We kept the April 12, 2013 New York Times article as a draft because we basically found it very one-sided and know very little about “Berkeley Earth” or Elizabeth Muller (*), but with information about the Koch Brothers professed skepticism of progressive ideas.

Now we decided to post this because of Fareed Zakaria, someone we hold in high esteem, saying this Sunday on CNN/GPS, that in order to start putting a limit to the emission of CO2 globally, the best step for the US would be to share, what he called safe technologies of Shale Fracking and gas production, this in order to replace the reliance on burning coal as it is done now in China. We know this to be the wrong advice:

(1) there is no technology of “fracking the shale” that is safe to the ground water reservoirs.

(2) fracking and shale-gas will slow down the commercialization of truly positive renewable energy technologies,

and (3) the worse of all – it starts looking like “The Rhinoceros” of World War II Eugene Ionesco – the slow developing of a takeover by an aggressive wrong and obnoxious ideology – and the Koch Brothers are versed in technologies in this respect. 

So – let us say: Fareed Zakaria expressed the idea that Shale Gas is a step in the right direction, but we do not think so – and thousands of scientists agree with us but have suspicions about the proponents of the fracking myth.

Op-Ed Contributor

China Must Exploit Its Shale Gas.

By ELIZABETH MULLER

Published, The New York Times on-line: April 12, 2013

IF the Senate confirms the nomination of the M.I.T. scientist Ernest J. Moniz as the next energy secretary, as expected, he must use his new position to consider the energy situation not only in the United States, but in China as well.

Mr. Moniz, a professor of physics and engineering systems and the director of M.I.T.’s Energy Initiative, sailed through a confirmation hearing Tuesday before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

But some environmentalists are skeptical of Mr. Moniz. He is known for advocating natural gas and nuclear power as cleaner sources of energy than coal and for his support of hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas from shale deposits. The environmental group Food and Water Watch has warned that as energy secretary, he “could set renewable energy development back years.”

The criticism is misplaced. Instead of fighting hydraulic fracturing, environmental activists should recognize that the technique is vital to the broader effort to contain climate change and should be pushing for stronger standards and controls over the process.

Nowhere is this challenge and opportunity more pressing than in China. Exploiting its vast resources of shale gas is the only short-term way for China, the world’s second-largest economy, to avoid huge increases in greenhouse gas emissions from burning coal.

China’s greenhouse gas emissions are twice those of the United States and growing at 8 percent to 10 percent per year. Last year, China increased its coal-fired generating capacity by 50 gigawatts, enough to power a city that uses seven times the energy of New York City. By 2020, an analysis by Berkeley Earth shows, China will emit greenhouse gases at four times the rate of the United States, and even if American emissions were to suddenly disappear tomorrow, world emissions would be back at the same level within four years as a result of China’s growth alone.

The only way to offset such an enormous increase in energy use is to help China switch from coal to natural gas. A modern natural gas plant emits between one-third and one-half of the carbon dioxide released by coal for the same amount of electric energy produced. China has the potential to unearth large amounts of shale gas through hydraulic fracturing. In 2011, the United States Energy Information Administration estimated that China had “technically recoverable” reserves of 1.3 quadrillion cubic feet, nearly 50 percent more than the United States.

The risk is that what is now a nascent Chinese shale gas industry may take off in a way that leads to ecological disaster. Many of the purchasers of drilling rights in recent Chinese auctions are inexperienced.

Opponents of this drilling method point to cases in which gas wells have polluted groundwater or released “fugitive” methane gas emissions. The groundwater issue is worrisome, of course, and weight for weight, methane has a global warming potential 25 to 70 times higher than carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas that results from the burning of coal.

Moving away from fossil fuels entirely may make sense in the United States, where we can potentially afford to pay for more expensive renewable sources of energy. But developing countries have other priorities, like improving the education and health of their people. Given the dangers that hydraulic fracturing poses for groundwater pollution and gas leaks, we must help China develop an approach that is environmentally sound.

Mr. Moniz has warned of the need to curb environmental damage from the process. But he has also stressed the value of natural gas as a “bridging” source of energy as we strive to move from largely dirty energy to clean energy. Extracting shale gas in an environmentally responsible way is technically achievable, according to engineering experts. Accomplishing that goal is primarily a matter of engineering and regulation.

That is where we need the engagement of environmental activists. At home, they can push the United States to set verifiable standards for clean hydraulic fracturing and enforce those standards through careful monitoring. Internationally, American industry can lead by showing that clean production can be profitable.

We need a solution for energy production that can displace the rapid growth of coal use today. Switching from coal to natural gas could reduce the growth of China’s emissions by more than 50 percent and give the world more time to bring down the cost of solar and wind energy to levels that are affordable for poorer countries.

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350NYC

United Against Pipelines, Forward on Climate!  Tomorrow, Monday May 13th,  New Yorkers will march and rally to greet President Obama when he attends a fundraiser in NYC––his first visit since his post-Sandy inspection. In his Inaugural Address just a few months ago, Obama promised “We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.”
Yet he continues to promote an “All of the above” energy policy that includes coal, tar sands, and fracked shale gas.

Join us if you stand against fossil fuel pipelines, against fracking, against tar sands, and FOR a country powered by wind, water and solar.

Gather in Bryant Park starting at 5 (meet near the fountain off 6th avenue at 41st Street). Reverend Billy and his choir will lead us off with a rousing blessing and song. We’ll begin to march at 5:30, then rally in front of the Waldorf Astoria at 6:30.

If you can, please wear yellow and orange (the colors of Occupy Sandy) to demonstrate your support for a clean energy future.
act.350.org/signup/NYC_Unites_Against_Pipelines/.

Event Partners: 350 NYC, 350 NJ, 350.org, Brooklyn For Peace, Coalition Against the Rockaway Pipeline (CARP), CREDO, CUNY Divest, Food & Water Watch, Global Kids Inc., Green Party of NY, Human Impacts Institute, NYC Friends of Clearwater, NYU Divest, Occupy the Pipeline, Occupy Sandy, Restore the Rock, Sane Energy Project, Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter, Sierra Club National, United for Action, World Can’t Wait, WESPAC, YANA (You Are Never Alone).

By Mitch Ginsburg May 9, 2013, The Times of Israel

Some look at the upheaval in Syria through a religious lens. The Sunni and Shia factions, battling for supremacy in the Middle East, have locked horns in the heart of the Levant, where the Shia-affiliated Alawite sect has ruled a majority Sunni nation for decades.

Some see it through a social prism. As they did in Tunis with Muhammad Bouazizi — an honest man who couldn’t make an honest living in this corruption-ridden part of the world — the social protests that sparked the war in Syria started in the poor and disenfranchised parts of the country.

Others look at the eroding boundaries of state in Syria and other parts of the Middle East as a direct result of the sins of Western hubris and Colonialism.

Professor Arnon Sofer has no qualms with any of these claims and interpretations. But the upheaval in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, he says, cannot be fully understood without also taking two environmental truths into account: soaring birthrates and dwindling water supply.

Over the past 60 years, the population in the Middle East has twice doubled itself, said Sofer, the head of the Chaikin geo-strategy group and a longtime lecturer at the IDF’s top defense college, where today he heads the National Defense College Research Center. “There is no example of this anywhere else on earth,” he said of the population increase. Couple that with Syria’s water scarcity, he said, “and as a geographer it was clear to me that a conflict would erupt.”

The Pentagon cautiously agrees with this thesis. In February the Department of Defense released a “climate-change adaptation roadmap.” While the effects of climate change alone do not cause conflict, the report states, “they may act as accelerants of instability or conflict in parts of the world.” Predominantly the paper is concerned with the effects of rising seas and melting arctic permafrost on US military installations. The Middle East is not mentioned by name.

But Sofer and Anton Berkovsky, who together compiled the research work of students at the National Defense College and released a geo-strategic paper on Syria earlier in the year, believe that water scarcity played a significant role in the onset of the Syrian civil war and the Arab Spring, and that it may help re-shape the strategic bonds and interests of the region as regimes teeter and borders blur. Sofer also believes that a “Pax Climactica” is within reach if regional leaders would only, for a short while, forsake their natural inclinations to wake up in the morning and seek to do harm.

Syria is 85 percent desert or semi-arid country. But it has several significant waterways. The Euphrates runs in a south-easterly direction through the center of the country to Iraq. The Tigris runs southeast, tracing a short part along Syria’s border with Turkey before flowing into Iraq. And, aside from several lesser rivers that flow southwest through Lebanon to the Mediterranean, Syria has an estimated four to five billion cubic meters of water in its underground aquifers.

From 2007-2008, over 160 villages in Syria were abandoned and some 250,000 farmers relocated to Damascus, Aleppo and other cities. The capital, like many of its peer cities in the Middle East, was unable to handle that influx of people. Residents dug 25,000 illegal wells in and around Damascus, pushing the water table ever lower and the salinity of the water ever higher.

For these reasons the heart of the country was once an oasis. For 5,000 years, Damascus was famous for its agriculture and its dried fruit. Since 1950, however, the population has increased sevenfold in Syria, to 22 million, and Turkey, in an age of scarcity, has seized much of the water that once flowed south into Syria.

“They’ve been choking them,” Sofer said, noting that Turkey annually takes half of the available 30 billion cubic meters of water in the Euphrates. This limits Syria’s water supply and hinders its ability to generate hydroelectricity.

In 2007, after years of population growth and institutional economic stagnation, several dry years descended on Syria. Farmers began to leave their villages and head toward the capital. From 2007-2008, Sofer said, over 160 villages in Syria were abandoned and some 250,000 farmers – Sofer calls them “climate refugees” – relocated to Damascus, Aleppo and other cities.

The capital, like many of its peer cities in the Middle East, was unable to handle that influx of people. Residents dug 25,000 illegal wells in and around Damascus, pushing the water table ever lower and the salinity of the water ever higher.

This, along with over one million refugees from the Iraq war and, among other challenges, borders that contain a dizzying array of religions and ethnicities, set the stage for the civil war.

Tellingly, it broke out in the regions most parched — “in Daraa [in the south] and in Kamishli in the northeast,” Sofer said. “Those are two of the driest places in the country.”

Professor Eyal Zisser, one of Israel’s top scholars of Syria, agreed that the drought played a significant role in the onset of the war. “Without doubt it is part of the issue,” he said. Zisser did not believe that water was the central issue that inflamed Syria but rather “the match that set the field of thorns on fire.”

Rebel troops transporting two women to safety along the Orontes River, which has shrunk in recent years and grown increasingly saline (Photo credit: CC BY FreedomHouse)

Since that fire began to rage in March 2011, the course of the battles has been partially dictated by a different sort of logic, not environmental in nature. “Assad is butchering his way west,” Sofer said. He believes the president will eventually have to retreat from the capital and therefore has focused his efforts on Homs and other cities and towns that lie between Damascus and the Alawite regions near the coast, cutting himself an escape route.

Sofer and Berkovsky envision several scenarios for Syria. Among them: Assad puts down the rebellion and remains in power; Assad abdicates and a Sunni majority seizes control; Assad abdicates and no central power is able to assert control. The most likely scenario, Sofer said, was that the Syrian dictator would eventually flee to Tehran. But he preferred to avoid that sort of micro-conjecture and to focus on the regional effects of population growth and water scarcity and the manner in which that ominous mix might shape the future of the region.

Writing in the New York Times from Yemen on Thursday, Thomas Friedman embraced a similar thesis, noting that the heart of the al-Qaeda activity in the region corresponded with the areas most stricken by drought. Sofer published a paper in July where he laid out the grim environmental reality of the region and argued that, as in Syria, the conflicts bedeviling the region were not about climate issues but were deeply influenced by them.

Egypt, Sofer wrote, faces severe repercussions from climate change. Even a slight rise in the level of the sea – just half a meter – would salinize the Nile Delta aquifers and force three million people out of the city of Alexandria. In the more distant future, as the North Sea melts, the Suez Canal could decline in importance. More immediately, and of greater significance to Israel, he wrote that Egypt, faced with a water shortage, would likely grow more militant over the coming years. But he felt the militancy would be directed south, toward South Sudan and Ethiopia and other nations competing for the waters of the Nile, and not north toward the Levant.

The Nile River, the lifeblood of Egypt’s 82 million people (Photo credit: CC BY Simona Scolari, Flickr)

As proof that this pivot has already begun, Sofer pointed to Abu-Simbel, near the border with Sudan. There the state has converted a civilian airport into a military one. “The conclusion to be drawn from this is simple and unequivocal,” he wrote. “Egypt today represents a military threat to the southern nations of the Nile and not the Zionist state to the east.”

The Sinai Peninsula, already quite lawless, will only get worse, perhaps to the point of secession, he and Berkovsky wrote. Local Bedouin will have difficulty raising animals in the region and will turn, to an even greater degree, to smuggling material and people along a route established in the Bronze Age, through Sinai to Asia and Europe.

Syria, even if the war were swiftly resolved, is “on the cusp of catastrophe.” Jordan, too, is in dire need of water. And Gaza, like Syria, has been battered by unchecked drilling. The day after Israel left under the Oslo Accords, he said, the Palestinian Authority and other actors began digging 500 wells along the coastal aquifer even though Israel had warned them of the dangers. “Today there are around 4,000 of them and no more ground water. It’s over. There’s no fooling around with this stuff,” he said.

Only the two most stable states in the region – Israel and Turkey – have ample water.

Turkey is the sole Middle Eastern nation blessed with plentiful water sources. Ankara’s control of the Tigris and the Euphrates, among other rivers, means that Iraq and Syria, both downriver, are to a large extent dependent on Turkey for food, water and electricity. That strategic advantage, along with Turkey’s position as the bridge between the Middle East and Europe, “further serves its neo-Ottoman agenda,” Sofer said.

He envisioned an increased role for Turkey both in the Levant and, eventually, in central Asia and along the oil crossroads of the Persian Gulf, pitting it against Iran. Climate change, he conceded, has only a minor role in that future struggle for power but it is “an accelerant.”

Israel no longer suffers from drought. Desalination, conservation and sewage treatment have alleviated much of the natural scarcity. In February, the head of the Israel Water Authority, Alexander Kushnir, told the Times of Israel that the country’s water crisis has come to an end. Half of Israel’s two billion cubic meters of annual water use is generated artificially, he said, through desalination and sewage purification.

For Sofer, this self-sufficiency is an immense regional advantage. Israel could pump water east to Jenin in the West Bank and farther along to Jordan and north to Syria. International organizations could follow Israel’s example and fund regional desalination plants, which, he noted, cost less than a single day of modern full-scale war.

Instead, rather than an increase in cooperation, he feared, the region would likely witness ever more desperate competition. Sofer said his friends see him as a sort of Jeremiah. But the Middle East, he cautioned, is a region where “leaders wake up every morning and ask what can I do today to make matters worse.”

Arnon Sofer, a longtime professor at the IDF’s National Defense College, sees a link between the war in Syria and the water shortages there (Photo credit: Moshe Shai/ Flash 90)

FROM MOJO (MOTHER JONES):

Shutterstock

Back in 2011, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) declared war on energy-efficient light bulbs, calling “sustainability” the gateway into a dystopic, Big Brother-patrolled liberal hellscape. When the lights went off during Beyoncé’s halftime set at the last Superbowl, conservative commentators from the Drudge Report to Michelle Malkin pointed blame (erroneously) at new power-saving measures at New Orleans’ Superdome. And one recent study found that giving Republican households feedback on their power use actually encourages them to use more energy.

Why do conservatives, who should have a natural inclination toward conservation, have a beef with energy efficiency?              It could be tied to the political polarization of the climate change debate.

A study out today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examined attitudes about energy efficiency in liberals and conservatives, and found that promoting energy-efficient products and services on the basis of their environmental benefits actually turned conservatives off from picking them. The researchers first quizzed participants on how much they value various benefits of energy efficiency, including reducing carbon emissions, reducing foreign oil dependence, and reducing how much consumers pay for energy; cutting emissions appealed to conservatives the least.

The study then presented participants with a real-world choice: With a fixed amount of money in their wallet, respondents had to “buy” either an old-school light bulb or an efficient compact florescent bulb (CFL), the same kind Bachmann railed against. Both bulbs were labeled with basic hard data on their energy use, but without a translation of that into climate pros and cons.

When the bulbs cost the same, and even when the CFL cost more, conservatives and liberals were equally likely to buy the efficient bulb. But slap a message on the CFL’s packaging that says “Protect the Environment,” and “we saw a significant drop-off in more politically moderates and conservatives choosing that option,” said study author Dena Gromet, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.

The chart below, from the report, shows how much liberals and conservatives value each argument for efficiency:

While liberals (gray) valued all three equally, conservatives (white), were significantly less moved by and most at odds with liberals over the carbon-saving argument.

Courtesy Gromet

Gromet said she never expected the green message to motivate conservatives, but was surprised to find that it could in fact repel them from making a purchase even while they found other aspects, like saving cash on their power bills, attractive. The reason, she thinks, is that given the political polarization of the climate change debate, environmental activism is so frowned upon by those the right that they’ll do anything to keep themselves distanced from it.

“When we’re given an option where the choice is made to represent a value that we don’t identify with or that our ideological group doesn’t value,” she said, “this can turn the purchase into something undesirable.

By making [the environment] part of the choice, even though they might see the economic benefit, they no longer want to put their money toward that option.”

This graph, lifted from the report (on the x-axis, -1 is liberal and 1 is conservative), shows the damage the wrong messaging can do: With no messaging, roughly 60 percent of all participants picked the CFL; a pro-environment message boosted support in liberals but cut it sharply in conservatives:

Courtesy Gromet

That gap could represent real lost opportunities in the private sector: the EPA’s Energy Star label, for example, perhaps the most prominent label for energy-efficient products, puts greenhouse gas savings front and center in its packaging, and proudly boasts that products with the label helps Americans “protect our climate.”

This isn’t just a problem for businesses trying to push energy-efficient products, but also for environmentalists and policymakers pushing to write efficiency or other climate-friendly policies into law, said Jessica Goodheart, director of RePower LA, which advocates for energy-saving practices in the Los Angeles power utility. Goodheart said while tackling climate change is driving force behind her lobbying, she more often finds herself talking about jobs and the economy, especially when addressing small business owners.

“It’s always important to speak to people where they are, and with energy efficiency there are so many positive messages you can use,” she said.

And there’s no shortage of opportunities to roll those messages out: Last week, Energy Department researchers found that rules requiring utilities to use renewable energy were under attack in over half the states they exist in; such laws might have better luck fending off Bachmann-esque fusillades if they re-focus their rhetoric around their cost-savings, energy independence, or other benefits, Gromet’s research suggests, especially in conservative states.

That doesn’t necessarily mean green advocates need to somehow cover up the environmental benefits of a policy or product: A study from Stanford psychologists released last December found that re-framing environmental messaging in terms of preserving the “purity” of the natural world resonated morally with conservatives.

“There’s not going to be a one-size-fits-all message that will appeal equally,” Gromet said. “It’s important to know the market you’re appealing to; there are some messages you may want to avoid.”

Tim McDonnell is Climate Desk‘s associate producer. For more of his stories, click here. Follow him on Twitter or send him an email at tmcdonnell [at] motherjones [dot] com. RSS | Twitter

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What does the ‘Doha Climate Gateway’ mean for Africa?

Twelve. That’s the combined number of segments that ABC, CBS and NBC’s nightly news programs devoted to climate change throughout the entire year of 2012. This is woefully inadequate. We need coverage that’s consistent with the importance of dealing with this issue.

Click here to urge ABC, NBC and CBS’ nightly news programs to do a better job of covering climate change.

Since 2012 was the hottest year on record and we experienced a series of damaging extreme weather events, you’d think that the media would have given climate change more attention. The simple reality is that dealing with climate change is going to take big action. But, that can’t happen unless the American people understand how climate change fuels extreme weather. It’s up to the media to inform people.

That’s why we and the Sierra Club are joining the League of Conservation Voters in asking the three nightly news programs to do a better job of covering climate issues in 2013 than they did in 2012. We almost have 100,000 signatures already and with your participation, we can get over the 100,000 mark. You can help out by signing the letter to the executive producers of ABC World News, CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News asking them to give us more frequent, accurate coverage of climate change this year.

Sign here: action.mediamatters.org/tell_news_to_cover_climate_change

Shauna Theel,
Senior Researcher of Energy and Environment at Media Matters

Emilee Pierce,
Climate and Energy Program Director, Media Matters

P.S. We’re almost at 100,000 twitter followers: Follow us today!

The University of Salento (Lecce-Italy) announces the second edition of
the International Summer School “Life-Cycle Approaches to Sustainable
Regional Development”, which will take place in Santa Maria di Leuca (LE)
from July 8th to July 12th 2013.
The focus of the school will be on LCA, Carbon Footprint, Water Footprint
and Integrated Reporting.
For all the details please see: www.lcss.unisalento.it/

We  were waiting to see who will be the new nominees and how the President intends to make good on his promises to move the economy forward by using the fight against global warming as his main tool for development within the United States.

For now we post the New York Times evaluation and we will obviously look to enlarge on this posting.

At first look it seems that the President made very shrewed appointments – with an eye directed to his opposition.

Ms. McCarthy, is a native of Massachusetts and she served under Mr. Romney the Good – before he became Romney the Bad – that is before he turned against the positive policies he backed as Governor of Massachusetts. His minions will now oppose her work – you can bet on it.

Professor Moniz believes in climate change but thinks that Natural Gas and Nuclear Power are the most effective immediate answer to the US dependence on fossil fuels. He will surely learn very fast that environmentalists believe with all their hart that Natural Gas is made with fossil carbon, and that while decreasing emissions, the use of fossil carbon methane is no answer to global warming – then nuclear power has no friends among the population either. It seems that push for EFFICIENCY in energy use and setting a policy for longer term change will be the more immediate solution.

Including the appointment of Ms. Burwell to be the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget , to round out this trio, is a very good move. She has worked in the Clinton Administration and is a known entity that has close relations to the new treasury Secretary and former Chief of Staff – Mr. Jacob J. Lew – and then turned to managing large Foundations – the Bill Gates and the Walmart Foundations- both headquartered far away from Washington DC, and doing a lot of good.
She will be of help in figuring out the budget implications of what the other two appointees will suggest. This is thus a middle of the road trio capable of coming up with the needed change in the US Economy – with a positive reflection on the Environment and on Energy.

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Editorial

Two Enlistees in the Climate Wars

Published: March 5, 2013 1 Comment

Mr. Obama nominated Gina McCarthy, an experienced clean air regulator, to run the Environmental Protection Agency, and Ernest Moniz, an M.I.T. physicist and strong advocate of natural gas and nuclear power, to run the Energy Department. Both believe global warming is one of humanity’s most pressing challenges. Both have deep experience — Ms. McCarthy as an assistant administrator at the E.P.A. and an adviser to Republican governors in Connecticut and Massachusetts, Mr. Moniz as an under secretary of energy in the Clinton administration.

Both will be required to use their regulatory authority creatively and aggressively. There is zero chance that Congress will enact the “bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change” that Mr. Obama called for in his State of the Union address. This means that his second-term agenda on climate change will run through Ms. McCarthy’s and Mr. Moniz’s agencies, and will depend almost entirely on executive actions that do not require Congressional approval. Here are three strategies that could make a big dent in carbon emissions.

¶Invoke the E.P.A.’s authority under the Clean Air Act to limit pollution from stationary sources, chiefly fossil-fuel power plants that account for almost 40 percent of the country’s carbon emissions. The agency has already proposed strict standards requiring new power plants to capture their emissions, an untested technology. The bigger problem is what to do with existing plants, which provide a big chunk of the nation’s electricity and which cannot be shut down quickly or by fiat. Devising a gradual phaseout will require ingenuity and persistence in the face of what are sure to be strong legal and political challenges from industry.

¶Make natural gas safer. Thanks to hydraulic fracturing, the country is now awash in natural gas. One major reason for the unexpected decline in national carbon emissions is that many power plants have switched from coal to natural gas, which emits only half as much carbon dioxide. But there is a downside: drilling for and transporting natural gas can produce methane leaks, and methane is a potent greenhouse gas that can cancel out whatever carbon advantage gas has over coal. Much tougher restrictions must be imposed throughout the system, including on thousands of miles of pipelines.

¶Improve energy efficiency across the board. One of the success stories of the last 30 years has been the increase in energy efficiency in appliances, new commercial buildings, and cars and light trucks. But there is plenty of room for improvement. The task of designing ever-stricter standards will fall largely to Mr. Moniz.

There is obviously more: finding new refrigerants to replace climate-warming hydrofluorocarbons, investing not only in familiar renewable energy sources like wind and solar power but also in basic research, next-generation nuclear plants and experimental technologies that could smooth the path to a low-carbon economy.

Little of this will happen without a good deal of push-back from industry and its Congressional allies. From start to finish line, Ms. McCarthy and Mr. Moniz will need the president at their back.

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Obama Announces 3 Cabinet Nominations.

By JACKIE CALMES and JOHN M. BRODER

Published: March 4, 2013

Doug Mills/The New York Times
President Obama introduced Sylvia Mathews Burwell, his choice to be the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, on Monday.

Mr. Obama introduced Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the president of the Walmart Foundation in Arkansas and a familiar figure in the Democratic administration from her service in the Clinton administration, to be the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Ernest J. Moniz, the director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Energy Initiative, is the president’s choice to take over for Steven Chu at the Energy Department. And Gina McCarthy, the assistant administrator in charge of air and radiation at the Environmental Protection Agency, is the pick to replace the departing administrator, Lisa P. Jackson. All three positions are subject to Senate confirmation.

Ms. McCarthy most likely faces the greatest scrutiny given Republicans’ opposition to Mr. Obama’s environmental and climate policies.

“I hope the Senate will confirm them as soon as possible,” Mr. Obama said as he introduced the three nominees and thanked the current holders of the cabinet posts in the East Room, which was packed with family, friends and administration staff members.

Mr. Obama described Dr. Moniz as “another brilliant scientist” to succeed Dr. Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, at the Energy Department. And for the E.P.A., the president said Ms. McCarthy was well suited with her experience as a state environmental official in both Massachusetts — for former Gov. Mitt Romney — and Connecticut. She has “a reputation as a straight-shooter” who “welcomes different points of view,” he added.

Together, Ms. McCarthy and Dr. Moniz are “going to be making sure that we’re investing in American energy, that we’re doing everything that we can to combat the threat of climate change, that we’re going to be creating jobs and economic opportunity in the first place,” Mr. Obama said, implicitly addressing the criticism, especially from Republicans, that environmental policies inhibit the economy.

The applause that greeted Ms. Burwell as the budget nominee reflected how familiar she remains, having served President Bill Clinton at the budget office, where she was the deputy director, as well as at the Treasury Department and in the White House. In that time, she worked closely with Jacob J. Lew, now Mr. Obama’s Treasury secretary, who recommended Ms. Burwell for the budget director’s job, which he held for both Mr. Clinton and Mr. Obama. Since then, Ms. Burwell has lived far from Washington, first in Washington State during her time leading global development programs for the Gates Foundation and then in Bentonville, Ark., Walmart’s headquarters.

Mr. Obama used his announcement of Ms. Burwell’s nomination to once more address the across-the-board cuts to military and domestic spending, known as sequestration, that took effect on Friday, after he and Congressional Republicans failed to agree on a more deliberate set of deficit reduction actions.

She and the acting budget director, Jeffrey D. Zients, “will do everything in their power to blunt the impact of these cuts on businesses and middle-class families,” the president said. “But eventually a lot of people are going to feel some pain. That’s why we’ve got to keep on working to reduce our deficit in a balanced way.”

Mr. Obama also hinted that he would find another post in his administration for Mr. Zients, a former business executive, who is well respected within the White House. He has been mentioned as a possible nominee to be Mr. Obama’s trade representative or commerce secretary — two of the last cabinet posts that Mr. Obama must fill to complete his second-term team.

“I expect he will continue to serve us well in the future,” Mr. Obama said.

The choice of Ms. McCarthy is likely to generate considerable opposition because she is identified with several of the Obama administration’s most ambitious clean air regulations, including proposed greenhouse gas regulations for new power plants. Mr. Obama has pledged to address climate change in his second term, and he is expected to use the authority granted to the E.P.A. under the Clean Air Act to reduce climate-altering emissions from power plants and other major sources.

In choosing Dr. Moniz, Mr. Obama has once again selected a nuclear physicist, although one with more political experience; Dr. Moniz was the under secretary of energy in President Bill Clinton’s second term.

Dr. Moniz, like his predecessor, Dr. Chu, is highly focused on how to meet a skyrocketing global demand for energy while mitigating adverse effects on the environment, and like Dr. Chu, he has focused on the need for technology innovation.

He also shares with Dr. Chu a scientist’s view of politics. In a memo posted on his program’s Web site in November 2012, he said that the M.I.T. Energy Initiative was continuing to supply technical research “in the interest of providing some degree of rationality in the ongoing political discussion.”

Ms. McCarthy, 58, is a native of Massachusetts and was a top environmental official there and in Connecticut, serving under Democratic and Republican governors, including, for a time, Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee for president.

She has a reputation as a blunt-speaking, assertive voice for strong environmental policies, particularly health-related clean air policies. As a senior E.P.A. official in Mr. Obama’s first term, she helped fashion tough new emissions standards for cars and light trucks, tightened standards for mercury and other harmful pollutants in the air, and issued the first proposed regulations for carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas pollutants for new power plants. Those new rules would make it virtually impossible to build any new coal-fired power plants in the United States.

Coal and utility industry officials accused her and other E.P.A. officials of waging a “war on coal,” and that issue is likely to come up in her confirmation hearings.

Jeffrey Holmstead, who led the E.P.A.’s air and radiation office in the George W. Bush administration, predicted that Ms. McCarthy would win confirmation, although the hearings might produce some sparks.

“I assume many people on the G.O.P. side will want to use confirm hearings to express concerns,” Mr. Holmstead said. “But there is a sense among industry folks that Gina took the time to listen to and understand their concerns. She’s certainly not pro-industry, but she does try to understand an issue and address it.”

Environmental advocates generally applauded the choice of Ms. McCarthy, which has been circulating in Washington for weeks.

“Every American is or will soon be breathing cleaner air because of Gina McCarthy,” said Frank O’Donnell, the director of Clean Air Watch, an advocacy group. “She has spearheaded vital public health improvements, including cleanup of mercury and other toxins from coal-burning power plants, a more protective health standard for fine-particle soot and landmark greenhouse gas standards for motor vehicles.”

“But huge challenges remain,” he added, “including the need for smog-fighting lower-sulfur gasoline, a tougher national smog standard, and greenhouse gas limits on both new and existing power plants.”

At M.I.T., Dr. Moniz has delved deeply into the practicalities of various energy sources; the institute has produced a series of five major interdisciplinary studies on energy topics, and he was the chairman or co-chairman of four of them, on the future of coal, of natural gas, of the nuclear fuel cycle and of nuclear power. (He skipped the one on the power grid.) All four showed an engineer’s realism; the study of coal, for example, said that greater use would be an environmental blow but that it was inevitable, given the world’s energy needs and the widespread dispersal of the resource.

And the studies, over the last 10 years, were not always right; the 2003 study on nuclear power, for example, underestimated the price of building a new reactor by at least half.

Like many academic leaders, he has strong ties to industry, some of them certain to draw fire now. The Energy Initiative recently announced that ENI, the Italian oil company, had renewed its participation as a founding member, and would contribute at a level that “significantly exceeds the founding member support level of $5 million per year.” The other corporate founding members are BP, Shell and Saudi Aramco. Other sponsors include Chevron and several utilities, including the parent company of Southern California Edison, Entergy, Duke Energy and Électricité de France, all nuclear reactor operators.

Dr. Moniz attracted some opposition even before the president announced his intention to nominate him. At Food and Water Watch, an organization that opposes hydraulic fracturing, Wenonah Hauter, the director, called him “a known cheerleader” for fracking.

“His appointment to the D.O.E. could set renewable energy development back years,” she said. “The oil and gas industry will thrive while true energy efficiency and renewable solutions languish.”

His previous support of expanding nuclear power as a way to meet energy needs while limiting climate change is also likely to make him a magnet for opponents.

Before serving as energy under secretary from 1997 to 2001, Dr. Moniz, 68, was the associate director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Clinton White House. At the Energy Department, he led a major effort to determine how the nation would maintain its stockpile of nuclear weapons without test explosions; he was also the department’s negotiator on the disposition of Russian nuclear weapons materials.

15 February 2013

Press Conference on Impact of Climate Change on Marshall Islands.

The Security Council should consider climate change as a threat to international peace and security, particularly for such low-lying nations as the Marshall Islands whose “very existence” was at risk, a Government minister from that country said at a Headquarters press conference today.

“This organization [the Council] that we put faith in to provide the security of our country is saying that that is not a security matter,” said Tony deBrum, Minister in Assistance to the President of the Marshall Islands, as he briefed journalists on today’s so-called “Arria Formula” meeting on security implications of climate change.

Initiated in 1992 by Ambassador Diego Arria, the representative of Venezuela on the Security Council, such informal gatherings do not constitute an activity of the Council and are convened at the initiative of a member or members of the Council.

Mr. deBrum said he had participated as a panelist and reminded the Council that 35 years ago, he had come to the United Nations to petition for the independence of the Marshall Islands.  Between 1976 and 1986, his delegation had annually visited the United Nations.  In 1986, the Security Council finally approved the termination of the trusteeship and the establishment of an independent Government for the Marshall Islands, he added.

“We are very grateful for that, but it is hard to be excited about the independent Government seeking prosperity, progress and good life for its people to be faced with the situation where its very existence is threatened through climate change,” he said.

“It seems ironic that the very same agency whose approval was needed for my country to become a country again would consider my coming back to ask for help […] is not relevant to their work,” he said.  There was no outcome document or a running record from that meeting, but he expected that his appeal had convinced some or more of the participants that climate change “is in fact a security issue, not just an economic/social/political issue”.

When asked which countries opposed treating climate change as the Council’s prerogative, he said China, Russian Federation and Guatemala were among them.  “Surprisingly”, the “Group of 77” developing countries and China, of which the Marshall Islands was a member, had taken a position that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was the appropriate venue for deliberations on that issue.  That revealed that “many of our own friends throughout the world do not realize the urgency of the problem,” he said.

Describing the situation, he said rising tides had started severely impacting the islands, with roads inundated every 14 days in keeping with the moon cycle.  In southern parts of the nation, where there used to be a military base in the Second World War, ordnances were being exposed by the tides, presenting a clear danger to the life and welfare of people there.  Even the nation’s capital was required to ration water.  In the northern part, emergency kits for making drinking water were being distributed as well water was inundated with salt.

“It became unsuitable for human consumption, and dangerous even to our staple food and citrus,” he said. He said he was not predicting a looming crisis — it was already happening, affecting not just his own country but also Kiribati, Tuvalu and some of the other low-lying islands of the Pacific.
He hoped that “logic will prevail and people see it as a just cause”.

In September, there will be a Pacific Islands Forum meeting to be held in his country, he said.  He wished to invite the most significant players in the politics of climate change to visit the Marshall Islands to see the situation first hand.  “We are not just sitting under coconut trees and waiting for coconuts to fall,” he said, stressing the need for proactive measures.

To an inquiry about Palau’s bid to bring the climate change issue before the International Court of Justice as a security and human rights violation, he said it was an interesting effort, but was not moving anywhere.

NEW ZEALAND MISSION to the UNITED NATIONS

Te Mängai o Aotearoa
HOMEPAGE:  www.nzembassy.com/newyork

_________________________________________________________________________________

UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL

ARRIA FORUMULA MEETING ON THE SECURITY DIMENSIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

STATEMENT BY STEPHANIE LEE

CHARGÉ D’AFFAIRES A.I.

15 FEBRUARY 2013

I thank Pakistan and the United Kingdom for refocusing the Security Council on this important issue.

In 2011 New Zealand supported the group of countries from the South Pacific and elsewhere who were calling on the Security Council to recognize the security implications of climate change. The fact that the Council adopted PPRST 2011/15 was a welcome step. But it was only a very modest beginning. A more intensive examination is now required.

While the global climate has always been variable, human-induced climate change is occurring at an unprecedented rate. It is not only small island states in the Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean that are threatened, but climate change is also having an impact on security in regions such as Africa where decreased rainfall is increasing competition for scarce water and food. It is now beyond argument that international security depends on our collective ability to manage climate impacts in a shorter timescale. Globally, there is a tremendous body of scientific knowledge:  we have a good idea of what is going to happen and what we might be able to do about it. And the Security Council needs to be a part of the process of raising awareness.

We agree with the Secretary General’s report that the best way to avoid climate change impacts is through comprehensive adaptation and global mitigation action.  In the UNFCCC, New Zealand is therefore committed to developing a comprehensive legally binding climate change agreement, whose design ensures the participation of all major emitters and an ambitious outcome.  A rules-based system with bounded flexibility – and differentiation on a continuum of commitments – will support both of these essential goals.

But climate change is an issue that must also be addressed across most of the international agenda. While it is not the Security Council’s role to be the author of a new rules-based system, it can and should add its weight to the case for an effective global response.

Moreover the Council must step up its efforts for preventive diplomacy and conflict avoidance.  Internationally, and especially here in the United Nations, we already have mechanisms that address the kind of security challenges posed by climate change, whether competition for scarce resources including land and water, food security or disaster response. Existing mechanisms, including the Security Council, must recognise the threat multiplier that is climate change.

Security threats can be most effectively mitigated where climate change is “mainstreamed” in sustainable development planning to build confident, resilient communities, who have choices about whether to relocate or remain.  At a national level, building adaptive capacity allows countries to better cope with climate-related events before they spiral into major security challenges.  Work under way in the UNFCCC to consider arrangements on loss and damage from the adverse effects of climate change in developing countries will be an important part of that.

Co-chairs,

In 2011 New Zealand had the privilege of chairing the Pacific Islands Forum – a regional body that represents some of the smallest and most vulnerable states on this planet.

We share the fundamental concern of Pacific Island countries, and other particularly vulnerable countries, about the impacts of climate change – including stresses on food, fresh water, and energy supplies, as well as an increase in extreme weather events.  And we share the concern that the impacts threaten the viability of some communities and raise questions about relocation. Pacific Islands Forum Leaders have recognized the desire to continue to live in their own countries, which is vital to retaining the Pacific’s social and cultural identity.  It is time to think hard, and quickly, about how solutions to climate change can reflect the desire of people to continue to live in their own countries.

It was for these reasons New Zealand stood alongside our Pacific neighbours in co-sponsoring the UN General Assembly Resolution on Climate Change and its possible security implications in 2009 and New Zealand now in 2013 calls on the Security Council to take up this issue again this year.

Co-Chairs,

Both climate change and the responses to it will have far-reaching impacts over the decades ahead.  We ask the Council to listen to the voices of those countries that face the most difficult transitions, and do all within its purview to ensure that the path to a climate-resilient future is stable and secure.

New York Times Op-Ed Contributor

The Case for a Higher Gasoline Tax.

By VALERIE J. KARPLUS

THE average price of gasoline in the United States, $3.78 on Thursday, has been steadily climbing for more than a month and is approaching the three previous post-recession peaks, in May 2011 and in April and September of last year.

But if our goal is to get Americans to drive less and use more fuel-efficient vehicles, and to reduce air pollution and the emission of greenhouse gases, gas prices need to be even higher. The current federal gasoline tax, 18.4 cents a gallon, has been essentially stable since 1993; in inflation-adjusted terms, it’s fallen by 40 percent since then.

Politicians of both parties understandably fear that raising the gas tax would enrage voters. It certainly wouldn’t make lives easier for struggling families. But the gasoline tax is a tool of energy and transportation policy, not social policy, like the minimum wage.

Instead of penalizing gasoline use, however, the Obama administration chose a familiar and politically easier path: raising fuel-efficiency standards for cars and light trucks. The White House said last year that the gas savings would be comparable to lowering the price of gasoline by $1 a gallon by 2025. But it will have no effect on the 230 million passenger vehicles now on the road.

Greater efficiency packs less of a psychological punch because consumers pay more only when they buy a new car. In contrast, motorists are reminded regularly of the price at the pump. But the new fuel-efficiency standards are far less efficient than raising gasoline prices.

In a paper published online this week in the journal Energy Economics, I and other scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology estimate that the new standards will cost the economy on the whole — for the same reduction in gas use — at least six times more than a federal gas tax of roughly 45 cents per dollar of gasoline. That is because a gas tax provides immediate, direct incentives for drivers to reduce gasoline use, while the efficiency standards must squeeze the reduction out of new vehicles only. The new standards also encourage more driving, not less.

Other industrialized democracies have accepted much higher gas taxes as a price for roads and bridges and now depend on the revenue. In fact, Germany’s gas tax is 18 times higher than the United States’ (and seven times more if the average state gas tax is included). The federal gasoline tax contributed about $25 billion in revenues in 2009.

Raising the tax has generally succeeded only when it was sold as a way to lower the deficit or improve infrastructure or both. A 1-cent federal gasoline tax was created in 1932, during the Depression. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan raised the tax to 9 cents from 4 cents, calling it a “user fee” to finance transportation improvements. The tax rose again, to 14.1 cents in 1990, and to 18.4 cents in 1993, as part of deficit-reduction deals under President George Bush and President Bill Clinton.

A higher gas tax would help fix crumbling highways while also generating money that could help offset the impact on low- and middle-income families. Increasing the tax, as part of a bipartisan budget deal, with a clear explanation to the public of its role in lowering oil imports and improving our air and highways, could be among the most important energy decisions we make.

———————-

Though in favor of the Sunday Washington rally and demonstration to show support for a Presidential Clean Energy policy, it is a letter from Dr. James E. Hansen that helps us formulate what we instinctively found structurally wrong in the way the issue was presented at the rally.

It seemed to us that the rally – booked as a CLIMATE PRESIDENTIAL event – was effectively just an anti Keystone Pipeline and anti Fracking event – thus putting in front, in the eyes of many in the crowd,  the main issues of the day. But the deep issues are CLIMATE CHANGE, AIR POLLUTION, WATER POLLUTION, LAND DEGRADATION, and the hold the fossil fuels industries have on our government.

What should have been stressed was rather those issues, and the need of the Administration to address those issues, and saying that the two operative technologies that the business as usual crowd want to use, and that we abhor, are like going the wrong way at a moment that we have reached A FORK IN THE ROAD - the image used by Jim Hansen (Dr. James E. Hansen.  ( www.columbia.edu/~jeh1 )

The speeches at the Rally should have thus started by stressing that FORK IN THE ROAD – The one that has positives for the economy, and that we want the President to take, and the other that continues us on the road to doomsday. We do not want those two technologies mentioned above because they take us down the wrong path, but we want the President to lead the country out of the economy debacle by using the right way out of the fork  in the road – and he has our backing if he leads in the right way. The truth is that the main media – the TV channels – did not cover the event because it presented mainly the negatives – the “anti” action, and it did not show the positives – the suggested technologies AND TAXES TO HELP – that could put us on the right path from this moment’s FORK IN THE ROAD.

We continue here by posting excerpts from the content of Dr. Hansen’s e-mail – in a reorganized way to help us make above point. And please – let us remember – we are the FOSSIL FUEL FOOLS – if we do not advocate the carbon tax to help us get out from the fake illusion that extending the carbon-age with new carbon technologies does anything but accelerate our voyage to a doomsday destiny. (by the way – that is why I wore that yellow fools’ nose at the Washington rally as mentioned in our reporting.)

The economics is crystal clear. We are all better off if fossil fuels are made to pay their honest costs to society. We must collect a gradually rising fee from fossil fuel companies at the source, the domestic mine or port of entry, distributing the funds to the public on a per capita basis. This approach will provide the business community and entrepreneurs the incentives to develop clean energy and energy-efficient products, and the public will have the resources to make changes.

This approach is transparent, built on conservative principles. Not one dime to the government.
The alternative is to slake fossil fuel addiction, forcing the public to continue to subsidize fossil fuels. And hammer the public with more pollution. The public must pay the medical costs for all pollution effects. The public will pay costs caused by climate change. Fossil fuel moguls get richer, we get poorer. Our children are screwed. Our well-oiled coal-fired government pretends to not understand.

We stand at a fork in the road.

Conventional oil and gas supplies are limited. We can move down the path of dirtier more carbon-intensive unconventional fossil-fuels, digging up the dirtiest tar sands and tar shales, hydrofracking for gas, continued mountain-top removal and mechanized destructive long-wall coal mining. Or we can choose the alternative path of clean energies and energy efficiency.

Transition to a post-fossil fuel world of clean energies will not occur as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy.

Fossil fuels are cheap only because they are subsidized and do not pay their costs to society. Air and water pollution from fossil fuel extraction and use have high costs in human health, food production, and natural ecosystems, with costs borne by the public. Costs of climate change and ocean acidification also are borne by the public, especially young people and future generations.

Thus the essential underlying policy, albeit not sufficient, is for emissions of CO2 to come with a price that allows these costs to be internalized within the economics of energy use. Because so much energy is used through expensive capital stock, the price should rise in a predictable way to enable people and businesses to efficiently adjust lifestyles and investments to minimize costs.

An economic analysis indicates that a tax beginning at $15/tCO2 and rising $10/tCO2 each year would reduce emissions in the U.S. by 30% within 10 years. Such a reduction is more than 10 times as great as the carbon content of tar sands oil carried by the proposed Keystone XL pipeline (830,000 barrels/day). Reduced oil demand would be nearly six times the pipeline capacity, thus rendering it superfluous.

If a rising price is placed on carbon, the tar sands will be left in the ground where they belong. And the remarkable life and landscape of the original North American people will be preserved.

The climate science is crystal clear. We cannot go down the path of the dirty fuels without guaranteeing that the climate system passes tipping points, leaving our children and grandchildren a situation out of their control, a situation of our making. Unstable ice sheets will lead to continually rising seas and devastation of coastal cities worldwide. A large fraction of Earth’s species will be driven to extinction by the combination of shifting climate zones and other stresses. Summer heat waves, scorching droughts, and intense wildfires will become more frequent and extreme. At other times and places, the warmer water bodies and increased evaporation will power stronger storms, heavier rains, greater floods.

Mr. President,

I acknowledge the presence of Distinguished Panelist and Guest Speakers in today’s event. I thank the Secretary General for his Statement and note the interventions that have been made thus far.

“Where were they? Why didn’t the United States of America, the most powerful nation on earth, lead the international community in cutting greenhouse gas emissions and preventing the devastating damage that the scientific community was sure would come?”

Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced climate change legislation this week. (photo: Kevin Dietsch/UPI/Newscom)

Comments

+4 # phrixus 2013-02-16 17:03

Bernie, Congress hasn’t accomplished squat in years. What makes you think they’ll act differently towards your bill?

+9 # Walter J Smith 2013-02-16 19:33

Of course, Senator Sanders is correct about what we need from our leaders. Yet we are not so naive as to suppose these leaders will actually lead us where we need and want to go: into a steady state sustainable economy, ecology, and societal culture.

The reasons our leaders do not lead are not impossible to see: they get rewarded handsomely at every election for saying what a majority of voters want to hear, and doing only what they cannot avoid doing that is actually in the public interest.

They are all of them eager to throw gobs of welfare and subsidies and sweetheart deals to their corporate buddies. But when it comes to serving the public interest, they act as if it does not exist in any reality they have ever encountered.

Judging from the popular vote, they are correct.