and easy to install.

“When we do solar fields in California, we use $8 labor to open up the fields,” said Gross. “It takes 15 minutes training. In China, they wanted to use untrained labor as well.”

Since eSolar can place the mirrors close together—its standard 46-megawatt solar farm has 176,000 of them—the power plants needs half the land of an equivalent photovoltaic farm, according to Gross—a feature attractive to China, Wang said.

China, however, is not merely importing eSolar’s technology. Biomass power plants will be built alongside the solar farms and will use the same turbines, cutting the project’s costs and allowing the energy complex to operate when the sun goes down. The sand willow plant, a shrub planted in the surrounding region to fight desertification, will provide the fuel for the biomass power plants, according to Penglai Electric.  ESolar already makes its heliostats in China and will begin manufacturing its proprietary receiver technology there as well.

While eSolar, which counts Google among its investors, retains ownership of the intellectual property behind its solar technology, China will gain valuable experience building and operating large-scale renewable energy facilities. 

Much the same is happening in the nascent electric car industry, where China is pushing ahead and partnering with California companies like Coda Automotive to develop advanced battery technology.

All of which is not necessarily a bad thing. But one has to wonder if it won’t be too long before we’re cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway in our Chinese-made electric car and plugging it in to our Chinese-made solar array.

 

 

Related Links:

2010 outlook for solar in California

Developing nations continue to lead post-Copenhagen

Copenhagen revealed a new dynamic between the U.S. and China

by Umbra Fisk

Send your question to Umbra!

Q. Dear Umbra,

Hey!  This whole freakin’ deal about aluminum, steel, and plastic bottles is bewildering. I wanted to get a BPA-free Nalgene, but should I buy an aluminum instead?  I don’t have or see the use to spend $20USD for a darn bottle. What’s the best way to go?

Jay
Dayton

A. Dearest Jay,

To sip, perchance to dream.Hey yourself! This can indeed be a bewildering topic, made even more so by recent revelations that one trusted brand of aluminum bottle contained BPA in its lining.

Even though it’s a New Year, I’m going to stand by some Olde Umbra Advice: Do not buy a plastic bottle. Although Nalgene and other plastic-bottle makers have proudly and loudly eschewed BPA in many of their products, this does not mean we don’t have other problems with plastics. They are toxic and resource-intensive to manufacture, they can pose various health problems, and there’s no good way to dispose of them. (If for some reason you decide you absolutely must have a plastic bottle, choose BPA-free of course, and avoid #3, #6, and #7.)

As for your other choices, I personally would opt for stainless steel over aluminum. Although steel is a tad heavier than aluminum, it doesn’t need to be lined with anything potentially toxic, and it tends to be cheaper. Plus: It’s stainless! Doesn’t that sound fresh and clean!

One more thought, Jay: Is it possible that you don’t need a water bottle at all? Many of us get by in life without one. But if your lifestyle does require a liquid transport system, I heartily endorse your desire to invest in a permanent option over disposable bottles—and I think you will find that the one-time investment of $15 or $20 pays off quite quickly.

Salutly,
Umbra

Q. Dear Umbra,

We need to replace our 28-year-old electric clothes dryer. I know a gas dryer will use less energy, but since the natural gas enters our home at the far other end of the house from our dryer and there is no gas connection near the dryer, it will cost substantially more to switch to gas than just the modest extra cost of the gas dryer itself. We dry about half our clothes on racks and our electricity is 100% wind (ie, we pay a wind premium). Would it be environmentally evil of us to just get another electric dryer?

Judy H.
Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

A. Dearest Judy,

If only you could hang your wet clothes to dry on the horns of this dilemma.

My advice is going to be relatively quick and dirty: First, if you can dry all of your clothes on racks, do it. Read our interview with Alexander Lee of Project Laundry List to find out why.

Second, if you can find any way to install a gas dryer, do it. Is it possible to move the location of your dryer to the “far other end of the house” where the gas line is? Would that make the necessary plumbwork any cheaper and easier? It’s difficult for me to say, without having seen your house or met your gas person, but I’d investigate that
option. Gas dryers use far less energy and are gentler on clothes. They can save up to 50 percent of laundry-related costs, and though they do cost more up front, they pay for themselves in not too long a time.

Third, don’t let the fact that you “pay a wind premium” lull you into making lazy choices. I’m glad your utility offers that option, and glad you take them up on it, and I see that Saratoga Springs has made some heavy investments in wind. But are you sure the electricity that powers your house is 100 percent wind? I don’t have time to
properly investigate, but I hope you will.

Finally, if you do end up buying an electric dryer, be sure to look for one with a moisture sensor, which will keep it from working overtime. Use the dryer as little as possible. And don’t beat yourself up too much.

Delicately,
Umbra

P.S.: Natural gas is not without its drawbacks. If you have not focused on the proposed Marcellus Shale natural gas project in New York, do so. Here is a recent piece from your very own Saratogian about it, although you don’t have to go far to find much, much more.

Q. Hi Umbra,

I love your column and am a longtime reader, first-time asker. I’m also a yoga teacher who spends a lot of time using tea-light candles. I was just wondering if the little metal cups they come in are recyclable. Thanks!

K.
Sydney

A. Dearest K.,

Ooh, Sydney. Yoga and candles in Sydney. I think I’m in heaven.

As with all such recycling questions, I must refer you to your local authorities. I’m not sure what your tea-light cups are made of—most seem to be aluminum, but I don’t know how they do it in Sydney—nor am I sure what’s recyclable in your particular neighborhood. So definitely check with the good folks at your nearest solid-waste facility.

However, I have some other thoughts for you. The first is: Do you absolutely need to use tea lights? Couldn’t you burn small votive candles in reusable containers, thereby avoiding the waste-cup problem entirely? Some people groan about having to scrape wax out of the holders, but those people are unenlightened. I know you will ascend above that concern.

If for some reason you must continue to use tea lights, I am discovering that there is no shortage of people who have very inventive ideas for reusing the cups. Pincushion holders! Wind chimes! Holiday decorations! Ashtrays! Bird alarms! Look around the web for these and other creative-verging-on-nutty suggestions.

Whatever candles you choose, be sure they are free of lead, petroleum, and the other nasties that are found in many conventional varieties. Oh look! More Umbra advice on candles, just in the wick of time.

Namastely,
Umbra

Related Links:

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India, Italy, Brazil can fill America’s blanks

by Tom Philpott

[Update below; see final paragraph.] The Gates Foundation has emerged as a kind of de facto USDA for Africa: a deep-pocketed funder with a focus on agriculture, in a continent that has seen ag-research funding plunge over the past several decades.

For a while, the Gates Foundation sought to avoid a reputation as a cheerleader for biotech “solutions” to Africa’s agriculture troubles.

Sure, our nation’s best-funded foundation hired a former Monsanto exec, Rob Horsch, as a program officer. But its official ag-development documents (see, for example, this one) brim with statements on the importance of small-scale farming—a wise idea, given that a majority of Africa’s residents rely on small-scale farming for their sustenance.

And the foundation lavished some cash—a small amount, relatively—on appropriate-tech, farmer-friendly, ecologically sound initiatives.

Then Bill Gates himself gave his blunt pro-biotech speech in October 2009—which I commented on here—at the awards ceremony of the industrial-ag-friendly World Food Prize.

And now the Gates Foundation has finally named a new director of agricultural development—a position left vacant since April, when Rajiv Shah left to take a post at USDA. (Shah is now director of USAID within the State Department—the top development position in the U.S. government). The foundation named long-time biotech exec and investor Sam Dryden to the post.

In doing so, the foundation could hardly have sent a stronger signal: In its vision, at least, Africa’s future as a prosperous continent hinges on the benevolence of patent-wielding Western biotech behemoths like Monsanto and its very few peers in the GMO-seed space. Here is how The Seattle Times describes Dryden’s background:

At Wolfensohn and Company, which was founded by former World Bank President James Wolfensohn, Dryden focused on investments in alternative energies. He formerly headed Emergent Genetics, which develops and markets seeds. Emergent Genetics, the third largest cotton seed company in the U.S., was acquired by Monsanto in 2005 in a $300 million deal. [Emphasis added.]

According to his Emergent Genetics bio, Dryden stayed on with the company until June 2006, at least six months after its acquisition by Monsanto. At Wolfensohn, Dryden “focuses on private equity investments in biofuels and other alternative energies.”

GMO cotton, biofuels … this is an industrial-ag man through and through. Indeed, if his resume is any indication, he seems to fixate more on using land to produce fiber and fuel than on food for people to eat.

And his experience in the ag-biotech industry dates to its early days. From his Emergent bio:

In 1980, Sam led the spin-out of Union Carbide’s biotechnologies and related business operations and was subsequently co-founder, President and CEO of Agrigenetics Corporation.  The company grew to become one of the world’s largest seed enterprises and was acquired in 1985—it is now part of Dow AgroSciences.  During this same period, he was also chairman of an affiliated partnership which managed and invested $60 million in proprietary plant sciences research conducted in leading universities, as well as private and public research institutions worldwide.

The bio goes on:

Following the sale of Agrigenetics, Sam founded and was President of Big Stone Inc.—a private venture investment and development company focused on the life sciences.  The firm participated in founding over a dozen companies in area such as biopesticides, novel nucleic acid-based therapeutics and diagnostic products, transgenic animals, fermentation based production of vitamins, pharmaceutical clinical trialing, environmental toxicological testing and bio therapeutics.  Sam also served as the non-executive chairman of Celgro, Inc, and independent venture of Celgene Corporation, a company focused on the development of novel, single-isomer, agricultural chemical compounds.

Whether Western biotech can really “feed the world” remains a matter of great debate. But the Gates Foundation’s position on whether GMOs are a panacea no longer need be debated.

[Update:] I just want to add, and I hope the foundation’s decision makers will think hard about that this, that Dryden (like Shah before him) seems to have zero experience working in the field with actual farmers. He is a titan of the board room, the conference hall, the offices of World Bank executives. Intentions of the decision to hire Dryden aside, the appearance is this: an attempt to “solve” Africa’s agriculture problems in a way that works for Western shareholders. What we need now, though, are solutions that work for Africa’s farmers, citizens, and broader ecology.

Related Links:

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by David Roberts

Todd Snider has been around a long time, flying under the mainstream radar but beloved by fans who appreciate what Amazon’s editors aptly call his “signature wit and amiable pathos.” That wit and pathos are in evidence all over the singer-songwriter’s latest, the understated (and ironically titled) The Excitement Plan. If you like laconic, wry, and cleverly written journeyman songs in the Robert Earl Keen mode, you can’t go wrong with Snider.

This song—“Money, Compliments, Publicity (Song Number Ten)”—is the funniest I’ve heard this year.

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by David Roberts

Today the Obama administration unveiled $2.3 billion in new tax credits to clean energy manufacturing companies. There were 183 projects selected out of some 500 applications; one-third were from small businesses; around 30% are expected to be completed this year. The winners are spread across 43 states. Here’s a map from White House adviser Carol Browner’s post:

Couple of things to say about this.

First: this is industrial policy, but it’s better than average industrial policy. As Duncan Black says:

One of my longstanding pet peeves is that everyone in the US pretends we don’t have an “industrial policy” because that implies naughty state intervention in certain sectors. But of course we have lots of naughty state intervention in certain sectors, we just don’t do it even notionally for any good reason. We prop up the single family homebuilding industry and the automobile industry (even before the bailouts). We prop up certain agricultural sectors. We favor big business over small. Now we’re massively propping up one skimmer industry – the financial industry – and are about to prop up another skimmer industry – health insurance.

So, yes, by design or accident we have industry policy. We should recognize that and then decide what we should be doing instead of pretending we don’t have any.

Right. What should we do instead? Nurture small businesses in markets that are almost universally forecast to undergo rapid growth for decades to come; put struggling American workers and idled American manufacturing capacity back to work; reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Still, this kind of policy has its limitations. Though “senior administration officials” (what a goofy convention that is, by the way) say every application went through five levels of review, inevitably there are going to be political considerations in how the money is distributed—it’s probably no accident the credits are spread so widely, geographically and across industries. (Though this detracts from the economic efficiency, in may improve the politics—see below.)

It’s also absurd that clean energy industries still depend on capricious, short-term extensions of tax credits. Tax-based policy has become more and more common lately, mainly because the legislative branch has become so dysfunctional (budgets are passed by a majority instead of the 60 votes required of legislation), but it’s a bad thing. A carbon price, direct public investment, performance standards, renewable energy standards, feed-in tariffs—anything structural and persistent is better than these come-and-go dispensations of cash. Obama has called on Congress to cough up $5 billion a year for these credits, but how enduring will yearly appropriations be the next time Congress changes hands?

Second, despite reservations about the policy, this is the kind of thing Obama needs to do to build real, on-the-ground support for clean energy. Have a look at this fantastic new video from News21:

The people in this Texas town—and their families, and friends, and visitors—will never again think of clean energy as something by and for dirty hippies. The more such people there are, the more politics become friendly to ambitious legislation. In fact I’d argue that deploying clean energy and efficiency will matter far more to the politics of this issue than anything done by NGOs. No amount of “framing” competes with having a wind turbine save your farm.

Related Links:

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by Tom Laskawy

What with the Arctic Oscillation oscillating like mad thus making the developed world colder than a… Well, really cold. And with meteorologists across the country proving that talking about the weather for a living seems to make you less likely to understand climate. And with the American Farm Bureau sort of proving the same thing, it’s enough to make you realize that there are an awful lot of climate doubters out there.

So it’s time for a helpful reminder that the existence of anthropogenic climate change represents the consensus view, not just of climate scientists, but of all scientists in this country. And what does consensus look like, you may wonder? Thanks to the fantastic folks at Information is Beautiful, I can show you. Consensus looks like this:

The group on the right are climatologists only. The lonely figure in the far right corner is the denier. That’s what virtual unanimity looks like. The group on the left represents people from any scientific field. That small group in the left corner are the deniers. At a big wedding, they’d take up a single table.  The data for the above image comes from this paper [PDF]. All together now: 90% of all published US scientists agree that human-induced climate change exists! I feel compelled to point out that Proctor and Gamble built an entire decades-long marketing campaign over even lower support among dentists for their toothpaste.

Related Links:

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Climate scientists underwhelmed by Copenhagen Accord

by Josh Freed

Whether it was steel, the railroad, the automobile, or the Internet,
America’s leadership in technological innovation has made it the
world’s economic power for the last 100 years. Today, we’re on the
brink of the next revolution with the transition to clean energy. Of
course, new technologies inevitably push old ones aside—personal
computers, for example, killed typewriter industry in the 1980s.

The transition to clean energy will inevitably have the same effect.
While many communities will immediately prosper from new solar and wind
plants or advanced battery production, others will initially lose jobs
and even businesses or industries. Yet these same communities that
might suffer during the transition, particularly those in the
industrial Northeast and Midwest and rural South and Plains, could
capitalize on clean energy. They just don’t have access to the economic
tools to do it on their own. That is why Third Way worked with Rep. Dan
Maffei (D-N.Y.) to develop Clean Energy Business Zones (CBiZ).

CBiZ recognizes that the private sector and particularly small
businesses—not government—are in the best position to create new
jobs. It creates specific incentives for these businesses to locate in
areas that have skilled workers or a modern infrastructure but have
lost jobs or been economically disadvantaged by the change from
conventional to clean energy. This will help spur growth in areas that
too often in the past missed the economic benefits of innovation.

Make no mistake, this is not just about creating the next Microsoft or
securing a massive wind turbine factory. In places like Rep. Maffei’s
Syracuse-area Congressional District it could also mean the difference
for a contractor who wants to expand his building efficiency business
or allow a researcher to hire the staff she needs to manufacture a new
type of LED lighting.

This program would be modeled on the successful Empowerment Zone
program, but would be distinct and would focus specifically on helping
communities take advantage of clean energy. The zones would provide
businesses substantial financial incentives to build such sectors
including employment tax credits, increased business expense
deductions, and favored capital gains treatment.

America has led virtually every technological revolution of the past
century. We’ll do it again with clean energy. But we have the
opportunity to make sure that communities that missed out on the
economic booms of past transformations don’t miss out yet again. The
CBiZ program is one important tool we can use to help American business
grow where growth is needed most.

Related Links:

Community-Owned Clean Energy

The policy and politics of Obama’s $2.3 billion in clean energy tax credits

How do I find a green job?

by David Gumpert

These are heady times for foodies—you know, the people who love
farmers markets and community supported agriculture (CSAs), and hate
Big Ag. They’ve turned the documentary movies “Food Inc.” and “Fresh!”
into big hits. And they’ve turned “Slow food” into a generic term
(there actually is an organization   by that name that boasts more than 100,000 members in 132 countries).

A seeming army of foodie bloggers (of which I am one) sees the hand
of Big Ag’s pesticides and feedlot practices (Monsanto, Con Ag, Tyson,
etc.) in the explosive growth of chronic disease, and genetically
modified food. It’s a neat good-guy/bad-guy scenario, with only one
wild card: Is the U.S. government with or against the foodies?

The movement is about more than symbolism. After years of decline during the last century, the number of small farms (those
with less than $250,000 annual sales) increased about one percent
between 2002 and 2007. Many of these farms have adopted innovations in
farming practices popularized by farmers like Eliot Coleman and Joel
Salatin—using compost and seaweed rather than commercial fertilizers
to build up soil, putting chickens onto pasture so they eat bugs and
grass, using pigs as low-maintenance rototillers, and substituting
mineralization and homeopathic programs for antibiotics and
vaccinations to improve animal health.

Increasingly, the heroes in this ongoing food drama are President
and Michelle Obama, along with the president’s appointees at the U.S.
Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration.
Michelle Obama has received much acclaim for planting an organic
vegetable garden on the White House lawn. A popular blog, Obama
Foodorama, even chronicles the Obamas’ food and eating experiences,
including menus at state dinners, and Michelle Obama’s guest appearance
on Sesame Street, promoting fresh vegetables.

Subordinates are trying to get with the program. Over the summer,
the U.S. Department of Agriculture set up a farmers market in a parking
lot outside its massive Washington headquarters. And to the accolades
of foodie bloggers everywhere, it launched an initiative, “Know Your
Farmer, Know Your Food,” to encourage expansion of the local food
boomlet.

It’s tempting to view all these developments as part of a shift in
long-time official priorities, to encourage small farms practicing
sustainability, at the expense of Big Ag. Unfortunately, this view is
more mirage than reality.

In a classic example of the government speaking out of both sides of
its mouth, the Obama administration is actively supporting another
movement—one that really does favor Big Ag at the expense of the
budding local food movement. It’s the Congressional push for sweeping
food safety legislation, which has passed the U.S. House, and is
pending a vote by the full Senate. It’s overlooked by the foodies
because it’s endorsed by a wide range of consumer organizations, and
besides, who wouldn’t want to counter the high profile cases of serious
illness, and even a number of deaths, from contaminated spinach,
hamburger, peppers, and peanut butter, among others, over the last
three years?

But in their 119-page House and 133-page Senate versions, these
bills do much more than increase the FDA’s army of food inspectors.
They take a sledgehammer to a problem that may well benefit more from
highly targeted, and less invasive approaches. Consider:

Both
bills require all food producers, including even the smallest makers of
specialized cheeses and jams, to put together highly detailed
production plans (known as HACCP plans, for Hazard Analysis and
Critical Control Points), at a cost of many thousands of dollars
requiring dozens and sometimes even hundreds of hours of specialized
input designed to identify potential “hazards” in the food production
process; this despite the fact that nearly all cases of food-borne
illness have come from products made and distributed by mid-size and
large concerns.

Moreover, it allows FDA inspectors complete discretion in approving
or disapproving such plans. Working within such an arbitrary system
isn’t a big problem for multimillion dollar corporations, which can
afford fines of possibly $10,000 a day (under the House legislation)
and expensive consultants to work through any problems.

It was a USDA requirement in the late 1990s that slaughterhouses
have HACCP plans that led to the demise of hundreds of small local and
regional slaughterhouses. Today’s small farms raising cattle and pigs
bear a heavy burden as a result—they must often schedule slaughtering
months in advance and send their animals hundreds of miles away, only
to be shipped back for local distribution, adding substantial costs and
energy consumption.

The pending legislation actually thrusts not only the federal
government, but also possibly the United Nations, right into the middle
of the food production process currently experiencing so much
innovation in the U.S. The Senate bill requires within one year the
development of “updated good agricultural practices”—a seemingly benign
term that is used by the Farming and Agricultural Organization of the
United Nations (GAP, in its lingo) to describe its establishment of
standards covering use of fertilizers, crop rotation, animal grazing
practices, and other such fundamentals of farming. The U.N. organization
has been active working with farmers in places like Egypt, Uganda,
Zambia, South Africa, and Burkina Faso.

How will the U.N.’s standards mesh with those of Eliot Coleman, Joel
Salatin, and other American farming innovators developing sustainable
techniques for rejuvenating soil or aging cheeses or bringing back old
varieties of vegetables and fruits? The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense
Fund worries that the FDA “will adopt regulations that treat small
farms growing a diversity of crops organically (whether certified or
not) the same as a facility growing thousands of acres of a single crop
conventionally.” Farms that fail to measure up—perhaps fail to follow
government standards for making compost or for crop rotation—would have
their products considered “adulterated,” according to the FTCLDF, and
thus be subject to huge fines.

In allowing for the establishment of “science-based minimum
standards for the safe production and harvesting of those types of
fruits and vegetables that are raw agricultural commodities,” the
Senate bill provides an opening for the FDA to embark on a big foodie
no-no: the irradiation of leafy green vegetables. The FDA gave
irradiation its stamp of approval last year.

On and on it goes. The legislation thrusts the FDA, which has been
limited to regulating food and drugs involved in interstate commerce,
into the intrastate sphere, allowing it to regulate businesses that are
truly local. “The bottom line is that local jam-makers, cheese-makers,
and bread-makers have to register with the FDA, and if (the Senate
bill) passes, they will buried in federal red tape,” says Judith
McGeary, head of the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance, and a lawyer.

The real impact of the pending food legislation is difficult to
fully gauge, partly because the language in the two bills is in many
places vague and obtuse. For example, the distinction between farmers
and food producers is up for grabs. “If a farm processes food—which
could be as simple as sun drying tomatoes or making jams from their own
fruits—it will be treated as a processor” under the Senate bill, says
McGeary.

As admirable as this legislative push is for trying to fix flaws in
existing food safety regulations, and thus reduce serious outbreaks of
illness, it is equally onerous for going way beyond the business of
safety. The legislation would do better to focus on identifying and
going after repeat offenders and large producers that are the most
frequent food-borne-illness culprits rather than placing unreasonable
burdens on the budding local-food movement. Otherwise, there could well
be many fewer smaller farms and food producers turning out the
locally-produced items so prized by foodies.

David E. Gumpert writes about the business of food and health at his blog . He is the author of the new book, The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Battle Over Food Rights.

Related Links:

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Climate success in 2009 should inspire the new year

by Tom Laskawy

It’s not just mountaintop removal mining that’s making activists of scientists. Now a group of 40 climate scientists backed by the Union of Concerned Scientists has written a letter demanding a meeting with American Farm Bureau President Bob Stallman to discuss his group’s continued endorsement of climate denial and refusal to acknowledge the reality of anthropogenic climate change. For its part, the AFB shows no sign of backing down. According to ag journalist Chris Clayton, the AFB’s annual meeting which starts this weekend will feature the group’s climate denial prominently (sub req’d):

Farm Bureau
has been opposed to climate legislation in Congress that would work to
reduce greenhouse-gas emissions through cap-and-trade, which would cap
emissions and establish a trading program for emission allowances and
offsets. Farm Bureau’s campaign is “Don’t CAP Our Future,” which is
being highlighted at the AFBF convention.

At the convention, Farm Bureau has scheduled a
seminar titled “Global Warming: A Red Hot Lie?” which will be given by
an attorney from the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

And who is this attorney? According to UCS he is none other than:

[C]limate change denier Christopher Horner, who will be the only
scheduled speaker addressing climate at the annual American Farm Bureau
meeting later this week in Seattle. Horner is an attorney with the
Competitive Enterprise Institute, an industry-funded, anti-regulation
think tank that has received millions of dollars over the last decade
from the auto and oil companies, most notably ExxonMobil, to try to
block federal action on climate change.

Sigh. The climate scientists on the other hand beg to differ. From their letter (PDF):

Climate change is already changing our world. According to the National Climatic Data Center (NOAA), the ten hottest years on record (since comprehensive temperature records began in 1880) have all occurred since 1990. Even though this year has been relatively cool in some parts of the United States, 2009 is on track to be the 6th warmest year on record in terms of global average temperature, and this decade will be the warmest on record.

While it is true that Earth experiences natural warming and cooling cycles, scientists have accounted for these cycles in their analyses and in their models of the physics, chemistry, and biology affecting the Earth’s climate system. The evidence clearly shows that the primary cause of the observed warming in recent decades is a result of increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, which come from human activity.

Given this vast scientific consensus on climate change, we are disappointed that the American Farm Bureau has taken the inaccurate and marginalized stance that “there is no generally agreed upon scientific assessment on the exact impact or extent of carbon emissions from human activities, their impact on past decades of warming or how they will affect future climate changes.”

Your organization’s position does not reflect the consensus opinion of the science community or the scientific literature. Your stance represents the position taken by a relatively small number of climate change deniers, whose opinions and misrepresentations of the scientific data are typically not published in peer-reviewed scientific literature, but are instead shared in arenas that are not subject to rigorous scientific review.

The need to take climate change action is more urgent than ever. The latest science indicates that many climate impacts are happening faster than previously projected. Fortunately, we can still avoid the worst consequences if we take action soon. With that in mind, we hope to meet with you in the next few weeks to discuss this important matter.

What say, Bob? Are you man enough to meet with climate experts who actually know what they’re talking about?

Related Links:

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Pesticides loom large in animal die-offs

by Eric Roston

First things first: Our story left off at the COP-15 negotiations, minutes after world leaders released their three-page Copenhagen Accord [pdf],
a broad statement of political intent to address the issues
that—according to the (old) U.N. schedule—should have been addressed by
now. This result begs the question: Did 2009 end with more or with less
ambiguity about how to address climate change? The potential answers
feel more like a Rorschach test than points of debate.

We do know certain things: No one has any
illusions about the difficulty of bringing the community of nations to
agreement on how to rebuild the global energy economy. We know that
the United Nations process failed to produce a legally binding
emissions-reduction and sustainable-development treaty. Or even a
political agreement that offers clear guidance to a treaty. We know
that China frustrated European and American leaders at key moments, even blocking discussion
of national efforts in the Accord, a move that caused German Chancellor
Angela German Merkel to demand, “Why can’t we even mention our own
targets?” It will be interesting to watch the build-up to COP-16,
in Mexico City this November, given the certainly dramatic, inevitably
anti-climactic (anti-climatic?), year-long sprint to Copenhagen.

We are confident that we have very little idea what course the U.S. Senate will take in coming weeks and months. The leadership troika of Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) appears to be pushing ahead,
despite the pessimism engulfing much of the chattering class. Political
intrigue erupted this week when two Democratic senators, Christopher Dodd of Connecticut
and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, announced their retirements, putting
at risk the majority’s ability to maintain a filibuster-defeating
voting block. We continue to expect global media interest in geo-engineering to vary inversely with media interest in emissions reductions. And we know that observable phenomena consistent with warming predictions continue to emerge.

Continued international and U.S. policy uncertainty puts renewed
spotlight on nascent regional programs, and on the private sector.
Companies making up the FTSE 100 are, on average, projecting that they will meet the U.K.’s target of a
two-to-three percent reduction annually, according to a new Carbon
Disclosure Project report.
Global investment managers (not, of course, compelled to act, as FTSE
firms are, by a new U.K. law) have yet to substantially incorporate
climate risk assessments into their portfolios. Perhaps Google will find a way to solve some of the complications involved in the struggle toward carbon neutrality.

The Center for Public Integrity prefaces the coming activity on climate legislation with a deep dive into lobbying records. The number of registered businesses and groups
hovered steadily, around 1,160. But that number conceals about 140
newcomers to the debate, including highly visible consumer firms, such
as Campbell Soup Company, Kellogg Company, and Del Monte Foods. “[T]he
domestic politics are only growing ‘curiouser and curiouser,’ as Alice
might say from Wonderland,” report Marianne Lavelle and M.B. Pell.

New Year’s resolutions: The holiday break gave Climate Post some time to think about this project, the year passed, and the year ahead (and, for a goof, to begin reading the “climategate” e-mails). And a slow news week opens up space to share thoughts.

The conceit of traditional news-gathering, and by extension, this
blog, is that what just happened is more important than anything else.
After all, it is called “the news,” and not “the recentlies” or “the
interestings.” But given the sweep of information available to each of
us with the touch of a key, there’s no longer a reason to limit
ourselves to the news, when “the recentlies” and “the interestings” can
really enrich the conversation.

So, how can we enrich the conversation? First, by acknowledging that it’s a conversation. Climate Post is
a community, a smallish, newish one, and I’m curious about how to make
this fact a little bit more visible. This missive goes out to friends
of the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions and Duke
University, and is reproduced at the environmental magazine, Grist.org.

Energy and climate change, and all they encompass—economics, policy,
science, business, competing values—are extraordinarily complicated,
hence the initial idea for Climate Post to begin with. So, other than what’s “news” in a given week, what can
we help you with? What came up at a dinner party over the holidays that
no one could answer, or that sparked an hour-long discussion, or is
reported in contradictory ways? There’s an opportunity here for Climate Post to become something of an information or research concierge,
particularly in regard to policy and the work of my colleagues at the
Institute. Again, in policy, science, business, behavior, it takes a
lot of listening and learning just to become comfortable with what the
solutions are.

Space restraints being what they are (i.e., restraining), we won’t be
able to hit every desirable topic every week. But hopefully the swarm
will guide us all toward engaging, informative, and productive
conversation, while still flying close to the original mission. This
blog is my blog. This blog is your blog. This blog was made for you and
me.

Eric Roston is Senior Associate at the Nicholas Institute and author of The Carbon Age: How Life’s Core Element Has Become Civilization’s Greatest Threat. Prologue available at here.

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Copenhagen blame game is obstacle to 2010 climate deal

by Tom Laskawy

Yale’s Environment 360 has a new must-read report by Sonia Shah linking pesticides to the high-profile die-offs among amphibians, bees, and bats. What makes this news timely isn’t necessarily the toxicity of the pesticides per se, it’s the indirect effects on these animals of chronic, low-dose exposure to chemicals:

In the past dozen years, no fewer than three never-before-seen diseases
have decimated populations of amphibians, bees, and—most recently—bats. A growing body of evidence indicates that pesticide exposure may
be playing an important role in the decline of the first two species,
and scientists are investigating whether such exposures may be involved
in the deaths of more than 1 million bats in the northeastern United
States over the past several years.

… The recent spate of widespread die-offs began in amphibians. Scientists discovered the culprit—an aquatic fungus called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis,
of a class of fungi called “chytrids”—in 1998. Its devastation, says
amphibian expert Kevin Zippel, is “unlike anything we’ve seen since the
extinction of the dinosaurs.” Over 1,800 species of amphibians
currently face extinction.

It may be, as many experts believe, that the chytrid fungus is a novel
pathogen, decimating species that have no armor against it, much as
Europe’s smallpox and measles decimated Native Americans in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But “there is a really good
plausible story of chemicals affecting the immune system and making
animals more susceptible,” as well, says San Francisco State University
conservation biologist Carlos Davidson.

Shah goes on to explain a mechanism whereby pesticides applied to fields in California’s Central Valley drift into the Sierra Nevada mountains “where they settle in the air, snow, and surface waters, and inside the tissues of amphibians.” A scientist who studied the matter “found a strong correlation between upwind pesticide use … and declining amphibian populations.”

Meanwhile, bees and bats have suffered a similar fate—killed off by powerful pathogens that in theory could be novel but in practice seem to have taken advantage of animal populations immuno-compromised by pesticides.

One of the most interesting aspects of the piece was the description of an Italian scientist’s unpublished research that suggests the “missing link” between neonicotinoids, a powerful pesticide already banned in Europe but still in use in the U.S., and bee colony collapse. It relates to the practices of using neonicotinoids-coated seeds planted by machines that kick up clouds of pesticide as they work:

… In as-yet-unpublished
research, [University of Padua entomologist Vincenzo] Girolami has found concentrations of insecticide in clouds
above seeding machines 1,000 times the dose lethal to bees. In the
spring, when the seed machines are working, says Girolami, “I think
that 90 percent or more of deaths of bees is due to direct pesticide
poisoning.”

Girolami has also found lethal levels of neonicotinoids in other,
unexpected—and usually untested—places, such as the drops of liquid
that treated crops secrete along their leaf margins, which bees and
other insects drink.

But Shah concludes by observing that this accumulating evidence comes with challenges and caveats that, I would point out, industry ruthlessly exploits:

Proving, with statistical certainty, that low-level pesticide exposure
makes living things more vulnerable to disease is notoriously
difficult. There are too many different pesticides, lurking in too many
complex, poorly understood habitats to build definitively damning
indictments. The evidence is subtle, suggestive.

Subtle and suggestive though it may be, it’s extremely unlikely that these chemicals aren’t also acting on us. This news plus the data surrounding the consequences to human health of low-dose exposure to chemicals like atrazine, BPA and phthalates should have us in a panic and our government in a regulatory frenzy. Instead we get paralysis and promises of “further study.” As we wait for a chemical “smoking gun,” I wonder what animal population will die off next. Anyone care to wager?

Related Links:

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Food giants pile on salt to tart up flavorless dreck

by Orville Schell

This was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom’s kind permission.

Lately, I’ve been studying the climate-change induced
melting of glaciers in the Greater Himalaya. Understanding the
cascading effects of the slow-motion downsizing of one of the planet’s
most magnificent landforms has, to put it politely, left me dispirited.
Spending time considering the deleterious downstream effects on the two
billion people (from the North China Plain to Afghanistan) who depend
on the river systems—the Yellow, Yangtze, Mekong, Salween,
Irrawaddy, Brahmaputra, Ganges, Indus, Amu Darya, and Tarim—that
arise in these mountains isn’t much of an antidote to malaise either.

If you focus on those Himalayan highlands, a deep sense of loss
creeps over you—the kind that comes from contemplating the possible
end of something once imagined as immovable, immutable, eternal,
something that has unexpectedly become vulnerable and perishable as it
has slipped into irreversible decline. Those magnificent glaciers,
known as the Third Pole because they contain the most ice in the world
short of the two polar regions, are now wasting away on an overheated
planet and no one knows what to do about it.

To stand next to one of those leviathans of ice, those Moby Dicks of
the mountains, is to feel in the most poignant form the magnificence of
the creator’s work. It’s also to regain an ancient sense, largely lost
to us, of our relative smallness on this planet and to be forcibly
reminded that we have passed a tipping point.  The days when the
natural world was demonstrably ascendant over even the quite modest
collective strength of humankind are over.  The power—largely to set
an agenda of destruction—has irrevocably shifted from nature to us.

Another tipping point has also been on my mind lately and it’s left
me no less melancholy. In this case, the Moby Dick in question is my
own country, the United States of America. We Americans, too, seem to
have passed a tipping point. Like the glaciers of the high Himalaya,
long familiar aspects of our nation are beginning to feel as if they
were, in a sense, melting away.

The eight years of George W. Bush’s wrecking ball undeniably helped
set our descent in motion. Then came the dawning realization that
President Barack Obama, who strode into office billed as a catalyst of
sure-fire change, would no more stop the melting down of the planet’s
former “sole superpower” than the Copenhagen summit would stop the
melting of those glaciers. After all, a predatory and dysfunctional
Washington reminds us constantly that we may be approaching the end of
the era of American possibility. For Obama’s beguiling aura of promise
to be stripped away so unceremoniously has left me feeling as if we, as
a country, might have missed the last flight out.

And speaking of last flights out, I’ve been on a lot of those
lately.  It’s difficult enough to contemplate the decline of one’s
country from within, but from abroad? That—take my word for it—is an even more painful prospect. Because out there you can’t escape
an awareness that what’s working and being built elsewhere is failing
and being torn apart here. To travel is to be forced to make endless
comparisons which, when it comes to our country, is like being
disturbed by unnerving dreams.

In the past few months, as I’ve roamed the world from San Francisco
to Copenhagen to Beijing to Dubai, I’ve taken to keeping a double-entry
list of what works and what doesn’t, country by country. Unfortunately, it’s largely a list of what works “there” and doesn’t
work here. It’s in places like China, South Korea, Sweden, Holland,
Switzerland, and (until recently) the United Arab Emirates—some not
even open societies—that you find people hard at work on the
challenges of education, transport, energy, and the environment. It’s
there that one feels the sense of possibility, of hopefulness, of
can-do optimism so long associated with the U.S.  

China,
a country I’ve visited more than 100 times since 1975, elicits an
especially complicated set of feelings in me. After all, it’s got a
Leninist government which was not supposed to succeed; and yet, despite
all predictions, it managed to conjure up an economic miracle that,
whatever you may think about political transparency, the rule of law,
human rights, or democracy, delivers big time. When you’re there, you
can feel an unmistakable sense of energy and optimism in the air (along
with the often stinging pollution), which, believe me, is bittersweet
for an American pondering the missing-in-action regenerative powers of
his own country.

As I’ve been traveling from China’s gleamingly efficient airports to
our chaotic and all-too-often broken-down versions of the same, or
Europe’s high-speed trains to our clunky railroads, I keep that
expanding list of mine on hand, my own little version of what works and
what doesn’t. Over time, its entries have fallen into one of three
categories that I imagine something like this: 

1. Robust, full of energy, growing, replete with promise and strength, the envy of the world.

2. Alive and kicking, but in a delicate balance between growth and decline.

3. Irredeemably broken, with little chance of restored health anytime soon.

And here then, as I imagine it, is the shape of America today in
terms of what works and what doesn’t, what’s growing and what’s failing:

1.  Bio-technology, developing dynamically and
delivering much of the world’s most innovative technological research,
thinking, and ideas; Silicon Valley, which still has enormous
inventiveness, energy, and capital at its disposal; civil society
which, despite the collapse of the economy, still seems to be
expanding, still luring the best and brightest young people, and still
superbly performing the ever more crucial function of being a goad to
government and other established institutions; American philanthropy,
which is the most evolved, well-funded, and innovative in the world;
the U.S. military, the best led, trained, equipped, and maintained on
the planet, despite the way it has been repeatedly thrust into hopeless
wars by stupid politicians; the fabric of much of small-town American
life with its still extant sense of cohesiveness and community spirit;
the arts, both high-culture and pop, boasting a still vibrant film
industry that remains the globe’s “sole superpower” of visual
entertainment, and the requisite networks of symphony orchestras,
ballets, theaters, pop music groups, and world-class museums.

2.  Higher and secondary-school education, in which
America still boasts some of the globe’s preeminent institutions,
though the best are increasingly private as jewel-in-the-crown public
systems like California’s are driven into the ground thanks to
devastating, repeated budget cuts; a national energy system which still
delivers, but is terminally strung out on oil and coal, and depends on
a grid badly in need of some new “smartness;” environmental protection,
which compares favorably with that in other countries, though always
under-funded and so, like our extraordinary national park system, ever
teetering above the abyss; the court system, overburdened and
under-funded, but struggling to deliver justice.

3. The federal government, essentially busted;
Congress, increasingly paralyzed and largely incapable of delivering
solutions to the country’s most pressing problems; state government,
largely broke; the Interstate highway system and our infrastructure of
bridges and tunnels, melting away like a block of ice in the sun
because maintenance and upgrading is so poor; dikes, water systems, and
many other aspects of the national infrastructure which keeps the
country going, similarly old and deteriorating; airlines, some of the
sorriest in the world with the oldest, dirtiest, and least up-to-date
planes and the requisite run-down airports to go with them; ports that
are falling behind world standards; a railroad passenger system which,
unlike countries from Spain to China, has not one mile of truly
high-speed rail; the country’s financial system whose over-paid
executives not only ran us off an economic cliff in 2008, but also
managed to compromise the whole system itself in the eyes of the world;
a broadcast media which—public broadcasting and aspects of a vital
and growing Internet excepted—is a grossly overly-commercialized,
broken-down mess that has gravely let down the country in terms of
keeping us informed; newspapers, in a state of free-fall; book
publishing, heading in the same direction; elementary education (that
is, our future), especially public K-12 schools in big cities,
desperately under-funded and near broke in many communities; a food
industry which subsidizes sugar and starch, stuffs people with
fast-food, and leaves 60 percent of the population overweight; basic
manufacturing, like the automobile industry, evidently headed for
oblivion, or China, whichever comes first; the American city, hollowing
out and breaking down; the prison system, one of America’s few growth
industries but a pit of hopelessness.

As you may have noted, category one is close to a full list,
category two, close enough, while category three is just a gesture in
the direction of larger-scale decline. Unfortunately, it seems ever
expandable. You’ll undoubtedly be tempted to add to it yourself. (I
have the same impulse every time I’m elsewhere and see some shiny new
industrial or designer toy we don’t make or even have.) When I told a
friend about this tallying obsession of mine, he suggested that it
might turn out to be a great website. (See the vigorous world of the
Internet in category one above.) And so it might—a kind of
electronic stock market Big Board where the world could weigh in and
help track all those things people find encouraging or discouraging
about the U.S. and other countries.

The initial impulse for my list, however, was self-protective. I
was searching for “things that work” here, the better to banish that
dispiriting sense of an American decline into the sort of
can’t-do-itive-ness that Congress has come to exemplify. Consider my
exercise some kind of incantatory ritual—a talisman—meant to hold
off the bad spirits just as, when I arrive in Beijing in winter and
find the mercury near zero (an increasing rarity these last years) or
stumble into a snowstorm in New York City, I’m relieved. For me, such
manifestations of real winter are signs that nature may not yet have
totally surrendered to us, that global warming is still being
challenged, and that things may not be as far gone as I sometimes fear. 

And yet that list of can-do’s remains so unbearably short and the
cant-do’s grows by the trip. I’d love to be convinced otherwise, but
like the ice fields of the Greater Himalaya melting before our eyes,
American prowess and promise, once seemingly as much a permanent part
of the global landscape as glaciers, mountains, and oceans, seems to be
melting away by the day.

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by Agence France-Presse

The EPA sees the light.Photo: jordansmall via FlickrWASHINGTON—The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed tougher standards for how much smog can be in the air, a move the agency said would save money and protect health, especially in children.

“EPA is stepping up to protect Americans from one of the most persistent and widespread pollutants we face. Smog in the air we breathe poses a very serious health threat, especially to children and individuals suffering from asthma and lung disease,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a statement. “It dirties our air, clouds our cities, and drives up our health care costs across the country.”

The new standards would replace those set by the previous administration,” which many believe were not protective enough of human health,” the EPA said.

Under the proposals, the “primary” standard for smog—the standard to protect public health—would be tightened up to the strictest level ever in the United States—between 0.060 and 0.070 parts per million (ppm) measured over eight hours. The administration of former president George W. Bush in 2008 set the primary standard for smog at 0.075 ppm for eight hours.

The EPA also proposed setting a separate “secondary” standard designed to protect plants and trees from damage from repeated ozone exposure, which can reduce tree growth, damage leaves, and increase susceptibility to disease.

Smog, which is also known as ground-level ozone, forms when emissions from industrial facilities, power plants, landfills, and motor vehicles react in the sun.

Three public hearings will be held on the proposals, starting early next month.

If the new rules are adopted, said the EPA, they would result in health care savings of up to $100 billion; fewer premature deaths, visits to the emergency room, and days off work; and a drop in aggravated asthma and bronchitis cases.

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Grist exclusive: A fiery battle over land in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest

by David Roberts

Scientists would shout this from the mountaintops, but …Photo: farukahmet via Creative CommonsLet’s say you trundle a bunch of enormous industrial equipment into North America’s oldest mountains (an intact temperate ecosystem boasting rich biodiversity, including a number of endangered species), clear-cut the forests, blow millions of tons off the top of the mountains,  dump the rubble into the pristine streams below, and carry out the coal you find on enormous trucks, at high speeds, on narrow roads, through some of America’s oldest communities.

Think that would cause any ecological or human damage? Hmm …

It might seem obvious, but as the media will tell you, “opinions on shape of earth differ,” so it’s helpful that a group of scientists has come along to assess the existing body of research on the subject.

And what does Science say? Yes, blowing up mountains causes environmental and health damage!  Who woulda thunk it? In fact, the evidence is so clear that the scientists have taken the extraordinary further step of calling for an immediate moratorium on mountaintop removal mining permits.

The information is contained in a new paper being published today in the journal Science: “Mountaintop Mining Consequences.” From the press release:

Based on a comprehensive analysis of the latest scientific findings and new data, a group of the nation’s leading environmental scientists are calling on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to stay all new mountaintop mining permits. In the January 8 edition of the journal Science, they argue that peer-reviewed research unequivocally documents irreversible environmental impacts from this form of mining which also exposes local residents to a higher risk of serious health problems.

…

Co-author Dr. Emily Bernhardt, of Duke University, explains that “The chemicals released into streams from valley fills contain a variety of ions and trace metals which are toxic or debilitating for many organisms, which explains why biodiversity is reduced below valley fills.” The authors provide evidence that mine reclamation and mitigation practices have not prevented the contaminants from moving into downstream waters.

The authors also describe human health impacts associated with surface mining for coal in the Appalachian region, including elevated rates of mortality, lung cancer, and chronic heart, lung and kidney disease in coal producing communities.

“Over the last 30 years, there has been a global increase in surface mining, and it is now the dominant driver of land-use change in the Central Appalachian region,” says Dr. Keith Eshleman also of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. “We now know that surface mining has extraordinary consequences for both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Notwithstanding recent attempts to improve reclamation, the immense scale of mountaintop mining makes it unrealistic to think that true restoration or mitigation is possible with current techniques.”

Ironically, this comes on the heels of the Obama administration’s decision to approve a new MTR permit in West Virginia. Perhaps the EPA doesn’t believe that blowing up mountains harms mountains?

UPDATE: I’m listening to a conference call with some of the scientists who wrote the paper. It’s a real horror show.

The forests that get cleared store tons of carbon; the vegetation it’s replaced with doesn’t. So there’s a climate change connection (aside from the obvious coal connection).

Blowing all this stuff destroys the landscapes ability to absorb rainfall, which leads to increased flooding downstream. And those effects are expected to persist for centuries.

The industry claims it’s “replacing” headwater Appalachian streams, but you won’t be surprised to hear that hydrologists find that claim absurd. The hydrology ends up different and the streams end up polluted with trace metals (poisoning those downstream). These trace metals are also associated with decline in invertebrate biodiversity.

Permits are considered individually, but multiple permits granted in the same watershed leads to additive effects that persist for decades after abandonment.

Concentrations of selenium in the water bioaccumulate in the food chain and effects are magnified. The fish become poisonous.

And of course the human toll: poisoned water leads to more deformities in babies and worse academic outcomes. Air quality is degraded, leading to respiratory diseases. And on and on.

God this is depressing. I wonder how Don Blankenship feels about it.

UPDATE 2: Now in Q&A with the scientists. One says, “this is the most heavily peer-reviewed paper I’ve ever published—one review was 18 pages long.”

The scientists received no outside funding for this; they donated their time. One says the project was sparked by a request from NGOs.

They’re calling for a moratorium on permits until there can be a “rational hearing” on the science. Many of them were new to the issue when they started this; all of them seem kind of shocked by how horrific it is and by how little attention it’s gotten.

Asked about new permit just issued for Hobet 45 mine, Dr. Dennis Lemly says the water issue weren’t addressed. “This is just business as usual.”

One problem with permits: they only address valley fill area. But pollutants escape and many of their cumulative effects are felt downstream.

Asked: are there technological options available to deal with the water quality properly? Lemly: sure, it’s just a matter of cost. Dr. William Schlesinger adds: when you bury a stream, it’s gone. There’s no replicating it.

Dr. Emily Bernhardt: part of impetus of the paper was to provide regulators with a comprehensive overview. Met with a small group from U.S. EPA to present findings.

Bernhardt: all the data mining companies and the WV DEP collect information on surface water, but much of the pollution is found beneath the surface in water tables.

To me, the most amazing part of all this—and clearly the scientists are amazed as well—is the fact that there’s never been a comprehensive assessment of MTR impacts before. We’re blowing up mountains and we have no idea what the consequences are! The mind boggles. It’s like the whole country is just discovering Appalachia.

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by Daniel J. Weiss

Despite speculation from a
few Beltway pundits, recent events suggest that there is momentum for the
passage of a comprehensive clean energy and global warming legislation in 2010.
Sen. Lindsay Graham’s (R-S.C.) commitment to work with Sens. John Kerry
(D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) to craft legislation is a significant political
breakthrough.

Sen. Graham voted
against earlier global warming bills, including those authored by his friend
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Recently, Sen.
Graham recognized that reducing carbon pollution by putting a price on it
would “allow alternative energy sources
to become more economically viable resulting in a cleaner environment. It is in
our own national security interests to achieve energy independence and curb our
pollution problem.”   

The Copenhagen
Accord, while far from perfect, also sets the stage for Senate action in
2010. President Obama’s leadership led
to China and India’s first
ever agreements to reduce their pollution rates. The accord also includes a
compromise between the United States
and China
to verify pollution reductions according to rigorous and transparent guidelines
depending on the source of financing for the reductions. All reductions are
subject to “international consultation and analysis.” These agreements should address the concern
that the United States will reduce its pollution while
these and other developing countries do little to reduce their emissions.

The public continues to support action to reduce global
warming pollution despite the worst economy in 70 years, the brouhaha over
emails stolen from climate scientists, and $100 million in scare mongering ads
by big oil and other special interests. The Washington
Post-ABC News poll released the week of Dec. 14 showed
that by more than 2-1 Americans want to “regulate the release of greenhouse
gases from sources like power plants, cars, and factories in an effort to reduce
global warming.” The Post poll found that three of five voters would support reductions
in greenhouse gas pollution even if it “raised your monthly expenses by 10 dollars
a month.” And 55 percent would still
support reductions if it “raised your monthly energy expenses by 25 dollars a
month.” The Associated Press-Stanford
University poll found
similar results.

The mainstream
media has written the obituary for
comprehensive clean energy legislation at every step of the process. Such nay saying occurred after House Energy and
Commerce Committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and House Select Committee on
Energy Independence and Global Warming introduced the American Clean Energy and
Security Act, before the House Energy Committee passed the bill, and before the
full House of Representatives passed it in June. Chair Waxman noted (subs. req.) that “On every issue that I’ve worked on this year, people have said it
can’t happen and it’s dead for the year.” Claims
about the death of the Senate global warming bill are also greatly exaggerated.  The Senate is on track for a spring debate
and passage of legislation to create jobs, increase American energy
independence, and cut pollution.

Related Links:

Obama seizes the energy opportunity

Q&A: what will happen with climate legislation in 2010?

What might Sen. Byron Dorgan’s retirement mean for climate legislation?