Joseph J. Romm's Blog, page 1122

The entire American economy, including renewable energy, benefited from the stimulus bill

Vice President Biden and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) yesterday both released reports showing how much the America Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA, also known as the "stimulus bill") helped the U.S. economy.  The reports are a stunning rebuke to all of those who say the stimulus bill has been ineffective.  CAP's Richard W. Caperton has the story.

The Vice President's report, "The Recovery Act: Transforming the American Economy Through Innovation," details how ARRA has ramped up...

NYT: Vitter's dire prediction that drilling moratorium would be worse than BP oil spill "failed to materialize"

As part of its response to BP's disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Obama administration in June issued a 6-month moratorium on deepwater offshore drilling in order to survey drilling safety measures and prevent a similar spill.

As TP explains, while the oil and gas industry went to court to prevent the moratorium from taking effect, Republicans responded by issuing fear-mongering rhetoric.  The moratorium "could kill thousands of Louisiana jobs," Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) said...

I removed the BP greenwashing ads (again)

I'm very interested in your thoughts on the matter since you are the target audience for the ads that appear on this website.

Many readers were upset when they saw the BP greenwashing ads on Climate Progress over the weekend — I reprint one well-thought-out email below.  Here's the story of how they made it back onto CP.

CAPAF has an outside company, Common Sense Media, that rotates in different ads on the site — but I can object to any individual one.  When the BP ads cropped up a few weeks ...

Waxman and Stupak demand BP detail scope of greenwashing campaign

While on vacation, I missed reposting this Brad Johnson piece from Wonk Room:

In a letter to BP America CEO Lamar McKay, Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) are demanding that BP disclose its "spending on corporate advertising and marketing relating to the the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and relief, recovery, and restoration efforts in the Gulf of Mexico." Their request follows the efforts of Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL) to get answers about BP's massive greenwashing...

Energy and Global Warming News for August 25th: Geoengineering "not a solution" to sea-level rise; Veterans coalition says climate change a security issue

BBC:  Geoengineering 'not a solution' to sea-level rise

Even the most extreme geoengineering approaches will not stop sea levels from rising due to climate change, a study suggests. New research proposes that as many as 150 million people could be affected as ocean levels increases by 30cm to 70cm by the end of this century.

This could result in flooding of low-lying coastal areas, including some of the world's largest cities. The team published the study in the journal PNAS.

Scientists led ...

Stop Prop 23: The 'fact sheet' vs. the facts

The economic benefits of climate and clean energy policies, such as California's Global Warming Solutions Act, or AB 32, are clear.  The Center for American Progress and this blog have reported on the opportunities for growth and job creation from AB 32 several times (see "A California Campaign With Global Consequences" and Economists agree, don't block AB 32!).  The Stop the Dirty Energy Proposition coalition provides additional background here.

Despite this, the oil-funded campaign to pass P...

New Mexico GOP candidates deny global warming reality

We've seen that every GOP Senate candidate in NH is a global warming denier.  We've seen that Republicans across the country are embracing pro-pollution, anti-science candidates.  And so it is with New Mexico, as Brad Johnson explains.

Even though New Mexico is facing a future of perpetual drought, killer heat waves, water scarcity, and wildfires, the crop of Republican candidates for major office in the state are in denial about the threat of global warming pollution.

Gubernatorial...

Energy and Global Warming News for August 24th: Shift to solar power easy, affordable with group-discount program; France announces massive investment in cleantech

Shift to solar power easy, affordable with group-discount program

The high cost of installing solar panels can be one of the biggest roadblocks when it comes to homeowners deciding whether or not to embrace solar energy.

A San Francisco-based company called One Block Off the Grid is hoping to use a combination of government incentives and a group discount to persuade Pittsburgh-area residents to invest in the alterative energy source.

"Most homeowners are only slightly curious about...

New Yorker exposes Koch brothers along with their greenwashing and whitewashing Smithsonian exhibit

Yesterday, the New Yorker published a devastating investigative piece by Jane Mayer that exposes the Koch family's efforts to put together the Tea Party movement and much of the modern right-wing infrastructure.  It builds off the original reporting conducted by ThinkProgress, some of which I've reposted here (see "From promoting acid rain to climate denial — over 20 years of David Koch's polluter front groups").

It also builds off a joint effort by TP and Climate Progress to investigate...

One of many ways climate disinformers mislead

This post by physicist John Cook was first published in Skeptical Science.

In science, the only thing better than measurements made in the real world are multiple sets of measurements – all pointing to the same answer. That's what we find with climate change. The case for human caused global warming is based on many independent lines of evidence. Our understanding of climate comes from considering all this evidence. In contrast, global warming skepticism focuses on narrow pieces of the puzzle ...