It’s Getting Hot In Here

Despite President Obama’s call for an energy revolution, it is up to Congress to provide funding.  The Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-e) made a recent call for research proposals into “high-risk, high-payoff transformational energy-related R&D,” for projects that “(1) translate scientific discoveries and cutting-edge inventions into technological innovations and (2) accelerate transformational technological advances in areas that industry by itself is not likely to undertake because of high technical or financial risk.”

Over 3,500 research teams submitted proposals for a slice of the available $150 million.  As a result, over 98% of applicants we “discouraged” from submitting a full application.

Sure, some of the applications were “undoubtedly unrealistic, fundamentally flawed, written in crayon, or the like,” as Andrew Revkin aptly noted at Dot Earth.  But with 98% of all proposals rejected, there’s got to be another explanation for the high rejection rate as well.  Surely at least 5%, 10%, maybe even one third of these proposals are worth further consideration.  Remember: this round of project proposals was simply to get into the next round of consideration where ARPA-e program managers would being the real project grant selection process. No, the reason so many proposals were rejected has more to do with the fact that there is simply not nearly enough money to fund all the good, potentially game-changing clean energy ideas out there.

Continue reading ‘Shouldn’t Energy Innovation be Worth More than Rush Limbaugh?!’

August 11th, 2009 join us for the Project Survival Media Benefit at 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco, CA.

Imagine:

What if, on all seven continents, there were young people equipped to globally broadcast pivotal stories about the climate crisis?

What if these young people were empowered to amplify disenfranchised voices and propel the principle  of “Survival” to the forefront of the political debate?

Well this is Project Survival Media. In the lead up to the UN Climate Negotiations, we are assembling a global network of youth journalists who will use video, photography, and blogs to report from the frontlines of the climate crisis.

Continue reading ‘The Launch of Project Survival Media’

Guest blogger Becca Green from the Avaaz Action Factory

For his 48th birthday today, President Obama received a giant ticket to Copenhagen from Avaaz’s DC Action Factory. In a street party outside his house – complete with party hats, noisemakers, and music – cardboard cut-out Obama received his birthday gift with a smile. He even blew out all the candles on his special Copenhagen-themed birthday danishes in one breath! (He wished for a strong and binding global climate treaty.)
This December, the President will use his thoughtful birthday present to fly to the UN global climate treaty negotiations in Copenhagen, Denmark. There, he will once again define the United States as a world leader and safeguard this earth for his daughters, Sasha and Malia, their generation, and those to come. And he’ll eat more danishes.

At least, that’s what we hope he’ll do. The Copenhagen negotiations are the world’s chance to work together to cut carbon and solve global warming. If America is to be a true world leader, Obama must show up with bells on. His cardboard cut-out was optimistic today, stating that he would accompany his negotiating team, including Todd Stern and Jonathan Pershing, to the negotiations this December. But we at the DC Action Factory would like to hear the real Obama commit to attending the treaty talks.

Happy Birthday Obama! Obama to Copenhagen!

Update: This action seems to be getting some attention in unlikely places.  Obama Foodorama wrote about the event, noting that food’s been used by activists around Obama before at the G8.  The photos that AP and Reuters agencies took have made their way around the Huffington Post, a blog about Kosher diet tips, as well as a number of news agencie’s ‘daily photo’s slideshows.

Also, our friends at Solveclimate.com wrote a longer feature piece on who the Action Factory is and what we’ve been up.  Definitely worth a read.

by Dana Clark, RAN’s Corporate Accountability Director

On this anniversary of the signing of the Surface Mining Reclamation and Control Act, a flawed piece of legislation that was signed by Jimmy Carter 32 years ago, RAN has written to Lisa Jackson, Administrator of the EPA, to call on her to implement a moratorium on any new mountaintop removal coal mining permits. As we noted in our letter, the EPA’s recent announcement that it would more rigorously enforce existing laws was not enough.

“The Administration’s commitment to more rigorously enforce existing laws is a welcome change in approach – clearly, the lawlessness that has characterized MTR mining activities must be reigned in and stopped. However, we also recognize that the existing laws are themselves flawed and distorted. The Bush Administration’s manipulation of the Clean Water Act, including the changed interpretation of the “fill” rule that allows the dumping of mining wastes into waterways, should not be allowed to stand or to further distort decision-making.” Continue reading ‘Appalachian Mountains Deserve a Break’

Written by Yael Borofsky

Lying in the rejected scrap heap created by the Senate’s passage of the Energy and Water Appropriations Bill (H.R. 3183) is RE-ENERGYSE, President Obama’s $115 million energy education program that he proposed last April.

Designed to usher in a new generation of young clean energy innovators by improving education in math and science, RE-ENERGYSE (REgaining our ENERGY Science and Engineering Edge) was a crucial part of Obama’s plan to drive our nation’s transition to a clean energy economy and maintain global competitiveness in the race for clean energy. Unfortunately, the Senate roundly disregarded Obama’s vision to meet the clean energy challenge when it appropriated none of the $34.3 billion in energy spending last week towards the program. Meanwhile, the House only appropriated $7.5 million to perform an assessment study.

By providing necessary educational resources and research opportunities, RE-ENERGYSE is precisely the kind of program the United States needs in order to inspire students to pursue careers in clean energy fields. Had it received funding, the program was slated to prepare approximately 8,500 talented young scientists and engineers to enter the clean energy workforce by 2015 – just for starters. What Congress has failed to recognize is that this fundamental investment in our nation’s youth is critical to facilitating a rapid transition to a clean energy economy.

Continue reading ‘Congress Rejects Obama’s Vision for Energy Education, Student Groups Demand More’

Obama has been tip-toeing around the idea of taking action to end mountaintop removal — but his administration has made a bonehead move that shows they may not be serious about protecting communities from outlaw mining companies — Joe Pizarchik, his nominee for the Director of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) has repeatedly disenfranchised citizens during his time in Pennsylvania and ignored good science to allow companies to continue poisoning communities with coal combustion waste, as well as turning a blind eye to terrible long wall mining. Not a good sign.

Laws are only as good as they are enforced. We can make all the rules we want regarding mountaintop removal, but the Director of the OSMRE makes sure coal companies follow them — and do something to clean up the mess afterwards.  Pizarchik is not going to do that.

In an attempt to rush through this terrible nominee, on August 6th, 2009, The US Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee will hold hearings to consider Joseph Pizarchik for the position of Director of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE). To prevent further damage and to ensure proper reclamation, we need someone who is not from an agency with a history of lack of enforcement or calling for a weakening of standards.

Don’t like it? Please tell the committee to deny Pizarchik — and ask some hard questions about his history in Pennsylvania at this site

In case you missed it, dirty energy is back to dirty tricks. This time with the help of DC lobbyists, Bonner & Associates, who forged letters to Congressman Tom Perriello of Virgina’s 5th District. The letters, written on “official” letterhead from the local NAACP chapter and a Hispanic group, Creciendo Juntos, asked Perriello to vote against the American Clean Energy & Security Act.  Now we know that the fossil fuel industry will stop at nothing to prevent the creation of a just, clean energy economy, but this is a new low!

If we are going to pass effective legislation this year, it’s time we step up the effort and fight the dirty industries that pollute our communities and jeopardize our children and grandchildren’s future. Here are seven ways to do it:

1. Help Pass Real Healthcare Reform First – Real progress in our climate and energy policy will require strong leadership from President Obama and a unified progressive block that will stand up to dirty energy interest groups. The same dynamics are playing out right now in the debate over healthcare, and the President and Congress have made clear that the health care bill comes before the climate/energy bill.  You can help the climate and energy agenda by calling your Senator or Representative today and telling them that you want quality, affordable healthcare now.

Continue reading ‘Seven Ways To Fight Dirty (Energy)’

I feel a little odd writing this, because not so long ago this subject would doubtless have been covered in depth by climate writer extraordinaire, It’s Getting Hot in Here frequent contributor, and friend of mine Jesse Jenkins.  However, as Jesse is now down south in California, I’m seeing a dearth in the blogosphere of Oregon climate policy coverage.  Thus with some trepidation and (I hope) humility, I will attempt to fill the void.

The 2009 Oregon Legislative Session, which finished up this summer, was not all that some of us hoped it would be.  In October of last year, Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski unveiled a set of very progressive goals relating to clean energy and global warming, for the upcoming session.  Not all of those goals were translated to law during the actual session, despite a large Democratic majority in both houses of the Oregon legislature.  The media has largely assumed that the economic downturn was responsible for the legislature’s balking at some of Kulongoski’s attempts to bring firm climate policy to this state; but some key members of the Democratic “leadership” exhibited violently anti-environmental behavior during the session that is frankly hard to explain away as wholly due to economic troubles.

Despite the disappointments, though, there were also significant successes.  The legislature made real progress in the areas of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and reducing pollution from vehicles.  Read on for a summary of the session’s high and low points.

Continue reading ‘Oregon’s 2009 Legislative Session: the Good and the Bad’