The Society of Environmental Journalists conducts its annual conference this week in Roanoke, Va., and the best thing that can be said about it is that this bunch won't be on the beat somewhere trying to report something — especially about global warming.
October 2008
Chevron has plastered a series of posters all over the Washington, D.C. metro system as part of an advertising campaign titled, “will-you-join-us?” Join Chevron how? By becoming an employee and helping Chevron produce the petroleum products consumers need? Nope. By buying Chevron stock and becoming a shareholder? No again. By joining the fight against anti-consumer policies like oil drilling bans and carbon cap-and-trade schemes? Not a chance.
Each poster features an earnest-looking adult who vows to consume less energy—or at least think about it. Here are some of the captions: “I will use less energy,” “I will leave the car at home more,” “I will unplug stuff more,” “I will reuse more stuff,” “I will finally get a programmable thermostat,” “I will carpool to work,” “I will consider a hybrid” (how bold!), and (bolder still), “I will take my golf clubs out of the trunk.”
To join Chevron means repenting of our fuelish ways. It means buying less of Chevron’s products. But if buying less is good, then buying none is better. Doesn’t Chevron CEO Dave O’Reilly understand this simple logic?
Maybe Mr. O’Reilly thinks Chevron will earn green brownie points by talking as if oil consumption were an addiction to be broken. But de-legitimizing his company’s product is suicidal, because instead of appeasing those who seek to tax and regulate Big Oil out of existence, disparaging energy use will only reinforce the perception that the oil bashers occupy the moral high ground.
Until and unless Chevron changes its tune and starts explaining why abundant, affordable energy is essential to human flourishing, I will “join” Chevron by boycotting its products. And if enough consumers join the boycott, then maybe, just maybe, Chevron will wise up.
French attempts to craft a global warming pact to make the EU a world leader in tackling climate change are gridlocked, with governments unable to agree on how to share the pain and costs of slashing greenhouse gases by 20% within 12 years.
The U. S. faces the prospect of demand-driven blackouts as soon as 2009, according to a report issued last week by the NextGen Energy Council. The study, “Lights Out in 2009?,” says that U.S. base-load generation capacity reserve margins "have declined precipitously to 17 percent in 2007, from 30-40 percent in the early 1990s." A 12-15 percent capacity reserve margin is the minimum required to ensure reliability and stability of the nation’s electricity system. Compounding this capacity deficiency, the projected U.S. demand in the next ten years is forecast to grow by 18 percent, far exceeding the projected eight percent growth in baseload generation capacity between now and 2016.
Two hundred years of glacial shrinkage in Alaska, and then came the winter and summer of 2007-2008.
Have you noticed how environmental campaigners almost inevitably say that not only is global warming happening and bad, but also that what we are seeing is even worse than expected?
Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch
I plan to address this more in a future post, but it's important to get this information out now, and we have my colleague David Bass at the John Locke Foundation to thank. What is happening is an ACORN-ification of state air quality regulators, where directors of those agencies are hassling the businesses and industries they regulate into reporting their greenhouse gas emissions (and to pay for the privilege of doing so) to The Climate Registry. What is then created is an atmosphere of pressure, even though these air quality regulators claim participation is "voluntary."
In his story today David illustrates how the scam works, focusing on North Carolina's role:
The N.C. Division of Air Quality paid $100,000 to help fund The Climate Registry, a California-based group, and aggressively recruited companies to join as pollutant reporters, public records show.
Records also show that Brock Nicholson, deputy director of DAQ, played a key role in launching the nonprofit. Nicholson, who is on The Climate Registry’s board of directors and executive committee, traveled on behalf of the registry, charged all his costs to DAQ, and tried to recruit surrounding states to join and pay membership fees….
In addition, air quality officials conducted a recruitment seminar last year at (the NC) [Department of Environment and Natural Resources’] offices in Raleigh aimed at persuading companies to join. Nicholson also sent a letter on DENR stationery to more than 3,000 entities in North Carolina, many of them DAQ-regulated companies, asking them to sign on.
So, even though greenhouse gases are not regulated, state air quality agencies are pressuring businesses to report their emissions anyway because of the expectation (and hope) that they soon will be regulated. As the Locke Foundation's vice president for research, Roy Cordato, said, "These are companies that, in may cases, the Division of Air Quality holds the power of life and death over through its emissions permitting process." Think these businesses might believe they get greater favor by signing on to the Climate Registry?
Getting companies to join also turns up the heat on the federal government to implement such regulations, with another environmentalist's justification chit being, "Well, we're already doing it anyway, so you might as well…" The strategy also helps in the case that businesses "voluntarily" turn over otherwise irrelevant data for their environmentalist opponents to use (with the Clean Air Act? The Endangered Species Act?) as a litigation club against them.
As I mentioned earlier, North Carolina is not the only state doing this. In fact, all but a handful are participating — just look at the Climate Registry's list of board members, which includes the air quality regulation official from every state (and Canadian province) that is participating. And what do you have to do to become a board member? Among the requirements (PDF):
- …encourage entities in [state, province or tribe] to voluntarily report their emissions to The Climate Registry…
- Work with The Climate Registry to identify a set of greenhouse gas emissions minimum data quantification standards to be recognized by member states, provinces and tribes in both voluntary and mandatory reporting and emissions reduction programs
- Work to incorporate these minimum data quantification standards into any mandated greenhouse gas reporting and emissions reduction program
- Develop a nationally recognized platform for credible and consistent greenhouse gas emissions reporting
- Broad Engagement: Conduct outreach to other states and tribes and potential reporting entities
The stage is being set for a fight on this front in all three branches of government, and private businesses are turning over ammunition to their enemies unnecessarily. In North Carolina, already our two largest investor-owned utilities — Progress Energy and Duke Energy — have signed on. They are doing their investors and their customers a disservice.
The financial crisis and a deepening economic downturn are threatening to delay efforts to deal with another pressing global crisis: climate change.
The financial crisis and slumping economic activity are threatening Europe's ambitious plans to slash greenhouse gas emissions, with governments eager to avoid saddling companies with additional burdens.
Representatives of German business have called for a moratorium on any European Union legislation that would impose higher costs on companies at a time when they are grappling with the fallout from the financial crisis.
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