Centerblue.org

I decided to evaluate Obama’s and McCain’s proposals for confronting the twin crises of energy scarcity/dependence and climate change. I developed the following grid, based on information provided by the two candidates on their respective web pages devoted to these issues (you can see Obama’s page here, and McCain’s pages here and here.)

(The government report referenced above regarding offshore resources can be found here.)

Bottom line: overall, Obama’s plan beats McCain’s hands down when it comes to aggressiveness and vision. These crises require a national resolve and commitment akin to the Manhattan Project or the Apollo program in order to relieve our oil dependence and prevent a climate catastrophe. We should be throwing everything and the kitchen sink at these problems–government funding, tax incentives, education, efficiency improvements, and every other tool in the book. Both candidates kind of pick and choose, but at the end of the day Obama’s plan shows more of a commitment to resolving these problems than McCain’s.

McCain’s emphasis on developing “clean coal” technology is particularly disappointing. Coal can never truly be clean from an emissions perspective until we develop sound ways to sequester the carbon dioxide emitting from these plants, and we are a long ways off from doing that in a cost-effective and reliable manner.

However, McCain’s plan fills some notable gaps in Obama’s–most notably in pushing for the large-scale development of nuclear power as a cleaner alternative to coal. Nuclear has its problems too, but at least it doesn’t worsen the carbon emissions problem as we ramp up production of renewable energy.

I also oppose continuing subsidies for corn-based ethanol, which Obama favors but McCain does not. We have to stop putting food into our gas tanks as quickly as possible or we will continue to exacerbate food shortages around the world. Cellulosic ethanol is just around the corner, but we need to push very hard right now to make that a viable alternative to corn.

Overall, Obama has it right on these crises–but he would do well to pick up a few elements of McCain’s plan so as to truly commit America to literally saving the world from these pernicious problems that are wrecking our planet, economy, and national security.

(Hat tip to my friend scorpioatl for posting this information).

A new report is out from the Congressional Committee on Natural Resouces that debunks a lot of the BS going around right now about how offshore drilling is necessary to “solve” the current energy crisis.

Some interesting tidbits from the report:

-On the Outer Continental Shelf, 82% of federal natural gas and 79% of federal oil is located in areas that are currently open for leasing.

-Onshore, 72% of oil and 84% of natural gas resources are either fully accessible under standard lease stipulations designed to protect lands and wildlife, or will be accessible pending the completion of land-use planning or environmental reviews.

-Between 1999 and 2007, drilling permits for oil and gas development on public lands increased more than 361%.

-Since 2004, the Bureau of Land Management has issued 28,776 permits to drill on public land; in that same time, only 18,954 wells were actually drilled.

-Oil and gas companies have stockpiled nearly 10,000 extra permits to drill that they are not using to increase domestic production.

-Onshore, of the 47.5 million acres of federal lands leased by oil and gas companies, only about 13 million acres are actually producing oil and gas.

-Offshore, only 10.5 million of the 44 million leased acres are currently producing oil or gas.

-Combined, oil and gas companies hold leases to nearly 68 million acres of federal land that are not producing oil and gas.

-The 68 million acres of leased, inactive federal land could produce an additional 4.8 million barrels of oil and 44.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas each day. That would nearly double total U.S. oil production, and increase natural gas production by 75%.

-4.8 million barrels of oil equals more than six times the estimated peak production from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

-Development of and production from the 68 million acres currently under lease but not in production would cut US imports of oil by one-third.

It seems like oil companies’ failure to fully utilize the resources available to them are far more responsible for stagnant oil production than any ban on offshore drilling.

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An additional fact:

Drilling in ANWR would produce no results for about ten years, and would reduce oil prices by around 75 cents a barrel in 2025. Source: Wall Street Journal.

While drilling in areas already available will provide a bit of respite, it will not solve the long-term problem of having a growing economy dependent on a dwindling resource. We MUST find another way before the pain of dwindling supply and burgeoning demand becomes too great.

Neocons are fond of screaming that Obama saying he would simply talk with our enemies is a serious error that amounts to appeasement. They often cite the Kennedy/Kruschev summit as an example, which they claim emboldened the USSR and led to the rise of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis (they fail to mention, of course, that we had already provoked the USSR by moving nuclear missiles into Turkey and Italy).

Of course, the Cuban Missile Crisis passed with Kruschev being forced to back down, and neither the Berlin Wall nor the USSR still exist, calling into question whether this summit was such a bad idea in the long run.

Some folks insist that Kennedy “appeased” Kruschev by meeting with him without preconditions. Spare me. Kruschev was NOT “appeased” after Kennedy. Unlike the situation with Chamberlain and Hitler, Kruschev made no land grabs, launched no wars, and obtained no significant, long-lasting economic or political advantage from having had a chat with Kennedy.

But regardless, that was then and this is now. There are some key differences between the situation then, and how it exists now. Before going there, however, it is worth noting how eight years of Bush’s refusal to talk with our enemies has affected the foreign policy stance of the United States:

–Bush refused to talk with North Korea, and it now has nuclear weapons.

–Bush refused to talk with Iran, and it is well on its way to developing nuclear weapons. In addition, Hamas and Hezbollah are stronger and better-financed than ever before in history, and these three entities collectively pose a much greater threat to our interests in the region than ever before.

–Bush refused to talk with Iraq (and refused to let anyone else do so either), and had he done otherwise he might have discovered the lack of any WMD’s and held back from launching a war that will end up costing thousands of lives and $1 trillion we cannot afford.

–There is probably no country more reviled in the world today than the United States. Our name, our currency, our principles, our reputation are all in the toilet because of our insistence on acting like a petulant child (much like many neocons do), refusing to talk and being all too willing to play the part of the schoolyard bully.

In short, this so-called foreign policy of refusing to talk has been a complete disaster, from which the United States will need a generation to recover.

Now, to the present. The USSR differed from Iran in a couple of key respects:

–they had the ability to annihilate us off the face of the Earth within minutes, whereas Iran does not;

–Iran directly possesses a precious commodity that we need for our economic survival–oil–whereas the USSR had no such leverage.

–Now, unlike then, our forces are bogged down, worn out, and practically helpless in a country we foolishly chose to invade, vastly decreasing our ability to leverage the threat of sustained military force.

The implications of foreign policy are very different when you have submarines bristling with nuclear missiles off your shores on the one hand, and dealing with a country that poses no military threat to your survival but has something you badly need on the other. One was outside of our control, forcing us to attempt to contain it (the USSR), the other one IS within our control–or rather, the terms of how we deal with that country are within our control if we chose to exercise it.

Let’s put it another way: suppose Iran had no oil. Wouldn’t a decision to bomb Iran’s facilities to prevent its acquisition of the bomb be SO much easier? Of course it would be. Furthermore, Iran would be well aware of its vulnerability and act accordingly–perhaps even thinking twice about developing nuclear technology.

But no, we instead choose to let Iran put its hand on our collective economic testicles, and then pray we can somehow bully it into submission. Fat chance.

The problem with Iran isn’t just them, it’s us. It’s hard to to make these two propositions work together while refusing to talk:

–They shouldn’t have something that we have (nukes);
–They must continue to supply us with something western civilization needs (oil).

I’ll leave the “we can have it but you can’t” issue for another day (I believe that the US’s insistence on that particular nuke doctrine completely undermines our moral authority on the issue, but it’s not worth arguing here). On the second premiss, we would be far better served by taking control of our addiction to oil and removing Iran’s hand from our economic testicles.

It all comes back to the desperately urgent need to develop progressive energy policies in this country that wean us off carbon fuels, which has the marvelous secondary (or primary, if you’re a conservative) consequence of freeing the US from being dependent on anybody else for its energy.

On that score, Obama beats McCain hands down. McCain idiotically thinks that drilling a few more holes offshore is going to solve the current energy crisis (when it will take 5-10 years for those wells to come online and even government documents show that such wells would only shave a few dollars off existing barrel-of-oil prices). Obama gets that we have a long emergency on our hands, one we can’t dig ourselves out of with more holes in the ground–one that requires a revolution in the way this nation consumes energy.

Until that revolution gets underway, we better talk with Iran–because talking is just about our only palatable option until we get our own act together.

“We’re going to go right at OPEC. They can no longer be a cartel, a monopoly that get together once every couple of months [and] decide how much oil they’re going to produce and what price they’re going to put it at. That’s not a market, that’s a monopoly.”

–Hillary Clinton in North Carolina

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OK, so let me get this straight. OPEC has most of the world’s oil. Western civilization NEEDS this oil lest its economy crashes to a grinding halt. They are the masters, we are the slaves. Since when do slaves dictate terms to their masters?

What are we going to do–tell them we don’t need their oil anymore? That we’re going to get it from somewhere else? That we’re going to invade their countries and divert their pipelines? Are we going to nuke them?

Please, Hillary–tell me how we’re going to “go right at OPEC.”

The problem isn’t OPEC. The problem is us. They didn’t ask us to become dependent on their product, we did that all by ourselves. Every time we load up our huge SUV’s getting 10 miles to the gallon, live in the exurbs and commute two hours to work each way, hop in the car to go to the store that’s just around the corner, and sit in traffic choking on our own fumes, we’re causing the problem. OPEC is only too happy to feed an addiction of our own making.

So now we complain when gas prices are sky high (and going much higher)–and threaten to go after our masters? Please.

There’s only one thing we could do practically to OPEC–pressure them to tell the truth about their oil reserves. There are reasons why prices are going sky-high and OPEC is mysteriously declining to take advantage of that windfall. Some people believe that’s because they can’t–because they have reached the limits of their production. Oil reserves are akin to a state secret in places like Saudi Arabia, and we have nothing to go on except their claims of what remains on the ground. So…what if they’re lying? What if peak oil really has come and gone and they’re trying their best to hide it with excuses about why they don’t “want to” further increase production? It is criminal to run our oil-based economy on mere promises of more oil without being damn sure of what’s left.

But that’s about all we can do. Other than that, Hillary should look voters in the eye and tell them that we’re the cause of the problem, and that therefore we need to find the solution on our own. We need to tighten our energy belts while we create a solution. There are a lot of very promising technological advances going on out there right now in energy production–from algal production of biofuel, to designer bacteria that could break down switchgrass into ethanol, to the making of inexpensive solar panels.

All of these things have the potential to break our oil addiction and allow us to give the Saudis the finger once and for all, and in less time than we think. But….it requires a huge and concerted effort to change how energy is made and distributed in this country.

We need a Manhattan Project of energy–one that will incidentally create a lot of jobs while breaking our addiction. It would be money so much better spent than continuing to pour it into the black hole of Iraq (we would already be energy independent if we’d used the nearly $1 trillion for energy development instead of throwing it away in Iraq.)

If Brazil could become energy independent on sugar-based ethanol, we can do the same with our uniquely American technology and wealth. We need politicians with the backbone to give Americans the non-sugar coated truth (including the problem of diminishing oil supply worldwide) and commit us to fundamentally changing how we live and consume energy.

That’s what we need, instead of some idiotic platitudes about “going after OPEC.”

So this is is what our oil addiction has come down to–the leader of the free world figuratively getting on his knees and begging for more oil from OPEC and the Saudis.

Said Bush:

“When [US] consumers have less purchasing power, it could cause the economy to slow down. I hope OPEC nations put more supply on the market. It would be helpful.”

How utterly embarrassing. It underscores American helplessness in its addiction to these foreign powers that are taking the humongous sums of money we’re sending to them for oil or debt to turn around and buy pieces of our own banks to save them from the mortgage crisis. Yep–we’re paying other countries to come over here and buy pieces of our own country so as to feed our debt and oil addictions.

It’s like the prince with land but no money who insists on partying by selling pieces of his land to continue his habit, until he eventually ends up being nothing but a renter on his own property.

The Saudis are playing their own little game too. Their response to Bush’s bleating was:

“Our interest is to keep oil supplies matching demand with minimum volatility in the oil market,” Oil Minister Ali Naimi told reporters. “We will raise production when the market justifies it. This is our policy.”

Sorry for the stupid question–but what more justification than historically high $100+/barrel prices is needed to convince the Saudis the market justifies it? Why are they leaving extreme wealth on the table when they could generate insane amounts of money by pumping more oil?

Hmmm…maybe it’s because they can’t.

This is a story I’ve been watching carefully, and now it’s official: a Silicon Valley start-up has succeeded in printing out thin sheets of solar panels for the cost of $1 per watt. That makes solar power cheaper that coal.

The company, called Nanosolar, has some powerful backers including Google–and it already has an 18 month backlog of orders. It basically prints films of solar panels on an aluminum type substance that is thin and flexible. These films can be deployed anywhere relatively easily.

So now the technology has proven that it is possible to out-do dirty fossil fuel–the only thing that remains is the will power and the investment dollars to make it happen fast. How about diverting some Iraq dollars to a far better cause than butchering people who don’t want us there, and getting a new president who gets that we need to immediately break our fossil fuel addiction?

You can help make it all happen in November 2008.

In an era of $100/barrel oil with no end in sight to our energy problems, and with climate change growing increasingly alarming, the League of Conservation Voters has put out a chart that shows the energy policy positions of each of the 2008 presidential candidates. I’d love to reproduce it here, but it doesn’t fit the blog’s margins–so you can see the whole chart here.

Here’s a sample from the top candidates.

Dems

Clinton: wants 80% carbon reduction by 2050, 55 miles per gallon standards by 2030, 25% energy from renewables by 2025, reduce energy consumption (increased efficiency) 20% by 2020.

Obama: wants 80% carbon reduction by 2050, 50 MPG standards by 2025, 25% energy from renewables by 2025, reduce energy consumption 50% by 2030.

Edwards: wants 80% carbon reduction by 2050, 40 MPG standards by 2016, 25% energy from renewables by 2025, reduce electricity consumption 15% by 2018.

GOP

Giuliani: no articulated position on anything except supporting liquefied coal.

Romney: cap carbon emissions only if the entire world does so, opposes fuel economy/MPG increases, generally supports efficiency but has no stated goals, has no renewable energy goal, supports liquefied coal.

McCain: lead author of bill to reduce carbon emissions 65% by 2050, wants fuel efficiency increase but no goal specified, wants 25% of energy from renewables by 2025, 50% reduction in energy use via efficiency by 2030.

What strikes me is how pathetically small-minded the GOP candidates are on this issue (with the exception of McCain, who at least “gets” it about global warming and somewhat “gets” it about the energy crisis). It’s as if the rest of the GOP candidates forgot that a lot of middle class people are stretching to the breaking point in the wake of $3.00+ gas and multi-hundred dollar winter heating bills–or maybe they just never bothered thinking about it in the first place. It’s also as if they have no idea about the freight train of fossil fuel scarcity headed our way that even our own Bush-led government has warned us about, preferring instead to continue blithely on in ignorance.

Well, the rest of us “get” the energy problem every time we go to the gas pump, and a majority of us now see the light on global warming. Whether the GOP candidates like it or not these issues will be front and center in this campaign–and they will be bludgeoned to a bloody pulp by their Democratic opponents if they don’t get their heads out of their asses and address the obvious.

Thing is, we can meet the energy goals outlined by the Democratic candidates–but we need someone at the helm willing to provide the leadership necessary to make them happen. The process will be painful, and will require an adjustment to the thinking of many Americans with feelings of entitlement to cheap energy, but it CAN be done and it MUST be done if we are to keep our nation (and indeed our civilization) moving forward.

For those of us keeping track of environmental and energy news, this week has been very depressing and makes one fear for the not-so-distant future.

Some snippets:

A new study shows that carbon dioxide has been accumulating in the atmosphere in far greater amounts than estimated by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the use of their climate change models. CO2 levels are as much as 35% higher since 2000 than estimated by the IPCC, making their climate change estimates over the coming years and decades entirely too optimistic. The reasons are primarily the inefficient use of fossil fuels, the strong growth of India and China, and the saturation of the world’s oceans with CO2 to the point that they can’t absorb any more. Result: global warming is likely to be far more severe than current predictions, as if they weren’t bleak enough.

In typical cowardly politician fashion, British Labour ministers are advising Prime Minister Gordon Brown to effectively abolish the goal stated by Tony Blair of having 20% of European energy come from renewable sources, citing the plan as too expensive and facing “severe practical difficulties.” Absolutely shameful. I wonder what they’ll think of the expense when parts of Britain go under water?

Speaking of under water, Bangkok is sinking fast. Bangkok is giving us a preview of what is to come, being one of 13 of the 20 largest cities in the world at risk of being engulfed by water as the oceans rise by 2100.

Atlanta has only 80 days of of drinking water left due to the worst drought in the Southeast on record, as its reservoir Lake Lanier runs bone dry. After that there will be little to no water left for taking showers, cooking, drinking, or anything else. Severe water restrictions are in place across the area. (Thanks to my friend Francis-Maria for the heads up.)

Fires rage out of control in Southern California. Thousands of homes have been incinerated.

Last but not least, a new study based on actual oil production rather than government-skewed estimates states that “peak oil” passed in 2006–that is, the point in time where the world will produce the most petroleum it can. From this point forward comes a decline that could reach as much as 7% a year. This suggests that extreme shortages possibly leading to “war and unrest” are in the immediate future as the world will produce only half as much oil in 2030 as it does today, starving growing economies of the energy they need. Meanwhile, crude oil has soared to around $90 a barrel as of last Friday; the markets sense something very rotten in Denmark. $4 gas? $5 gas? $10+ gas? Get prepared.

Can we act swiftly enough to tackle these simultaneous crises affecting the entire human race? I grow more pessimistic by the day.

My older sister Addie lives in Miami. Once in a while she sends me some email about boycotting gas companies because of outrageously high gas prices, and I usually ignore them. But today I decided to respond not just to her, but to her friends on the email’s cc list….because I felt there were some things they needed to learn.

Here’s what the original email said (edited formatting for sanity’s sake, but I left other errors as-is):

4.19 per gal

The price of Gas

Hello everyone,

We hear that the price of gas will climb to approximately $4.19 per gal By this summer.

Do you want the price of gas to go down?

IT IS POSSIBLE! We must act NOW and wisely !

Last year, a few suggestions were made, for instance: « Do not buy gas on certain days»! Gas companies had a good laugh, as they knew that the gas that was not purchased on Monday would be purchased on Tuesday. At best, it was an inconvenience for them, but not a problem.

Someone thought of a plan that can work.IF WE REALLY WANT IT Read the following and join us to implement it!

Gas now sells for 3.09¢ per gal For regular unleaded As an average for USA. In some areas, the price is even higher.

We all know that we are “being taken for a ride” by the gas companies.

Remember that when gas companies raised the price of gas over $2.00 per gal. They argued that gas would be in short supply. There is more gas now than 35 years ago when the price was 29¢ per gal.

Gas companies want us to believe that gas is cheap at 1.99¢ per gal.

We must act agressively and Show them that the consumers Can have some control over prices and not only gas companies.

The best way to be successful is to hit where it hurts: their bank accounts!

WE CAN DO IT !

HOW?

As we all need our vehicles, we cannot simply stop buying gas.
However, we can have a significant impact on the price of gas IF WE ACT TOGETHER to initiate a PRICE WAR!!!

This idea is suggested: For the remainder of the year,WE DO NOT BUY ANY GAS FROM The two largest companies (who are now only ONE) Exxon and SHELL

Think about it!

If the major gas companies do not sell gas, they will unavoidably lower their prices and this will immediately result in a PRICE WAR.

In order to generate the desired impact, we must reach millions of Exxon and SHELL consumers.

This is how we must proceed!

I am sending this e-mail to approximately 30 people.

If everyone sends this e-mail to 10 others, we already have reached 300 people. If 300 send this message to 3 000 more people, and so on…
We will reach 3 MILLIONS people in no time…You see what I mean…

If each and everyone of you forward this message to 10 people within a day or so, we will be 300 MILLIONS of people To go to war against these gas companies in approximately 8 days!

Do you really believe that they will have other options?

YES, WE CAN WIN BUT…It is absolutely NECESSARY To continue purchasing our gas ELSEWHERE Than at Exxon and SHELL and this, until we reach our objective.

And, MOST OF ALL, LET US FORWARD THIS MESSAGE!

CAN WE COUNT ON YOU…?

Here was my rather tart response:

Sister, you already know how silly these things are, and that I think you’re being foolish by forwarding them.

The attachment claims the price of gas was 29 cents 35 years ago. Well…a cup of coffee was 5 cents too! A house in New York City could be bought for $20,000. It’s called INFLATION. It happens to the cost of everything and the incomes of everyone over time.

And even at $5 dollars a gallon, gas is STILL cheap. Why? There are 16 cups in a gallon. $5 divided by 16 is 31 cents a cup of gas. What else in this world is that cheap compared to how important it is? A cup of starbucks coffee is many times that at over $2 a cup!

Once again the paper points the finger at the oil companies to try to blame them. Why doesn’t anyone point the finger at ourselves? Do you think we are ENTITLED to live an hour away from work, having to commute two hours in crushing rush hour traffic each day? Do you think we are ENTITLED to pollute the environment every time we get in our cars to go one block to the grocery store to buy that extra pint of ice cream contributing to our obesity? Do you think we are ENTITLED to spend 25% of the oil pumped in the world every day and produce a third of the world’s pollution when we are only 5% of the world’s population? Do you think we are ENTITLED to pay 29 cents a gallon when Europe has routinely been paying $5 a gallon or more for many years now? How arrogant and selfish we are as Americans!

It gets even better! The oil companies ultimately have to pay money to the countries with oil in the ground, right? That oil is not here in America anymore, it is in unstable places like Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Nigeria. Those countries set the price of oil, not the oil companies. They’re called OPEC. Why can OPEC demand $60 a barrel minimum and get away with it? Because they know that we Americans are addicted to oil like a drug addict is addicted to heroin, and will pay ANY price to get it to maintain our foolish ways of wasteful energy spending. It’s simple supply and demand economics.

Worse, these OPEC countries like Saudi Arabia then take our own addict money to fund terrorists to come ram our buildings with airplanes. We are funding terrorism against ourselves through our own addiction to foreign oil.

If you stop buying from these two companies, they would likely simply resell their gasoline to other companies who suddenly have all this new demand they are unable to meet. Why? Because you are not reducing DEMAND. The demand has to be fed from somewhere, and there is VERY little excess oil out there because of how much the world consumes. As long as there is demand, there will be a market for Shell and Exxon, whether it be to you or to another supplier.

The price of gas is going to keep going up until we stop the nonsense of trying to blame someone else and start pointing at ourselves for living so wastefully. It’s not just the gasoline we use, but the petroleum to go into all the wasteful plastic packaging that goes to our landfills every day. That gobbles up huge amounts of petroleum too.

You want to do something about gas prices? Then STOP THE ADDICTION. Walk, don’t drive. Live closer to work. Get politically active and demand that your congress pass incentives for developing non-petroleum or hybrid cars. Lowering demand is the ONLY thing that will lower the price of gas. Stop paying attention to charlatans.

Your brother,

Joe

Yea the email pissed me off—and I hadn’t had my morning coffee. But please, let’s show some accountability for once.

The Union of Concerned Scientists, a science-based advocacy group, issued a report claiming that ExxonMobil has given $16 million to 43 ideological groups trying to discredit global warming between 1998 and 2005, in a coordinated effort to mislead the public about the realities of climate change. The charge mirrors one made last year by The Royal Society, Britain’s leading scientific academy.

Alden Meyer, the Union of Concerned Scientists’ strategy and policy director, said in a teleconference that ExxonMobil based its tactics on those of tobacco companies, spreading uncertainty by misrepresenting peer-reviewed scientific studies or cherry-picking facts.

Dr. James McCarthy, a professor at Harvard University, said the company has sought to “create the illusion of a vigorous debate” about global warming.

There is no debate. Thousands of studies point to the reality of man-made global warming and the dire threat it poses not just to the planet but to all of us.

It’s the height of moral bankruptcy that preserving profits used to fund ExxonMobil’s CEO’s $400 million retirement can come about only as a result of trying to confuse the public at the same time that entire ice shelves are melting and signs of imminent climate change are everywhere.

I’m probably never buying gasoline again from these bastards.