I would like to close with an observation that I gained from watching World Cup soccer over the past few weeks. In particular, I was struck by the recurring juxtaposition of two advertising billboards in the background of the soccer pitch, one in red by an American company—McDonald’s, the other in blue by a Chinese company—Yingli Solar. I thought to myself, this is the World Cup, the world’s biggest sporting stage, and China is proudly showcasing the future of its economy with a solar technology company. What is the U.S. best able to showcase?
Hamburgers.
I believe this image speaks volumes about the state of play not only in the global clean energy race, but also in the global competitiveness landscape. At the same time, I do believe there is a window of opportunity to do the right things to get America’s house in order so that it too can shape its energy future.
That’s from the oral testimony CAP’s Julian L. Wong gave to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. His excellent full written testimony is below:
Back then, my sources gave the chances for passage this year of comprehensive energy legislation that included a cap on utility greenhouse gas emissions as 50-50. But that presupposed a very hard push — messaging and arm-twisting — from Obama and his team. Since that hasn’t happened, we’re now probably at best 50-50 for any energy bill at all!
True, the Politico reported today, “Reid warms to July climate vote”:
How a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from smoking to global warming
July 14, 2010
JR: I loved “Merchants of Doubt.” But before I could write my review, guest blogger John Atcheson wrote his. John has more than 30 years in energy and the environment with government, private industry, and the nation’s leading think tanks (see “Utility decoupling on steroids.”) He is working on his own novel about climate change.
In Merchants of Doubt NaomiOreskes and Erik Conway take us on a fascinating trip down what they call Tobacco Road. Take the journey with them, and you’ll see renowned scientists abandon science, you’ll see environmentalism equated with communism, and you’ll discover the connection between the Cold War and climate denial.
And for the most part, you’ll be entertained along the way.
Oreskes and Conway are historians who focus on science. What they do best is to sort through history’s discarded headlines and peak into the nooks and crannies of scientific literature to weave together their tale and to reveal the hypocrisy and hubris of a few scientists who show up again and again in contrarian positions against established science.
The trip exposes an unlikely link between Manhattan project scientists and the cult of denial that confronted virtually every major public health and environmental initiative of the last sixty years.
The thinking behind the ads, according to UCS President Kevin Knobloch, is that “People like science and scientists, but they often don’t have a good idea of who they are as people.”
Of Dr. Inouye, we find out:
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been asking questions about the birds and the bees. How do they fly? What do they eat?
Now that I’m a trained scientist, my questions may be more sophisticated, but the passion is the same. I wonder what climate change is doing to the life cycle of wildflowers, and how bumblebees and hummingbirds are reacting to those changes. The bug’s-eye view shows me that our world is warming like never before. My name is David Inouye, and I’m a concerned scientist.
China attracted more asset financing in clean-energy technology in the second quarter than Europe and the U.S. combined, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said.
Financing of wind turbines, solar panels and low-carbon technology in China climbed 72 percent to $11.5 billion compared with the year-earlier quarter, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said in an e-mailed statement. U.S. investments in clean energy rose to $4.9 billion while in Europe it fell to $4.5 billion.
To set the record straight, ClimateScienceWatch.org talked with one of the article’s coauthors, Stanford University Prof. Stephen Schneider. The video and transcript of the interview are below. First, let me repost the study’s main conclusion: Read the rest of this post »
A corporate coalition seeking Capitol Hill support for bills that expand the market for electric vehicles is ramping up an ad campaign that promotes the technology as a cure for reliance on oil imports.
"Climate change caused by humans is already affecting our lives and livelihoods — with extreme storms, unusual floods and droughts, intense heat waves, rising seas and many changes in biological systems — as climate scientists have projected."
July 13, 2010
Today, a large body of evidence has been collected to support the broad scientific understanding that global climate warming, as evident these last few decades, is unprecedented for the past 1000 years — and this change is due to human activities. This conclusion is based on decades of rigorous research by thousands of scientists and endorsed by all of the world’s major national science academies….
Although uncertainties remain, they concern issues like the rate of melting of major ice sheets rather than the broader topic of whether the climate is changing.
This is from an article in the Politico, “The science behind climate science,” by four leading climate scientists: Dr. James McCarthy, Dr. Lisa Graumlich, Dr. Chris Field, and Dr. James Hurrell. You may remember Dr. Field from his terrific talk at CAP earlier this year.
Gas can be a bridge to low-carbon future if we put a price on CO2
July 13, 2010
The overbuilding of natural gas combined cycle plants starting in the mid-1990s presents a significant opportunity for near term reductions in CO2 emissions from the power sector. The current fleet of natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) units has an average capacity factor of 41 percent, relative to a design capacity factor of up to 85 percent. However, with no carbon constraints, coal generation is generally dispatched to meet demand before NGCC generation because of its lower fuel price.
Modeling of the ERCOT region (largely Texas) suggests that CO2 emissions could be reduced by as much as 22 percent with no additional capital investment and without impacting system reliability by requiring a dispatch order that favors NGCC generation over inefficient coal generation; preliminary modeling suggests that nationwide CO2 emissions [from the power sector] would be reduced by over 10 percent. At the same time, this would also reduce air pollutants such as oxides of sulfur and nitrogen.
Considering that energy-related CO2 emissions are now down nearly 10% from 2005 levels, the point once again is that it is inexpensive and straightforward to reduce U.S. CO2 emissions to the 17% target for 2020 in most comprehensive climate bills — as I discussed over a year ago (see “Unconventional gas makes the 2020 climate targets so damn easy and cheap to meet“). Meeting such a 17% target in the utility sector alone, as in the latest incarnation of the watered-down climate bill, would be utterly trivial.
"There is really only one strategy remaining for conservatives. Prevent an economic recovery while Obama is still president, thereby clearing the way for an anger-filled electorate to lift up a truly crazy candidate"
Uber-cartoonist Tom Toles offers some similarly blunt words for the nihilistic right-wingers in Congress today — along with a cartoon he headlines “Ever so sorry”:
This cross-post is from part of the Wonk Room’s exclusive investigation of the private contractors working under BP’s control to respond to the foreign oil giant’s Gulf Coast disaster.
“I am confident that we’re going to be able to leave the Gulf Coast in better shape than it was before,” President Barack Obama declared after visiting the oil-soaked region in June. The long-term restoration of the coast will require radical changes in waterway management, land use, and reversal of the global warming that threatens to inundate the subsiding shores — challenges independent of the toxic black tide of BP’s oil. However, cleaning up the toxic sludge is the first task on the path to restoration.
Bill McKibben — some-time guest blogger and the author most recently of the must-read book Eaarth — has a challenging review of my book Straight Up in the Washington Monthly.
He literally challenges me to talk more about political movements on this blog, such has the one he cofounded, 350.org. I accept.
Indeed, I issue a challenge of my own to 350.org to change its focus and get more political!I’d love to hear your thoughts — and I’m quite sure that McKibben would, too.
So I’ll mostly dispense with the parts in which he explains why you should buy the book if you’re interested in climate or the Web — “this book—a collection of some of his thousands of blog posts—is a good way to think not only about climate but about the uses of the Web” — and cut to his challenge:
With the dramatic increase in oil prices earlier this year translating into higher prices at the gas pump in the United States, concerns over U.S. dependence on foreign oil are once again part of the national discussion on energy security. Combined with the growing understanding that carbon emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels are driving global climate change, the debate is now focused on how to restructure the U.S. transport system to solve these two problems. While the idea of running U.S. vehicles on natural gas has lately received a great deal of attention, powering our cars with green electricity is a more sensible option on all fronts — national security, efficiency, climate stabilization and economics.
A former contractor has come forward to denounce foreign oil giant BP and the “cutthroat individuals” running the oil disaster response. Wonk Room has the story in this cross-post.
Workers clean up the Gulf shore in this AP photo. The BP disaster underscores why we need to better manage the short- and long-term responses required to address the public health threats such disasters pose, as discussed in a new report by Ellen-Marie Whelan , CAP’s Associate Director for Health Policy, and Lesly Russell, a Senior Fellow. This is cross-post.
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