Farm state lawmakers and agribusiness have been hammering the EPA since it announced a plan last year for evaluating biofuels by their lifecycle emissions — including indirect land use changes.
It appeared then that corn-based ethanol wouldn’t make the cut. The proposed rules, based on the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, required renewable fuels’ lifecycle emissions to be at least 20 percent less than gasoline. An early EPA review calculated that, with greenhouse gases from indirect land-use changes included, most corn ethanol wasn't much better than regular gas.
The EPA has now finalized the renewable fuel standard, and agency Administrator Lisa Jackson announced today that corn ethanol will qualify after all.
“EPA has found that it is indeed 20 percent less greenhouse gas emitting than gasoline,” Jackson said. “Based on what we know now, including indirect land use analysis, there is no basis to exclude these fuels.”
1. Eating a hamburger a day could increase a person's risk of dying by a third from cancer, heart disease, stroke and the list goes on.
This conclusion comes from the Meat Intake and Mortality study, a prospective (meaning in real time) study that looked at data from over half a million people in a ten-year period between 1995 and 2005. Men eating more than 4.8 ounces of red meat a day had a 30% increased risk of mortality over ten years compared to men eating just .7 ounces; women that ate 4.6 ounces had a 36% increased risk compared to women who ate just .6 ounces. Here's a good summary of the study...what do you think?
2. Billions of extra health care spending can be attributed to our meat eating lifestyles.
This study was from 1992 and published in a 1995 issue of Preventive Medicine, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Health Foundation, a nonprofit organization devoted to research on preventive health measures. The researchers estimated the health costs of the nation's current omnivorous diet at $28.6 billion to $61.4 billion a year. This study was controversial, as the physicians that did the study are members of Physicians Committee for Responsbile Medicine, advocates of vegetarianism, and because it was an analysis - so they didn't totally control for all the other factors that may have attributed to subjects' higher medical costs besides meat eating. New York Times article is here. The figures are in 1992 dollars and would be higher today...but does the conclusion hold?
3. Eating meat spews more emissions than our cars, trains, and planes combined.
Seems fairly straightforward. Livestock emissions outweigh emissions from the entire transport sector. That's what the well-know UN study from 2004 concluded. While livestock's share of the carbon emission pie may be disputed a few percentage points back and forth, is there anyone that doubts they are ahead of transport?
4. Pound for pound beef production uses at least 100 times the water of say, lettuce.
We've reported on some of the water footprint figures from WaterFootprint.org, and that represent gallons of water per pound of food. Beef is a big one, that seem clear, but even WaterFootprint says that water used in beef production varies so widely that a range of figures is more accurate. Any iron-clad figures about average water involved in beef production that contradict this?
5. And, beef production emits nearly 100 times more greenhouse gas emissions than growing veggies.
Beef seems to be a climate bomb. In the figures from this report, attributed to Gidon Eshel, the total amount of CO2 associated with a calorie of beef would be 13.82,while the CO2 associated with a calorie of "veggies" would be .14 grams - nearly 100 times more. These figures aren't replicated in other data, however, which may make them suspect. Other figures from the Appropedia web site, originating from the Sopris Foundation, find only a factor of twenty difference in CO2 emissions between beef and veggies. Who is closer?
6. Meat and livestock cause twice the pollution of all industry combined.
This may be too much of a blanket statement...or maybe not. Jeremy Rivkin in Beyond Beef and David Pimental seem to be the two authors gathering the most data on livestock industry pollution, painting a picture of environmental devastation. What do you think?1. Eating a hamburger a day could increase a person's risk of dying by a third... more
The U.S. military could soon be drawing up disaster-response plans to prepare for global warming-caused crises, such as rising sea levels and extreme weather events, according to the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), published on Monday along with President Obama's defense budget for 2011.
The mention of climate change is a first for the Congress-mandated QDR, released every four years to shape the nation's defense.
"Although they produce distinct types of challenges, climate change, energy security, and economic stability are inextricably linked," the QDR authors wrote.
The reference suggests a strong consensus is emerging within the defense community concerning the national security implications of a warming planet. Yet it arrives at a time of considerable challenges for climate advocates in America, with both the U.S. Senate and President Obama appearing to be backing down from a House-approved cap-and-trade law this year. ...
China, India, South Africa and Brazil — the so-called BASIC bloc of nations — said the nonbinding deal that came out of the Copenhagen climate summit was just a "political understanding" and that future climate negotiations must not be based on that plan. ...
On Thursday afternoon, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) pulled out a rarely-used Congressional tool in an attempt to keep the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating carbon and other greenhouse gasses. Sen. Murkowski offered a “resolution of disapproval” of the EPA’s impending action, which would limit companies’ carbon emissions.
The resolution would overturn the EPA’s finding that carbon dioxide is harmful to the public health. Three Democrats—Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), and Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA)—joined Sen. Murkowski and 35 Republicans in sponsoring the resolution.
“Ms. Murkowski’s Mischief‘”
“This command and control approach is our worst option for reducing the gasses associated with climate change,” said Sen. Murkowski on the floor of the Senate yesterday. She called the EPA’s actions “backdoor climate regulations with no input from Congress” and said they would damage the country’s flailing economy.
The EPA first announced in April 2009 that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses posed a threat to the public health. The agency formalized that finding last month, giving itself the power to regulate emissions of greenhouse gasses under the Clean Air Act. In March 2010, for instance, the agency is expected to announce carbon emissions rules for the auto industry that would match California’s higher standards. Sen. Murkowski’s resolution would derail that process.
Sen. Murkowski argued that she wants to give Congress room to come up with a legislative solution to climate change, but her critics see a more dangerous tilt to her resolution. “It’s a radical attempt by the legislative branch to interfere with executive branch scientists,” writes David Roberts at Grist.
Responding to “Ms. Murskowski’s mischief” on the Senate floor yesterday, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) called the resolution an “unprecedented effort to overturn scientific decision” and “a direct assault on the health of the American people.”
Resolution of disapproval
What is a “resolution of disapproval?” Grist’s Roberts called it “the nuclear option.”
“It would rescind the EPA’s endangerment finding entirely and thereby eliminate its authority over both mobile and stationary sources,” Roberts explains. “Furthermore, the administration would be prohibited from passing a regulation “substantially the same” as the one overruled, so the constraint on the EPA would effectively be permanent.”
This type of resolution was created by the Clinton-era Congressional Reform Act. The resolution has one big advantage: It cannot be filibustered. Passage requires only a majority in both houses of Congress. Members have tried using it in the past to delay the Dubai Ports World deal, derail FCC regulations on new media, and stop the flow of bailout funds.
Kate Sheppard at Mother Jones has been following Sen. Murkowski’s actions closely. She reports that “Senate supporters of climate action say Murkowski could obtain the votes of moderate Democrats from coal, oil, and manufacturing states. However, a resolution would still need to be approved by the House and signed by the president—both long shots, to put it mildly. ‘I think we’re a little worried about [Murkowski’s resolution] winning. I’m not sure we’re worried about it becoming law,’ a Senate Democratic staffer says.”
But Grist’s Roberts argues that passage in the Senate alone would be a problem. “Even if blocked by the House or vetoed by the president, such a public, bipartisan slap at the administration would be highly embarrassing and demoralizing,” Roberts writes. “It would mean at least ten conservative Democrats washing their hands of the administration’s initiative.”
Climate change and Congress
Sen. Murkowski insists that she’s still ready to work with her colleagues on climate change and that it’s better to approach the problem of climate change via legislation, not regulation.
But no one in Washington believes that climateBy Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
On Thursday afternoon, Sen. Lisa... more
This week’s green news features updates about Nissan’s electric car the LEAF that is currently on its Zero Emission Tour in the U.S. In other greentech news, the company SilverPac has created a new, energy saving thermostat that not only is eco-friendly but is state-of-the-art with wireless components and smart meter technology. ClearLite, greentech of eco-friendly lighting, has not only made more innovations to its lighting products, but is has also redesigned its website making it easier for consumers and investors to use. Also featured are discussions about emissions “disclosure projects” that companies worldwide are participating in and we answer the question of what factors define a “green market?” Finally, we take a look at a Green Business Management Certificate Program that is being offered to help educate businesses about becoming environmentally friendly while also creating sustainability practices in an emerging green industry.
It could be a major scientific breakthrough in the battle against climate change. Or just a touch of woolly thinking.
For scientists in Australia are homing in on an unlikely weapon to tackle greenhouse gases - the burp-free sheep.
Emissions from agriculture are the country's second largest source of greenhouse gases and environmentalists have begged farmers and scientists to find a way of reducing the problem.
Scientists are working on several means of reducing methane emissions from animals and have been encouraged by experiments involving changing the microbes in the gut, altering their diet and changing the genetics of animals.
The target is to stop the main cause of the methane problem - burping sheep.
In a world-first study, the Australian Sheep Co-operative Research Centre is conducting experiments with 700 sheep from 20 different genetic lines.
Some genetically-mixed groups are being fed the same foods, while other animals are being fed a variety of menus before they are shepherded into pens so their burp outputs can be measured.
Research leader Dr Roger Hegarty said: 'What we do know right from the start is that sheep in general burp large amounts of methane.
'There's been environmental pressure to see if this can be cut down.'
Climate change legislation is off the table for now, but the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is still working to regulate greenhouse gasses. The organization is up against strong opposition from Republicans and some Democrats. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) is heading the charge, with the assistance of Bush-era EPA officials, now lobbyists with clients in the energy industry.
The EPA and the Clean Air Act
In April 2009, the EPA found that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gasses pose a hazard to public health. This finding obligated the EPA to regulate these pollutants under the Clean Air Act, a responsibility the Bush administration fought to avoid. The power the agency now has to limit carbon emissions extends far beyond its usual scope, and the EPA’s decisions will have a lasting impact on environmental regulation in this country. As the agency moves to act, everyone from Sen. Murkowski to the state of California is protesting the changes. Kate Sheppard of Mother Jones reports:
“The California Energy Commission last month sent a letter to the EPA asking it to slow down on implementation of regulations on greenhouse gas emissions….The CEC argues that phasing them in too fast could hurt efforts in the state to expand use of low-carbon energy.”
Opponents in Congress are taking action to shut down the EPA’s attempts to curb greenhouse gasses, Sheppard writes. Both Sen. Murkowski and Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) have filed bills that would delay or stop the EPA’s regulatory process.
Attempting to ‘gut the Clean Air Act’
Grist’s Miles Grant is also keeping a close watch on opponents of the regulation.
“At first it seemed like simply one bad idea from Sen. Lisa Murkowski,” he writes. “But now we know the real story—a tangled web of public officials, polluter lobbyists, and efforts to gut the Clean Air Act.”
It emerged this week that Murkowski had help in drafting her bill from EPA administrators from the Bush administration, as first reported by the Washington Post. These former officials now work in Washington as lobbyists and represent clients like Duke Energy and the Alliance of Food Associations on climate change matters.
“Every day it seems we’re learning more,” says Miles. “More about the revolving door between the Bush administration and polluter lobbyists; more about their influence with senators and their staffers; and more about who’s really pulling the strings on efforts to block climate action—Big Oil’s MVP, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK).”
Even the American Farm Bureau Federation…
Another opponent, as Care2 notes, is the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), the country’s largest farm group. The organization approved a special resolution during its four-day convention on Sunday. The resolution supports legislation like Murkowski’s or Pomeroy’s that would “suspend the EPA’s authority to regulator greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.”
During a speech, AFBF president Bob Stallman said that American farmers and ranchers “must aggressively respond to extremists” and “misguided, activist-driven regulation.”
“The days of their elitist power grabs are over,” he said.
More opportunities to improve climate policy
The EPA’s new power is not the only opportunity that the Obama administration has to improve U.S. climate policy. David Roberts, also reporting for Grist, writes about $2.3 billion in new tax credits for clean energy manufacturing companies, announced last Friday.
“There were 183 projects selected out of some 500 applications; one-third were from small businesses; around 30% are expected to be completed this year. The winners are spread across 43 states,” Roberts reports.
Roberts calls it “better than usual industrial policy.” The credits are meant to give a boost to the new green energy economy.
But Roberts warns, “It’s also absurd that clean energy industries still depend on capricious, short-term extensions of tax credits. … Obama has called on Congress to cough up $5 billion a year for these credits, but how enduring will yearly appropriations be the next time Congress changes hands?”
Iowa and the biodiesel tax credit
The answer likely depends on how much support these projects get from the representatives of states that will benefit from the tax credits. In Iowa, for instance, the state’s three Democratic Representatives have asked the House leadership to prioritized a 2010 renewal of the biodiesel tax credit, as Lynda Waddington reports for the Iowa Independent.
“If members of the U.S. Senate do not act on last year’s program extension, however, it might be a moot point,” Waddington writes. The renewal has gotten stalled in the Senate, where both Iowa Senators are blaming the opposite party for delays.
From policy to people
When politicians jockey over regulations and renewals, climate change work in Washington can seem very abstract. But people like John Henrikson, a forester who’s committed to farming 150 acres of trees in sustainable ways, help ground lofty policy ideas down in reality.
“Henrikson’s approach embodies a new way of thinking about our relationship with forests. For years he has been processing his own trees into trim and molding, sold through a broad network of local businesses,” reports Ian Hanna for Yes! Magazine. “Five years ago he got his forest certified to Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standards, a global system for eco-labeling sustainably managed forests and the products derived from them. And, most recently, he’s developed a project to sell rights to the carbon sequestered on his property.”
Without strong policy coming out Washington, it’s harder for entrepreneurs like Henrikson to make green business a reality. If legislators like Sen. Murkowski and groups like the AFBF don’t block them, the EPA’s new rules are going to begin coming out in March. There’s a major action to combat global warming that the U.S. can take before then, though—for example, we could officially commit to our promise to reduce emissions 17% from 2005 levels by 2020. The deadline for registering climate pledges under the new Copenhagen Accord is the end of this month.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
Climate change legislation is off the... more
As California writes the details of a statewide cap-and-trade plan for greenhouse gas emissions, it is considering a different approach for divvying up the proceeds, one that would put state residents — rather than polluters — first in line for payouts.
Billions of dollars will be at stake once the state's carbon trading system gets going in 2012. ...
As is the case with most of our infrastructure, the systems that control flight patterns in the United States are out of date, and upgrading them could deliver meaningful reductions in the greenhouse gas emissions associated with air travel.
While things like smart grid and plug-in infrastructure make for much sexier headlines, upgrading air traffic control systems with GPS navigation technology and Internet-enabled communications systems could deliver up to a 10 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Single European Sky ATM Research program (SESAR).
Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as just outfitting planes and airports with GPS and WiFi and watching emissions drop. Some industry behavior will have to change — like those long delays waiting to take off and land. ...
storm of Republican protest is erupting over the Environmental Protection Agency’s finding that greenhouse gases pose a public danger, with the latest wave coming from a state among those most at risk from the effects of climate change.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, one of the party’s rising stars, launched a letter-writing offensive from Baton Rouge this week to protest the possibility of EPA regulation that the finding now allows. His own letter focuses on the economic dislocation he says such regulation might bring; it doesn’t mention the economic threats climate change poses to costal communities and cities like New Orleans. ...
Evan Kopelson reporting from the Amsterdam International Airport on his way to Copenhagen to cover the COP15 climate conferences.Evan Kopelson reporting from the Amsterdam International Airport on his way to... more
Evan Kopelson answers one of the most basic questions about sustainability: What is a Carbon Footprint? A carbon footprint is the total of all 6 greenhouse gasses or GHGs identified by the Kyoto Protocol, expressed as a carbon equivalent. Evan is the founder and president of Green Media Consulting, Inc. and the creator of Green Media News. He advises on issues of climate change, sustainability, corporate and personal responsibility.Evan Kopelson answers one of the most basic questions about sustainability: What is a... more
In the wake of the weak climate agreements reached in Copenhagen a little over a week ago, the price of carbon has dropped substantially. The main exchange for the carbon emissions allowances that are traded as part of the European Union’s Emissions Trading System saw carbon dioxide emissions drop to €12.4 ($17.90) a metric ton Monday.
Prices have been volatile throughout the ETS’s first five years. Permits had reached a high of €30 ($43) in summer 2008 before dropping to €8 ($12) earlier this year.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a climate change bill in June based on creating a similar cap-and-trade system. Like the ETS, the proposed U.S. system would limit industries’ emissions and eventually force companies to pay for allowances to offset their emissions — or allow them to sell excess allowances if their emissions are lower than expected.
The fact that prices for those allowances are so low in the cap-and-trade systems that already exist is troubling for proponents of such a system’s ability to mitigate climate change. ...
Anything highly processed or that has a lot of ingredients — which generally indicates it’s highly processed — for each ingredient there is an environmental impact, plus energy and water to get to the finished product. Scratch cooking avoids that, and the packaging waste.Anything highly processed or that has a lot of ingredients — which generally... more
espite a lack of substantive action on climate change in Copenhagen or, yet, in Washington, environmental groups are celebrating a year of victories over one of climate change’s biggest culprits.
Coal releases more carbon dioxide emissions per unit of energy produced than any other fossil fuel, but it also provides more than half the United States’ electricity supply. It is possible, however, that 2009 marked a turning point away from that reliance on coal.
Seminole Electric dropped plans to build a new coal-fired power plant in Florida late last week, in part because of the likelihood of future regulation of greenhouse gases. That canceled plant was one of more than two dozen this year. The Sierra Club announced Monday that 26 coal-fired plants in all were “defeated or abandoned” in 2009 — the largest number since 2001, it says, when the number of proposed coal plants spiked at 150.
Online shopping is better for the environment than traditional brick-and-mortar retailing — 15 times better when it comes to carbon emissions, according a new study.
The study by market research firm GigaOm Pro and sustainability consulting group MindClick GSM took two identical $100 purchases, one done online and the other at a store, and compared them head-to-head.
"The word 'sceptic' is in danger of becoming a term of abuse. A 'climate sceptic' is used to mean someone who rejects the evidence of global warming. But scepticism is actually a healthy instinct and should be celebrated."
In this article with BBC's Ethical Man, Justin Rowlatt, experts try to convince climate change sceptics that global warming is man made.
Personally I have been on board for some years now and I can't seem to understand how people doubt climate change being our fault. I urge readers to send this video to those who could use a simple and non-aggressive explanation to help get them in the know.
1 ) Under how many feet of water New York should be submerged before the trigger snaps in ?
2 ) Is the level at which Goldman Sachs CEO's office situated relevant or is the helipad on the rooftop already operational ?
3) Should the UN be moved to Jersey or an underwater bunker ?
4 ) Should mermaid/merman be genetically created from human embryo ?
5 ) ...
Please join in this crucial debate for it can't be worst than the actual one ;)Few questions remain to be addressed…
1 ) Under how many feet of water New... more
There are few things that make me more catatonically depressed than the partisan shouting match we call news today. I get it, controversial partisan statements mean more viewers which means more money which in turn means more controversial partisan rejoinders. I understand the financial imperative here, I'm no news-biz-hayseed. But I have to say, it sucks and it's dangerous. It sucks because it's boring (blah blah HuffPo blah blah Fox News...everybody just STFU and focus on the news, please). It's dangerous because it distorts anything a few people disagree with into an equal-time-required rancorous partisan debate.
Case in point: Today the Washington Post let Sarah Palin publish an Op-Ed in its newspaper. I'm not going to do them the courtesy of linking to it. (Here's a good point-by-point rejoinder from the Atlantic though: http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/12/palins_boycott_copenhagen_op-ed_annotated.php) In it, Ms. Palin calls on Obama to boycott Copenhagen because of the "climategate" leaked emails. Despite plenty of explanations in non-partisan press that the emails, though embarrassing in tone, do not represent any sort of actual shift in the science around climate change - the Post was so click/viewer-hungry as to let this climategate thing roll on in its pages.
Now I already missed Kanyegate this year, but I think climategate is a good one to start with. I'm calling it, it's not a -gate!
Why? Let me let Time magazine explain it to you. (I mean c'mon, Time is about the safest down-the-middle reporting you can get.)
"4. Do the e-mails weaken the scientific case for global warming? Put it this way: when it comes to climate-science analysis from the representative of the world's biggest oil-producing state [Saudi Arabia], it's wise to be suspicious. In the weeks since the e-mails first became public, many climate scientists and policy experts have looked through them, and they report that the correspondence does not contradict the overwhelming scientific consensus on global warming, which has been decades in the making. "The content of the stolen e-mails has no impact whatsoever on our overall understanding that human activity is driving dangerous levels of global warming," wrote 25 leading U.S. scientists in a letter to Congress on Dec. 4. "The body of evidence that underlies our understanding of human-caused global warming remains robust.""
(Link: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1946082-2,00.html)
I'm taking a stand. It's not about climate change and it's not about left vs right. It's about -gates. I'm asking my fellow Americans to carefully consider what we grant "-gate" status to. Watergate was a big honkin' controversy that deserved the barrels of ink spilled over its progression. And it was even partisan. It was an IMPORTANT partisan scandal. But not every disagreement that happens across the screens of cable news deserves this holiest of suffixes.
I hate to break it to everyone, but I think Climategate falls short of -gate status.
