Green Options

At yesterday’s Sustainable Industries Economic Forum, keynote presenter Paul Hawken was asked, “What is the best counterargument to the argument that carbon caps will raise energy costs and hurt our economy?”  In typical Hawken style, his earlier speech was well done, inspiring and insightful.  In typical Hawken style, his off-the-cuff answers to audience questions was where he really shone.  And this answer was perhaps his shining moment of the day.

The seven Republican members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will boycott next Tuesday’s planned markup of the Kerry-Boxer climate legislation. Ah yes, the “screw you guys, I’m going home” tactic. How productive.

Here’s a revolutionary plan from Sandbag that enables you and me to end carbon emissions by simply buying up and destroying European pollution permits by retiring them off the market, at $40 per permit or ton of CO2.

Sandbag buys up carbon credits from those who have already made energy efficiency  investments and as a result have cut their pollution to below their previous level. We buy these clean companies’ credits through Sandbag, and then destroy them so dirty companies can’t buy them.

Olympia Snowe’s support of the finance committee draft puts health care back in play, but without a public option. The Graham-Kerry compromise climate bill would start to cap carbon, but also allow coal to cash in. Will progressives settle for incrementalism?

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce promotes itself as the “voice of business” by representing business ideas and interests in Washington.  Really?  If this is true, then why are so many businesses leaving the Chamber?  So far, high profile utility companies such as Exelon, Pacific Gas & Electric and PNM Resources have left the business association.  Apple recently sent a letter to the Chamber’s CEO, Tom Donahue, resigning their membership effective immediately.  It appears the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is doing an inadequate job of representing current business interests.  So what is all the defections and hoopla about?  Climate Change…

Desert Hills Dairy of Nevada has joined with Carbon Bank Ireland, an emerging leader in cap-and-trade carbon emissions markets, to build the state’s first biogas facility to convert cow manure into electricity.  Along with producing enough sustainable methane to power itself and other equipment at the second largest dairy in Nevada, the high tech digester will produce liquid fertilizer and mulch.

Carbon Bank Ireland specializes in harvesting certified emissions credits from sustainable energy projects, which can be traded in the European carbon markets. While some pundits claim that cap-and-trade is “socialism on a grand scale” (whatever that is), that doesn’t appear to bother the cows.  It also doesn’t appear to bother Nevada, which sees a lot of green in its future.  As reported by Nevada Appeal writer Kirk Caraway, interest in the state’s rich solar, wind and geothermal resources is surging, and it is becoming a desirable location for start-ups that are developing sustainable projects such as the capture of waste heat and the development of hi tech batteries.  Green jobs, anyone?

CO2 is Green seeks to peddle misinformation in an effort to thwart climate legislation and emissions regulation.

Is Exelon’s departure from the US Chamber of Commerce a harbinger for the entire utility sector? Or, is there a divide emerging within the industry?

Once upon a time, Obama’s plan called for cap-and-trade dollars to fund health care reform. Greens should be watching the health care fight, because the closer he gets to a bill, the more he will need cap-and-trade in order to pay for it.

Since the Waxman-Markey Cap and Trade bill is designed to reduce pollution by paying people who reduce pollution with money from polluters, it comes in for all the usual criticism from the fossil industries. They claim Al Gore something something, there’s no global warming, scientists didn’t consult me, it was cold yesterday and so on.

However, it also comes in for some anger from the rest of us, who do support the idea of funding a transfer to a renewable energy economy, but worry that we will pay higher costs and believe that the Cap and Trade bill gives too many initial free allowances to polluting industries. But this anger may be unwarranted.

Consumers are shielded from rising energy costs with most of the allowances:

Cap-and-trade calamity? Au contraire. While the US flounders on regulating carbon, France’s Nicholas Sarkozy is pushing forward with new carbon tax legislation that will only add to France’s edge in the emerging green economy.