Category Archives: Politics & Policy

First in Music. First in Energy Audits.

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Green 10 gallon hat

Austin, Texas–which we have always considered to be a little slice of Massachusetts right in the middle of the Lone Star state–has become the first town to pass and ratify a law that makes an energy audit mandatory when you sell a home within the city limits.

Almost 400 audits have been performed under the new ordinance which was passed in November 2008 and went into effect June 1 this year. After a furious lobbying effort by the Austin Board of Realtors, homeowners are not required to make all improvements, but the results will likely be used as a bargaining chip in most purchases.

One homeowner found that over 80% of his air-conditioning was leaking through his uninsulated attic and decided to make the repair to improve the prospects of selling his house. In this depressed market, most sellers will be looking for any advantage they can get.

Of course, Austinites have to find an energy auditor and pay for the audit. Luckily, if you live in Cambridge, requesting an audit is as simple as filling out a simple form and in many cases it’s free.

IRENA, soon to be a household name?

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In case you missed it last week, among all the pop-culture news coverage and myriad other events, the U.S. has joined a majority of the world’s countries as a member of IRENA. The new International Renewable ENergy Agency. After reading their FAQ I still wasn’t entirely sure what they expected to do, but their press packet was a little more enlightening:

The Agency’s tasks will include, among others,
• working with its member states to improve the policy environment for the use of renewable energy,
• engaging in cooperation on technology transfer issues in the area of renewable energy, and
• supporting capacity building measures in the field of renewable energy.

The Agency will advise its member states using an integrated, practice-oriented approach that takes account of country-specific circumstances. To that end, IRENA will pursue specific activities:
• policy advice,
• advice on financing and technology issues, and
• processing and provision of information, including reliable scientific data.

Sounds swell, and I hope that I’m not reading between the lines too much because it sounds like IRENA could actually seek some desperately needed patent reform. The existing system is a mess, and is regarded by many to hinder rather than help progress of the technical arts as the founding fathers initially intended. For instance, last week the Wall Street Journal carried an article about Toyota’s immense Prius patent portfolio, and its impact on the competition.

Coal Country

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This week, the highly anticipated documentary “Coal Country” hits theaters. And, surprise, big coal is not thrilled with its release. From mountaintop removal footage to interviews with those most impacted—local residents of Appalachia—Coal Country exposes and breaks down the business of coal mining into its dirty parts. For one, an American Lung Association study shows that 24,000 Americans die each year from from coal-fired plant pollution (grist).

In addition, coal-fired power plants are major emitters of CO2, NOX, and SO2 into the atmosphere; NOX & SOX factor into acid rain. Another source of pollution may occur before the coal is even burned. In the controversial practice of mountain-top removal, a devastating process that strips off the living layers of a mountain for the sake of simpler coal extraction, heaps of tailings and overburden are often dumped as fill into valleys below or placed into poorly managed heaps whose runoff pollutes local waterways. This impacts not only those immediately adjacent to the plant, but also those further downstream. Coal remains “cheap” however, and many developing countries like China have immense deposits at their disposal, leaving the world to ponder: Will we ever break out of our addiction to coal? One can only hope. The movie opens in King Coal’s back yard on July 11th.

Cap and Trade? Or just keep your head in the sand.

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jeff-jacoby-color The conservative backlash against the Waxman-Markey Cap and Trade bill has started.

The handsome devil you see to your left is Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby, one of the most vocal critics on Cap and Trade and pretty much any other idea he didn’t read in the Weekly Standard.

Jacoby, who was hired by the the Globe in 1994 to provide editorial ‘balance’ to the liberal columnists already in the Globe’s employ, has managed to stay employed despite several incidents at the Globe, one of which lead to him being suspended without pay for four months in 2000.

In his latest column, Jacoby attacks the Obama Administration for having the nerve to push through legislation that addresses climate change, when the jury is ‘still out’ on global warming.

Remember folks, this is the same tactic used by the cigarette industry for several decades. Deny reality for as long as possible while they wring the last few bucks out of the racket..

Still, even if one wishes to forget the whole global warming thing, let’s remember there is a reason why it’s called ‘non-renewable’ energy. At some point in the future, it will become obvious we are reaching the end of the earth’s resources. If we haven’t moved away from carbon-based energy sources at that time, the competition for what’s left will make the Iraq War look like a neighborhood dispute.

Climate Bill Passes the House

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uscongressThe controversial climate bill passed through the House on Friday and pressure is mounting for the leadership in the Senate to take up the bill. Republicans see the climate bill as too costly for for households and view the bill’s carbon reduction mandates as having a harmful effect on industry.  Some environmentalists are also not in support of the house bill, raising concerns over the reduction targets being too low and giving carbon allowances away to industrial polluters.

It is likely the Senate will vote on a version of the bill by fall, which would then need to be hashed out between the two houses.   The climate legislation is a contentious bill for republicans and industry with many legislators calling global warming an outright hoax. Paul Krugman published an article “Betraying the Planet,” in the New York Times on how majority of the climate bill no votes were from global warming denialists.

In addition, even though the American public wants to see action on climate change, there is growing concern about cap and trade  and the potential cost impacts that will have on their wallets.  Independent research groups have estimated the climate bill will cost taxpayers approximately $175 per year, while industry is estimating much higher costs to American citizens.

The United States is also facing international pressure to have a strong climate policy in place for the United Nations Climate Conference in Copenhagen in December to develop a new Kyoto protocol. It is likely that a national climate bill will be passed by the end of the year, but it is unclear whether the US’ national climate bill will lead the way or serve as an ineffective panacea to our growing climate crisis.

Clean Energy?

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Last Monday, Congressman Ed Markey spoke at a Boston Chamber of Commerce luncheon in downtown Boston. The Congressman made a point to mention the Waxman-Markey bill currently being debated in Congress, and illustrated how this bill would specifically create clean energy jobs in Massachusetts. Of course, the actual impact is still undetermined considering the bill has yet to pass both houses of Congress. Nevertheless, this important piece of legislation could determine where the US stands on climate change efforts moving forward. Surprisingly however, Congressman Markey referred to nuclear energy as a strong component to this legislation, a component that may be even stronger than wind or solar power.  While nuclear energy is debatably “clean” [http://www.nei.org/keyissues] from a CO2 standpoint, it is not clean from a nuclear waste standpoint. In fact, the National Repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada is already scheduled to receive a back log of 150 million pounds of spent nuclear fuel (DOE) and it’s already at its capacity and continues to be stuck in legal limbo. To suggest that additional nuclear energy facilities are somehow a miraculous solution ignores the trading of one waste for another. Focusing on clean, renewable energy is the only way to a truly greener environment and the only way to genuine green job creation in Massachusetts.

Bureaucratic climate

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193px-noaa_logosvgRecently, Congress decided that we need a National Climate Service (NCS). Since then there has been some discussion—though not too much—about the implications of such a move. For instance, might this not potentially lead to greater politicization of the science? (Though the contrary is presumably one of the reasons it is being sought). Where should it live? In a bureau of its own? The National Academies? The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Goddard Space Flight Center Climate and Radiation Branch, Goddard Institute for Space studies Global Climate Modeling)? National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA; Climate Program, Climate Prediction Center, Climate Diagnostics Center, National Weather Service Climate Systems Division)? … Besides, might this not also be a bit redundant given the aforementioned offices, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and various efforts in academia?

Image map of federal agencies involved in climate policy

Climate PredictionClimate DataClimate ProgramsClimate ResearchInternational Web SitesWeather related degree programs

Fortunately, somewhat cooler heads have prevailed. While we will still soon have an NCS, it will be located at NOAA alongside its sister the National Weather Service, and its core shall be formed from two existing divisions. There are also plans for extensive collaboration with universities, which will hopefully depoliticize things as well. Unfortunately, none of this is likely to help some people realize that weather isn’t the same thing as climate.

Doing well by doing Goode?

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good-600Last week, ABC premiered “The Goode Family” a new animated series from Mike Judge, the creator of “Beavis and Butthead” and “King of the Hill.”

As with his past work, Judge’s main target is political correctness. In King of the Hill he used a gun-toting Christian family from Texas as his target, This time around, the central characters are a family of “tree hugging nutjobs” who have taken political correctness to the n-th degree. Apart from designating their adopted white Afrikaner son an “African American”, the Goodes are also extreme environmentalists.

Their mantra for life is WWAGD “What would Al Gore Do?”

In the light of recent developments in the “green space” including the pronouncement that the green “bubble” has burst, it is interesting to see that making fun of “do-gooders” is now considered mainstream fare. Of course, there’s also the mocking of “helicopter” parenting, Whole Foods style stores, hybrid cars, vegetarianism, campus politics, reproductive rights and the teenage “purity movement.”

Anyway, why not check it out yourself?

Cape Cod wind farm approved… sort of.

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From this week’s Cape Cod Times comes news of the Massachusetts Energy Facilities Siting Board voting unanimously to approve a bundle of permits for the long-proposed (and infinitely delayed) Nantucket Sound wind farm.

This vote marks the first time the state agency has issued a super permit, wrapping all required state and local permits for a project into a single decision. Which, of course, upset many of the project’s opponents, who vow to keep fighting. Of course, Federal permits are still needed from the U.S. Minerals Management Service, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Aviation Agency…

Nonetheless, Warm Home Cool Planet sees this as significant progress, but it also explains why any picture of a wind turbine operating in Nantucket Sound is likely to remain an ‘artists rendering’ for a couple of years at least.

Warming threats looms larger, but all is not lost

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Our friendly neighborhood researchers at MIT’s Joint program on the Science and Policy of “Global Change“—tomatah, tomahto—released updated predictions from their global warming climate model yesterday, and as the images below show, the results are a mixed bag. Although it seems we are now destined to experience one more degree Celsius of warming, whichever path we choose, the range and likelihood of greater increases in average global temperature are much higher if we continue with the status quo. On the other hand, if we adopt serious policies to shift toward efficiency and renewable resources, we may experience less warming than previously predicted; allowing for one degree of increase due to years of inaction.

The pictures represent possible climate impacts as an intuitive gambling wheel. Each image is clickable for a larger view. The top row features the updated model, and the bottom row the original 2001 model. The left column represents outcomes if we do not undertake serious measures to curb emissions, and the right column shows the impact of emissions thus far, and while in transition to a cleaner economy.

P.S. 1 degree Celsius is 9/5 of a degree (~2 degrees) Fahrenheit.