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For the first time since 2005, the full Senate chamber is debating climate legislation: the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, or CSA. Although the chances of this legislation becoming law this year are slim, it could lay important groundwork for the next Congress and Administration.
If you want to know the key details about what the CSA proposes and what the remaining sticking points are, go read this excellent Gristmill post by Kate Sheppard – and don’t seek your information from today’s New York Times. As the title suggests, John M. Broder’s NYT article “Senate Opens Debate on Politically Risky Bill Addressing Global Warming” focuses not on the measures Senators propose to address this crucial-to-human-survival issue, but on how they’re spinning the situation. Here’s the opening paragraph:
Despite worsening problems with climate disruption and air pollution, politicians and individuals have kept making bad transportation choices for decades. As a result, we’ve got an unsustainable transportation system full of single-passenger gas-guzzling vehicles, and the only “solution” that politicians have been able to unite around is ethanol, which worsens global hunger and nutrient runoff without producing net energy savings.
There’s a little bit of good news, though. Recent stories suggest that the negative consequences of bad gas choices are finally starting to steer consumers and politicians towards better options:
Major public health organizations are drawing attention to climate change’s effects on health: the American Public Health Association has chosen “Climate Change: Our Health in the Balance” as the theme for National Public Health Week (April 7-13), and the World Health Organization used World Health Day (April 7th) to remind us that we’re already starting to see climate change’s effects on health, and it’s not pretty. We can expect to see more deadly weather events, like Hurricane Katrina and the 2003 European heat wave, as well as more widespread and severe outbreaks of Rift Valley fever, malaria, cholera, and other diseases influenced by climate and weather.
At yesterday’s Public Health Grand Rounds at the George Washington University School of Public Health, Dr. Kristie Ebi – a lead author for the human health chapter of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (PDF) – pointed out that pathogens may not even be the biggest health problem climate change brings (Kaisernetwork.org has a webcast of the event). Farming will become harder due to hotter, drier conditions in some places and sea-level rise in others, so we’ll probably see more widespread hunger and malnutrition. In fact, that seems to be the trend already.
One year ago yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that EPA must formally declare whether greenhouse gases could harm human health, and if they find that they do, regulate automobile greenhouse-gas emissions. Last week, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson revealed the Bush administration’s response to the Court’s requirement: they’re going to drag their feet some more, using the excuse of more information-gathering.
Eighteen states, led by Massachusetts, have responded by filing a petition in federal court, asking the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington to order the EPA to make its determination about greenhouse gases’ harm to human health within the next 60 days. Beth Daley and Stephanie Ebbert of the Boston Globe explain the states’ position:
Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC), a coal industry “astroturf” organization, is sponsoring the Republican presidential debate tonight and Democratic debate tomorrow night, both in California and hosted by CNN. Think Progress has noticed that ABEC has sponsored three previous debates on CNN, and, in each one, there have been no questions about global warming. That’s gotta be some kind of coincidence, right?
In his last state of the union address, President Bush glossed over the seriousness of some of the most pressing problems facing our country, and suggested they could be solved with something that’s been in short supply during his tenure.
“Global climate change” got one brief mention, as something that the nation is committed to confronting with cleaner and more energy-efficient technology. Unacceptable rates of uninsurance and spiraling healthcare costs were obliquely referenced with a stated goal of “making health care more affordable and accessible for all Americans.” Bush invoked technology as the cure for our energy and health care woes, and said this about the energy, medical, and physical sciences research that’s required:
At the second annual Arctic Frontiers conference in Tromsø, Norway, 500 experts are discussing the outlook for oil and gas production in the rapidly warming Arctic. As is all too common these days, they’ll do so without the benefit of all the information that scientists worked hard to compile about the topic. Christoph Seidler reports in Der Spiegel that the final “Arctic Oil and Gas” report, the product of four years’ work by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, is missing 60 recommendations that scientists had compiled for politicians. Can you guess who was behind the editing?
There’s lots of good blogging this week about what our elected (and hoping to be elected) leaders are doing – or at least talking about doing – on climate change:
- David Roberts at Gristmill thinks it’s better to hold out for better federal climate legislation in 2009
- Jonathan Pfeiffer at Science Progress reports on a hearing considering the fate of the polar bear
- Climate Progress applauds a red-state governor for pushing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
- Jovana at Enviroblog tells us what the leading presidential hopefuls drive (or don’t)
- Richard Littlemore at DeSmogBlog reveals Mitt Romney’s ties to a global warming denier group
Elsewhere:
Many of us who grew up in the U.S. took water and electricity for granted, but more and more of us are bumping up against the limits of resources. Three stories in the news this past week illustrate what the difficulties are and how different parties address them.
Over at AlterNet, Grist’s David Roberts and Lisa Hymas have compiled a list of the top 15 environmental stories of 2007. Climate change is the dominant theme, with scientists and Al Gore sounding the alarm and politicians responding (not necessarily in a productive way — see the ethanol item). The list also includes stories we’ve covered here at The Pump Handle: our unsustainable food system, hazardous toys, and judicial rebukes of Bush administration environmental policy.
Is there a big environmental story that’s missing from the list? And what’s the 2008 version likely to include a year from now?
EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson has denied California’s petition to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks—against the advice of technical and legal staff, reports the Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin. Governor Schwarzenegger says his state will sue over the decision, and EPA lawyers and staff predict California will win that suit (just as states have won previous related suits).
Johnson claims that California’s proposed tailpipe emissions standards aren’t necessary, anyway, because the Energy Bill that’s just been approved will boost fuel economy standards to a comparable level. (He neglected to mention that California’s standard requires quicker automaker action and continued improvements over time.) Just like the automakers, Johnson stresses that the federal legislation is better because it protects us all from that terrifying fate: having a patchwork of state standards. Whew – good thing we escaped that one! I’m sure everyone agrees it’s worth the price of rising sea levels, parched crops, and more climate-change-related death and disease.
David Roberts at Gristmill points out that Johnson is being both deceptive and hypocritical here. Read the rest of this entry »
The ”Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007″ (H.R. 6) has passed the House and Senate, and is making its way to President Bush for a signing ceremony today at DOE headquarters. Richard Simon of the Los Angeles Times reports that the measure is getting mixed reviews from interest groups. Opponents, like the Grocery Manufacturers Association, say it will drive up fuel costs, while others, like the Natural Resource Defence Council (NRDC), are generally positive about the bill for its incentives to cut pollution and invest in energy-efficient technologies. I haven’t reviewed the entire 822-page measure, but on the whole it appears the bill some much-needed improvements which could translate into benefits for public health.
Bloggers have been looking at the numbers related to our health. WSJ’s The Numbers Guy sheds light on the calculations behind global HIV-infection figures, which the U.N.’s AIDS agency has revised sharply downwards, and Mead Over at Global Health Policy hopes that the revision will re-focus attention on the need for cost-effectiveness estimates in the global response to AIDS. Shirley S. Wang at the WSJ Health Blog busts the myth that suicide rates rise during the winter holidays, while Merrill Goozner at GoozNews explains a mysterious Congressional Budget Office claim that health care co-pays by individuals have fallen as a share of health care spending.
Elsewhere:
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Over at The Intersection, Chris Mooney has a teaser about his terrific article “An Inconvenient Assessment,” chronicling the effort by the Bush administration, in cahoots with ExxonMobil-funded climate change deniers, to undercut a vitally important climate change report. The longer article appears in this month’s issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
While the report in question, officially known as Climate Change Impacts on the United States: The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, was issued in 2000, it was packed with information that could have informed a national discussion on the potential impacts of climate change over the last seven years. But the report was besieged by climate change deniers and disowned by the federal government.
Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testified on Tuesday at the Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works hearing “Examining the Human Health Impacts of Global Warming.” Yesterday, the Associated Press reported that Gerberding’s written testimony had been severely edited by the White House, which chopped it from 14 pages to 4. Gerberding and spokespersons from the White House and CDC then insisted that everything was fine – the editing process was normal, Gerberding had been able to communicate what she needed to, etc. But a look at the original draft of Gerberding’s testimony, supplied to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution by Physicians for Social Responsibility, shows that the two versions paint very different pictures.
Before this week’s climate conference began, Climate Progress predicted, “The Bush Administration will use every opportunity to create the illusion of action without agreeing to meaningful, binding pollution reductions.” Today, that blog reports that Bush followed “the Frank Luntz playbook on how to seem like you care about the climate when you don’t,” while Bill Miller of DeSmogBlog describes it as “another opportunity lost to histrionics and political posturing.” David Roberts at Gristmill focuses his attention on the media coverage of the event, giving kudos to Washington Post reporters and finding humor in an LA Times piece. Hill Heat has links to even more blogger coverage.
FDA was also in the news this week. Angry Toxicologist is disgusted with the FDA’s record on auditing clinical trials and conducting food inspections. Ed Silverman at Pharmalot reports on drug contamination and the FDA’s plans to issue guidance on the matter. Anna Wilde Matthews at the WSJ Health Blog suggests that the shuffling of top FDA personnel may help the Bush administration avoid new complaints from Democrats.
Elsewhere:
by Liz Borkowski
Bush appointees and polluting industries may oppose states’ attempts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, but courts have been ruling in states’ favor. In April, the Supreme Court found that EPA, contrary to its insistence, does in fact have the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. Last week, a federal judge upheld a Vermont law establishing reduced greenhouse gas emission standards for new cars sold in that state.
Like the Supreme Court justices, U.S. District Judge William Sessions found that state efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions are perfectly in line with what Congress intended when it passed the relevant legislation – and he also didn’t buy assertions by the auto-industry plaintiffs that Vermont’s law would spell disaster for consumers and auto workers.
It no longer seems unusual to see an article in the Washington Post or the New York Times about Bush administration officials interfering with science for political reasons. Over the past week, though, two major news sources that reach a different audience have given this problem a lot of ink.
Most of us already know that climate change is shrinking glaciers, but two recent articles paint an alarming picture of how quickly glaciers are receding – and what that means for millions of people relying on them.
In honor of the 4th of July, Joseph Romm at Gristmill rounds up news of places that have cancelled fireworks displays due to drought, and Janet Stemwedel at Adventures in Ethics and Science explains the chemistry behind firework colors.
As always, the U.S. Independence Day is an occasion for bringing up the “energy independence” idea; actions in this area often fall far short of the rhetoric, though, and this year was apparently no exception. Matt Madia at Reg Watch deems the House’s energy legislation a dud, and Angry Toxicologist reports that California’s governor is not so muscular when it comes to air quality regulations (follow-up here).
Climate change is a big issue in DC these days, and the folks at Gristmill are following the drama. David Roberts updates us on some of the recent developments in Congress, Kate Sheppard tracks efforts to eliminate tax breaks for Hummer purchases, and Van Jones applauds the House Education and Labor Committee’s passage of the “Green Jobs Act of 2007.” They’re also looking at strategies: Sean Casten advises reframing investment in renewables as leveling the playing field, and David Roberts wonders whether it’s wise to demonize House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair John Dingell.
Over at Shifting Baselines, Jack Stern lets us know about ocean-related legislation Congress is set to take up.
Elsewhere, there’s plenty of non-DC-centric blogging:
Revere at Effect Measure updates us on the medical community’s latest plea for Libya to release the six health care workers unjustly sentenced to death for “deliberately infecting” children with HIV, and links to Physicians for Human Rights’ campaign to get the U.S. government to exert more pressure on Libya to free the nurses and doctor. Time is running short: The Libyan Supreme Court may hear the health workers’ appeal as early as the end of the month.
The IPCC Working Group II published their “Summary for Policymakers” on the impacts of climate change, and reports surfaced about disagreements between the scientists who wrote the document and the government representatives who worked out the final text. Lisa Stiffler at Dateline Earth conducts a side-by-side comparison of early and final versions of the report; Mike Dunford at The Questionable Authority explains how facts ought to be used in such a document. Gavin at RealClimate illustrates how different members of the media approach the story by relating three different interviews he gave.
In other global warming news, Adam Browning at Gristmill explains how legislation for a “world-class solar program” made it through the Maryland legislature, and Kevin Grandia at DeSmogBlog reports that ExxonMobil has agreed to disclose its soft money donations following a shareholder proposal from the group As You Sow.
Elsewhere in the blogosphere …
A few hours ago, the Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts vs. EPA that EPA has the authority to regulate carbon dioxide from auto emissions. (For background on the case, see this post.)
David Stout of the New York Times summarizes:
For those who’ve been following the investigations into how the Bush Administration interfered with government climate science, the news about political interference into Interior Department science had a familiar ring.
Chris Mooney sums it up well: “Substitute for Philip Cooney an Interior Department official named Julie MacDonald, and it’s basically the same story as it was with climate change: A political appointee, friendly with industry, overruling the determinations of agency scientists.” (Cooney was chief of staff on the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality – previously with the American Petroleum Institute – who altered government climate science reports.)
Viewed next to the details that came out of the latest hearing into the politicization of climate science, though, MacDonald’s misdeeds are less appalling.
Al Gore’s appearance on Capitol Hill prompted several blog posts. David Roberts at Gristmill liveblogged Gore’s testimony in both the House and the Senate; he and Mike Dunford at The Questionable Authority both devoted blog posts to a memorable encounter between Gore and Senator Inhofe, too. Kevin Vranes at Prometheus weighed in on Gore’s specific proposals and summarized exchanges between Gore and various Senators.
When the sad news about Elizabeth Edwards’ cancer was reported, Orac at Respectful Insolence and Craig Hildreth at The Cheerful Oncologist were quick to provide additional medical context.
In addition:
Today is World Water Day, and this year’s theme is “Coping with Water Scarcity.” In its WWD report (PDF), UN-Water (the official United Nations mechanism for follow-up of the Millennium Development Goals), warns that water scarcity will increase in the coming decades, driven by four main factors:
William Broad’s NYT piece on Al Gore’s global warming science has been causing a stir in the blogosphere this week (original article here). Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt at RealClimate write, “It is rather ironic then that William Broad’s latest piece on Al Gore plays just as loose with [the facts] as he accuses Gore of doing;” David Roberts at Gristmill says it’s “the worst, sloppiest, most dishonest piece of reporting I’ve ever seen in the NYT.” Tim Lambert at Deltoid faults Broad for failing to check out claims made by climate change skeptics and for misrepresenting scientific reports. Chris Mooney at The Intersection takes a different view, since he’s found the science in Gore’s movie to be less than 100% accurate. Matthew C. Nisbet at Framing Science considers the article in the context of how journalists operate.
Moving on to other topics …
Pharmaceuticals seem to be a big topic in the blogosphere this week. Roy M. Poses MD at Health Care Renewal has more on the Zyprexa memos – which, if you haven’t been following this issue, reportedly show that manufacturer Eli Lilly suppressed information about this schizophrenia drug’s harmful side effects. Abel Pharmboy at Terra Sigillata reports on the perils of buying drugs online (and, in a post from last week, he worries about the number of people Googling DCA), and Orac at Respectful Insolence delves into the topic of experimental drug availability.
As has been the trend recently, there are also lots of interesting posts related to climate change. Gar Lipow at Gristmill examines emission trading’s mixed record; Juliane Fry at RealClimate explains the least understood component of the climate system; Joel Makower at Two Steps Forward recaps the many steps taken around climate change over the past 50 days; and Tim Lambert at Deltoid fact-checks a Wall Street Journal op-ed on global warming and DDT.
In other news …
Matt Madia at Reg Watch and Ian Hart at Integrity of Science report on the two House hearings held last week on how the new executive order will affect regulatory agencies. (See our take on the Science & Technology Committee’s hearing here.)
In climate change blogging, Jim Hoggan at DeSmogBlog is critical of Canada’s climate policy, but applauds a new policy statement from British Columbia; Matthew C. Nisbet at Framing Science has some advice on framing the issue; and Gavin at Real Climate invokes the popular TV show CSI to explain how paleo-climate research fits into our understanding of current changes.
Elsewhere in the blogosphere …
In addition to writing about the IPCC report itself, bloggers are dissecting the media and public responses to it. RealClimate wonders why the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board still has its head buried in the sand; Matthew C. Nisbet at Framing Science thought the report should have made more of a splash than it did; and David Roberts at Gristmill notes that there were some good print stories about the report, but public engagement on the issue is lacking.
Meanwhile, the US Congress is still holding hearings about political interference into the work of U.S. government scientists. Ian Hart at Integrity of Science highlights the testimony of Dr. Peter Gleick at the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation’s hearing on Climate Change Research and Science Integrity; Gleick pronounced misuse of science and attacks on scientists to be pervasive and recommended several changes. Chris Mooney at The Intersection has some comments on that hearing, too, and also on the House Science and Technology Hearing on the IPCC report.
On other topics … Read the rest of this entry »
Facing growing public concern about global warming, the US Chamber of Commerce is setting up another yet front group to oppose regulations that will limit greenhouse gases. The Chamber has tentatively named the new group the Institute for Energy Security, Competitiveness and American Jobs. It will be bankrolled by oil companies, electric utilities and automakers, who are expected to pony up about $20 million, according to Jeffrey Birnbaum of the Washington Post. It makes perfect sense, of course. General Motors, Ford, ExxonMobil, and the other corporations that sell products to the public do not want to be labeled as promoters of global warming, but they want to protect their own parochial interests over all else, no matter what the consequences.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released the policymakers’ summary of its 2007 report today, and it was at once a momentous occasion and nothing new. Nothing new, that is, to the people who’ve been following the science for the past few decades and had already figured out that humans are causing global warming and are going to suffer for our folly.
IPCC reports have tremendous authority, because they represent the work of the world’s leading scientists conducting the most comprehensive review of scientific research produced on climate change. Now, they’ve said that they are 90% sure that humans are causing climate change – up from being 66% sure in their 2001 report.
Read the rest of this entry »
By David Michaels
The Guardian newspaper reports that The American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the think tank/public relations firm, has offered scientists and economists $10,000 to undermine the report on global warming issued today by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). According to the report, AEI “offered the payments for articles that emphasize the shortcomings” of the IPCC report.
The offers were made in anticipation of the report, which was released today. In its letters, AEI asserted that the IPCC was “resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work.” So, without reading the report, AEI commissioned rebuttals. Read the rest of this entry »
Friday, February 2, 2007 (3:30 AM EST): Tune in to listen to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) webcast announcing the Working Group I’s approval of their Fourth Asssessment Report. There’s no doubt the global warming naysayers will critique the IPCC’s report with gusto. But, as Naomi Oreskes writes in “Undeniable Global Warming” in today’s Washington Post ”the chatter of skeptics is distracting us from the real issue: how best to respond to the threats that global warming presents.” Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday, the US House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing on “Allegations of Political interference with the Work of Government Climate Change Scientists.” As committee chair Henry Waxman noted in his opening statement, the committee had been investigating this matter for several months, and had good reason to be concerned:
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