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2010

The Clean Energy Majority

July 1, 2010

Originally posted on 1Sky

A recent poll from Pew Research Center (subscription required) reminds me of why I'm proud to be a young person in this political climate. The poll shows a clear trend toward support for the environment and clean energy amongst younger people. The poll surveyed 1,010 adults and has a 4 point margin of error (but larger for subpopulations). The sample was then split into subgroups of ages 18-29,30-49,50-64, and 65+.

First, some highlights from the poll:

Every age breakdown of the population (including the 65+ group) favored requiring utilities to generate more of their power from renewable sources. 70% of 65+ year olds favored it, while a stunning 93% of 18-29 year olds favored it - that's about as close to consensus as you get in politics.

When presenting protecting the environment as a (somewhat false) tradeoff with keeping prices low, a clear majority of the population expressed that protecting the environment was more important. 18-29 year olds favored it at 65%/29%, 30-49 year olds 60%/32%, and 50-64 year olds 53%/41%. Only 65+ year olds on average favored keeping prices low 47%/40%.

In every group except the 65+ year olds, at least 2/3 of the sample favored limits on carbon dioxide emissions, with 18-29 year olds favoring carbon limits at 74%.

The first thing that sticks out to me from this poll is that there is clear majority support for strong energy and climate legislation -- senators, take note! Depending upon how their poll broke down by age, it appears that there is likely supermajority support for major provisions of these bills (and in some cases support that blows supermajorities out of the water!).

As a young person, I'm pretty excited by these results. It's pretty well known that the young tend to be more progressive, but this poll also shows that even the 65+ year olds aren't lost on energy issues - in fact, they're pretty close to a split, with every younger age group in support of or in strong support of clean energy and climate change legislation.

Anyway, I know that next time I call my senators or representative I'm going to start by saying that I'm one of the 93% of young voters who supports clean energy. Talk about a clean energy future!

Originally posted on 1Sky

Originally posted on 1Sky

Originally posted on 1Sky

Originally posted on 1Sky

Originally posted on 1Sky

Prop 23: California's Dirty Air Act

Sept. 23, 2010

Originally posted on 1Sky

As a Californian, I thought the broad debate on whether to act on climate change solutions was over in 2006 when the state legislature passed AB 32, California's Global Warming Solutions Act. In 2008, the legislature even passed follow-up legislation that directed specific emissions cuts to come from changes in how we use urban land.

Yet, now I see the most negative portions of the national climate debate back in California. Using our state's powerful and damaging initiative process, opponents of climate change solutions have placed an initiative on the ballet, Prop 23, to repeal AB 32 until unemployment drops below 5.5% for consecutive quarters. California is a state whose monthly unemployment rate in good times, let alone a down economy, tends to ride around 5.5%, so this initiative amounts to nothing more than an effort to kill the bill entirely.

Three things about this initiative get me worked up and angry. First, I see a mirror of the Dirty Air Act efforts in the Senate this last year. Progress has been made on climate change in California and through Clean Air Act requirements nationally, but there are also have major attempts to destroy that progress and the opportunities it presents.

The second, and probably most important thing in my mind, is that this proposition is the pet project of a few wealthy out-of-state donors who don't live in California -- they just stand to make oil money off of it. We're talking here about Valero (upwards of $3.5 million), Tesoro (upwards of $.5 million), a small, Missouri-based foundation ($498,000), Flint Hills Resources (an oil refiner) of Wichita, KS ($1 million), and the recently infamous Koch brothers ($1 million). These companies have given millions of dollars to advance Prop 23 in order to keep their profits flowing at the expense of Californians. On a deep level, that's disgusting to me.

My final major problem with this proposition is that, just like in the debate surrounding EPA's authority under the Clean Air Act, it reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of what carbon reduction does for us and the jobs it can create. As the New York Times writes "The Kochs and their allies are disastrously wrong about the science, which shows that man-made emissions are largely responsible for global warming, and wrong about the economics" (emphasis mine). Maybe that's why California businesses support keeping AB 32 intact. The clean energy jobs sector in California grew 10 times faster than the statewide average since 2005, with the clean technology sector receiving $2.1 billion in investment capital last year.

As a Californian, I want this law. Our state needs it. We have a 12.5% unemployment rate and can't afford to kill one of our most successful sectors through misleading ballot initiatives funded by out of state oil companies. I stand with a broad coalition of groups representing health professionals, economists, environmentalists, and in-state businesses. AB 32 is good for us and Proposition 23 is absolutely toxic. Please support the No on 23 campaign's efforts!

2009

Adopt a Senator for CEJAPA: Byron Dorgan

Originally posted on Daily Kos

I’ll save you the trouble of reading everything and do this quickly: Is Byron Dorgan likely to vote yes for the bill? No. For cloture? Possibly. Do we really need him? Absolutely.

Byron Dorgan is a moderate Democrat from North Dakota, which is, on the whole, more conservative than he is. He is nearing the end of his third term as a Senator, which is likely pushing him to think about his actions in the frame of the election he will soon be facing – though he won each of his three previous elections with sizable margins.

Unless you are particularly active in the political arena, you may not have heard of Dorgan. But make no mistake, he is one of the most important Senators in this fight right now, and he has not been positioning himself to vote for CEJAPA, or any other bill that comes along with a cap and trade component. In fact, in 2008, Dorgan was one of only four Democrats to vote against cloture for the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act. Still, he is not our enemy, and is a potential ally if he can be convinced that the market solution is the middle ground and that speculation can be controlled.

Senator Dorgan: Vital Stats

Many of you may be wondering why Dorgan is so important. He is not in the leadership or on relevant committees (though he does sit on ENR, they already did their damage to the climate bill with the worse-than-bad ACELA), his record on environmental issues is decent, and he seems to be supportive of energy measures. In short, the problem is that Dorgan could do a lot of damage. He is already being very vocal about his disapproval of carbon markets, but could actually be a potential ally since he has stated that he feels we must act on climate change and is supportive of energy legislation. In speeches, such as the one he gave Friday morning on the Senate floor, he talks of the benefits of energy independence and renewables, then immediately transitions into expansion of drilling, mythical zero-emissions coal, and why he distrusts cap and trade (we’ll get to that).

Finally, Dorgan comes from a state that is particularly rich in two very desirable resources – coal and wind. As a result, he is one of the Senators pushing for the severely watered down “all of the above” approach to energy rather than pushing for bold action toward clean energy.

What he has (mostly) right
Despite the gloomy picture I just painted, Byron Dorgan leaves a lot of room to work with him. He is very passionate about energy independence and actively pushes for us to use the supplies of energy we have in the United States – though he refers more to coal than renewables. Dorgan approaches the energy security situation with the urgency we demand and is pushing for quick action on energy, but has failed to transfer that urgency into climate or the right solutions to energy security.

Dorgan has shown a general understanding of a need to change the energy system, but does not yet have a grasp of just how significantly it must change. He will adjust only when it is convenient and the research has made alternative energy cheap, stating: "I think we ought to do a lot of everything and do it well." If helping stop climate goes along with this minor energy shift, then he's for it, but he has made it clear that climate alone is not a priority.

Where we run into trouble
In spite of his professed desire for energy security - and through energy security, climate security - Dorgan has an amazing cognitive dissonance with respect to actually taking any action. The result of this dissonance is a deep usage of market perversion as the reason to take no action on climate.

Dorgan is extremely distrustful of markets. He references speculation as his justification, saying in a recent speech: “I...do not have any interest in consigning the price of energy tomorrow to the decisions in a $1 trillion carbon securities market that will be populated by investment banks and speculators today that are going to tell us what they believe the price of carbon should be tomorrow.” His fear of speculation is his primary concern with cap and trade and the reason he is using to position himself for a "no" vote on the climate bill.

In fact, most of his concerns about excessive speculation in carbon markets are addressed very seriously in ACES and CEJAPA.  Our good friend Joe Romm notes that Dorgan’s recent op-ed in the Bismark Tribune contained information “that mostly suggest he might actually be a real fence-sitter — and a potential filibuster buster — if somebody actually explained the bill to him and worked to address his concerns."

On climate issues as a whole, Dorgan seems to have no trouble leaving those issues for later and would like to split the bill into an energy bill and climate bill to be considered someday later. He has mostly paid climate lip service in his statements on energy legislation, saying "I feel very strongly there's something going on with our climate. We need to be attentive to it, we need to deal with it, but as we do, we have to be smart." To put the nail in the coffin, he then said that climate change legislation "may not be this year. May not even have the votes next year."

Points of Engagement
Dorgan needs to understand the urgency of the problem. He has said that he would like to draw out the timeline in order to make sure its done right and avoid introducing new points of speculation, while still saying this is an urgent problem. Further delay on climate right now will push the timeline back until 2011 at the soonest, at which point our urgency is lost. Convincing him that we need to craft our best legislation now and monitor it for leaks later will be key. To help him move more quickly, we need to highlight the following:

  1. Properly regulated and controlled markets, such as the one in ACES, have significant stability.
  2. ACELA is too weak to even meet Dorgan's stated goals. We need something as strong as, or stronger than, ACES to make a difference.
  3. Due to its wind resources, North Dakota stands to gain significantly in jobs and infrastructure from a climate bill.

Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman devoted an entire column to the issue of speculation where he made the most important counterargument to the anti cap-and-trade arguments that Dorgan and other moderate Democrats have been using. In this column - likely inspired by Dorgan's op-ed, he argued that the possibility of speculation is inevitable in any market for a commodity that can be traded and stored into the future. He adds that this inevitability has not led us to stop trading commodities such as oil and wheat and that it should not stop us from trading carbon either. Finally, he says (emphasis mine):

By all means keep a watchful eye on speculators and regulate derivatives — and make market manipulation illegal, as Waxman-Markey does. But don’t apply standards to emissions trading that you don’t apply to any other market.

The solution to climate change must rely to an important extent on market mechanisms — it’s too complex an issue to deal with using command-and-control.

In addition to Krugman's arguments, Senators Snowe and Feinstein have been refining carbon market oversight language since 2007 and will likely push for its inclusion in this bill. My understanding is that this language is even stronger than ACES, which already controls the market quite well.

Dorgan has also cited ACELA's "advancement" in a number of speeches. But let's be clear: ACELA is a wolf in sheep's clothing because it does nothing under the guise of doing everything and Dorgan needs to know that. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), among others, estimates that many provisions in ACELA are less than business-as-usual. We need to emphasize this information with Dorgan and stress that ACELA will not achieve his goals of energy security and must be amended on the floor to include stronger renewable energy provisions.

Finally, any climate bill is going to be good for North Dakota, even beyond the national and international benefits of humanity, security, cleaner air, and a stronger ecosystem. A price on carbon and green jobs provisions in the bill will help bring jobs and clean energy to his state. With North Dakota's significant wind resources, his state can gain numerous jobs and become one of the largest exporters of energy in the nation. However, due to the state of the grid and the barriers to investment, transmission incentives and investment in legislation are extremely important.

Thanks both to sherijr and RLMiller for their time and help in writing and editing this diary.

Keeping a rational middle ground in the climate debate

Originally posted on Daily Kos

It's no secret that climate change action has its detractors. The media, in a somewhat misguided attempt to provide balanced reporting, covers denier lies and inactivist talking points as if they are facts and productive action. From firsthand work in attempting to get a climate bill passed, I have increasingly felt that the debate has shifted from a continuum of positions into two distinct camps of "do something" and "do nothing." The do nothing crowd has it easy. Their primary job is to say "no" to everything that comes across the table, and they have become very good at doing just that and mobilizing their base to do that as well. They have lost their credibility through fraud campaigns, outright lies, and general deception.

But they're not what this diary is about.

This diary is about the people (namely the senators) still left in the middle who publicly say they want to "do something" but who have also criticized approaches such as cap and trade, gas taxes, feebates, and just about every other tool that has come across the table. I'm going to exacerbate the Us vs. Them mentality here and tell them to choose a side, but also say that I'd really like it to be the "do something" side - and they don't have to agree with us just yet.

In an excellent article at the Jewish Policy Center, David Jenkins, the Vice President for Government and Political Affairs at Republicans for Environmental Protection notes:

Opponents of Waxman-Markey (The 2009 American Clean Energy and Security Act) are often shocked to learn that cap-and-trade has a conservative pedigree that can be traced back to the Ronald Reagan White House. While serving as counsel for Vice President George H.W. Bush, C. Boyden Gray became enamored with the idea of emissions trading as a market-friendly alternative to the "command and control" pollution reduction approach typically favored by bureaucrats.

He then reminds us that our nation's first cap and trade system was implemented by President George H. W. Bush as part of the Clean Air Act Amendments. Another landmark environmental law brought to you in part by non-obstructionist Republican government - a dying breed today. Take particular note that cap and trade is a market-friendly compromise. Many liberals, though certainly not all, would prefer a straight tax or feebate approach along with price floors and clean energy mandates (some of which is present in the legislation being debated currently - though it is very weak). Tom Friedman notes in Hot, Flat, and Crowded that he himself would personally prefer a carbon tax for reasons of economic certainty (among others).

Now that we've been reminded of how cap and trade is actually a compromise - and it is - how do we use this to bring these "do something, but not that" individuals back into the discussion? My impression is that the senators of this viewpoint are, in fact, being heavily engaged already by "do something" senators such as John Kerry. But I also feel that we must all be ready to bring average citizens in to support this viewpoint too, and the center is getting increasingly lonely.

Rather than continuing to dismiss people who dislike cap and trade as being the opposition, we must reach out and ask them - if not cap and trade, then what would you prefer instead? What do you see as the solution to the climate crisis? Remind them that this debate is not for people who only say "no." Inaction is not an option. But if they say no, but then counter with a preferred, and adequate, solution, then we ought to work with them. Having an opinion that cap and trade, as currently written, may have unintended consequences is a valid opinion and we need to explore it. These opinions should be prompts for discussion on the most effective, watertight ways to achieve reductions while minimizing harm to those consumers who can't afford it. This welcoming needs to also include those who merely want to slow action for a short time while we study all possible options. We must not treat these people like deniers because if we treat them as if they are in the "no" camp, then they will eventually be there.

However, often this delay is in search of the perfect legislation that will magically fix climate change and cost people nothing.I'll tell you right now that it doesn't exist, but that the most fiscally responsible way to deal with the problem is still to write legislation that costs something but that targets the burden to appropriate, equitable parts of society. Those who say they want to do something but that they don't want it to cost anything are probably posturing, but we need to invite them into the debate to make sure - they have already taken that first step and with the right information, they could take another. They don't need to agree with us to be invited in, but they need to have opinions that stimulate action rather than inaction.

I understand that numerous individuals and groups are already reaching out to this middle and doing an excellent job of it. I also understand that the need for action is extremely urgent. But as I found myself slowly drifting into the mindset of Us vs. Them, I felt the need to articulate that the best way to ensure that the middle ground stays rational is to invite them into the fold.

2008

Election theft, power, and apathy

Originally posted on the blog of the Roosevelt Institution, which has since been taken down

January 4th, 2008

Right now, my sister is waking up in Kenya to begin the day. She is one of only 34 U.S. citizens, mostly Peace Corps volunteers like her, who will be evacuated from the country today due to the violence surrounding the recent elections (other Americans remain in the country because the official State Department stance remains that of support). For the past week, she and her cohorts have been on lockdown, forbidden to move, due to safety concerns if they were to go outside. Food, coal, and mental engagement dwindled as the country ground to a halt: stores closed, television broadcasts were stopped, and most people didn't dare go outside. My sister, who was normally stationed in a town called Voi, happened to be traveling in the Rift Valley at this time, where most of the violence is occurring. Until a few days ago, she and her friends were holed up in the house of one of the volunteers. Then, recognizing the potential danger as houses burned nearby, the Peace Corps moved them all to Walter Reed Tea Plantation, a guarded United States research facility nearby that would require minimal travel. Now, leaving a country that is falling apart will be a mixed blessing for her. She will certainly be safe - but she was already safer than most others in the country. However, she will hate to leave people to suffer in fighting for rights that we so often take for granted.

So, this brings us to what this post is really about. In Kenya, a relatively new democracy compared to the United States, they are fighting and dying for their democratic power. While much of this violence is improperly aimed at neighbors who happen to be members of other tribes, the spark of this violence certainly came from the fraud that occurred during the election. To them, stealing an election is a transgression punishable by death, which leads me to ask: when did we stop taking our elections so seriously?

I don't mean to suggest that we start killing anyone when our elections are stolen. Instead, let's consider why we don't take to the streets, showing that we as citizens, disapprove of this manipulation of democracy regardless of whether we voted for the person who stole the election

Our country has a history of election fraud. Speculation abound, Kennedy may not have won in 1960 had it not been for Mayor Daly's famous ways of allowing dead people to vote (some precincts in Kenya this year reported turnout as high as 115 percent - similarly suspicious). On the other side of the aisle, there have been doubts cast on the legitimacy of both of the last two elections in the U.S (for an excellent assessment, see Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Was the 2004 election stolen?). In this country, votes end up in bays or are unreadable and large portions of our population have been selectively disenfranchised for various reasons. And still, we do not take to the streets to protest these injustices.

I see five main possible reasons for this. The first of these is that our country is older. We can safely say that there are no people alive who remember the revolution. This is not so in Kenya where memories of the creation of their country after colonial rule are still in the minds of some people. Some of these people watched their country go through its slow transformation to democracy. This argument is bolstered by the protests that occurred in Ukraine in late 2004 after revelations of fraud in their elections. With Ukraine's government being so new, the people took to the streets when they saw fraud in their elections

This ties into the second reason: individual power. Here in the U.S., many people have given up their right to vote voluntarily. In Kenya, people frequently travel large distances and stand in line for hours just to vote. It's their source of power - the way they can influence the future for the better. Taking this away takes away a principle source of power and ability. Such a lack of power leads us to reason number three. It seems that the Kenyans have very little faith in the ability of their court system to effectively resolve these sorts of issues (or any issues), which is not a sentiment that is felt as widely here in the United States. With very little outlet or hope for resolution, they take matters into their own hands where we might take it to court.

The fourth reason is the difference in the timing of such revelations of election fraud. While there is often speculation of elections being stolen here in the United States, even only a day after an election, we often have little concrete evidence until much later when cooler heads prevail. In Kenya, there was proof of fraud even before the election when premarked ballots were found on police officers (who were killed by a mob for possessing these ballots), and the proof continues to unravel today. With so much evidence so soon after the election, it is easy to argue that it is such information is acted on more harshly when it is closer to the election itself.

Finally, I feel that a stolen election means much less to our daily lives than it does to theirs. It does not generally change our sources or availability of food (at least not in a way which we can clearly associate it), nor does it change our ability to have shelter and security (for most of us, anyway). To the Kenyans, it seems that it is much easier to associate government actions with day to day life.

Still, all of these ideas are the speculation of someone who is 13 time zones away. With the Internet, I can read about what it going on in real time, but I certainly cannot experience it. However, I think that as we watch this unravel, we must consider why they respond with such force to corruption of elections while we sit and watch it happen. We can call them crazy or "savage" (as I heard someone say yesterday), but maybe we're the ones who are crazy not to fight for our rights. These days, rhetoric flies of fighting for freedom and democracy - I think next time we should consider fighting for ours when it matters.

Election '08: Silent on Darfur

Originally posted on the blog of the Roosevelt Institution, which has since been taken down

While researching presidential candidates today (since California votes on Feb. 5th and I should inform myself), I discovered a disappointing trend in candidate issues and positions. Despite the existence of large quantities of information on the issues of most of these candidates (as there should be), few of them touch on the Genocide in Darfur in their issues sets. Additionally, few have addressed it substantially in their informal documents.

Seeing this trend, I decided to undertake a quick study and will lay out a few numbers below - I’ll leave the analysis to others as I am not allowed to and will not endorse candidates here (no matter what their position on this issue is). Regardless of individual candidates’ positions, I find the overall lack of visibility for this genocide in this election to be disconcerting.

To keep things simple, I have taken the top four candidates of each party (as according to the most recent polls conducted by NBC and the Wall Street Journal) - inclusion here is not an endorsement of their candidacy or policies but simply due to them polling in the top four. I have included an assessment of the amount of material available on their website regarding darfur (if any), as well as a Google search of their site for the word “Darfur.” (Note that this metric may be missing some actual pages - I have noticed at least one case where a page on a candidate’s site was not included in the Google results - use your discretion) If a candidate’s site provides a downloadable booklet regarding their policies, I have also indicated whether or not they mention Darfur in it.

Hillary Clinton:

Web Site: 1 mention on “Restoring America’s Standing in the World” page
Google Search: 37 results - search terms were site:www.hillaryclinton.com Darfur - link
Booklet: Not mentioned

Barack Obama:

Web Site: Mentioned as part of link to Foreign Policy page, but not on page itself
Google Search: 58 results - search terms were site:www.barackobama.com Darfur - link - note that community sites at my.barackobama.com were excluded and contained approx 2000 results
Booklet: Not mentioned

John Edwards:

Web Site: Contains a page describing Darfur and Uganda strategies as well as a page with an action letter for Darfur
Google Search: 17 results - search terms were site:www.johnedwards.com Darfur - link
Booklet: Contains a section on Darfur and Uganda and strategies for aid

Dennis Kucinich:

Web Site: No mention (however, he does mention other issues on Africa)
Google Search: 1 Result - search terms were site:www.dennis4president.com Darfur - link
Booklet:N/A

John McCain:

Web Site: No issue statement, but the site does include a 2004 opinion editorial on Darfur
Google Search: 38 results - search terms were site:www.johnmccain.com Darfur - link
Booklet: N/A

Mike Huckabee:

Web Site: No mentions
Google Search: 6 results (mostly blog comments) - Search terms were site:www.mikehuckabee.com Darfur - link
Booklet: N/A

Mitt Romney:

Web Site: No mentions
Google Search: 1 Result (the result is the booklet below) - Search terms were site:www.mittromney.com Darfur - link
Booklet: 2 mentions, but no strategy

Rudy Giuliani:

Web Site: No mention
Google Search: 29 results - most of them seem to refer to him mentioning Darfur in campaign stops and speeches - Search terms site:www.joinrudy2008.com Darfur - link
Booklet: N/A

So, there you have it. Note again that this is not any sort of scientifically valid measurement. We have no basis for comparison (though these numbers could be compared to another issue - but we would certainly expect other issues to vary) and we are not using perfect methods of searching.

However, I personally think a lot is still said with this information. Only one major presidential candidate exists with a point by point strategy for Darfur and a few more who mention it as something that should be dealt with. Regardless of whether those candidates will attempt anything to help Darfur if elected, this lack of talk about Darfur in this sector of the campaigns removes public exposure from the crisis in Darfur, potentially making it harder to deal with when the next president takes office.

My Child

Originally posted on the blog of the Roosevelt Institution, which has since been taken down

A few years ago, I found out that I have a child. Given my relationships with women, this was quite a surprise to me. Nevertheless, I have a kid - one with real problems, real needs, a real future, and a real need for good parenting. One I need to make serious sacrifices for.

As a 20 year old male, the presence of a child makes my future mildly distressing. In part due to this fear, it is sometimes easier to ignore a kid when you first find out you have one. Since this child does not yet live with me, it was even easier to talk about her but not truly help. Finally, I decided to start making my actions coincide with my words and I began the path toward being a good father. Surprisingly, I have not started a college fund, I still don’t see my kid, nor do I pay any child support.

In fact, I don’t even know her name. But I’m not a bad father.

My child hasn’t been born yet - but this is an unimportant factor. The time for me to begin being a good parent is right now, or maybe even years ago. When my daughter (or son) is born, it will be far too late for me to make the world the place it needs to be for her to succeed and have a safe, comfortable future in a world with food and water and without disease, famine, and war.

In our society, when one thinks of a parent doing everything to ensure their child succeeds, it typically deals with the standard issues of education, living space, social activities, sports, food, transportation, and other (usually financial or emotional) topics. While these are all certainly important, it is time to break this paradigm.

What it means to be a good parent today means dealing with the tough issues our society faces as quickly as possible. My child cannot have a hope of growing up safely in a world that is being changed by global warming. What about my grandkids, growing up when California - the most populous state in the Union and where I currently live - is predicted by most models to have about 20% of the snowpack that it currently has, making water in short supply? As much as we like to think of ourselves as a civilized society, and we may well be, I have a hard time believing that when water is not flowing freely out of taps because it is in short supply that people will not die at the hands of others looking for water security. Right now, climate change is a matter of forward-thinking and morality. In 100 years, it will be a matter of life or death for many, and not just those in undeveloped countries.

There are definitely other issues to deal with before my kid arrives in my home - a breaking educational system, health care, and the societal values of war and destruction over peace and helping other humans around the world - but they are not what this story is about, though I recommend keeping them in mind. Instead, I want everyone to understand that global warming is the issue of our generation and every generation that does and will exist until we have solved it. If we succeed at transforming everything else, we will still have failed our children if we don’t address global warming because it has the potential to cripple other systems unless we start planning now. It is that serious.

There are detractors who will attempt to convince anyone who will listen that global warming is either a myth or is not caused by humans. I will not attempt to disprove them - there are other resources for that. Instead, I will say that human-caused or not, we still owe it to our children to do what we can to save for them what is left of the future. Even if we did not know that humans are having a large effect on the environment, we still do know that change is coming and we have the ability to fight back.

So, we must undertake the biggest challenge I can conceive of, and we must do it as parents because we will not live long enough to see the effects - only long enough to stop them. What do we do? Call your representatives and tell them that you will NOT vote for them unless they make climate change a priority (or for the less radical, simply tell them you want them to make climate change a priority). Tell them to invest money in climate change research and to put money into programs for clean power, both here and abroad (our role as a climate change contributer is lessening, but only because other nations are growing). Find alternative modes of transportation (this won’t necessarily be easy, but have courage). Invest in socially responsible mutual funds and companies and avoid the others - they don’t need your money. Buy products that are energy efficient and which were made on energy efficient equipment (find some here). Buy less (do you really need that seventh pair of shoes or that double latte?). Make sacrifices. Most parents say they will make sacrifices for their children. Well, the sacrifices need to start now because they cannot start later and still be effective.

When my child arrives in my home, I, for one, will not look her in the eye and tell her that I did not do everything I could to make her life safe. I will not tell her that the human race was too weak-willed to stop ourselves from destroying her future. I hope you won’t need to either.

An Easy 10 Year Challenge

Originally posted on the blog of the Roosevelt Institution, which has since been taken down

By now, most of you have probably heard of the challenge issued by Al Gore: generate 100% of our power from sources that do not contribute (significantly) to global warming - and do it within 10 years. Many have quickly embraced this idea while many others have scoffed at it as being impossible. While each of these is likely appropriate, I believe that there is great precedent for achieving this goal.

The United States Government has a long history of subsidizing or conducting research on cutting edge science. The Manhattan Project, lasted 7 years, employed 130,000 people and cost only 24 billion 2008 adjusted US Dollars (1). The Apollo Project cost $135 Billion 2005 dollars and took only 8 years to put humans on the moon from the point in 1961 when John F. Kennedy issued the challenge (2). Each of these projects was dealing with areas of science with great uncertainty in achieving the goals and where failure or error could be catastrophic.

The beautiful thing about Al Gore’s challenge though is that he has given us more time to achieve our goals than the Manhattan Project or the Apollo Project - and he issued the challenge for an area in which we already have the technology: solar, wind, geothermal, biofuels, nuclear. All the research that is needed is work to make these technologies cheaper, more carbon neutral (I’m looking at you, biofuels) or more dependable. Numerous groups are already conducting this research, but they need more funding (and 135 billion dollars over 8 years apparently goes a very long way).

I would also argue that the challenge has been issued for an even more critical sector than either the Manhattan Project or the Apollo Program. While each of these was justified under a national security agenda with added benefits from scientific understanding to other sectors, the same argument could be made for climate change. Cleaning up our energy portfolio would vastly secure our country’s interests here and abroad by reducing foreign reliance and the technology to be gained could have untold benefits for the economy and the world at large. In stark contrast, the consequences of not acting are looking more catastrophic every day.

It is time for the United States to wake up and see how simple it would be to green our energy portfolio. Where we once held back at Kyoto, we would now be taking bold steps that no other nation has committed to, hopefully gaining back some lost respect in the world. Where we were once the world’s biggest polluter (second only to China now, unless you count per capita where we still “win”), we would see a huge reduction in our overall carbon footprint. Policy and leadership can make this happen. Pressure from the populace can make this happen. Political will can make this happen.

Call your senators and representatives. Tell them that you want them to meet Al Gore’s challenge and that it would be easy and cheap - remind them of the precedent discussed here and that they can be remembered as bold leaders for taking action. It is certainly an easy road to stronger, cleaner, more secure country.

Carbon Office-Sets

Originally posted on the blog of the Roosevelt Institution, which has since been taken down

Growing up in California, I have been fortunate enough to see the many levels of prevailing environmentalism that the state has gone through in the last two decades. First, we were encouraged not to waste water because the state was in a drought. Next it was “don’t waste paper - recycle it or reuse it.” Then came the full blown recycling systems which did cans, plastic, and paper (but which are only now becoming full recycling systems). I still remember the song from the radio - “recycle, reduce, reuse - close the loop.” Next, we conserved our energy, not because of any sort of environmentalist ideals, but because of mismanagement of the state’s energy policy and the resulting years of energy crisis. This crisis led me to continuously annoy my family by regularly moving through the house turning off lights, though they often were not done with the room I had turned off a light in.

Now, the movement has shifted to a consumer-driven campaign for sustainability (the new buzzword). The buzz in the business community seems to be about how businesses can reduce their carbon footprint and appear to be more sustainable to their clients in the hopes that a "green" image will pick up new a new niche of clientele. I know it works for me, and many businesses are smart enough to capitalize on this.

However, government is not as quick to respond. Our environmental law seems perpetually stuck in 1894. The major federal laws governing mining claims were passed in the 1870s, despite massive changes in how mining is done. California’s law still fails to recognize the significant connections between surface water and ground water with potentially disastrous results for the state’s agricultural economy. While there have been some bills aimed at reducing energy consumption, many of them have failed (except for a few wildly successful greenhouse gas bills here in CA (See AB32 and AB1493). Some comprehensive national efforts have been made, but with little success.

Most of these current efforts seem to be focused on efficiency or offsets (which are themselves somewhat dubious), and ignore the low-hanging fruit: using less energy. I work for a relatively small unit of the University of California (my position is not directly affiliated with any one school) that shares a building with four other units of the same department. Despite being a building full of environmental, conservation, and sustainability geeks, this building is woefully inefficient. Dozens of lights remain on 24 hours a day, regardless of usage. Machines remain in standby mode overnight. Air conditioning systems have often had tight schedules that cool at 74 degrees and heat at 72 degrees, contradicting the thermostat in the next room over. Despite availability, natural light is rarely used as a primary lighting source, with many people opting to keep blinds closed.

This inefficiency has led me to what I call my carbon-office sets. What I do (and encourage all of you to do in your respective offices) is turn off things that are likely to go unnoticed. My building has fewer than 10 males, but the bathroom light is on all day and night. So I turn it off. What I have discovered is that with the natural light in the room, most of the men don’t even bother turning it back on (until the next day when it is turned on after cleaning by the custodial staff). The copyroom is used only a few times per day (as is the lunchroom), but also has full-time lighting. So I turn off the lights. The switches are available for those who want to use them, and nobody seems to care. My coworkers’ monitors and speakers remain in standby, leaching that extra bit of energy away. So when they leave, I turn them off.

Each of these changes is small, but adds up significantly due to the amount of time that these lights and machines are off. Yet, the fact that these inefficiencies remain at all points to a need for more education campaigns of the type being put out by PG&E. Remind people of the cumulative effects and they will change their lifestyles. Right now, they simply don’t understand the impacts. Another important factor to consider is that many people who might pay attention to these lights at home will not pay attention at work. Maybe this difference is due to a feeling that the decisions have already been made at the office and that they should not intrude - or maybe it’s simply because it doesn’t cost them at work. Offices can address this by encouraging workers to pay attention to efficiency (and save the company money) and remind people that even if they don’t pay the monetary costs, they will pay the costs of their energy usage in time through carbon emissions.

So what does it actually mean to be a green business (or state agency)? Delivering a product that is harvested, produced, and delivered with sustainable practices is one thing, but if your business is inefficient in its office, then it is missing a huge portion of the equation.  So do your part as a business. Don’t just purchase offsets; do your office-sets as well.