Hill Heat

In a scathing critique at the Huffington Post, Nation editor Christian Parenti blasts the 350.org fossil-industry divestment campaign, Fossil Free, as merely “symbolic” and flawed by “crucial weaknesses”—namely, that even if colleges divest from fossil fuel investments, the fossil fuel industry will still be very rich and powerful.

It is not clear why Parenti, a colleague of Naomi Klein, one of the strategists behind the divestment campaign, took the unusual step of taking his criticisms in public, after the campaign has been launched and divestment efforts begun on 146 campuses across the nation.

In an email to Hill Heat, a prominent climate activist with national influence responded to Parenti’s critique:

This manages to be smug and naïve at the same time. And totally ahistoric. His basic conclusion is “government should do its job.” Super.

Why isn’t that happening now? Because the fossil fuel industry has our government, our economy, our culture by the balls.

What can we do? Well, he’s right, ultimately we need assertive public policy. And we need to press relentlessly for the key pieces that are within executive reach – CO2 regs on existing power plants, and an end to government actions – like Keystone permits – that facilitate long-term investments that make the problem unsolvable. And of course we are. And of course we have been, for decades. And we’re getting killed.

Plausible near-term government action is not remotely enough. We need to wrest power back. This often seems impossible, because our economy and our lifestyles are designed to feed the beast at every turn. But the flip side of that realization is that every turn is an opportunity to take a little of our power back, and reduce theirs.

OF FREAKING-COURSE we should address demand. We can do it in our lifestyles. We can do it in state policy, like energy codes. We can do it in community design. We can do it in how we eat. We can do it with our feet. Every damned day. And it’s not just a futile act of individual environmental responsibility. It’s waging freedom.

AND we can stop owning – literally OWNING – this nightmare by divesting. That’s waging freedom too. How much direct damage will we inflict on the industry’s bottom line this way? I don’t know. But we will take back our money and our souls. We’ll draw a line in the sand and make ourselves and others look hard at which side we are on. We’ll make a statement. We’ll activate young people. Those young people will challenge us – most of us alums of these institutions – to choose which side of the line to be on. We will build a stage on which to play out this moral drama, since our legislative bodies have ceased to be such a stage, corrupted as they are by Big Fossil’s money.

And maybe, possibly, conceivably we will build the moral power we need to force our “leaders” and our government to do their job.

If all that sounds hopelessly naïve and “symbolic”, well, shit, given the size of the climate challenge and the scope of any one actor’s ability to change it, you could argue that all actions are “symbolic.” Symbols are powerful. We need power.

Parenti says “I am all for dumping carbon stocks, if for no other reason than a sense of decency and honor. But how is dumping oil stock supposed to hurt the enemy?” Fine. Do it for decency and honor. Isn’t that enough? And if college students all over America and the alums of those institutions simply declare that this is a Fundamental Matter of Decency and Honor – that even if we don’t affect the financial outcome one bit, at least our fingerprints won’t be on this genocidal crime—won’t that be an ENORMOUS change from the bizarre, complacent moral detachment that is our current, collective condition?

There’s significant evidence that Barack Obama as an individual cares very deeply about climate change, particularly in his role as a parent.

However, he built a governing team around him with deep, unresolved conflicts on climate action. Inspiring scientists like John Holdren, Jane Lubchenco, and Stephen Chu are at key leadership positions in his administration. However, his top economic advisers – Timothy Geithner, Peter Orszag, Ben Bernanke, Larry Summers – reflect the false economic orthodoxy that climate action comes at the price of economic growth. (Even though Summers believes that climate change is on par with nuclear war as an existential threat to the human race.) His top political advisers – Bill Daley, David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel, Jim Messina, Anita Dunn, Stephanie Cutter – believe climate action to be a political loser.

As president, he economic advisers hold sway first, followed by the political advisers, then last the scientists.

As a candidate, the political advisers come first, followed by the economic advisers. The scientists are thought to be irrelevant.

This has led to problems.

A popular metaphor for understanding how global warming pollution causes more extreme weather is how steroids created the Home Run era of modern baseball.

The metaphor usually goes: “Climate scientists compare global warming to steroids and extreme weather to home runs. While we can’t attribute any single home run to the use of steroids in baseball, we can attribute to such performance enhancing drugs the increased frequency and magnitude of long balls.”

But that’s not where the metaphor should stop.

Perhaps we can’t attribute any single home run to steroid use, but we can attribute immune system damage, liver damage, gynecomastia, testicular atrophy, ventricular thickening, premature epiphyseal fusion, and fetal disorders to steroid abuse.

The influence of manmade greenhouse gases on our climate system is systemic and cumulative. It’s not just changing the frequency of extreme weather events; it’s changing what weather is.

Frankenstorm Sandy wasn’t just a home run powered by global warming—it was a home run hit by a climate system with systemic damage caused by global warming.

2012

No mentions.

2008: FIRST MCCAIN-OBAMA DEBATE

MCCAIN: Nuclear power is not only important as far as eliminating our dependence on foreign oil but it’s also responsibility as far as climate change is concerned. An issue I have been involved in for many, many years and I’m proud of the work of the work that I’ve done there along with Senator Clinton.

OBAMA: Over 26 years, Senator McCain voted 23 times against alternative energy, like solar, and wind, and biodiesel. And so we — we — we’ve got to walk the walk and not just talk the talk when it comes to energy independence, because this is probably going to be just as vital for our economy and the pain that people are feeling at the pump — and, you know, winter’s coming and home heating oil — as it is our national security and the issue of climate change that’s so important.

SECOND MCCAIN-OBAMA DEBATE

QUESTION: Senator McCain, I want to know, we saw that Congress moved pretty fast in the face of an economic crisis. I want to know what you would do within the first two years to make sure that Congress moves fast as far as environmental issues, like climate change and green jobs?

MCCAIN: Well, thank you. Look, we are in tough economic times; we all know that. And let’s keep — never forget the struggle that Americans are in today. But when we can — when we have an issue that we may hand our children and our grandchildren a damaged planet, I have disagreed strongly with the Bush administration on this issue. I traveled all over the world looking at the effects of greenhouse gas emissions, Joe Lieberman and I. And I introduced the first legislation, and we forced votes on it. That’s the good news, my friends. The bad news is we lost. But we kept the debate going, and we kept this issue to — to posing to Americans the danger that climate change opposes. Now, how — what’s — what’s the best way of fixing it? Nuclear power. Senator Obama says that it has to be safe or disposable or something like that. Look, I — I was on Navy ships that had nuclear power plants. Nuclear power is safe, and it’s clean, and it creates hundreds of thousands of jobs. And — and I know that we can reprocess the spent nuclear fuel. The Japanese, the British, the French do it. And we can do it, too. Senator Obama has opposed that. We can move forward, and clean up our climate, and develop green technologies, and alternate — alternative energies for — for hybrid, for hydrogen, for battery-powered cars, so that we can clean up our environment and at the same time get our economy going by creating millions of jobs. We can do that, we as Americans, because we’re the best innovators, we’re the best producers, and 95 percent of the people who are our market live outside of the United States of America.

BROKAW: Senator Obama?

OBAMA: This is one of the biggest challenges of our times.

OBAMA: And it is absolutely critical that we understand this is not just a challenge, it’s an opportunity, because if we create a new energy economy, we can create five million new jobs, easily, here in the United States. It can be an engine that drives us into the future the same way the computer was the engine for economic growth over the last couple of decades. And we can do it, but we’re going to have to make an investment. The same way the computer was originally invented by a bunch of government scientists who were trying to figure out, for defense purposes, how to communicate, we’ve got to understand that this is a national security issue, as well. And that’s why we’ve got to make some investments and I’ve called for investments in solar, wind, geothermal. Contrary to what Senator McCain keeps on saying, I favor nuclear power as one component of our overall energy mix. But this is another example where I think it is important to look at the record. Senator McCain and I actually agree on something. He said a while back that the big problem with energy is that for 30 years, politicians in Washington haven’t done anything. What Senator McCain doesn’t mention is he’s been there 26 of them. And during that time, he voted 23 times against alternative fuels, 23 times. So it’s easy to talk about this stuff during a campaign, but it’s important for us to understand that it requires a sustained effort from the next president. One last point I want to make on energy. Senator McCain talks a lot about drilling, and that’s important, but we have three percent of the world’s oil reserves and we use 25 percent of the world’s oil. So what that means is that we can’t simply drill our way out of the problem. And we’re not going to be able to deal with the climate crisis if our only solution is to use more fossil fuels that create global warming. We’re going to have to come up with alternatives, and that means that the United States government is working with the private sector to fund the kind of innovation that we can then export to countries like China that also need energy and are setting up one coal power plant a week. We’ve got to make sure that we’re giving them the energy that they need or helping them to create the energy that they need.

THIRD MCCAIN-OBAMA DEBATE

SCHIEFFER: Let’s go to — let’s go to a new topic. We’re running a little behind. Let’s talk about energy and climate control. Every president since Nixon has said what both of you…

MCCAIN: Climate change.

SCHIEFFER: Climate change, yes — has said what both of you have said, and, that is, we must reduce our dependence on foreign oil. When Nixon said it, we imported from 17 to 34 percent of our foreign oil. Now, we’re importing more than 60 percent. Would each of you give us a number, a specific number of how much you believe we can reduce our foreign oil imports during your first term? And I believe the first question goes to you, Senator McCain. MCCAIN: I believe we can, for all intents and purposes, eliminate our dependence on Middle Eastern oil and Venezuelan oil. Canadian oil is fine. By the way, when Senator Obama said he would unilaterally renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Canadians said, “Yes, and we’ll sell our oil to China.” You don’t tell countries you’re going to unilaterally renegotiate agreements with them. We can eliminate our dependence on foreign oil by building 45 new nuclear plants, power plants, right away. We can store and we can reprocess. Senator Obama will tell you, in the — as the extreme environmentalists do, it has to be safe. Look, we’ve sailed Navy ships around the world for 60 years with nuclear power plants on them. We can store and reprocess spent nuclear fuel, Senator Obama, no problem. So the point is with nuclear power, with wind, tide, solar, natural gas, with development of flex fuel, hybrid, clean coal technology, clean coal technology is key in the heartland of America that’s hurting rather badly. So I think we can easily, within seven, eight, ten years, if we put our minds to it, we can eliminate our dependence on the places in the world that harm our national security if we don’t achieve our independence.

SCHIEFFER: All right. Can we reduce our dependence on foreign oil and by how much in the first term, in four years?

OBAMA: I think that in ten years, we can reduce our dependence so that we no longer have to import oil from the Middle East or Venezuela. I think that’s about a realistic timeframe. And this is the most important issue that our future economy is going to face. Obviously, we’ve got an immediate crisis right now. But nothing is more important than us no longer borrowing $700 billion or more from China and sending it to Saudi Arabia. It’s mortgaging our children’s future. Now, from the start of this campaign, I’ve identified this as one of my top priorities and here is what I think we have to do. Number one, we do need to expand domestic production and that means, for example, telling the oil companies the 68 million acres that they currently have leased that they’re not drilling, use them or lose them. And I think that we should look at offshore drilling and implement it in a way that allows us to get some additional oil. But understand, we only have three to four percent of the world’s oil reserves and we use 25 percent of the world’s oil, which means that we can’t drill our way out of the problem. That’s why I’ve focused on putting resources into solar, wind, biodiesel, geothermal. These have been priorities of mine since I got to the Senate, and it is absolutely critical that we develop a high fuel efficient car that’s built not in Japan and not in South Korea, but built here in the United States of America. We invented the auto industry and the fact that we have fallen so far behind is something that we have to work on.

OBAMA: Now I just want to make one last point because Senator McCain mentioned NAFTA and the issue of trade and that actually bears on this issue. I believe in free trade. But I also believe that for far too long, certainly during the course of the Bush administration with the support of Senator McCain, the attitude has been that any trade agreement is a good trade agreement. And NAFTA doesn’t have — did not have enforceable labor agreements and environmental agreements. And what I said was we should include those and make them enforceable. In the same way that we should enforce rules against China manipulating its currency to make our exports more expensive and their exports to us cheaper. And when it comes to South Korea, we’ve got a trade agreement up right now, they are sending hundreds of thousands of South Korean cars into the United States. That’s all good. We can only get 4,000 to 5,000 into South Korea. That is not free trade. We’ve got to have a president who is going to be advocating on behalf of American businesses and American workers and I make no apology for that.

Stories about the influence of carbon pollution on the history-making Frankenstorm Sandy have had a remarkable pattern:

• Albert Sabate, ABC News/Univision: Hurricane Sandy: What’s Climate Change Got To Do With It?
• Kevin Spak, Newser: Is Sandy the Face of Climate Change?
• Mark Fischetti, Scientific American: Did Climate Change Cause Hurricane Sandy?
• Chris Mooney, Climate Desk: Was Hurricane Sandy supersized by climate change?
• Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker: Is Climate Change Responsible For Hurricane Sandy?
• Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience.com: Weather or Climate: What Caused Hurricane Sandy?
• Lloyd Alter, Treehugger: Hurricane Sandy, AKA the Frankenstorm and Climate Change: Is There A Connection?
• Maggie Koerth-Baker, Boing Boing: Did climate change cause Hurricane Sandy? The answer depends on why you’re asking
• Will Bunch, Attytood: Too soon to talk Sandy and climate change?
• Andrew Restuccia, Politico: Hurricane Sandy: The next climate wake-up call?
• Joseph Stromberg, Smithsonian.com: Can We Link Hurricane Sandy to Climate Change?
• Ed Kilgore, Political Animal: Should Climate Change Activists Sandy-gogue?
• Lawrence Karol, Take Part: Frankenstorm Sandy: Has Climate Change Bred a Monster?
• AccuWeather.com: Climate Extremes: Sandy a Result of Climate Change?
• Robin Young, Here & Now: Was Hurricane Sandy Caused By Climate Change?
• Stephen Lacey and Joe Romm, Climate Progress: Did Climate Change Help Create ‘Frankenstorm’?

Equivocation in the face of calamity will neither spur action nor better inform the public.

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.

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 targets stringent enough to meet a stipulated global goal – namely, – 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?