Quick hits today:
- State energy officials in KS are pressing legislators to act for more wind energy and conservation, arguing that latter alone could prevent the need for a new electric generation plant. The gov there proposes 10% of the state's energy from wind generation by 2020. And lord knows there's wind in KS.
- Groups in ME are also urging their policymakers to adopt environmental measures, including climate-related ones, but particularly limits on new power plants.
- Dave Roberts at Grist has been pointing us to some really good stories lately, one from Rolling Stone on how utility companies are racing to build coal-fired plants before caps come online, one from the Atlantic on plans to bioengineer microbes that can produce biofuel (Jurassic Park anyone???), and one on "The 3C Initiative" that might (might) be bringing corporations together against global warming.
- But Dave does his best job in this post where he takes apart the “oh-so-moderates” among the climate reviewers, playing their Kevin Drum games with the same effect, giving ammo to the true extremists who want to be considered equal in argument to the people who know what’s coming. One other point—in a world of possible nonlinear climate change, no one knows what an “extremist” (aka “dirty hippie”) is on the environmental side. Just as they may not be proven right because they hypothesized too far, they may not be going far enough. NOBODY KNOWS, so to play the “I’m so rational, I’m so academic, I’m so tolerant” game is a sign of actual ignorance and misunderstanding of exactly what’s going on. I got sick of these guys, stopped reading their blogs (Mooney, Kleiman) back when they were pulling the same crap analyzing our political situation but now they’re dealing with a life-and-death matter that they help pooh-pooh while pretending they’re on the right side. They’re not, and history will judge them as it has always judged those who counsel moderation in the face of demonstrable threat and moral wrong, the people Dr. King wrote about from his Birmingham jail cell.
- Speaking of business finally getting its act together on this, here's a piece on a GE unit partnering with others to try to offset 10 m. metric tons of greenhouse gases annually. Not sure how much of this I trust, but, if words on paper become actions in reality, this could be a good deal.
- Russia joins the crowd blaring about how this winter really goes beyond the basic "every now and then" story deniers try to use.
- And for those of you waiting for me to talk about or link to anything about Bushnev's supposed initiative on global warming in his coming State of the Union, the failure to do so is not accidental, nor will there be change. I wouldn't believe him if he told me today was Wednesday. I'll leave that to Mooney and Kleiman.
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