Billionaire Polluting Kochs Think Disclosure Is For The Little People

Billionaire polluting energy kingpins the Koch brothers have taken to personally attacking journalists who report on their shady dealings, according to the Washington Post's Paul Farhi. But as the Better Future Project pointed out this week, the Kochs think full public disclosure is only for the little people - Oxbow Carbon baron and Cape Wind opponent William Koch not only thinks he should be able to hide behind a front group, he thinks he should get a tax break for his trouble:

New England climate movement leader Craig Altemose and several other concerned citizens have co-signed a letter to the Internal Revenue Service urging it to investigate the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound after its repeated failures to properly document its donations and expenses.

They point out that the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound has forwarded $394,000 to the Town of Barnstable to pay for its litigation against the Cape Wind project, America’s first offshore wind farm, and has failed to properly account for these grants as required in its recent Form 990 filings.

It's part of an admitted strategy by the Kochs - invest in the political process to maximize their own interests and profits. But they know that billionaire polluting energy kingpins are the least-persuasive public spokesmen possible, so they fund a series of front groups and puppet spokespeople to make their case for them. And on top of that, the politicians they fund constantly fight for laws to help hide that funding and its connections.

All that stands in stark contrast to clean energy and its supporters. Cape Wind's conservation, public health and labor allies are so transparent they put all their names on one website.

Show your support for Cape Wind by asking federal regulators to speed the development of clean, affordable offshore wind energy.

Learn Why Keystone XL Isn't in America's Interest in Under 2 Minutes

The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would cook our climate, threaten wildlife and drain money from American families. What's not to like?

Political News is Filtered Through Lens of Well-Off White Political Junkie

That the House Republican farm bill would quite literally starve low-income families while shoveling billions in subsidies to agribusiness corporations? BOOOO-RING.

But hey, did you hear who's going to a pancake breakfast in Iowa this weekend? The Iowa caucus is only 30 months away! Never mind that it's failed to predict the Republican nominee two cycles in a row. HORSE RACE! It's on!

Your national political news is almost always filtered through the lens of someone who's white, middle to upper income, lives in the DC or New York City suburbs, drives more than relying on walking/biking/transit, never worries about where their next meal will come from, cares much more about political spin than policy impact, and thinks everyone sees the world the exact same way.

As Ezra Klein often says, "The first rule of being a political junkie is to always remember that you are a very weird person, and most people are not like you." Seems like very few political journalists ever get that introspective.

Amusement Park Ride Looks Exactly Like Wind Turbine

Canobie Lake Park in New Hampshire has a ride called Equinox that looks just like a wind energy turbine. A park spokesman tells me it's just a coincidence, but for the few, the proud, the wind energy fanatics, this seems like a rare chance to experience being strapped to a working wind turbine:

See What Happens When Local Tea Party Group Thinks For Itself

The Georgia Tea Party supports diversifying the state's energy sources to take advantage of the Peach State's abundant solar energy, saying consumers have the right to choose where their electricity comes from. Right now, Georgia utilities provide only gas-fired, coal-fired, and nuclear power, with only tiny amounts of hydro-electric and other renewable energy mixed in.

But Koch Industries founded the Tea Party to fight limits on corporate pollution, not promote solar power. So the Koch collective is now sending piles of cash to put down the pro-solar insurrection, as Kiley Kroh reports at Climate Progress.

The moment anyone bucks the pro-polluter party line, those Tea Party muskets of freedom turn into a firing squad.

Ask The Green Miles: Are Smart Cars the Greenest Choice?

The quintessential auto show picture

When folks ask me for advice on car-buying, they almost always bring up Smart Cars. They're so small, they must be the most fuel efficient, right?

But smallest size doesn't necessarily mean the best fuel efficiency. Sure, the Smart ForTwo gives you a really good 36 miles per gallon combined city/highway at a very low base price. But a nice gas-sipping subcompact - say, a Ford Focus or a Toyota Yaris - will give you very similar fuel efficiency (low 30s) with TWICE the passenger volume for only a couple of thousand more.

If you're a short-to-medium distance commuter, all-electrics like the Ford Focus Electric or Nissan Leaf will deliver absolutely amazing savings on fuel cost and pollution. And for folks who regularly make longer drives and need a hybrid, the Toyota Prius is still king.

The Environmental Protection Agency's FuelEconomy.gov gives a great rundown of the most fuel-efficient cars, along with the most and least fuel-efficient SUVs and trucks.

That brings me to a related pet-peeve: When people think I'm reflexively anti-SUV. Yes, if you're a single person driving a Chevy Suburban because you might go skiing once next year, you're wasting money and polluting our air for absolutely no reason. But if you need some room for your family, get a Toyota Highlander Hybrid and you'll be getting only somewhat worse mileage (28 mpg combined) than those Smart Car drivers.

Help Fund Forest Film-Making

My cousin Rebecca Billings and her documentary partner Jacob Wise are kickstarting project on Vancouver Island's old-growth forests. Watch the video below, then if you can spare it, kick them $10 to help their project to protect these ancient wildlife habitats.


IndieGoGo Promo Video from Jacob Wise on Vimeo.

Top Wildfire Fighter: "We've Had Climate Change Beat Into Us"

Just posted to the National Wildlife Federation blog on how climate change is fueling the Arizona wildfires and may be permanently changing Western wildlife habitats.

Watch more as Scott Pelley of +CBS News' 60 Minutes interviews Tom Boatner, the federal government's chief of fire operations, on the front lines on the connection between global warming and wildfires:

Beltway Journalists Now Writing Polluter Fan Fiction

The National Journal's Amy Harder fantasizes about how President Obama could lay the smackdown on his administration's own experts and anyone who wants a stable climate by approving the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

Tim DeChristopher and Our Upside-Down Punishment Priorities

Wall Street bankers crashed the global economy. Not a single one was put on trial, never mind sent to prison. Not one, not for a day.

Climate activist Tim DeChristopher pranked one oil and gas leasing auction as an act of civil disobedience. Despite the Interior Department subsequently canceling those leases saying they had been rushed into auction with insufficient environmental and scientific review, authorities decided to make an example of DeChristopher. He was sent to prison for 21 months and is now serving an additional three years of probation.

DeChristopher told his story to +Late Show with David Letterman this week:

How GOP Consultants Convinced a Polluting Energy Heir to Waste $1.5 Million Fighting Ed Markey

John Jordan, heir to a polluting energy fortune who now runs his family's California vineyard, decided to dump $1.5 million into trying to defeat Ed Markey in the special election for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts. Markey won by 10 points, a big win for a Democrat in a low-turnout special election.

Why did Jordan think he had a shot at beating Markey? As the Wall Street Journal's Neil King, Jr. reports, a busload of Republican consultants paid for their three martini lunches in DC this spring by convincing the political neophyte Jordan to waste a considerable chunk of the family fortune on a race that was never particularly close:

The creation of Mr. Jordan’s super PAC, Americans for Progressive Action, stirred speculation earlier this month about the group’s origins and backers. Its treasurer, Nancy Watkins, used to work for Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, while its spokeswoman, Sheena Tahilramani, once served as chief of state to former Bush White House aide Karl Rove. [...]

Mr. Jordan has allied himself in recent months with conservative activist Dick Morris, who is also helping advise on Mr. Jordan’s campaign to assist Mr. Gomez. In February, Mr. Jordan financed and helped craft a poll of Latino immigrants to the U.S. The poll’s methodology was widely panned by critics.

Many of these same consultants just got done freeloading off the campaigns of the entire Republican ticket, from Mitt Romney on down, while running it straight into an Election Day ditch. Dick Morris famously predicted a Romney "landslide." Jordan apparently hired him anyway.

Look, when I started writing this post, I was going to make fun of John Jordan. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, posts lots of pictures of himself at fancy parties on Flickr, and actually kind of looks like a Chris Farley character - sure, he has fun stompin' grapes in the family vineyard, but can he take the reins of an oil & gas fortune? Hilarity ensues!

But the poor guy just got swindled out of $1.5 million by Republican consultancy hucksters. His chosen candidate of Gabriel Gomez was utterly clueless on how to solve America's problems. Jordan says he's a centrist, and if he is, I hope he learns from this experience and refocuses his efforts to get the Republican Party out of the fever swamp of consultant-run campaigns.

Obama to Unveil Climate Action Plan Tuesday - Watch Preview Video

Republican Science Denial Hits New Low

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is a molecular biology denier.

GOP Rebranding: Gabriel Gomez Edition

Massachusetts Republican U.S. Senate candidate Gabriel Gomez says he's green!

That's it. That's the whole rebranding. Opposes climate action, just like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Supports building the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, just like House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). Opposes Cape Wind, just like big polluting Republican bankrollers like the Koch brothers. Backs the same old oil-and-coal-above all energy policies that Tea Partiers do.

But did you hear the part about he SAID GREEN? Totally new and improved, you guys!

Greenpeace Rips Canada For Funding More Tar Sands Promos (Video)

Can you believe Canada is spending $16 million this year on television advertisements trying to convince people that tar sands aren't as environment-destroying and climate-disrupting as you think? Learn more at Greenpeace Canada:

Proof Republicans Aren't Pro-Business: Tesla Motors

The Green Miles doesn't hate Republicans. I don't! I respect principled conservatives, like former Senators Bob Dole or John Warner.

What I hate are Republican politicians who claim to be pro-business or anti-regulation, when really they're willing to do whatever it takes to protect powerful special interests.

Case in point: Republicans doing auto dealers' bidding by blocking Tesla's efforts to sell cars directly to consumers in North Carolina and Texas. It's not about growing the economy or creating jobs or any other GOP tropes. It's using the law to shield existing businesses from an upstart business that would save consumers money. In effect, the Republican lawmakers' actions constitute a tax on consumers that subsidizes auto dealers.

Drought, Gas-Fired Power Plant Nearly Snuff Out Providence Waterfire

With southern New England in a mild drought and Providence River water needed to cool Dominion's natural gas-fired Manchester Street Power Station, last week Providence's famed WaterFire had to ditch the gondolas:

Organizers of the popular public art display, featuring small bonfires on rivers in downtown Providence, say Friday night's partial WaterFire lighting in the Waterplace Park Basin will be done by volunteers in waders. Typically, boaters keep the flames lit, and Friday's plans called for the city's hurricane barrier to be closed to ensure sufficiently high water levels.

But with high temperatures forecast this weekend, a power plant on the river bank may need to run at full capacity. So the hurricane barrier must be opened to ensure a constant flow of coolant water.

New England remains overly dependent on nuclear and natural gas-fired power, with a lingering but shrinking slice of coal-fired power, all of which are extremely water-intensive. As global warming continues fueling more droughts, water-intensive energy sources are at risk of becoming increasingly unreliable.

Which makes some other news this week especially important: New Interior Secretary Sally Jewell is moving forward with offshore wind leases off Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Offshore wind and solar power will not only strengthen our energy security - hopefully they mean we won't have to get used to the hip waders at WaterFire.

Solar-Powered Robot Boat To Attempt Atlantic Crossing, Because Guys

At a certain point in your life, you realize how much of scientific progress relies on dudes without girlfriends. Today's example: The Rhode Island students who want to shatter a world record with their solar-powered robot boat:

For the past three years the two along with three other friends have been working on an autonomous vessel named Scout to make the trip across the Atlantic. If Scout makes it, it will be the first ever autonomous vessel to make the crossing. Brendan Prior, one of the vessels builders and partners, says, "our first goal is to have it break that 60 mile world record which we can hopefully do in two days."

Once Scout is launched, it will be GPS guided and will send back information every twenty minutes of the 3000+ mile trip. Dylan says, "Scout sends back it's position, course, and the heading. Conditions of the sea, whether it's calm or rough, pH, salinity, barometric pressure, and three temperature readings.

I am only assuming they do not have girlfriends, because if they did, good luck making it through an inning of watching a Red Sox game, never mind three years building a robot boat, amirite guys?

Follow SCOUT's trip at GoTransAt.com or on Facebook.

Jobs and a Safe Climate or Bill Koch's Estate View: Whose Side Are You On?

When Cape Wind begins construction, it will be the leading edge of an offshore wind industry that's already created 35,000 jobs in Europe. As Cape Wind's Hannah Wood writes in the Cape Cod Times, those jobs are critical to a region in transition:

I know for some, concerns about Cape Wind stem from a desire to keep the Cape as it is. But, like it or not, climate change is already affecting the Cape.

The question for all of us is whether we try to control the change or let it control us. If we don't start using cleaner sources of energy, we are on a course to see much more severe erosion from our beaches and dunes and continued harm to fish and other wildlife, as well as to the plants and trees that we all enjoy.

Constructing this offshore wind farm is the type of change we need to ensure that future generations can appreciate the Cape as much as we do now.

Young people on Cape Cod also need more sustainable industries here that pay decent salaries year-round so more of them stay here to raise families of their own. Offshore wind is a move in the right direction, and Cape Wind is a crucial first step.

But what about the view from Bill Koch's vacation estate? And what about all the other wealthy Cape Cod landowners hiding behind front groups to attack Cape Wind? What should come first - our economic development, public health, and long-term climate security, or their pristine estate views?

Sign the Conservation Law Foundation & MoveOn.org Civic Action petition to stand up to Bill Koch and build Cape Wind now.

In Local Traffic Reports, Roads Always Come First

In the middle of this morning's commute, Boston's MBTA B Line was briefly shut down due to an electrical issue, forcing hundreds if not thousands of commuters to get off at Packard's Corner and take shuttle buses to Kenmore Square, then get back on trains.

This news was presented last in the local traffic report, after a long list of highway stop-and-go's at all the usual gridlock spots that have been stop-and-go every single weekday morning of my life.

It's been the same anywhere I've lived in this great country: Even if aliens came down from space and started space-lasering multiple trains and buses full of commuters and GOOD GOD WHATEVER YOU DO DON'T TAKE THE 16B, that news would have to come after a car in the breakdown lane of I-95 right before exit 24, so watch out for that one.

Maybe Exxon Mobil's Profits Can Buy Us a New Planet

Exxon Mobil made more than $3 billion in profit per month in the first quarter of 2013 and its CEO says now is no time to go using less oil just because it's destroying our planet's climate:

The CEO of Exxon Mobil Corp. says there’s no quick replacement for oil, and sharply cutting oil’s use to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would make it harder to lift 2 billion people out of poverty.

“What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers?” CEO Rex Tillerson said at the oil giant’s annual meeting Wednesday.

Think about how much oil the world's poor consume. Are they buying cars and driving to work, or are they walking or biking? Would they be helped more by lower gas prices for cars they can't afford anyway, or by making small-scale clean energy more affordable - solar-powered local water filtration systems, home solar stoves, and better battery storage?

Now think about who suffers most from global warming-fueled extreme weather disasters. Is it wealthy jet-setters like Rex Tillerson? Or is it that subsistence farmer in Africa who Tillerson's holding up as a human shield to protect his company's mind-bogglingly huge profits?

Video: Two Minute Drill on What's Wrong with Coal

New video from the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign:

 

Sen. Jim Inhofe on Disaster Aid: Totally Not at All Racist

Disaster aid went to victims of superstorm Sandy far away from the New Jersey landfall in places like Rhode Island. But Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) had some very specific places in mind for his claim that Sandy aid was wasted or stolen:

They were getting things — for instance, that was supposed to be in New Jersey, they had things in the Virgin Islands, they were fixing roads there. They were putting roofs on houses in Washington, D.C. Everyone was getting in and exporting the tragedy that took place. That won't happen in Oklahoma.

Gee, I wonder what the Virgin Islands (76% black) and DC (the original Chocolate City) have in common?

I don't know what's more amazing: That Inhofe didn't even bother to toss one non-minority-heavy area onto his list, or that unless a Republican says BLACK BLACK BLACKITY BLACK no reporters will call him on being a racist.

All victims of natural disasters deserve our support. You can donate directly through the Red Cross.

If You Deliberately Ask Dumb Questions, People Will Think You're Dumb

On a recent flight with my girlfriend, we shared earbuds and watched a TED Talk interview with Elon Musk, founder of PayPal, Tesla Motors, Solar City, and SpaceX.

In contrast to TED's usual style of assuming a high level of audience sophistication, host Chris Anderson launched into a series of curiously ignorant questions. Aren't electric car batteries heavy? (So are tanks full of gasoline.) Isn't gasoline just thousands of years of solar power compressed into a small space? (Put a dinosaur in your tank!)

My girlfriend reached over to pause the video. "Why is he asking dumb questions? Is he stupid?" Instead of helping a broad spectrum of audience learn more about clean energy, Anderson seemed to be asking questions mostly on behalf of a narrow slice of clean energy skeptics.

What hosts and journalists like Anderson may not realize is that if you ask deliberately ignorant questions, you risk having people wonder if you yourself are ignorant.

The Green Milestone: 200,000 Visitors

The Green Miles just passed 200,000 visits. Thanks for reading!

Keep up with me by following me on Twitter, adding me on Google Plus at +Miles Grant, and subscribing to my blog's RSS feed.

Don't Back Down to Cape Cod Anti-Wind Bullies

Longtime Cape Wind opponent Peter Kenney has an op-ed in today's New Bedford Standard Times attacking me personally. It's part of a broader strategy by wind opponents to bully clean energy supporters into silence. Will Massachusetts leaders stand up for reasoned debate, or give into scare tactics?

What was my crime in Kenney's eyes? Daring to point out that Bill Koch, a billionaire Cape Cod estate owner and heir to a polluting energy fortune, is blocking New Bedford clean energy jobs by bankrolling Cape Wind opposition.

I'm only the latest person Kenney has targeted for personal attacks. "Mr. Kenney has a history of not being able to disagree respectfully," Yarmouth Planning Board Chairman Erik Tolley said last year.

What's bizarre is that in Kenney's op-ed, he claims I refused to take his call. I talked to him on April 23 for two minutes. Here's my annotation of the phone record:

It was a short call. He immediately launched into berating me for supporting Cape Wind and accused me of taking bribes not to say anything bad about Cape Wind. I asked why he was calling since it didn't exactly sound like there was much room to win him over. We said goodbye. That was it.

It's not just Kenney - across Cape Cod in Falmouth, wind opponents are using similar bullying tactics. "As town meeting members spoke, turbine abutters Neil Andersen and Colin Murphy sat in the back of the auditorium, quietly heckling speakers at times," Sean Teehan reported in the Cape Cod Times last month.

Falmouth has already voted against dismantling its turbines, but the anti-wind crowd has forced yet another vote on May 24. With Fox on their side, you have to wonder: Will the anti-wind folks will just keep forcing votes until they get their way?

More broadly, Massachusetts elected officials and news organizations need to decide how we'll determine our shared energy future. Will we have a reasoned, fact-based dialogue and move forward together? Or will we let the loudest, harshest and most frequently raised voices dominate debate and shout down anyone who disagrees with them?

If you stand with clean energy, sign up and register your support at Cape Wind Now.

Gabriel Gomez Puts Personal Profit Over Protecting Massachusetts

Gabriel Gomez's incoherence on climate science and energy policy makes a lot more sense once you take a deeper dive into his personal finances, as Joshua Israel did at ThinkProgress:

A ThinkProgress review of Gomez’s personal financial disclosure filings reveals that a significant amount of his own money is invested, directly or indirectly, in dirty energy stocks and bonds. These include investments of between $1,000 and $15,000 each in: 

1. Emerson Electric Co., which automates oil and gas operations for energy companies.
2. Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s largest publicly traded international oil and gas company.
3. Occidental Petroleum Corp., an international oil and gas exploration and production company.
4. Schlumberger Ltd., a the world’s largest supplier of technology and project management services for the oil and gas industry worldwide.
5. Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc., a deepwater drilling contractor for the oil and gas industry.
6. DTE Energy Co., a Detroit-based electric and gas utility.
7. Dominion Resources, a Richmond-based electric utility.
8. Xcel Energy Inc., a Minneapolis-based electric and gas utility.
9. Gulf Power Co., a Florida-based electric utility.
10. Southern California Edison, a California-based electric utility.
11. Entergy Louisiana, a Louisiana-based electric utility

By doing the dirty work of his out-of-state polluting investments, Gomez is turning his back on the more than 71,000 people who work in Massachusetts' booming clean energy industry. He's also ignoring the impacts that climate change is already having on Massachusetts - stronger storms like Sandy, rising sea levels, deeper droughts, and deadlier summer heat waves.

As I'm knocking on doors for Ed Markey in the weeks ahead, this story speaks to the one thing I'll be telling undecided voters: Gomez is so beholden to big money - polluters, national Republicans, shady tax breaks - that we just can't trust the guy to do what's right for Massachusetts.

Another Inconvenient Truth: Sometimes American Politics Kill People

As the carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere rocket past 400 parts per million this week, what's more evident than ever is the inability of our political systems to respond to this crisis that's killing Americans right now and growing worse by the day.

Politicians and the reporters who cover them do NOT like hearing that. They absolutely hate being told that the American political system isn't responding fast enough to a crisis and that people might die as a result. This is how we do things! How dare you ask us to change just for your issue? The folks in industry don't tell us that we're accomplices in mass death and they throw really killer parties.

But we knew that cigarettes killed tens of millions of people and tobacco companies covered it up ... and Washington took decades to respond. We knew lack of health insurance killed millions of people and bankrupted millions of other families ... and Washington took decades to respond.

The climate crisis cannot be solved by horse trading. It cannot be solved by trying to say yes to everyone - to cutting carbon pollution AND to whatever Big Oil and Big Coal are demanding. And it cannot be solved by We'll Have to Leave It There journalism that tells viewers, "Scientists say this, polluter front groups say that, who can say what's true?"

We need what Grist's David Roberts calls wartime mobilization - an all of the above approach to cutting carbon emissions. Can Washington answer that call to action?

Something Strange is Happening at National Journal

Folks, what is going on at National Journal? How is Coral Davenport allowed to write pieces not based on "scientists say this, polluter front groups say that, who can say what's true?" false equivalency, but on a reasoned interpretation of what's actually reality? Wait till Rush Limbaugh gets wind of this.

Read Coral's piece today on how rank-and-file Republicans are breaking with their party's extreme denier ideology on climate change, and check out her archive of long-form articles on the policy & politics of climate & energy.

Imagining a Tea Partier Reacting to Huge Benefits of EPA Investment

Sure, $1 invested in the Environmental Protection Agency delivers $10 in benefits. But who gets that return? Probably lots of poor brown people, right? Then forget it! GET BIG GOVERNMENT OUT OF PROTECTING MY HEALTH.

Today's Must-Read Piece on Barack Obama and Climate Change

Heading out the door in a few minutes for the groundbreaking for New Bedford's South Terminal, which hopes to service the Cape Wind project when it finally goes in the water late this year or early next, but first a few quick thoughts on Jonathan Chait's New York magazine feature, Obama Might Actually Be the Environmental President:

• If coal & oil state Democrats and purple state Republicans don't like Barack Obama regulating carbon pollution through the Clean Air Act, Chait's piece is a reminder that they should blame Claire McCaskill, Jay Rockefeller, Lisa Murkowski, Lindsey Graham, Blanche Lincoln, and all the other "moderates" who blocked climate & energy legislation in 2010. That legislation would likely have blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating industrial carbon pollution. But extreme Republicans and those "moderates" were successful in blocking it, so now we get the EPA regulations many of those same senators claim to oppose. 
• It could've been an even stronger piece if Chait wasn't so hand-wavy about Keystone XL being important. Climate activists are making a stand on Keystone not just because of Keystone's direct climate impacts. We're taking a stand on it because, for as many positive things as Obama has done, he's been extremely reluctant to say no to new polluting energy projects, from pipelines to oil drilling to coal mining. 
• It's a good reminder that despite Beltway media hype about presidential rhetoric and the bully pulpit, presidential powers are in reality limited by Congress. Bush couldn't completely destroy the environment in part because he was limited by Congressional Democrats. Obama can't completely save the environment because of the same handcuffs. 

Read Chait's article and let me know what you think in comments.

Don't Buy Antibacterial Soap

America has spent decades putting a chemical called triclosan in our soap to wage chemical warfare on every bit of bacteria within a five-mile radius of our skin. So what benefit are we getting? According to an extensive new Associated Press investigation, none:

The [U.S. Food and Drug Administration]'s website currently states that "the agency does not have evidence that triclosan in antibacterial soaps and body washes provides any benefit over washing with regular soap and water."

No benefit. None. But there's this:

Recent studies of triclosan in animals have led scientists to worry that it could increase the risk of infertility, early puberty and other hormone-related problems in humans.

Swell! Thanks for looking out for us, FDA!

Part of the problem is that chemicals like triclosan kill ALL bacteria - good and bad. And during the exact same time we've been massacring all bacteria, friend or foe, reports of food and skin allergies are increasing.

A little dirt is good for your kids. Maybe even a little dog slobber. Afterwards, wash 'em up with some Method, Seventh Generation, or any other old-fashioned, plain ol' soap.

Gabriel Gomez is Completely Incoherent on Climate and Energy Policy

Gabriel Gomez, the Republican opponent of Democrat Ed Markey in the U.S. Senate special election to fill John Kerry's seat in Massachusetts, is working hard to be all things to all people, and nowhere is that more evident than his positions truthiness on climate and energy policy:

Climate change is real. However, while science says climate change is real, addressing the problem must be done rationally. Unfortunately, many solutions offered by politicians in Washington are not rational, and would put America at a competitive disadvantage. We need a serious energy agenda that promotes private sector innovation in both the United States and in other countries around the world.

Oh, I get it. He supports confronting climate change with a national policy to spur clean energy projects like Cape Wind, right? Not exactly:

Gomez, however, said [Cape Wind] is an issue that should be decided at the local level, and that the local authorities have been pretty much excluded from the process. Gomez made it clear his is opposed to Cape Wind.

So, local control all the way! Then he must oppose Keystone XL tar sands pipeline because of strong local opposition, right? Wrong again:

The Obama administration is wrong in stopping the Keystone pipeline, a project that will create jobs, drive down our energy costs, and help us to become energy independent.

Worth noting: Gabriel Gomez thinks that for some reason TransCanada is dramatically lowballing the benefits of its own Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. TransCanada doesn't say Keystone will drive down energy costs - it knows Keystone won't lower gas prices anywhere in America and would actually raise gas prices in the Midwest. TransCanada doesn't say Keystone will make America energy independent - it knows Keystone is an export pipeline that's being built to get tar sands to the Gulf Coast and the international market so Canada doesn't have to dump tar sands oil in the Midwest anymore.

To sum up, Gabriel Gomez says he understands climate change is threatening Massachusetts with extreme weather like superstorm Sandy, rising sea levels, and deadly summer heat waves - he just doesn't want to do anything about it. And Gomez thinks we need a national energy policy, except in cases where the mansion views of Republican donors are threatened, or if those donors really want a polluting project built even if it's not in America's national interest.

What's the reason for Gomez's incoherence? With the U.S. Senate's antiquated disclosure laws, we don't know yet where Gomez is getting his money. But given his refusal to sign the people's pledge to reject big-spending special interests, I'd suspect he personally knows exactly what climate change means, but he knows the implications of that truth are far too inconvenient for today's fossil fuel money-addicted Republican Party.

World's First Comparison of Tim Kaine to Derek Jeter

With Tim Kaine taking a bold stand against the dirty, destructive Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, has my long history of questioning Kaine's motives come to the end of the road?

Back in the 2003 playoffs, I watched Derek Jeter take a head-first dive into the stands while making an incredible catch. On the spot, I pledged to never make fun of Jeter again. I've held to that (while rededicating myself to mocking his teammates like Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira).

I've been on Tim Kaine's case for years now, ever since he served as apologist-in-chief for Dominion Virginia Power's incredibly polluting, wildly expensive, unneeded Wise County coal-fired power plant. But doing the right thing on Keystone XL, especially when so many Democrats like fellow Virginia Sen. Mark Warner are bowing to polluter pressure, is just as clutch as Jeter's dive.

Have I been wrong about Kaine? Should I give him the benefit of the doubt going forward - or even the full Jeter treatment?

Climate Science Deniers: Really Old and Really Strange

The Heartland Institute has a new climate denial "book" out called The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism. I can only assume the title is a reference to the movie It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, even though the Heartland version is for some reason one "Mad" short.

How old are the folks over at The Heartland Institute? Their book title references a movie that came out a half century ago. Its star, Spencer Tracy, died when President Obama was six years old.

How strange are the folks over at The Heartland Insitute? Look at that "book" cover. Are those ... hip-hop polar bears? I think? Driving a convertible through ... a corn field that's getting hit by a thunderstorm? Also, the polar bears are terrible drivers taking up both lanes of what is apparently a one-way street through the middle of nowhere.

It's like something your old crazy conservative uncle would post to Facebook and think it was HILARIOUS, which tells you a lot about The Heartland Institute's membership and funders, and about the ability of climate deniers to connect with anyone outside their cocoon of crazy old conservatives.

Because Driving Sucks, That's Why

My answer to the question in the headline of this Brad Plumer post, which you should go read.

Driving is expensive, time-consuming, boring*, makes you road rage-y, pollutes the air, and cooks the planet. What's not to like?

Taking the bus or train is no picnic, but at least you can let the driver stress out while you relax. Biking is also not a magic carpet ride, but at least you get some exercise and fresh air and it's extremely cheap.

I would also point out that advances in phone technology have made taking the bus or train significantly more fun. It used to be that you'd have to lug a book or a Walkman with you if you wanted to read or listen to music - and if you forgot one of those, welcome to Boringville. Now I can not only do either of those things on my lightweight, long-battery-life iPhone, I can also play games, read news or text my friends, and it's already in my pocket so there's no remembering involved.

* - I like long drives through scenic areas as much as anyone, but we all know this is 0.0001% of driving. The other 99.9999% involves wishing you were already there.

President Obama & Climate Change: Bold Talk, Meek Action

Hey, remember President Obama's inaugural address and State of the Union speech? How he compared the need for climate action to the civil rights movement? Pledged to stand up for the victims of climate-fueled extreme weather like superstorm Sandy? Said that if Congress wouldn't act on climate change, he would?

Now that we're past the time for dramatic speeches, President Obama is back to barely mentioning climate change in his budget, considering delaying and/or watering down first-ever limits on industrial carbon pollution, and refusing to talk about whether the Arkansas tar sands pipeline spill means we should reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

It was fun while it lasted.

The Polluter Conspiracy to Delay Cape Wind, Massachusetts Jobs

With Cape Wind finally on the verge of construction, I have an op-ed in today's New Bedford Standard-Times pointing out that the years-long wait has unnecessarily delayed hiring thousands of workers here in southeastern Massachusetts:

What makes this damaging delay so outrageous is that it's no accident — a coalition of big polluters and big-money landowners on the Cape have conspired to fund the "Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound," a front group that's spent millions to keep Cape Wind tied up in red tape. On Tuesday, the Alliance is set to hit an outrageous new low: At exactly the same time as Gov. Deval Patrick and Mayor Jon Mitchell are finally breaking ground on the South Terminal here in New Bedford, the Alliance's head will be in Washington urging Congress to kill incentives for offshore wind energy.

Please click over to read the whole thing here, and if you agree, share it on your Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Fun fact: I've written 1,654 posts here at The Green Miles, but this is the first op-ed I've submitted and gotten published in the dead tree edition of a newspaper.

When Climate Polls Collide with Political Conventional Wisdom

A new Gallup poll shows worry about global warming and acceptance of the climate science consensus is up sharply in the last two years. The spike isn't being fueled by Democrats - it's being fueled in large part Republicans.

But the political conventional wisdom in Washington presents a very real obstacle to this reality breaking through. The same pundits who bemoan partisan polarization in one breath perpetuate it the next - all Democrats hate coal, and all Republicans hate clean air! The nuance of rank-and-file Republicans disagreeing with Republican party leadership stands little chance of breaking through these stereotypes.

Let's dig into the poll numbers. You could make the case that Republicans are just cooling off from the heated fight over clean energy & climate legislation that had party leaders, polluters, and conservative media telling them that they had to oppose climate action to support the team.

But we're just coming off an election year in which Republican candidates went after climate science and clean energy with renewed fury, yet rank-and-file Republican acceptance of the climate science consensus went up anyway. What's really going on here?

Another poll, this one from the Yale Forum on Climate Communication, fills in some of those gaps. It finds rank-and-file Republicans frustrated with their party leadership on climate change & clean energy:

• A majority of respondents (52%) believe climate change is happening, while 26 percent believe it is not, and 22 percent say they “don’t know.”
• By a margin of 2 to 1, respondents say America should take action to reduce our fossil fuel use.
• Only one third of respondents agree with the Republican Party’s position on climate change, while about half agree with the party’s position on how to meet America’s energy needs.
• A large majority of respondents say their elected representatives are unresponsive to their views about climate change.

There are organizations like ConserAmerica and former GOP Rep. Bob Inglis' Energy and Enterprise Initiative trying to break through. But when the Koch brothers and other billionaire polluters are funding such massive operations to keep GOP leadership polluter-aligned, what chance do true conservative reformers have of breaking through?

Will the Next Major Tar Sands Spill be in New England?

Homes evacuated. Chemicals fouling the air. Wildlife soaked in tar sands oil. Could it happen in New England?

I traveled to Arkansas last week to monitor wildlife impacts of the Exxon Mobil Pegasus tar sands pipeline rupture for the National Wildlife Federation. I kept thinking, if the tar sands industry gets its wish and reverses the Trailbreaker pipeline across northern New England to carry tar sands, will I be in New Hampshire covering a spill like this in a few years?

The parallels to the Exxon Mobil Pegasus pipeline are eerie: An old pipeline built to supply oil where it was needed, now reversed to carry corrosive tar sands at high temperature and pressure to supply profit to Canada's polluting tar sands industry. Exxon claimed Pegasus was safe, right up until a 22-foot-long gash opened in it below an Arkansas subdivision, unnoticed until local homeowners called 911.

A Boston Globe editorial raises all the right questions:

As President Obama weighs approval of Keystone XL sometime this year, concern over tar sands oil has spread from the Midwest to New England. Hundreds of people rallied earlier this year in Portland, Maine, against even the possibility that such crude from Alberta, which environmentalists say is the stickiest and dirtiest form of oil, would wind its way through the pristine lakes, rivers, and rugged terrain of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Five years ago, Enbridge floated a proposal to reverse pipelines that currently send imported oil into the interior of New England from the marine terminal in Portland, Maine. Instead, Enbridge would transport oil from the tar sands of Canada to tankers in Portland, bound for southern refineries along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Enbridge managing director Steve Letwin said in a 2008 investor conference call, “We’re pretty excited about this opportunity,” because it was a much cheaper alternative for that company than building a new pipeline such as Keystone. [...] 

[T]he endless Kalamazoo cleanup, and disputes now erupting in Arkansas as to how much damage is being done by that spill, raise inevitable questions that must be answered before anyone should contemplate reversing the pipelines through New England. Though Keystone is foremost in the mind of the White House, the EPA and NTSB should also take the time to assess the risk of bringing tar sands oil through one of the most beautiful and environmentally sensitive parts of the United States.

Much stronger safety standards are clearly needed for existing tar sands pipelines, as the National Wildlife Federation and partners from Texas to Maine have called for. But the bigger question is, why are we letting America serve as the middleman to get Canadian tar sands to the international market at all? 

Whether it's Pegasus, Trailbreaker or Keystone XL, these tar sands pipelines all have one thing in common: They go to coastal ports. America gets all the risk of spills and climate disruption, the international market gets all the oil, and Canadian tar sands producers get all the profit.

Right now, the national debate centers on Keystone XL, and that's where you need to make your voice heard. Please take a moment right now to ask President Obama to say no to Keystone XL. If we can stop Keystone XL, we can turn the tide against dirty tar sands oil.

Or maybe in a few years we'll be looking at pictures of oiled wildlife and watching videos of oiled creeks in northern New England. It's up to us to raise our voices loud enough that Canada will be forced to look elsewhere to peddle its dirty tar sands oil.

Exxon: Now Delivering Oil Right to Your Driveway

Update on Coal's Long Sunset

From the Washington Post WonkBlog's Brad Plumer. Previous coverage here and here.

Back From America's Newest Flammable Marsh

Apologies for a lack of posts this week, was traveling to Arkansas for the National Wildlife Federation to monitor impacts of the Exxon Mobil tar sands pipeline spill. Read about my trip at the NWF blog.

Is Man-Made Deer Overpopulation the Right Issue to Take a Stand for Animal Rights?

If you were to design a system for ensuring an overpopulation of deer, it would look a lot like DC's Rock Creek Park - a huge expanse of temperate land with well-maintained vegetation, no predators, and no hunting allowed.

And it's worked perfectly! So now the National Park Service is having to pay hunters to harvest the deer for food:

Sixty to 70 deer are expected to be shot. After the carcasses are tested for disease, the venison will be donated to food pantries.

The Park Service says that what it euphemistically calls a deer “harvest” is needed to safeguard the health of the park, the herd, and the people who live nearby or use the park. With 70 deer per square acre, the park has about four times the density considered ideal.

Animal rights activists have called for the Park Service to use birth control, but that's proved expensive and ineffective. Meanwhile, the results of the man-made deer explosion have proved disastrous, with car-deer accidents and Lyme disease among the serious public health threats. When animal rights activists are comparing the deer cull to Newtown and using the hashtag #DontKillBambi, are they being dismissive of those threats to people?

The case for culling is even greater if you see Rock Creek Park for what it is - a man-made deer farm. Why not take advantage of it, especially considering how much deer meat food pantries stand to gain? I'd seen reports online that one deer can feed up to 200 people, which seemed high but is backed up by the math. One pound of deer meat makes up to six servings. The average deer provides 40 to 60 pounds of meat. By that math, assuming every culled deer is healthy, we're talking about meat for 10,000 meals provided free to food pantries.

The No-Brainer of the Century: Solar on Old Landfills

Via WPRI.com

A new solar farm has gone up on the old town dump in Dartmouth in just five months:

The capped Russells Mills Road Landfill has a new lease on life after Borrego Solar Systems Inc. quietly topped the former dump with a solar farm, a venture that drew none of the complaints common to similar solar projects in town.

"It's the town of Dartmouth that showed leadership today," state Department of Energy Resources Commissioner Mark Sylvia said Wednesday during a ribbon cutting for the facility.

State and local officials including U.S. Rep. Bill Keating, state Rep. Chris Markey, Select Board Chairwoman Lara Stone and others attended Wednesday's ceremony celebrating the 5,300-panel, 1.4 megawatt solar farm slated to meet 20 percent of the town's energy needs.

If you have an old landfill and you don't have a solar farm on top of it, you're throwing money away. Even in March as the sun shines for hours less and at much lower intensity than it will in summer, the solar farm is already producing more than a megawatt.

But the article also has a reminder that to really reap the benefits of renewable energy, towns should consider properly-sited wind power:

The solar farm can produce 1.4 megawatts of power, slightly less than one of the two 1.5 megawatt wind turbines in Fairhaven, which stand 396 feet tall on land owned by the town.

Learn more at the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center.

Why Do Only Progressives, and Not Polluters, Need to be Diverse?

Darryl Fears has a good piece in today's Washington Post taking a closer look at diversity in the environmental movement - or lack of it. Tough but fair. I work for an environmental organization and I agree green groups don't do nearly enough.

But what about polluters and their allies - how are they doing on diversity?

• Exxon Mobil board of directors: 12 members, 2 women, 0 Hispanics, 2 African Americans
• Arch Coal board of directors: 11 members, 1 woman, 0 Hispanics, 0 African Americans
• Heritage Foundation board of trustees: 27 members, 8 women, 0 Hispanics, 1 African American
• Congressional Republican leadership (House & Senate): 10 members, 1 woman, 0 Hispanics, 0 African Americans

What about workers in polluting industries? It's just as bad:

• Oil & gas extraction: 23% women, 9% Hispanic, 4% African American
• Coal mining: 6% women, 3% Hispanic, 1% African American

No one writes articles about polluting industries being almost entirely white men because it's taken for granted that polluting industries are all run by rich old white guys. Even when they repeatedly get caught using stock photos to try to not look to the public like such rich old white guys - and Republicans, coal, and chemical polluters all have - it isn't covered in the mainstream media because again, everyone is just supposed to already know that polluters are rich old white guys who buy pictures of non-rich old white guys to make themselves look like they care about non-rich old white guys.

Again, I think conservationists need to do more to reach out to Hispanics and African-Americans. Excluding them isn't just wrong, it's bad business - polls show minorities are exceptionally strong supporters of climate action in particular and clean air & water in general.

But much like the media holds polluters and their allies to a much lower standard ethically, they're held to no standard on diversity.

Sunday Morning Shines Light on Sharing Services

Until recently, you'd be much more likely to read about collaborative consumption on Grist than in the Boston Globe. But Avis' purchase of ZipCar has brought sudden credibility to the notion that car and room sharing services are profitable and here to stay. CBS Sunday Morning takes a closer look:

GOP Congressman: "Best Thing About the Earth" is Drilling It

Not sustaining life and providing food and water and shelter. Fossil fuels.

Statements like this reveal how incredibly insular the world of Congressmen can be. Do you think Rep. Stockman spends more time talking to sportsmen? To parents? To students? Or to oil & gas lobbyists?

The best thing about the Earth is if you poke holes in it oil and gas come out.
— Rep. Steve Stockman (@SteveStockmanTX) March 21, 2013

WCVB's Harvey Leonard on Climate Change and Extreme Weather

If you're a TV meteorologist who's not talking about global warming, you're not giving your viewers the whole story.

If you're not talking about how warmer ocean temperatures are adding strength to storms or talking about how higher sea levels are adding to flooding concerns (among many other ways carbon pollution is changing weather patterns), you're putting ignorance, fear or politics ahead of forecasting the facts.

Last week, some Massachusetts viewers went to WCVB to say thanks to WCVB Chief Meteorologist Harvey Leonard for talking about global warming's role in fueling the February "Nemo" blizzard. You can add your name to the petition thanking Leonard at ForecastFacts.org.

Here's the segment that earned Leonard viewer thanks:

Democrats Can't Have It Both Ways on Keystone XL and Climate Action

Self-styled "centrist" Democrats like Senators Michael Bennet (Colorado), Bob Casey (Pennsylvania), Claire McCaskill (Missouri), and Tim Kaine and Mark Warner (Virginia) say they recognize climate reality and support action to cut carbon pollution.

But ... then they see polls that show the public is split on the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline ... and feel pressure from Very Serious People in Washington who won't say no to anything the oil, gas and coal industries want ... and think, maybe we can have both? Get credit for support this current & specific polluting pipeline AND burnish climate bona fides by hand-waving towards some future & not yet existent climate effort?

No. Climate action isn't just about the easy & popular things, like clean energy and energy efficiency. It's also about the hard things, like saying no to oil and coal barons who may spend lots of money to try to defeat you in your next re-election campaign. You can't claim to support climate action, but wilt like corn caught in a global warming-fueled drought every time big polluters come asking for a favor. 

Either you support climate action. Or you support Keystone XL and don't really care about things like climate-fueled extreme weather or protecting our natural resources for future generations. You can't have it both ways.

Today at Noon: Talk About Talking About Science

Northeastern University's College of Science has invited me to join their Twitter chat today at noon ET. We'll be talking about science communication and how today's college students can be tomorrow's Bill Nye The Science Guy.

If you'd like to ask me a question or join the conversation, tweet with the tag #sciencechat.

If you're not a Twitterer, leave your question in comments here and I'll field it like Nomahhh going behind second base to grab a grounder. (And then I guess that means I'll also throw it into the 5th row, because no one could follow up a graceful snag with a god-awful throw like Nomar.)

North American Energy Independence is Imaginary, Awful and Socialist

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is once again touting the Republican fantasy called "North American energy independence." Here's a quick reminder of why that concept is phony, horrifying and anti-capitalist:

• Coal companies want to build coal export terminals in the Pacific Northwest to send America's coal to Asia. Oil companies want to build the Keystone XL tar sands export pipeline to the Gulf Coast to send North America's oil to Asia - and the Republican plan would force its completion! Unless Republicans plan to nationalize the fossil fuel supplies of both the U.S. and Canada and ban exports rendering Keystone pointless, the GOP plan is imaginary. 
• If we have any chance of keeping global warming to a livable limit, we need to be on a path to using much less of carbon intensive-fuels right now and keeping a great deal of our known fossil fuel supplies buried in the ground forever. The Republican plan would essentially do the opposite - dig them up and burn them much faster than we're currently doing, cooking the planet even faster than we're currently doing. We're talking a 10 degree rise in temperature and 3+ foot rise in sea level in the lifetime of a child born today. Just imagine superstorm Sandy with an extra 10 degrees of fuel and an extra 3 feet of storm surge. The GOP plan is awful.
• The Republican plan would continue massive government help and direct subsidies for the worst polluting fuels with no limit on carbon pollution. The GOP plan is socialism for big polluters.

As Steve Benen details, the Ryan budget is also imaginary in that it pretends the 2012 election never happened.

Dominion Sale Shows Old Coal Power Plants Are Nearly Worthless

Big news today as Dominion announced it's selling two old coal-fired power plants and one gas power plant - and the price-tag is eye-popping:

The power stations are:

• Brayton Point Power Station, a 1,528-megawatt power station in Somerset, Mass., with three coal-fired units and one unit fired by oil or natural gas. Dominion has owned it since 2005.
• Kincaid Power Station, a 1,158-megawatt power station in Kincaid, Ill., with two 579-megawatt coal-fired units. Dominion has owned Kincaid since 1998.
• Elwood Power Station, a 1,424-megawatt power station outside Chicago, with nine natural gas-fired combustion turbines. Dominion has owned a 50 percent interest (712 megawatts) in and operated the station since Elwood became operational in 1999.

The sale will require the approval of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and Hart-Scott-Rodino antitrust clearance.

Dominion announced last September that it was exiting the merchant coal-fired generation business as part of the company's continual review of its assets to ensure they fit strategically and support its objectives to improve return on invested capital and shareholder value. The sale is expected to result in after-tax proceeds of approximately $650 million, which includes cash tax benefits generated from the sale. The company plans to invest the proceeds in the company's regulated businesses and reduce debt needs.

"Merchant power" is basically when you own a station and sell the electricity to a utility. It's always a risky business and at a time when America's electricity use is falling overall and the price of electricity from natural gas is falling, now's looking like a good time to bail for whatever Dominion can get.

But look at that low sale value - and that includes tax write-offs! Considering Dominion had spent $1 billion on upgrades at Brayton Point alone in recent years, including two enormous cooling towers, Dominion must be taking an absolute bath. But especially as new Clean Air Act limits on industrial carbon pollution loom, Dominion's happy to take what it can get for the coal plants.

Speaking of limits on industrial carbon pollution, now would be a good time to tell President Obama you support the strongest limits possible.

Mild Temps, Bad Storms: MA's Climate-Changed Winter

As yet another brutal winter storm hammers Massachusetts with snow, wind and coastal erosion, there's a lot of talk about what a rough winter it's been in Massachusetts. But our temperatures have actually been mild, and climate scientists say this type of winter is exactly what we can expect in a warming world.

First, the temperature data from NOAA's National Weather Service Boston office:

• Boston: December: +3.7, January +2.5, February  -0.5, March (thru 3/6): +2.5
• Worcester: December: +4.7, January: +2.7, February +0.4, March: +1.5
• Providence: December +4.1, January: +2.1, February:  -1.0, March: +3.0

While Boston is close to its seasonal snowfall average of 43 inches, Providence has gotten a foot more than usual and Worcester has been absolutely hammered with over 86 inches so far, nearly three feet more than average.

The National Wildlife Federation reports climate change is bringing more oddball winter weather:

Global warming is bringing a clear trend toward heavier precipitation events for the simple reason that warmer air can hold more water. Even with a greater fraction of precipitation falling as rain, many areas are still seeing big and intense snowstorms, especially in the upper Midwest and Northeast, where temperatures typically remain below freezing in winter. At the same time, global warming is shifting storm tracks northward. The last few years have brought several unusually heavy snowstorms as warmer and moister air over southern states has penetrated further north, colliding with bitter cold air masses.

As ClimateCentral.org's Andrew Freedman details, this winter storm has also highlighted the impacts of global warming-fueled sea level rise:

Higher sea levels provide a higher launching pad for storm surges from hurricanes and nor’easters, making it possible for relatively weak storms to cause major damage.

According to research by Climate Central scientists, on Nantucket Island, where coastal flooding is occurring from this storm, the sea level has risen by about half a foot during the past 50 years.

According to the draft National Climate Assessment report released in January, even without any changes in storms, the chance of what is now a 1-in-10-year coastal flood event in the Northeast could triple by 2100, occurring once every 3 years, due to rising sea levels.

In a sane world, cutting carbon pollution and building out clean energy would be at the top of our national agenda. Instead, Congressional Republican leadership is committed to creating one new phony crisis after another, trying to decide whether to punish the old, sick, young, or all of the above as they fight to protect tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and oil executives.

Fortunately, President Obama doesn't have to wait for Congress to act - he has authority under the Clean Air Act to limit industrial carbon pollution. Tell President Obama you want the strongest limits possible - and if you want to do even more, join Reality Drop.

Big Oil: We'll Still Hate Obama Just As Much Even If He Builds Keystone XL

Those who support climate action but say it's not worth fighting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline like to imply that President Obama's approval of the pipeline would earn him political capital. But the head of one polluter front group would like to assure Washington that whether President Obama approves or rejects Keystone XL, Big Oil will still hate him just as much.

First, Dave Roberts summarizes the case against #noKXL activists:

Professional wanker Matt Nisbet says [fighting Keystone XL] “distracts” and “limits” Obama’s ability to broker a deal. (A deal on what? With whom? He doesn’t say.) Michael Levi says it makes 60 Senate votes for a price on carbon less likely. (Less likely than impossible?) I could cite a dozen more examples, people casually accusing Keystone activism of impeding or draining energy from other solutions.

What is this good-faith bipartisan progress just waiting to happen if only activists weren’t being unreasonable about Keystone? What do the VSPs have to offer? I don’t see it. I see self-pleasuring dreams of bipartisan Grand Bargains with no awareness of changed political circumstances.

As Jennifer Yachnin reports in today's E&E News (sub. req.), a top oil industry lobbyist says those who think approval of Keystone XL would mean Big Oil will look the other way on other carbon-cutting efforts are dead wrong:

But [American Energy Alliance and Institute for Energy Research President Thomas] Pyle added that approving the pipeline won't curb industry criticism of the Obama administration, including over what it sees as efforts to hold back oil and gas production on federal lands.

"I don't know that it buys him any good will," Pyle said. "There will be lots of statements of thank you ... but ultimately from a political perspective I don't know that it buys him any room to maneuver."

And ill will could linger over how much time it has taken the administration to make a final decision on the pipeline, Pyle added.

All the climate-disrupting carbon pollution and no thanks from his political enemies? All the more reason President Obama should do the right thing and reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

How Coal Power is Making Us Sick

Learn more in this new report from the Health and Environment Alliance.

In Theaters Friday: Greedy Lying Bastards

Learn more at ExposeTheBastards.com:

DC Cherry Blossoms Continue Climate-Driven Early Bloom Trend

Once again, DC's cherry blossoms are forecast to bloom much earlier than the 20th-century average - sometime between March 26-30, horticulturalists say.

And once again, the Washington Post story on the early blooms doesn't mention that the early blooms are part of trend at all, never mind a global warming-fueled that may eventually push the cherry blossoms into February.

All connections to climate change must be made in sidebar stories - readers of the main news story on the blossoms are to be kept blissfully ignorant of whether or why they're arriving earlier and earlier.

Did Fracking Cause Alabama Earthquake?

Scientists have already connected the natural gas drilling technique known as fracking to earthquakes in Ohio.

Now there's a compelling case to be made that fracking triggered a minor earthquake in Alabama last Friday.