There’s a movement going on. It’s a movement made of people who care and people who see and people who concern themselves with the affairs of more than just their own.

What they see – what we see – is that the issue of environmental stewardship is an issue that concerns us all. Everyone. It’s global, local and personal.

The simple fact is the exponential growth of the human enterprise now impacts and dictates to the future of every living being we share this planet with.

How will America, the leader of industrial might, metabolize this responsibility?

We need to make a choice – and do what’s right.

Our nation, has been at the crossroads of choice before, and it hasn’t always been easy: abolishing slavery, getting women the right to vote – but we have yet to establish a sane energy policy as this goal has been thwarted time and again.

All the way back to the 1930s – hybrid fuels and cars built to run on ethanol were blocked by Big Oil.

Those same forces bought up and systematically dismantled more than 100 electric mass transit systems in 45 cities across America – including our city of St. Louis.

After World War II, there was desire to reduce our dependency on foreign sources of energy, so alternative and synthetic fuels were developed right here in Louisiana Missouri. But in the 50s an Oil Glut stopped that and blocked the diversification of our energy portfolio.

In the 70s, following the Middle East oil embargo and energy crisis we knew the way. Jimmy Carter over 30 years ago signed into law comprehensive energy reform including renewable and alternative energy sources. He put solar panels on the White House.

Well, in the 80s, an Oil Glut stopped that – and the next President took those panels down. Reagan tore down that symbol of American energy independence.

Now that we’re facing the irrefutable science of global climate change and global warming, all of a sudden we are struck with an economic crisis not seen since the likes of the Great Depression – and accusations of any economic recovery that we’ve entertained so far as being “jobless”…

A “jobless-recovery” ? What’s that?

The way I see it, it’s an opportunity. And it all centers on how we power our society.

There is an emerging industry before us – an industry that hasn’t existed before.

Green energy – renewable energy – energy efficiency.

The benefits are legion. And many of these new jobs can’t be outsourced because they happen right here at home. Its win, win, win.

Take energy efficiency for example, 95% of all existing homes and construction can be audited and assessed and fixed to a higher standard of efficiency, saving folks on energy costs, creating new jobs, avoiding the construction of polluting power plants.

Residential buildings generate over 20 percent of carbon dioxide emissions from non-renewable fuel consumption in the United States.

One solution is the Missouri Association of Accredited Energy Professionals, or “MAAEP”, representing certified energy assessors – a new profession – greening the American economic landscape one home at a time – bringing our carbon levels back down to what leading scientists say is sustainable: 350! 350 parts per million.

In this climate of economic recession, any project that promises great job creating prospects should be our number one focus. We stand at the Gateway to a New Economy and thousands of Missourians and millions of Americans are leading the way. Organizations, non-profits, businesses are coming together to capitalize on this Copernican shift for not just America, but the world. Join us and cross over this threshold to a cleaner and safer future for all.

Thank you!

END

(Speech prepared for 350.org International Day of Climate Action Oct. 24th, Action at the Arch, St. Louis)

So far Claire McCaskill has shown herself to be a big talker who rarely delivers when it comes to the progressive base that worked hard to elect her.  With action expected imminently on the Murkowski amendment to the Interior Appropriations bill, she will get one more chance to show us why we should support her in the future.

Make no mistake, the Murkowski amendment is very important.  It would exempt carbon dioxide from sources other than cars from the rules that govern pollutants, blocking the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating carbon dioxide from  non-automotive sources. This is kind of like saying that when a thug shoots you with a bullet fired from battle rifle it’s a criminal act, but if the same thug shoots you with a bullet fired from a sniper rifle it’s nothing to worry about.

The amendment would also hamstring the transition to clean energy that the  American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) act aims to jump start.  Its provisions would effectively prohibit the EPA from doing its job and employing appropriate expertise to collect data about dangerous pollutants. If, as President Obama stated in his U.N. speech, “the United States is determined to act” to ameliorate global warming, the Murkowski amendment is absolutely the wrong way to go.

Since this amendment extends a generous helping hand to big oil along with other big corporate polluters, it is easy to see why Alaska’s Murkowski is putting it out there.  Unfortunately, it also shows lots of love to the coal industry —  which McCaskill seems to want to appease in the worst way (note her past statements on ACES).  And indeed, when I called her office yesterday to ask that she help vote down this dangerous corporate giveaway, the staff member I spoke with was noncommittal and very cautious when speaking about her position.

If you agree that McCaskill needs to put the health and long-term well-being of Missourians as a whole above the short-term well-being of the coal industry, give her a call and let her know  how important you think a no vote on the Murkowski amendment really is.  Don’t forget to let her know that you really want to continue to support her and help keep her in Washington, but she has to  do her part first.  

You can reach her Washington Office  at (202) 224-6154.  Check her Web page for numbers at her other offices.  

A couple of days ago, I expressed disappointment at Senator McCaskill’s remarks about the clean energy bill that just passed the House at the end of June. As Michael posted earlier, Matt Corley at Think Progress had a longer take on the same conservative radio interview. To review, McCaskill tweeted a couple of days ago and reiterated on right wing radio that she wanted to make sure cap and trade doesn’t punish coal-dependent states like Missouri.

Well, as Matt points out, regional concerns such as greater reliance on coal have been addressed in crafting this bill.  Congress Matters has a handy summary of the American Clean Energy and Security Act which points out that 32% of the allowances through 2025 will be given to regulated utilities to keep electricity rates low for consumers. The legislation also provides trade-exposed industries like steel and paper to get 15% of the allowances at the onset of the cap in 2012.

So what does this mean in plain English? In cap and trade, total carbon emissions are capped for the whole country, and then the total is divvied up into credits or “allowances” and assigned to carbon emitting companies like utility companies. If your company has trouble coming in under the cap (which starts out very high and is only reduced over time,) you can purchase allowances from another company that managed to cut carbon emissions and come in under the cap. Given that the allowances are estimated to be worth $50 to $70 billion in 2012, and 32% are allocated for utilities, that amounts to a $16 billion per year subsidy for the first year of cap and trade alone. Not to mention billions of dollars in federal assistance for carbon sequestration for coal fired power plants.

Is there something else Senator McCaskill would like to do to weaken the bill by giving the coal industry further breaks? If so, I’d like to hear her say what it is, rather than have her continue to make vague generalizations that the bill doesn’t take “coal dependent states” into account. Clearly it does.

A final thought. Giving the coal industry further breaks will reduce the effectiveness of the bill in curbing global warming. McCaskill claimed in her interview with Mike Ferguson to believe in the science that says we urgently need to do something about climate change. If McCaskill truly believes that, she should act to make the bill stronger, not weaker.

Good.

For those keeping score at home, Roy Blunt isn’t showing anyone that he has real ideas about energy policy or how to deal with climate change. An amendment he offered to the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the big cap-and-trade bill making its way through the House right now, was rejected in committee today. The amendment would have installed a self-destruct button in the cap-and-trade system if electricity rates rose. Well, electricity rates could rise purely on account of increased demand from an economic recovery. Should we install a self-destruct button on that, too?

The point of cap-and-trade is to make carbon emissions pricier and to reward efficiency and clean energy generation. This may mean temporary price increases, but it will also lead to cleaner and more stable sources of energy with fewer external costs related to energy generation, like respiratory disease. And the ACES, the legislation Blunt was trying to kneecap, actually allocates rebates to Americans to provide a buffer against any price spikes.

Back to Roy’s poison pill, electricity rates are rising all on their own. And other coal heavy states like Ohio and Virginia are seeing their rates rise quickly, despite their reliance on “cheap” coal. Perhaps he could legislate a self-destruct button on any energy company that raises rates for any reason over a short period of time.

…so our useless media must think that there’s no such thing as global climate change.

It snowed today in Warrensburg. According to our useless media we should probably complain that “global warming” is a figment of someone else’s fevered imagination.

Not so fast. From the Columbia Journalism Review:

…This brings us back to the confusion about weather and climate, and the fact that short-term changes in the former are irrelevant to long-term trends in the latter. Yet every winter, the onset of cold inspires climate skeptics to once again attempt to “debunk” global warming and journalists to once again fall for the maneuver. I reported on that phenomenon in 2007, and New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin covered it in March 2008. Despite journalists’ earnest, and somewhat successful, efforts to move past the basic points that global warming is happening and that human industry is the cause, lingering confusion about the basics of climate science continues to plague public understanding…

Go. Read the whole thing. There’s a difference between weather and climate. That, and someone fell asleep in junior high school when they were covering averages.

I was in a relatively good environmental mood today. The heat finally broke in St. Louis and most of what I’d read or heard today had been positive. But, reading this article posted on AlterNet, was the equivalent of watching The Basketball Diaries after . . . well, anything that doesn’t make you want to kill yourself.

The article, “Big Banks Are Selling Us Out on Climate Change”, is one of the most frustrating pieces I’ve read recently. I think Tara Lohen knew I was having a good day and just wanted to kill my buzz! Anywho, the gist is that the two biggest banks in the U.S., Citi and Bank of America, are financing crazy amounts of heinous coal development, which counters their efforts to green themselves and their businesses on such a scale that the latter seems laughable. I’m not beating around the bush here, and neither is Lohen. From her piece:

“Global leaders are putting their heads together to come up with solutions. Across the world, countries and municipalities are passing legislation to limit GHG emissions; people are cutting consumption; new technologies are being developed to further alternative energy sources. And yet, in the United States, the coal industry has us poised to move in the absolute wrong direction. Right now, there are about 150 new coal-fired power plants on the drawing board. The amount of polluting emissions they will release is staggering — between 600 million and 1.1 billion tons of CO2 emissions every year, for the next 50 years. And this, according to Rainforest Action Network (RAN), will basically negate every other effort currently being considered to fight climate change.”

Fah-bulous, and it gets better. Also, according to Bill McKibben, who apparently wrote the first book on global warming for a general audience:

“The final question as to whether we can address it in serious fashion is whether the coal that is in the ground stays in the ground,” said McKibben. “We already know that we are going to burn all the oil we can get our hands on because we have gotten our hands on most of it and it is intensely valuable. Coal, on the other hand, is the question. If the 150 power plants get built, there is no use talking about compact fluorescent light bulbs or mass transit or any of those other things … we’ll have no hope of averting climate change short of catastrophic proportions.”

What the hell? The article gives a list of major coal projects financed by both banks, but one to note is an investment by Citi:

“In 2006 they gave $4 billion to Peabody Energy, the world’s largest coal mining company, which has been ravaging Dine and Hopi lands for 40 years, taking 2.5 million gallons of water out of their desert watershed each day and leaving behind a trail of toxic waste.”

Peabody is based in St. Louis for those of you who don’t know. Yeah us!

The best part of the article is called “The stupidity factor” and details how ginormously idiotic this country’s behavior is in regards to all aspects of coal. Not one piece of evidence supports its continued use, which is substantial because no is currently being charged for the environmental damage its mining and use has on the planet. Lohen ends with this:

“Fortunately, we have the choice to move this country in the right direction by pressuring Citi and BOA to fund clean, instead of dirty, energy. If those banks took the $141 billion they plan to spend on building new coal plants, and instead invested it in energy efficient measures, they could reduce electricity demand by 19 percent by 2025.”

I’m not holding my breath, which, incidentally, will probably kill me too.

Originally published on green|rising