Heavy-Hitters Taking on Climate Change

Some big names are taking big actions to help in the fight to curb global warming. It's good to see this high-profile attention to the most serious threat that our nation doesn't want to face.

• Bill Clinton's Global Initiative
• Al Gore's Plan
• Richard Branson's Billions

Now, what are YOU going to give to the fight?

Green Jobs are Booming

The naysayers are wrong. Opponents to taking aggressive action against Global Warming have warned that it would be bad for the economy and cost people their jobs. However, several sources of research on this topic show that development of renewable energy actually creates jobs and is good for the economy.

Deep in the Heart of Texas
The report, Texas Renewable Energy Standard: Economic and Employment Benefits, states that by 2025, the 20 percent RPS would create 38,290 new jobs in manufacturing, construction, operation, maintenance, and other industries. In fact, the amount of renewable energy needed to meet the requirement would create 2.8 times more jobs than fossil fuels—a net increase of 24,650 jobs by 2025 (Figure ES2). These jobs would generate an additional $950 million in income and $440 million in gross state product for Texas’ economy.
Green energy initiatives by national Government, the European Union and big business will mean an estimated half million new jobs across Europe over the next 10 years. "A lot of people have developed skills in other fields. Renewables are an opportunity to apply those skills and feel they are doing something beneficial and worthwhile"

Green Jobs in Canada
Green jobs are also jobs which contribute to environmental protection, such as the manufacture and installation of pollution control equipment or recycling plants. These are known as environmental industries and they employ about 123,000 workers in Canada.
The job-creating potential of a sustainable economy is large: a Canadian estimate of the employment impact of effective measures to combat climate change indicates two million new jobs created over fifteen years. It has been calculated that it takes 100 workers in a nuclear plant or 116 workers in a coal-fired plant to generate 1,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year. Yet, 248 would be employed in a solar thermal facility or 542 in a wind farm to generate the same amount of electricity.

Green Jobs are Booming in California
Generating electricity from renewable energy sources provides more jobs than traditional energy sources, according to both economic models and reallife experience. Much of the cost of electricity from natural gas power plants is from the ongoing purchase of fuel. A higher portion of the generating cost goes to labor for renewable energy than for traditional energy sources.
California could take advantage of the job benefits of renewable energy by initiating long-term contracts or requirements that utilities obtain electricity from renewable sources. With such market guarantees, renewable energy companies would build 5,900 MW of new facilities in California by 2010. Added to the current capacity of 3,163 MW of clean renewable energy, the state would then be able to generate at least 20% of its electricity from renewables.
• Building 5,900 MW of renewable energy capacity would lead to the equivalent of 28,000 year-long construction jobs and 3,000 permanent operations and maintenance jobs.
• Over thirty years of operation, these new plants would create 120,000 personyears of employment.
Wind power typically provides 70% more jobs than gas, and solar technologies provide twice as many jobs. Job creation from geothermal energy is 11 times higher than from natural gas. Landfill gas plants employ 14.7 times as many workers.
California is home to 46 renewable energy companies larger than 100 employees.
Full report

Twin Cities Metro Task Force Planning 150 MW Wind Farm

The Rural Board and the Metro Task Force are evaluating opportunities to develop wind-energy by combining attributes of counties with significant wind resources to develop with counties with large electric loads. The two groups have established a joint committee to work towards the development of a 120 to 150-megawatt wind energy project at sites to be determined in southwestern Minnesota.

This is a great idea that should be encouraged.
Read about it at:
Hennepin County
Finance-Commerce

Bush puts out a "Strategic Plan" Designed to Confuse and Stall

Bush put out a 244 page "strategic plan" to curb global warming yesterday.
Good news: He's admitting it exists and is a problem
Bad news: He's stalling & shirking responsibility

Read more about it

California Turns Up the Heat on Global Warming Stallers

California is making several aggressive moves on fighting global warming.
It's great to see the world's 5th largest economy and a leader among US states taking such bold actions.

• The first state law capping greenhouse gas emissions.
On Sept. 26th, the governor signed into law the first state-wide cap on global warming pollution. It mandates that California cut its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, about a 25 percent reduction.

• Governator's Green Man Building a Bush By-Pass Across the Nation
On September 26th, Terry Tamminen, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's top environmental aide, kicks off his mission to convince other states to adopt policies like the State of California has just enacted in an effort to fight global warming.
"What California is doing can be replicated by other states," Tamminen told Reuters in an interview on Friday. "We can create over the next few years a de facto national policy on climate change and we don't have to wait for the federal government."

• California takes US EPA to the Supreme Court.
California and 11 other states are suing the EPA for failing to protect the nation from Global Warming. The court will hear the case this Fall. According the the Sierra Club, this is the big enchilada of global warming court cases.

• California sues carmakers over global warming

Minnesota Mayors Think Global (Warming) and Act Local (Cooling)

Mayors from six Minnesota cities including Minneapolis, St Paul and Duluth have taken up the challenge to protect our state from the effects of global warming. These are the Minnesota mayors who have signed the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement.

Mary Hamann-Roland Apple Valley MN
Herb Bergson Duluth MN
Nancy Tyra-Lukens Eden Prairie MN
R.T. Rybak Minneapolis MN
Ardell F. Brede Rochester MN
Chris Coleman St. Paul MN

Nationwide, as of September 8, 2006 294 mayors representing over 49.2 million Americans have accepted the challenge.

Read more about the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement from the guy that started up the challenge, Mayor of Seattle Greg Nickels.

Here are some of the plans that Minnesota has come up with:
Minneapolis Environmental Report -Towards Sustainability

Minnesota Climate Change Action Plan

U.S. EPA's Global Warming Site is "Not Like the Others"

When I was a kid, I loved watching the part on Sesame Street where they showed you several things that were similar. Then they asked you "Which one of these things is not like the other? Come on, can you tell me which one?" Even little kids could plainly see one of the things was different.

That little song started playing in my head when I compared the U.S. EPA's website on Global Warming to other official government websites on global warming. Read for yourself. I think you'll agree. The US EPA's Global Warming Site is "Not Like the Others".

Official Government Websites on Global Warming

United Kindom's DEFRA -
Climate change is the greatest environmental challenge facing the world today. Rising global temperatures will bring changes in weather patterns, rising sea levels and increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. The effects will be felt here in the UK and internationally there may be severe problems for people in regions that are particularly vulnerable to change.

Environment Canada -
Human activities are altering the chemical composition of the atmosphere through the build-up of greenhouse gases that trap heat and reflect it back to the earth's surface. This is resulting in changes to our climate, including a rise in global temperatures and more frequent extreme weather events.

Germany's Umweltbundesamt -
The rate and degree of climate change, which took place during the 20th century are
unprecedented – for example the current temperatures on the Northern Hemisphere are probably the warmest for at least 2000 years. Since 1950, there has been a pronounced increase in the damage caused by natural disasters and flooding.

Only a small fraction of this climate change can be explained by natural factors such as eruptions of volcanoes, changes in solar activity or deviations in the Earth’s orbit around the sun. In the scientific community there is overwhelming consensus that the main cause of climate change is human activity, in particular the emission of greenhouse gases.

Swedish EPA -
Our future climate is everyone's responsibility. To succeed in limiting our contribution to global warming, we must be prepared to take responsibility today for the world our children will live in tomorrow. Here we present information about climate policy, international climate negotiations, the causes and effects of global warming and how you as an individual can reduce your influence on the climate.

The threat of climate change is one of the most difficult environmental problems faced by humankind. All countries are affected and all contribute to the problem and we will all have to face the consequences in some way or other. We know that anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases can influence the climate and the temperature increase witnessed during the 20th century can only be explained by the increased emissions of carbon dioxide from our use of coal, oil and natural gas which make up the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions.

US EPA -
Uncertainties
Like many fields of scientific study, there are uncertainties associated with the science of global warming. This does not imply that all things are equally uncertain. Some aspects of the science are based on well-known physical laws and documented trends, while other aspects range from 'near certainty' to 'big unknowns.'

What's Known for Certain?
It's well accepted by scientists that greenhouse gases trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere and tend to warm the planet. By increasing the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, human activities are strengthening Earth's natural greenhouse effect. The key greenhouse gases emitted by human activities remain in the atmosphere for periods ranging from decades to centuries.

What's Likely but not Certain?
Figuring out to what extent the human-induced accumulation of greenhouse gases since pre-industrial times is responsible for the global warming trend is not easy. This is because other factors, both natural and human, affect our planet's temperature. Scientific understanding of these other factors – most notably natural climatic variations, changes in the sun's energy, and the cooling effects of pollutant aerosols – remains incomplete.

Nevertheless, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated there was a "discernible" human influence on climate; and that the observed warming trend is "unlikely to be entirely natural in origin."

In short, scientists think rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are contributing to global warming, as would be expected; but to what extent is difficult to determine at the present time.

Where's the Beef?
The U.S. EPA doesn't seem to place the same emphasis as the other nations.
Is it not the most serious problem facing the world today like the rest of the world thinks?
According to The New York Times, it might not be the EPA's own opinion that's posted on their website. It might be the opinion of a lobbyist for the Oil Industry hired by President Bush to "soften" global warming data.

Read more about Philip Cooney.

Even Republicans Say We Gotta Do Something About Global Warming

We're all used to hearing the hippie liberals and the latte sipping, Volvo driving elitists yammering on about Global Warming. But did you know that there are actually some conservatives who believe something needs to be done about Global Warming?
Who are these people?

Here's my list of VIPs in the GOP on the topic of GHGs:

• • George Pataki, Govenor of New York, calls for strong national effort to reduce dependency on foreign oil by 35 percent, conference on global warming at Columbia University; urges development of cleaner, alternative fuels; critics say remarks follow pattern of Pataki's rhetoric outpacing action; point to state's limited progress in reducing carbon monoxide from burning fossil fuels
  
  New York Governor's Site
  


• • The Govenator- Arnold Schwarzenegger. The California pact between Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Democratic-controlled Legislature would impose a 25 percent reduction in state emissions by 2020, the most ambitious goal yet set in the nation.
  
  San Francisco Chronicle
  


• • Senator John McCain pushed a bill with Joe Lieberman to fight global warming in 2006. But, the bill failed to pass through the GOP-led congress (vote 38-60).


• • Holy-Moly! Even Pat Robertson of the 700 Club is now a "convert" to believing in Global Warming. That is the biggest surprise to me, and potentially a powerful ally in pursuading the conservatives who would never listen to a latte-sipping liberal like me.
  
  ThinkProgress article