tagged w/ Green Jobs
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Everyone is talking about “green jobs.” While many people are eager to become employed in the sustainability sector, there are naysayers who don’t believe that they actually exist. This article provides examples of changing industries outside of the traditional cleantech sector.Everyone is talking about “green jobs.” While many people are eager to... more
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A group devoted to creating alternative energy jobs in Central Appalachia is building a first for West Virginia's southern coalfields region this week – a set of rooftop solar panels, assembled by unemployed and underemployed coal miners and contractors.
The 40- by 15-foot solar array going up on a doctor's office in Williamson is significant not for its size but for its location: It signals to an area long reliant on mining that there can be life beyond coal.
People were skeptical when the idea was first floated about a year ago, says Nick Getzen, spokesman for The Jobs Project, which is trying to create renewable energy job opportunities in West Virginia and Kentucky. In the southern coalfields, he says, people have only ever gotten electricity one way – from coal-fired power plants.
"This is the first sign for a lot of folks that this is real, and that it's real technology, and they can have it in their communities," Getzen says. "In no way are we against coal or trying to replace coal. There's still going to be coal mining here. This is just something else to help the economy."
The Jobs Project teamed up about a year ago with a solar energy company from the Eastern Panhandle, Mountain View Solar & Wind of Berkeley Springs, to develop a privately funded job-training program. The 12 trainees are earning $45 an hour for three days of work, while some local laborers are earning $10 an hour helping out.
Mountain View owner Mike McKechnie is also buying all his electrical supplies from a local business.
"We are not funded by any state organization. We're doing this as a business because we want to grow the solar infrastructure and industry," McKechnie says. "We're West Virginians, and we think it's important. There's a need here that's not being met."
Demand for solar energy has been growing in West Virginia, and McKechnie's company has been expanding with it. Mountain View has tripled in size two years in a row and is likely to do the same in 2011. It now employs 15 full-time workers, five part-timers and a network of about a dozen electricians, plumbers, roofers and general contractors who do installations when McKechnie calls.
"This training model we're unleashing in Williamson is something we've proven," McKechnie says. "It's not a pilot project. It's something we've shown works."
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This is the future.A group devoted to creating alternative energy jobs in Central Appalachia is building... more
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Over the last hundred years, the number of young people in agriculture has steadily declined, from 1.8 million principal farm operators in 1910 to just 118,000 today, according to the USDA's Agricultural Census. As of 2007, for each farmer under 35, there were six over sixty-five. Since 2002 there's been a slight uptick in the number of farmers (not just the principals) between the ages of 25 and 34, but the overall number of farmers under 35 increased by only 2,000.
Unless an agricultural revival and major policy change begins now, the numbers of farmers will certainly shrink: the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture estimates that 500,000 farmers will retire in the next 20 years.
And that's why U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack recently called for 100,000 new farmers, and some of the few uncontroversial elements of the last Farm Bill were the handful of programs and provisions for new and beginning farmers. The government offers Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program grants (which provide funds for universities and nonprofits to train farmers) as well as direct loans to farmers to operate their farms or buy land.
The problem is, many young farmers say that they don't know about these programs, are disqualified because of existing rules, or receive misinformation at the local level that prevents them from participating.
At the recent Young Farmers Conference at the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in New York, the speakers at a special policy workshop organized by the National Young Farmers' Coalition, which I lead, shared their experiences with Farm Bill programs and ideas for change.
cont.Over the last hundred years, the number of young people in agriculture has steadily... more
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by Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
The deficit commission released its much anticipated list of helpful money-saving tips for the federal government last week. These tips include tax cuts for the rich, reducing unnecessary printing costs, and cutting the jobs of federal contractors.
The recommendations are more like a menu than a program. As Mark Schmitt of The American Prospect notes, there’s no coherent vision, just a list of possible tax increases and program cuts with projected savings attached.
The commission was dubbed the Cat Food Commission by critics who see the project as an attempt by the Obama administration to provide political cover to gut Social Security, thereby forcing the elderly to subsist on cat food.
Officially, the commission is charged with making suggestions to balance the budget by 2015. Kevin Drum of Mother Jones is surprised at the hype the presentation has attracted, considering that it’s not a piece of legislation, or even proposed legislation, or even the actual report by the deficit commission, but rather a draft presentation by “two guys in a room” (co-chairs former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY) and Erskine Bowles).
Hope is not a plan
Drum has trouble taking the draft seriously because its main focus is cutting discretionary spending, which according to the Congressional Budget Office, only accounts for about 10% of our projected deficit. The secondary focus of the report is Social Security, which only accounts for a small share of the projected deficit, and moreover, is easily fixable with very small tax increases and tiny decreases in benefits phased in over a long period of time.
Rising health care costs account for the lion’s share of our projected deficit, but as Drum notes, the draft doesn’t get into detail about how to contain those costs, the authors simply stress that someone had better get on that. No kidding. The authors assert that that the government should never take in more than 21% of GDP in total taxes. Drum dismisses this suggestion as completely unrealistic seeing as the authors have no plan to slow the growth of health care costs.
Note to workers: “Drop dead”
Roger Bybee of Working In These Times takes aim at the presentation’s suggestion to cut taxes on the rich. The deficit chairmen urge legislators to cut the top tax rate from 35% to 23%, which as Bybee notes, would actually add to the deficit. The presentation also favors cutting corporate taxes and taxes on American expatriates. Hardly deficit-friendly stuff. Bybee argues that the real goal of this commission is to deflate public expectations about the role of government:
This draft report was thus not about slicing the deficit, but shrinking those portions of the government on which the poor and working class depend and shoveling new benefits to corporations and wealthy, at a time when the richest 1% already rakes in 23.5% of all U.S. income.
According to AFL-CIO head Richard Trumka, whom Bybee quotes, the message to the American worker is: “Drop dead.”
Gawker vs. the Cat Food Commission
Astute commenters at the media gossip blog Gawker discovered, via a New York Times interactive feature, that the entire problem could be solved by rolling back the Bush tax cuts and ending foreign wars. John Tomasic of the Colorado Independent explains how they did it:
The Gawkers simply let the non-job-making Bush tax cuts expire (because they were never meant to be permanent and because most Americans don’t want them extended) and they ended Bush’s (now Obama’s) overseas military adventures, which cost more money every week ($2 billion!) than the Rolling Stones have made in the last forty years, our contemporary version of the Cold War space race taking place not in space but in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the United States is racing only against itself to borrow and spend as much money as possible every single day– almost none of that money spent on the troops who come home wounded and sad and totally screwed up.
Nine out of ten grandmas prefer the fiscal policies of the Clinton administration to Meow Mix.
Extending unemployment = Jobs
Ed Brayton of the Michigan Messenger argues that extending long term unemployment insurance benefits would benefit the economy to the tune of half a million jobs. The unemployed still have to eat. Their children still need shoes. If unemployment benefits are extended, the unemployed will spend their benefits quickly in order to live, which is exactly what an economic stimulus is designed to do. Grocery stores and shoe stores employ people. Checkers and shoe salesmen also spend their wages in their communities, thereby sustaining the jobs of still more people.
Pension plan bets green on green
Investing in green jobs is sound economic policy, but governments can’t do it alone. The private sector has to help finance the greening of our economy, too. One California pension plan is stepping up and betting big, investing $500 million on green projects, according to Mikhail Zinshteyn of Campus Progress. The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) has a green portfolio worth $2.5 billion, which it has amassed since 2006. CalPERS is betting that low carbon energy programs and other clean energy initiatives will be a lucrative place to park their members’ money.
Hopefully, these investments will also benefit the economy in the short term by creating jobs, including jobs for some California public employees. However, some analysts are skeptical that these investments will yield the handsome dividends that CalPERS analysts are projecting.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the economy by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Audit for a complete list of articles on economic issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Mulch, The Pulse and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
The deficit commission released its... more
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Jones issued a passionate rally cry for progressives to stop whining about what President Obama hasn't accomplished, and instead stand up to fight for important issues. "The slogan was not 'Yes He Can,' the slogan was 'Yes We Can,' ....Jones issued a passionate rally cry for progressives to stop whining about what... more
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by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
Since national energy reform is on the rocks, ethanol subsidies for the Midwest and ballot propositions to roll back progressive energy legislation in California are the most important policy fights to watch right now.
Neither will revolutionize the way Americans get power, and in both cases, moving forward could actually mean moving away from a sensible energy future. In California, voters could turn back progress the state has made towards holding down carbon emissions. And Washington’s support for ethanol reveals the static thinking that’s smothering our ability to address climate change.
More important than legalizing pot
In 2006, California passed a law that would take effect in 2011 and put an ambitious plan in place to decrease the state’s carbon emissions by 2020. Even after the law passed, however, the debate over its merits continued. This being California, that debate made its way onto this November’s ballot.
The most commonly floated line of reasoning against the law focuses on negative impacts to job growth: Increasing the price on carbon increases the cost of doing business, limiting economic growth and the resources that businesses have to dedicate to expansion. Proposition 23, a ballot initiative that will come to a vote next Tuesday, would delay the carbon bill’s enactment until the state’s economy takes a turn for the better.
But Mother Jones‘ Kate Sheppard knocks down the economic argument against the 2006 law (AB32):
While enacting AB32 could cause job loss in some sectors, most independent experts actually forecast growth in jobs in the renewable energy, transportation, and efficiency sectors. In fact, green jobs are pretty much the only sector growing in the Golden State. The number of green jobs grew 36 percent in California between 1995 and 2008. The rate of growth for regular old jobs was only 13 percent.
Double trouble
Activists have focused on shutting down Prop 23 (check out, via The Washington Independent’s Andrew Restuccia, this clever campaign to flip “yes” voters), but as Amy Westervelt points out at Earth Island Journal, that initiative is not the only one that could free companies from their environmental responsibilities.
It turns out another California proposition, Prop 26, could raise the threshold legislators would have to meet in order to make companies pay for their pollution, including from oil spills. As Westervelt writes:
While some companies have steered clear of the Tea Party-backed Prop 23, which seems to be losing popularity every week, California companies interested in slowing down AB32 and maybe ridding themselves of responsibility for pollution altogether have been quietly funneling money to Prop 26.
California has long been a leader on energy issues. If either of these propositions goes the wrong way, it will be yet another troubling sign of the failure of progressive energy policy.
The other ethanol
Although environmentalists have fought hard since 2008 to pass cap-and-trade, the policy was always fundamentally conservative one. The Obama administration has always tried to map out a middle path on energy policy, and so far it has been ineffective. Ethanol is yet another case in point.
As Lynda Waddington reports at the Iowa Independent, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced last week that the administration was moving forward with a program that aids farmers producing crops (in addition to corn) that could be turned into ethanol. Switchgrass, the foundation of Brazil’s much-touted ethanol system is one example. Notably, the arguments Vilsack advanced for the program had more to do with the economy than with energy.
Pros and cons
This type of cellulosic ethanol, Brooks Lindsay explains at Change.org, would go mainly towards fueling cars. Lindsay weighs the pros and cons of producing this sort of ethanol in general, and comes down against it. His reasoning: “At best, cellulosic ethanol is just a stop-gap measure while electric cars slowly replace liquid-powered cars….But, a stop-gap fuel does not deserve massive investments and government attention.”
Indeed, progressives across the board have long argued that politicians’ support for ethanol derives from political calculation, not from practical policy. (Ethanol states are swing states.) Ethanol is energy-intensive to produce, and it has a slew of negative environmental consequences that outweigh the cuts in carbon emissions.
Rethinking the politics
Before they rush to back the Obama administration’s policies, however, policymakers should consider this news from Heather Rogers, author of Green Gone Wrong. Rogers reports for The Washington Monthly:
As I discovered on a recent reporting trip through Iowa, many farmers there would welcome a way to break free of the ethanol-industrial complex. The people I met said they’d rather cultivate crops using ecologically sound methods, if they could do so and still earn a decent living. It’s not as if midwestern farmers don’t know—better than the rest of us—that growing crops for biofuels damages their soil and keeps them at the mercy of predatory multinational corporations.
The article is worth reading in full, but fast-forward to the end to find Rogers’ sensible policy proposal. Instead of enlisting farmers in a complicated energy-production procedure that ultimately keeps Americans in their cars, why not aide the work they’re already doing to reduce carbon emissions on their farms? After all, farms are responsible for a huge portion of the country’s carbon burden — they just have lobbyists savvy enough to keep their business from being regulated. As Rogers puts it:
Paying farmers to sequester carbon is sound public policy, but it’s also, and just as importantly, good politics. By helping to preserve farmers economically while also allowing them to be the stewards of land most want to be, it peels farmers away from the agribusiness coalition that is pushing the Obama administration to bet the country on a failed biofuels energy strategy.
Now there’s a bit of thinking that could move energy policy forward.
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
Since national energy reform is on the... more
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Our homes are where we lay our hats and hearts -- but how vegan is your home? This week on vegan blog, we will look at how to veganize your home, some of the household items that may not be on your vegan radar, and more!
http://www.veganmainstream.com/veganblogsOur homes are where we lay our hats and hearts -- but how vegan is your home? This... more
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Say we lined the Gulf Coast with a frozen wave, taller than any wave we know. Think of it like a dam with a Conan O’Brien hairdo (can’t wait until he gets to redefine a genre on TBS). The wave will not be built “on” the coastline, but in the shallows below.
Lining the perimeter of the spill will be underwater turbines with curved blades to absorb the force of the “clean” water coming in. This creates friction and will allow for a larger wave than normal to be created. This “clean” wave will splash into the oily water and create a reaction that breaks up the oil particles by using the force of relatively cleaner and more powerful particles. Since you’re dumping more and more water on the spill you are shifting the relative ratio. The spill is nothing but an overwhelming ratio of a foreign body to a native body. It can be broken down with the clean water, but it will always exist, just in a relatively less dense way and these smaller particles will spread out over a more expansive space, but it’s effects may still be felt because in some places it may become dense again.
The big temporary rigid wave along the coastline should be made out of a substance similar to the substance that lines the coastline. Something like sand. Coastline’s are integral as they contain a forgiving substance that allows land bodies to use the force of water to wobble back and forth a bit as to not agitate the fire below the earth that causes all that to rumbling. Sand is like this awesome cushion and coastlines angle so that the waves get a chance to release their energy and return to their body. Coastlines “understand” the ocean’s they buffer. Remember, waves bring remnants from far away lands to the coast. They also bring matter from below the surface to the surface and sometimes this matter washes up. We learned this trick early on and engineered vehicles to do the same. See, we’re very perceptive. That’s our gift, the ability to spot diverse relationships. We call it intelligence. But that’s only one part. The first part is wonder. We have to wonder about these processes before we use our intelligent brain to make said wonder dense. The density is intelligence.
More when you click the link. I even manage to get the Egyptians involved. You know this wouldn’t be a Tricky Relativity joint without a guest appearance from those wise engineers.
http://trickyrelativity.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/tricky-engineering-solving-the-gulf-oil-problem/Say we lined the Gulf Coast with a frozen wave, taller than any wave we know. Think of... more
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Carbon Could Be No. 1 Commodity: Exchange Chief
Published: Monday, 26 Apr 2010 | 12:49 PM ET Text Size
By: Natalie Erlich
Carbon trading is set to become the world's largest commodity market, Richard Sandor, chairman and founder of the Chicago Climate Exchange, told CNBC.com.
“Carbon, when it becomes worldwide, will be unambiguously the largest commodity in the world,” Sandor said in an interview. “The world emits 35 billion tons; it’s priced at $20; that’s $700 billion. Put a 10-20 multiple like you do on futures, [and] you’re talking about $10 trillion at maturity.”
Sandor, who was a major player in the formation of the interest-rate futures market, created the Chicago Climate Exchange [CCX] as a market-based solution to global warming. Time Magazine named him “Hero of the Planet” in 2002, and the “father of carbon trading” in 2007.
“In ’89-’90 someone came to me and said, ‘you commoditize interest rates, do you think you can commoditize air?’” he said. “You could cap the emissions that any utility has, and if they go below that cap, they can sell their emissions, their rights to emit— and if you can go above it, you can buy someone else’s. So it drives compliance.”Carbon Could Be No. 1 Commodity: Exchange Chief
Published: Monday, 26 Apr 2010 |... more
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Eco-warriors do more than just chase down whaling ships or chain themselves to redwood trees; an equally vicious battle is taking place on Capitol Hill. Lobbyists, protesters and legislators descend on Washington, D.C. to hash out the merits of the controversial American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, which some say is the first step in reversing global warming, while other are convinced it's the death knell for the U.S. economy.
This is Part 3 in a four part web series where we follow this controversial bill through the House of Representatives. What does it take to pass climate legislation? What deals need to be cut? What parliamentary tricks have to be pulled?
The conclusion will be posted online tomorrow at 3ET/12 PT.Eco-warriors do more than just chase down whaling ships or chain themselves to redwood... more
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Join the more than one billion people in 190 countries that are taking action for Earth Day.Join the more than one billion people in 190 countries that are taking action for... more
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While most green jobs training programs focus on skills like solar panel installation, weatherization of homes and wind turbine maintenance, a few studies have come out recently revealing a growing need for training in more highly skilled positions — everything from building engineers who understand energy efficiency to chemists who can help come up with new and more sustainable materials.
This morning, IBM and Columbia University announced a new initiative called Smarter Students for a Smarter Planet aimed at addressing that end of the green jobs market.
Granted, Columbia University graduates aren’t typically lacking in opportunities, but this is a green jobs story that’s focused less on providing people with new opportunities in a growing industry and more on finding and training the scientists and engineers who, theoretically, are going to wizard us out of this global warming mess. ...
http://solveclimate.com/blog/20100421/ibm-professors-team-train-smart-students-green-jobs-futureWhile most green jobs training programs focus on skills like solar panel installation,... more
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Eco-warriors do more than just chase down whaling ships or chain themselves to redwood trees; an equally vicious battle is taking place on Capitol Hill. Lobbyists, protesters and legislators descend on Washington, D.C. to hash out the merits of the controversial American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, which some say is the first step in reversing global warming, while other are convinced it's the death knell for the U.S. economy.
This is Part 2 in a four part web series where we follow this controversial bill through the House of Representatives. What does it take to pass climate legislation? What deals need to be cut? What parliamentary tricks have to be pulled?
Part 3 will be posted online tomorrow at 3ET/12 PT.Eco-warriors do more than just chase down whaling ships or chain themselves to redwood... more
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American soldiers returning from war often struggle to readjust to civilian life. Today, many veterans are turning to environmental work and activism to make the transition. Host Jeff Young talks with veterans working for clean energy, creating green jobs, and healing their own wounds by restoring habitats.
We continue our observation of Earth Day at 40 with the connections between the environment and war. At the time of the first Earth Day, U.S. combat troops had been in Vietnam five years. The nation was growing weary of a war with no clear purpose, no clear exit and escalating costs. Senator Gaylord Nelson tapped into that sentiment in a speech the evening of April 21st 1970, with an appeal to put anywhere from 25 to 50 billion dollars toward the environment instead of war.
NELSON: People say that's a lot of money, I say yes it is; the first figure is about the amount we're wasting in Vietnam now, annually. And the second figure is half the national defense budget.
CURWOOD: The parallels with Earth Day 2010 are striking. As in 1970, young Americans returning from war sometimes struggle to readjust to civilian life. And a growing number of those coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan are making that transition via the environment. We'll hear from young warriors working for cleaner energy, protecting our landscape, and healing their own wounds through contact with the natural world.
YOUNG: We start in Washington State, with an innovative program called the Veterans Conservation Corps. Counselor Mark Fischer helped create the program five years ago, inspired by a Vietnam vet from Seattle named John Beal.
Dan Leary visits a Nexamp solar installation project. (Photo: Jeff Young)
FISCHER: John had a couple of tours in Vietnam and he came back and he had a number of medical problems, cancer, diabetes—a variety of things—and his doctors gave him six months to live. So he went down to a little creek that runs by his house, Ham Creek, and saw all the crap and junk, and invasive weeds in that creek.
And he said well, if I've only got six months to live, I might as well do something with my time. He started pulling out old refrigerators and starting to remove invasive vegetation and replant things. And 26 years later, John died.
YOUNG: So, he threw himself into restoring a little stream, that's what he wanted to do in what he thought was the waning months of his life?
FISCHER: Right. And John during the next 26 years spent a lot of time recruiting other veterans to do habitat restoration and got a lot of people involved, a lot of folks around the Seattle area involved, and that's kind of how that all came to pass.
YOUNG: Well, what do you think Mr. Beal gained from that work? He was given just a few months to live and ended up living two decades. Was that related to the work her threw himself into?
FISCHER: It's something we talk about a lot—it's creating a new mission or purpose in life. The original mission of most military folks is fairly clean to them, and then when they come back into civilian life they don't really always connect up with another mission and so we try to in our work try to help people find a new mission or purpose that gives them that energy to continue on in life and be productive. And usually if they find it, they're gangbusters; it's hard to stop them, it's hard to keep them from going forward.
YOUNG: So now, it's veterans returning from Iraq, from Afghanistan, and what kind of work are they doing now with your program?
continuedAmerican soldiers returning from war often struggle to readjust to civilian life.... more
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By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
Image courtesy of Flickr user swperman under Creative Commons LicenseOn Monday, climate activists, nonprofit leaders, and governmental officials will gather in Cochabamba, Bolivia, to look for new ideas to address climate change. The World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, organized by leading social organizations like 350.0rg, “will advocate the right to “live well,” as opposed to the economic principle of uninterrupted growth,” as Inter Press Service explains. In the absence of real leadership from the world’s governments, the conferees at Cochabamba are looking for solutions “committed to the rights of people and environment.”
The United States certainly isn’t stepping up. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), along with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC), were supposed to release their climate legislation next week, just in time for Earth Day. But yesterday the word came down that the release was being pushed back by another week, to April 26.
No matter when it finally arrives, like other recent environmental initiatives, this round of climate legislation falls short. Even if Congress manages to pass a bill—and there’s no guarantee—it will likely leave plenty of room for the coal, oil, and gas industries to continue pouring carbon into the atmosphere. And a wimpy effort from Congress will hinder international work to limit carbon emissions: As a prime polluter, the United States needs to put forward a real plan for change.
Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman
Although the text of the bill is not public yet, it is likely that this attempt at Senate climate legislation will limit carbon emissions only among utilities and gradually phase in other sectors of the economy. On Democracy Now!, environmentalist Bill McKibben called the bill “an incredible accumulation of gifts to all the energy industries, in the hopes that they won’t provide too much opposition to what’s a very weak greenhouse gas pact.”
Climate reform began with a leaner idea, a cap-and-trade system that limited carbon emissions while encouraging innovation. The Nation’s editors document the transformation of climate reform from the Obama administration’s original cap-and-trade proposal to the behemoth tangle it has become. Both the House and the Senate fattened their versions of climate legislation with treats for the energy industry. The Senate’s new idea to gradually expand emissions reduction through a bundle of energy bills only opens up more opportunities for influence.
“Some of these pieces of legislation may pass; others may fail; all are ripe for gaming by corporate lobbies,” the editors write. “Kerry-Lieberman-Graham would also skew subsidies in the wrong direction, throwing billions at “clean coal” technologies, nuclear power plants and offshore drilling, a questionable gambit favored by the Obama administration to garner support from Republicans and representatives from oil-, gas- and coal-producing states.”
Even with these goodies, the climate bill may not pass. The Washington Independent rounds up the D.C. players to watch as the next fight unfolds, including the Chamber of Commerce’s William Kovacs and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Lisa Jackson.
Green leftovers
In theory, the climate bill should not be America’s only ride to a greener future. But the other vehicles for green change choked during start-up. The EPA was going to regulate carbon emissions, but Congress has reared against that effort. The climate bill could snatch away that power from the executive branch.
If companies won’t limit their carbon emissions, individuals still have the option for action. But as Heather Rogers explains in The Nation, carbon offsets, one of the most popular mechanisms for minimizing carbon use “are a dubious enterprise.”
“To begin with, they don’t cut greenhouse gases immediately but only over the life of a project, and that can take years–some tree-planting efforts need a century to do the work. And a project is effective only if it’s successfully followed through; trees can die or get cut down, unforeseen ecological destruction might be triggered or the projects may simply go unbuilt.”
The pull of carbon offsets should diminish as energy use in buildings, cars, food, and flights gains in efficiency and uses less carbon. But if the green jobs sector is any indication, that revolution has been slow in coming. ColorLines reports that “there are no firm numbers on how many newly trained green workers are still jobless. But stories abound of programs that turn out workers with new, promising skills—in solar panel installation and weatherization, in places like Seattle and Chicago—and who nonetheless can’t find jobs.”
Cochabamba’s unique approach
These failures and setbacks don’t just affect Americans; they keep our leaders from negotiating with their international peers. The United Nations led a conference last winter in Copenhagen that promised to hash out carbon limits, yet produced no binding agreement. This coming winter, the UN will try again in Mexico, but if the United States shows up with the scant plan put forward by Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman, those negotiations have little promise.
In Cochabamba, leaders from inside and outside the government will attend a summit to discuss the future of climate change action. In The Progressive, Teo Ballve writes that,
“One of the bolder ideas is the creation of a global climate justice tribunal that could serve as an enforcement mechanism. And conference participants are already working on a “Universal Declaration of Mother Earth Rights” meant to parallel the U.N.’s landmark Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.”
With U.S. government action paling, it might take outside ideas like these to revitalize the push towards a green future. By the end of next week, we’ll see if the Cochabamba group made any more progress than the bigwigs at Copenhagen.
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
Image courtesy of Flickr user swperman... more
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On the anniversary of Obama's first year in office, one of the major criticisms heard from the environmental community was that the administration was taking a less than productive approach to cleaning up Superfund sites, some of the most polluted and dangerous areas of the country.
Many were shocked when Obama's EPA announced that that over its first three years it would clean up fewer Superfund sites than any administration since 1991, including that of George W. Bush (Mongabay.com).
Nevertheless, the agency seems to be working hard to reverse the lackluster reputation it has garnered for itself, cracking down on mountaintop removal mining, toxic chemicals in consumer products, and most recently, the Superfund site's oft-ignored younger sibling, the brownfield.
Last week in New Orleans, La., EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson announced that EPA is awarding more than $2 million in job training grants for environmental cleanups in communities across the country.
Find out how to apply for job training grants: http://ow.ly/1xTfOOn the anniversary of Obama's first year in office, one of the major criticisms... more
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