Scientist proves conservatism and belief in climate change aren't incompatible Jan 5, 2011 Los Angeles Times Neela Banerjee
Jan. 5, 2011 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- REPORTING FROM CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- According to the conventional wisdom that liberals accept climate change and conservatives don't, Kerry Emanuel is an oxymoron.
Emanuel sees himself as a conservative. He believes marriage is between a man and a woman. He backs a strong military. He almost always votes Republican and admires Ronald Reagan.
Emanuel is also a highly regarded professor of atmospheric science at MIT. And based on his work on hurricanes and the research of his peers, Emanuel has concluded that the scientific data show a powerful link between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.
"There was never a light-bulb moment but a gradual realization based on the evidence," Emanuel said. "I became convinced by the basic physics and by the better and better observation of the climate that it was changing and it was a risk that had to be considered."
As a politically conservative climatologist who accepts the broad scientific consensus on global warming, Emanuel occupies a position shared by only a few scientists.
In much the same role that marriage and abortion played in previous election cycles, denial of climate change has now become a litmus test for the right.
The vast majority of Republicans elected to Congress during the midterm election doubt climate science, and senior congressional conservatives -- Republican and Democrat -- have vowed to fight Obama administration efforts to curtail greenhouse gas emissions.
That's why scientists such as Emanuel rattle the political pigeonholes. Some are speaking out, using their expertise and conservative credentials to challenge what many researchers consider widespread distortions about climate change.
Texas Tech atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe is an evangelical Christian who travels widely talking to conservative audiences and wrote a book with her husband, a pastor and former climate change denier, explaining climate change to skeptics.
A physicist by training, John Cook is an evangelical Christian who runs the website skepticalscience.com, which seeks to debunk climate change deniers' arguments. Barry Bickmore is a Mormon, a professor of geochemistry at Brigham Young University and the blogger behind Anti-Climate Change Extremism in Utah, where he recently rebuked Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) for his climate views and posted editorials mentioning his Republican affiliation.
Emanuel waded into the fray early last year. He wrote a letter to the Wall Street Journal criticizing a friend and colleague for dismissing the evidence of climate change and clinging "to the agenda of denial." Then Emanuel added his name to the Climate Science Rapid Response Team, a website run by scientists to provide accurate information from top researchers in climate-related fields.
"I've always rebelled against the thinking that ideology can trump fact," said Emanuel, 55. "The people who call themselves conservative these days aren't conservative by my definition. I think they're quite radical."
Paradoxically, over the last 40 years, it was conservative Republican administrations that pushed through the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the signing of the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Air Act.
But today, most conservatives have lined up against scientists -- and transformed what started out as a technical issue into one dominated by ideology and sometimes religion.
"Kerry is a self-avowed conservative," said Michael Mann, a climate scientist who called Emanuel "a leading light" in the field. "But that has no bearing on his view that human-caused climate change is a reality -- that, after all, is a scientific issue, not a political issue," he said.
A 2009 poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that only 6% of scientists called themselves Republicans, compared with 55% who identified themselves as Democrats.
A separate October 2009 Pew survey showed a marked decline from 18 months earlier in the number of people who accept global warming, with only a third of Republican respondents saying they saw solid evidence of climate change, the lowest percentage among any partisan group.
"Conservatives tend to gravitate to skepticism because conservatives are inherently suspicious of an expanding government taking more and more of their money and liberty," wrote James M. Taylor, senior fellow in environment policy at the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank in Chicago.
"On the other hand, liberals tend to gravitate to alarm-ism because they have little fear of an expansive government and tend to welcome government replacing private individuals or corporations as key drivers of the global economy," he said.
Emanuel dislikes applying the word "skeptic" to those who deny climate change. He says all scientists are skeptical; that's the nature of the field. His own innate skepticism meant that it took him longer than his colleagues to be persuaded of climate change, Emanuel said.
He remembers thinking it ridiculous when a noted climatologist told Congress in 1988 that he was all but certain that the climate was changing. Yet, as analysis of climate data advanced through the 1990s and Emanuel found a relationship between hurricanes and climate change in his own work, he came to see a link between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.
Climate change deniers, including many in Congress, contend that because the science is not "settled," the government should not act to curtail greenhouse gases.
"Scientists are being asked to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that there is an imminent danger before we as a society do anything," Emanuel said. "The parallel to that is saying, 'You won't buy property insurance unless I can prove to you that your house will catch on fire right now.' "
Although more scientists are pushing back against climate change denial, Emanuel is not convinced it can help, given the corporate interests and the weight of the GOP arrayed against them. All of this is making him reconsider his political loyalties: For the first time in his life, he voted for a Democrat, Barack Obama, in 2008.
"I am a rare example of a Republican scientist, but I am seriously thinking about changing affiliation owing to the Republicans' increasingly anti-science stance," he wrote in an e-mail. "The best way to elevate the number of Republican scientists is to get Republican politicians to stop beating up on science and scientists."
Newstex ID: KRTB-1430-50678828
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1.08.2011
Re: News: More Republican Skepticism on Climate Change and Global Warming
1.01.2011
Solar Electric System 2011 Special
12.31.2010
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Green Build Blog Posts- Best of 2010
| Hear are the popular green blog posts for the this year. My best to you and yours in the coming year. I encourage everyone to be Green in the coming year. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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12.29.2010
Re: DOE-Loan Guarantee 1.3 billion for Oregon Wind Farm 845 Megawatts
Department of Energy Finalizes Loan Guarantee to Support World's Largest Wind Project
Caithness Shepherds Flat project
845-Megawatt Wind Facility Will Create Hundreds of Jobs and Avoid Over 1.2 Million Tons of Carbon Dioxide Annually.
Washington D.C. --- U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced that a partial loan guarantee for a $1.3 billion loan has been finalized to support the world's largest wind farm. The loan will finance the Caithness Shepherds Flat project, an 845-megawatt wind generation facility located in eastern Oregon sponsored by Caithness Energy, LLC and GE Energy Financial Services.
"Renewable energy investments like these are creating jobs while helping to maintain America's global competitiveness in the clean energy economy," said Secretary Chu. "By leveraging our nation's vast natural resources, we can help provide alternative sources of energy and stimulate economic growth and job creation."
"Today tells a story about the power of collaboration," said Governor Ted Kulongoski. "State policies coupled with investments from the federal government, local governments, private sector partners and landowners created the environment in which we are able to create new jobs, new clean forms of energy and new opportunities that better our state and our nation."
"This is a great holiday gift for Eastern Oregon and it couldn't come at a better time," said U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley. "This financing from the U.S. Department of Energy will help put people back to work and continue Oregon's reputation as a clean energy leader."
"This loan guarantee helps insure that this project will be built, that jobs will be created, that the Oregon economy will benefit and that the United States will be another step closer to energy independence," U.S. Senator Ron Wyden said. "When it is completed, Shepherds Flat will be one of the largest windmill farms in the world and will put Oregon on the map as a leader in green energy."
According to company estimates, the project will directly employ 400 workers during construction and 35 workers during operation. The company projects the wind farm will avoid over 1.2 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, equivalent to the amount of carbon dioxide from approximately 200,000 passenger vehicles.The Caithness Shepherds Flat wind project will use 338 GE 2.5xl wind turbines, which are designed to provide high efficiency and increased reliability, and grid integration. The wind farm is the first in North America to deploy these turbines, which have been used in Europe and Asia. Once completed, the project will sell 100 percent of the power and renewable energy credits generated to Southern California Edison under 20-year fixed price power purchase agreements.
The Caithness Shepherds Flat project is the sixth Recovery Act-supported project to close and the largest to date to receive a loan guarantee under the Financial Institution Partnership Program (FIPP). The $1.3 billion loan is funded by a group of 26 institutional investors and commercial banks led by Citi, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd., RBS Securities and WestLB Securities, Inc. The closing of this transaction reflects the market acceptability of the loan guarantee model under FIPP, including cooperation among multiple creditors.
The Department of Energy, through the Loan Programs Office, has issued loan guarantees or offered conditional commitments for loan guarantees to support 16 clean energy projects totaling nearly $16.5 billion. Together, the 16 projects total over 37 million megawatt-hours of capacity, which will produce enough clean energy to power over 3.3 million homes. Additional DOE-supported projects include two of the world's largest solar thermal projects and a 2,200 megawatt nuclear power plant - the nation's first in three decades. For more information, please visit the Loan Program Office website.20/12/2010 Pangea
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Re: Space Saving Cabinet Corner Units
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Re: Clean Energy Leadership:Baby Steps or Bold Leaps
The Road to Clean Energy Leadership: Baby Steps or Bold Leaps
Posted December 8, 2010 by Matthew Stepp
By Matthew Stepp
Pursuit of global leadership in clean energy innovation is intensifying. A new analysis of where clean energy technologies are being invented provides a good "gut check" of where the U.S. ranks and what other countries are doing to leapfrog forward. And it tells a very tenuous story.
For much of the past decade, countries like Japan, China, and Germany have made significant strides in clean energy, recognizing it as central to global competitiveness, energy security, and mitigating climate change. Using the European Union's World Patent Statistical Database, the study found that between 2000 and 2005, twelve countries invented almost 90% of clean energy technologies. Three of those countries – Japan, the United States, and Germany – accounted for 60% of all clean energy patents. And even since the stimulus, the number of patents granted for clean energy in the U.S. has grown.
For the United States, this should be good news, but it's only half the story. The U.S. is having some successes in clean energy, but policy inaction threatens any gains made in the last decade. Other countries like Japan, Germany, and China are quickly catching up or passing the United States for the mantle of clean energy leadership.
But how are they doing it?
Japan (37.1% of clean energy tech patents) is using a mix of public investment and energy efficiency standards. The popular Top Runner program sets energy efficiency standards on buildings and equipment based on the specification of the technology that achieves the lowest power usage. So as new, efficient products are invented, the efficiency standard is set lower, creating an immediate market for new innovative products. And for technologies like next generation nuclear reactors, smart grid development, battery storage, and zero emission building technology, the Japanese government is investing significant public dollars to support new technologies from basic science to deployment.
Germany (10% of clean energy tech patents) is using extensive public investments to develop new technologies as well as support startup companies. Germany's feed-in tariff mandates that utilities must buy a certain amount of clean energy. The government then subsidizes the additional cost of buying clean energy instead of fossil fuels. It has resulted in the rapid deployment of more mature, incremental technologies and allowed those technologies to achieve cost savings over time by learning-by-doing. Germany has also in next generation, breakthrough innovations through direct investment in basic science and R&D. Many, though, have pointed to Germany's inconsistent support for clean energy innovation in lieu of more subsidies for incremental mature technologies is seen as an inhibiting factor in the development of next generation clean energy though.
The United States (11.9% of clean energy tech patents) on the other hand predominantly has used venture capital to support clean energy technology development. But because of the deep economic downturn and the failure of policy makers to pass a national energy plan, private sector funds are drying up. John Denniston, a venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins stated last year that, "In 2008 the entire venture capital industry in the U.S. invested roughly $2.5 billion--that's with a 'b,' not a 't'--billion dollars in renewable energy research." In 2010, venture capital investment in U.S. clean tech industry fell dramatically as most investors focused on the few, less risky late stage technologies ready for market.
And since 2005 – when the study ended – these countries haven't rested on their laurels. From 2009 to 2013, Japan plans to invest at least $66 billion in clean energy. South Korea – at least $46 billion – leading to a rapid increase in inventions. China – a whopping $397 billion, making them a leader in clean energy investment. Through the first three quarters of 2010 China spent $13.5 billion on clean energy. In fact, as of the end of this year, China's clean energy dominance will have grown.
But as other countries make large and long term investments in clean energy technologies, the U.S. has taken what only can be considered a few baby steps. By mostly increasing the budget of DOE, the U.S. invested roughly $3.5 billion per year in 2009 and 2010. Another $3 billion came from temporary funds in the stimulus package. In 2011, the U.S. plans to invest almost $4.5 billion in clean energy innovation, but with an austerity-focused Congress there is no telling what the final number will be. In total, other countries are out-investing the U.S. by two, three, and even four times. The United States early role as a top country for lean energy innovation is gradually slipping away.
The way forward is clear. The U.S. innovation system has a robust base of entrepreneurs, researchers, and companies that have made great strides since the beginning of the decade. But they can't do it by themselves. The U.S. government needs to step up and make bold leaps in investment, not baby steps. As Denniston puts it, "There is no chance, I'll tell you, no chance that the venture capital industry can get us there alone." The rest of the World seems to have figured it out. It's time for the U.S. to do the same.
Links to clean energy patent graphs come from the Clean Energy Patent Growth Index, produced by the CleanTech Group.
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