Want to Win in November? Support Clean Energy.

A must-read piece today from Grist's David Roberts on why clean energy is a huge political winner:

With the Wall Street Journal editorial page beating its chest, Politico making sweet, sweet love to the Solyndra non-scandal, and the Chamber of Commerce dumping money into attack ads, Democrats have gotten unduly spooked. They’ve started believing John Boehner’s trash talk, that energy is a wedge to divide unions from greens.

It’s an empty threat. The fact is, overwhelming majorities of Americans — across party, age, and regional lines — support clean, modern energy. A poll conducted by ORC International in November found that 77 percent of Americans, including 65 percent of Republicans, believe that “the U.S. needs to be a clean energy technology leader and it should invest in the research and domestic manufacturing of wind, solar, and energy efficiency technologies.” Last February, a Gallup poll offered a list of actions Congress might take. The most popular option, with an incredible 83 percent support, was “an energy bill that provides incentives for using solar and other alternative energy resources.” [...]

Clean energy isolates the Republican base from the broad mass of American opinion and, in particular, from swing-state independents. It’s a wedge issue and an electoral winner for Democrats if they can quit playing defense and go on the attack. The appropriate response to threats from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a well-administered ass kicking.

Next time you hear a Democrat waffling on support for clean energy, kick them in the shins. I am not making this up: Some focus group testing this week showed clean energy is almost as popular with swing voters as killing Osama bin Laden (although who gives killing the mastermind of 9/11 a B minus?). Plus, we all know how much voters love candidates apologizing for what they believe in.

And if you want to support great work like David's and have a few bucks burning a hole in your pocket, go donate to Grist.

Hey, America! The 1% Has A Brown Job For YOU!

Are you ready for a risky life of hard labor digging up dirty fuels the 1% can sell to make billions in profit? Get excited for the brown jobs revolution!

No, really. An editorial in today's Wall Street Journal calls for More Brown Jobs. Even though American oil use is declining and what's being produced isn't lowering gas or home heating oil prices here - it's just being sold overseas.

So get excited! From drilling for oil shale to fracking for methane gas to digging for uranium to building pipelines that bring Canadian tar sands to Chinese oil tankers, corporate polluters are eager to exploit the crushing economic crisis their Wall Street friends created to make unemployed workers think they have to sell out their children's health to put food on the table now!

What's that? Worried your community will be turned into an industrial wasteland? That you'll be able to light your tap water on fire? That soon you too will be saying things like, "Just about anybody I talk to that's a neighbor — and some of them are getting wealthy — are sick of it"?

Come on - corporate America wouldn't lie to you! Right?

Wall St. Journal Continues Political Attacks on Climate Science

Great post from Andrew Freedman at Capital Weather Gang. Wish more people who devoted their lives to science were willing to stand up & call out political attacks on scientific fact.