Californians Deliver Mostly Victories for Environment and Clean Energy

Outstanding news of great import: In three key election results yesterday
in California, what won big were our economy, clean energy future, prospects
for a better quality of life, and the urgent need for real action on the
climate change crisis. The election of Governor Jerry Brown, the
reelection of Senator Barbara Boxer, and the overwhelming rejection of Proposition 
23 -- the Texas oil companies¹ scheme to kill California¹s seminal 2006
Global Warming Solutions Act -- are together a resounding victory for
Californians and the environment.

It¹s also true that California suffered an economic, taxpayer and environmental setback with the passage of Proposition 26.  This was the quiet maneuver by oil, tobacco and alcoholic beverage companies to externalize what are internal costs, i.e., their costs for compliance with legitimate health and pollution regulations and fees.  Their escape route is Prop 26's stipulation that such fees must now be approved by two-thirds of the State Legislature rather than the previous simple majority.  In pulling off this gambit, these well-funded corporations likely succeeded at off-loading their own costs onto California¹s general fund.  Hint: "General fund" means you, me, our neighbors and our kids.  They picked our pocket.

To the extent that California continues to still sometimes drive national
debate and policy, the victory over Proposition 23 is a shot and a wake-up
call for the entire country. Other states will now follow California on
climate change and clean energy law.

Californians, Vote No on Prop 23

Be sure to vote on Tuesday, November 2, Election Day, too much is at stake not to.  If you live in California, the results of races for Governor (vote for Jerry), the U.S. Senate (Boxer), and the U.S. House of Representatives, plus several state propositions, will have a collectively enormous impact on California’s environment, economy, quality of life, and future prospects.  

In California, it’s critically important that you vote No on Proposition 23.

Prop 23 is an attempt by Texas oil refinery companies Valero and Tesoro, as well as the extremist right-wing Koch brothers, to change the State of California's future by undoing our seminal Global Warming Solutions Act, better known as AB 32.  This legislation, approved in 2006 and signed into law by Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, will have a profoundly positive impact by significantly reducing the state’s greenhouse gas emissions (GHG’s) and other air pollutants, creating new jobs and spurring innovation in clean technology, renewable energy, and energy efficiency, and improving residents’ quality of life through better air quality and more sensible transportation and housing policies.  Prop 23 would unravel these advances.

California’s AB 32 also is extremely important in the national debate over what to do about global climate change, especially given that reactionary conservatives to date have successfully stifled action on the climate change crisis primarily at the behest of oil, coal and electric utility companies.  AB 32 will help reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, reduce the nation’s irresponsible emissions of GHG’s, and provide invaluable impetus to the urgent economic and environmental necessity of shifting this nation’s energy dependence to clean technologies and renewable energy. 

Everywhere across the country, elected officials and numerous other stakeholders are looking to California and AB 32 as an indicator of where the nation is going.  Unless, of course, somehow AB 32 was made to go away.  Proposition 23 would effectively kill AB 32, although its dishonest purveyors claim that the proposition would merely “suspend” the global warming law.  Indeed, the language in the proposition does say “suspend,” but the conditions attached to this so-called suspension in reality would make it permanent.   

Sound the Alarm, Vote No on California Proposition 26

While you and your friends are marking the “No” box on your ballot for Proposition 23, be sure to do the same for its less glamorous and more underhanded cousin, Proposition 26.  If it passes, this proposal will shift enormous costs for pollution and its effects from rich corporate polluters over to California’s cash-strapped  taxpayers, i.e., you, me, our kids, and our neighbors.

Proposition 26 is a deliberately disingenuous attempt by oil, tobacco and alcoholic beverage companies to prevent new fees to be levied on the products or consequences of their industries.   Oil companies, for example, want to avoid having to pay new fees that would help pay for the clean-up of oil spills they cause.  They instead want to force California taxpayers to pay for their oil spills.  They cravenly hide this agenda behind the pleasantly mainstream-sounding slogan, “No Hidden Taxes.”

EPA Thumbs Nose at Climate Leaders Program, Corporations

Read the amazing report below from Paul Baier, Vice President of Consulting for Groom Energy Solutions, regarding how the U.S. EPA not only cancelled its acclaimed Climate Leaders Program without explanation but also butchered how it handled the situation.  One wonders what EPA has in mind.  With an increasingly conservative Congress successfully stifling legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, working proactively with more enlightened corporations through incentives and market-driven approaches seemed like an intelligent approach.  What's next, EPA?

I can't paraphrase better than Baier's original prose so I won't.  I'll add one word only: Disgraceful.  Here is the report from Paul Baier:

Dear Colleague,

 Notes from a Stunning EPA Climate Leaders Meeting

The EPA having just unexpectedly cancelled its voluntary carbon reporting program a few weeks ago, held its annual (and last) Climate Leaders meeting this week in New Orleans. Originally scheduled to be a 2.5 day event, it was hastily shortened to 2 half-days. Here are a few of my observations from the meeting.

World Meteorological Organization Calls Current Decade another Record-Setter

The title of the December 8 press release from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is "2000-2009, The Warmest Decade."  Quoting from the text, "The decade of the 2000s (2000-2009) was warmer than the decade spanning the 1990s (1990-1999), which in turn was warmer than the 1980s (1980-1989)."  The WMO uses global combined sea surface and land surface air temperatures, a conclusively sound methodology.

The WMO announcement also pointed out that "This year above-normal temperatures were recorded in most parts of the continents.  Only North America (United States and Canada) experienced conditions that were cooler than average."  The anecdote regarding North America is important, as some U.S. climate change deniers use it out of context to try to confuse the public into believing that global warming isn't happening.

Earth's climbing surface temperatures are only part of the story.  The world's scientists, including but not limited to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), are continuing to find one disturbing climate change-related development after another.  These include melting glaciers, drying rivers, sea level rise, oceanic acidification and an Arctic region in climate turmoil.

And yet more from the press release: "Climate extremes, including devastating floods, severe droughts, snowstorms, heat waves and cold waves, were recorded in many parts of the world," and "The Arctic sea ice extent during the melt season ranked the third lowest, after the lowest and second-lowest records set in 2007 and 2008, respectively."

The evidence is overwhelming -- humans are heating the planet to an alarming degree and so far there is no end in sight.

Copenhagen Climate Change Summit: Good, Bad, Ugly

With the Copenhagen Summit on climate change ("COP15") well underway and the December 18 finale only days away, a person in my position is supposed to be feeling gung ho.  I'm not.  At best, I'm ambivalent.  My hope is for a binding international agreement to at least begin curbing greenhouse gas emissions.  After all, for the first time we have China, India, Brazil and the U.S. making commitments of some sort (or merely "pledges"?) -- a necessary and positive step.

But when many miles need to be traveled, and yesterday, it's hard to get excited by excruciating baby steps.  At the moment at least, China and India merely are pledging to reduce the "carbon intensity" of their respective economies.  It's a fancy and not entirely honest way of saying they will continue to pursue low-hanging energy efficiency measures already on the drawing board while watching their cumulative greenhouse gas emissions continue to soar.  As for the U.S., President Obama is crossing his fingers that his noticeably modest commitment, of 17 percent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 2020, will make it past the woeful U.S. Senate.  Meanwhile, opposing blocs of underdeveloped and developed nations continue to point fingers at one another.

In the face of an unprecedented global crisis, baby steps are a form of soft denial.  Sort of like mumbling.


Miles above this lackluster performance, carbon dioxide concentrations in Earth's atmosphere have risen to approximately 390 ppm and are plausibly climbing toward 450 ppm, exacerbating the greenhouse effect already underway.  And according to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS),  even if the world brought its carbon dioxide levels back to pre-industrial times, which it won't, it would take "1,000" years or longer for the climate changes already underway to be reversed.  This is largely thanks to the long life of carbon dioxide in the world's oceans.


Here are several excellent sources for tracking ongoing developments at COP15.  Some of these sites also give you the opportunity to participate in chat groups, Twitter, etc.:

• Oneclimate.net
• Realclimate.org -- emphasis on climate change science
• Climate Progress -- possibly the best climate change site, period.  Highly esteemed Dr. Joseph Romm serves as editor in collaboration with the Center for American Progress.
• Climate central 
• Project Groundswell
• New York Times
• Various national environmental organizations, such as Environmental Defense Fund

Al Gore Advocates for Electric Vehicles and Against Ethanol

Nobel Peace Prize winner and former Vice President Al Gore is on tour to promote his new book, Our Choice, which more or less begins where An Inconvenient Truth ended.  While touching on the latest science of global climate change, the book nonetheless focuses on U.S. energy policies, sources and uses and on policy solutions to the climate crisis (a term used not only by this author but also in a consistent manner by Gore).

Opening his November 9 remarks at San Rafael's Dominican University with his trademark self-deprecating humor -- "I'm Al Gore, I used to be the next president of the United States" -- the relaxed and good-humored Tennessean immediately had his audience laughing and applauding.  To be sure, for Gore, speaking to an ideologically compatible and politically sophisticated San Francisco Bay Area audience about global climate change, the only thing missing from the love would be flowers and kisses.