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The Canadian government doesn’t want you to get the mistaken impression that it takes climate change seriously

by Leon Russell Posted on January 2, 2014

The Canadian government doesn’t want you to get the mistaken impression that it takes climate change seriously

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“The government of Canada takes climate change seriously, and recognizes the scientific findings that conclude that human activities are mostly responsible for this change.”

Canada’s environment minister came close to uttering that fairly ho-hum sentence in September — part of the government’s brief public response to the latest alarming report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

But, in the end, the sentence was never said.

Postmedia News used open-government laws to obtain the statement that had been drafted for the minister, Leona Aglukkaq, by her department. She ultimately omitted that sentence, opting instead to attack opposition parties.

“Unlike the previous Liberal government, under whose watch greenhouse gas emissions rose by almost 30 per cent, or the NDP, who want a $21 billion carbon tax, our Government is actually reducing greenhouse gases and standing up for Canadian jobs,” Aglukkaq said in her Sept. 27 statement.

Postmedia News asked the department why the minister dropped the sentence from her statement. Here was the department’s response:

“Our government absolutely takes climate change seriously and our actions and results demonstrate this,” wrote Aglukkaq’s spokeswoman Amanda Gordon in an email. “Since we have formed government, Canada’s projected carbon emissions have gone down by close to 130 megatons over what they would have been under the previous government. The statement highlights the important actions of our government so all Canadians can be aware of the work we have undertaken to protect the environment.” …

Green Party leader Elizabeth May said she found [the omission] “shocking” since she believed the recommended messages from Environment Canada were “banal” and not even as strong as the language from the IPCC report.

“It was watered down politically, and it’s further indication that [Prime Minister] Stephen Harper and his cabinet simply don’t understand that the climate crisis is a huge threat to Canada, to our kids, to our economy and we’re running out of time,” said May. “Stephen Harper doesn’t want to actually do anything that by his (opinion) impedes the oil and gas industry.”

Indeed, Harper has been doing all he can to help his country’s tar-sands oil industry, including dropping out of the Kyoto Protocol. Now Canada’s response to climate change is considered to be among the worst in the world.


Source
Stephen Harper’s government edited message about taking climate change seriously, Postmedia News

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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The Canadian government doesn’t want you to get the mistaken impression that it takes climate change seriously

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The Obama administration is undermining its own plans for carbon capture

by 2KeaheySchoeffler461 Posted on December 23, 2013

The Obama administration is undermining its own plans for carbon capture

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The Obama administration will soon require new coal-fired power plants to capture the carbon dioxide they produce and store it underground. Coal companies that had long touted “clean coal” turned on the idea, arguing that carbon sequestration isn’t commercially viable.

But don’t you worry about the poor coal industry. The fossil fuel guys have a trick up their sleeve. Here is the AP, reporting on an approach adopted at a new coal power plant in Mississippi:

At first, the idea behind “carbon-capture” technology was to make coal plants cleaner by burying the carbon dioxide deep underground that they typically pump out of smokestacks.

But that green vision proved too expensive and complicated, so the administration accepted a trade-off.

To help the environment, the government allows power companies to sell the carbon dioxide to oil companies, which pump it into old oil fields to force more crude to the surface. A side benefit is that the carbon gets permanently stuck underground.

The program shows the ingenuity of the oil industry, which is using government green-energy money to subsidize oil production. But it also showcases the environmental trade-offs Obama is willing to make, but rarely talks about, in his fight against global warming. …

Four power plants in the U.S. and Canada … intend to sell their carbon waste for oil recovery.

So say goodbye to carbon dioxide, and hello to oil that will be burned to produce more carbon dioxide.

As if it weren’t bad enough that this approach undermines the whole intent of carbon capture, scientists recently linked the practice of injecting carbon dioxide into oil fields to a major flurry of earthquakes in Texas in 2009 and 2010.


Source
To clean up coal, Obama pushes more oil production, The Associated Press

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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2014 Could Be a Good Year For President Obama

by adndseu13da Posted on December 18, 2013

Mother Jones

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A couple of days ago I wrote that 2013 had been a rough year for President Obama:

It started with the fiscal cliff showdown and then barreled straight into Scandalmania (Benghazi+IRS+AP subpoenas); Edward Snowden and the NSA leaks; the Syria U-turn; the government shutdown; and finally the Obamacare website debacle.

Steve Benen takes a look at these same events and pushes back:

Twice congressional Republicans threatened debt-ceiling default; twice Obama stood his ground….Congressional Republicans shut down the government to extract White House concessions. Obama and congressional Democrats stood firm and the GOP backed down….forged an international agreement to rid Syria of chemical weapons….The “scandals” the media hyped relentlessly in the spring proved to be largely meaningless.

Nice try! And there’s something to this. Obama did manage to squeeze out “victories” in the fiscal cliff and government shutdown fights, Scandalmania mostly turned into a nothingburger, and Syria and Iran may yet turn out to be foreign policy wins.

But at best, that’s for the future. For now, 2013 just looks a year that Obama barely survived, bruised and bloody. It’s possible that the other guy looks even worse, of course, and after watching John Boehner’s press conference a couple of days ago, I’d say it’s fair to think so.

The good news, such as it is, is that all this stuff might set up Obama for a decent 2014. If Republicans realize it’s pointless to pick more debt ceiling fights; if Obamacare starts working smoothly; if we strike a decent deal with Iran; and if the economy picks up—if all those things happen, then 2014 will look pretty good. It probably can’t look much worse.

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2014 Could Be a Good Year For President Obama

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Quote of the Day: Free Health Care Kills…. Um…. Republicans?

by Joan Rivera Posted on December 17, 2013

Mother Jones

From Rick Santorum, explaining the dangers of relying on the government for health care:

Free health care is just that, free health care, until you get sick. Then, if you get sick and you don’t get health care, you die and you don’t vote. It’s actually a pretty clever system. Take care of the people who can vote and people who can’t vote, get rid of them as quickly as possible by not giving them care so they can’t vote against you. That’s how it works.

WTF? I recognize that sometimes extemporaneous witticisms go astray, and God knows that Santorum is probably more vulnerable to that than most. But even for him this is inscrutable. I wonder if he knows that every American over the age of 65 has been receiving government health care for the past half century?

Anyway, there’s video at the link if you think that Santorum’s body language and tone of voice might help you decipher what was going through his eccentric little mind when he said this.

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Quote of the Day: Free Health Care Kills…. Um…. Republicans?

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How Vulnerable Is a Congressman Without Health Insurance?

by FSZLazarots Posted on December 10, 2013

Mother Jones

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Members of Congress have spent the past few weeks grousing about their attempts to enroll in new health insurance plans they forced on themselves when they passed the Affordable Care Act. The law requires members of Congress to get their insurance, and employer subsidy, through the DC health exchange rather than through the Federal Employee Health Benefits Network, where they’d been getting it for decades—at a good price.

Not every member is signing up for the exchange. Some, like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), have cushy coverage through a spouse’s employer. Others are eligible for Medicare, the government’s plan for the elderly. And then there’s Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Texas tea party luminary and an outspoken opponent of the ACA. Rather than participate, Gohmert says he intends to pay a fine the law imposes and remain uninsured when the ACA’s individual mandate kicks in early next year. “I’ve pledged that I’m not taking the subsidy,” he told Politico. “Too many people in my district have lost their insurance because of Obamacare…and because of Obamacare, the remaining insurance is just too expensive. So I’m not going to have insurance, it looks like.”

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How Vulnerable Is a Congressman Without Health Insurance?

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New Study Says Poverty Rate Hasn’t Budged For 40 Years

by JohannaG58 Posted on December 10, 2013

Mother Jones

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The Washington Post reports some good news:

Government programs such as food stamps and unemployment insurance have made significant progress in easing the plight of the poor in the half-century since the launch of the war on poverty, according to a major new study….The findings also contradict the official poverty rate, which suggests there has been no decline in the percentage of Americans experiencing poverty since then.

According to the new research, the safety net helped reduce the percentage of Americans in poverty from 26 percent in 1967 to 16 percent in 2012.

There are certain things you always need to be aware of in different fields of study. If it’s test scores among school kids, you need to disaggregate by race and ethnic background. If it’s life expectancy and Social Security, you need to make sure to use life expectancy at age 65, not life expectancy at birth. And if it’s poverty measurements, you need to distinguish between elderly poverty and working-age poverty.

Social Security has dramatically reduced elderly poverty, so if you simply look at overall poverty rates they’re always pulled down by the success of Social Security. But what about the working-age poor? How have government programs helped them? This was the first thing I looked for in this new study, and I found it in the red line in Figure 4:

This is a lot less cheery. Poverty has still declined, but not by much, and only between 1967 and 1973. Since 1973, the poverty rate hasn’t budged. It was 15 percent forty years ago and it’s 15 percent today.

Now, there’s still some good news in this study. Using their new measurement, the researchers find that child poverty has dropped from from 31 percent to 18 percent over the past three decades. They also find that safety net programs have reduced poverty rates and dramatically reduced “deep poverty” rates. It’s also heartening that poverty rates increased only slightly during the Great Recession. Safety net programs have significantly ameliorated a human catastrophe over the past five years.

But the headline result, I think, is simple: among the working-age poor, poverty has been stuck for the past four decades. We’ve made virtually no progress at all.

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New Study Says Poverty Rate Hasn’t Budged For 40 Years

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Lara Logan Taking Leave of Absence From "60 Minutes"

by CecileJcy Posted on November 26, 2013

Mother Jones

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HuffPo’s Michael Calderone tweets: “Lara Logan and producer producer Max McClellan taking taking leave of absence from 60 Minutes, per Fager memo.” This comes shortly after Calderone reported that Logan “will no longer be hosting the annual press freedom awards dinner hosted by the Committee to Protect Journalists on Tuesday night, as she had long been scheduled to do.”

That’s not a big surprise. More to come on this, I’m sure.

UPDATE: Calderone has a full copy of the Fager memo here, along with a summary report of an investigation into Logan’s Benghazi segment from Al Ortiz, Executive Director of Standards and Practices at CBS News. It validates virtually every outside criticism made of Logan’s piece, which relied on the testimony of Dylan Davies, a security consultant who was in Benghazi on the night of the attacks and went on to write a book about it:

Logan’s report went to air without 60 Minutes knowing what Davies had told the FBI and the State Department about his own activities and location on the night of the attack….The wider reporting resources of CBS News were not employed in an effort to confirm his account….Davies’ admission that he had not told his employer the truth about his own actions should have been a red flag in the editorial vetting process.

….Logan’s assertions that Al Qaeda carried out the attack and controlled the hospital were not adequately attributed in her report…..In October of 2012, one month before starting work on the Benghazi story, Logan made a speech in which she took a strong public position arguing that the US Government was misrepresenting the threat from Al Qaeda, and urging actions that the US should take in response to the Benghazi attack. From a CBS News Standards perspective, there is a conflict in taking a public position on the government’s handling of Benghazi and Al Qaeda, while continuing to report on the story.

….The book, written by Davies and a co-author, was published by Threshold Editions, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, part of the CBS Corporation. 60 Minutes erred in not disclosing that connection in the segment.

That’s a whole lot of errors, all of which were preventable. Logan was just too anxious to tell this story in a particular way, and decided not to let reporting get in the way of it.

Also worth checking out: Jeff Stein’s Newsweek piece a few days ago suggesting that Logan’s husband may have played an instrumental behind-the-scenes role in shaping her Benghazi report.

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Lara Logan Taking Leave of Absence From "60 Minutes"

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U.N. climate talks: Four countries behaving badly

by AnnetteLorenzo Posted on November 18, 2013

U.N. climate talks: Four countries behaving badly

By

Oxfam International

Climate activists are not happy with Japan, Poland, Australia, and Canada.

There have been more disappointments than encouraging signs at the U.N. climate talks in Warsaw, Poland, which have just passed the halfway mark. They’re intended to lay the groundwork for a new global climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, but it’s not going well so far. Rich countries are not outlining how they will fund the planned $100-billion-a-year Green Climate Fund. Discussions involving agriculture have been taken off the table, even though farming reforms could substantially reduce global carbon emissions. And nobody can agree on how best to protect carbon-soaking forests.

But of the 190 countries that have sent delegates to Warsaw, four in particular have been the target of international anger over recent announcements, acts of obstructionism, and failure to commit to protect the world from global warming.

Japan

Japan is the fifth biggest greenhouse gas polluter, but it had committed to reducing its carbon emissions 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

Then Fukushima melted down and the country switched from a nuclear-powered diet to a fossil-fueled one. Now the country’s leaders are pointing to that tragedy as they walk away from their climate-change goals. Japan’s new goal? Emissions in 2020 that are 3.5 percent below 2005 levels. Which is even worse than it sounds. That means a 3.1 percent emissions increase from 1990 to 2020.

Japan’s chief cabinet secretary said the previous goal, which had been set by a government that is now in opposition, “was totally unfounded and wasn’t feasible.”

Poland

Poland is hosting this round of climate negotiations in its capital, but just because it’s welcomed a huge congregation of climate negotiators to a football stadium doesn’t mean the country is ready to begin acting like a responsible global citizen.

Poland expects to rely on climate-changing coal – the worst of the fossil fuels — for most of its electricity for the next 50 years. The country may soon spend billions of dollars doubling the size of one of its biggest coal-fired plants, and new coal plants are planned. As if that weren’t bad enough, the country is also hosting a major international coal summit this week. Many climate activists feel the timing of that summit is a deliberate affront to everything that the climate negotiators are working toward.

“Coal is still the basic source of energy in many countries in the world,” Polish official Beata Jaczewska told Reuters when asked about the World Coal Association meetings being held today and tomorrow. “A transition period is needed.”

Australia

Australia has morphed quickly from a global leader in the fight against climate change to an international pariah. Climate-denying Prime Minister Tony Abbott has jubilantly pursued two agendas related to global warming since taking office two months ago: ending climate action and undermining research and development. (Isn’t it interesting how climate deniers so often hate science?) Abbott has moved to axe the country’s carbon tax. He is cutting $409 million from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. He intends to dismantle a program designed to invest $9.4 billion in clean energy. And he is hacking away at the staff of the country’s preeminent research agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.

For the first time since 1997, Australia is not being represented at international climate talks by any federal ministers. Abbott has decided that his ministers are all needed back home to help convince a hostile senate to repeal the country’s carbon tax. Bureaucrats make up the country’s entire climate delegation, and those bureaucrats have not arrived bearing any gifts.

There is widespread confusion over what Australia’s delegation actually wants, with routine briefings for journalists and diplomats canceled. Abbott has ruled out making any new commitments to fight global warming through these talks. He bizarrely insists the country will somehow meet its longstanding commitment to reduce greenhouse gas pollution 5 percent below 2000 levels by 2020 — “We have made one commitment and one commitment only, which is to reduce our emissions by 5 percent,” he said – but he continues to dismantle efforts to curb emissions.

Scientists, the bane of spinmeisters like Abbott, are calling bullshit. Climate Action Tracker, which tracks and analyzes countries’ climate pledges, is projecting a 12 percent rise in Australia’s emissions by 2020 under Abbott’s policies.

Canada

Canada and Australia have a lot in common — they are both Western powers rich in mineral resources that they’re only too happy to plunder. And while much of the world jeers the climate developments down under, Canada, which last year abandoned its own efforts to meet its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, has taken the unusual step of cheering them.

“Canada applauds the decision by prime minister Abbott to introduce legislation to repeal Australia’s carbon tax,” Paul Calandra, parliamentary secretary to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, said in a statement. “The Australian prime minister’s decision will be noticed around the world and sends an important message.”

And the love affair between the countries is not just idle pillow talk. During a recent Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Sri Lanka, Australia and Canada joined forces and refused to contribute any funds to a program that would help small and poor countries cope with climate change.

Meanwhile, more than 100 protests were held in Canada over the weekend by those who want more action on climate change. And an estimated 60,000 protestors fighting for the same cause turned out in Australian streets. There seems to be a severe disconnect here.

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: Climate & Energy

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U.N. climate talks: Four countries behaving badly

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Elizabeth Warren Joins the Battle to Overhaul the Senate Filibuster

by Katherined5a Posted on November 14, 2013

Mother Jones

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is lending her voice to the chorus of lawmakers who want substantive changes made to how US senators use the filibuster, the main tool of opposition by the minority party.

The impetus for Warren’s comments came on Tuesday, when Senate Republicans filibustered President Obama’s nominee to the influential DC Circuit Court of Appeals, Georgetown Law Professor Cornelia Pillard. If she’s ever confirmed, Pillard would be the fourth woman on this important federal appeals court, which decides often-consequential cases between the federal government and private parties. Senate Republicans have also filibustered Patricia Millett’s nomination to the appeals court and say they plan to block another appeals court nominee, Robert Wilkins, as well.

In the face of all this obstruction, Warren has joined progressive stalwarts such as Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Tom Udall (D-N.M.) in demanding real changes to how the filibuster is used. “So far they have shut down the government, they have filibustered people President Obama has nominated to fill out his administration, and they are now filibustering judges to block him from filling any of the vacancies with highly qualified people,” she said. “We need to call out these filibusters for what they are: Naked attempts to nullify the results of the last election.”

Warren went on: “If Republicans continue to filibuster these highly qualified nominees for no reason other than to nullify the president’s constitutional authority, then senators not only have the right to change the filibuster, senators have a duty to change the filibuster rules,” Warren said. “We cannot turn our backs on the Constitution. We cannot abdicate our oath of office.”

Whether Warren’s call for filibuster reform results in any actual changes is unlikely. The closest we’ve come in recent years to real filibuster reform came in July, when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid grew so angry at the GOP’s use (abuse, according to the Democrats) of the filibuster that he almost used the so-called “nuclear option”—changing the Senate rules so that a nominee could be confirmed with a simple 51-vote majority instead of 60 votes. At the last moment, Reid, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) cut a deal to avoid the nuclear option and instead confirm a slate of Obama nominees, including EPA administrator Gina McCarthy and Secretary of Labor Tom Perez.

Plan for more close calls like Reid’s July showdown—but with both parties wary of losing the filibuster as a tool for minority power, don’t expect major reform any time soon.

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Elizabeth Warren Joins the Battle to Overhaul the Senate Filibuster

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Floating offshore wind turbines spinning near Fukushima

by genestrong2484 Posted on November 12, 2013

Floating offshore wind turbines spinning near Fukushima

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Even as the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant sits idle, dribbling radiation and awaiting deconstruction, refreshing winds of change are gusting off the nearby shoreline.

A floating wind turbine began operating about 12 miles off the Fukushima coast on Monday, the first of many planned in a region best known for the 2011 meltdown. From Bloomberg:

The project, funded by the government and led by Marubeni Corp., is a symbol of Japan’s ambition to commercialize the unproven technology of floating offshore wind power and its plan to turn quake-ravaged Fukushima into a clean energy hub.

“Fukushima is making a stride toward the future step by step,” Yuhei Sato, governor of Fukushima, said today at a ceremony in Fukushima marking the project’s initiation. “Floating offshore wind is a symbol of such a future.”

The 11-member group’s project so far consists of a 2-megawatt turbine from Hitachi Ltd. nicknamed “Fukushima Mirai.” A floating substation, the first of its kind, has also been set up and bears the name “Fukushima Kizuna.” Mirai means future, while kizuna translates as ties.

The group is planning to install two more turbines by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. with 7 megawatts of capacity each. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has said the floating offshore capacity may be expanded to 1,000 megawatts.

For comparison, the Fukushima Daiichi plant had a capacity of about 4,400 megawatts of electricity, so the new wind farm won’t replace all of its output. Then again, there’s very little chance that the floating wind turbines will ever produce nuclear waste or melt down, triggering years-long evacuations.


Source
Fukushima Floating Offshore Wind Turbine Starts Generating, Bloomberg

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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