Dems Go Medium on Climate, Part 2: Spill Bill Passes E&NR

by RLMiller

Good news, not-so-good news on climate/energy news today. The Bingaman "spill bill" reforming leasing practices at the Agency Formerly Known as Big MMesS, S.3516, draft previously analyzed, has passed the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee on a unanimous vote.  However, there's no certain path to transforming that victory into a climate bill.  It seems that when the Democrats decided last week to go big by attaching climate legislation to the spill bill, they forgot to agree on a particular climate bill to attach to the spill bill.  Whoops.

continued at Daily Kos....

A simple thought for a clean carbon fee ...

by A Siegel

In pure economic efficiency terms, the most cost-effective system for establishing a price on carbon pollution and starting a societal move toward a lower-carbon future, might be an upstream simple price.

Carbon Fee not tax

This price is not a "tax", because a 'tax' implies a taking of a good. That assumes that we have a right to pollute and impact others. In fact, that very pollution is a taking of a good, a seizing of a value, that occurs today without any form of compensation.

If you dump an old mattress at the county dump, you pay a fee ... not a tax.  We need to charge a 'dumping fee', a polluter's fee for dumping CO2 into the air we breathe ...

continued at Daily Kos....

BP's Well May Leak For 55 Years Or More Into The Gulf Of Mexico?

by Edger

On June 15, 2010 the US Department of Energy announced that a group of federal and independent scientists convened by Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, and Chair of the National Incident Command's Flow Rate Technical Group (FRTG) Dr. Marcia McNutt (Director of the U.S. Geological Survey) had developed a new estimate for the amount of oil gushing from the ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico that indicated the leak could be spewing up to 2.52 million gallons of crude oil per day into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico from British Petroleum's Macondo Well.

continued at Daily Kos....

Updated: Comment against oil expansion! (ACTION)

by Cpt Robespierre

UPDATE: I've change the title to reflect that the agency made a last-minute extension of the deadline earlier today. It's no longer due at midnight tonight, but we don't know when it will be, so you should still comment as soon as possible.

If you oppose the proposed expansion of offshore drilling, please submit a public comment (public meaning your name will be attached to it unless you unselect that) to the official review process at the agency formerly known as the Minerals Management Service. The deadline is midnight tonight (Eastern time). Even a short "I oppose this proposed expansion of offshore drilling" would be helpful.

Direct link to comment form:http://ocs5yeareis.anl.gov/...

continued at Daily Kos....

The Gulf Coast, its beaches, life is just a hot mess (Videos)

by icebergslim

I wrote a diary last week about Pensacola, Florida beaches smelling like a gas station, well on Hardball today Chris Matthews asked MSNBC's Science and Environment Expert, Jeff Corwin does it smell like that?  Corwin replied, "...it smells like a gas station...."

continued at Daily Kos....

EcoAdvocates: Gulf Tribes, Chemical Testing, Green Burials, Climate Justice, and Saving the Peaks

by Aji

While the Gulf Coast disaster continues apace, three small tribes and several groups and individuals focused on rescue and remediation need additional support.  New legislation has been introduced in the House and Senate to require more rigorous testing of chemicals; the Environmental Defense Fund wants your help in improving it.  You can join several efforts currently under way to save sacred lands in Northern Arizona from pollution by sewage effluent, and to help promote aggressive action on climate change.  And how would like to know that, when you "walk on," you're doing so in an environmentally friendly manner?  It's now possible.

Tonight's EcoAdvocates edition includes posts by Aji on The Gulf Tribes:  Rescuing Coastline and Cultures, Meteor Blades on The Safe Chemicals Act of 2010, Ojibwa on Green Burials, Boatsie with Take Action Alerts, and Oke with a special "Save the Peaks" Action Alert.

continued at Daily Kos....

A Diary for David Kroning II

by gchaucer2

On June 18, 2010, David Kroning II published one of the most extraordinary diaries I have read here:  Voices for Nature.  In that diary, not only did he demonstrate a facility of knowledge and language, but also a call out to the community to speak for all species which are being destroyed or injured due to the BP Gulf of Mexico disaster.  On June 26, David reiterated his plea in A Crime Against Nature.

David challenged me to read and write about Aldo Leopold's "Thinking Like a Mountain."  I agreed -- but I fear I've lost David's ear -- his eyes.  David, this diary is for you.

continued at Daily Kos....

In The Forest Of The Giants (photos)

by Richard Lyon

This is a short natural history of the coast redwood Sequoia sempervirens forests found nowhere else on earth but the Northern California coast. I recently took a trip to the Redwood National Park in the far northwest corner of California. This article will be illustrated with pictures that I took on that trip.

continued at Daily Kos....

Saving the ocean from acidity death economically and sequestering CO2 in algae, saving the fishery

by chondrally

Richard A. Feely of the National Atmospheric and Oceanographic association (NOAA) in Boulder Colorado, has published some stunning papers available at
www.scirus.com for free,  that shake our world view of the oceans.  By 2017 when the projected CO2 level will reach 450 ppm,  the deep ocean currents will offgas CO2 in the southern ocean,  turning this part of the ocean very acidic from carbonic acid which exists in huge quantities in the deep oceans due to ocean pressure and millenia of diffusion.
The following article suggests a way that we can economically save the oceans, the fish, the coral and the shellfish and molluscs, by some simple calcium chemistry in the oceans involving Calcium carbonate (aragonite and calcite:limestone deposits) and calcium bicarbonate.

continued at Daily Kos....

Kill to Drill

by Vetwife

Some of you may say this is all in my imagination but I can
not come up with a logical one other than this.

No matter what the hearings are producing.  No matter that
no one is seriously in jail yet.  No matter that bulldozers are covering up so much oil under the sand.
No matter that in spite of the horrific horrors of the Gulf
gusher, people are still allowed to swim.
We did not think it possible for torture to be allowed in this country.  We did not think it possible that

continued at Daily Kos....

EPA Inexplicably Greenlights WV Mountaintop Removal Permit

by rperks

Maybe the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should change its acronym from EPA to WTF.

How else to explain the perplexing and downright disgusting decision last week by the agnecy to recommend approval by the Corps of Engineers of a permit sought by Coal-Mac (subsidiary of Arch Coal) for the Pine Creek Surface Minein Logan County, West Virginia.  So much for EPA's supposedly hard-line water protection standards issued in April which promised tougher oversight of mountaintop removal. 

continued at Daily Kos....

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea: A Voices For Nature Diary

by Pam LaPier

We are all aware of the devastation to wildlife happening in the Gulf of Mexico due to this monstrous oil spill. We know about the gentle sea turtles, the frolicking dolphins, the graceful birds, the giant whale shark and the majestic sperm whale but at the ocean floor, in places once thought to be devoid of life, there are teeming communities of clams, mussels and tube worms that we've only just discovered in recent years. We have not yet sent submersibles down to measure the impact on these amazing communities and I fear what we may find. There is more about these fascinating worlds below the jump.

continued at Daily Kos....

BP Catastrophe Liveblog Mothership: 36

by Gulf watchers

The current ROV DIARY:Gulf Watchers ROV # 159 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe
Rules of the Road

• We take volunteers for subsequent diaries in the sub diaries or ROV's as we have playfully coined them.
• Please rec this mothership diary, not the ROVs.
• Please be kind to fellow kossacks who may have limited bandwidth and refrain from posting images or videos.

PLEASE visit Crashing Vor and Pam LaPier's diaries to find out how you can help the Gulf now and in the future. We don't have to be idle! And thanks to Crashing Vor and Pam LaPier for working on this!

continued at Daily Kos....