Let's Look At The False Choice Too Often Portrayed In The Media And By Politicians Of Jobs Vs. The Environment

Changes in US tree cover since 2000 (purple is gain, red is loss)

From the Washington Post:

"There are two ways to think about the cost of energy. There’s the dollar amount that shows up on our utility bills or at the pump. And then there’s the “social cost” — all the adverse consequences that various energy sources... end up foisting on the public."

"The blue bars represent the current market cost of various energy sources. On top of that, Greenstone and Looney have added estimated health damages from air pollution (the purple bar), as well as the cost of climate-changing carbon emissions that come with burning fossil fuels (the gray bar)."

"At the end of the paper, Greenstone and Looney argue that the government should put a price on the social costs of fossil fuels — either through a cap on emissions or a tax. “If firms and consumers faced the full cost of their energy use,” they write, “they would have a greater incentive to make more-informed and socially efficient decisions about energy consumption.”"

People of color support environmental protection at higher rates than whites. Yet, while people of color make up 36% of the US population, and 29% of the science and engineering workforce, they are substantially underrepresented on the staff of major environmental government agencies, NGOs, and the foundations that fund them. For the environmental movement to be effective in the future, it will need to become more diverse.

From the Washington Post:

Map from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showing how much electricity each state gets from wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal. Maine was the clear winner in 2011, getting 27 percent of its electricity coming from renewable sources — a lot of it wind power and biomass. But Maine had a lot of renewable energy back in 2001, too. South Dakota and Iowa, at 21 percent and 17 percent, have seen far more impressive growth. Both of those states got almost none of their electricity from renewable sources a decade ago.

The reduction in CO2 emissions from the energy sector in the U.S. over the past 5 years (see previous post) was due in large part to a reduction in emissions from coal. In 2009, the financial collapse led to diminished use of all fuel sources and greenhouse gas reductions across the board. Since then, the expanding use of natural gas has increased it's carbon footprint, but the decline in the use of coal and the subsequent decrease in greenhouse gas emissions associated with coal is remarkable. Coal is the most carbon-rich fossil fuel, so any declines from that source is good news for the climate.

NASA map shows temperature anomalies from March 13-19, 2012 as compared to the same eight day period during the past 12 years. Red = warmer than normal. Blue = cooler than normal. Based on data captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASA's Terra satellite.

(continued from previous post)

The big story in Houser and Mohan's study is where these cleaner forms of energy are coming from that are responsible for half of the drop in emissions. It's generally assumed that the drop is a result of cleaner and cheap natural gas pushing out dirty coal. However, Houser and Mohan show that we shouldn't be counting out reneables.

Plumer:

Natural gas is indeed pushing out dirtier coal, and that makes a sizable difference (burning natural gas for electricity emits about half the carbon-dioxide that burning coal does). But wind farms are also sprouting up across the country, thanks to government subsidies. What’s more, industrial sites are burning more biomass for heat and electricity, while biofuels like ethanol are nudging out oil. All of that has done a lot to cut emissions.

Ongoing drought conditions have the prompted the U.S. Agriculture Department to declare a federal disaster area in more than 1,000 counties covering 26 states. That's almost one-third of all the counties in the United States, making it the largest disaster declaration ever made by the USDA. The result is skyrocketing corn, wheat and soybean prices.

From USA Today:

U.S. Geological Survey data released Wednesday shows [Glacier National Park’s] 37 glaciers, along with two others on federal Forest Service land, have shrunk an average of about 40% since 1966... In fact, they'll all be gone within our lifetime, warns Daniel Fagre, a research ecologist with the USGS's Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center... Some masses deteriorated so much, they're no longer large enough to be considered glaciers, which must be at least 25 acres. Some of the glaciers lost up to 85% of their mass.