All three of the presidential contenders have said that they support new legislation that would mandate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, yet all of them were out on the campaign trail when debate on a landmark bill commenced on Monday.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. has already said that he's not likely to return to the senate to debate the legislation. It's unclear yet whether Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. or Barack Obama, D-Ill. will return, although Obama is scheduled to be back in Washington DC to give a speech Wednesday.

The last of the Democratic primaries in Montana and South Dakota take place Tuesday.

McCain's schedule shows that he'll be campaigning and fund-raising in Florida, Louisiana, and Tennessee  this week.

Last week, he said that he opposes the bill because it doesn't seriously contemplate an increase in reliance on nuclear power, a position that reflects the Bush administration's critique of the legislation in its Monday statement of policy.

Continue reading "Will The Presidential Candidates Show Up To Debate The Global Warming Bill?" »

Top aides to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger kept information from their boss to prevent him from taking stronger action to implement a landmark global warming law, the former executive director of the California Air Resources Board claimed this week. Catherine Witherspoon resigned from her position just days after Schwarzenegger fired Robert Sawyer, the chairman of the board, last week.

Witherspoon charged that Schwarzenegger was misled by his advisers, who may have intentionally given the governator bad intel on the global warming law, a key measure that calls for a 25 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in California by 2020. The law is the first of its kind in the country. More from a story in the AP today: 

"Witherspoon painted a picture of a governor who was being misled and micromanaged by a staff that was trying to weaken the global warming law out of fear that it would harm businesses. The picture is at odds with the governor's carefully tended public image as an environmental champion. Echoing a complaint that both Democratic legislative leaders have made, Witherspoon said the governor's top aides were single-mindedly focused on using market-based mechanisms to implement the law, even though other methods, particularly regulation, are needed to meet the law's tough standards."

Witherspoon's charges come on the heels of some public comments by Sawyer that Schwarzenegger's staff meddled with the board's actions regarding the law. When Sawyer tried to move more aggressively to implement the measure, he lost his job. From a story in the LA Times: 

"[Sawyer] said he was called by a Cabinet secretary who ordered him to limit to three the number of so-called early action measures the board was considering to slow global warming. Environmentalists complained bitterly that the three measures, approved by the board, were not enough, and Sawyer, ignoring the order he had received, unsuccessfully sought to persuade fellow board members to add more measures to the list. He said he was baffled two days after the vote when the governor issued a news release criticizing the board for not taking more action."

UPDATE: The LA Times just posted two new stories on the matter. Here's an excerpt from one:

"Witherspoon said there had been a pattern of interference by the governor's top staff in favor of industry lobbyists seeking to weaken or stall air pollution regulations, including the state's landmark global warming law and proposed regulations on diesel construction equipment and wood products containing formaldehyde.

'They were ordering us to find ways to reduce costs and satisfy lobbyists,' she said, adding that the governor's chief of staff, Susan Kennedy, and Cabinet Secretary Dan Dunmoyer took the lead on pressuring the agency staff and board chairman.

Adding insult to injury, she said, members of the governor's staff have publicly blamed her and Sawyer for not doing more — conduct she described as 'Orwellian … a triumph of appearances over reality.'"

To read more, click here and here.

Just days before a G8 meeting that will focus on global warming, China has produced a national plan for combating climate change that, while aggressive, fails to recommend mandatory caps on carbon emissions, indicating that an international agreement on the issue will be hard to come by.

A lengthy report released today by the Chinese government details a sweeping plan to use more wind, nuclear, and hydro energy, plant more forests, educate more people, develop new farming methods and improve overall efficiency and conservation habits that would reduce energy consumption per unit of GDP by 20 percent by 2010. But China, which is set to surpass the United States as the worlds' biggest greenhouse gas polluter, is highly dependent on coal and refuses to cap emissions, arguing that such a restriction would hamper economic growth and poverty alleviation.

More on the Chin plan from the BBC and NYT.

Nearing the end of his reign as president, George Bush has decided it's high time to do something about global warming. Rather, it's high time to talk about it a lot, then punt the problem to the next administration. Yesterday, Bush proposed to come up with a post-2012 framework (once the Kyoto Protocol expires) to deal with climate change by the end of 2008. Bush wants to convene 15 powerful countries to hammer out mutual goals for reducing emissions but wants nothing to do with binding carbon caps. Although talking about the problem is better than the administration doing nothing, environmentalists lampooned Bush's announcement as nothing more than hot air.

Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels are increasing much more rapidly than expected, with the United States responsible for a major portion of the upswing, according to a paper to be published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The lead author of the paper, Mike Raupach of Australia's national science agency, determined that the average growth rate of CO2 emissions increased from 1.1 per cent a year in the 1990s to a three per cent increase per year in the 2000s. That's an overall increase of 6 billion tonnes (around 6.6 billion US tons) of CO2 emitted globally in 1995 to 8 billion tonnes (around 8.8 billion US tons) in 2005.

Photo: Greg Chiasson

Two Republican governors this morning accused the Environmental Protection Agency and the Bush administration of preventing states from tightening up tailpipe emissions standards in an attempt to combat global warming. Governors Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Jodi Rell of Connecticut lit into the EPA on the op-ed pages of today's Washington Post, saying the agency has ignored the threat of global warming, disregarded a Supreme Court ruling that said the EPA can regulate greenhouse gas emissions and blocked states from enacting tougher measures to slow emissions.

"It's bad enough that the federal government has yet to take the threat of global warming seriously, but it borders on malfeasance for it to block the efforts of states such as California and Connecticut that are trying to protect the public's health and welfare."

The governors' op-ed piece comes in advance of EPA hearings this week on whether to grant California a waiver that would allow the state to deviate from federal standards. The governors say the EPA has refused to grant the waiver for 16 months and continuing to do so may provoke legal action.

"But we are far from convinced that the agency intends to follow the law and grant us our waiver. If it fails to do so, we have an obligation to take legal action and settle this issue once and for all."

Continue reading "Schwarzenegger Blasts EPA Over Tailpipe Emissions" »

The chairman of the House Science oversight subcommittee on Thursday asked ExxonMobil to hand over a list of grants the company awarded from 2006 to date in an attempt to see if the oil giant is still paying think tanks to distort public opinion on global warming.

Rep. Brad Miller (D-North Carolina) requested (.pdf) information on the amount and purpose of the grants after reading a new Greenpeace report that claims ExxonMobil has continued to fund climate change skeptics even though the company has publicly denied doing so.

Continue reading "House Science Dem Wants Info from Exxon on Global Warming Grants" »

The online Encyclopedia of Life is about to get real. At the TED conference this year biologist E.O. Wilson, winner of the TED prize, announced his wish to develop an evolving online encyclopedia to catalogue the world's species -- hopefully before they're wiped out. Today, five major scientific institutions, including the MacArthur Foundation, announced their intent to back the project, which is expected to be completed in a decade. Avenue A-Razorfish developed the design in about three weeks, which you can see above or at the web site for the encyclopedia. According to Dr James Edwards, Executive Director of the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL):

"The EOL will provide valuable bio-diversity and conservation information to anyone, anywhere, at any time. It will ultimately make high-quality, well-organized information available on an unprecedented level. Even five years ago, we could not create such a resource, but advances in technology for searching, annotating, and visualizing information now permit us, indeed mandate us, to build the EOL."

In what we can only imagine was a poorly considered joke, Rep. Stevan Pearce (R-New Mexico) said on Wednesday he hoped the Department of Fish and Wildlife would release Mexican gray wolves in Central Park and Washington, D.C.

"I think we should bring them here and turn them loose on the [national] mall," Pearce said during a House Natural Resources Committee hearing on whether the Bush administration has meddled with science related to the Endangered Species Act.

Continue reading "Congressman Wants to Release Wolves in Central Park?" »

Arctic sea ice is melting at a much faster rate than projected by the latest computer models, according to a new study by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Colorado.

In the study, "Arctic Sea Ice Decline: Faster Than Forecast?", published today in the online edition of Geophysical Research Letters, scientists compared simulations of past climate with observations from satellites and aircraft and ship reports to determine that ice melted faster from 1953-2006 than even the worst-case scenario projection, including those used in assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. More info here.

An overwhelming majority of Americans think global warming is a problem with serious consequences and that steps should be taken immediately to counter the threat to earth's environment, according to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll.

Nearly 90 percent of the 1,052 people polled said global warming is either a serious or very serious problem. Almost 80 percent said that it is imperative to take immediate steps to counter changes to the planet's atmosphere. The full results of the poll are here (.pdf), but we've attached below some of the more interesting global warming questions if you don't feel like slogging through all the numbers:

Continue reading "Get Your Data: The Latest Poll Numbers on Global Warming and National Security" »

Texas tops the list of America's filthiest states for carbon dioxide emissions in 2004, according to a report (big .pdf) issued yesterday. The U.S. Public Interest Research Group, an advocacy outfit that campaigns for the American public, used data from the Energy Department to calculate the amount of emissions each state produced from 1990 to 2004.

Although Texas is by far the biggest polluter in the Union, releasing 659 million metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere in 2004, it is not alone in befouling the environment.

Continue reading "Dirty Texas Wins 2004 CO2 Polluting Title" »

The White House on Wednesday scrapped its attempt to appoint officials with ties to heavily polluting industries to powerful jobs at the Environmental Protection Agency. Earlier this month, President Bush indicated that he intended to bypass the Senate approval process for the nominees. The president can do this by making "recess appointments" when the Senate is on break.

But the two officials that Bush would have extended this munificence to have been widely criticized by the environmental and scientific communities for their past actions. William Wehrum, who the White House had tapped to become the head of the EPA's air pollution office, is a former lawyer for the chemical, utility and auto industries. As counsel for the EPA's air office, Wehrum found himself in a spot of trouble over mercury emissions.

Continue reading "Bush Gives Up on Industry Friendly EPA Nominees" »

If you're bored at work this morning (and have a TV handy that the boss can't spot), you might want to check out C-SPAN, where Sen. John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) and Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich will argue each other into the ground with barbed and witty back-and-forth about global warming. The 10 a.m. debate will center on the government's role in dealing with the issue and is sure to provide some fine Tuesday morning entertainment. Maybe Newt can practice his Spanish again.

Update: CNN has posted a quick analysis of the debate and some video for those interested.

China will take part in international negotiations on combating global warming after the U.N. Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012, according to a report in The Yomiuri Shimbun of Japan. Beijing did not sign on to the Kyoto Protocol, the world's most significant attempt to limit emissions of greenhouse gases. But with China scheduled to surpass the United States in 2010 as the world's biggest polluter, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is set to announce his country's intention to join a post-Kyoto framework for action.

Wen will make the announcement on Wednesday during a diplomatic visit to Japan, which has agreed to help China improve its energy efficiency. China will also release later this month its national plan for reducing global warming. Although China has become a massive polluter as its economy has surged, it has also sought to clean up its image in advance of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Continue reading "China to Participate in Post-Kyoto Warming Talks" »

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Chance (IPCC) today released a frightening summary (.pdf) of its latest report on climate change, predicting flood, drought and a host of biblical trouble that could wreak havoc on the planet in coming years. You can be sure that the 20-page summary is about as far into the report as most policymakers will get, which is why governmental delegates were meddling with it up to the last minute. Reuters quotes Neil Adger, one of the report's lead authors, as saying: "Very blatant vested interests are trying to stop particular messages getting out."

Two of those blatant vested interests held a pre-dawn press briefing at the White House this morning. Sharon Hays, associate director of the White House Office of Science and Technology, made the political meddling sound like an Elks Lodge meeting:

"[T]his is, I think, a good opportunity to make sure that you understand another really important point in developing these summary documents, and that is that many of the lead scientific authors of the underlying technical report are present during the discussions. And so those scientific authors played a very important role in helping the governments involved in these discussions to make sure that the summary document accurately reflect the scope of all of the information in their much longer technical report."

Continue reading "White House Spins IPCC Climate Change Report" »

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) today released the summary (.pdf) of its fourth assessment report, which focuses on how global warming will affect ecosystems and force all life forms to adapt to a hotter planet. But the summary was held up last night in Brussels as scientists wrangled over details with government delegates from more than 100 countries.

Anytime a government delegate -- let alone 100 of them -- gets to palaver about a scientific report in a dead-of-night session mere hours before a deadline for public statement, our spidey sense tingles. It just don't feel right. And lo! what does Reuters reveal this morning via unnamed source?:

"One participant said the United States, China and Saudi Arabia opposed mention of a 2006 study by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern that said it would be cheaper to fight climate change now than suffer consequences of inaction."

Continue reading "IPCC Scientists Battle Government Reps" »

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tomorrow will release its fourth report on global warming, an assessment that determines with "high confidence" that warming from human-generated greenhouse gases has already started to alter ecosystems around the world, usually for the worst. Although colder regions will have longer growing seasons as the temperature ticks up, other parts of the world will experience increased drought, fires and flooding and more hunger and infectious diseases. Poor countries are at greater risk than wealthy ones.

The IPCC gave both The New York Times and The Washington Post a summary or an advance draft of the report. You can read more about it here and here. Some of the key points:

--water in glaciers and snow will melt, cutting water supply to regions where more than one sixth of the earth's inhabitants live.
--20 to 30 percent of the world's species could go extinct if the temperature rises between 2.4 and 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit
--coral reefs will bleach and die off as water temperatures continue to rise.

Photo: Justin Casp

Republican climate change skeptics in Congress are bound to delight in the news that Mars is experiencing its own warming trend. Yes, by the bloodlust of Ares, our ruddy celestial neighbor heated up by 1 degree Fahrenheit from the 1970s to the 1990s, NASA scientists reported today. The scientists published their results in Nature this week and attributed the warming to dust storms that expose dark rock that absorbs more heat from the sun.

Because hotter temperatures create more dust storms, Mars will likely continue to warm up, which is dandy for Republicans like Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-California). In a hearing last week, Rohrabacher lamented the "arrogant" and "anti-scientific" dismissal of global warming research funded by oil and gas companies. Rohrabacher then proceeded to dismiss the overwhelming majority of scientists who believe global warming is real and caused by humans. He managed to smuggle in a Mars warming reference to back up his point.

Continue reading "Mars Warming Sure to Heat Up Political Debate" »

Apple came in last in the latest Greenpeace study ranking computer companies by how eco-friendly their manufacturing processes are and how readily they recycle old machines. Lenovo, which ranked last in a previous study, shot up to the top position, mainly due to its comprehensive global recycling program and reporting of recycled e-waste.

But Apple continued to "scrape the bottom of the barrel," according to Greenpeace, which has been issuing quarterly electronics "green rankings" since 2006. In a satirical PR blitz that started last year, Greenpeace accused Apple of using toxic chemicals such as flame retardants and polyvinyl chloride in its computers and having a limited take-back and recycling program, which means that old Apples often get dumped in poor countries where toxins leak.

AlterNet has a nice historical summary of the Apple-Greenpeace standoff.

Julie MacDonald, the Bush appointee who hijacked science at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and whose behavior was the subject of an Interior Department inspector general's investigation released last week is also, it seems, a fan of MMORPGs.

The evidence, first noted by the gristmill blog, shows up on page 21 of the inspector general's report:

"MacDonald confirmed that she also sent the Delta Smelt document to an on-line game friend through his father's e-mail account. MacDonald said she is acquainted with the on-line friend through internet role-playing games. She said she engages in these games to relieve the stress created by her job; however, she said she has not played while at work."

Continue reading "Interior Official Who Suppressed Science Plays MMORPGs" »

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 today that the Environmental Protection Agency can legally regulate greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warning, a rebuke to a presidential administration that has long argued that the EPA lacks such regulatory authority under the Clean Air Act. The court's decision is here (.pdf).

But in its first decision on a case involving global warming, the court saw it differently, ruling in favor of a coalition of environmental groups and the state of Massachusetts who argued the EPA has not offered an adequate legal explanation for refusing to control harmful emissions from vehicles and industry. In the majority opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the EPA has "refused to comply" with clear statutory obligations and instead "offered a laundry list of reasons not to regulate."

Continue reading "Judges Give Bush a Smack Down on Environment" »

The Commerce Department yesterday issued a new public communications policy  (.pdf) crafted mainly in response to charges that department "minders" and flacks suppressed or edited climate change science in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a department bureau. The new policy is chock full of language that, frankly, represents a very welcome change. Here are a few examples:

"In support of a culture of openness, and consistent with this Order and their official duties, Department employees may speak to the media and the public about their official work and freely and openly discuss scientific and technical ideas, approaches, findings, and conclusions based on their official work."

And:

Continue reading "Commerce Issues New Communications Policy; House Science Dems Want Changes" »

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), who believes global warming is a hoax and has vowed to filibuster any bill that caps greenhouse gas emissions, is now trying to squash (video) a global warming awareness concert organized by Vice President Al Gore and scheduled to take place July 7 on the Capitol steps.

Inhofe "objects to holding any events on the Capitol grounds that are either highly partisan or politically controversial -- and the proposed Gore concert is both," an Inhofe spokesman said. Last week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) tried to formally block the concert in Congress, claiming security concerns hadn't been addressed.  But the real musical killjoy here is Inhofe, who was embarrassed in a climate change hearing with Gore last week. Anyone think this isn't personal?

A high-ranking Interior Department official "rode roughshod" over scientists at the Fish and Wildlife Service, monkeyed with the classification of endangered species and sent internal agency documents to contacts at ChevronTexaco (now just Chevron), according to a story in The New York Times today about a new report by the Interior Department's Inspector General.

The report, an investigation into allegations of fishy behavior by Julie MacDonald, then the deputy assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, determined that MacDonald violated federal rules and bypassed agency scientists in favor of advocating for industry viewpoints.

Continue reading "Senior Interior Official Put Politics Ahead of Science " »