Green Options

Today is 350.org’s International Day of Climate Action, during which people around the world are trying to call attention to our need to bring the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere back down to 350 parts-per-million (ppm). A noble cause, to be sure — but can we actually do it?

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?

Time-traveling to 2010 reveals how some of Washington’s worst-kept secrets will catch up with President Obama and cripple his climate agenda.

Failure to read the field on Chicago’s Olympic bid begs the question: who is counting votes for President Obama? The White House will need a much better ground game if the US is going to lead the world on climate change.

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?

In the midst of a week when climate change finally stole back some of the spotlight that had been hogged by health care reform for months, the Senate fought off a potentially devastating attempt to emasculate the EPA and its recently won power to regulate greenhouse gases.

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:

If the Senate can get 60 votes for climate change legislation, these are the six Senators that lobbyists will be courting, the White House will be pressing, and you should be watching.

Suddenly, “green business” is a little low on green and high on business. Companies that were built to take on Big Oil are now sharpening their elbows in the lobbying fight to make sure that the bottom line does not fall victim to grid enhancements that are built out by someone else.

It’s well known that politics is dirty, but recently, anti-climate bill tactics have sunk to a new low: forging letters written by senior citizens against the Waxman-Markey climate bill. Five more suspected forgeries were released today bringing the grand total to 58 letters under investigation.