Today, far less natural gas is flared off both in terms ofvolume and, consequentially, as a percentage of our much higher current energyconsumption. Oil prices have, of course, risen dramatically over the past 40years, but environmentalists have also been working hard to get oil and gascompanies to reduce gas flaring. Nonetheless, it is estimated that the worldstill flares off several weeks’ worth of natural gas supply each year.

Left with far fewer resources, future generations will bedumbfounded at our wastefulness. Why did we not take action sooner?

Ask anyone today, and the answer would be that we leavematters up to the market. And for a long time, the market’s answer was thatnatural gas was a waste product of oil extraction in many cases. We chose toimplement legislation banning gas flaring; here, government interventiontrumped the market. Another option would have been to mandate a higher pricefor gas so that the profit margin for oil and gas would have been more equal.Utilities would have at least been encouraged to use gas turbines to generateelectricity where gas is plentiful; the higher prices could then have beenspread across all power consumers. The market would still have been free—companies still could have done whatever they want—but it simply would havecovered more resources.

Here, we see why this option was not pursued: while ourresources would have been used more efficiently, electricity rates would havegone up. Rate hikes are politically unpalatable in the Anglo world, even ifthey help us use resources more efficiently. So we let oil compete with gas,and oil won for decades. And we flared off tremendous amounts of natural gas.

Competing companies: While the proposal I describe above—leveling the profitmargins for energy resources—was not implemented for fossil fuels, it hasbeen used successfully for renewables. It is called feed-in tariffs (FITs), and it isthe driver behind Europe’s main successstories.

Its detractors in the English-speaking world used the samelogic that was used 40 years ago in the petroleum industry: we needcompetition, and price fixing is anathema to free markets. Of course, the United Stateshas had price fixing in the electricity sector since the 1930s (that’s what ismeant when we say that utilities are “regulated”)—but let’s focuson what is meant by “competition.”

Normally, when we think about competition, companies come tomind: GM versus Toyota,Dell vs. Apple, etc. Of course, there is also competition between products andtechnologies, such as between VHS and Betamax (or, for my younger readers,between Blu-ray and HD DVD). Notice that Betamax and HD DVD disappeared fromthe market completely—which is itself a considerable waste of effort andinvestment, though having a single format certainly has its advantages.

If we now look at ways of generating electricity, we seethat it would be nice to have competition between companies, but what sensedoes it make to have competition between resources? If we can leave theresource untouched, then it remains available for future generations—noproblem. But if we have to discard one (natural gas) in order to get at another(crude oil), then it makes sense to ensure that the profit margins on the bothresources are roughly equal so that it pays to exploit both resources insteadof wasting one. The resources need not compete as long as the extractioncompanies do.

Wind and solar may seem to differ in one respect: we cannotexhaust them. The sun will not be depleted regardless of how many solar panelswe have, and no number of wind turbines will measurably reduce the amount ofwind on Earth. Nonetheless, the amount of renewable energy we neglect to usecan also be considered waste. Each day, we get a certain amount of potentialsolar and wind power. Were we to use more of it, our consumption of non-renewableresources would be reduced. As a result, the range of our fossil fuels could beextended dramatically.

RPS, cap-and-trade, FIT: If we agree that we would be willing to pay more today inorder to use both our renewable and non-renewable resources more efficiently,the question is which policy promotes competition among companies, notresources. Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPSs) are old-school thinking;utilities have to meet a target for “renewables,” and if no furtherspecifications are made, then renewables compete with each other. The cheapestwins, and the rest go nowhere.

Emissions trading is a more recent idea, but it is evenworse in a way. Here, large energy producers and consumers are required toreduce emissions. The scheme is praised for allowing decision-makers theflexibility to choose the cheapest way to meet their target: technologyoverhauls (“clean coal”), investments in third-party offsets (tree plantationsfunding for technological overhauls abroad), the purchase of allowances fromother market players, new low-carbon technologies (renewables), or perhaps justpaying a fine. Here, renewables not only compete with each other, but also withall of these options.

Neither RPSs nor emissions trading ensures a comparable,reasonable return on investments in both wind and solar. FITs do. Critics ofFITs charge that the policy “picks winners,” but the charge onlyapplies to the energy sources promoted—not to any particular companies ortechnologies. True, those of us who support FITs for solar and wind have pickedthese two resources as winners—guilty as charged. But we have not, to takethe example of solar, picked any particular company, nor have we even picked aparticular technology. Who can say whether crystalline or thin film panels (orperhaps something else) will be more popular in 2020? Indeed, if we provideroughly the same profit margin for concentrated solar power and photovoltaicstoday, we may find that the one or the other is clearly preferable by 2030—but then, we may nonetheless choose to keep the more expensive one as a nicheproduct despite the price difference. After all, it would have been thesensible thing to do with natural gas 40 years ago.

We have a history of taking only the cheapest energy first.Our children will pay the price that we refused to pay, so they may very wellview our old-school thinking as myoptic. FITs are the new school.

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Kay Hagan (D-N.C.)

Gore on the Daily Show: extended dance remix

Gore on The Daily Show

Senate Republicans are demanding lengthy economic analyses ofprogressive clean energy policy, despite having spent careers votingfor and against major energy legislation without such delay. This weekthe Republican members of the Environment and Public Works Committee boycotted its debate on the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (CEJAPA), claimingthat the Environmental Protection Agency’s analysis of the economicimpacts was not sufficiently thorough. Before they launched theirboycott, committee ranking member Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Sen.George Voinovich (R-Ohio) demanded a “full analysis” that satisfied their particular requirements:

As we’ve noted in previous letters and requests, getting a thorough, comprehensive economic analysis of the Kerry-Boxer bill is an essential component of a meaningful legislative process.To accomplish that, EPA needs to do a series of model runs examiningkey provisions in the bill, with a number of sensitivity analyses oncritical issues, including, among others, the availability of offsets,potential growth in nuclear power, and the extent of emissionsreductions by developing countries. Anything less than a full analysis of this kind will be unacceptable.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chair of the Senate RepublicanConference, piled on: “We want to participate in any clean energy bill,but we’re not willing to do that until we know what it costs.”

“It undermines the credibility of the process,” said Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.). “It’s not constructive to the process to proceed without knowing what it costs.”

On Monday, Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.),Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) joined Inhofe todemand a “complete and substantive analysis of any bill that attempts to address this issue” and “complete data anda thorough vetting” before the EPW Committee took action.

Yesterday, Sens. Gregg, Susan Collins (R-Maine), Olympia Snowe(R-Maine), and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) sent a letter to the EPA saying, “We cannot support legislation”without “a clear picture of the bill’s impacts on our economy,” sayingthe EPA analysis needs to be completed “prior to any action in EPW.”

Their arguments fall flat, however, because these and other senatorsroutinely voted on energy and global warming bills without anyanalysis. Since 2001, the Senate has debated at least eightenergy or global warming bills where there was no analysis by EPA,Congressional Budget Office, or the Energy Information Administrationcompleted in advance of Committee deliberations.  In several cases, there was no full analysis before the bill was voted on by the entire Senate:

- Energy Policy Act of 2002 (H.R. 4): EIA and CBO analysis conducted after both committee passage and full Senate consideration.

- Climate Stewardship Act of 2003 (S. 139): EIA analysis conducted before full Senate consideration. No committee consideration.

- Energy Policy Act of 2003 (H.R. 4/S. 1005): EIAand CBO analysis conducted after committee passage. Limited CBOanalysis completed before full Senate consideration, EIA analysis after.

- Climate Stewardship Act of 2005 (S. 342): No analysis conducted before full Senate consideration. No committee consideration.

- Energy Policy Act of 2005 (S. 10): CBO analysis completed after committee passage, before full Senate consideration.

- Energy Savings Act of 2007 (S. 1321): CBO analysis completed after committee passage, before full Senate consideration.

- America’s Climate Security Act of 2007 (S. 2191): EIA and EPA analysis completed after committee passage, before full Senate consideration.

- American Clean Energy Leadership Act of 2009 (S. 1462): CBO analysis completed after committee passage.

Sen. Murkowski notably had no problem voting for the American Clean Energy Leadership Act this June, even though CBO analysis was only completed in September.

The fact that these and other bills moved through committees withoutany analysis sharply contrasts with the mountain of assessments of thisyear’s clean energy legislation. Full EPA, EIA, and CBO analyses were conducted of the House bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), and the EPA has conducted additional analysis of the Senate legislation. The Republicans’ interest in analysis islittle more than an excuse for delay and defeat of clean energylegislation. In one of the boycotted hearings this week, Sen. Boxernoted that the “EPA has also indicated that this economic analysisreflects hundreds of thousands of pages of backup documentation” about the related House bill. EPA Director of Congressional Affairs David McIntoshappeared before the Committee to reiterate that CEJAPA and ACESwere very similar:

[EPA economic] models are not designed to detectfine-grain details in this kind of legislation. So changes in thelegislation at that level of detail will not even show up in theeconomic computer model. Second, it costs the EPA at least $135,000 and1600 man-hours of time to run a bill through the agency’s full suite ofeconomic computer models.

Nonetheless, Republican boycotters wanted EPA to spend five weeksand $135,000 of taxpayer money to conduct a redundant analysis beforethey would agree to a vote.

Today, the committee approved CEJAPA on an 11-1 vote. Every Republican was absent without leave.

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The Climate Post: The gods must be crazy

Senate Democrats push climate bill through committee

What does recent Senate drama on the climate bill mean? Peak Boxer

When asked in mid-October if she would support a climate bill with cap-and-trade, the senator replied, “We’re certainly talking about it. The Kerry-Boxer bill is ... out therebut it’s not complete yet. So I’m certainly going to have to wait tolook at the bill. I certainly say that climate change isreal; I am extremely concerned about it. And I want to do what we needto do to be sure our country and the rest of the world is on the righttrack to reduce the CO2 emissions.”

The transition from candidate to senator seems to have affected Hagan’s environmental agenda: in 2008, her campaign website called for reducing carbon emissions 60 to 80 percent by 2050, but the energy page on her Senate website doesn’t mention climate or greenhouse-gas emissions at all, instead making vague calls for energy independence, energy efficiency, and cutting-edge energy technologies. In April, the senator, along with 25 other swing Democrats, voted against using the budget reconciliation process to pass a climate bill.

In a letter to a constitutent in early November, Hagan appears optimistic about climate legislation in general but stresses that she will closely review any bill before making a decision:

Thank you for contacting me regarding global climate change and federal efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions nationally and internationally. I greatly appreciate hearing your thoughts on this important issue.On June 26, the House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act of 2009 (H.R.2454). Similarly, on September 30, the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (S.1733) was introduced in the Senate. It has since been referred to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works for further review.Both pieces of legislation would regulate carbon emissions by establishing a cap on greenhouse gas emissions from large U.S. sources like electric utilities and oil refiners. The goal of both bills is to reduce emissions through a system of tradable permits modeled after the successful Clean Air Act program to prevent acid rain. If emitters are unable to reduce their emissions, they will be able to purchase allowances from other sources that have excess permits. This market-based approach is preferred because it provides economic incentives to reduce carbon emissions at the lowest cost to the economy. The bills would also invest in renewable and clean energy, provide incentives to encourage increased energy efficiency, and create thousands of high-paying jobs that cannot be outsourced.Like you, I believe that we must work together to address the potentially devastating impacts of climate change. As a state senator, I worked to place North Carolina at the vanguard of energy independence and sustainability by requiring local utilities to utilize renewable resources in the production of electricity. I was also a strong proponent of the North Carolina Biofuels Center, as well as cutting-edge energy research and development throughout the University of North Carolina system. I believe that North Carolina can become a leader in the new energy economy, and I support a commonsense approach to meeting emerging energy challenges while protecting economic competitiveness for our nation’s workers and industries.With this in mind, I anticipate the opportunity to work with my colleagues in the Senate to craft comprehensive energy legislation that will address vital environmental concerns while placing North Carolina and the nation at the forefront of the 21st-century energy economy. I believe strongly that we must work to ensure that the impact of any federal energy initiative does not fall disproportionately on North Carolina or low-income citizens, and will work with my colleagues and affected communities to achieve this goal. While comprehensive energy legislation has not yet been considered by the full Senate during the 111th Congress, I will review any proposal carefully to ensure that federal efforts to reduce greenhouse gasses do not negatively impact the citizens of North Carolina.Again, thank you for contacting my office. It is truly an honor to represent North Carolina in the United States Senate, and I hope you will not hesitate to contact me in the future should you have any further questions or concerns.Track the climate debate and take actionSincerely,   Kay R. Hagan

As a state senator, Hagan earned an 85 percent rating [PDF] from the Conservation Council of North Carolina and helped to pass a renewable portfolio standard requiring the state’s utilities to meet targets for use of renewable energy.

Do you know what your senators think about climate legislation?  Ask them, then tell us what you find out.

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What does recent Senate drama on the climate bill mean? Peak Boxer

Fist things fist: If this section’s headingdoesn’t look quite right it’s because there are a few r’s missing. Thatwas true this week of the Senate Environment and Public WorksCommittee, a panel of Democrats whose Republican sparring partnersboycotted work on the climate bill co-sponsored by Chairwoman BarbaraBoxer (D-Calif.) and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). The Republican senatorscriticized the majority for moving ahead without an EPA analysis of thebill, which is similar to one that the House approved in June. The billpassed out of the committee this morning by a vote of 11-1, with Sen. MaxBaucus (D-Mont.) voting against it, and all the R’s abstaining.

Committee drama set the stage for Sens. Kerry, Lindsey Graham(R-S.C.), and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) to announce yesterday that theyare pursuing parallel negotiations on a climate bill, and are in discussion with theadministration, Senate colleagues, and outside interests, including thenewly minted American Businesses for Clean Energy.

Expectations for the Copenhagen climate talks continue to drop solow that the conference might end up being declared a success solely onthe basis of having enough folding chairs and scratch paper forattendees. Climate envoy Todd Stern told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that in Copenhagen the U.S.hopes to lay groundwork for agreements on contentious issues in thenear future.

About our recent, unexcused absences … : What many Indians lack in understanding “global warming,” they make upfor in knowledge that their climate is changing. That’s a centraltakeaway from Climate Post’s recent three-week voyage throughIndia. It’s also the central problem in writing about climate change:Scientists commonly define “climate” as a statistical average ofweather events, somewhere, over a long period of time. So personalobservations, such as, the rainy season isn’t so rainy lately, are oflimited scientific value. We can note that extreme events—flooding,drought, erratic weather, coastal erosion, the rest–resemble predictions, if they do. But there’s “no man behind the curtain” of climate change.

These on-the-ground observations may be of limited scientific value.But what makes them tangible is the way that en masse they begin toshape the very non-scientific public awareness and politics. KrishnenduBandyopadhyay, a Times of India special correspondent, toldme that editors have focused attention on climate change prompted notby politics, as is frequently the case in the U.S., but with decliningagricultural productivity. The eastern Indian state of Odisha (calledOrissa until 2 weeks ago) has many concerns. If there is anenvironmental problem happening anywhere in India, or the world, it canalso be found in Odisha. And climate risks in this region are halting.Last week marked the 10th anniversary of a supercyclone that killed10,000 people and dislocated more than 1.5 million there. Poorer areasnever recovered and fears linger. “They shouldn’t call [storms]‘low-pressure systems,’” said Prafulla Kumar Dhal, who works for alocal social welfare agency called BISWA. “They should call them‘normal-pressure systems.’”

The U.S. climate debate often feels hollow (mostly–anyone rememberKatrina?) because it is largely driven by political concerns andscientific data, not people experiencing the meteorological weirdnessthat, if nothing else, Occam’s Razor suggests may be partly influencedby climate change. It’s a common assertion in the climate communitythat poor and vulnerable nations will experience the severestdislocations. It’s a less common assertion that poor and vulnerablenations are already beginning to see strain, are aware of it, and areunhappy. In some ways I learned more about it my first two days inIndia than in the previous 10 years I’ve spent writing about it.

Beyond the foreign section: The trip to India was organized by the U.S. State Department’s Office ofInternational Information Programs, though I traveled as a privatecitizen unencumbered by any official messages, tasks, or requests.Mostly, I was asked to go over and meet with Indian journalists so thatwe can compare notes about what works and doesn’t in climate coverage,and find ways to work together. The trip culminated in a New Delhijournalism conference, organized by the International Federation ofEnvironmental Journalists, about bridging the gaps between climatechange reporting in the North and South.

Discussions frequently turned to how difficult it is for Indians tosee anything beyond Washington, and for Americans to see anythingbeyond Delhi. Some Indians I met tend to see America as monolithic or acartoon. President Obama is seen by some as no different from PresidentBush on climate policy, even if he has the Senate to fault. ManyAmericans who think about it see India only as the first part of thephrase “India and China,” without recognizing the complexities, that 99percent of Indians live below the U.S. poverty line or that there are100 million-200 million more Indians without electricity than there areAmericans in total. There is much work to do bringing Indians andAmericans together electronically.

Now appearing on the international stage: India’s Minister of Environment and Forests, Jairam Ramesh, isinteresting to watch. He must balance the demands of his government,which is reluctant to amend its incalcitrant position in the climatenegotiations, and his interlocutors in the West, who are reluctant toamend their incalcitrant positions in the climate negotiations. Thisweek he is encouraging Indians to see climate change as a leadership opportunity—and aresponsibility to the future, and to internalize its meaning ratherthan play victim to a problem of the West’s creation.

The Obama administration appears poised to make more progress in itsbilateral relationship with India than with any other nation. PrimeMinister Manmohan Singh will visit Washington this month and enjoyPresident Obama’s first state dinner. Trade and geopolitics arebringing the two nations together, cautiously.

Statistical threats leave no fingerprints: India may be more vulnerable to large-scale climate change than anyother nation. Seventy percent of its rainfall comes during monsoonseason. Unusual variability in the monsoon has led to drought andflooding. Melting Himalayan glaciers threaten fresh water supplies forhundreds of millions. The Bay of Bengal is eroding a string of Odishavillages I visited. BISWA’s Prafulla Kumar Dhal spoke of a well-knowntemple, the adjacent ponds to which had dried up. “The gods know thatthe climate is changing,” he said, seemingly incredulous. Maybe so,maybe not. Some weird stuff is happening in India. The question, whatif anything will we do about it, remains unanswered—in Washington, NewDelhi, Copenhagen, and elsewhere.

Eric Roston is Senior Associate at the Nicholas Institute and author of The Carbon Age: How Life’s Core Element Has Become Civilization’s Greatest Threat. Prologue available at Grist.

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The $3 billion federal program was kinda sorta supposed to send inefficient, high-polluting, belchy vehicles to an early grave. Instead it put a lot of new large, inefficient vehicles on the road, according to an AP investigation of new government records.

The most common deals swapped old Ford or Chevrolet pickup trucks for new pickups that got “only marginally better gas mileage,” the analysis found. Old Ford F-150 for new Ford F-150 was the most common exchange. Buyers were 17 times more likely to purchase an F-150 (rated at 16 miles per gallon) than a hybrid Toyota Prius.

At least 15 owners of large pickups cashed them in for new Hummer H3 SUVs that get only 16 mpg. Excuse me, but why did the government even send claims forms to Hummer dealerships? Government officials are “investigating” out how these deals squeaked through, the AP reports.

About 1 in 7 of all deals went for vehicles that got 20 mpg or worse. If you think about it, though, 20 mpg really isn’t such a bad rate ... for 1979.

There were plenty of signals before the one-month summer program began that it was a poor method for cutting pollution (note our roundup of early warnings). There’s also a lively debate on whether it made sense as economic stimulus.

“If we’re looking for the environmental story here, we’re going to be disappointed,” Jeremy Anwyl, of analyst firm Edmunds.com, told the AP. “It might have started out from the perspective of improving the environment, but it got detoured as a way to stimulate the economy.”

That pretty much nails it.

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Kay Hagan (D-N.C.)

Senate Democrats push climate bill through committee

Europe places outcome of Copenhagen squarely on Obama

During the first 9 months of 2009, the industry groups stepped uptheir lobbying in Congress. They have spent more than $24 million onthe issue of a national excise tax on sweetened beverages and on otherlegislative and regulatory issues, according to an examination oflobbying reports filed with the Senate Office of Public Records. Thereview shows that 21 companies and organizations reported that theylobbied specifically on the proposed tax on sugar-sweetened beverages—which among other things would include sodas, juice drinks, andchocolate milk.

About $5 million of the money was spent on a national advertisingcampaign aimed at Capitol Hill lawmakers and promoting a newly formedcoalition called Americans Against Food Taxes . The group bills itselfon its website as a coalition of “responsible individuals,financially-strapped families, [and] small and large businesses” butits 400-plus membership list is dominated by industry heavyweights suchas Burger King Corporation, Coca Cola, Pepsico and Domino’s Pizza.

Sounds like they’re just getting started. This is par for the course with taxes on the federal level, you can’t even mention one without sending the affected industry’s lobbyists into a frenzy—and why we’re in such a revenue pickle generally. Yet, some insiders suggest that the beverage folks have an ace in the hole—“the sugar guys”:

Jon Doggett, an [National Corn Growers Association] spokesman, said other factions of the sugarlobby pushed hard on Congress, but didn’t describe their work on publicfilings as specific to the sweetened beverage tax. “They have kind ofkept their heads down a little bit,” Doggett said. “Nobody playspolitics better than the sugar guys.”

In other words, the sugar lobby, which is unique in the agricultural world for having maintained strict import quotas on foreign products despite living in a world devoted to “free trade,” has kept their work against the soda tax off their paperwork and thus out of public sight. But its invisibility doesn’t lessen its ferocity or, so far, its effectiveness.

And it certainly doesn’t help that, as HuffPo, myself, and the New York Times have observed, any attempt to enact a soda tax in the Senate Finance Committee runs up against the reality that the committee’s Chairman and Ranking Member are from Montana (sugar beet country) and Iowa (corn syrup country) respectively. But HuffPo’s Christine Spoler and Joseph Eaton (with the Center for Public Integrity) go on to point out that, in fact, farm states are way over-represented on the Senate Finance Committee generally—depending on how you count them more than half come from states with large agricultural interests that might not take kindly to food taxes of any type.

I remain struck by the shamelessness of the beverage lobby. In addition to their efforts on Capitol Hill, a representative for the notorious industry front group the Center for Consumer Freedom went before a meeting of the Obesity Society to declare that obesity was a personal matter that government had no role in addressing. Really:

Senior research analyst at CCF Justin Wilson said in the statement: “Thepublic health community seems dead-set on ever more regulation of ourlives. The push for taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages is just thelatest example of the disdainful belief that when it comes to mattersof personal choices, the regulators know best.

“Government taxation should not be a tool for social engineering.Nor should it be used to penalize individuals for their personal foodchoices.”

Nor, I suppose, should we “penalize” individuals for their personal liquor choice, their personal tobacco choice, or even their personal income choice for that matter. Libertarianism is the last refuge of the corporate flack—when big business starts screaming about “freedom,” it always means trouble ahead.

So will we get a soda tax? Well, betting against a tax making it through the Senate is a pretty safe wager. But perhaps Spoler and Eaton are right that the states will manage something—New York’s Gov. David Paterson apparently has revived his “proposed then dropped like a hot potato” soda tax bill. Nothing like dire financial straits to open your eyes to the dollars floating around in a can of Coke. But watch out, New York. “The sugar guys” are no doubt ready and waiting to take their show on the road.

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Senate Democrats push climate bill through committee

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The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved the Kerry-Boxer bill by a vote of 11 to 1, with the seven Republicans on the committee absent from the discussion and vote.

The panel is among five other Senate committees which also will weigh in with their draft bills on slowing the pace of climate change before a bill receives a vote in the full chamber, possibly next year.

“We are pleased that despite the Republican boycott we have been able to move this bill forward,” said committee chair Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) after the vote.

Republicans, who boycotted the deliberations for three consecutive days, said they would oppose the bill until they had a “comprehensive analysis” of the economic impact of the legislation from the Environmental Protection Agency.

But Boxer said further analysis by the agency was not necessary, and maintained that the EPA’s environmental impact assessment of a similar bill approved in June by the House of Representatives was sufficient. “We found that, after questioning the EPA extensively, that the Republicans’ demand for another EPA analysis now would be duplicative and a waste of taxpayer dollars,” she said.

Committee rules require the presence of at least two members of the minority party, but Boxer sidestepped the boycott using parliamentary procedures that allowed her to pass the bill by a simple majority of members present, a tactic Republicans decried as a “nuclear option.”

At a press conference earlier this week, she signaled the tactical maneuver ahead.

“What they’re doing is highly unusual. And what we’re doing in response is highly unusual,” she said, adding that her actions were completely “by the Senate rules.”

Meanwhile, the lone Republican at Thursday’s vote, ranking committee member James Inhofe (Okla.), in a two-minute declaration said his party’s position had not changed.  “We still are asking for the same thing,” he said.

Republicans also criticized the Democrats’ bill as doing too little to promote nuclear energy and said it’s likely to lead to a spike in energy prices.

One Democrat, centrist senator Max Baucus (Mont.), who serves as chair of the Senate Finance Committee, broke with his party as the lone Democrat to vote against the bill, saying that its goals for reducing greenhouse emission levels were too ambitious.

The Senate legislation faces a long and contentious process ahead, and must be reconciled with a House bill that calls for cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, and by 83 percent by 2050.  The Senate’s bill calls for a 20 percent cut by 2020.

Both bills would create a cap-and-trade regime, aimed at setting the total level of domestic emissions allowable and then allocating quotas to companies.  Firms that emit less than their quota would be allowed to sell their surplus allocation to others that exceed theirs. Those in excess could also face fines.

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The ‘party of no’ becomes the ‘party of slow’

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Cash for Clunkers brought us ... more clunkers!

And if a species were to willfully foul its nest with BPA, it would at least be wise to keep it out of direct contact with food.

That’s because BPA is an established endocrine disruptor. In June, the Endocrine Society relased a statement warning of the health threat presented by BPA. According to thestatement, low-level exposure to BPA adversely affects male and femalereproduction, thyroid function, metabolism, and could increase obesity.

Unhappily, our species hasn’t seen fit to ban BPA production.Instead, we’ve  ginned up a robust and profitable market for it. BPA isa building block of plastic—and modern society remains highlydependent on cheap and abundant plastic.

According to a an industry source, U.S.BPA demand is growing at about a 4 percent annual pace. In Asia, thegrowth rate is much higher. That’s not surprising, given that BPA iscommonly used in electronic gadgets, and Asia generally manufacturesour electronics.

Nor have we seen fit to protect our foodsupply from the nasty stuff. Indeed, we literally pack food in it—BPAis a key part of the lining in cans for foodstuffs.

This week,another study has emerged showing that alarming levels of BPA leach outof can liners right into your green beans—and your baby formula. This one, by conducted by Consumers Reports, looked at 19 common supermarket products. “Almost all” of them showed measurable levels of BPA, CR found. Here’s more:

The highest levels of BPA in our tests were found in the canned green beans and canned soup. In Progresso Vegetable Soup, the levels of BPA ranged from 67 to 134 ppb. In Campbell’s Condensed Chicken Noodle Soup, the levels of BPA ranged from 54.5 to 102 ppb. Canned Del Monte Fresh Cut Green Beans Blue Lake had BPA levels ranging from 35.9 ppb to 191 ppb, the highest amount for a single sample in our test.

What does this mean? “A 165-pound adult eating one serving of canned green beans from our sample, which averaged 123.5 ppb, could ingest about 0.2 micrograms of BPA per kilogram of body weight per day, about 80 times higher than our experts’ recommended daily upper limit.” (Emphasis added.)

Endocrine disruption, meet political corruptionOfcourse, the Food and Drug Administration has a much more expansive takeon how much BPA exposure a human body can endure without harm thanConsumer Reports. An FDA advisory panel found last year that the agency’s“basis for setting safety standards to protect consumers was inadequateand should be re-evaluated,” reports CR. But the FDA stillhasn’t adjusted its policy toward BPA, and “Industry has been waging afight against new regulations,” Consumer Reports says.

Unhappily, the chemical industry exerts major influence over our guardian of food safety. In a superb, must-read, award-worthy special series published this year, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel showed that for years, the FDA has “relied on chemical industry lobbyists to examine bisphenol A’s risks.” Sentinel journalists got hold of nine years worth of FDA emails on BPA. Get this:

Inone instance, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s deputy directorsought information from the BPA industry’s chief lobbyist to discredita Japanese study that found it caused miscarriages in workers who wereexposed to it. This was before government scientists even had a chanceto review the study.

Most egregiously, the agencybased its 2008 draft review declaring BPA safe on two studies funded by thechemical industry. And that’s not all: an industry trade group “wroteentire sections of that draft.”

While FDA bureaucrats play bump-and-tickle with industry chiefs to form policy on BPA regulations, NGOs have been testing consumer food products and findingsignificant levels of the damaging substance. The Consumer Union studywas only the latest. Back in 2007, Environmental Working Group tested 97 canned products. Over half contained significant levels of BPA.

Infant formula showed particularly poorly: “1 in 3 cans ofinfant formula, a single serving contained enough BPA to expose a womanor infant to BPA levels more than 200 times the government’straditional safe level of exposure for industrial chemicals.” In thetwo years since the Environmental Working Group tests, how many peoplehave unwittingly exposed themselves—and their children—to endocrine disruption while FDA administrators cravenly kept their mouths shut? And now that yet another set of independent tests have revealed routine BPA contamination of supermarket staples, will the FDA now act?

One hopes, with the Bush Administration out of office, that theFDA will crack down on BPA use by the food industry. But the U.S.market for the stuff is controlled by extremely powerful corporations,including Bayer, Dow, and Sabic, a Saudi-owned chemical giant. Globally, BPA is an industry with $6 billion in sales. With cash like that at stake, Bayer, et al., aren’t going to merely skulk away. ““The industry has launched an unprecedented public relations blitz that uses many of the same tactics—and people—the tobacco industry used in its decades-long fight against regulation,” reports the Journal Sentinel.

Indeed, Big Tobacco and the BPA merchants don’t just share PR flacks: the tobacco companies put BPA in filters. According to the Journal Sentinel, “Lobbyists for tobacco closely followed the government’s assessment of BPA because of concerns that a ban on the chemical would affect cigarette filters and plastic packaging. The two industries share the same lobby firm, the Weinberg Group.”

Seemslike a smart species would demand that those entities stop producingBPA—PR blitz withstanding. But that would entail the FDA cutting ties to industry anddevoting itself to public health.

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But Coal River Mountain is special, or, rather, you can decide whether it becomes special. Right now, Coal River Mountain represents the best and worst our country has to offer. It is one of the most dangerous examples of blasting for dirty coal and one of the most profound examples of hope that exist in our country. It is a crossroads.

Coal River Mountain can be a wind farm that provides 85,000 households with electricity, creates 700 long-term green jobs, gives back $1.7 million in annual county taxes and stands as a model for clean energy across coal country. Or, it can be a 6,000-acre dirty energy wasteland.

Stretching across thousands of acres of diverse and pristine hardwood forests, Coal River Mountain is one of the last intact mountains in the vicinity. It is also home to some of the few remaining headwater streams that have not been polluted with heavy metal-laden mine waste. To local residents, the mountain is a last stand.

When blasting began on Coal River Mountain this week, explosives began going off less than 100 yards from the largest coal sludge impoundment in the country. To put this in perspective, we are talking about more than eight billion gallons of coal slurry held back by an earthen dam. Were the dam to fail, and it has happened in the past, hundreds of people would have less than five minutes to save their lives.

It’s unfathomable to think that there are people in Coal River Valley who went to sleep last night fearful that a tidal wave of toxic coal sludge could break down their door. Or, it should be.

But almost as hard to fathom is why any political leader paying attention would allow a coal company to obliterate intact mountain ranges, sacrifice precious drinking water or risk losing people to a tsunami of coal sludge, when the mountain could be a wind farm instead?

Coal River Mountain’s real economic worth isn’t underground, but up in the sky. It is for this reason that Coal River Mountain is a major test for our country’s climate and energy future. It’s not that we lack alternatives to fossil fuels. It’s that while our nation’s leaders debate which solutions to put in place and at what rate and by what time, the fossil fuel industry continues to build more pipelines, belch out more pollution, and destroy more mountains. We are moving backwards even as we talk of a better future. But we don’t have to be.

In the last several months, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has taken some good steps to curb mountaintop removal mining, largely through strict oversight of mining permits. But now it’s time for leaps.

To save Coal River Mountain and preserve our nation’s clean energy potential, it’s critical that the Obama Administration, in particular the EPA, the Council for Environmental Quality and the Army Corps of Engineers, hear from all of us to counter the pressure that they are getting from coal lobbyists and coal industry-pocketed politicians. The Obama Administration can and will intervene if we decide that Coal River Mountain is where we draw a line in the sand.

Over the next two days, Credo Mobile, Sierra Club, NRDC, 350.org, the Center for Biological Diversity, Appalachian Voices and Rainforest Action Network among others have asked our supporters to contact those in the Obama Administration who have the power to immediately stop the blasting on Coal River Mountain and to protect our clean energy resources. With your help we can build the national outcry necessary for immediate action.

I was going to tell you that there are two important reasons to help save Coal River Mountain: because people are in danger, and because we are blowing up, literally dynamiting, one of our most promising sources of energy. But really, the most important reason for you to act is because you can. It is time stop talking about a clean energy future and start living in a clean energy present.

To help save Coal River Mountain and protect our clean energy resources visit, www.savecoalrivermountain.org.

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Have a respected teacher—maybe from the science department—lead a public presentation. She should mention some compelling data, but also tell about her summer trip to Australia’s drought-stricken Southeast and the dust that coated her morning tea.

She would say something like, “We can’t know every detail of what pumping the atmosphere full of greenhouse pollution will do. It’s like driving your car off a cliff—you can’t predict which parts will break, but you know enough to know the results won’t be good.”

There would be plenty of time for questions and planning a group response. Finally, it would help to flood the gym so attendees could sit up to their ankles in water, to really feel what flooding is like.

Such a plan incorporates leading research on how our minds respond to the threat of climate change, which is neatly synthesized in a new guide, “The Psychology of Climate Change Communication.” The 43-page booklet was released Wednesday by the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED) at Columbia University, which conducts fascinating laboratory and field research at the intersection of psychology, anthropology, and behavioral economics (The New York Times Magazine profiled it last spring).

Aimed at scientists, journalists, educators, political aides, and “the interested public,” the guide begins with the blunt admission that climate communicators are failing. Global warming slipped to the bottom of a list of Americans’ concerns in a January Pew poll. CRED offers reasons why and suggests how to do better.

For example, people work harder to avoid losses than to seek gains, so “save money” might not be the best pitch for convincing people to buy efficient home appliances. A message like “avoid losing money on higher energy bills in the future” does better at appealing to this loss-aversion instinct.

To be clear, CRED’s researchers don’t suggest flooding the gym—that’s my scenario, based on their principles. Those include using:

Happily, the guide has cartoons. CRED graciously allowed us to reprint them. Click through the following pages (see navigation at the bottom of each page) for an overview of the guide’s eight chapters, based on the illustrations by Ian Webster.

Point 1: Know your audience ...

Illustration courtesy Ian Webster/CRED

... and expect them to have different mental models than scientists’. Newcomers to the climate issue might be sick of getting too much ice in their Dr. Pepper, so explain how sea ice is different.

Case study: Ozone is not a football term

Illustration courtesy Ian Webster/CRED

There’s a useful side study on how people frequently confuse the ozone problem (a big hole) and the greenhouse gas problem (a blanket):

Some Americans thus reason that this “hole” either allows more solar radiation into the biosphere—warming the planet—or, alternatively, allows heat to escape—cooling the planet.

Nope. These misconceptions need plainspoken correcting.

Point 2: All climate activism is local

Illustration courtesy Ian Webster/CRED

Consider the framing carefully, remembering that local appeals are powerful. CRED’s research suggest New Yorkers will care more about sea-level rise that floods their subway tunnels than sea-level rise that floods farmland in Bangladesh. Forget moral purity for a moment—this is about finding appeals that work.

Point 3: Make it real

Illustration courtesy Ian Webster/CRED

Translate scientific data into concrete experience. Children don’t learn to keep their hands away from a hot stove through charts, or even through urgent warnings from parents. They learn best by touching one. One much-lamented problem with climate change is that by the time most of us experience it, it’ll be too late to do anything. Our minds have evolved to respond much more quickly to immediate threats (tiger! mouse!) than to long-range ones.

But we are still swayed by personal anecdotes and stories, which the guide calls an under-used tool in sharing the climate message.

“We’re not entirely doomed, because we respond to each other’s stories,” coauthor and CRED Associate Director Sabine Marx said in an interview last spring.

Case Study: Visually speaking

Use vivid imagery. The guide highlights this New York City recycling ad as a good example translating an abstract number into a visual analogy.

Point 4: No screaming!

Illustration courtesy Ian Webster/CRED

Don’t overuse emotional appeals. They grab attention at first, but too much leads to emotional numbing because of what researchers call our “finite pool of worry.” In one study, farmers in Argentina rated how much they worried about political risks, weather and climate risks, and economic risk. They were then shown a climate forecast predicting a rain shortage the next spring. As their concern about climate increased, their concern about political instability diminished, even though the political situation had not changed.

This principle also helps explain why global warming concerns shrank as economic concerns rose after last fall’s financial crisis.

Case study: Channeling action

Illustration courtesy Ian Webster/CRED

Another key phenomenon: the “single action bias.” Researchers find that “individuals responding to a threat are likely to rely on one action, even when it provides only incremental protection or risk reduction and may not be the most effective option.”

CRED researchers found that Argentinian farmers who built extra storage space for grain where less likely to use irrigation or crop insurance, even though using all of the options would have provided the most protection from drought.

The guide even suggests evidence of a mass single action bias in the election of Barack Obama. Millions of voters did their One Thing to be politically engaged, then checked out, despite the fact that our political structure prevents the president from doing much on his own.

For a simple step on counteracting this effect, the guide suggests simply helping people become aware of it. Then, it says, offer them a checklist of good options.

Point 5: No exaggerating

Illustration courtesy Ian Webster/CRED

Address scientific and climate uncertainties. Don’t overstate things, but anticipate that there are crucial words that scientists use differently than the general public. (There’s a good list on page 27 of the guide.) When scientists say “uncertainty” for example, the public hears “not knowing.” CRED suggests “range” as a better word.

It quotes California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger: “If 98 doctors say my son is ill and needs medication and two say ‘No, he doesn’t, he is fine,’ I will go with the 98. It’s common sense—the same with climate change. We go with the majority, the large majority.”

Point 6: We’re all in this together

Illustration courtesy Ian Webster/CRED

Tap into social identities and affiliations to remind people that they share common resources (the tragedy of the commons and all that). CRED highlights Knoxville, Tennessee’s campaign to “Make Downtown Green, Block by Block” which appealed to city identity to rally downtown businesses and residents to buy 400 blocks’ worth of renewable energy.

Point 7: Join hands, please

Illustration courtesy Ian Webster/CRED

Encourage group participation. OK, so it sounds hokey. But research of farmers in Uganda and lobster fishermen in the Florida Keys found that people process complex information better in groups. They tend to accept both anecdotal and factual information in such settings.

Point 8: Go ahead and do the easy stuff

Courtesy

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