Senate To Follow House Lead on Climate Legislation. CQ Politics, May 30, 2009. "As a historic bill aimed at curbing climate change gains momentum in the House, a group of about 25 Democratic senators has started to lay the groundwork for the daunting job of moving the legislation through their chamber. The crux of their strategy? Follow the House, where the Energy and Commerce Committee has approved a climate change bill that would cap emissions of carbon dioxide and set up a system for polluters to buy and sell emissions permits. 'The House is going to prove the politics. If Waxman can get a deal, we'll look at how we can build something like that in the Senate,' Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., said, referring to House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif. The Senate group, described as 'the climate champions' by one aide, is led by Senate Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer , D-Calif., and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Durbin are also taking part in group meetings, with the aim of crafting a successful strategy for bringing a climate bill to the Senate floor. The senators have been meeting every Tuesday for about a month in an effort to begin building a consensus around the House measure before it even arrives on their side of the Capitol. House leaders still must work with the eight other committee chairmen who share jurisdiction over the legislation before Waxman's bill can hit the floor."
GOP Attacks Democrats for Climate Proposal. By H. Josef Hebert, AP, May 30, 2009. "Republicans on Saturday attacked the climate change proposal crafted by congressional Democrats and endorsed by President Barrack Obama as doing little to reduce global warming while saddling Americans with high energy costs. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, in the GOP's weekly radio and Internet address, called the House climate bill 'a classic example of unwise government.' The address culminated a week of coordinated Republican attacks on the Democratic proposal... GOP House members used the weeklong Memorial Day congressional recess to drum up voter opposition to the Democratic bill. The governor's criticism echoed Republican lawmakers' arguments at 'energy summits' in Pennsylvania, Indiana and California and at other forums during the week. The proposal to cap greenhouse emissions 'will cost us dearly in jobs and income and it stands no chance of achieving its objective of a cooler earth' because other nation's such as China and India will not have to follow, argued Daniels... 'The cost for all American taxpayers will be certain, huge, and immediate. Any benefits are extremely uncertain, minuscule, and decades distant,' he said."
Free Carbon Emissions Permits Could Create Added Costs. By Anne C. Mulkern, Greenwire, May 30, 2009. "Those free passes that the House climate bill gives to major greenhouse gas-emitting industries might not be so free for consumers... Utility companies and other polluting sectors receive the permits and avoid buying allowances for some carbon dioxide emissions, protecting customers from sharp price increases. But that does not mean other energy prices won't rise. While the allowances likely will cushion increases in electricity bills, economists said, the allowances, combined with a carbon cap, could drive energy cost increases elsewhere, possibly in the gasoline, diesel and heating oil sector... If the program functions similarly to the one that caps sulfur dioxide emissions, utilities forced to buy emission allowances beyond what the free permits cover would be able to seek rate increases, said Dan Cearfoss, chief public utilities engineer with the Georgia Public Service Commission, a regulator in that state.
Obama Walks Fine Line Over Mountaintop Mining. By Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten, LATimes, May 31, 2009. "With the election of President Obama, environmentalists had expected to see the end of the 'Appalachian apocalypse,' their name for exposing coal deposits by blowing the tops off whole mountains. But in recent weeks, the administration has quietly made a decision to open the way for at least two dozen more mountaintop removals. In a letter this month to a coal ally, Rep. Nick J. Rahall II (D-W.Va.), the Environmental Protection Agency said it would not block dozens of 'surface mining' projects. The list included some controversial mountaintop mines... The administration's decision is not the final word on the projects or the future of mountaintop removal. But the letter, coupled with the light it sheds on relations between the mining industry and the Obama White House, has disappointed environmentalists. Some say they feel betrayed by a president they thought would end or sharply limit the practice... Shortly after his inauguration, Obama won praise from the green lobby for taking a skeptical view of the mining process. And in March the EPA announced it would review the mountaintop projects, breaking from the Bush administration's practice of granting permits with little or no scrutiny. The EPA has the authority to block mountaintop removal under the Clean Water Act. But if the agency raises no objections, the final decision on projects is made by the Army Corps of Engineers, which historically has approved mountaintop mining. The corps previously had indicated its intention to approve 48 pending permits."
U.S. Trans. Sec. Checks Out Spain's Bullet Train System. By Harold Heckle, AP, May 30, 2009. "Spain's bullet train system is a model to follow as America plans how to spend the money the government is injecting to stimulate the economy, the U.S. transportation secretary said Saturday. Ray LaHood said the $8 billion allocated for high-speed railways in the United States will spur economic growth and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. President Barack Obama has cited Spain, France and Japan as countries with systems worth emulating... LaHood met with Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to discuss how investing in such a train system could stimulate job creation in the U.S. 'Yesterday I traveled on a train at close to 350 kilometers (215 miles) per hour, the fastest I've ever ridden on a high-speed train,' LaHood said. He said he had enjoyed a conversation and beverage aboard and found the experience very civilized. 'Our leaders have made the decision that America will have high speed rail,' LaHood said. Of $787 billion approved in Obama's stimulus bill, $48 billion is destined to improving overall transport infrastructure, with rail receiving for the first time an important share, LaHood said."
Where Should the Wind Turbines Go? By Molly Webster, OnEarth, May 28, 2009. "Renewable-energy technologies, such as solar arrays and wind turbines, don't emit carbon dioxide, but they can nevertheless disturb habitats and cause environmental harm. How does society balance the urgent need to develop renewable energy with the protection of wild lands that happen to have significant renewable resources? NRDC has teamed up with the Audubon Society to create a powerful new mapping tool. A digital program created for Google Earth plots more than 15,000 locations in 13 western states that are either legally off-limits or are of such high natural value that 'conservation groups would fight tooth and nail to protect them,' says NRDC senior scientist Matthew McKinzie... The high-tech clean energy and conservation map is the product of a lot of old-fashioned legwork. McKinzie spent the past year hunting down the coordinates of 20 different types of land, including federal and state parks, wildlife refuges, and roadless and wilderness areas. In all, he collected records encompassing 860 million acres -- about half the land area of the lower 48 states. NRDC also located the habitats of 173 threatened species. All these data were then plotted on an interactive Google Earth map, which was color-coded to represent the different categories of public lands."
Rare Metals and Sustainable Energy Technology. By Craig Canine, OnEarth, May 28, 2009. "Metals known as rare earths -- a group of 17 elements with exotic-sounding names like lanthanum, neodymium, yttrium, and erbium... are essential ingredients in a host of high-tech gadgets, including automotive catalytic converters, air-bag sensors, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines, and precision-guided missiles. Although they are produced and used in tiny quantities, rare earths and a few other obscure metals such as indium and gallium are also essential ingredients in virtually every sustainable energy technology. Lanthanum, for example, is required to make nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries, which are used in hybrid cars. Energy-efficient fluorescent lightbulbs contain small amounts of both yttrium and europium. 'Super magnets' made with neodymium form the heart of compact but powerful motors and generators like those used in wind turbines, today's hybrid cars, and tomorrow's plug-in electric vehicles… Economically viable concentrations of rare earths are known to exist in only a handful of places -- mainly in China, Australia, and North America, with smaller deposits in India, Brazil, Malaysia, and South Africa. China's reserves, which are located mainly in Inner Mongolia and in soft clay ores in southern China, are, by a wide margin, the world's largest… 'The global annual production of neodymium, essentially all of which is mined in China, is today at an all-time high,' [says Jack Lifton, a 'technology metals' consultant] 'There is no surplus -- the existing demand uses up all that's produced each year. So to build more wind turbines and hybrid cars, you'll need more neodymium. Where are you going to get it?'"
Green Promise Seen in Switch to LED Lighting. By Elisabeth Rosenthal and Felicity Barringer. NYTimes, May 30, 2009. "When a lighting designer two years ago proposed installing light emitting diodes or LEDs, an emerging lighting technology, the royal family readily assented. The new lights, the designer said, would last more than 22 years and enormously reduce energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions -- a big plus for Prince Charles, an ardent environmentalist. Since then, the palace has installed the lighting in chandeliers and on the exterior, where illuminating the entire facade uses less electricity than running an electric teakettle. In shifting to LED lighting, the palace is part of a small but fast-growing trend that is redefining the century-old conception of lighting, replacing energy-wasting disposable bulbs with efficient fixtures that are often semi-permanent, like those used in plumbing... LEDs are more than twice as efficient as compact fluorescent bulbs, currently the standard for greener lighting. Unlike compact fluorescents, LEDs turn on quickly and are compatible with dimmer switches. And while fluorescent bulbs contain mercury, which requires special disposal, LED bulbs contain no toxic elements, and last so long that disposal is not much of an issue... The switch to LEDs is proceeding far more rapidly than experts had predicted just two years ago. President Obama's stimulus package, which offers money for "green" infrastructure investment, will accelerate that pace... There remain significant barriers. Homeowners may balk at the high initial cost, which lighting experts say currently will take 5 to 10 years to recoup in electricity savings. An outdoor LED spotlight today costs $100, as opposed to $7 for a regular bulb. Another issue is that current LEDs generally provide only 'directional light' rather than a 360-degree glow, meaning they are better suited to downward facing streetlights and ceiling lights than to many lamp-type settings... [However,] nearly monthly scientific advances are addressing many of the problems, decreasing the high price of the bulbs somewhat and improving their ability to provide normal white light bright enough to illuminate rooms and streets."
How a Pioneering University Hopes to Cut its Carbon Footprint by Half. By Lea Radick, ClimateWire, May 29, 2009. "For many people, geothermal energy conjures up images of steaming geysers or bubbling hot water gushing up from superheated rocks deep within the Earth. The western United States is rich in this form of energy, but in the East, these heat-producing layers are too deep to be retrieved without expensive exploration technology. But geothermal also applies to the use of heat pumps that can create energy from the temperature difference between the surface of the Earth and the relatively stable subsurface temperature of approximately 50 degrees Fahrenheit at depths of about 10 to 300 feet. Which is why Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., is installing the largest geothermal heat pump system in the country. The university estimates that the project, which broke ground on May 9, will save the school $2 million in energy costs a year while cutting its carbon dioxide emissions by a dramatic 50%."
The Dark Side of Plan Colombia. By Teo Ballvé, The Nation, May 27, 2009. "Since 2002 Plan Colombia has authorized about $75 million a year for 'alternative development' programs like palm oil production... Government reports, legal documents and testimony from human rights groups show that drug-fueled paramilitaries--often in cooperation with the US-funded military--forcibly displaced thousands of Chocó's farmers in the late 1990s, killing more than a hundred. Since 2001 Urapalma and a dozen other palm companies have seized at least 52,000 acres of the depopulated land in Chocó, most of it held collectively by Afro-Colombian farmers... The damage may be just beginning. In 2005 Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, citing surging markets in food and biofuels, urged the country to increase palm production from 750,000 acres to 15 million acres--an area the size of West Virginia... A report by the international organization Human Rights Everywhere found violent crimes related to palm cultivation in five separate regions--all of which fall within Uribe's initiative. Almost all of these regions have also been targeted for palm cultivation support by USAID."
In Finland, Nuclear Renaissance Runs Into Trouble. By James Kanter, NYTimes, May 28, 2009. "The massive power plant under construction on muddy terrain on this Finnish island was supposed to be the showpiece of a nuclear renaissance. The most powerful reactor ever built, its modular design was supposed to make it faster and cheaper to build. And it was supposed to be safer, too... After four years of construction and thousands of defects and deficiencies, the reactor's 3 billion euro price tag, about $4.2 billion, has climbed at least 50%. And while the reactor was originally meant to be completed this summer, Areva, the French company building it, and the utility that ordered it, are no longer willing to make certain predictions on when it will go online. While the American nuclear industry has predicted clear sailing after its first plants are built, the problems in Europe suggest these obstacles may be hard to avoid... On top of such problems come the recession, weaker energy demand, tight credit and uncertainty over future policies, said Caren Byrd, an executive director of the global utility and power group at Morgan Stanley in New York. 'The warning lights now are flashing more brightly than just a year ago about the cost of new nuclear,' she said."
After Many Tuneups, A Historic Overhaul. By Steven Mufson, WashPost, May 31, 2009. "In the space of five head-spinning months, the economic downturn and a few strong-willed financial officials in the Obama administration have done what legions of car executives, consultants and policymakers had failed to do in three decades: overhaul the U.S. car industry."
GM Confirms Plans to Build Subcompact Cars in US. By Tom Krisher, AP, May 29, 2009. "GM said Friday that it plans to reopen a shuttered U.S. factory to build subcompact cars that will be the smallest vehicles GM has ever produced here. The company said in a written statement that the retooled factory will be able to build 160,000 cars per year. The automaker did not say which factory would be selected or which models it will build. GM, which is expected to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday, also plans to announce then that it will close 14 more factories, including four assembly plants... The automaker had said in documents submitted to Congress that it planned to produce up to 51,000 subcompacts per year in China and ship them to the U.S. starting in 2011, when GM plans to start selling the Chevrolet Spark here. The three-door hatchback with a 1.2-liter turbocharged engine is about the size of a Honda Fit or Toyota Yaris and is set to go on sale in Europe next year. But in an interview with AP on Thursday, United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger said GM will not import the cars from China and had agreed as part of a concession deal to build them in the U.S. 'Small cars represent one of the fastest-growing segments in both the U.S. and around the world,' GM CEO Fritz Henderson said in the statement.'We believe this car will be a winner with our current and future customers in the U.S.' Henderson said the UAW concessions ensure GM's manufacturing competitiveness in the U.S."
Toyota Prius Sales Boom in Japan. By Yuri Kageyama, AP, May 30, 2009. "Orders in Japan for Toyota's new Prius hybrid have topped a booming 110,000, a major dealership chain said Saturday, in what is turning out to be a rare bright spot in the gloomy auto market. The third-generation Prius officially rolled out in Japan just two weeks ago. But dealers are already flooded with orders."
Biofuel for Jets, Within a Year, Says Boeing Exec. By Katie Howell, Greenwire, May 29, 2009. "Jet fuels derived from algae, camelina and jatropha -- plants that pack an energy punch, are not eaten as food and do not displace food crops -- could be approved and replacing petroleum fuels in commercial flights as early as next year, a Boeing executive said Thursday. Bill Glover, managing director of environmental strategy for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, which is leading an effort to develop, test and certify alternative jet fuels, said the technology is ready. Now, it is just a matter of growing enough non-food feedstock plants and refining enough of their oil."
Book Review: 'Pedaling Revolution'. By David Byrne, NYTimes, May 31, 2009. "Jeff Mapes, the author of Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists Are Changing American Cities... details how cities from Amsterdam to Paris to New York to Davis, Calif., have developed policies encouraging cycling in recent decades, and how other towns are just beginning to make way for bikes. He lays out in an easily digestible way a fair amount of material on trip patterns, traffic safety and air pollution. He quotes the relevant studies and shows how those studies have been either heeded or ignored. All this information is great ammunition for those of us who would like to see American cities become more bike-friendly but may be a tough sell for the people on the fence -- the ones who've taken the occasional Sunday ride along a riverfront greenway or in a park, or have a vague feeling that they might possibly bike to work somehow someday." David Byrne's most recent album is Everything That Happens Will Happen Today. His book "Bicycle Diaries" will be published in the fall.
170 Nations to Convene in Bonn to Review Draft New Climate Treaty. By Alister Doyle, Reuters, May 31, 2009. "About 170 nations will meet in Germany next week to work on a new United Nations climate treaty with hopes for progress pinned most on ways to raise billions of dollars to help poor nations cope with global warming. The June 1-12 talks between senior officials in Bonn will be the first to review formal draft texts about a sweeping U.N. deal due to be agreed in Copenhagen in December to involve all countries in fighting global warming. Over 120 pages of draft texts indicate deadlock between rich and poor nations on a core dispute over how to share out curbs on greenhouse gases, released mainly by use of fossil fuels."
African Ministers to Industrialized Countries: Show Us Your Commitment. AFP, May 29, 2009. "African environment ministers on Friday demanded clear commitment from industrialized countries to fund projects to counter the effects of global warming. They lamented lack of commitment by developed states to fund projects that will help Africa, the world's lowest polluter, to cope with the effects of climate change. 'There is no commitment that has been made to fund adaptation and there are still conditionalities... being pegged,' South Africa's Environment Minister Buyelwa Sonjica said. 'If anything we would have wanted a stronger leadership from the developed world and I am not sure if it's there. I haven't seen it yet,' said Sonjika who heads the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment. The ministers who gathered in Nairobi also agreed on a common stand on climate change to be presented at the United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen in December. The agreement calls for more finances and clean energy technology transfer as well as significant carbon emission cuts by developed countries. The ministers want industrialized nations to cut emissions by 25 to 40% by 2020 below the 1990 levels."
India to the U.S.: You Fix It. By George Black, OnEarth, May 28, 2009. "Given its agricultural and service-based economy, its lack of dependence on exports, India may be shielded from the worst of the global meltdown. Indian diplomats will take part in the climate negotiations that will lead, by the end of this year, to a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol, and they will insist, with good reason, that the United States take the lead in finding a solution. You created the problem, they will say; you solve it. Meanwhile, the monsoons will grow more erratic. There will be worse floods and more severe droughts. The glaciers will go on melting. There will be more coal-fired power plants and more hydro dams. More Indians will buy cars."
India Pushes Massive Rural Green Jobs Program. By Krittivas Mukherjee, Reuters, May 29, 2009. "The government has started a pilot project to quantify climate benefits from the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), the anti-poverty scheme that could become one of the country's main weapons to fight criticism it is not doing enough to tackle global warming. The flagship anti-poverty plan, started three years ago, provides 100 days of employment every year to tens of millions of rural poor, a move that partly helped the Congress party-led coalition return to power in a general election this month. About 70% of the work under the NREGA are 'green jobs' such as water harvesting, forestation and land development."
Two Views of What 2100 Could Look Like. WABC News, May 30, 2009. "Watch Earth 2100, a two-hour television event, Tuesday, June 2, at 9 p.m. (Eastern)...Imagine our future as two doors. Door No. 1 is our current path, or as the scientists put it, business as usual. If we continue on this trajectory, experts say, over the next 100 years the 'perfect storm' of population growth, resource depletion and climate change will converge with catastrophic results. In this scenario the combination of war, famine and disease has the potential to decimate the world in less than a hundred years. Earth 2100 takes viewers through door No.1, with the help of a fictional character, Lucy. Born in the year 2009, Lucy guides us through the next century as it may well unfold, if we don't take drastic measures. With the assistance of some of the world's foremost scientific experts, she gives us a detailed decade-by-decade countdown to the collapse of society. But it does not have to be. Earth 2100 will conclude by traveling through door No. 2. The clock resets to 2009, and using the same chronology and the same scientists, we leave the viewer with the inspiring story of an alternate future. The experts tell us what actions we must take to survive and describe the world we can create. In this version, Earth in 2100 will be one we would be proud to imagine.
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