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Global Warming Denial Hits a 6-Year High

by Pauline80x Posted on January 17, 2014

Mother Jones

The latest data are out on the prevalence of global warming denial among the US public. And they aren’t pretty.

The new study, from the Yale and George Mason research teams on climate change communication, shows a 7-percentage-point increase in the proportion of Americans who say they do not believe that global warming is happening. And that’s just since the spring of 2013. The number is now 23 percent; back at the start of last year, it was 16 percent:

The increase in climate science disbelief. Yale and George Mason University teams on Climate Change Communication.

The percentage of Americans who believe global warming is human-caused has also declined, and now stands at 47 percent, a decrease of 7 percent since 2012.

At the same time, the survey also shows an apparent hardening of attitudes. Back in September 2012, only 43 percent of those who believed that global warming isn’t happening said they were either “very sure” or “extremely sure” about their views. By November of last year, that number had increased to 56 percent.

Overall, more Americans now say they have all the information they need to make up their minds about the climate issue, and fewer say they could easily change their minds:

Increasing righteousness about global warming, on both sides of the issue. Yale and George Mason teams on Climate Change Communication.

The obvious question is, what happened over the last year to produce more climate denial?

According to both Anthony Leiserowitz of Yale and Ed Maibach of George Mason, the leaders of the two research teams, the answer may well lie in the so-called global warming “pause”—the misleading idea that global warming has slowed down or stopped over the the past 15 years or so. This claim was used by climate skeptics, to great effect, in their quest to undermine the release of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report in September 2013—precisely during the time period that is in question in the latest study.

As we have reported before, the notion of a global warming “pause” is, at best, the result of statistical cherry-picking. It relies on starting with a very hot year (1998) and then examining a relatively short time period (say, 15 years), in order to suggest that global warming has slowed down or stopped during this particular stretch of time. But put these numbers back into a broader context and the overall warming trend remains clear. Moreover, following the IPCC report, new research emerged suggesting that the semblance of a “pause” may be the result of incomplete temperature data due to the lack of adequate weather stations in the Arctic, where the most dramatic global warming is occurring.

Nonetheless, widely publicized “pause” claims may well have shaped public opinion. “Beginning in September, and lasting several months, coincident with the release of the IPCC report, there was considerable media attention to the concept of the ‘global warming pause,'” observes Maibach. “It is possible that this simple—albeit erroneous—idea helped to convince many people who were previously undecided to conclude that the climate really isn’t changing.”

“Even more likely, however,” Maibach adds, “is that media coverage of the ‘pause’ reinforced the beliefs of people who had previously concluded that global warming is not happening, making them more certain of their beliefs.”

As Maibach’s colleague Anthony Leiserowitz of Yale adds, it isn’t as though those who were already convinced about global warming became less sure of themselves over the last year. Rather, the change of views “really seems to be happening among the ‘don’t knows,'” says Leiserowitz. “Those are the people who aren’t paying attention, and don’t know much about the issue. So they’re the most open-minded, and the most swayable based on recent events.”

Journalists take heed: Your coverage has consequences. All those media outlets who trumpeted the global warming “pause” may now be partly responsible for a documented decrease in Americans’ scientific understanding.

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Global Warming Denial Hits a 6-Year High

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Why Congress Needs to Extend the Wind Energy Tax Credit

by UIVJodiexgz Posted on December 9, 2013

green4us

The wind energy industry and environmental groups are calling on Congress to renew the credit. ali_pk/Flickr The wind energy production tax credit is a tougher issue than you might imagine for some good liberal wonks. On the one hand, wind power is great. On the other hand, tax credits are a market-distorting, inefficient way of making policy. They are basically spending disguised as tax cuts. Most tax credits that affect the environment — accelerated depreciation for the fossil fuel industry, the home mortgage interest deduction — incentivize sprawl, driving, and profligate dirty energy use. It is a rare, and tantalizing, point of agreement between good government advocates across party lines that we should throw out the whole system and operate a cleaner tax code. So it might be tempting, when you see Tea Party–affiliated, Koch brothers–backed groups such as Americans for Prosperity pushing to eliminate the wind energy tax credit, to say, “Hey, I agree!” Tempting but wrong. Continue reading at Grist.

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Why Congress Needs to Extend the Wind Energy Tax Credit

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Why Congress Needs to Extend the Wind Energy Tax Credit

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What If Your Income Grew as Fast as The 1 Percent’s? Try Our Calculator.

by KelleyCooley Posted on December 5, 2013

Mother Jones

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The richest 1 percent of Americans have seen their average income jump more than 270 percent over the past five decades. Meanwhile, the average income of the least wealthy 90 percent of Americans grew an anemic 22 percent during that time. (Those figures are based on inflation-adjusted real dollars.)

So how much would you be earning today if the phenomenal income growth at the very top of the income scale had trickled down to most Americans? Use this calculator to find out.

How much do you currently make in a year? $ Please enter a dollar amount.

If most Americans’ incomes had grown at the same rate as the 1 percent’s over the past 50 years, you currently would be making $0, the same amount you already do. Congrats! You’re already in the top 1 percent of earners!

Source: Mother Jones calculations based on data from the World Top Incomes Database

In other words, if you’re in the bottom 90 percent of earners, your current income would be an estimated 205 percent higher if the vast majority of incomes had kept up with the gains experienced by the superwealthy.

At the lowest end of the bottom 90 percent, the difference is even more extreme: If the minimum wage had kept up with the 1 percent, it would be nearly 250 percent higher than it is today.

Back in the real world, most Americans’ incomes have stagnated over the past few decades. Meanwhile, top incomes have skyrocketed, leaving middle- and low-income Americans behind and accelerating the growth of the income gap that began opening in the 1980s.

Methodology: The data used to the make this calculator is from the World Top Incomes Database. All income figures used to make the calculator are in 2012 dollars and do not include capital gains. Your hypothetical income is an estimate based on applying the overall change in the average income of the top 1 percent between 1960 and 2012 to the average incomes in 2012 for the bottom 90th, the top 10th to 5th, and top 5th to 1st income percentiles.

Money Bag designed by Roman Trilo-Denysyuk from The Noun Project. Calculator image by DVARG/Shutterstock

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What If Your Income Grew as Fast as The 1 Percent’s? Try Our Calculator.

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Kochs and Republicans launch bid to snuff out wind-energy tax incentives

by graptorm Posted on November 7, 2013

Kochs and Republicans launch bid to snuff out wind-energy tax incentives

By

Shutterstock

A key tax incentive credited with boosting wind-energy capacity in the U.S. is due to expire in eight weeks, and fossil fuel lobbyists are working hard to blow it to oblivion.

The Koch-backed conservative group Americans for Prosperity is launching an advertising campaign calling on lawmakers to allow the production tax credit (PTC) to expire on Dec. 31.

The wind industry says the tax credit was critical in helping it to attract as much as $25 billion in private investment last year, all the while helping the country reduce carbon emissions. A single multinational company credits it with adding hundreds of jobs at its American factories.

Extending the tax credit for five years could cost the federal government $18.5 billion, by one congressional estimate. That’s just too much, says the fossil fuel sector, which just so happens to compete with wind energy.

Politico reports on AFP’s $75,000 ad campaign:

“The people we’re focusing on right now are not the low-hanging fruit and they’re not the people that we’re not going to get,” Christine Harbin Hanson, AFP’s federal affairs manager, told POLITICO. “We’re reaching for the middle.” In this case, that refers to “conservatives that purport to oppose government meddling in the marketplace” but “need a little nudging,” she said. AFP will roll out two ads per week (none the week of Thanksgiving), with the first two targeting Republicans Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska and Lamar Smith of Texas.

So far, Hanson says 44 House Republicans and one Democrat, Nick Rahall of coal-loving West Virginia, have signed onto an anti-PTC letter being circulated by Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.).

AFP has also put together its own letter [PDF] on the issue. “The wind industry has very little to show after 20 years of preferential tax treatment,” it reads. “Congress should break from the past and allow the wind PTC to expire as scheduled, once and for all. Americans deserve energy solutions that can make it on their own in the marketplace — not ones that need to be propped up by government indefinitely.”

Speaking of being propped up indefinitely, would this be an appropriate debate in which to bring up the billions of dollars in tax breaks and other subsidies doled out by the U.S. every year to fossil fuel companies? Rep. Jackie Spier (D-Calif.) certainly thinks so.

“Big oil still gets subsidies even though just the biggest five oil companies … made a combined $118 billion in profits in 2012,” Speier said during a committee hearing on the PTC. “Oil and gas have received over $4.8 billion each year in government subsidies over 90 years.”

So much for energy solutions that can make it on their own in the marketplace.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Business & Technology

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Kochs and Republicans launch bid to snuff out wind-energy tax incentives

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America to EPA: We missed you, babe

by Adriene56E Posted on October 18, 2013

America to EPA: We missed you, babe

By

Shutterstock

During the 16-day federal government shutdown, clueless GOP staffers posted a top 10 list of “Reasons The Government Shutdown Isn’t All Bad” on a Senate website. The list mostly celebrated the fact that the EPA’s work was crippled by the budget spat.

“Fewer bureaucrats at the EPA makes it less likely that they’ll make up science on new regulations,” was among the witticisms listed on the blog post. The post then rattled off fantastical agency scandals that sounded cribbed from a fossil fuel industry dream journal.

But polling commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council over the Columbus Day weekend revealed that EPA bashing is unlikely to win much public sympathy for the Republicans. The vast majority of people polled were bummed out that fighting in Washington had prevented the EPA from doing its job.

In Virginia, where the environment is routinely trampled by mining companies and power plant owners, 68 percent of people polled [PDF] said they opposed the furloughing of EPA inspectors. Nationally, 71 percent [PDF] were in opposition. From an NRDC blog post:

The public broadly backs environmental protection — 60 percent of Americans think the EPA is doing just the right amount or not enough to protect the environment — but an even greater percentage of Americans opposed EPA being shut down. That phenomenon also carried through in Speaker Boehner’s own district, where 52 percent think EPA is doing just the right amount or not enough, while 58 percent oppose it being shut down. Even more oppose an EPA shutdown when reminded of specific EPA responsibilities.

That includes EPA’s responsibility to address climate change. 65 percent of Americans are opposed to a shutdown that “interferes with [EPA] developing carbon pollution limits.” This sentiment holds firmly across every state and district we examined. It’s even higher in Maine and North Carolina where 70 percent of respondents opposed this interference. Even in John Boehner’s district, 62 percent of constituents are opposed to the interference.

This poll should also be a warning to once-moderate House Republicans who have thrown in their lot with the Tea Party radicals. Take for example, Rep. Leonard Lance of New Jersey, who waffled on the shutdown. In his district, 63 percent of constituents oppose the shutdown and almost the same amount — 62 percent — opposed EPA being shuttered. Even a majority of Republicans in Lance’s district opposed EPA being shut down.

More highlights from the national poll:

NRDC


Source
Key findings from polls of Americans’ views about work of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, NRDC
Poll Holds Warning for Tea Party Republicans: Don’t Try This Again, NRDC

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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For energy efficiency, Americans deserve a big thumbs-up

by rpgf8m1 Posted on October 11, 2013

For energy efficiency, Americans deserve a big thumbs-up

By

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We’re getting there.

America’s population and economy are both growing, yet its energy appetite is falling. That’s because of substantial energy-efficiency gains made in recent decades.

Those gains are helping the country reduce oil imports, save money on power bills, and move toward meeting a goal set by President Obama of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent between 2005 and 2020.

The news is laid out in a Natural Resources Defense Council report cheerily titled America’s (Amazingly) Good Energy News [PDF]:

[O]ver the past 40 years Americans have found so many innovative ways to save energy that we have more than doubled the economic productivity of the oil that runs our vehicles and the natural gas and electricity that runs almost everything else. Factories and businesses are producing substantially more products and value with less energy. …

[B]ecause increasing efficiency is far less costly than adding other energy resources like fossil fuels, this is saving the nation hundreds of billions of dollars annually, helping U.S. workers and companies compete worldwide, and making our country more energy-secure.

America’s energy use peaked in 2007 and has been falling ever since, the report says. Less energy was used by Americans last year than in 1999, despite 25 percent economic growth in the intervening years.

As shown in the following graph from the report, the “lockstep linkage between economic growth and total energy use” that once was normal in America ended in the 1970s:

NRDCClick to embiggen.

Still, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has made clear, the U.S. and the rest of the world must do much more if we’re going to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius.

But the efficiency news is obviously great, so we’ll pause to celebrate it. Hurrah!


Source
America’s (Amazingly) Good Energy News, NRDC

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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For energy efficiency, Americans deserve a big thumbs-up

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Steve King insults climate scientists and religious Americans simultaneously

by nowabazaBS1 Posted on August 8, 2013

Steve King insults climate scientists and religious Americans simultaneously

By Lisa Hymas

Gage Skidmore

Steve King knows that cantaloupes don’t grow in seawater.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) has, shall we say, a vivid oratorical style.

Last month, he noted that not all of the young immigrants who would benefit from the DREAM Act are star students. “For everyone who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert,” he said.

This week, he turned his eloquence to the topic of climate change. Here’s what he said on Tuesday at an event sponsored by the Koch-funded group Americans for Prosperity, as reported by The Messenger of Fort Dodge, Iowa:

King said efforts to fight global warming are both economically harmful and unnecessary.

“It is not proven, it’s not science. It’s more of a religion than a science,” he said.

Which kinda sounds like a slam not just on people who believe in climate change but on people who believe in God. As Daily Kos put it, “So to recap, global warming is bullshit, like religion.”

It’s not the first time King has made the religion comparison. He said something similar in 2010, and added that concern about climate change “might be the modern version of the rain dance.”

After his religion comment on Tuesday, King got all science-y:

He said that even if carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes the earth to warm, environmentalists only look at the bad from that, not the good.

“Everything that might result from a warmer planet is always bad in (environmentalists’) analysis,” he said. “There will be more photosynthesis going on if the Earth gets warmer. … And if sea levels go up 4 or 6 inches, I don’t know if we’d know that.”

He said sea level is not a precise measurement.

“We don’t know where sea level is even, let alone be able to say that it’s going to come up an inch globally because some polar ice caps might melt because there’s CO2 suspended in the atmosphere,” he said.

Because King is unable to distinguish science from religion, he may be unaware that we do, in fact, know where sea level is. Scientists have “instruments” that “measure” it. Spoiler: It is rising.

Lisa Hymas is senior editor at Grist. You can follow her on Twitter and Google+.

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Statement on EPA’s 2013 RFS Requirements

by Posted on August 6, 2013

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Statement on EPA’s 2013 RFS Requirements

Posted 6 August 2013 in

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The 2013 volumetric targets set by the EPA reflect the reality that the biofuels industry is growing and becoming a vital part of our transportation fuel mix.

By setting the 2013 targets as such, the EPA is fully utilizing the flexibilities incorporated within the RFS. It also provides evidence that the RFS works: it adjusts to market conditions.

In just five years, the RFS has driven substantial investment in our domestic fuel industry, created jobs for Americans, and most importantly – built a market for oil alternatives in our transportation fuel sector. The policy allowed domestically produced, renewable fuel to displace 462 million barrels of crude oil in 2012, and is poised to further reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. The RFS is working.

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Statement on EPA’s 2013 RFS Requirements

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These conservatives like renewable-energy mandates

by w0ujpysd Posted on July 18, 2013

These conservatives like renewable-energy mandates

By Lisa Hymas

Plenty of conservatives like clean energy too — especially clean-energy jobs.

We told you recently that right-wing efforts to overturn state-level renewable-energy mandates have been failing across the nation. Here’s one big reason why: Many conservatives actually like the mandates.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Conservatives fighting against alternative-energy mandates—which they see as unwarranted and costly market interference—are losing ground even in some Republican-controlled states, where legislatures are standing behind policies that force electric utilities to buy renewable energy.

Some of the most vocal support for the policies is coming from an unlikely corner: farmers who see profit in rural renewable-energy projects.

Of the 29 states that require the use of wind, solar and other renewable power sources, at least 14 considered proposals this year to significantly water down or repeal the policies. None have become law yet, with many legislative sessions adjourned until next year.

In North Carolina, state Rep. Mike Hager (R) pushed to repeal the state’s renewable requirement, but his effort failed.

Mr. Hager said his colleagues were swayed by the prospect of local jobs in the renewable-energy sector. “It’s hard to be conservative when it affects your district,” he said in an interview.

In some of the debates over renewable mandates, local people who would benefit from increased job prospects and decreased pollution are pitted against the Koch-backed group Americans for Prosperity, which pretty much hates renewables in all cases. That was the situation in Georgia last week, as we reported at the time: Tea Party Patriots pushed through a plan to require the state’s largest utility to increase its use of solar power, despite opposition from AFP.

The Journal reports that AFP was also active in the fight over North Carolina’s renewable mandate:

The repeal’s primary advocates in North Carolina were groups with financial backing from outside the state, such as the conservative political-action group Americans for Prosperity, which also lobbied against such mandates elsewhere. Dallas Woodhouse, the group’s North Carolina director, said he believed Republicans opposed the mandate in principle, but the prospect of jobs is “intoxicating for a lot of legislators” at a time of high unemployment.

Americans for Prosperity has taken funding from the fossil-fuel industry, which competes with renewables.

Imagine that: Even some conservatives prefer job-boosting policies over ideological fealty to dirty energy.

Lisa Hymas is senior editor at Grist. You can follow her on Twitter and Google+.

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Think about it for a minute

by Posted on July 15, 2013

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Think about it for a minute

Posted 15 July 2013 in

National

If there’s one thing most people can agree on, it’s that consumers constantly feel the pinch of high gas prices. In 2012, Americans spent the highest percentage of household income – nearly four percent – on gas in nearly thirty years. And while consumers are hit with wallet-draining gas prices every day, oil companies continue to make huge profits — $118 billion alone last year. Even worse, the oil industry is exploiting high gas prices to justify additional domestic drilling, despite the fact that record drilling in the US has failed to slow gas prices. That’s why tomorrow the Senate’s Energy & Natural Resources Committee will convene a hearing to find out why gas prices remain stubbornly high, despite a new wave of domestic oil production.

Here’s what you need to know:

More drilling isn’t the answer

Oil prices are set on a global market that is subject to factors like unrest in the Middle East. A recent report from the International Energy Agency predicted that drilling our way to energy independence will leave us with oil costing $215 per barrel.
Often times, refineries fail to pass on the lower costs to consumers and hitches during production lead to skyrocketing gas prices, meaning a drop in the price of crude oil does not necessarily translate into cheaper gas for consumers.

The price shocks associated with a volatile oil market not only impact hardworking Americans, diminishing disposable income that would have been spent elsewhere, but they also affect national security. Leaders have long agreed that fluctuating prices hamstring the military’s planning and budgeting processes, leaving our troops on the ground vulnerable.

Renewable fuel is the clear solution

Renewable fuel already provides 10% of America’s fuel needs and that number is growing. Increased access to homegrown renewable fuel has provided consumers with choice at the pump, given consumers savings from decreased gas prices, and reduced our dependence on foreign oil.

In 2011, gas prices were reduced by $1.09 per gallon and the average American household saved $1,200 on their gas bill thanks to renewable fuel.
Americans saved approximately $50 billion in imported fuel costs thanks to renewable fuel in 2011.
Cellulosic renewable fuel (made from things like algae or switchgrass) is coming online, with the EIA predicting 250 million gallons of capacity by 2015, setting the stage for a future with an even more diverse, clean and homegrown fuel.
The USDA and DOE have estimated that there is enough biomass in the United States to replace nearly a third of the country’s gasoline with renewable fuel by 2030.

In order to further reduce our reliance on oil and ease consumer pain at the pump, we must continue to support policies such as the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) that are creating a competition in the transportation fuel sector. Without the RFS and support for homegrown renewable fuels, our nation will be left with a virtual oil monopoly that continues to consume high carbon petroleum transportation fuels, priced at the whim of the global market leaving American families vulnerable and struggling for stability. We must protect consumers by protecting the RFS.

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Think about it for a minute

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