[✔️] March 13, 2022 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[👀 Richard Pauli]

/*March 13, 2022*/

/[ never challenge their power and influence ]
/*A growing force in the climate movement: Moms*
Activists are deploying the moral authority of mothers to push for 
climate action. Their protests must steer clear of nap time.
By Somini Sengupta - - March 11, 2022
Many of you write to us and tell us about your feelings of powerlessness 
in the face of a global climate catastrophe. That sentiment is giving 
rise to a small but potentially potent force in the climate movement: 
moms, who have been catapulted into action by the hazards facing their 
children.

In Brooklyn, moms are taking aim at the world’s biggest asset manager, 
BlackRock.

In Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Denver, moms are pushing lawmakers in 
Congress for climate legislation.

In London, Lahore and Delhi, moms are pushing their governments to clean 
up the air from the very pollutants that warm the planet...
- -
On a crisp Sunday last October, after a morning of apple picking, Bocci 
drove up with a half dozen other Brooklyn moms. They brought a basket of 
apples, along with placards and toddlers. They had planned to take 
pictures of their protest on Fink’s lawn and splash them on social media.

Except that Fink came out to talk. They urged him to move BlackRock’s 
trillions of dollars from coal, oil and gas. Zasper rolled down his 
yard, again and again. Some of the other toddlers had straight-up meltdowns.

The moms said they were dismayed to hear Fink tell them there were 
limits to what BlackRock could do. “If he can’t make changes, I don’t 
know who can!” said Marlena Fontes, one of the other moms who was there.

(BlackRock confirmed the meeting took place, though not what was said. 
Fink has said in the past that, as a fiduciary organization in charge of 
other people’s money, the firm can’t divest from fossil fuel companies 
over climate issues. A company spokesman added that the moms’ group was 
later invited to speak with two BlackRock executives in charge of 
sustainability.)

Sunrise Kids, part of a network called NYC Climate Families Coalition, 
are mostly moms of toddlers. They work the playgrounds and farmers 
markets. They meet online in the evening after their kids are in bed. 
They plan protests on weekends, steering clear of nap times.

Several of the members of Sunrise Kids said they felt consumed by the 
climate crisis once they became parents. They found individual action, 
like composting, to be inadequate. They turned to each other to take on 
what Fontes, mother of a 2-year-old and another due soon, called “the 
levers of power.”

“We are a mostly white, middle to upper class group based in Brooklyn,” 
she said. “This is a constituency that has access to power and resources 
and has a responsibility to take action.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/11/climate/climate-change-moms-mothers.html/
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/[  GREAT, IMPORTANT talk with David Wallace-Welles  video]/
*Who Takes The Blame For Climate Change? | The Problem With Jon Stewart 
| Apple TV+*
The Problem With Jon Stewart

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSIRedbcGYE
Watch now on Apple TV+:
https://theproblem.link/ClimateEpisode

In this video exclusive conversation, Jon is joined by New York Magazine 
editor and author David Wallace-Wells to break down how the countries 
that feel the most damage from climate change are often those least 
responsible, how America was built on the industries that are killing 
the planet, and how realistic our plans for net zero really are.

The Problem With Jon Stewart is now streaming on Apple TV+ 
https://theproblem.link/AppleTV

Listen to The Problem With Jon Stewart podcast on Apple Podcasts, where 
available.
https://theproblem.link/ApplePodcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSIRedbcGYE



/[  Electric cars should not be powered by coal  ]/
*PNAS Study: Promise of EVs Depends Critically on Electricity Generation 
Sources*
Shifting to electric vehicles in the future will reduce emissions due to 
less burning of gasoline in internal combustion engines. But a 
significant share of this benefit will continue to be offset without 
complementary policies designed to lower emissions from the sources of 
electricity that come online to meet additional demand. That’s the 
finding of a new study co-authored by Yale School of the Environment 
Economics Professor Matthew Kotchen.
“We need to be careful not to let EVs be the lifeline for continued 
existence of coal plants,’’
https://environment.yale.edu/news/article/pnas-study-promise-evs-depends-critically-electricity-generation-sources

- -

/[ Economist //Research paper //]/
*Why marginal CO2 emissions are not decreasing for US electricity: 
Estimates and implications for climate policy*
Stephen P. Holland https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4543-9004, Matthew J. 
Kotchen matthew.kotchen at yale.edu, Erin T. Mansur 
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9730-2755, and Andrew J. Yates 
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0517-685XAuthors Info & Affiliations
February 14, 2022
*Abstract*
Marginal emissions of CO2 from the electricity sector are critical for 
evaluating climate policies that rely on shifts in electricity demand or 
supply. This paper provides estimates of marginal CO2 emissions from US 
electricity generation using the most recently available and 
comprehensive data. The estimates vary by region, hour of the day, and 
year to year over the last decade. We identify an important and somewhat 
counterintuitive finding: While average emissions have decreased 
substantially over the last decade (28% nationally), marginal emissions 
have increased (7% nationally). We show that underlying these trends is 
primarily a shift toward greater reliance on coal to satisfy marginal 
electricity use. We apply our estimates to an analysis of the Biden 
administration’s target of having electric vehicles (EVs) make up 50% of 
new vehicle purchases by 2030. We find that, without significant and 
concurrent changes to the electricity sector, the increase in 
electricity emissions is likely to offset more than half of the emission 
reductions from having fewer gasoline-powered vehicles on the road. 
Moreover, using average rather than marginal emissions to predict the 
impacts significantly overestimates the emission benefits. Overall, we 
find that the promise of EVs for reducing emissions depends, to a large 
degree, on complementary policies that decarbonize both average and 
marginal emissions in the electricity sector.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2116632119



/[  top new opinion  ] /
*Nationalize All the Oil Companies*
BY MATT BRUENIG
The price of oil and the myriad horrors of climate change that oil 
exacerbates make it too important for us to leave in the free market’s 
hands. The oil companies should be nationalized...
as prices in the United States have increased a lot over the last 
eighteen months and currently stand above $4 per gallon. If prices 
continue to rise or stay at their current elevated levels, that could 
cause financial hardship for many families and cause political problems 
for Democrats ahead of the coming midterm elections.

According to most reporting on the topic, gas prices have increased 
because global demand for oil has increased faster than global supply of 
oil. The supply of oil is being held back by the Organization of the 
Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which refuses to significantly 
increase its production quotas, by the Russian/Ukrainian war, which has 
led to sanctions and boycotts that are stranding some of Russia’s oil 
production, and by American oil companies, which refuse to expand 
domestic oil production.

One of the reasons that American oil companies are not expanding 
domestic production is that their owners and financiers generally do not 
want them to do so. These investors fear that production-expanding 
investments in the oil sector are extremely risky and may not pay off. 
This fear appears to be justified by recent experiences in the sector 
where massive investments in fracking succeeded in producing a lot more 
oil while also delivering giant financial losses to investors.

More broadly, it seems reasonable for investors to be skeptical of the 
future of the oil and gas industry in the face of large-scale efforts to 
phase it out of existence in order to limit climate change. Making a 
long-term investment in a (hopefully) declining industry in order to 
take advantage of (hopefully) temporary high prices is just not a smart 
thing to do, as advocates of the “stranded assets” thesis have been 
saying for at least a decade.

Policy advocates have been promoting a variety of clever ideas to try to 
cut through this Gordian knot, but there has so far been only very 
limited discussion of an obvious approach to this basic problem: 
nationalize the oil industry.

As discussed previously at People’s Policy Project (I, II), *an industry 
that is absolutely essential to maintain in the short term and 
absolutely essential to eliminate in the long term is an industry that 
really should be managed publicly. Private owners and investors are not 
in the business of temporarily propping up dying industries, which means 
that they will either work to keep the industry from dying, which is bad 
for the climate, or that they will refuse to temporarily prop it up, 
which will cause economic chaos. A public owner is best positioned to 
pursue managed decline in a responsible way.*

Although the current oil problems are not primarily driven by the 
climate calculus, the underlying dynamic is fairly similar. Private 
investors are reluctant to pour money into a sector that they think will 
not be able to generate profits in the medium and long term. These 
investors don’t care about the overall economic or geopolitical 
considerations that may justify temporary production hikes despite 
longer term unprofitability. With the right kinds of incentives, perhaps 
the government could make the deal sweet enough to change the 
calculation of these investors. But why bother with that when the 
government could just buy out the industry and manage this process 
directly?..
.
https://jacobinmag.com/2022/03/nationalize-oil-companies-gas-prices-climate-change-investment-domestic-production
https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2022/03/10/nationalize-the-oil-companies/
-- -
/[this is the paper that started it all ]/
*Out of Time*
“Due to inaction, we have four times the work to do to decarbonize
the planet and dwindling time to do it in.”
https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/OutofTime.pdf
- -
[ back to 2020 ]
*The Case for Nationalizing the Fossil Fuel Industry*
The environmental, political, and economic case for nationalizing the 
fossil fuel industry.
BY Mark Paul and Carla Santos Skandier and Rory Renzy

The climate is in crisis. Scientists have repeatedly warned policymakers 
that to have a reasonable chance at limiting global warming to 1.5ºC, 
emissions need to be rapidly wound down. But the power of the fossil 
fuel corporations, armed with hundreds and hundreds of lobbyists on the 
Hill, won’t have any of it. They must extract, extract, extract. 
Corporations are unwilling, and markets are simply incapable of rapidly 
phasing out the industry that is destroying our planet.

There is another way. People’s Policy Project, in collaboration with The 
Next System Project, has released its latest paper: “Out of Time: The 
Case for Nationalizing the Fossil Fuel Industry.” The paper was written 
by Mark Paul, Carla Santos Skandier, and Rory Renzy.

Much recent work has focused on building the green economy. That work is 
of the utmost importance. But to fully transition the economy away from 
fossil fuels policymakers have to dismantle the existing dirty economy 
too. A managed transition requires planning.

The paper outlines the environmental, political, and economic case for 
nationalizing the fossil fuel industry. While each of these have merits 
worth consideration, the strongest case for nationalization is a 
one-time buyout of the political power of fossil fuel interests. If we 
could neutralize the fossil fuel corporations, shareholders, and 
lobbyists responsible for climate inaction, we could finally see real 
action to address the climate crisis. The most feasible path to 
nationalization runs through the Federal Reserve. Through buying out the 
fossil fuel industry, we would give the planet the best chance possible 
at containing the climate crisis while putting people’s livelihoods 
before short-term profits.
https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/project/the-case-for-nationalizing-the-fossil-fuel-industry//
/


/[  Classic science  ] /
*Press Briefing: The Best Climate Science You've Never Heard Of*
Feb 17, 2022
Covering Climate Now
At this Press Briefing, we discussed the important, paradigm-shifting 
climate science most people don't know is buried in the last IPCC report.
Panelists:
Dr. Michael E. Mann is the professor of Atmospheric Science at Penn 
State, with joint appointments in the Department of Geosciences and the 
Earth and Environmental Systems Institute. He is also director of the 
Penn State Earth System Science Center. Mann has also authored several 
books, his most recent work being The New Climate War.

Saleemul Huq is the director of the International Centre for Climate 
Change and Development in Dhaka and a professor at the Independent 
University Bangladesh. He also helped train diplomats from the global 
South who inserted the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal in the Paris Agreement.

Mark Hertsgaard, CCNow's executive director and environment 
correspondent at The Nation and Scientific American’s editor in chief, 
Laura Helmuth, co-moderated.

Follow CCNow on Twitter HERE: http://twitter.com/CoveringClimate​​
Like CCNow on Facebook HERE: http://facebook.com/CoveringClimateNow​​

Get Covering Climate Now's weekly newsletter delivered to your inbox. 
Subscribe HERE: bit.ly/39viEZd

Covering Climate Now is a global journalism initiative committed to more 
and better coverage of the defining story of our time. Organized by 
journalists, for journalists, CCNow was co-founded in April 2019 by the 
Columbia Journalism Review, and The Nation, in association with The 
Guardian. Our partners include more than 400 news outlets with a 
combined audience approaching 2 billion people, and our innovative 
collaborations are driving stronger climate coverage across the media. 
For more visit CoveringClimateNow.org
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vQxnt-bGOI

- -

/[ another climate talk by Michael E. Mann ]/
*Michael E. Mann: The New Climate War*
Jan 13, 2022
UH Speaker Series
One of the world’s leading climate scientists and a tireless advocate 
documents precisely the who, what, why  and when of the systemic and 
deliberate campaign to undermine public confidence in climate science.

Author:
Michael E. Mann is Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science at 
Penn State and director of the Earth System Science Center. A specialist 
in combining theoretical models and observational data to understand the 
Earth’s climate system, Mann has published more than 200 scholarly 
publications and five books, including The New Climate War: The Fight to 
Take Back Our Planet (2021). He is an IPCC lead author and a member of 
the National Academy of Sciences.

Moderator:
Makena Coffman is the Director for the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 
Institute for Sustainability and Resilience. She is a Professor of Urban 
and Regional Planning and Research Fellow with the University of Hawaiʻi 
Economic Research Organization, and Chair of the City & County of 
Honolulu Climate Change Commission.  Her research interests include 
climate change, energy policy and alternative transportation strategies.

Produced by the UH Manoa Better Tomorrow Speaker Series for Hawai'i Book 
and Music Festival 2021
https://hawaiibookandmusicfestival.com

Sponsored by: University of Hawai'i at Manoa, Oceanit, Kamehameha 
Publishing, HEI, Bess Press, Lili'uokalani Trust, Hawai'i Public Radio, 
Honolulu Civil Beat, iHeartMedia, BDK Hawaii
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC7Q3mKguMc



[ one more great video lecture  - two hour  ]
*Great Decisions: Climate Change*
Feb 16, 2022
Fairfax County Public Library
Professor Ron Bee discusses climate change.
This program aired live on January 21, 2022.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9Rz657mPU0



/[  The important issue presented in YouTube video  ] /
*Tipping elements, irreversibility, and abrupt change in the Earth 
system - Permafrost ( #3)*
Jan 19, 2022
World Climate Research Programme
This discussion series aims to advance the knowledge about tipping 
elements, irreversibility, and abrupt changes in the Earth system.

This event in the series focuses on permafrost, with two talks:.

  Permafrost and climate change – what are we observing ? – Hanne 
Hvidtfeld Christiansen
  The Permafrost Carbon Feedback and potential tipping points - Gustaf 
Hugelius

More information:
https://tipping-series-permafrost.con...
This discussion series is a joint activity of the Analysis, Integration, 
and Modeling of the Earth System (AIMES) global research project of 
Future Earth, the Earth Commission Working Group 1 Earth and Human 
Systems Intercomparison Modelling Project (EHSMIP) under the Global 
Commons Alliance and the Safe Landing Climates Light House Activity of 
World Climate Research Program (WCRP).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXu9QwSg8v4



/[The news archive - looking back]/
*March 13, 2001*
The Bush administration announces that it will not regulate carbon 
dioxide emissions from power plants, abandoning a campaign pledge under 
pressure from the fossil fuel industry.
Bush Reneges on Vow To Cut CO2 from Power Plants
Bush Reverses Vow to Curb Gas Tied to Global Warming
The New York Times, March 14, 2001
Under strong pressure from conservative Republicans and industry groups, 
President Bush reversed a campaign pledge today and said his 
administration would not seek to regulate power plants' emissions of 
carbon dioxide, a gas that many scientists say is a key contributor to 
global warming.

The decision left environmental groups and some Congressional Democrats 
angered at what they called a major betrayal. But the White House said a 
cabinet-level review had concluded that Mr. Bush's original promise had 
been a mistake inconsistent with the broader goal of increasing domestic 
energy production.

The president outlined his new view in a letter to four Republican 
senators, whose criticisms of Mr. Bush's initial plan had been among a 
torrent of protests by conservatives and industry leaders who warned 
that any effort to regulate carbon dioxide emissions could deal a severe 
blow to the energy industry and to the American economy.

As recently as 10 days ago, Christie Whitman, the new administrator of 
the Environmental Protection Agency, had described Mr. Bush's campaign 
promise as if it were already policy.

Administration officials would not say directly today whether Ms. 
Whitman had supported the change in position but suggested that she had 
not. They said the views of Vice President Dick Cheney and Energy 
Secretary Spencer Abraham had been most instrumental in the final decision.

A spokeswoman for Ms. Whitman, Tina Kreisher, said the E.P.A. chief 
would "follow the president's lead."

The burden of any plan to regulate carbon dioxide emissions would have 
fallen most heavily on coal-burning power plants, which still account 
for more than 50 percent of the electricity generated in the United 
States. Mr. Bush said today that a recent Energy Department study had 
concluded that regulating carbon dioxide emissions would have led to 
"significantly higher electricity prices."

"This is important new information that warrants a re-evaluation, 
especially at a time of rising energy prices and a serious energy 
shortage," Mr. Bush said.

"At a time when California has already experienced energy shortages, and 
other Western states are worried about price and availability of energy 
this summer, we must be very careful not to take actions that could harm 
consumers," Mr. Bush said in the letter. "This is especially true given 
the incomplete state of scientific knowledge of the causes of, and 
solutions to, global climate change and the lack of commercially 
available technologies for removing and storing carbon dioxide."

Mr. Bush said he remained committed to an energy policy that would seek 
to improve air quality by reducing emissions of nitrogen oxides, sulfur 
dioxide and mercury, which are already regulated as pollutants. But he 
said he no longer supported the position outlined in a campaign 
statement of Sept. 29, which had also promised to set "mandatory 
reduction targets" for carbon dioxide.

Some moderate Republicans who had been preparing to introduce 
legislation later this week supporting a power plant cleanup including 
carbon dioxide also expressed frustration with the sudden shift. They 
and some owners of coal-fired plants had supported the idea of 
regulating all four emissions from power plants at once, to avoid 
uncertainty and confusion in years to come.

The pressure to make the decision came in part from lobbyists for coal 
companies and utilities dependent on coal and from the conservative wing 
of the Republican Party, which saw any move to regulate carbon dioxide 
as an implicit endorsement of the goals of the Kyoto Protocol.

This treaty, negotiated and signed by the Clinton administration but as 
yet unratified, would commit 38 industrialized countries to sharp 
ongoing cuts in carbon dioxide emissions.

Many senators, particularly Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina, 
and Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, oppose it as a a potential harm 
to the economy and because it would allow American energy policy, in 
essence, to be governed by an international treaty. The letter was sent 
to Mr. Helms, Mr. Hagel, Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas and Senator Larry 
E. Craig of Idaho.

Mr. Bush's earlier embrace of the plan had won him praise from 
environmental leaders, who described the approach as an indication that 
the administration might be more sympathetic than they had expected.

The representatives of environmental organizations denounced Mr. Bush's 
turnabout.

"Bush is turning his back not only on his campaign pledge, but on his 
administrator of the E.P.A. and the world's scientists, who warn this 
problem is more serious than we previously thought," said Daniel A. 
Lashof, a senior scientist for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

In the offices of industry lobbyists and conservative Republican 
congressmen, on the other hand, there was a strong sense of triumph.

Glenn Kelly, the executive director of the Global Climate Coalition, 
which represents industry groups, said the White House had received "a 
lot of communications" from those critical of any attempt to regulate 
emissions that are viewed as contributing to global warming. 
"Fortunately, the president responded quickly," Mr. Kelly said.

Mr. Bush's earlier position had been more far-reaching even than that of 
his campaign opponent, former Vice President Al Gore, who had called for 
strong incentives to encourage voluntary moves by industry to reduce 
emissions.

The letter from Mr. Bush came in response to a letter sent last week by 
Senator Hagel, requesting that Mr. Bush clarify his stance.

Mr. Hagel has repeatedly said in recent months that he believes global 
warming is at least partly caused by emissions of gases from human 
activities, but he has opposed both the Kyoto Protocol and legislative 
moves to limit carbon dioxide emissions. Tonight, Mr. Hagel said he 
welcomed Mr. Bush's response.

A number of members of Congress, including Senators James M. Jeffords, 
Republican of Vermont, and Joseph I. Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat, 
are preparing various power plant bills that would have included carbon 
dioxide among regulated emissions. Tonight staff for the bill sponsors 
said identical bills would still be introduced in the Senate and House 
on Thursday, but they conceded that there was little hope, at least for 
now, that such measures could succeed.

Many people involved on both sides of the fight said the decision by Mr. 
Bush represented a sharp rebuke of Ms. Whitman, the former New Jersey 
governor.

Among others in the administration who had been seen as supporting 
restrictions on carbon dioxide was the Treasury secretary, Paul H. 
O'Neill, who in his previous post as chairman of Alcoa had said in a 
1998 speech that the problem of global warming was on par with a 
potential nuclear holocaust in terms of demanding government action.

Ms. Kreisher, Ms. Whitman's spokeswoman, said: "The administrator has 
said in the past that President Bush regards climate change very 
seriously and supports a comprehensive, balanced energy policy that is 
intended to improve air quality, and the administrator is gratified that 
he supports that."

A senior E.P.A. official who spoke on condition of anonymity, however, 
left little doubt that the turnabout had left Ms. Whitman exposed. "If 
you look at her past statements, she said she was supporting what was in 
the president's campaign plan," the official said. "It's his prerogative 
to decide if he wants to change that, and she will follow his lead."

A White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said Mr. Bush had made his 
decision in consultation with his cabinet.

"The president is following through on his commitment to a 
multipollutant strategy that will significantly reduce pollutants," Mr. 
McClellan said. "CO2 should not have been included as a pollutant during 
the campaign. It was a mistake."

 From Grist Magazine by Leonie Haimson (March 15, 2001)

Wow! The last few weeks have given those of us trying to follow the Bush 
administration's position on climate change a wild roller-coaster ride. 
We began the month of February with nothing but positive signs -- 
including indications that we had a Treasury secretary, a U.S. EPA head,

and a national security adviser intent on actually trying to do 
something about global warming. (This is in stark contrast to the 
previous administration, in which Treasury heads Robert Rubin and 
Lawrence Summers were actively hostile to the idea of a U.S. commitment 
to reduce carbon

dioxide emissions, National Security Adviser Sandy Berger was apparently 
uninterested in the problem, and EPA Administrator Carol Browner 
generally avoided the issue as much as possible, reportedly because she 
regarded it as too politically risky.)

New Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill laid down his marker immediately. In 
President Bush's first Cabinet meeting, O'Neill distributed copies of a 
speech he had given in 1998 in which he argued that delaying action to 
stem global warming by only a few years could pose a "real danger to 
civilization" (Houston Chronicle, 26 Feb 2001). (For more on this 
speech, and O'Neill's impressive record on the issue, see the January 
column.) Many of those who have met with National Security Adviser 
Condoleezza Rice say that she, too, is interested in environmental 
issues and seems intent on trying to devise a workable agreement with 
the Europeans. And finally, EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman has 
in recent weeks made some very encouraging statements on global warming.

During the campaign, Bush forwarded a little-publicized proposal to 
phase in caps on power plant emissions for four different pollutants: 
CO2, mercury, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides (see the November column).

This proposal represented the first time either presidential candidate 
had called for direct regulation of CO2 emissions. Rumors swirled that 
Bush was planning to recommend the emissions caps in his speech before 
Congress on 27 Feb., a notion that made the conservative wing of the 
party apoplectic.

On the eve of Bush's speech, Whitman appeared on CNN's "Crossfire" and 
quite clearly reaffirmed the administration's intention to cap CO2 
emissions: "George Bush was very clear during the course of the campaign 
that he believed in a multipollutant strategy, and that includes CO2. ...

[The president] has been very clear that the science is good on global 
warming. It does exist. There are problems that we as a world face from 
global warming and to the extent that introducing CO2 to the discussion 
is going to have an impact on global warming, that's an important step 
to take" (CNN.com, 26 Feb 2001).

After appearing before a Senate committee the next day, Whitman 
reiterated the conviction that the science was settled on the issue of 
climate change: "There's no question but that global warming is a real 
phenomenon, that it is occurring. ... And while scientists can't predict

where the droughts will occur, where the flooding will occur precisely 
or when, we know those things will occur." She refused to rule out the 
option of a cap on C02, and added that the Bush administration was 
committed to trying to make the Kyoto treaty on climate change work:

"This president is very sensitive to the issue of global warming. We 
expect the United States to be a partner" (AP Worldstream, 27 Feb 2001).

Hasty alerts were sent from the Greening Earth Society, created and 
largely funded by coal-based utilities, and the Competitive Enterprise 
Institute, ground zero for opponents of action on climate change. The 
message: People should immediately call and email the White House, asking

Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to delete any reference to the 
proposed multipollutant strategy from the president's speech. Perhaps as 
a result, Bush did not mention the proposal in the speech, though a 
"multipollutant approach" was still referred to in his budget blueprint.

Then, over the first weekend of March, environment ministers from Russia 
and the world's top seven industrialized nations met in Trieste, Italy, 
to discuss global warming. Whitman apparently convinced the Europeans 
that the Bush administration was committed to working constructively 
with them on the problem. "Ms. Whitman was very positive about climate 
change being a global issue, about the scientific evidence and that the 
Kyoto framework was something they should work within," a senior British 
official said (Reuters, 04 Mar 2001). Together, the G8 ministers renewed

their pledge to work towards an agreement to reduce greenhouse gas 
emissions. All the ministers, including Whitman, signed the final 
document, which said, "We commit ourselves ... to strive to reach an 
agreement on outstanding political issues and to ensure in a 
cost-effective manner the environmental integrity of the Kyoto Protocol" 
(AP, 04 Mar 2001).

Right Wing Sees Red
All this talk further infuriated the right-wing base of the Republican 
Party, triggering outraged calls and emails to the White House. Business 
representatives from the key coal and utility interests went into action.

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), who had lately been sounding surprisingly 
conciliatory on the Kyoto Protocol, and three other Senate Republicans 
-- Larry Craig of Idaho, Pat Roberts of Kansas, and Mike Enzi of Wyoming 
-- sent Bush a highly critical letter, asking him to clarify his 
position and arguing that there was still scientific uncertainty as to 
the cause of global warming. (In the letter, the Senators even referred 
to the Hansen brouhaha of a few months past -- for more, see the 
November column).

Another message went out by email from Myron Ebell of CEI: "We have 
learned from contacts at EPA and the White House that Cheney's energy 
task force plans to announce (or decide?) something tomorrow morning 
about regulating carbon dioxide. We ... must go all out once again to 
share our concerns with every contact we've got. In particular we need 
to get our friends on the Hill to intervene." Finally, in a weekly 
policy meeting, Cheney told the senators present that the campaign 
pledge to control CO2 was "a mistake," and that the administration was 
preparing a letter that would say CO2 was not a pollutant (AP and 
Reuters, 13 Mar 2001).

Sure enough, late on Tuesday, the letter went out. It was even worse 
than expected -- a total slam against Whitman, the environmentalists, 
and even those Republican moderates in Congress who have been putting 
together their own bill on CO2 reductions from power plants. (The full 
text of

Bush's letter is conveniently posted on the website of the Global 
Climate Coalition, the main industry lobby group opposing action on 
climate change.)

In the letter, Bush noted that his campaign proposal had been in error, 
since CO2 is not a "pollutant" according to the Clean Air Act. He also 
referred to a December study by the Department of Energy, which, in his 
words, concluded that "caps on carbon dioxide emissions as part of a 
multiple emissions strategy would lead to an even more dramatic shift 
from coal to natural gas for electric power generation and significantly 
higher electricity prices." These caps were a concern, he wrote, 
particularly in the West: "At a time when California has already 
experienced energy shortages, and other Western states are worried about 
price and availability of energy this summer, we must be very careful 
not to take actions that could harm consumers." Yet, as Elizabeth 
Shogren of the Los Angeles Times (14 Mar 2001) immediately pointed out, 
California is "much less dependent on coal for power than most of the 
country," with only about one-eighth of its power coming from coal-fired 
plants.

The Bush letter was also vehement in its categorical opposition to the 
Kyoto Protocol, calling it "an unfair and ineffective means of 
addressing global climate change concerns" -- in essence, contradicting 
the thrust of the G-8 document that Whitman had signed onto just nine 
days before.

Bush even backtracked on the science, arguing that the "state of 
scientific knowledge of the causes of, and solutions to, global climate 
change" was "incomplete."

Glenn Kelly, the executive director of the Global Climate Coalition, 
said the White House had received "a lot of communications" from 
opponents of efforts to control greenhouse gases. "Fortunately, the 
president responded quickly" (New York Times, 14 Mar 2001). Whether it 
was this

sort of direct pressure that caused the president to cave so quickly is 
as yet unknown. Some White House officials immediately floated the 
explanation that the reversal was due to the efforts of senators from 
the Midwest, who threatened to oppose Bush's huge tax cut if their 
concerns on this issue weren't addressed.

Ebell of CEI immediately sent around an email congratulating his allies, 
but letting them know that their work was far from finished: "President 
Bush and Vice President Cheney have made the right decision on 
regulating CO2 with a little good advice from their friends. We have won 
a famous victory, and everyone should congratulate themselves on the 
work they did to achieve this end. I encourage all of you to send out 
press statements congratulating Bush. (This, after all, could be a 
turning point in the war to save industrial civilization from itself.)"

He also sent out a special thanks to former Rep. David McIntosh (R-Ind.) 
and Marlo Lewis (chair emeritus of the Cooler Heads Coalition and now 
with Reason Public Policy Institute) for helping to initiate the Energy

http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=3657&method=full

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