Not time to cut

Richard Harris at NPR reports that Congress might be planning to cut subsidies to the wind industry. 37,000 jobs could be lost and a nascent industry set back. 

When the tax credit last expired in 2003, wind farms took a big hit. But in those days, the wind turbines were largely imported. Now, the domestic manufacturing industry is growing rapidly. And that changes the politics.

and Gamesa VP says,

As the technology improves, wind becomes cheaper. Rosenberg says his company only needs four more years of tax credits, and it will be ready to compete without further federal help.

Heritage Foundation wants them ended,

We're $15 trillion in debt," says Nick Loris at The Heritage Foundation. "We have a robust energy market. And electricity demand and the demand to transport our vehicles back and forth is always going to be there. And I think that profit motive is incentive enough.

We're in debt, yes. But it is not time to cut clean energy subsidies. We need to find more ways to scale these projects and roll out new ones. At the moment, subsidies for producers and consumers help this goal. 

Why Climate Change Will Make You Love Government

Provocative piece by Christian Parenti. He writes, 

Such calamities, devastating for those affected, have important implications for how we think about the role of government in our future. During natural disasters, society regularly turns to the state for help, which means such immediate crises are a much-needed reminder of just how important a functional big government turns out to be to our survival.

It's not very fashionable, both on the Right and on the Left, to advocate for government these days. But Parenti does make some good points, especially with regards to social and ecological crisis ("natural disaster" is a pretty inadequate term). There is only one institution that is capable and potentially willing to aid people during major crises: government.

Via Alternet, via TomDispatch

Sustainable Death and Destruction

This really pushes the concepts of "sustainability" and "green" right off a cliff:

But while some branches of government have displayed a penchant for caution, the United States Department of Defense has been more assertive in its intentions. One DoD researchrequest, for example, asks synthetic biologists to create greener explosives and rocket fuels. In the "statement of need," the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP), which seeks to green the military, argues that microbes could eliminate the heavy-metal and toxic solvents in conventional explosives production.

Does not sound "benign" or "benefitial"; sounds like BS:

On the surface, greening weapons of war sounds like a project that we might dismiss as benign, even beneficial, if a little incongruous. But this application treads a step closer to the line drawn by the BWC in 1975 and reaffirmed by the U.S. government many times since.Article 1 of the BWC states that signatories must never produce or possess microbial or other biological agents "that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes." Because explosives-producing microbes in themselves would not be weapons, they would not appear to violate the convention. That said, as part of the production chain and a means for making weapons components, they wouldn't qualify as having “peaceful purposes,” either.

"Scotland Guns for 100% Renewable by 2020"

United States: "Let's builds a giant oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico for international export, and continue to drill in precarious locations (deep-water horizon). Let's demonize the clean energy industry and cut all government support."

Scotland: "Let's get to 100% renewables by 2020."

2020 is only eight years from now. That's not the distant future.

 

Obama and the Urban Agenda

Greg Hanscom on Grist:

The thumbnail version is this: Under President Obama, key federal agencies have begun to shift away from subsidizing suburban sprawl and toward reviving cities and creating dense, walkable, transit-friendly communities. Obama has put smart-growthers and new urbanists in key positions, begun to realign government agencies to prioritize sustainability, and launched partnerships and initiatives that one Bush administration veteran calls “mind blowing” — in a good way. Even Obama’s allies agree, however, that serious reform may have to wait for a second term. If there is one.

There is more than meets the eye to Smart Growth. Ending subsidies for suburban sprawl is good but we need to think comprehensively: both the so-called central city and the so-call suburbs need to be revived. We can't allow the central city to become the green playground for the affluent and young professionals, while the suburbs slip into social and environmental neglect. If this happens, it will end up just the reverse of what happened after World War II when affluent whites moved out of the central city, into the suburbs, and left a wake of crisis behind in city after city. The sustainable modern metropolis will have a re-imagined and revitalized center and suburb. 

Save or Destroy?

Humans have been unintentionally geoengineering the earth for thousands of years. Intintional geoengineering aimed at reversing global climate change is an increasingly talked about idea. However, it's fraught with controversy as well as many many unknowns (unknowables?).

Arthur Max (AP):

They could be physical — unintentionally changing weather patterns and rainfall. Even more difficult, it could be political — spurring conflict among nations unable to agree on how such intervention, or geoengineering, will be controlled.

As Plan A (reducing CO2 emissions through international cooperation) begins to lapse and fail, will once wild ideas like geoengineering seem so crazy and dangerous in the next 100 years? 

Boondoggle or Cutting Edge?

California's high-speed rail project set to go amidst harsh criticism that it will end up a boondoggle, a giant waste of money. Is this the kind of politics that built extensive high-speed rail in Europe, Japan, and now China? 

Adam Nagourney:

But for many Californians, struggling through a bleak era that has led some people to wonder if the state’s golden days are behind it, this project goes to the heart of the state’s pioneering spirit, recalling grand public investments in universities, water systems, roads and parks that once defined California as the leading edge of the nation.

Sign of the times for the US: crumbling 19th and 20th century infrastructure. Not good, and little evidence that we can make these projects work. 

Environmental historian Richard White:

What they are hoping is that this will be to high-speed rail what Vietnam was to foreign policy: that once you’re in there, you have to get in deeper. The most logical outcome to me is we are going to have a white elephant in the San Joaquin Valley.

Scaling up

Solyndra might be making the headlines (on page A10 by now) but the overlooked larger story: the solar industry is booming.

There are a few emerging conversations:

1. Should the government be subsidizing the industry?

2. Can US solar manufacturers compete with Chinese ones?

3. Can the US link production and consumption of solar technology, or will we import cheaper Chinese panels for construction of mega solar facilities for domestic consumption?

4. Should we focus on large-scale solar "plants" or should we take Germany's lead (and Jeremy Rifkin's) and push for lateral power, small scale deployment on homes, neighborhoods, and businesses and scale that way?

These centralized, large-scale projects tend to favor the big established corporations, which has the potential to undermine any sort of democratization of energy production, and replicate the energy hierarchies we've known for centuries. The billions in subsidies will go to the big guys, same as with coal and oil.

Lateral deployment seems the way to go.

 

The China Paradox

Can China make it to a clean energy economy in the long-term by rapid economic development based on coal in the short-term?

Not looking good according to a new EIA report:

But rapid industrial growth throughout China has outpaced the government's efforts to replace carbon intensive infrastructure with energy efficiency technology.

And

China achieved a 19.1% reduction in the energy intensity of its economy. But at the same time, overall emissions were up 33.6%, with emissions from building operation and transportation growing 41%.

"No reason now to be a skeptic."

The story of Richard Muller is making the rounds this week. Muller is a scientist at UC Berkeley and was a climate change skeptic who was hired and in part funded by Koch Foundation (the right-wing, climate change denying, billionaire Koch brothers) to find out if "mainstream" scientist were wrong about climate change. But after doing the research, he concluded that global climate chagne is indeed real. He makes no mention of human induced climate change, but urges a reduction in green house gas emissions as a worthy endeavor. 

He concludes, 

"And now we have confidence that the temperature rise that had previously been reported had been done without bias."

Welcome to the club.

7 billion and 1, and 2, and 3...

Sometime today the human population reaches 7 billion people. For many in the U.S. halloween is the perfect day to reach this milestone, "over population" scares people, and it gives an easy answer to "what is wrong with the world?" and to the cause of environmental problems, including global climate change. "It's those people out there."

But population is a red herring in many ways. The developed world uses most the energy, produces most the food, and emits the most carbon. Yes, aspects of population cause problems but an environmntal and social justice movement that runs with this headline and platform isn't looking deep enough.