Enviro Groups Stand Behind Him, But Is Obama Really The “Green” Candidate?

Yesterday the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) announced that it is strongly endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for president. LCV is the second major environmental group to endorse Obama, joining the Sierra Club in its support for Senator Obama.

To many this seems an easy choice, but is it really?

Let us turn back the clock to when the Democratic primary season was just getting underway in early 2007. At that time, some environmental groups were not pleased with the prospect of an Obama presidency. In fact, some cheered Obama's decision to leave the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee in March 2007 because of concerns that the senator was backing key coal industry efforts to promote liquefied coal, a move that could make him an unreliable vote on global warming legislation.

In particular, there were concerns with Senator Obama's collaboration with Republican Senator Jim Bunning to promote coal-to-liquid (CTL) fuels. Environmental groups generally oppose CTL fuels due to the high carbon dioxide emissions that result from the fuels’ production. Senators Bunning and Obama reintroduced a bill encouraging CTL fuel development and had also launched a bipartisan CTL fuels caucus. Consequently, some in the environmental movement breathed a big sigh of relief when Senator Obama left the committee.

In the attention-deficit land of politics, however, all of that seems to be forgotten. With Obama now the presumptive Democratic nominee, LCV and other environmental groups are strongly backing him. LCV said in its July 21 statement that Senator Obama's “impressive” 86 percent score in the group's rankings was significantly better than GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain's 24 percent score (duh, even I can do that math). The group cited several of Obama's policy positions, including his calls for a 52 mile per gallon automobile fuel efficiency standard, $150 billion federal investment in clean energy technology, a 25 percent renewable portfolio standard for utilities and his backing for a cap-and-trade program to cut global warming pollution by 80 percent. To be sure, these are all fine ideas.

However, American politics are far more complicated than to assume that Democrats are pro-environment and Republicans are pro-business. To my knowledge, no politician has ever publicly said “screw the environment.” And remember that almost every piece of major environmental legislation was signed by a Republican President: Nixon created EPA and signed the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act; Reagan signed sweeping amendments to RCRA, the nation’s hazardous waste law and the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act; the first President Bush signed into law the massive Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. Ironically, the most maligned piece of environmental legislation -- CERCLA or Superfund -- was signed into law by a departing Jimmy Carter.

Political realities are just that – realities. We can’t assume that any candidate is green, will stay green and will, on his or her own, “do the right thing” every time. We must monitor and apply pressure, regardless of who sites behind that desk in the oval office.

100% Clean Energy in Ten Years? Al Gore Says Yes

Former Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore issued a bold challenge last week: that 100 percent of U.S. electricity production come from sources with zero carbon emissions within 10 years. Gore also clearly made the case that the biggest problems we are facing right now are connected and must be solved together. "We are borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that's got to change," he said.

"But if we grab hold of that common thread and pull it hard," Gore continued, "all of these complex problems begin to unravel and we will find that we are holding the answer to all of them right in our hand. The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels. I'm convinced that one reason we've seemed paralyzed in the face of these crises is our tendency to offer old solutions to each crisis separately -- without taking the others into account. And these outdated proposals have not only been ineffective -- they almost always make the other crises even worse."

In the speech hosted by the "We" Campaign, Gore challenged all Americans to solve America's economic, environmental and national security crises by rallying behind a single, comprehensive objective. "This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative. It represents a challenge to all Americans -- in every walk of life: our political leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, engineers and every citizen," said Gore. Among the dangers in not creating a new energy infrastructure, Gore
said, is that fuel prices will continue to rise and weaken the U.S. economy. He encouraged Americans to not accept the solutions of the past, like drilling for more oil.

Gore described the following as components of meeting this challenge:
-- Expand the wind and solar sectors through continued investment and innovation.
-- Add other renewables should be added to the mix, such as geothermal and solar thermal.
-- The greatest gains can be made in energy efficiency. For instance, existing technologies can raise household efficiency by 30 percent.
-- America must invest in a Unified National Grid that would link every household and move cost-effective renewable electricity from places where the supply is vast to where the power is needed most.
-- We should retain the existing fossil fuel-free energy production from nuclear and hydroelectric power.
-- We must learn to safely store and capture carbon from coal and gas.

Go T. Boone, Go!

Here is an awesome video of T. Boone Pickens speaking about how wind energy can easily become the dominant energy supply of the world. T. Boone at a whiteboard. Doesn't get any better than this!

http://vcr.csrwire.com/node/9159

Naturally Successful

Most of the recent change in the US in the environmental arena has not come from governmetns. Rather, it is springing forth from a new type of entrepreneur, people who are changing the world AND making a profit. Here is a video from just a handful of business leaders speaking about their vision, passion, and fun. It's under three minutes and well worth the time.
http://vcr.csrwire.com/node/9236

The cofounders of Method discuss their new book, "Squeaky Green"

The co-founders of Method, the world's "largest eco-friendly home care brand" talk about their new book "Squeeky Green," a guide for cleaning and detoxifying your home. Here is the link to the video: http://vcr.csrwire.com/node/9221.

Woodsy Owl, Where Are You?

Remember Woodsy Owl? As a kid growing up in the 1970s, the ever-present “Hoot Hoot, Don’t Pollute” was, if annoying, a potent reminder that individual Americans bear the burden of protecting the environment. Some thirty years after first hearing that irksome bird, his message echoes in my ear whenever a gum wrapper falls out of my car, or I see one of my children toss a piece of trash onto the ground. Just as a 12-step program “ruins” drinking for recovering alcoholics (such as myself), that stupid, glassy-eyed little owl made it impossible for me to ever think about littering or “polluting” again. Damn him.

And whatever happened to The Ecology Movement? I remember plastering my notebooks with Ecology Flag stickers, sifting through cereal boxes for ecology compasses, and signing up to the Ecology Club at school. Somewhere along the way grown-ups took over the movement, changed its name to environmentalism, like, made it all serious, and consequently ruined it for kids.

Where are the stickers, flags and annoying owls now?

The only way that we are going to save our planet is to hold ourselves accountable and to take individual actions to reduce our impact. Governments at almost every level are hamstrung by politics, inertia, funding, and fear. Individuals must win this war. And focusing on the younger generation – just as Woodsy Owl did – is really the only way to do it.

Thank You, President Bush

No, really. Thank you President Bush for doing nothing. It is the only credible step you could have taken at this stage in your presidency. It took guts to do it, seriously.

Last week the Bush EPA issued a notice that, in the stilted vernacular of the government, is called an "Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking." In the notice, the US Environmental Protection Agency essentially was silent on whether global warming is a threat to human health or the environment. This astounding reversal of a previous EPA finding ensures that the current administration will do nothing on global warming, leaving it to the next president and Congress. Although the notice puts forth several options for dealing with global warming, it brings nothing new to the table, charts no tangible course to deal with the problem, and likely will do little to help curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Just about a month ago EPA said that it could use the 38 year old Clean Air Act to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases, which are thought to contribute to global warming. But the White House rejected that notion, stating that the law was outdated and that any attempts to regulate greenhouse gases using it would cripple the economy. The EPA Administrator, Stephen Johnson subsequently said that the Clean Air Act is the wrong tool for the job, and that the issue is now in Congress' hands.

I agree.

President Bush's decision is, in my view, and paradoxically, the right decision. It is the only honorable thing President Bush could have done at this point. Anything else would have been irresponsible and, in the words of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, "bogus." President Bush also agreed with other world leaders at the recently concluded G-8 summit to a voluntary 50% reduction in greenhouse gases worldwide by 2050. Of course, there are no details on how to reach this goal, but it is a step in the right direction.

So the issue is now back in the hands of Congress and the next president. Have we lost valuable time in the fight to combate global warming? Of course. Is it too late to take meaningful action? Some scientists believe it is. http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/too-late-to-avoid-global-warming-say-scientists-402800.html.

Being the eternal optimist in all things (except for the Baltimore Orioles), I don't think it is too late. But it is time for us all to take those individual steps to reduce our own impact on the Earth. More on that later.