Tag Archives: Green News

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The Dirty Energy Proposition (Part I)

In 2006, Governor Schwarzenegger signed AB32 into law. The bill was a line in sand on climate change, and with a few exceptions, California lawmakers recognized that making the state a leader in clean tech was a win-win-win for the people, the economy, and the planet. AB32 would ratchet California's Green House Gas emissions back down to 1990 levels, by 2020. This effort would create millions of jobs and attract huge investments establishing California as a clean tech leader for the nation and the world.

Now, Dan Logue (R-CA-3) and few others are trying to drag CA back across the line. I have been writing on AB32 for a while, and I couldn't understand why Mr. Logue would do this. I took some time look up a few of his interviews and I gained some perspective.

Mr. Logue does not base his argument on climate change denialism. In fact he argues that AB32 will actually increase carbon emissions by pushing industry to less-regulated China, where manufacturers can pollute as much as they like, resulting in a net increase in emissions (Mr. Logue also advocates for the repeal of what current regulations, which – it seems to me – would be a move toward re-creating the Chinese system here).

That's like arguing 30 years ago that requiring seat belts would lead to less seat belt use because American companies could no longer compete with their foreign counterparts and foreign, seat belt-less cars would flood the American market. That is not what happened.

Mr. Logue is also fond of reminding emissions reduction advocates that they are forgetting that emissions observe no political borders. Greenhouse gasses will waft in from neighboring states (like Nevada) and even from countries on the other side of the planet like China.

It strikes me that perhaps Mr. Logue is missing the point. AB32 is not intended to halt climate change for, as Mr. Logue correctly observes, it will not. It is intended to have California do its part and lead by example.

In fact – Action on climate change worldwide has stalled because no one will lead. Congress wants China and the EU to act first and each of them want the Americans to lead. It is like the global community is aboard a sinking pirate ship, and rather than acting together to plug the holes, they are working to ensure their share of the treasure. In this scenario, it won't be long before all of the treasure is at the bottom of the ocean, and formerly great powers are simply trying to stay afloat.

With the signing of AB32, CA is providing the leadership we lack, and the rest of the nation is soon to follow. The Senate is expected to take up a clean energy bill in the coming weeks, and though it may not be as visionary as AB32, it will be better than the status-quo. When it passes, businesses nationwide will be looking for clean technologies. If AB32 remains in effect, huge numbers of them will find what they need in California.

As Mr. Logue and friends focus on the individual trees of short term transition, they fail to see the forest of long-term prosperity, for California and the nation.

California, Economy

Hey California, Don’t Get Fooled Again.

Down in the Lone Star State, they like to say that everything is bigger in Texas. I am not sure they were talking about the lies Texas companies like to try and sell the good people of California, but they should have been. In fact, with April 1st just around the corner, it seems that Texas Oil Companies bankrolling the initiative to suspend AB 32 are counting on Californians to be willing to be fooled again (remember what Enron did to Golden State anyone?)

Anti-AB 32 groups first relied on the now completely debunked “Varshney Study” to “prove” that passing this legislation would be the ultimate job killer and lead to skyrocketing consumer costs. But now that the Legislative Analyst's Office has torn the research to shreds, calling it “unreliable” and “essentially useless”, the anti-AB32 force is focusing on some new junk science to stand in as a replacement.

The California Manufacturers and Technology Association (CMTA) is using an oil industry-funded study conducted by the Pacific Research Institute to support its argument of the negative impacts of clean energy legislation. And it's no surprise that CMTA is the voice promoting this study, since the group has already announced its support for “AB 32 Suspension” in a recent press release as well as shelling out big bucks as one of the main sources funding the “AB 32 Implementation Group” (which contrary to the title, is code for the force working to suspend AB 32).

But like we saw with the Varshney Study, just because you paid a scientist to create it doesn't make it true. So before you buy into the “facts”, make sure you are aware of the variables that are manipulating the data behind the scenes:

  • The oil industry: Valero is a leading member of CMTA, contributing over $500,000 to help suspend AB32. Also, Valero lobbyist Michael Carpenter happens to be one of the board members of the Pacific Research Institute, which has funded the study.
  • The author of the study Thomas Tanton: consultant to the oil and gas industry and Senior Research Fellow with the Pacific Research institute where a Valero lobbyist sits on his board. He is also a former VP at the Institute for Energy Research (IER), an organization funded by oil and gas interests, which has received over $200,000 of funding from ExxonMobil.
  • CMTA's VP of Government Relations, Dorothy Rothrock: was an industry energy consultant for years before joining CMTA. From the moment AB 32 was signed into law Rothrock criticized it – even though unemployment was 4.8% at the time – which makes her support for enacting the initiative when unemployment levels reach that low again very doubtful.

Now that this report is in the same trashcan as the Varshney Study, we're sure that another one is on the way. Wouldn't it be better if the oil companies just stood up and said, look, we don't want progress on clean energy because we will lose in billions in dollars in profits? Wouldn't that be more honest? We doubt that will happen but in the meantime, don't be a fool this April.

AB 32 is a proven job creator and will continue to drive innovation and success for California. It's bad news for big oil companies, and we don't need to create a fake study to know that.

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Numbers Game

Tell POTUS That This Is Our Moment

In case you are tired of making your own New Year’s resolutions, President Obama would like you to help him set his. He is inviting Americans to tell him what we think the administration’s priorities should be for 2010.  

I love that the president of the United States is asking us for our opinions. How refreshing is that? You can share your ideas by clicking here.

I instinctively knew what I wanted to tell him, right away. In fact, it took much less time to figure out his resolution than it did to decide on no new spandex for myself.

I want the White House to focus on getting clean energy and climate legislation passed in the Senate as soon as possible.

We need to get moving on climate solutions NOW. I believe this as a mother–I don’t want to my children to deal with acute water shortages or flooded homes. I need this as a taxpayer–clean energy investments and domestic manufacturing jobs are just the kind of jumpstart our economy desperately needs.  I understand this as a Christian – we should be good stewards of the planet that God gave us.

And as a political junkie my gut also tells me that we will never have a better political environment for passing a clean energy and climate bill than the moment we have right now.  This is our moment.

What could be gained by putting off climate change legislation?  Are the issues going to change?  Is climate going to become an easier problem to solve?  Are big polluters going to stop opposing action?  Are Democrats going to control more than 60 seats in the Senate?    

This is a wake up call, one that I hope the handful of senators (featured in a recent Politico story) hears. These folks would like to delay the bill to some indefinite time in the future. Can someone please explain to me exactly how it is going to get easier in the future?  .

A few senators have said they think we should delay the climate vote in favor of a jobs bill, but the effervescent truth is the climate bill is a jobs bill. According to a recent study from the University of California, we will generate nearly 2 million additional jobs by investing in clean and sustainable energy.

These smart opportunities will be spread across all 50 states. Let’s take Ohio. UMass has estimated that Ohio alone could produce almost 70,000 net new jobs–opportunities for steelworks who build wind turbines, construction workers who retrofit buildings to make them more energy efficient, and software engineers who do energy audits.

We need these jobs now, not in 2011.

Americans want progress. That’s what we voted for in the last election, but we need to see some signs of movement and success. Saving the planet and creating jobs at the same time sounds pretty darn successful to me. We might just be inspired to reward the senators who deliver that success with our votes come November.

In the meantime, tell the White House what you want it to achieve this year.

I am resolved.

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A Los Angeles Trend Worth Following for Earth Day (Video)

The City of Los Angeles set a goal to get 20% of its power from renewable sources by 2010. The program the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) put in place gives people the choice of whether the money they pay in electrical bills will go to fund coal power, or renewable energy.

The program is administered through the LADWP, and it allows consumers to sign up to get part or all of their power from renewable sources for an extra three cents per kilowatt-hour. So, if your electricity bill is $50 per month, you could get 20% renewable power for another three dollars, or 100% renewable power for $15 more per month.

In it’s 2007 annual report, the LADWP reported that more than 22,000 homes and apartments had signed up for the green power program for at least some of their power. That’s good, but it only amounts to about 6% of the city’s power. The 2008 numbers aren’t out yet, but we can count on a race against time to meet the goal of 20% by 2010. So if you are in LA, sign up and get coal off of your power bill – and your conscience. If you are not in LA, but have friends here, help us out and send this video around.

What is interesting about LADWP’s program is the way it allows the individual to take direct action to support renewable power. Rather than calling congress, or using less energy (I’m not knocking those things), people can actually choose where their money goes when they pay their electricity bill. If they care about renewable energy, and can afford a couple dollars more a month, they can directly support the renewable energy infrastructure.

If we want to slash our carbon emissions, clean up our air, and halt the construction of new coal-fired power plants, we need to expand this program to every city in America. This Earth Day, I want to invite you to join ResponsAbility X (www.responsabilityx.com) in our drive not only to get LA to its goal, but to set goals and establish programs to meet them in your city. If there already is one, sign up and get your friends to do the same (we’ll help you make a video and launch an online campaign if you want). If there isn’t, start one.

We at ResponsAbility X believe that people will make the right choice if the choice is made clear. We just need to give them the ability to choose. So I invite you to take it on. Reach out to your city council or regional electricity provider and ask them to start a program for individual consumers to pay a little for green power. We will help you do the research, find renewable power vendors who can sell to your area, and strategize how to make it happen.

We the people who consume electricity have the power to demand where it comes from. This Earth Day, follow this LA trend, and help people choose renewable power.

Environment

100th Anniversary of Water Chlorination

Re-posted from Huffington Post)

I became an environmental activist in the early 1970s just as I was completing my doctorate in ecology at the University of British Columbia. It was the height of the Cold War and the height of the Viet Nam War and we were compelled to take a very public stand against activities we thought to be catastrophic both for people and for the planet.

I joined a small committee that was meeting in the basement of the Unitarian Church. We organized a protest voyage against U.S. hydrogen bomb testing in Alaska and had tens of thousands marching in the streets. When that H-bomb was set off at Amchitka Island in November 1971, it was the last hydrogen bomb the U.S. ever detonated.

It was the birth of Greenpeace, the organization I co-founded, spending 15 years in its top committee, helping to lead environmental campaigns around the world.

But it’s ironic in the extreme that, as we mark the 100th anniversary of drinking water chlorination, my old organization and other activist groups aligned with it continue to oppose this most important public health achievement.  

Activist organizations like Greenpeace have access to a full century of observations on the results of water chlorination in the US, all the way back to September 26, 1908 when Jersey City, NJ became the first US city to chlorinate its public water supply.

It’s true, there were those back then who vehemently opposed the use of this “poison” in public water supplies. According to one official at the time, continued chlorination to eradicate typhoid was akin to being “between the devil and the deep blue sea, for at present we don’t know whether typhoid fever or the (chlorinated) drinking water is the worst.”

Thankfully from the perspective of human health, chlorination of water supplies spread rapidly. Today, chlorination is the overwhelming choice for treating public water systems.

The results are clear. This widespread adoption of chlorine disinfection across the U.S. has had very important results. Waterborne diseases like typhoid, Hepatitis A and cholera that once killed thousands of Americans each year have been virtually eliminated. Typhoid fever cases fell by more than 99 percent between 1900 and 1960. Related childhood mortality fell dramatically. And average life expectancy rose from 47 years in 1900 to nearly 78 years in 2006.

Yet, many of my old environmental colleagues continue to vilify chlorination of water by raising unwarranted fears about health risks of chlorine and disinfection byproducts. In fact, it was a Greenpeace decision in 1986 to support a world-wide ban on all chlorine use that turned out to be a breaking point between my old organization and me.

My strongly held view is that chlorine is essential for our health. It is that simple. At the time I explained to my fellow Greenpeace International directors that water chlorination was the biggest advance in the history of public health, and in addition that the majority of our pharmaceuticals are based on chlorine chemistry. As the only board member with an education in science, my words fell on deaf ears.

In short, my former colleagues ignored science and supported the ban, giving me no choice but to leave the group as I could not support such a policy. Despite science concluding no known health risks – and ample benefits – from water chlorination, Greenpeace and other environmental groups have continued to oppose its use for more than 20 years.

I believe the opposition to the use of chemicals such as chlorine is part of a broader hostility to the use of chemicals in general. I often cite Rachel Carson’s 1962 book, Silent Spring, as having had a significant impact on many pioneers of the green movement. The book raised some legitimate concerns, many rooted in science, about the risks and negative environmental impact associated with the indiscriminate use of chemicals.

But the day-to-day water chlorination that occurs across America is not in the category of indiscriminate use. For Greenpeace and groups like it, the healthy skepticism learned from Carson has hardened over the years, and given way to a mindset that treats virtually all use of chemicals with suspicion.

After a century of use and the resulting eradication of waterborne diseases across the US and the world, those activists who continue, absurdly, to oppose water chlorination only illustrate the need for an alternative environmental policy based on science and logic – not misinformation and campaigns of fear.

After all, campaigns based on groundless fears distract the public from real environmental threats such as air pollution and tropical deforestation for example.

As we mark one of the key milestones in improving the public health of Americans right across the country, let’s always remember we all have a responsibility to be environmental stewards. But stewardship requires that science drive our public policy, just as it did a hundred years ago in Jersey City.