credit: Mark Wexler

• Children and the elderly suffering through the hottest month ever recorded;
• Farmers and two-thirds of the country coping with severe drought;
• Wildfires burning over 8 million acres including numerous homes and important wildlife habitat;
• Fish kills by thousands in our favorite lakes and streams attributable to “hot” water;
• Arctic sea ice on which polar bears depend has already set a record low this summer, and is still diminishing;
• Backyard activities threatened by a record outbreak of health-threatening West Nile virus.

Even before this summer of extreme weather, 82% of Americans had said that they have personally experienced one or more types of extreme weather or a natural disaster in the past year and 35 percent say that they were personally harmed by these extreme weather events in the past year. And as harmful and devastating as all of these impacts have been, they also represent a poignant warning that these problems and impacts will escalate in the future unless we begin to tackle the climate change crisis.

This is why the recent words of President Obama at the Democratic National Convention should resonate so loudly through all of our political discourse, and why, beyond words, political action is so critical, something both parties have yet to fully embrace.

And yes, my plan will continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet – because climate change is not a hoax. More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. They’re a threat to our children’s future – President Obama, Sept. 6, 2012

Regardless of party and electoral politics, addressing climate change speaks to values all of us hold – leaving our children an environment and world that is better off than we inherited.

The depth of this widespread value across all political persuasions is revealed in a new Kaiser Family Foundation poll (see Question #36). The poll found that government action to “regulate” the climate changing air pollution that is emitted from power plants, cars and factories is supported by 87% of Democrats, 73% of Independents and 61% of Republicans.  Such numbers show that dealing with the future of climate change is actually one issue where we can all come together as a nation.

The message to our political leaders is clear. The time for fake debates over climate science or simply disregarding the facts of this summer’s extreme weather is over.  The real question all of us want answered is: what is your plan to tackle climate change for the sake of my family and the generations that follow?   

Sen. Jim Inhofe: Big Oil's MVP

When the city engineer refused to budge on Inhofe’s plan to move the fire escape on his mansion, it fueled his political ambitions.

“So I told him I was going to run for mayor and fire him,” he said. “And I ran for mayor and I fired him.”

Published by right-leaning WND Books, a division of WorldNetDaily, the book establishes Inhofe as an opponent of environmental regulations of all stripes long before 2003, when he famously told the Senate that climate change was “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”

It’s odd to see Sen. Inhofe’s book published by such an extremist organization as WND Books, featured alongside such esteemed authors as … Jack Abramoff, whose book is part of his efforts to pay restitution to his victims.

But back to Sen. Inhofe. It’s a strange case to make and a completely upside down way to make it – like saying since you don’t like paying taxes to fund the fire department, you’re now on a crusade to prove fire doesn’t exist:

Joe Mendelson, director of global warming policy at the National Wildlife Federation, said Inhofe’s admission that he is against regulation in almost every instance suggests that he arrived at his scientific skepticism through something other than an impartial look at the facts.

“He sort of comes at it from ‘I am an anti-regulatory person, and therefore if there is something out there that may require a government response to address, I’m either going to ignore it or poke holes in the science so I don’t have to get the regulation,’” he said.

Mendelson also disagreed with Inhofe that environmental regulation threatens personal freedom.

“The impacts of the pollution actually do impede our freedom,” he said. “Our freedom to breath healthy air, our freedom to ensure that our family or our property is actually safeguarded from harm.”

Even though Sen. Inhofe delights in bashing high-profile climate activists, from Al Gore to Leonardo DiCaprio, he has another confession: Being a climate denier makes Sen. Inhofe a celebrity too, and he loves every minute of it:

“I was only in Copenhagen for three hours, but they were the most exhilarating three hours of my political life,” he writes. [...]

“I know it sounds strange to say it, but the experience was really quite enjoyable,” he writes. “I will always remember all those people in the room — hundreds of them — and all the cameras. And they all had one thing in common: they all hated me.”

Sen. Inhofe’s story reminded me of the Esquire Copenhagen profile of his former press secretary, Marc Morano, and how Morano’s fight for “freedom” finances his lavish lifestyle.

Thanks for reading!  

George  

This week’s stories:  

1. Highlight of the Week: House Spending Bill Guts EPA
2. Quote: NWF’s Joe Mendelson on the Continuing Resolution
3. Economic Story of the Week: Study: Climate Change Risks Trillions in Investments
4. Editorial of the Week: The Dirty Energy Party
5. Climate Change May Cause “Massive Disruptions” to Global Food Supply
6. Greenforce Initiative Summits in Virginia and Michigan a Success
7. Happening this Week

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Highlight of the Week

House Spending Bill Guts EPA

The House budget is an unprecendented attack on the environment and public health. (Image courtesy of www.treehugger.com)

The U.S. House of Representatives last week passed its “Continuing Resolution” (CR) to fund the federal government through the end of the fiscal year, by a vote of 235-189. Among its many severe attacks on the environment and public health, the bill slashes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) budget by billions and hamstrings EPA’s’ ability to regulate carbon pollution under the Clean Air Act.

“In this budget charade, the target became polluter regulators, not polluter subsidies,” said Jeremy Symons, senior vice president of National Wildlife Federation. ”This extreme and reckless bill amounts to the largest assault on America’s bi-partisan legacy of environmental and wildlife safeguards in history.”

The House budget, disguised as deficit reduction, was quickly shown to be a comprehensive attempt to reduce EPA’s comprehensive ability to tackle carbon pollution through heavy cuts to specific climate change programs.

National Wildlife Federation’s analysis of the budget has shown it would significantly weaken the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act; slash investment in public lands, wildlife conservation, and clean energy; and ensure oil companies already raking in billions in annual profit will continue getting billions more in subsidies from taxpayers. 

National Wildlife Federation has compiled a complete breakdown of how corporate polluters are the big winners in the House CR.  

More on this story: Wildlife Promise, Politico, AP, Mother Jones, The Hill

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Quote:

Joe Mendelson

“Last week, the House of Representatives completed work on a bill known as a H.R. 1, a Continuing Resolution (CR) designed to make sure the U.S. government stays open for business for the rest of the 2011 fiscal year. Instead of focusing on spending, however, the House engaged in a polluter feeding frenzy designed to gut and filet any semblance of action to address climate change and to update our air pollution standards…It is directly seeking to prevent the federal government’s ability to limit the carbon pollution belching unchecked from our nation’s coal fired power plants, oil refineries, and industrial smokestacks.”

- Joe Mendelson, director of policy for National Wildlife Federation’s climate and energy program, in a post to Wildlife Promise on the spending bill which was passed by the House with no Democratic support.  

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Economic Story of the Week

Study: Climate Change Risks Trillions in Investments

A new study from global investment consultancy Mercer has found that without international action on climate change, institutional investors are at risk of losing trillions of dollars over the next 20 years.  The study calculated that climate change could make up as much as 10 percent of portfolio risk in the same time-frame.  

“Climate change brings fundamental implications for investment patterns, risks and rewards,” said Andrew Kirton, chief investment officer at Mercer. “Institutional investors should be factoring long-term considerations, such as climate change, into their strategic planning.” 

The report, Climate Change Scenarios – Implications for Strategic Asset Allocation, also found that climate change would open up more than $5 trillion in investment opportunities in low carbon pollution technologies by 2030. 

Meanwhile, the Investor Network on Climate Risk is reporting that a record number of (66) shareholder resolutions relating to climate and other environmental issues have been filed in the 2011 proxy season, credited to the significant impact on shareholder value that climate issues can have. 

More on this story: Reuters, Mercer Press Release, NYT  

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Editorial of the Week

The Dirty Energy Party

(The New York Times)

President Obama has decided that the failure of last year’s comprehensive climate bill does not have to mean the death of climate policy. Instead of imposing a mandatory cap and stiff price on carbon emissions, as the bill would have done, the president is offering a more modest approach involving sharply targeted and well-financed research into breakthrough technologies, cleaner fuels and more efficient cars and trucks. Yet even this retailored approach is sure to whip the Republicans into a fresh frenzy of opposition. They have already made clear their determination to cut off financing and otherwise undermine the Environmental Protection Agency, which plans to regulate carbon emissions from power plants and other industrial sources using its authority under the Clean Air Act. But basic scientific research? Energy efficiency? Cleaner fuels? The House Republican budget resolution gives the back of its hand to even these worthy and unobjectionable strategies, which until now have enjoyed reliable bipartisan support….(More…)  

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Climate Change May Cause “Massive Disruptions” to Global Food Supply

Climate change will create serious disruptions in the global food supply, yet another leading figure in the field has stated. Food prices are expected to jump which in turn translates to a spike in worldwide hunger. 

“The fact is that climate around the world is changing and that will cause massive disruptions,” said Sunny Verghese, chief executive officer at Olam, a leading global supplier of rice and cotton. 

A recent report from the International Food Policy Research Institute found that climate change will greatly exacerbate a steady rise in food prices this century, becoming a “threat multiplier” that could double certain food prices by 2050, lower crop yields, and leave millions more people malnourished around the world 

More on this story: Bloomberg, E&E (sub. req.)   

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Greenforce Initiative Summits in Virginia and Michigan a Success

www.greenforceinitiative.org

Last week, National Wildlife Federation and Jobs for the Future’s Greenforce Initiative held summits in Virginia and Michigan. The initiative is a joint effort  to strengthen the capacity of community colleges to develop, enhance or refine green career pathway programs in six regions of the U.S.

In Michigan, 90 participants from more than 15 community colleges gathered to gain a better understanding of the state’s green jobs initiatives and showcase strong partnerships between community colleges and business/industry. In Virginia, economic development leaders, community colleges, and the chancellor of Virginia’s community college system convened to discuss the state’s emerging green economy.

For more on the Greenforce Summit in Virgina, click here.

For more on the Greenforce Summit in Michigan, click here. 

More on this story: Greenforce Initiative, Wildlife Promise, Public News Service

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Happening this Week

Thursday, February 24

 Briefing: “Beyond Green Awards Program”, Two educational briefings featuring winning case studies from the 2010 Beyond Green High-Performance Building Awards, Sustainable Buildings Industry Council, 11:30AM-1:00PM, Rayburn B-369. RSVP: sbic@sbicouncil.org . 

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For more global warming news on Wildlife Promise click here.

Before he joined the National Wildlife Federation, NWF Global Warming Policy Director Joe Mendelson developed the first legal case seeking the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. He served as co-counsel throughout the case as it was argued before the Supreme Court, resulting in the landmark global warming ruling of Massachusetts v. EPA. Here’s what Joe had to say about today’s EPA decision:

Today’s action shows that the Environmental Protection Agency will not be bullied by Big Oil and King Coal. With the Senate stalled, it’s critical that the EPA hold the line against unchecked carbon pollution. While EPA action can deliver short-term pollution cuts, long-term efforts remain dependent on Congressional action to cut America’s carbon pollution by the amount scientists say is necessary to avoid the worst effects of global warming.

Of course, big polluters don’t care about protecting America’s natural resources, creating clean energy jobs, or cutting consumers’ energy bills through more efficient technology. Big Oil and King Coal don’t want to be held accountable for their pollution and will dig into their wallets and mobilize their army of lobbyists to fight EPA at every turn.

The National Wildlife Federation will fight tooth and nail against polluter-backed challenges in Congress to EPA action. Senators backing efforts to handcuff the EPA like the Murkowski amendment and Sen. Rockefeller’s bill say they prefer Congress to take the lead – but they seem far more interested in obstruction than action.

Please take a moment to tell your senators to protect Americans, our wildlife & the places we love from global warming.

Here’s NWF global warming director Joe Mendelson with a message about the vote and what we can do to get positive action this year.

Click here to view the embedded video.

According to a new Environmental Protection Agency report, lots of things are rising:

• Manmade carbon pollution
• Temperatures here in America & around the globe
• Sea levels
• Hurricane intensity

Not good. OK, so not everything can be getting higher, right? What’s not?

• Glaciers

Yikes. NWF President & CEO Larry Schweiger calls the report a wake-up call:

Nature isn’t Republican or Democratic and this report shows nature is sounding an alarm. Wildlife, natural systems and our climate in America have changed and will continue to change at an alarming pace. The EPA’s report is a wake-up call on the need to reduce carbon pollution from tailpipes and smokestacks to safeguard the future for our children and grandchildren.

Every day our lawmakers fail to enact clean energy and climate legislation, we put our economy, our national security and our environment at greater risk. The EPA’s findings underscore the need for the Senate to stay focused and finish the job of crafting and passing a bipartisan climate and energy bill.

Please take a moment to tell your senators we can’t afford to wait. Joe Mendelson, National Wildlife Federation global warming policy director, explains what the report means to him as a Buffalo native:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Every day it seems we’re learning more — more about the revolving door between the Bush administration & polluter lobbyists, more about their influence with Senators and their staffers, and more about who’s really pulling the strings on efforts to block climate action — Big Oil’s MVP, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK).

Some of the best reporting this week has come from Juliet Eilperin at the Washington Post’s Post Carbon blog. Earlier this week, Eilperin had reported that polluter lobbyists were helping staffers for Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) write legislation to strip environmental protections:

The maneuvering comes as The Washington Post has confirmed that two Washington lobbyists, Jeffrey R. Holmstead and Roger R. Martella, Jr., helped craft the original amendment Murkowski planned to offer on the floor last fall. Both Holmstead, who heads the Environmental Strategies Group and Bracewell & Guiliani, and Martella, a partner at Sidley Austin LLP, held senior posts at EPA under the Bush administration and represents multiple clients with an interest in climate legislation pending before Congress.

And today, even more about the close working relationships between polluter lobbyists & Senate staffers:

More details have emerged about the involvement by two lobbyists–who were senior Environmental Protection Agency officials during the George W. Bush administration–in crafting an amendment Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) tried to offer in the fall in an effort to bar the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases on its own.

Murkowski’s staff director on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, McKie Campbell, and her energy staffer Colin Hayes, convened a meeting on Sept. 23 with aides to a handful of centrist Democrats to brief them on the final version of the amendment, according to participants and sources familiar with the session. The two lobbyists, Bracewell & Giuliani’s Jeffrey R. Holmstead and Sidley Austin’s Roger Martella Jr., called in by phone and walked the staffers through the changes that had been made to text, to reassure the staffers that Murkowski’s amendment would not block the EPA from issuing new curbs on greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles in 2010 even as it would bar the agency from imposing those limits on power plants. [...]

The meeting, which took place in Hart Senate Office Building 370 at 8:45 am, included two aides to James M. Inhofe (Okla.), the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Before leaving the room, participants were asked to turn in the documents Murkowski’s aides distributed, confirmed Inhofe spokesman Matthew Dempsey.

Holmstead and Martella dominated the opening of the meeting by describing how the revised amendment had answered the attacks lodged by some Democrats and environmental groups, a source said.

The two men are both experts in the Clean Air Act, and represent clients with a financial stake in climate legislation moving through Congress.

Why did Murkowski’s aides not want the documents to leave the room? And why, later in the article, does Holmstead issue a classic non-denial denial? “I have no memory of playing a major role in that call.” Not I did not play a role, but I don’t remember — leaving himself lots of wiggle room.

The stories shed new light on Sen. Murkowski’s push to strip the EPA of its Congressionally-granted, Supreme Court-approved authority to regulate global warming pollution. As Joe Mendelson, global warming policy director for the National Wildlife Federation, told Greenwire (sub. req.), the Murkowski amendment was “crafted by big polluters
for big polluters.”

Why would senator from Alaska, called the poster state for global warming, put polluters’ interests ahead of her home state’s climate concerns? In the current campaign cycle, Sen. Murkowski is Congress’ #1 recipient of electric utilities’ money and the #4 recipient of Big Oil money.

Despite this week’s revelations, Senators Inhofe & Murkowski could still try to bring to the floor their amendment to gut the Clean Air Act. Your senators need to hear from you. Email your senators right now and ask them to stop this polluter-fueled push to undercut the EPA’s efforts to protect people, wildlife and our natural resources from the worst effects of global warming.

Photo via Flickr’s CelticDivaAK

The administration estimated the requirements would cost up to $1,300 per new vehicle by 2016 — but that it would take just three years to pay off that investment and that the standards would save more than $3,000 over the life of the vehicle through better gas mileage. [...]

The proposal is expected to increase vehicle fuel efficiency by about 5 percent annually and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 950 million metric tons. The plan would also conserve 1.8 billion barrels of oil, according to the official — the equivalent to taking 42 million cars off the road, Jackson said.

The National Wildlife Federation’s Joe Mendelson applauded the move:

The Environmental Protection Agency has taken an important and overdue step to clean up tailpipe pollution. The effort will jump-start the modernization and retooling of our auto industry, protect our environment, and reduce our reliance on oil.

Now, America needs an equally ambitious plan to expand the clean energy economy and clean up smokestacks from corporate polluters. The Senate must act this fall to pass comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation that includes a cap on global warming pollution.

Have you told your Senator to protect wildlife by passing clean energy & climate legislation? It only takes a moment. Click here!

Photo via Flickr’s jtuason

The U.S. State Department’s approval on Aug. 20 of Enbridge Energy’s Alberta Clipper pipeline permits 450,000 barrels of tar sands oil per day to be pumped from northern Alberta to Wisconsin for refining.

Compared to conventional oil, tar sands oil results in:

• 3 times more global warming pollution
• 5 times more lead
• 6 times more nitrogen
• 11 times more sulfur and nickel

“This pollution pipeline will increase our dependency on foreign fuels and accelerate the development of one of the dirtiest, most destructive fuels on the planet,” said Joe Mendelson, director of global warming policy for the National Wildlife Federation. “We should be investing in clean energy technologies that will help solve the climate crisis.”

Photo: David Dodge, The Pembina Institute