Joseph J. Romm's Blog, page 1176

GOP Reps Broun and Paul jump oily shark: BP and Obama conspired on oil spill to push climate bill

The latest right wing conspiracy theories pushed by Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) and Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) make the birthers seem rational.   Think Progress has the story.

Following BP's oil disaster, Republican lawmakers lined up to attack President Obama's response to the spill, particularly efforts to rein in dangerous oil drilling and to create an escrow account to help expedite payments for BP's victims. After a wave of Republicans attacked the escrow account as a "shakedown," Rep. Joe Barton...

New York Times to media: Exonerations of climate science and National Academy report should "receive as much circulation" as "the manufactured controversy known as Climategate" - Journalism in the greenhouse ... or the glass house?

There have since been several reports upholding the U.N.'s basic findings, including a major assessment in May from the National Academy of Sciences. This assessment not only confirmed the relationship between climate change and human activities but warned of growing risks — sea level rise, drought, disease — that must swiftly be addressed by firm action to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

Given the trajectory the scientists say we are on, one must hope that the academy's report, and...

CBO: American Power Act will cut deficit by $19 billion By 2020 - This while creating jobs, cutting oil dependence, and slashing pollution

CAP's Dan Weiss explained the  'energy-only bill' mirage: Why an energy bill could fail without pollution reduction measures or revenue.  Now, according to the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) recent analysis of the American Power Act, released July 7th, we know the APA would not only cut carbon emissions, but also the nation's budget deficit: $19 billion by 2020.  CAP intern Laurel Hunt has the story.

If enacted, the APA, the comprehensive clean energy and climate bill co-sponsored by...

NASA: First half of 2010 breaks the thermometer — despite "recent minimum of solar irradiance"

Following fast on the heels of the hottest Jan-May — and spring — in the temperature record, it's also the hottest Jan-June on record in the NASA dataset [click on figure to enlarge:].

It's all the more powerful evidence of human-caused warming "because it occurs when the recent minimum of solar irradiance is having its maximum cooling effect," as a recent NASA paper notes.

Software engineer (and former machinist mate in the US Navy) Timothy Chase put together a spreadsheet using the data...

Must-see TV: CNBC host slams Competitive Enterprise Institute for pushing Jones Act disinformation: "It's offensive to intelligence"

Few septics push anti-science disinformation more flagrantly than those at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (see "Santer, Jones, and Schneider respond to CEI's phony attack on the temperature record").

But the MSM isn't filled with experts on science, so most climate falsehoods from the big-oil-funded group go unchallenged, no matter how offensive they are to people's intelligence.   On Thursday, however, CEI made so many bogus claims about the federal response to the BP oil disaster...

Bush MMS director defends tenure: "When I was there it seemed to work well"

Johnnie Burton, the director of Bush's Minerals Management Service (MMS) from 2002 to 2007, has no regrets about her tenure, saying in an interview that she found no problems within the agency, now disbanded in disgrace. Burton — at 70 now a case worker for Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) — defended her record to the Caspar, WY, Star-Tribune, as Brad Johnson relates in this Wonk Room cross-post.

Under Burton, the "mismanaged, unaccountable" agency was so corrupt that even pro-drilling...

Money can't buy me sustainability

There are over 10,000 Freecycle mailing lists on Yahoo Groups. Freecycle helps users find free alternatives to purchasing new items.  Image source: Flickr/ premasagar.

Many people subscribe to the notion that buying certain items while eschewing others is the best way to live an environmentally friendly lifestyle. This logic suggests that you vote with your dollar, and if you buy fuel-efficient, organic, and "green" products you're contributing to sustainability. But this CAP

Podesta to Obama: "Nothing less than your direct personal involvement, and that of senior administration officials, can secure America's clean energy future,"

Even as Americans see heartbreaking and infuriating images of damage to the Gulf coast, well-funded and powerful special interests have been working furiously to defeat progress and maintain the status quo. They have recruited their allies to help paralyze the Senate's deliberations over whether and how to reduce oil use and cut global warming pollution, using tactics that have derailed efforts by Presidents for the last 40 years to curtail our ever-growing dependence on oil. A rapidly...

Energy and Global Warming News for July 9: Solar aircraft lands after 26-hour flight; American Power Act cuts deficit $19 Billion; Utilities shift to gas, renewables, efficiency after "mass cancellations of coal-fired plants"*

*Featured post below

Solar-powered aircraft lands after 26-hour flight

A giant glider-like aircraft has completed the first night flight propelled only by solar energy, organizers said on Thursday.

Solar Impulse, whose wingspan is the same as an Airbus A340, flew 26 hours and 9 minutes, powered only by solar energy stored during the day. It was also the longest and highest flight in the history of solar aviation, organisers said.

Bertrand Piccard, the Swiss president of the project, best known...

Eugene Robinson: "The climate science? Don't sweat it."

It's odd how little we've heard lately from the skeptics who deny that climate change is real. What's the matter, people? Heat stroke?

So begins an op-ed piece by Eugene Robinson titled, "On climate change, let cool heads prevail."

It's hardly the best opinion piece ever written on human-caused warming, but the Washington Post op-ed page has been so dreadful on the subject (see "The Washington Post goes tabloid, publishes second falsehood-filled op-ed by Sarah Palin in five months — on...