November 02, 2008 C-SPAN

Climate Progress asks the question -- Why does Sarah wear a polar bear pin?

A1: She wants to help people remember what they looked like before her policies render them extinct.

A2: She likes sticking it to the bears.

A3. She couldn’t find a wolf-cub pin.

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is famously fighting the Bush administration liberals who designated the polar bears a threatened species, and her global warming denial, if enshrined into law, would finish off the bear’s habitat (see “McCain VP Palin is a global-warming-denying, polar-bear-dissing, Pat Buchanan acolyte“).

Read on...

At least some countries are getting it: (h/t Orangutan)

Finnish Fortum and the City of Stockholm have been feverishly working to design a pay-to-pump electric car infrastructure. Sweden took a baby step ahead this week when start-up company Sust (Sustainable Innovation AM) declared its intention to quickly make the country a test market for the world's electric hybrid and pure electric car manufacturers. They'll have to beat off Israel abroad.

But Sweden isn't particularly far ahead in building electric infrastructure in Scandinavia. Norway takes that prize - it has longer had THINK and Buddy electric cars tootling around the streets of Oslo and other cities, and has both built 20 and promised 400 more recharging stations. Both Sweden and Norway have a secret weapon compared to most other countries.

It's thousands of old motor-warming posts that are stationed up and down the countries' long, cold and even desolate northern highways, where you may be more likely to meet a moose than a fellow traveler. The advantage of the motor-warmer stations is that they are estimated to cost only about US$ 35 each to upgrade with the grounding and currency requirements to recharge cars. Everything else - freeway exit and entrances, especially - are already in place.

But we're talking about allowing off-shore drilling and tax subsidies to oil companies for alternative energy "exploration".

  Daily Tech had an item that caused a bit of a stir in conservative circles.

The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming. The APS is also sponsoring public debate on the validity of global warming science. The leadership of the society had previously called the evidence for global warming “incontrovertible.”

This, coming the same day as Al Gore’s speech, was apparently quite exciting to those on the right who prefer to deny global warming and/or its causes.

One said, “The Association of Physical Scientists has reversed its position on anthropogenic global warming. Where it once considered its position ‘incontrovertable’ [sic] it is now sponsoring open debate on the matter... This is a big deal."

Another argued, “[Physicists] bailing on Gore…. The rats are leaving the ship. Global warming alarmists are frauds.”

Jonah Goldberg initially said, “The same day that Al Gore does his man-to-the-moon spiel on global warming, the American Physical Society — the second largest professional association of physicists — rescinds its total support for the global warming. I await the usual chorus to sing us a tune about how the APS is ‘anti-science.’”

Red State told readers, “The headline at The Drudge Report website, ‘Group Repping 50,000 Physicists Opens Global Warming Debate…’ [linked to dailytech.com] says it all.”

Except, in this case, it didn’t say it all. Climate Progress explains the story very well, including all the reasons the right is wrong about this.

Think Progress:

With a contempt of Congress vote looming by Rep. Henry Waxman’s (D-CA) House Oversight Committee, President Bush asserted executive privilege this morning to block the committee’s subpoenas for documents relating to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to reject California’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to override scientific recommendations on ozone standards.

Waxman’s committee had scheduled the 10 am business meeting to hold contempt votes for EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson and White House Office of Management and Budget regulatory administrator Susan Dudley. On May 20, Johnson appeared before the committee, without the subpoenaed documents and evading questions about Bush’s involvement. Read on...

As you might imagine, Henry Waxman isn't too happy. From TPM:

I don’t think we’ve had a situation like this since Richard Nixon was president. When the President of the United States, may have been involved in acting contrary to law and the evidence that would determine that question for Congress, in exercising our oversight, is being blocked by an assertion of executive privilege. I would hope and expect this administration would not be making this assertion without a valid basis for it, but to date I have not seen a valid instance of their executive privilege. Read on...

As the American people sit and watch the Democrats  cave to George Bush and the GOP on issues like FISA and war funding without provisions for troop withdrawal, there is little hope that Congress will step up and do the right thing. Someone should be held accountable for these crimes, but so far, the Democratic leadership has shown no real stomach to fulfill their constitutional duties. With impeachment off the table, this, like so many other crimes, will go unpunished. 

When John McCain is asked how he’s substantively different from George W. Bush, the senator has a programmed response he repeats without hesitation. At the top of the list: “climate change.”

Indeed, McCain, at least recently, has made his “green” credentials a key part of this early stage of his campaign. Two weeks ago, he traveled quite a bit to talk up his plan to combat global warming. “I’m proud of my record on the environment,” McCain told reporters. “As president, I will dedicate myself to addressing the issue of climate change globally.”

There are more than a few problems with McCain’s boasts. For one thing, McCain’s environmental positions shift all the time, and some of his policy opinions contradict each other. For another, McCain has a nasty habit of promoting environmental policies he’s already voted against.

Nevertheless, McCain wants voters to consider him someone who’ll work hard to address global warming if he’s in the White House. In the meantime, though, he’s not willing to work hard at all to address global warming while he’s in the Senate.

While Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has made action on climate change a central theme in his campaign, he won’t be on hand to vote next week when the Senate considers a landmark bill imposing mandatory limits on greenhouse gases.

In a press conference late Wednesday afternoon, McCain said he did not support the bill sponsored by two of his closest allies, Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.) because it doesn’t offer enough aid to the nuclear industry, and he would not come to the floor to vote on it.

“I have not been there for a number of votes. The same thing happened in the campaign of 2000,” he said. “The people of Arizona understand I’m running for president.”

That’s probably true. But the people of the country also understand that he’s promising to be a “leader” on one of the nation’s most pressing issues. And I’ll give McCain a tip: leaders show up for work once in a while.

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Props to the Governator for just coming right out and saying that the real reason Republicans deny Global Climate Change so hotly is that they're beholden to big business.

Kilmeade: But here’s the thing, Governor: A lot of people, a lot of Republicans in particular don’t believe there is Global Warming, there is Climate Change. They don’t believe the green technology and we talk to a lot of them on an every day basis. You’re a Republican, what do you know that they don’t?

Schwarzenegger: Well, I think they know the reality. I think they’re just trying to protect business. And in the end, they’re hurting business. Because we’ve proven in California that you can do both, that you can protect the environment and protect business. Even though in 2003, when I ran and I said that, people didn’t believe it but then we started building the ‘Hydrogen Highway’ and passed the Green Building Initiative and the Million Solar Roof Initiative and the Ocean Action Plan and AB32 to make a commitment to roll back our greenhouse gas emissions and the low carbon fuel standards, all of those things that got world recognition, I think people realize now, ‘wait, this does not hurt our economy, this is actually a big plus' because we’re creating jobs through green, clean technology.

This being Fox though, they had to end a rather lengthy interview on a more cheerful note, with Fox & Friends' Brian Kilmeade looking for some body-building tips. Arnold called him "without a doubt the most muscular television host," whereupon Kilmeade positively swooned.

Energy Smart:

Barbara Boxer has been a real leader on Global Warming issues in the US Senate. A leader who suffered for far too long under the ‘tutelage’ of Senator James Inhofe (R-Exxon).  Sadly, for whichever set of reasons, Senator Boxer has being working hard to corral votes in support of the fatally flawed Lieberman-Warner Coal Subsidy Act and reacting strongly against those who have the audacity to question the bill and her approach to it.   The bill, however, is getting growing notice and the questioning of Senator Boxer’s approach to it is spreading.  

Amid this spread, Matt Stoller at Open Left strongly makes a good point about why Lieberman-Warner, as it now stands,  is worth standing against:  voters don’t support the fossil fuel industry and standing up to fossil fuel polluters makes good politics. [..]

And, for those of you who are Barbara Boxer constituents, perhaps you might want to pass the following message to her from D-Day, me, and you:

A “deal” on a bad cap and trade bill … would lock in a giveaway to polluters on the order of trillions, and make it very difficult for the next President to do anything about it. If you care about the environment, I think you need to let Sen. Boxer know that only a real climate change bill that hits the necessary targets is sufficient. Otherwise, she has to walk away from this.

Senator Boxer, let us remind you that elections have consequences. Let’s work hard, together, to ensure that the November elections have positive implications for the planet and let the Global Warming legislation flow from that.

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Joe Scarborough likes his news with a little less reality, thank you very much. On Tuesday's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough openly scoffed through Mika Brzezinski's news cast that included the news that the polar ice may be melting faster than previously thought, resulting in the endangering of polar bears, among other species.

Willie and I were just sitting there and were saying, ‘did Al Gore write the news this morning?’ And coming up next, [wistful voice] little cubs…little polar bear cubs in the North Pole…are being separated by their mothers by ice floe breaks.

Yeah, let's not deal with the reality staring us in the face. It's so much better to muddy the dialogue by openly scorning scientific work, isn't that right, Joe?

There is global warming, especially in this room. Thank you for “An Inconvenient Newscast,” Mika.

Charming to the end. Don't worry, I'm sure those rising sea levels won't affect you at all.

On a related note, EnergySmart is asking you to contact your elected representatives to demand that they fix the Lieberman-Warner CISA bill before it heads to Bush's desk for signature.  

Steve posted Fri about ABC News’ Jake Tapper's article that completely misrepresented what Bill Clinton said in a speech delivered in Denver on Wed regarding climate change and the economy. Brad at Sadly No! justifiably raked Jake over the coals for his apparent illiteracy in interpreting what Clinton meant from the transcript, but I must add that after seeing the video which Tapper has posted several links to in his article, I'm inclined to believe there's just no way anyone could have misinterpreted what he meant. See for yourself.

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Even though Tapper apparently watched that same video, he has since added in an update that he "wasn't sure just what Clinton meant." Now whether it is even possible for a journalist at ABC to be that stupid or whether he just continues to be deliberately misleading, I suppose that could be open to debate, but the problem is that now, days after Jake's misleading piece had been thoroughly debunked and taken to task by blogs on the left and the right, the story unsurprisingly made it into the echo chamber where it was picked up by the likes of Drudge, Rush Limbaugh and now is showing up in publications with titles such as "Bill Clinton Wants An Economic Slowdown" and "Slow The Economy? Chill, Bill."

I can only shake my head. Churchill was so right.

Apparently our network news media thinks so.

Sierra Club:

The climate crisis is the biggest challenge facing the next president. But the nation's top reporters don't seem to think so. In 2007, they asked 2275 questions. THREE questions mentioned global warming! Sign the petition: tell reporters to focus on the human race, not the horse race. What Are They Waiting for?

MoveOn: "Reporters asked as many questions about UFOs as they did about the climate crisis-the biggest threat to our planet."

As Amanda at TP notes: In its "coal industry-sponsored" Democratic presidential debate on Monday, "CNN once again failed to ask any questions about global warming." Now, why ever would the msm keep avoiding an issue in which "60 percent of Americans believe “we must take action now or it will be too late to stop it” and 58 percent favor capping carbon emissions."

Is it too much to ask?

Too cool to make it to this country, I'd bet.

Before EPA administrator Stephen Johnson rejected California’s application  to impose greenhouse-gas regulations beyond federal requirements, auto executives appealed directly to Dick Cheney. Sure enough, Johnson delayed his decision until after the VP had talked to the execs: “On multiple occasions in October and November, Cheney and White House staff members met with industry executives, including the CEOs of Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler. At the meetings, the executives objected to California’s proposed fuel economy standards.”

You can probably guess what happened next.

The US vice-president, Dick Cheney, was behind a controversial decision to block California's attempt to impose tough emission limits on car manufacturers, according to insiders at the government Environmental Protection Agency.

Staff at the agency, which announced last week that California's proposed limits were redundant, said the agency's chief went against their expert advice after car executives met Cheney, and a Chrysler executive delivered a letter to the EPA saying why the state should not be allowed to regulate greenhouse gases.

As Digby put it, "Merry Christmas, California. Love Dick."

Late last week, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) released a so-called "report," pointing to hundreds of alleged independent scientists who agree with him about climate change -- which is to say, they deny the reality of global warming.

More than 400 scientists challenge claims by former Vice President Al Gore and the United Nations about the threat of man-made global warming, a new Senate minority report says.

Far-right blogs pounced, heralding Inhofe's "expose."

There is, however, one small problem: Inhofe's report plays fast and loose with the facts.

“Padded” would be an extremely generous description of this list of “prominent scientists.” Some would use the word “laughable” (though not the N.Y. Times‘ Andy Revkin, see below). For instance, since when have economists, who are pervasive on this list, become scientists, and why should we care what they think about climate science?

There's been a lot of great coverage of this, highlighting Inhofe's many errors of fact and judgment, including items here, here, and here.

Usually, when someone applies for a waiver of some legislation, it's because they are unable to comply with the standards set. Not so when it comes to the EPA air quality standards and the state of California. California has been on the forefront of combatting smog since the 70s when we had nearly daily smog alerts. And since 1975, California has requested and received a waiver from federal EPA standards, because our standards were stricter.

But then we got the Bush administration.

The Environmental Protection Agency today denied a waiver that would have allowed California and at least a dozen other states to impose their own stricter vehicle tailpipe emissions standards under the Clean Air Act.

"The Bush administration is moving forward with a clear national solution -- not a confusing patchwork of state rules -- to reduce America's climate footprint from vehicles," EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson said in a statement.

The decision is a victory of sorts for auto makers, who opposed state-by-state regulations.

In November, California sued to force the Environmental Protection Agency to rule whether the state can put its strict vehicle tailpipe emissions standards into effect.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said the state would "sue again and sue again and sue again" in order to get approval to put in place tough new fuel economy regulations.

Why is it that Republicans trumpet "states' rights" until it actually benefits the states?