Hill Heat

Today, after the history-making silence on global warming during the national debates, MTV’s Sway Williams challenged President Barack Obama to address his climate silence. The president acknowledged to the young voters watching the Friday afternoon interview that the climate crisis is a “critical issue,” but said he was “surprised it didn’t come up in one of the debates.”

The answer is number one, we’re not moving as fast as we need to. And this is an issue that future generations, MTV viewers, are going to have to be dealing with even more than the older generation. So this is a critical issue. And there is a huge contrast in this campaign between myself and Governor Romney. I am surprised it didn’t come up in one of the debates.

Watch it:

The President of the United States shouldn’t pretend to befuddled why he promoted deadly coal, gas, and oil production during the debates instead of addressing the urgent threat of carbon pollution.

President Obama was right to finally tout in this interview the steps his administration has taken to cut carbon pollution and the commitments he made to the world in Copenhagen, but he was even more right to acknowledge that “we’re not moving as fast as we need to.”

The president unfortunately continued to portray global warming as a threat to “future generations” that is “going to have a severe effect.” But global warming is not a someday problem, it is now. The freakish Hurricane Sandy, barreling down on millions of Americans and powered by superheated seas, is likely to be the latest in the growing barrage of long-predicted billion-dollar climate disasters fueled by carbon pollution.

The network of Jersey Shore should be applauded for doing the job that PBS’s Jim Lehrer, CNN’s Candy Crowley, and CBS’s Bob Schieffer failed to do in breaking the candidates’ climate silence. Gov. Mitt Romney has been asked by MTV to also appear, but has given no response. This writing off of young voters is only fitting, as Romney’s aggressively pro-carbon agenda would write off any hope for their future.

There is now a little more than a week left for the presidential candidates to present a serious plan to eliminate carbon pollution before Election Day.

Transcript:

For the first time in two years, President Barack Obama has spoken out about how climate change is now causing extreme weather disasters in the United States. In a campaign speech in Iowa following the “climate silence” town hall debate, Obama called out the “droughts we’ve seen” as caused by “the carbon pollution that’s also heating the planet.” In the same speech, Obama claimed that “we all agree we got to increase oil production” and “we got to increase natural gas production.”

At Iowa Campaign Stop, Obama Links Carbon Pollution To ‘The Droughts We’ve Seen.’ “My plan will keep these investments, and we’ll keep reducing the carbon pollution that’s also heating the planet – because climate change isn’t a hoax. The droughts we’ve seen, the floods, the wildfires – those aren’t a joke. They’re a threat to our children’s future. And we can do something about it. That’s part of what’s at stake in this election.” [Remarks by the President at a Campaign Event in Mt. Vernon, IA, 10/17/12]

At Iowa Campaign Stop, Obama Says ‘We All Agree We Got To Increase Oil Production, We All Agree We Got To Increase Natural Gas Production,’ But Also ‘We’ve Got To Develop New Sources Of Energy.’ “Look, we all agree we got to increase oil production. We all agree we got to increase natural gas production. But the question is whether we build on the progress for the new energy sources of the future.” [Remarks by the President at a Campaign Event in Mt. Vernon, IA, 10/17/12]

Since 2010, the president has spoken only of climate change’s impacts on extreme weather disasters as a “threat to our children’s future,” if he mentioned climate change at all. When Obama addressed the nation about the Colorado wildfires, Irene’s floods, the national drought, and others of the billion-dollar climate disasters of 2011 and 2012, he did not attribute their destructiveness to influence of greenhouse pollution.

At his campaign stop that afternoon in Ohio, Obama promoted “clean coal” and mocked Romney for claiming to be “champion of coal” because the Republican candidate said in 2003 that coal plants kill people. In the Ohio speech, as in the town hall debate, Obama didn’t discuss carbon pollution at all.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is an outspoken denier of climate science, with a voting record to match. A favorite of the Koch brothers, Ryan has accused scientists of engaging in conspiracy to “intentionally mislead the public on the issue of climate change.” He has implied that snow invalidates global warming. He has voted to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from limiting greenhouse pollution, to eliminate White House climate advisers, to block the U.S. Department of Agriculture from preparing for climate disasters like the drought devastating his home state, and to eliminate the Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-E):

Paul Ryan Promoted Unfounded Conspiracy Theories About Climate Scientists. In a December 2009 op-ed during international climate talks, Ryan made reference to the hacked University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit emails. He accused climatologists of a “perversion of the scientific method, where data were manipulated to support a predetermined conclusion,” in order to “intentionally mislead the public on the issue of climate change.” Because of spurious claims of conspiracy like these, several governmental and academic inquiries were launched, all of which found the accusations to be without merit. [Paul Ryan, 2/11/09]

Paul Ryan Argued Snow Invalidates Global Warming Policy. In the same December 2009 op-ed, Ryan argued, “Unilateral economic restraint in the name of fighting global warming has been a tough sell in our communities, where much of the state is buried under snow.” [Paul Ryan, 2/11/09]

Paul Ryan Voted To Eliminate EPA Limits On Greenhouse Pollution. Ryan voted in favor of H.R. 910, introduced in 2011 by Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) to block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas pollution. [Roll Call 249, 4/7/11]

Paul Ryan Voted To Block The USDA From Preparing For Climate Change. In 2011, Ryan voted in favor of the Scalise (R-LA) Amendment to the FY12 Agriculture Appropriations bill, to bar the U.S. Department of Agriculture from implementing its Climate Protection Plan. [Roll Call 448, 6/16/11]

Paul Ryan Voted To Eliminate White House Climate Advisers. Ryan voted in favor of Scalise (R-LA) Amendment 204 to the 2011 Continuing Resolution, to eliminate the assistant to the president for energy and climate change, the special envoy for climate change (Todd Stern), and the special adviser for green jobs, enterprise and innovation. [Roll Call 87, 2/17/11]

Paul Ryan Voted To Eliminate ARPA-E. Ryan voted in favor of Biggert (R-IL) Amendment 192 to the 2011 Continuing Resolution, to eliminate the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-E). [Roll Call 55, 2/17/11]

Paul Ryan Voted To Eliminate Light Bulb Efficiency Standards. In 2011, Ryan voted to roll back light-bulb efficiency standards that had reinvigorated the domestic lighting industry and that significantly reduce energy waste and carbon pollution. [Roll Call 563, 7/12/11]

Paul Ryan Voted For Keystone XL. In 2011, Ryan voted to expedite the consideration and approval of the construction and operation of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. [Roll Call 650, 7/26/11]

Paul Ryan Budget Kept Big Oil Subsidies And Slashed Clean Energy Investment. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) proposed FY 2013 budget resolution retained a decade’s worth of oil tax breaks worth $40 billion, while slashing funding for investments in clean energy research, development, deployment, and commercialization, along with other energy programs. The plan called for a $3 billion cut in energy programs in FY 2013 alone. [CAP, 3/20/12]

Paul Ryan’s record of support for the fossil fuel industry is one of denial of the scientific consensus that climate change is a fundamental risk to human civilization.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid spoke today at the National Clean Energy Summit 5.0: The Power of Choice, in Las Vegas, Nev.

Good morning, and welcome to the National Clean Energy Summit: The Power of Choice. I am pleased to once again host this important event with the support of the Center for American Progress, the Clean Energy Project, the MGM Resorts International and the UNLV.

Over the last four years, this summit has brought together investors, innovators, academics and policy makers dedicated to moving the clean energy industry forward.

There should be no one in this room who doubts the importance of reducing our reliance on fossil fuels – not only because it’s good for the environment, but because it’s good for the economy and good for national security.

We’ve already seen how incentives, funding and public-private partnerships have spurred job creation and innovation in this critical sector. This has been a ray of sunshine during the Great Recession.

It is easy to see the logic, the urgency and the opportunity of a clean energy revolution. That is why President Obama has fought hard to advance the policies that will reduce our reliance on oil and other fossil fuels, increase our production of clean energy and create good-paying jobs that can never be outsourced.

But his administration has waged an up-hill battle against moneyed special interests and their allies in Congress, who are invested in maintaining their sweetheart relationship with coal and oil companies.

As hard as it is to comprehend, there are still members of Congress resisting clean energy’s American success story. And sadly they’re doing their best to send clean energy industries and jobs overseas, and hindering the revolution in the process.

Twenty-five years ago, President George H.W. Bush promised to use the “White House effect” to combat the “greenhouse effect.” Yet a quarter century later, too many elected officials in Washington are still calling climate change a liberal hoax. They falsely claim scientists are still debating whether carbon pollution is warming the planet.

As climate change accelerates, it appears the Obama administration is in retreat. In an address on Thursday, the top climate negotiator for the United States rejected the administration’s formal commitment to keeping global warming less than two degrees Celsius (3.6°F) above pre-industrial levels. This about-face from agreements endorsed by President Barack Obama in 2009 and 2010 indicates a rejection of the United Nations climate negotiations process, as well as an implicit assertion that catastrophic global warming is now politically impossible to prevent.

Speaking before an audience at his alma mater Dartmouth College, U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern argued that treaty negotiations based around “old orthodoxies” of a temperature threshold ”will only lead to deadlock”:

For many countries, the core assumption about how to address climate change is that you negotiate a treaty with binding emission targets stringent enough to meet a stipulated global goal – namely, holding the increase in global average temperature to less than 2° centigrade above pre-industrial levels – and that treaty in turn drives national action. This is a kind of unified field theory of solving climate change – get the treaty right; the treaty dictates national action; and the problem gets solved. This is entirely logical. It makes perfect sense on paper. The trouble is it ignores the classic lesson that politics – including international politics – is the art of the possible… . These basic facts of life suggest that the likelihood of all relevant countries reaching consensus on a highly prescriptive climate agreement are low, and this reality in turn argues in favor of a more flexible approach that starts with nationally derived policies… . The keys to making headway in this early conceptual phase of the new agreement is to be open to new ideas that can work in the real world and to keep our eyes on the prize of reducing emissions rather than insisting on old orthodoxies… This kind of flexible, evolving legal agreement cannot guarantee that we meet a 2 degree goal, but insisting on a structure that would guarantee such a goal will only lead to deadlock. It is more important to start now with a regime that can get us going in the right direction and that is built in a way maximally conducive to raising ambition, spurring innovation, and building political will.

Stern is absolutely right that the political challenge of achieving a 2°C goal is extremely high, but what is the “flexible, evolving” regime he proposes?

Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) remarks on climate science and the “very radical views” of Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), on the U.S. Senate floor, July 30, 2012.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, the Senator from Oklahoma, Jim Inhofe, is a friend of mine. While we have strong philosophical and political differences, we have had a very positive personal relationship since I entered the Senate 5\1/2\ years ago. I like Senator Inhofe, and on occasion, despite our political differences, we have been able to work together as members of the Environment and Public Works Committee, on which we both sit. I especially applaud the Senator for his strong efforts on the recently passed Transportation bill in which he led the effort in getting his fellow Republicans to move forward on the vitally important issue of rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure–in this case, roads and bridges.

Unfortunately, Senator Inhofe has some very radical views regarding global warming. I believe he is dead wrong and dangerously wrong on this issue. Not only is he wrong, but because he is the leading Republican on the Environment Committee, his views hold great influence over other Republicans in the Senate, in the House, and across the country. Because many Republicans follow Senator Inhofe’s lead, it means we are making very little progress in Congress in combating what most of the scientific community sees is a global environmental crisis.

I am on the floor today to ask Senator Inhofe to rethink his views on this enormously important issue and to ask my Republican colleagues to do the same. I am asking them to join the overwhelming majority of scientists who have studied and written about this issue in understanding that, one, global warming is real; two, global warming is significantly caused by human activity; three, global warming is already causing massive and costly destruction to the United States and around the world, and it will only get worse in years to come.

Below is the text of Sen. Jim Inhofe’s (R-Okla.) July 30, 2012 speech on the U.S. Senate floor denying the evident threat of manmade climate change, even as his state suffers from record drought and wildfires.

Mr. President, first of all, something my friend from Vermont said a minute ago would surprise a lot of people, and that is we are friends. It is kind of strange. People don’t understand being violently opposed to each other in this body and yet also being very close friends. My friend from Vermont has a different philosophy than I do. That is the nice thing about both the House and the Senate. We have people with different philosophies who believe in different things. Somewhere in the midst of this, the truth ultimately does come out most of the time. I think we would probably agree with that.

One thing I like about my friend from Vermont is he really believes and is willing to stand up and fight for something he believes. I am not going to suggest there are hypocrites in this body. I wouldn’t say that at all. When we look around the political scene, we see people who somehow might ingratiate a block of people who are wanting support. Maybe it is for the next election, maybe it is for a cause. That is not the case with my friend from Vermont. He believes in his heart everything he says.

Sometimes I talk to young people who come in as interns. I tell them there are varied philosophies in the Senate and in the House. We have extreme liberals who believe our country should have a greater involvement in the decisions we make. We have conservatives, like I am, who believe we have too much government in our lives as it is. It is a basic difference. But I say to them, even though I am on the conservative side, I would rather someone be a far outspoken liberal extremist than be in the mushy middle and not stand for anything. My friend from Vermont is not in the mushy middle. He stands for something.

It was not too long ago that another friend in his office, his press secretary–we are very close friends–said something, and I don’t want to misquote him. He said, My boss would like to have a copy of your book. I said, Not only will I give him a copy, but I will autograph it for him, but with one commitment, and that is he has to read it. He kept that commitment; I can tell by the things he said.

Let me go over a few things that were said, and I think it is interesting. This Dr. Richard Muller–I can’t recall too much about him, but I do know he was listed among scientists who were skeptics. For the benefit of people who may not know the terminology, I refer to an alarmist as someone who thinks there is great alarm because something is happening and the end of the world is coming because of global warming. Skeptics are those like myself who don’t believe that. He apparently has changed from being a skeptic to an alarmist. I would only say this, and that is my Web site, epw.senate.gov, shows from probably over 12 years ago a list of scientists who are calling me, making statements, and saying that the IPCC–that is the United Nations, and that is what we are talking about. The United Nations came out with a preconceived notion that they wanted to believe a preconceived conclusion. When they did this, the scientists who were included in the process were scientists who agreed with them.

Our guest blogger is Paul Thacker.

Yesterday, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) gave the latest version of his global-warming-hoax speech on the U.S. Senate floor. Amid his bevy of references to anti-scientific opinionators, he cited University of Colorado political scientist Roger Pielke Jr., the son of the climate-change denying climate scientist Roger Pielke Sr., to claim that “long term . . . there is no evidence that disasters are getting worse because of climate change.”

Pielke Jr. tweeted in response: “Sounds like here Mr. Inhofe is relying on sound science, r you against that? ;-)”

Despite Pielke Jr.’s “sound science” assertion, his Inhofe-endorsed claim is false, as the eminent climate scientist Stephen Schneider described to me in 2009. Because he had no interest in a “blogging war” with the Pielkes, he didn’t publicly criticize Pielke Jr.’s mendacity.

Two years ago this month, Stephen Schneider died. He was a great man. We could all learn something from him. Over several years, he and I had several discussions by email, person, and phone about how to deal with scientists who willfully distort scientific knowledge. In part, I think these people assault the very foundation of what makes us distinct from other animals: the ability to improve on prior knowledge in science.

During one of our discussions in 2009, I forwarded Schneider a Roger Pielke Jr. claim similar to the one Inhofe cited yesterday. I asked Schneider why Roger engaged in this type of really unprofessional behavior.

Below, you can see Schneider’s reply.

—- Forwarded Message —-
From: Stephen H Schneider
To: Paul D. Thacker <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 3, 2009 4:13 AM
Subject: Re: Why does Pielke continue to prevaricate?

Thanks Paul, I guess, never any fun dealing with Roger Jr. I can’t figure him out, except that one consistent pattern emerges-he is a self-aggrandizer who sets up straw men, knocks them down, and takes credit for being the honest broker to explain the mess-and in fact usually adds little new social science to his analysis. I saw him do it at AAAS four years ago and called him on it afterward and he walked off steamed when I told him he just made assertions and that good scientists show empirical evidence. He is not worth arguing about, frankly.

Moreover, note the sleazy way he said it: no peer reviewed paper showing greenhouse EMISSIONS was causing increased damages. You missed that emissions part and assumed he meant climate change-he probably wanted you to miss it. How can we know which percentage of the damages are due to Ma Earth or due to us-no way to precisely separate them except by detection and attribution studies-which do separate them but not at the scale of a locality with hazardous damages. SO it is a set up. Like saying Katrina can’t be proved related to global warming driven by humans. Of course, warming didn’t make the hurricane, but it’s passing over warmed Gulf certainly had some impact in increasing intensity, but how much of that warming was from greenhouse emissions versus other factors-impossible to say and no one would in a peer reviewed journal. So it is a cherry picked framing that he then uses in broad conclusion form and you fell for it-like most probably would!! If he said there are no papers associating observed WARMING to damages, he’d be destroyed-just see the many examples in IPCC. He is subtly saying nobody did double attribution-see the attached from Terry and me on what that is. It is typical of a trickster and a careerist-which is how I personally see him-and so do most of my colleagues these days who I have discussed it with. Please do not copy or forward this-I am uninterested in a blogging war with either him or his father-as Sr. is wont to do.
Cheers, Steve
PS-On the link you gave in your email is Roger’s fifth point-note the trick:
“5. There are no peer-reviewed papers documenting a link between GHG emissions and the long-term trend in disasters.” This is a statement that nobody published a double attribution study on hazards-he’s close to being right on this trick, but not quite right if you count ecosystems as threatened-like in the attached.

Stephen H. Schneider
Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies,
Professor, Department of Biology and
Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment
Mailing address:
Yang & Yamazaki Environment & Energy Building – MC 4205
473 Via Ortega
Ph: 650 725 9978
F: 650 725 4387
Websites: climatechange.net
patientfromhell.org

The Obama administration’s Bureau of Land Management auctioned a major tract of Wyoming coal to Peabody Energy at a bargain-basement price of $1.10 per ton today. The North Porcupine coal tract in the Powder River Basin went to the single bidder, Peabody subsidiary BPU Western Resources, for $793,270,310.80 for 721 million tons, BLM representative Beverly Gorny stated in a telephone interview. This sale, made under the provisions of the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, represents a massive fossil-fuel subsidy based on the assumption that the use of the coal benefits the American public. However, it is likely this coal is intended for the Asian market, where sub-bituminous coal fetches a much higher price. The non-competitive leasing program is under federal investigation.

Moreover, the costs of the carbon pollution from mining and burning this coal were not taken into consideration. The 721 million short tons of sub-bituminous coal in the lease sale will generate approximately 1.1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide when burned. With a modest estimated social cost of carbon at $65 per ton of CO2, the global-warming impacts to society of this lease sale exceed $70 billion—90 times the price paid for the lease. More than 27,000 people signed a Credo Action petition opposing the fire sale of Wyoming’s sub-prime carbon reserves.

The lease sale still has to be approved by the BLM post-sale panel, which rejected Peabody’s original offer of $0.90 a ton for the coal.

Already under fire for his organization’s denial of climate change, Heartland Institute Joe Bast renewed his allegiance to his tobacco sponsors, Altria and Reynolds American International. “The public health community’s campaign to demonize smokers and all forms of tobacco is based on junk science,” Bast writes. His new attacks are raising the pressure on health industry companies such as Pfizer to join the exodus from the Heartland Institute.