Another international failure to regulate greenhouse gas emissions

by DWG

The Obama administration announced what appeared to be a breakthrough in international cooperation to reduce carbon emissions from the aviation sector. Here is the description from the State Department.

The United States welcomes the historic agreement today at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) on international aviation and climate change. Delegates to the Assembly adopted an unprecedented global commitment to collective action among countries around the world —developed and developing—to limit and reduce carbon emissions from international aviation. ICAO recognized that further work is necessary to define the path forward on implementation and the United States affirmed its commitment to further efforts within ICAO.

An agreement "to limit and reduce carbon emissions from international aviation" would indeed be worthy of celebration because aviation emissions currently represent 5% of industrial emissions. Unfortunately, the agreement is mostly smoke and mirrors.

continued at Daily Kos....

Good and bad moon shots

by DWG

Thomas Friedman makes the case for an Apollo program to develop electric cars and get off oil in an editorial in the New York Times. He makes that case with a contrast between two large public investments in China and the US. China is investing trillions in modernizing its air transportation sector, creating a web of high speed trains, creating research and development infrastructure for biotechnology, and focusing on a growth industry for the future - electric cars.

Beijing just announced that it was providing $15 billion in seed money for the country’s leading auto and battery companies to create an electric car industry, starting in 20 pilot cities. In essence, China Inc. just named its dream team of 16-state-owned enterprises to move China off oil and into the next industrial growth engine: electric cars.

And the U.S. moonshot?

Not to worry. America today also has its own multibillion-dollar, 25-year-horizon, game-changing moon shot: fixing Afghanistan.

Ouch.

continued at Daily Kos....

Climate Zombie Lindsey Graham gushes for tar sands oil

by DWG

Lindsey Graham has just provided disturbing evidence that exposure to the Alberta tar sands impairs mental function. The U.S. Senator from South Carolina was in Alberta last week to visit the tar sands as part of a "fact-finding" mission. Graham does not have any energy-related committee assignments, so why he felt the need to conduct this taxpayer-funded mission is unclear. Perhaps the mission was to prove his loyalty to multinational oil companies after he committed the cardinal sin ofadmitting that climate change was real and we needed to transition to clean energy. His first step to mend fences with dirty energy companies and fellow Republican Climate Zombies was to proclaim that climate change did not need to be taken seriously.

"The science about global warming has changed. I think they've oversold this stuff, quite frankly. I think they've been alarmist and the science is in question.

His recent bizarre and deceptive statements about Canadian tar sands oil further establish his Climate Zombie credentials.

continued at Daily Kos....

ACTION: OFA urges supporters to fight Murkowski Resolution

by Eclectablog

As TomP noted yesterday, the White House is fighting the so-called Murkowski Resolution that would ban the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson wrote a piece for the Huffington Post about this topic a couple of days ago. Today, Organizing for America (OFA) is getting in on the act. The full email from OFA after the fold.

continued at Daily Kos....