My latest DeSmogBlog post is about the move we’ve seen from sowing doubt about climate science to not even thinking it’s worth hearing any more–as epitomized by the recent IPCC defunding effort. It begins like this:

Over the weekend, the U.S. House of Representatives voted along partisan lines in favor of an amendment sponsored by Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri (pictured at left) to cut funding for the Nobel Peace Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). When I flagged this incredible news on my Discover blog, the clean energy activist Michael Noble tweeted back: “Gone, even that old refrain: ‘needs more study.’”

The more I think about it, the more profound that little remark becomes….

You can read the full item here.

This is a guest post by Melissa C. Lott, an engineering research associate at The University of Texas at Austin and a member of the Webber Energy Group. Her work includes a unique blending of technology and policy in the field of energy systems research. Melissa studies the economic and environmental tradeoffs of energy systems, including electricity generation (power plants) and transportation fuels. In this work, she focuses on electricity transmission (smart grid, RETI, CREZ) and energy efficiency programs. She has worked as an engineer and consultant for YarCom, Inc. for more than 6 years. Melissa holds two master’s degrees from UT Austin – in Mechanical Engineering and Public Affairs – as well as a bachelor’s degree in Biological Systems Engineering from the University of California at Davis. She has interned for the Department of Energy and the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Energy & Climate Change Team for the Obama Administration. Melissa is also the author of the blog Global Energy Matters: Energy and Environment in Our Lives.

Serious energy discussion in this country is breaking out on many levels – national, state, local, and community. And, in the big energy state of Texas, the conversation recently extended into academia. On February 3-4, University of Texas at Austin student volunteers organized and hosted the inaugural UT Energy Forum – an event exploring energy in the context of “fostering interdisciplinary collaboration.” Over the two-day meeting, a diverse group of academics, government officials, and businessmen discussed the future of energy – and what that future could look like.

As a speaker (on the topic of the smart grid) and an attendee, I joined in both days of discussion despite the harsh winter weather that shutdown most of the city on day 2. Along with hundreds of other attendees, I listened to keynote speakers including as ARPA-E Director Dr. Arun Majumdar and UT assistant professor Michael E. Webber of the Webber Energy Group. I also enjoyed the format of panel discussions and 7-minute TED-style talks along with intelligent discussion both inside and out of the meeting rooms.

Throughout the forum, several themes emerged: (more…)

My latest DeSmogBlog post is a case study in what happens when we have a pair of dueling experts on a complicated topic–in this case, a dispute between the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and the Heritage Foundation. They are battling over this PERI study, which found that a pair of EPA regulations would create jobs. I pose the question:

Is this a dispute in which outside observers have any choice other than to throw up their hands, unsure who to believe? Most of us aren’t economists, after all, so what other option is available to us? How can we possibly say who’s right and who’s wrong, without taking a few years to develop some expertise? Moreover, from a journalistic perspective, is there any way to cover this dispute other than in a “he said, she said, we’re clueless” fashion?

My answer is “yes,” and you can see why by following this link.

President Obama wants to slash fossil fuel subsidies in his new budget–and in his State of the Union Address, he called for cutting $ 4 billion in tax breaks and subsidies for oil companies. But how much in total subsidies do fossil energy companies get from the U.S. government?

According to this post from Scaling Green, coming up with an answer to that question is actually extremely difficult:

Energy trends analyst Chris Namovicz of the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) was the latest speaker in our “Communicating Energy” lecture series. We took the opportunity to ask one of the top, neutral energy trends analysts in the country the question, “Do you know if someone has actually done a credible, comprehensive, definitive count of how much taxpayers underwrite fossil fuels in this country?” We added the thought that “there’s no one really widely available number where average citizens can say, yeah, this much of my money goes to pay ExxonMobil.”

According to Namovicz, there really isn’t such a widely available, definitive, comprehensive number.

Part of the problem is the complexity of the question. What’s a subsidy? Are we talking federal, state, both? What about when the military ships oil, or protects oil shipping lanes–is that a “subsidy”?

One thing seems clear–the total yearly figure is probably significantly higher than $ 4 billion.

I’m sure it had nothing to do with mounting criticism over his misuses of science in what has been called “ArticGate” (Schmitt spelled the word “Arctic” wrong in a paper submitted to NASA–a paper in which this was probably the least of his errors). The official story is that he refused a background check. But whatever the cause, at the end of a week in which bloggers pilloried him for abusing climate science, we now suddenly learn that Harrison Schmitt is stepping down from his previously announced post at the head of New Mexico’s Department of Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources.

Frankly, to me the official story has a lot of holes. The cited cause of his stepping down sounds awfully trivial. Do you really worry about routine things like background checks if you want to be the head of a major state agency? And note also: This nomination had seemed like a done deal. Schmitt was already listed on the official state website as the “secretary” of the department (and still is, for the moment). His  bio is also still one the state website, describing him as “secretary.”

At the same time, I also find it hard to believe that climate focused bloggers have enough oomph to cause someone like Schmitt to reconsider his nomination. We were, at best, lending ammo to his critics in New Mexico. But he was always going to have critics in the state, and if things were getting too hot he could have just backed away from a few of his more stunning comments about climate change and other matters.

So it’s hard to imagine what really happened here. And before we rejoice too much, bear in mind that Schmitt may well be replaced by another climate change denier. But as Joe Romm puts it, when it comes to Schmitt’s replacement, “I’m guessing [Governor] Martinez will be looking for someone who is a tad more earthbound….”

I thought, after President Obama’s State of the Union address, that at least we could all probably agree that advancing scientific research (and thus, economic growth) was a good thing. But now we see what the House Appropriations Committee has in mind when it comes to cutting $ 35 billion from the budget–and that includes a lot of whacks at scientific research programs that are at the center of the innovation agenda. Reports Portfolio:

Republicans propose cutting $1.1 billion from the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, which is the nation’s largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences. The plan calls for a $1 billion budget cut at the National Institutes of Health, the federal government’s medical research agency. The Centers for Disease Control would see its funding drop by $755 million. Agricultural research would be cut by $246 million.

The spending plan, which will go to the House floor for a vote next week, also calls for eliminating $1 billion in funding for high-speed rail projects, a program that Obama wants to spend $53 billion on over the next six years. Amtrak would face a $224 million budget cut.

Among the other cuts:

* The Department of Energy’s loan-guarantee program, which supports loans for clean-energy projects, would be reduced by $1.4 billion.
* Spending on other energy efficiency and renewable energy programs would be cut by nearly $900 million.
* The Environmental Protection Agency would have $1.6 billion less to spend, making it harder for the agency to proceed with regulations on greenhouse gas emissions.

Honestly, the last cut is the only one that at least makes some sense from the point of view of a Republican who wants to stimulate the economy. They think GHG regulations will kill growth and jobs. I think they’re wrong–but at least there’s an argument there.

What on earth is the economic argument for cutting any of this other research?

My latest DeSmogBlog post is about the hearing currently underway before the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and Power, concerning the so-called “Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011.” (Yeah. I know.) Anyway, the post starts off like this:

The big news so far from the current hearing…is that Senator James Inhofe, the leading climate change denier in the U.S. Congress, has a book coming out.

Inhofe had crossed chambers to testify in favor of the new legislation, which he co-authored with Energy and Commerce chair Fred Upton and subcommittee chair Ed Whitfield, and which would block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. And in response to a question from Upton, Inhofe took the opportunity to mention his book, telling the committee that he just finished it and that it will be entitled “The Hoax.”

The title, presumably, refers Inhofe’s most (in)famous statement: His 2003 claim that climate change is the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” I suppose it’s kind of like Carl Sagan entitling one of his last books Billions and Billions. Sagan didn’t like being remembered by that phrase, which he’d never actually uttered–but it’s much better than the one Inhofe is going to be remembered by, and did use to dismiss climate change.

You can read the full post here.

Yesterday a video made the rounds of Fred Upton, the new chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, clearly denying that climate change is human caused. In taking this stance, Upton officially joined many of his fellow Republicans, who have already done so. But unlike those who have long held this view, Upton appears to have adopted it more recently.

For instance, look at this 2009 article in the River Country Journal, published in Upton’s home state of Michigan. In it, he’s quoted praising wind energy and commenting: “Climate change is a serious problem that necessitates serious solutions.  Everything must be on the table – particularly renewable sources of energy like wind and solar, nuclear power and clean coal technologies.”

I don’t see how you go logically from thinking climate change is a “serious problem that necessitates serious solutions”—solutions that include a number of non-carbon energy sources—to thinking humans aren’t causing climate change through their carbon emissions. If global warming is natural, why would we need energy solutions? There is a big leap here, and it is hard to see how anything other than politics would explain it.

For more, see Kate Sheppard’s analysis of Upton’s recent movement at Mother Jones.

My latest DeSmogBlog post is up: It’s about the astronaut, politician, and geologist Harrison Schmitt, a climate denier who has just been put in charge of New Mexico’s Department of Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources. This is…problematic, and people are increasingly catching on:

….climate bloggers Scott Mandia and John Cook both have posts this morning about a 2009 paper on climate models that Schmitt submitted to NASA.

The 2009 paper claims, among other things, that Arctic sea ice extent had seen a recovery, so that 2009 levels were back to where they’d been 20 years earlier in 1989. But as Mandia and Cook explain, that’s simply not true. Furthermore, even if Schmitt were right about sea ice extent, extent isn’t the same as sea ice volume, as I explained in this New Scientist piece. The decline in volume is also unequivocal and probably what matters more, because thinner ice has less chance of surviving the summer melt season.

This troubling claim about sea ice is just one of many that Schmitt has used to bolster his climate denialist stance, but it’s important because it’s so stark. Will Schmitt admit he was mistaken, and Arctic sea ice is indeed in marked decline?

You can read the full post here.

In October I wrote that “Apple is Almost Worth as Much as ExxonMobil: And That’s Good for the Planet.” And it would have been.

However, ExxonMobil’s value has since shot through the roof, making it far and away the biggest company in the world (in terms of market capitalization) with no nearby competition. I just checked: ExxonMobil’s market cap is $ 415 billion; Apple’s is currently $ 316 billion. As the folks at CNN Money note,

It just goes to show that as cool (and profitable) as selling iPads, iPhones and iEverything else may be, there’s not yet an app that I know of that can cause oil prices to fall below $80 a barrel with a mere click. So it looks like Exxon’s tiger in the tank may continue to take a bite out of Apple in the market cap race for a little while longer.

Why this matters? Because the difference between oil and tech, between Texas and California, is about a lot more than money. It’s about values, the future of the clean economy, and the role of wealth in our society. For more, see my original post on this here.