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Featured stories in this issue...
A Disaster Brought To You by the Nation's Leading Environmentalists
"Leading environmentalists" in the U.S. are urging Congress to try
to curb global warming by creating a massive public-private
bureaucracy to trade pollution permits amongst polluters, instead of
simply taxing unwanted emissions.
The Great Carbon Bazaar
The carbon trading scheme built into the Kyoto Treaty -- put there
at the insistence of "leading environmentalists" in the U.S. -- has
led to major scams by polluters, which are exceedingly profitable but
don't reduce global warming.
Dear Governor Greenwash
The leading climate scientist in the U.S. lays out a bold plan for
curbing global warming, starting with a ban on new coal plants.
"Blocking a single coal-fired power plant is important in itself, and
it may help lead to a tipping point by demonstrating that efficiency
and renewable energies can carry the load."
Farewell, Fair Weather
According to the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of
Disasters, there have been more than four times as many weather-
related disasters in the last 30 years than in the previous 75 years.
The United States has experienced more of those disasters than any
other country.
New Study Says Carbon Nanotubes Might Be as Harmful as Asbestos
One of the most promising materials for the future of technology,
carbon nanotubes, might be as harmful as asbestos if inhaled.
Op-Ed: The Working Wounded
"My colleagues and I were shocked to learn that an employer who
breaks the nation's worker-safety laws can be charged with a crime
only if a worker dies. Even then, the crime is a lowly Class B
misdemeanor, with a maximum sentence of six months in prison."
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From: Rachel's Democracy & Health News, Jun. 5, 2008
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A DISASTER BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE NATION'S LEADING ENVIRONMENTALISTS
By Peter Montague
This week the U.S. Senate -- arguably the most powerful 100 people on
the planet -- began a debate on a bill to curb global warming.
The N.Y. Times wrote June 3, "The debate, which could last all week,
will force senators to take a stand on some of the most difficult,
expensive and potentially life-altering questions the world will face
in coming decades."
In an editorial May 28, the New York Times had summarized the issue
this way: "The scientific case for action, strong five years ago, is
even more persuasive now. Authoritative assessments from the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, among other studies, have
left little doubt that the world is heating up, that man-made
emissions are largely responsible and that swift action is necessary
to avoid widespread environmental damage."
The bill being debated in the Senate is known as Lieberman-Warner. It
is being promoted aggressively by Democrat Barbara Boxer. The bill is
co-sponsored by John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
According to the Times June 2, the details of the bill were crafted
by a coalition of "some of the most powerful corporate leaders in
America [who] have been meeting regularly with leading environmental
groups in a conference room in downtown Washington for over two
years..."
So this is a bill written by our "leading environmentalists." The only
"leading environmentalists" named by the Times are staff of the
Natural Resources Defense Council, but we know Environmental Defense
has had a heavy hand in this, too.
The bill would create an enormous new public/private bureaucracy to
curb the emission of global warming gases, chiefly carbon dioxide
(CO2). The system is called "cap and trade." The basic intent is not a
bad one -- to put a price on carbon, which is currently being dumped
into the atmosphere for free.
There are two basic ways to put a price on carbon -- simply tax it, or
wrap it in a large bureaucracy devoted to "cap and trade."
The "cap and trade" idea is to force carbon dioxide (CO2) emitters to
purchase pollution permits, each of which is a legally-enforceable
right to pollute the atmosphere with CO2 -- but only up to a certain
level (the "cap"). If polluters reduce their emissions below their
permitted level, they can sell their unused permits to other polluters
(the "trade"). Every once in a while the total "cap" gets lowered by
the iron hand of government (at least in theory) and the "trade" part
supposedly allows for super-efficient reductions in CO2 emissions:
Those who can reduce their emissions cheaply will do so, and those who
can't will buy extra pollution permits in the open market (thus
worsening pollution in some unfortunate communities, relative to more
fortunate communities). Advocates of "cap and trade" say such a system
will minimize the overall cost to the polluters while ratcheting down
CO2 emissions rapidly enough to avert climate chaos. At least that's
the theory. (It is worth noting that the costs of pollution in the
unfortunate communities [asthma, pulmonary disease, cancer, school
days lost, emergency room visits, etc.] are kept "off the books" in
all these "efficiency" calculations. To some "leading
environmentalists" and their corporate-polluter partners, unfortunate
communities have a value of zero.)
You won't read about it in the New York Times, but there are serious
mainstream critics of the "cap and trade" approach who say it is
neither economically efficient nor workable. For example, the
Congressional Budget Office (CBO) -- Congress's own office of economic
analysis -- published its study three months ago concluding that:
** A carbon tax -- not cap and trade -- is the "most efficient" method
to address global warming, both in limiting economic costs and for
achieving environmental benefits.
What is a carbon tax?
A carbon tax is a tried-and-true way of putting a price on carbon
emissions. Such a tax can be remarkably simple: you weigh the amount
of carbon-containing fuel (coal, oil, or natural gas) as it comes out
of the ground (or as it is comes off the ship), calculate the tax per
ton of carbon, and collect the tax. End of story. The cost if the tax
gets passed along to the purchaser via the market. Or, with
considerably more effort, you could tax carbon directly at the point
of purchase. Either way, you don't have to measure anyone's emissions
-- an exceedingly complex and costly procedure providing untold
opportunities for thousands of polluters to fudge the data. The tax
has an additional advantage: no one gains a legally enforceable "right
to pollute." With a tax, the nation's electric utilities -- and
cement, aluminum and steel companies -- couldn't ever be able to go to
court to try to stop government from taking away their "right to
pollute," a property right they could claim to own because they
purchased it with good money.
On its face, a cap and trade program is immensely complex. As Robert
Samuelson writes in the June 9 issue of Newsweek, "The chief
political virtue of cap-and-trade -- a hugely complex scheme to reduce
greenhouse gases -- is its very complexity." Within all the complexity
comes endless opportunity for shenanigans. (The BBC reported this
week how the carbon trading scheme built into the Kyoto Treaty is
being gamed by polluters at considerable profit to themselves but no
benefit to planet Earth.)
In a cap and trade program, someone has to sell or auction (or give
away free) the pollution permits each year. Someone else has to keep
track of who has received how many permits and who has sold how many
of their permits to whom. (Permits can be "banked" and used years
later, so someone must pay close attention.) Someone else has to
measure all the tens of thousands of permitted CO2 emissions to make
sure they aren't exceeding permitted levels. Buying and selling rights
to pollute will create an enormous private bureaucracy -- a trading
exchange -- supported by an army of bankers, lawyers, engineers,
accountants, analysts, ad men, publicists, lobbyists, sales people,
hucksters and camp followers. The first year of a "cap and trade"
program is estimated to create a new "market" in pollution rights
worth a $220 billion. A market worth $220 billion per year is as large
as the market for computer processors. There's real money to be made
here by the clever and the unscrupulous. The British journal New
Scientist reported in April that "what began as a niche market is
now attracting major financial institutions such as Morgan Stanley,
Credit Suisse, and Barclays Capital..." plus JP Morgan Chase and
others. In other words, the new carbon market is being created by the
same people who created the ever-deepening mortgage lending disaster.
Have they shown that they have society's best interests at heart, or
have they shown a cruel focus on making money, no matter the cost to
others? It's a fair question.
New Scientist summarized the root question this way: "As Nicholas
Stern, former chief economist at the World Bank, puts it: climate
change is 'the greatest market failure the world has ever seen.' The
question now is whether capitalism is able to make amends. Can it
provide a mechanism that rewards people for reducing their carbon
emissions instead of increasing them? Or will it simply give big
polluters a way of dodging their responsibilities?"
And New Scientist ends its devastating critique of "cap and trade"
with a stark warning about the consequences of manipulation and
deception within the carbon trading market: "With Enron, it was the
shareholders who suffered. But if the atmosphere continues to be
filled with greenhouse gases and the planet's climate crashes as Enron
did, no one will be spared."
On May 4th, two attorneys working for U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency [EPA] wrote an "open letter to Congress" explaining why "cap
and trade" can't work. Attorneys Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel each
have roughly two decades of experience in environmental enforcement,
and Zabel has extensive experience with prior cap and trade programs
run by EPA. Williams and Zabel told Congress that a "cap and trade"
system "is an open invitation to fraud and would significantly delay
reductions [in carbon emissions]." They went on to list (and document)
half a dozen other reasons why a "cap and trade" program will be
nothing more than a gift to the financial industry and the polluters
but will not reduce CO2 emissions quickly enough to avert climate
chaos.
So the U.S. Senate is debating how to curb global warming, but is
restricting the debate to a single approach -- "cap and trade" -- an
approach that was devised by the corporate polluters themselves,
locked in a room for two years with their house environmentalists.
"Cap and trade" sets up a system that offers endless opportunities to
game the system and make even more money by burning fossil fuels,
while claiming to be curbing global warming fast enough to avert
climate chaos. By the time the system has matured and we learn that it
did not work, the billionaires created by the system will be living
comfortably in the globally-warmed mountains of Switzerland while the
rest of us are learning to deal with more and bigger Katrinas,
creeping inundation of all the world's coastal cities, and widespread
famine from crop failures caused by drought.
This disaster is being created right before our eyes by the "leading
environmentalists" in the United States. Pulitzer-prize winning
journalist Ross Gelbspan reports in the Boston Globe that at least
one leading environmental organization in the U.S. -- Environmental
Defense -- is planning to make money brokering carbon trades. Let's
point out for the record that many, many environmentalists in the U.S.
oppose this dangerous, self-serving gamble with the future of the
planet. Two collaborations of environmental justice advocates
(originating on the East and West coasts of the U.S.) have taken
unequivocal positions against carbon trading. Clearly, a national (and
global) climate justice movement is emerging. Let's hope it gathers
momentum in time to stop the "leading environmentalists" in the U.S.
from creating an irreversible catastrophe.
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From: BBC News, Jun. 5, 2008
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THE GREAT CARBON BAZAAR
By Mark Gregory, Business correspondent, BBC World Service, India
Evidence of serious flaws in the multi-billion dollar global market
for carbon credits [aka "pollution rights" or "allowances"] has been
uncovered by a BBC World Service investigation.
The credits are generated by a United Nations-run scheme called the
Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).
The mechanism gives firms in developing countries financial incentives
to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
But in some cases, carbon credits are paid to projects that would have
been realised without external funding.
The BBC World Service investigation found examples of projects in
India where this appeared to be the case.
Arguably, this defeats the whole point of the CDM scheme, set up under
the Kyoto climate change protocol, as these projects are getting money
for nothing.
The findings reinforce doubts that the CDM is leading to real emission
cuts, which is not good news for the effort to combat climate change.
And in one case a company is earning truly staggering sums of money
from the carbon credits it is receiving -- perhaps as much as $500
million over a period of 10 years -- for a project it says it would
have carried out without the incentive of the CDM.
Not watertight
The man in ultimate charge of running the Clean Development Mechanism
insists it is fundamentally sound.
"We've got a procedure that works," says Yvo De Boer, the top official
at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
He is referring to the elaborate registration process projects must go
through to qualify for carbon credits from the CDM.
But even Mr De Boer accepts the system is not perfect.
"At the end of the day it's always a matter of judgement," he says.
"And no, it's not watertight."
Flawed system
In order to receive carbon credits from the CDM, projects are supposed
to demonstrate that they will lead to cuts in greenhouse gas emissions
that are "additional" to what would have happened without the
availability of credits.
This concept of "additionality" is crucial to the credibility of the
mechanism because of the way the system works.
The buyers of CDM credits are companies in developed nations, mostly
in Europe, who use them to offset their own emissions.
They are allowed to count the carbon credits towards targets they
would otherwise have to meet by cutting emissions at their own
factories and offices, which is usually much more expensive.
The system is intended to give western firms a low cost way of
achieving emission targets while at the same time getting businesses
in developing nations involved in tackling climate change.
But it only works if the carbon credits generated by projects in
developing nations really do represent genuine emission cuts.
Would have done it anyway
Three projects in India were investigated to see if the
"additionality" test has been met.
One case involved the installation of a biomass generator to provide
electricity at a rice milling plant in the state of Uttar Pradesh in
Northern India.
KRBL, India's largest exporter of Basmati rice, spent $5m on the
generator, which replaced a less climate friendly diesel powered
system.
The generator runs on rice husks, a renewable energy source. The husks
are a waste material from the rice milling process.
The company has almost completed the registration procedure and is set
to receive carbon credits from the CDM worth several hundred thousand
dollars a year.
Yet, when asked whether the carbon credits were important for the
company's decision to install the biomass generator, Manoj Saxena, a
senior manager at the plant, responded "not really" and confirmed that
it would have done the project anyway, even without the CDM funds.
"[The] numbers are more favourable for us because of the CDM," he
acknowledged.
He was then asked whether the company would take the money if the
authorities of the CDM were silly enough to give it a million dollars
extra for it, to which he replied: "Yes, definitely. Why not?"
KRBL's rice husk driven generator is unquestionably a useful project
from an environmental point of view, but the evidence gathered by the
BBC World Service investigation suggests it would have been installed
anyway without financial help from carbon credits.
Massive windfall
Indian chemical company SRF is also receiving substantial numbers of
CDM carbon credits for eliminating an obscure industrial waste product
known as HFC23, a highly potent greenhouse gas.
HFC23 is a by-product of manufacturing refrigerant gases used to cool
fridges and air conditioners.
It is nearly 12,000 times as toxic as carbon dioxide in its climate
impact if it enters the atmosphere.
But getting rid of HFC23 is quite easy and relatively cheap.
The solution is to burn it off in an incinerator.
SRF has installed an incinerator for burning off HFC23 at its plant in
Rajasthan.
The project has been registered with the CDM and is receiving up to
3.8 million carbon credits a year.
These are currently worth $50m to $60m a year.
SRF is likely to receive the credits for a period of about 10 years,
so it is in line for a total windfall in the region of more than
$500m, a gigantic sum for a smallish chemical plant located in rural
India.
The incentives work
The company will not say what it cost to install the incinerator, but
the figure is far les than the value of the credits obtained.
The number of carbon credits awarded to SRF and other similar firms
for dealing with HFC23 is linked to its theoretical climate potency.
The actual cost of eliminating the gas is not taken into account.
The UN's Mr De Boer, the man in charge of the Clean Development
Mechanism, defends the huge payouts made to companies like SRF.
"I'm happy that a very potent greenhouse gas is being removed," he
says.
"I'm very happy that the Kyoto protocol has created a market mechanism
that makes it interesting for companies to do that, because evidence
shows us that in the absence of the CDM that greenhouse gas was not
being destroyed.
"There was no incentive to destroy that greenhouse gas apart from the
CDM"
His argument is that while it may have been expensive, at least the
CDM is responsible for getting rid of a particularly nasty greenhouse
gas.
But is this true? Did companies really need the CDM to take action?
During a tour of the plant at SRF's factory in Rajasthan, the
company's official spokesman, Mukund Trivedy, revealed that "we would
have done it anyway". He was then asked to confirm whether the project
would have been carried out even if the CDM scheme hadn't been set up.
"That's right," he responded.
Which begs the question; if they were going to eliminate HFC23
emissions themselves anyway, why give them carbon credits worth
several hundred million dollars?
Not solving the problem
The third company investigated by BBC World Service was a large hydro
scheme in the Northern Indian state of Himalchal Pradesh.
There were arguments on both sides as whether the project genuinely
deserved to qualify for carbon credits.
The CDM operates on a massive scale. More than 1,000 projects have
already qualified for carbon credits.
A further 3,000 projects have applied.
Trade in CDM carbon credits is running at some $10bn a year.
That is a welcome flow of resources from the developed to the
developing world.
But it is far from clear that the trade in credits is contributing
much to tackling global warming.
Mark Gregory's investigation into carbon trading is broadcast on
One Planet on BBC World Service radio at various times on Thursday 5
June. UK listeners can hear it on BBC Radio 4 at 8pm that same
evening, entitled The Great Carbon Bazaar.
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From: Gristmill Blog, May 29, 2008
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DEAR GOVERNOR GREENWASH
Hansen: Governors aren't getting it
A guest essay from noted climate scientist James Hansen.
By James Hansen
My recent experience with governors raises a question about whether
this is an effective way to communicate about climate change.
(Apologies for the length -- you may skip the three tales and go to
the bottom line.)
Dear Governor Pawlenty [PDF]
Minnesota Gov. Pawlenty presides over a population that appreciates
nature. Explorer Will Steger has done a marvelous job of informing the
public there about climate change in the Arctic, the threat of climate
change to species and indigenous people, and the relevance of climate
change to Minnesota. Early actions made it appear that Minnesota would
be a leader, defining energy policies and directions that would be a
great example for other states.
Specifically (get this!), in spring 2007 Minnesota passed and Gov.
Pawlenty signed a law called the Next Generation Energy Act of 2007,
requiring 25 percent renewable energy by 2025 and a 1.5 percent per
year improvement in energy efficiency.
Some people used this to help paint Gov. Pawlenty green, second in
greenness only to Arnold Schwarzenegger among Republican governors.
Pawlenty, according to the Washington Post, is at the top of the
list of candidates to be John McCain's running mate. Coincidentally,
the Republican convention will be in Minnesota in September. But ...
read on.
I wrote a letter to Gov. Pawlenty, to provide information similar to
that in my testimony [PDF] to the Iowa Public Utility Commission
regarding the Marshalltown plant and my letters to leaders such as the
British Prime Minister [PDF]. For some reason, despite signing the
Next Generation Energy Act, Gov. Pawlenty would not take a position
against a new large coal-fired power plant, Big Stone II (located in
South Dakota but supplying energy to Minnesota). Something didn't add
up.
Junior high school mathematics tells us that a 25 percent renewable
energy standard by 2025 and a 1.5 percent/year improvement in energy
efficiency together eliminate the need for new coal-fired power
plants. Could it be that there was no real expectation of pursuing
those goals?
Big Stone II, from the coal industry perspective, is doubly
beneficial: It increases sales and it is a dagger in the chest of
renewable energies. In a finite market, renewables can only take off,
and reduce their unit costs, by increasing in scale. New coal plants
-- if they are built -- will serve to keep clean energies as bit
players in the energy market for decades to come.
But perhaps Gov. Pawlenty was just confused. He may not realize the
significance of a whopping big coal plant (it takes about 100 rail
cars per day to feed one of those suckers). He may not realize that
coal trains are death trains for uncountable species. He may not
realize the health impacts of mercury and other coal pollutants, and
the costs of pollutants for Minnesota citizens. So I dutifully wrote
the above letter to the governor. Fossil fuel facts therein make clear
the urgency of a moratorium on coal-fired power, if we are to avoid
dangerous climate tipping points that would spell disasters for our
children and grandchildren.
Gov. Pawlenty's response, relayed by his spokesman, Brian McClung:
"Climate change is an issue that is national and international in
scope and cannot be solved by one state. In addition, we must
safeguard jobs and our economy as we seek to transition to cleaner
sources of energy." Huh? Sounds familiar. Sounds like Washington. Pass
the buck.
Bottom line: the governor did not come out against Big Stone II.
Citizens, the courts, may yet stop Big Stone II, but Gov. Pawlenty, it
seems, will not.
Will McCain choose Pawlenty as a running mate? Would McCain risk
"Governor Greenwash," "Governor Hogwash" posters? Naw, I don't think
so. We need real leadership.
Dear Governor Gibbons
I received appeals to help illuminate the situation in Nevada, mostly
from people suffering from local coal pollution. It is physically
impossible to respond to every request. But Nevada's plans are so
egregiously bad as to demand a spotlight. When I realized that I was
to receive the Nevada Medal, to be presented by the governor, I could
not pass up the chance to communicate (as it turns out, he was
obviously not on the committee selecting the medal winner).
My letter was (you can judge for yourself) friendly, polite, and
helpful, presenting a clear explanation of why three new coal plants
that he was supporting were not in the best interests of Nevada, the
nation, or the Earth. Nevada is a potential goldmine for renewable
energy -- solar, wind, geothermal. Solar thermal power alone, using
just a tiny fraction of the desert area in the Southwest United
States, could supply most of the electric power for the entire United
States, eliminating the need for coal-fired power. If the state played
it smart, they would become wealthy by exporting clean carbon-free
energy to California and elsewhere.
The primary function of the proposed new coal-fired power plants in
Nevada, as elsewhere, seems to be as a dagger in the chest of
renewable energies, by removing the need for them, keeping renewables
in their place as boutique, inconsequential competitors. In addition,
the coal plants eliminate any need to restructure utility regulations
such that utilities could make more money by encouraging energy
efficiency, rather than by selling more energy.
The only response from the governor's office was an angry, early-AM
call to the Desert Research Institute, the host for my visit to
Nevada. Fortunately, they could honestly reply that they had no
involvement in the letter (indeed, when I had queried their
scientists, they told me not to waste my time, that it was a hopeless
case). Perhaps the annoyance was that I provided copies of my letter
to the Nevada Public Utilities Commission and the Nevada Climate
Change Task Force.
Or the fact that, in ending my letter on an optimistic note, I pointed
out that young people were in the process of organizing to oppose
fossil interests. These enthusiastic vocal groups, such as Energy
Action, League of Young Voters, Rock the Vote, and several other youth
civic groups had identified Nevada as a principal state for voter
outreach programs. I noted that youth are not fooled by "green"
advertisements or tokenism in political actions, but I tried to be
positive: "Leaders who put our nation on a course to carbon-free
energy, allowing us to be good stewards of creation, of our planet,
will find a strongly supportive public."
Nevertheless, the governor did not show up for dinner, which, instead,
was hosted in the governor's mansion by First Lady Dawn Gibbons. The
first lady was a superb host, knowledgeable about energy and climate,
concerned about public welfare and Nevada's future, and especially
interested in fairness to and the welfare of our children and
grandchildren.
Later I learned that the first couple were in divorce proceedings, and
that there was an attempt to have the first lady removed from the
governor's mansion. Even though firearms are common in Nevada, I
suppose a "Calamity Jane" takeover is unrealistic. Yet, just perhaps,
the citizens of Nevada might consider drafting the first lady, an
experienced former Nevada legislator, to be the future governor. And
thus, just perhaps, Nevada could provide the social tipping point, the
change of direction that leads us from fossil addiction to a more
prosperous future, with energy independence, nature preservation, and
intergenerational equity.
Dear Governor Kaine [PDF]
This letter to Virginia Governor Tim Kaine was also submitted as an
op-ed to the Washington Post, but not published. The Office of the
Governor sent a letter in response, included above.
My letter suggests that Gov. Kaine could save rate-payers money while
helping lead the nation to a cleaner energy future, relying more on
energy efficiency and renewable energies. His reply, which may be
mostly a form letter, states that the U.S. Department of Energy
recognizes the planned Virginia City Energy Center as "clean coal
technology. The facility would be capable of using waste coal piles
from the coalfield region of Virginia as fuel, which could help reduce
the impact of undesirable runoff into Virginia streams."
This stupefying rationale of burning waste coal to clean the
environment is but one cause for concern. The governor also notes his
Energy Plan "goal" of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions 30 percent
"below what they otherwise would be" in 2025. Oh, boy -- reduce
"energy intensity" (if we reduce our overeating, we will get fatter,
but not as fat as we would have been otherwise). Another quote: "After
long and careful consideration, the governor and I have acknowledged
that global warming is a problem caused, largely, though not
exclusively, by human activity ..."
Gov. Kaine was an early endorser of Barack Obama's presidential
candidacy, and is said to be on the short list of vice presidential
candidates. Heaven forefend!
Bottom line:
(1) Urgency of coal moratorium
A successful strategy to avoid climate calamity must start with a
moratorium, and eventual phaseout, of coal-fired power plants that do
not capture CO2. Other actions are needed, including a carbon price
that encourages transition to fuels of the future, discourages
scrounging for every last drop of oil, and stymies budding efforts to
squeeze oil from the dirtiest fossil deposits (tar shale and its ilk).
Also, improved agricultural and forestry practices will be needed to
draw atmospheric CO2 down. But the urgent, essential action is a coal
moratorium.
Side benefits of phasing out coal emissions, for human health and the
environment, are so great that it will be feasible to spread a no-
dirty-coal energy strategy worldwide once it is started. The West must
initiate the moratorium, because the West is responsible for most of
the excess CO2 in the air today. We have the potential for an
immediate moratorium, and the West has much to gain from early
adoption and technology refinement.
Energy experts agree that efficiency and renewable energies can handle
near-term needs for energy growth in the United States. New coal
plants are being built only because coal is cheap (as long as it
receives government subsidies and is not forced to pay for
environmental and health damages), because utilities make more money
if they sell more energy, and because the political clout of King Coal
stymies adoption of national energy policies in the public interest.
(2) Leadership
Political leaders in both parties do not yet appreciate fundamental
data such as the carbon content of individual fossil fuels. It is not
rocket science. We cannot prevent use of easily minable reserves of
oil or capture tailpipe emissions. But oil reserves are finite, prices
are rising, and emissions will peak and decline. The larger CO2
source, the one we must cut off at the pass, is coal (and
unconventional fossil fuels, squeezing of oil from tar shale and its
ilk).
Responses from these three states failed to identify needed
leadership. Minnesotans tell me that Pawlenty placed constraints on
power plants, making it unlikely that Big Stone II will be built, but
he could not go further without offending neighboring governors of his
own party. We can reserve judgment in this case, but solution of the
climate problem can only be obtained with an unambiguous renunciation
of coal except where CO2 emissions are captured and sequestered.
Lest you get discouraged, let me point out two examples of stellar
leadership. Last year Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) responded to a
similar plea with force and clarity -- he cancelled Florida's plans
for new coal-fired power plants. And well he may have -- most of
Florida is as flat as a pancake up to the ocean's edge.
And there is the Governor of Kansas, Kathleen Sebelius (D), perhaps
the most courageous of all -- living in a lion's pit of well-oiled
coal-fired legislators, she came out firmly against new coal-fired
power plants on the grounds that they will push climate past the
tipping point and destroy the future of our children and
grandchildren! In her final term as governor, she is a potential
candidate for vice president or for senator to replace retiring Sam
Brownback.
A recent New York Times editorial on global warming concluded:
"Above all, it will require determined and courageous leadership from
a president capable of conveying hard truths and asking a lot of the
country. Assuming that Mr. McCain and the two Democratic candidates
mean what they say, on this issue at least, we seem assured of such a
president."
"Assuming they mean what they say" is the crux of the matter. How can
you determine if they possess understanding and "courageous
leadership"? Ask them point blank if they support an immediate
moratorium on new dirty-coal power plants and phase-out of existing
dirty-coal power plants (none of them has, as yet). Ask publicly and
broadcast the response. Because, if they are not ready and willing to
act, perusal of fossil carbon reservoirs and junior high school
mathematics will together show that Yogi Berra was right: "You can't
get there from here."
(3) Public support: Tax and dividend
Last week, the Energy Secretary for the United States, before the
House of Representatives, answering questions about global warming and
energy policy, provided a response that was so ignorant and foolish as
to suggest that he has been living on another planet or is stone deaf
to scientific information. He said that the appropriate policy
response to climate change is for the government to open up more
public land for mining, to open off-shore areas for drilling, to open
the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, and to encourage extraction of
oil from tar shale.
The danger is that such egregiously bad policy -- bad for all but the
short-term benefit of special interests -- might be packaged to sound
logical to the public. This danger will increase when a rising carbon
price, essential for solving the climate problem, is instituted. For a
carbon price to be effective it must perforce be large enough to cause
a big impact on the public -- otherwise it will not help bring about
consumer changes that are needed to reduce emissions fast enough. But
it must be implemented with care and foresight.
For this reason I strongly favor a "tax and dividend" approach. The
entire carbon tax should be given back to the public, an equal amount
to each person. No bureaucracy is needed to figure this out. If an
early carbon tax averages say $1200 per person (it can be collected in
various ways -- at the well-head, carbon emission permit auctions,
etc.) a monthly $100 deposit can be made automatically in everyone's
bank account.
Although energy prices will rise, you can bet your bottom dollar that
lower and middle income people will figure out how to reduce energy
use enough that, overall, they come out ahead. And in doing so, moving
to more energy-efficient products, they will spur economic activity
and create jobs. The tax-and-dividend approach not only minimizes
public backlash against climate and energy policies, it also has the
characteristics needed to make those policies work.
Footnote: I suggest limiting the number of dividends to four per
family. Climate scientists have no special expertise related to the
family planning issue, but common sense dictates against a policy that
stimulates population growth.
(4) Dilemma
Inability to influence governors, and the finite number of hours in a
day, raises a question about the effectiveness of opposing individual
power plants. The dramatic change of emissions that is needed requires
national policy changes, and that requires public pressure and/or
pressure from enlightened "captains of industry." Are there better
ways to inform those players?
On the other hand, a single large coal-fired power plant burns about
100 rail cars of coal in a day, each with about 100 tons of coal.
Multiply this by about 3 to get the mass of CO2 produced and by the
number of days in 50-75 years, the typical expected lifetime of a
power plant. Thus construction of a single coal-fired power plant
obviates actions by millions of people to reduce their emissions.
Blocking a single coal-fired power plant is important in itself, and
it may help lead to a tipping point by demonstrating that efficiency
and renewable energies can carry the load.
Copyright 2008. Grist Magazine, Inc.
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From: New York Times, May 31, 2008
[Printer-friendly version]
FAREWELL, FAIR WEATHER
By Charles M. Blow, N.Y. Times columnist
We are now firmly ensconced in the Age of Extreme Weather.
According to the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters,
there have been more than four times as many weather-related disasters
in the last 30 years than in the previous 75 years. The United States
has experienced more of those disasters than any other country.
Just this month, a swarm of tornadoes shredded the central states.
California and Florida have been scorched by wildfires, and a
crippling drought in the Southeast has forced Georgia to authorize
plans for new reservoirs.
Who do we have to thank for all this? Probably ourselves.
Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued
reports concluding that "human influences" (read greenhouse-gas
emissions) have "more likely than not" contributed to this increase.
The United States is one of the biggest producers of greenhouse-gas
emissions.
Furthermore, a White House report about the effect of global climate
change on the United States issued Thursday (years late and under
court order) reaffirmed that the situation will probably get worse: In
addition to temperature extremes, "precipitation is likely to be less
frequent but more intense. It is also likely that future hurricanes
will become more intense, with higher peak speeds and more heavy
precipitation... ."
This increase is deadly and disruptive -- and could become
economically unbearable.
According to the National Hurricane Center, 10 of the 30 costliest
American hurricanes have struck since 2000, even after adjusting the
figures for inflation and the cost of construction.
In 2005, the year of Hurricane Katrina, the estimated damage from
storms in the United States was $121 billion. That is $39 billion more
than the 2005 supplemental spending bill to fight the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq.
About $3 billion has been allocated to assist farmers who suffer
losses because of droughts, floods and tornadoes among other things.
And, a recent report in The Denver Post said the Forest Service plans
to spend 45 percent, or $1.9 billion, of its budget this year fighting
forest fires.
This surge in disasters and attendant costs is yet another reason we
need to declare a coordinated war on climate change akin to the wars
on drugs and terror. It's a matter of national security.
By the way, hurricane season begins Sunday [June 1].
Charles Blow's column will appear on alternate Saturdays. E-mail:
chblow@nytimes.com.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
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From: San Francisco Chronicle, May 20, 2008
[Printer-friendly version]
NEW STUDY SAYS CARBON NANOTUBES MIGHT BE AS HARMFUL AS ASBESTOS
By Ann Fernholm
SAN FRANCISCO -- One of the most promising materials for the future of
technology, carbon nanotubes, might be as harmful as asbestos if
inhaled, according to a new study published today in the scientific
journal Nature Nanotechnology.
Animal studies indicate that these long and very thin carbon molecules
could cause a cancer called mesothelioma in the lining of the lungs.
"The problem of asbestos was caused when it was released into the air,
if it was handled inappropriately or incorrectly. Carbon nanotubes
could do the same. With this information we should assume the worst,
we should think of them as asbestos. But more research might relax
that point of view," said Andrew Maynard, chief science adviser to the
Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies in Washington and one of the
authors of the study.
Carbon nanotubes, 10,000 times thinner than a human hair, are one of
the materials that many scientists believe will be used to build tiny
electronics. In 2001, IBM made an array of transistors out of carbon
nanotubes. In 2004, General Electric made a carbon nanotube diode, and
last year, UC Berkeley scientists used single carbon nanotubes to
create the world's smallest radio.
Themost widespread application today is in plastic materials
reinforced by carbon nanotubes. Stronger than steel but light as
plastic, carbon nanotubes are highly attractive to manufacturers of
everything from sporting goods to airplanes. There already are tennis
rackets, baseball bats and bicycle frames strengthened by carbon
nanotubes available on the market.
"I would be very surprised if it is dangerous to use, let us say, a
tennis racket or baseball bat containing carbon nanotubes. But I do
not think it is OK to tell people that we think it is safe -- we've got
to have evidence," Maynard said.
He said that such products should go through a number of tests
investigating, for example, what happens when they break or when the
surface is rubbed against the ground. He also wonders what happens
when the products are disposed of.
"Is there a chance that the nanotubes will enter the environment?"
Maynard said.
The main concern, however, is people processing carbon nanotubes and
manufacturing the materials containing them.
The study presented in Nature Nanotechnology used an animal model
developed in the 80s to study the development of mesothelioma, which
can be caused by asbestos exposure. In this model, the nanotubes were
injected into the abdominal cavity of mice, which is lined by the same
kind of tissue as the human lung, and which is a sensitive predictor
of mesothelioma. After one week, there was an inflammatory response.
"This is a very important study; it is very well done. It shows that
you do get an inflammation that is similar to asbestosis. What is not
known yet is the long term effect," said Vincent Castranova, involved
in the nanotoxicology research at the National Institute for
Occupational Safety and Health.
It is also uncertain how this experimental model for mesothelioma
translates into reality. Scientists do not know under which
circumstances these long carbon nanotubes will form a breathable dust,
or if this dust will work its way into the lung.
"Here we run out of information," Maynard said.
Meanwhile, Castranova recommends people working with carbon nanotubes
follow NIOSH guidelines for working with engineered nanomaterials,
which involve the use of respirators and special filters to clean the
air.
E-mail Ann Fernholm at afernholm@sfchronicle.com.
Copyright 2008 Hearst Communications Inc.
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From: The New York Times (A23), May 27, 2008
[Printer-friendly version]
OP-ED: THE WORKING WOUNDED
By David M. Uhlmann.
DATELINE: Ann Arbor, Mich.
ON a hot August morning in 1996, Scott Dominguez reported to work at
Evergreen Resources, a small fertilizer manufacturing plant in his
hometown, Soda Springs, Idaho. The workday began like any other, with
gruff commands barked out by the owner of the company, Allan Elias,
who was a Wharton graduate, a lawyer and one of the most notorious
violators of environmental and worker-safety laws in the state.
Mr. Elias wanted his workers to clean out a 25,000-gallon tank that
contained cyanide waste. He refused to test the air or the waste
inside the tank. He ignored the pleas of his workers for safety
equipment. When the workers complained of sore throats and difficulty
breathing, Mr. Elias told them to finish the job or find work
somewhere else.
Mr. Dominguez, a 20-year-old high school graduate, wanted to keep his
job. Wearing just jeans and a T-shirt, he used a ladder to descend
into the tank. Two hours later, covered in sludge and barely
breathing, he was removed from the tank, a victim of cyanide poisoning
at the hands of a ruthless employer who would blame his "stupid and
lazy" employees for the incident.
Mr. Dominguez suffered severe and permanent brain damage. He now has
the rigid body movement and stammering speech found in patients with
Parkinson's disease.
The Justice Department opened a criminal investigation of Evergreen
Resources. I was one of the lead prosecutors on the case. We quickly
discovered that we had a major problem.
Mr. Elias did not commit a crime under the Occupational Safety and
Health Act, which is the primary federal worker-safety law in the
United States. Why not? Because Mr. Dominguez did not die.
My colleagues and I were shocked to learn that an employer who breaks
the nation's worker-safety laws can be charged with a crime only if a
worker dies. Even then, the crime is a lowly Class B misdemeanor, with
a maximum sentence of six months in prison. (About 6,000 workers are
killed on the job each year, many in cases where the deaths could have
been prevented if their employers followed the law.) Employers who
maim their workers face, at worst, a maximum civil penalty of $70,000
for each violation.
We ended up prosecuting Mr. Elias for environmental crimes, and he was
sentenced to 17 years in prison. I later became chief of the Justice
Department's environmental crimes section, and we started an
initiative -- based on this case and others like it -- to seek justice
when workers were seriously injured or killed during environmental
crimes. We prosecuted some of the largest companies in America. But in
cases where no environmental crimes were committed, we often could not
prosecute.
Employers rarely face criminal prosecution under the worker-safety
laws. In the 38 years since Congress enacted the Occupational Safety
and Health Act, only 68 criminal cases have been prosecuted, or less
than two per year, with defendants serving a total of just 42 months
in jail. During that same time, approximately 341,000 people have died
at work, according to data compiled from the National Safety Council
and the Bureau of Labor Statistics by the A.F.L.-C.I.O.
It is long past time for Congress to change the law. First, Congress
should amend the Occupational Safety and Health Act to make it a crime
for an employer to commit violations that cause serious injury to
workers or that knowingly place workers at risk of death or serious
injury. Whether good fortune intervenes and prevents harm to workers
should not determine whether an employer commits a crime.
Congress should make it a felony to commit a criminal violation of the
worker-safety laws, and the penalties for lawbreakers should be
stiffened. The maximum sentence ought to be measured in years, not
months.
Congress also should change the worker-safety laws so that ignorance
of the law is no longer a defense. Employers have a duty to know their
responsibilities under the Occupational Safety and Health Act.
Finally, Congress should make clear who can be prosecuted. Some courts
have held that prosecution is limited to companies and their owners.
Supervisors who order workers to break the law, as well as responsible
corporate officers who fail to stop violations that they know are
occurring, should also be held criminally responsible, just as they
are under most other federal laws.
Most companies care about protecting their workers. But without a
serious threat of criminal enforcement, more workers will be put at
risk by companies that put profits before safety.
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Rachel's Democracy & Health News (formerly Rachel's Environment &
Health News) highlights the connections between issues that are
often considered separately or not at all.
The natural world is deteriorating and human health is declining
because those who make the important decisions aren't the ones who
bear the brunt. Our purpose is to connect the dots between human
health, the destruction of nature, the decline of community, the
rise of economic insecurity and inequalities, growing stress among
workers and families, and the crippling legacies of patriarchy,
intolerance, and racial injustice that allow us to be divided and
therefore ruled by the few.
In a democracy, there are no more fundamental questions than, "Who
gets to decide?" And, "How do the few control the many, and what
might be done about it?"
As you come across stories that might help people connect the dots,
please Email them to us at dhn@rachel.org.
Rachel's Democracy & Health News is published as often as
necessary to provide readers with up-to-date coverage of the
subject.
Editors:
Peter Montague - peter@rachel.org
Tim Montague - tim@rachel.org
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