Green Options

A few weeks ago Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) called for a new energy solution. A solution that came in the form of 100 new nuclear power plants. That vision has not left the republicans’ eyes. And on Tuesday, Senator Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) added his two cents.

It’s no surprise that the United States Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufactures oppose the American Clean Air and Security Act, but so does Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. Dow Chemical and Ford Motors support it.

Apparently Fox News tele-pundit and GOP cheerleader, Dick Morris, thinks the only way people will consider him relevant is if he tells everyone that he was once an adviser to President Bill Clinton.

With all signs pointing to a Friday House vote on the Waxman-Markey climate bill, the political action committee behind the “Drill here, drill now, pay less” campaign yesterday launched a last-ditch effort to scare the crap out of you.

Why multinational companies should be considered to be part of the solution to climate change, not part of the problem.

When the headlines told us that the global warming debate was over, it seemed like we environmentalists could breathe a collective sigh of relief. The United States elected a cap-and-trade-sympathetic administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency says it is going to exert some of the “P” in its acronym after it formally labeled carbon dioxide a pollutant last month. So now that the debate is over, has the discussion ended?

Much of what I assumed to be climate consensus has been turned on its head since I moved to the Midwest from New York. Meaning, there a lot of people here in the Middle who care about environmental issues but are not convinced climate change is related to human activities and/or is as dire as predicted. I believe it is. . .and I also believe that in order to get buy-in from such diverse constituents, it’s imperative that we engage in dialog with those who hold differing opinions.

“A new energy economy is going to be part of what creates the millions of new jobs,” President Barack Obama said recently.

That’s because a climate bill, once passed, will act like the starting gun in a business innovation race. To illustrate how capping carbon pollution will stimulate the economy and create jobs, EDF designed this graphic (see below the jump).

The United States must take the opportunity of this economic downturn to invest aggressively in renewable energy projects and reduce its dependence on foreign supplies of fuel.

To help insure meaningful climate legislation, one of the first lessons is to resist undue influence from the lobbyists, says one leading official of Germany’s Emissions Trading Authority.

Interview Jon Stewart did with EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show.

A new survey by the Rasmussen Group reveals a huge disconnect between the American people and the Obama administration’s proposed cap-and-trade climate change legislation.