Walker’s PSC Pitches Shutout for Wisconsin Utilities Against Public and Environment
Madisonians received a Thanksgiving greeting by Governor Scott Walker today in the form of increased monthly electric rates and reduced incentives for conserving on electricity in their homes. The Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSC), with two of its three commissioners appointed by Governor Scott Walker, granted its approval to the private utility Madison Gas & Electric’s (MG&E) proposal to significantly increase the monthly fixed charges its customers must pay, and its request to reduce the monetary benefits customer’s will save by conserving more on their power use.
This is the third major utility monopoly in the state to be granted such an approval by the state’s chief energy regulatory agency. Please see November 18, 2014 post “Public Service Commission of Wisconsin Doing Public a Disservice” for details on PSC’s approvals of the other two utilities’ requests (one for We Energies Corporation and the other for the Green Bay area Wisconsin Public Service Corp..
Despite PSC being given the mission “to protect the environment, the public interest and the public health and welfare of Wisconsin citizens” in its decisions, the Governor Walker’s appointed PSC commissioners Phil Montgomery and Ellen Nowak voted to make it more of a financial hardship for low income families and individuals to pay their energy bills. Eric Callisto, a Governor Doyle appointee to the Commission, voted no to all three utility proposals, which will also have negative impacts on everybody in the form of faster global warming and climate change because they slow the payback on residents of the state who invest in solar panels thus conserving on fossil fuel burning.
The MG&E decision will more than double the monthly fixed rate for Madisonians, from $10.50 a month to $19, while decreasing the charge for kilowatt-hour of power used. The increase is similar to two other two state utilities the PSC has already approved, one for the Wisconsin Public Service Corp., the other for We Energies.
As reported in Thursday’s issue of the Wisconsin State Journal, Callisto chastised fellow commissioners Montgomery and Nowak for supporting the new rate structure, saying they have ignored the comments of 1,100 people (including testimony) who have submitted comments urging the PSC to reject the MG&E plan, including people from the cities of Madison, Middleton and Monona, and other in Dane County.
“Shame on us”, Callisto said. “We have plainly disregarded our opportunity to protect the public interest.”
Madison Mayor Paul Soglin said “MG&E ‘s approved rate design is contrary to the city’s interests and will undermine energy conservation efforts, energy efficiency investments, and the newable energy investments in our community”, the State Journal reported.
Don Wichert, who helped organize RePower Madison, a citizens group opposed to the MG&E plan, said “our commission is now the worst commission in the country. It is clearly not the ‘public’ service commission”. the Wisconsin State Journal reported November 27th.
Shooting of Michael Brown
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
The shooting of Michael Brown occurred on August 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. Brown, an 18-year-old black man, was fatally shot by Darren Wilson, 28, a white police officer. The disputed circumstances of the shooting and the resultant protests and civil unrest received considerable attention in the United States and abroad, and have sparked debate about Use of Force Doctrine in Missouri.
Brown and his friend Dorian Johnson were walking down the middle of the street when Wilson drove up and told them to move to the sidewalk. Brown and Wilson struggled through the window of the police vehicle until Wilson’s gun was fired as a result of the struggle. Brown and Johnson then fled in different directions, with Wilson in pursuit of Brown. Wilson shot Brown six times, killing him. Witness reports differ as to whether and when Brown had his hands raised, and whether he was moving toward Wilson, when the final shots were fired.
The shooting sparked protests and unrest in Ferguson, in part due to the belief among many that Brown was surrendering, as well as longstanding racial tensions between the majority-black Ferguson community and the majority-white city government and police.[2] Protests, both peaceful and violent, along with vandalism and looting, continued for more than a week, resulting in night curfews. The response of area police agencies in dealing with the protests received significant criticism from the media and politicians. There were concerns over insensitivity, tactics and a militarized response. Missouri Governor Jay Nixon ordered local police organizations to cede much of their authority to the Missouri State Highway Patrol. Mainly peaceful protests continued for several weeks.
A few days after the shooting, the Ferguson Police Department released a video of a convenience store robbery that occurred only minutes before the shooting. It showed Brown taking cigarillos and shoving a store employee who tried to prevent him from leaving. The timing of the video release received criticism from some media, the Brown family, and some public officials, who viewed the release as an attempt to impeach Brown. Others said the video was informative as to Brown’s state of mind, with the shooting incident coming so shortly after the robbery. There is conflicting evidence as to whether Officer Wilson knew of Brown’s involvement in the robbery.[3][4]
The events surrounding the shooting were investigated by a county grand jury. In a press conference on November 24, 2014, the St. Louis County Prosecutor announced that the jury had decided not to indict Darren Wilson for his actions.[5] The Department of Justice is reviewing Ferguson Police Department’s internal investigations of use of force during the last four years.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
Homeless Children in the United States
“Some people who talk about the environment talk about it as though it involved only a question of clean air and clean water. The environment involves the whole broad spectrum of man’s relationship to all other living creatures, including other human beings. It involves the environment in its broadest and deepest sense. It involves the environment of the ghetto which is the worst environment, where the worst pollution, the worst noise, the worst housing, the worst situation in this country — that has to be a critical part of our concern and consideration in talking and cleaning up the environment.”
– U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson speaking on CBS News “Face the Nation” on April 19, 1970.
Nelson is considered the founder of “Earth Day” in the U.S. which has been officially recognized and celebrated the week around April 22nd each year since 1970. Of course there are and will be many more hungry and homeless children suffering as oceans rise and global warming worsens. Jackson Browne asks “How Long” must this will go on while we spend trillions of dollars on military expenditures around the world and many more children suffer?
In the United States, one child in every 30 – or 2.5 million children – was homeless in 2013, marking an all-time high, according to a new comprehensive report that blames the country’s high poverty rate and lack of affordable housing, among other causes.
The report, ‘America’s Youngest Outcasts,’ released by the National Center on Family Homelessness was prepared using the “most recent federal data that comprehensively counts homeless children, using more than 30 variables from over a dozen established data sets.”
The 2.5 million figure is based on the US Department of Education’s count of 1.3 million homeless children in public schools, and estimates of homeless preschool children left out of DOE data.
The National Center on Family Homelessness – part of the private, nonprofit American Institutes for Research – said the top causes of youth homelessness include America’s high poverty rate; lack of affordable housing across the US; the lingering ramifications of the Great Recession; racial disparities; high rates of and challenges that come with single parenting; and the manner in which trauma, especially domestic violence, “precede and prolong homelessness for families.”
From 2012 to 2013, child homelessness in the US went up by eight percent overall, as 31 states and the District of Columbia had increases, according to the report.
“The impact of homelessness on the children, especially young children, is devastating and may lead to changes in brain architecture that can interfere with learning, emotional self- regulation, cognitive skills, and social relationships,” the report stated. “The unrelenting stress experienced by the parents, most of whom are women parenting alone, may contribute to residential instability, unemployment, ineffective parenting, and poor health.”
Carmela DeCandia, director of the National Center on Family Homelessness and co-author of the report, said that the federal government has not made the same progress in reducing child homelessness as it has in combating homelessness among veterans and long-term homeless adults.
“The same level of attention and resources has not been targeted to help families and children,” she told AP. “As a society, we’re going to pay a high price, in human and economic terms.”
“In the Getto”, written by Mac Davis, performed by Elvis Presley, early 1970s. Lyrics.
Aussies Bury Heads in Sand Prior to World Leaders Attending G20 Summit in Brisbane, Australia
A group of around 400 demonstrators participate in a protest of Australia’s elimination of its carbon tax by burying their heads in the sand. The photo was taken at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on November 13, 2014. Australia has the developed world’s highest per capita emissions of greenhouse gases.
World leaders met November 15-16, 2014, at Brisbane, Australia, for the G20 summit. President Barack Obama spoke at the University of Queensland during the summit on a number topics, including his announcing of a $3 billion contribution by the U.S. to an international fund to help poor countries cope with the effect of climate change.
Speaking to university students in Brisbane, ahead of the official opening of the G20 Leaders’ Summit, Obama said:
“Today, I’m announcing that the United States will take another important step,” he said.
“We will contribute $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund [UN] to help developing nations deal with climate change.” speech made reference to Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef, which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned could be at risk if more is not done to reduce carbon emissions.
“I have not had time to go to the Great Barrier Reef and I want to come back,” Mr Obama said.
“I want my daughters to be able to come back and I want them to be able to bring their daughters or sons to visit. And I want that there 50 years from now.”
The US contribution to the climate fund doubles what other countries had previously pledged ahead of a November 20 deadline. Mr Obama told the audience that every nation has a responsibility to act on climate change, including Australia.
“The United States and Australia have a lot in common and one of the things we have in common is we produce a lot of carbon,” he said. “Historically we have not been the most energy efficient of nations, which means we’ve got to step up.”
In his speech, Mr Obama also spoke about the situation in Ukraine, describing Russia’s actions as aggressive.
“We’re leading in dealing with Ebola in West Africa and in opposing Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, which is a threat to the world, as we saw in the appalling shoot-down of MH17.”
Speaking at an earlier news conference in Brisbane, UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said he hoped other G20 leaders would contribute to the fund as did Obama.
“The transition towards a low-carbon, climate-resilient future is accelerating, I urge other leaders and major economies, especially at the G20, to come forward with contributions that will sustain this momentum”, the UN secretary said.
Carbon pricing had been implemented for Australia’s 500 largest carbon dioxide (CO2) emitting companies, which are those companies that emit more than 25,000 tons of CO2 or supply or use natural gas, starting on July 1, 2012.
CO2 was taxed at $22.60 per ton of CO2 emitted by the highest 348 emitters.
Under the Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI), farmers and land managers could earn carbon credits by storing carbon or reducing greenhouse gas emissions on their land. The credits could then be sold to people and businesses wishing to offset their emissions.
The program included credits earned from activities such as reforestation, savannah fire management and reductions in emissions from livestock and fertilizer use. CFI credits could also be sold to international companies.
Australia had legislated a renewable energy target designed to ensure that 20 per cent of electricity would come from renewable sources by 2020.
Following the 2013 federal election, Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced plans to scrap the controversial tax. He then put pressure on labor leader Bill Shorten to support legislation repealing the tax by the senate. The Australian Senate voted by 39 to 32 votes to repeal the tax on July 17, 2014. Abbott claims that the tax cost jobs and forced energy prices up.
The G20 summit meeting came just days after President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a deal on climate change that raised hopes for a comprehensive international deal next year in France.
Wisconsin Conserve, NOW Proposal Would Reduce the Need to Raise the Minimum Wage
The federally required minimum wage is $7:25 per hour of work performed, which everyone agrees is insufficient to maintain a nonpoverty lifestyle in Wisconsin without government subsidies or having to work two or more jobs. Some state governments have have elected to increase the required minimum wage per hour that employers in their state must pay their employees; however, Wisconsin is not one of them.
Paying individuals and families who minimize their annual global footprint could add significantly to an individuals or family’s annual income. Depending on how successful each individual or family was at minimizing their driving mileage and flying, and minimizing their energy use in their home, they could earn up to $22,800 in a year. African-American individuals and families would be eligible to earn a higher maximum of $30,400 per year.
Although the above amounts would be the maximum one could earn by not driving a motor vehicle or flying at all throughout a year, most Wisconsinites would find it difficult to max out in the residential home heating and use of fossil fuel derived electricity, since few homes exclusively use solar or wind power. But most homes in Wisconsin could be better insulated, use less hot water, or kept a few degrees cooler (winter/spring/fall) or warmer (summer, using less air conditioning) than their residents might be use to, so they could add to their income by having to pay less in energy costs plus whatever income they might earn, by using less energy than the typical Wisconsin household of the same size.
Have you signed the petition yet?
More Reasons why Wisconsinites Should Be “Angry” about the Actions and In-actions of their Governor!
While speaking at a Republican Party field office in Waukesha last week, Republican National Committee co-chair Sharon Day was searching for an answer as to why the governor’s race seemed so close this year in Wisconsin and the need for all republicans to get to the polls on November 4th and re-elect Scott Walker. “It’s not going to be an easy election”, Day told the audience, “it’s a close election. Like I said, much closer than I can even understand why.
“I don’t want to say anything about your Wisconsin voters but, some of them might not be as sharp as a knife.”
[as reported by Bill Glauber of the Journal Sentinel Oct. 20, 2014] Then again maybe it’s so close because Wisconsin voters are all too well informed of the impacts of their governor’s decisions over the last 4 years on Wisconsin’s environment and the inability of the Walker administration to follow a sustainable course to the future.
Wisconsin’s voters have always been well respected and admired for electing public officials who went beyond the call of duty and sometimes went outside the preferences of their own party to ensure Wisconsin’s many fine natural resources were always well protected. Wisconsin became a model in the 1960 and 1970s that other states emulated to protect their own natural and human resources. It never did mattered much which political party was in the majority in the state Legislature, nor the party affiliation of the governor. What mattered most was that Wisconsin’s rich natural resource and its healthy population was protected no matter what.
Even Gaylord Nelson ran as a Progressive Republican his first attempt at being a representative in the Wisconsin Legislature (he lost). Two years later, in 1948, he ran for the state Senate as a Democrat in 1948 and won. He then served ten years in the state Legislature before being elected Wisconsin Governor in 1958. He became a U.S. Senator in 1962 and championed several other environmental protection laws throughout his 18 years in the U.S. Senate, cooperating regularly with fellow democrats and republicans alike. That’s how it pretty much was in Wisconsin for a number of decades regardless of there being a democratic or republican governor. democratic
However, in 2010, Wisconsin voters elected Republican Scott Walker to be their governor. Moreover, Republican filled the majority of both the Wisconsin Assembly and the State Senate. Things changed. Beginning in 2010, it mattered a great deal whether a person in the government was a democrat or a republican. It mattered for the environment, too, as Governor Scott Walker had promised 250,000 new jobs should he be elected and he has not been able to keep that promise. What’s worse, neither he nor his party’s other officials in the State Assembly and the State Senate have shown any regard for protecting Wisconsin’s current and future environment from harm. Nor have they taken any meaningful action reins of government to really help the middle and lower income families and individuals in Wisconsin the last 4 years.
After being sworn into office on January 3, 2011, like a bolt from the blue, Scott Walker introduced a controversial budget repair plan which eliminated many collective bargaining rights for most public employees and made over $1 billion in cuts to the state’s biennial education budget and $500 million in cuts from the state’s biennial Medicaid budget. The budget cuts led to significant protests at the Wisconsin State Capitol and sparked a recall vote of Walker in June 2012, which he won with just 53% of the vote.
Wisconsin’s environment has been under attack by the republicans in the state Legislature and by Governor Scott Walker since they took the reins of Wisconsin’s government in January 2010. Wisconsin will never be the same. But things could get even worse with four more years of republican controlled government and Scott Walker as Wisconsin’s governor.
According to Editor emeritus of The Capital Times, “They’ve [Wisconsin’s republicans] been intent on tearing down the state’s traditions, dating all the way back to another Republican governor, Robert M. La Follette. They’ve weakened La Follette’s famed civil service rules. They’ve made drastic cuts to the Nelson-Knowles public land purchases and rolled back environmental rules to make it easier to build on wetlands or construct open pit mines in recreational areas. They’ve vigorously fought gay marriage equality until the U.S. Supreme Court finally told them to stop.
And all the while they’ve unabashedly worked to change the rules to give them an advantage at election time to stay in power to continue tearing down what their predecessors from both parties have built. They’ve relentlessly pushed voter ID under the guise of stopping what experts agree is nonexistent voter fraud. They’ve made it harder for people in urban areas, where many Democrats live, to vote absentee. They’ve gerrymandered legislative districts like they’ve never been gerrymandered before. No other Republican administration would have ever thought of being so brazen…”
“Contrast that with previous Republican administrations. Warren Knowles brought in the likes of respected governmental experts like James Morgan, Paul Hassett and Wayne McGown. Lee Dreyfus surrounded himself with stalwarts like Bill Kraus, Mike Musolf and the incomparable “Stone” Williams. Tommy Thompson reached into the Democratic caucus and made state Sen. Tim Cullen a key cabinet member and made class acts like Mark Bugher a key player. There was always one goal in mind: Make Wisconsin government work for all the people, not the special few. That, sadly, isn’t the case with those who call themselves Republicans in state government these days.”
“If they’re returned to office next week, the destruction of what was once Wisconsin will continue.”
In perhaps no other subject area has Wisconsin lost ground in the last four years than that of clean energy production and reducing Wisconsin’s global footprint. In April 2007, Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle signed Executive Order 191 establishing the Governor’s Task Force on Global Warming (GTF). The Task Force brought together members of the business, industry, government and environmental consulting communities to create a plan of action for the state of Wisconsin that addresses issues related to climate change. Doyle commissioned the Task Force to identify actionable public policies designed to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from Wisconsin while ensuring that the state remains competitive in the global economy.
The Task Force’s final report to the governor, entitled “Wisconsin’s Strategy for Reducing Global Warming,” was released in July 2008. The report recommended the state reduce its GHG emissions “to 2005 levels by 2014”, “22% below 2005 levels by 2022”, and “75% below 2005 levels by 2050”. The GHG emission mitigation options recommended were similar to those recommended by other states.
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel‘s Lee Bergquist and Thomas Content, “only a few years ago, fighting global warming was a front burner topic among state policy makers. But the issue has been largely ignored in Wisconsin since 2010 with the collapse of legislation that would have required a big shift to renewable power.”
After an intense focus on climate change under Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, Republican Gov. Scott Walker and the GOP-controlled Legislature devoted little attention to the issue. Shortly after taking office in 2011, Walker canceled plans to burn renewable biomass at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The school’s power plant had come under fire for high construction costs and other problems.
In moves directed by the Wisconsin Public Service Commission (PSC, 2 of its 3 commission are appointees of Governor Scott Walker), the state’s Focus on Energy program suspended incentives for solar panel projects twice in the past three years. More recently, Wisconsin utility companies, including Madison Gas and Electric Company (MGE), have submitted proposals to the PSC which would allow them to cut back further on incentives for customers to install solar panels. MGE recently submitted plans to increase monthly baseline charges and reduce per kilowatt rates, making residential and commercial investments in solar energy less economically advantageous in the future. For example, under MGE’s proposal this fall, the fixed charge for connecting to the power grid would increase from about $10 to $19 a month, while the energy usage rates would drop from 14.4 cents to 13.3 cents per kilowatt hour. Much greater increases in the fixed charges were announced for years beginning in 2016.
According to Michael Vickerman, the program and policy director for RENEW Wisconsin, a statewide group that advocates for renewable energy, the proposed rates would result in cost increases on an unprecedented scale, putting Madison’s electricity rates among the highest in the region. “What they’re proposing is practically double what is the norm in the upper Midwest,” he told Madison’s weekly newspaper, ISTHMUS.
“If MGE’s rate changes go through, the results could have ramifications across the entire nation. This sets a very bad precedent,” said Michael Noble, the executive director of Fresh Energy, a nationwide renewable energy coalition.
Vickerman said the proposed changes would have an impact on solar installation in Wisconsin, “which is already falling behind the rest of the nation”. Feelings of insecurity from the current rate debate may have had a hand in that drop, he argued. “It is the lowering of the [energy] rate that is the most unsettling for the solar industry,” he said. Property owners might be less inclined to invest in solar, since such investments usually take several years to be paid back.
The proposed plans have met with widespread public opposition at PSC’s public hearings. Yet the Walker administration has been strangely silent on this issue. The PSC is expected to announce its decision on MG&E’s proposed changes to its rate structure in December.
The transportation is the second most major source of U.S. greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, second to only electricity generating coal and natural gas powered electricity generating plants. Most of the greenhouse gas are emitted by flying and driving motor vehicles.
Since January 2011, Governor Walker has spent nearly $1 million in campaign funds on air travel, according Jessie Opoien, writing for The Capital Times. The majority of his flights out of state are taken on private, chartered jet – by far the worse way to travel as far as the environment is concerned because per passenger emissions are at their highest compared to other travel modes.
Walker has also done nothing to reduce the vehicle miles traveled on Wisconsin roads and bridges, which is the other part of transportation’s large annual slug of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere. The carbon dioxide that remains in the atmosphere (other quantities of it are absorbed into the oceans, causing the oceans to become 30% more acidic than during the early 20th century) may remain in the atmosphere for hundreds of years.
The Wisconsin Department of Transportation reports that the annual number of vehicle miles traveled on Wisconsin roads has now “leveled off” at 59.5 billion miles. That is roughly double the vehicle miles traveled on Wisconsin roads in 1975 and even the 1975 levels of 30 billion miles traveled per year is unsustainable if we are going to do anything timely on the release of greenhouse gases from transportation in Wisconsin. For every gallon of gasoline burn in an internal combustion chamber, 20 pound of carbon dioxide is emitted to the atmosphere.
Women’s rights, taking health care decision out of women’s hands, and countering overpopulation have also been under attack by the Walker administration. One of the first things Governor Walker did was repeal the Equal Pay Protection Act in Wisconsin which will set women financially in reverse compared to men.
State republicans and Governor Scott Walker have gutted Wisconsin family planning and women’s reproductive health care centers in Wisconsin. This September, the Fond du Lac Planned Parenthood clinic shut its doors, marking the fifth Planned Parenthood closure in Wisconsin to directly result from Walker’s decision to eliminate family planning dollars in the state budget. This action is short-sited.
In a report by Kate Golden, writing in the Wisconsin State Journal Monday, Rep. Chris Taylor of Madison, a former public policy director of Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, is reported to have said she is suspicious because Gov. Scott Walker ‘s administration and the Republican-controlled Legislature have been “hostile to birth control”.
The problem of unwanted pregnancies in Wisconsin and elsewhere has profoundly negative social, economic and environmental consequences for Wisconsin and the sustainability of our entire planet, which makes it imperative that unwanted pregnancies are prevented. That is a primary mission of Planned Parenthood and will mean a lot in terms of unnecessary greenhouse gases and the cost of social programs. It is already a tragedy that program funds have been cut and clinics had to close.
The reasons for Wisconsinites’ anger with Governor Walker over the last 4 years are nearly endless. Environmental writer Bill Berry’s observation on Walker’s environmental record following Berry’s four decades of covering the environment in Wisconsin should suffice: “Scoot Walker has by far the worst environmental record of all Wisconsin governors of that time”. [from Berry’s opinion plece in the October 8-14, 2014 edition of The Capital Times.]
IPCC Releases Final Report on Global Warming and Climate Change
In a word: “dire” – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The window of opportunity for doing something positive about it – closing. The time to start action on quickly reducing human causes releases of greenhouse gases – NOW!
From the Huffington Post (November 3, 2014):
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Climate change is happening, it’s almost entirely man’s fault and limiting its impacts may require reducing greenhouse gas emissions to zero this century, the U.N.’s panel on climate science said Sunday.
The fourth and final volume of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s giant climate assessment offered no surprises, nor was it expected to since it combined the findings of three reports released in the past 13 months.
But it underlined the scope of the climate challenge in stark terms. Emissions, mainly from the burning of fossil fuels, may need to drop to zero by the end of this century for the world to have a decent chance of keeping the temperature rise below a level that many consider dangerous.
The IPCC didn’t say exactly what such a world would look like but it would likely require a massive shift to renewable sources to power homes, cars and industries combined with new technologies to suck greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
The report warned that failure to reduce emissions could lock the world on a trajectory with “irreversible” impact on people and the environment. Some impacts already being observed included rising sea levels, a warmer and more acidic ocean, melting glaciers and Arctic sea ice and more frequent and intense heat waves.
The science has spoken. There is no ambiguity in their message. Leaders must act. Time is not on our side,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said at the report’s launch in Copenhagen.
Amid its grim projections, the report said the tools are there to set the world on a low-emissions path and break the addiction to burning oil, coal and gas which pollute the atmosphere with heat-trapping CO2, the chief greenhouse gas.
“All we need is the will to change, which we trust will be motivated by knowledge and an understanding of the science of climate change,” IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri said.
The IPCC was set up in 1988 to assess global warming and its impacts. The report released Sunday caps its latest assessment, a mega-review of 30,000 climate change studies that establishes with 95-percent certainty that most of the warming seen since the 1950s is man-made. The IPCC’s best estimate is that just about all of it is man-made, but it can’t say that with the same degree of certainty.
Today only a small minority of scientists challenge the mainstream conclusion that climate change is linked to human activity.
Global Climate Change, a NASA website, says 97 percent of climate scientists agree that warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities.
The American public isn’t as convinced. A year-old survey by Pew Research showed 67 percent of Americans believed global warming is occurring and 44 percent said the earth is warming mostly because of human activity. More recently, a New York Times poll said 42 percent of Republicans say global warming won’t have a serious impact, a view held by 12 percent of Democrats and 22 percent of independents.
Sleep-deprived delegates approved the final documents Saturday after a weeklong line-by-line review that underscored that the IPCC process is not just about science. The reports must be approved both by scientists and governments, which means political issues from U.N. climate negotiations, which are nearing a 2015 deadline for a global agreement, inevitably affect the outcome.
The rift between developed and developing countries in the U.N. talks opened up in Copenhagen over a passage on what levels of warming could be considered dangerous. After a protracted battle, the text was dropped from a key summary for policy-makers — to the disappointment of some scientists.
“If the governments are going to expect the IPCC to do their job,” said Princeton professor Michael Oppenheimer, a lead author of the IPCC’s second report, they shouldn’t “get caught up in fights that have nothing to do with the IPCC.”
The omission meant the word “dangerous” disappeared from the summary altogether. It appeared only twice in a longer underlying report compared to seven times in a draft produced before the Copenhagen session. The less loaded word “risk” was mentioned 65 times in the final 40-page summary.
“Rising rates and magnitudes of warming and other changes in the climate system, accompanied by ocean acidification, increase the risk of severe, pervasive, and in some cases irreversible detrimental impacts,” the report said.
World governments in 2009 set a goal of keeping the temperature rise below 2 degrees C (3.6 F) compared to before the industrial revolution. Temperatures have gone up about 0.8 C (1.4 F) since the 19th century.
Emissions have risen so fast in recent years that the world has used up two-thirds of its carbon budget, the maximum amount of CO2 that can be emitted to have a likely chance of avoiding 2 degrees of warming, the IPCC report said.
“This report makes it clear that if you are serious about the 2-degree goal … there is nowhere to hide,” said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group. “You can’t wait several decades to address this issue.”
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the report demands “ambitious, decisive and immediate action.”
“Those who choose to ignore or dispute the science so clearly laid out in this report do so at great risk for all of us and for our kids and grandkids,” Kerry said in a statement.
The IPCC said the cost of actions such as shifting to solar and wind power and other renewable sources and improving energy efficiency would reduce economic growth only by 0.06 percent annually.
Pachauri said that should be measured against the implications of doing nothing, putting “all species that live on this planet” at peril.
The report is meant as a scientific roadmap for the U.N. climate negotiations, which continue next month in Lima, Peru. That’s the last major conference before a summit in Paris next year, where a global agreement on climate action is supposed to be adopted.
The biggest hurdle is deciding who should do what. Rich countries are calling on China and other major developing countries to set ambitious targets; developing countries saying the rich have a historical responsibility to lead the fight against warming and to help poorer nations cope with its impacts. The IPCC avoided taking sides, saying the risks of climate change “are generally greater for disadvantaged people and communities in countries at all levels of development.”
AP: By KARL RITTER
Posted: 11/02/2014 7:35 am EST Updated: 11/03/2014 12:59 pm EST
IPCC Sounds Fresh Alarm as Fossil Fuel Interests Tighten Grip on Congress
The leading international network of climate scientists is urging a rapid shift away from fossil fuels, just as allies of coal, oil and natural gas industries in the United States appear poised to tighten their grip on Congress—where opposition to cleaner energy is already entrenched.
That outcome of Tuesday’s midterm election would spell trouble for advocates of a strong international climate accord. Treaty negotiations are supposed to pick up in the next few months and culminate in Paris just over a year from now.
This weekend, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a synthesis report that sums up its years-long review of the climate crisis and what to do about it. The report called for the near-complete elimination of fossil fuel-burning by the end of the century. This, it said, is what is needed to have a reasonable chance of avoiding the most severe risks of man-made changes to the world’s climate.
Nothing could be further from the agenda of Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the coal-state Republican who on the eve of the election appears to have significantly better than even odds of becoming the next majority leader. (Though, as the IPCC might put it, until the last votes are tallied any forecast of which party will prevail deserves only “medium confidence.”)
Even if the Republicans don’t gain a majority in the Senate on Nov. 4, they are likely to gain strength in that chamber as well as in the House—an election outcome that would undermine President Obama’s entire climate agenda, not just his influence in the Paris talks.
From the Keystone XL pipeline decision and so-called “war on coal,” to a carbon tax and the very foundations of climate science, Congressional Republicans have opposed Obama on anything having to do with global warming from his first days in office.
Just last year, on the day the IPCC released one of three exhaustive treatments that formed the basis of this week’s synthesis report, McConnell co-sponsored an amendment to block the EPA from regulating fossil fuels in electric power plants, the largest single source of carbon emissions in this country.
His co-sponsor, Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, offered another amendment at the same time. It would have prohibited the administration from participating in international climate negotiations “unless the U.S. offers an addendum to the latest IPCC report stating that anthropogenic climate change is a scientifically unproven theory.” Inhofe, who reportedly aspires to be chairman of the environment committee in a Republican Senate, calls the whole IPCC enterprisea “conspiracy” and “a hoax.”
Their ascent would alarm participants in the climate talks who agree with IPCC chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, that the climate crisis could be solved if action is quick and decisive. “All we need,” Pachauri said as he released the new synthesis report, “is the will to change, which we trust will be motivated by knowledge and an understanding of the science of climate change.”
Emissions must fall by 40 to 70 percent between 2010 and 2050, and then to zero by 2100, he explained at a news conference.
Those are fighting words to anyone committed to defending the coal industry in Kentucky, the oil and gas industry in Oklahoma, or campaigning in any fossil fuel stronghold—from the Marcellus shale to the Bakken light oil play. And it helps explain why the politics of carbon are a feature of so many swing elections in states like West Virginia, Colorado, Louisiana and Alaska.
The contrast between this increasingly partisan American political divide and the increasingly solid international scientific consensus could hardly be starker.
“The scientists have done their jobs and then some,” said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists, who has tracked the negotiations for decades. “Politicians can either dramatically reduce emissions or they can spend the rest of their careers running from climate disaster to climate disaster.”
Other environmental advocates, too, issued statements emphasizing that the synthesis report—including its summary for policymakers, expressly designed to guide them toward early action —was as significant politically as it was scientifically.
“The report is alarming and should be a wake-up call to government leaders,” said Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres, a group that encourages businesses to show leadership on climate issues. Her statement called on them to “ramp up the pressure…especially in Washington.”
“The critical missing link is the oil and gas industry, which is doing its best to thwart concrete action,” she said.
The Sierra Club’s Michael Brune aimed a jibe at the Koch brothers and their favored candidates, saying that “we don’t have any more time to coddle fossil fuel billionaires or politicians who will eschew responsibility at every corner.”
Big environmental groups have spent heavily in this campaign, too—$85 million on state and federal races, according to Daniel Weiss of the League of Conservation Voters, including $40 million on just six key Senate races. And in the closing days, they were knocking on millions of doors to bring out a green vote.
The organizations released results from a Hart Research Associates poll taken in late October in swing states suggesting that the climate issue could break in their favor.
“The survey suggests that Republican candidates are losing ground as a result of their climate science denial and opposition to climate pollution reductions,” Hart reported. “This is true among independent swing voters, and particularly among women and younger voters.”
But only about 40 percent of those surveyed said they had heard much of candidates’ views on climate. A majority had heard about energy issues, but far more about abortion, jobs and Obamacare.
Leaked Final Draft Of U.N. Climate Report Shows Dire Global Warming Predictions
BY ARI PHILLIPS, POSTED ON OCTOBER 27, 2014
Delegates from more than 100 governments and many of the world’s top climate scientists are meeting in Copenhagen this week to finalize a report that will be used as a foundation for important upcoming climate summits. The leaked United Nations draft report, due to be published on Nov. 2nd, says climate change may have “serious, pervasive and irreversible” impacts on human society and nature.
Hopes are set on a new, post-Kyoto Protocol global climate agreement to be reached at the Paris summit at the end of 2015. There will a major climate meeting in Lima, Peru at the end of this year to help set the framework for the 2015 gathering.
“The report will be a guide for us,” Peruvian Environment Minister Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, told Reuters.
This final report is a synthesis of three comprehensive IPCC reports published over the course of the last year. Those reports focused on the physical science; impacts, adaptation and vulnerability; and mitigation. This flagship report received over 2,000 comments from government officials relating to changes to be made prior to publication.
According to a Reuters analysis, many governments want the draft to be written in a more clear and accessible manner with a focus on extreme weather events such as storms, heat waves, and floods. The U.S. wrote that the report needs to be useful for those without deep technical knowledge of climate issues.
“What about drought? Cyclones? Wildfires? Policymakers care deeply about extreme events,” the U.S. team wrote. “After all, in many ways it is how extreme events will change that will determine many of the (near-term, at least) impacts from climate change. As such, the authors should strongly consider saying more about the projected changes in extreme events.”
>U.S. commenters also wrote that the report should stress impacts on rich countries more, saying “there are very few references to the vulnerability of wealthier countries to climate change.”
The E.U. team wrote that “the key messages should contain more substance that can help guide policy makers rather than general overarching statements,” and that “the overall storyline … is sometimes not clear and still looks fragmented.”
While the report warns of the dire consequences of the continued rise of GHGs, it also says the worst impacts can still be avoided. It states that a combination of adaptation and substantial, sustained reductions in GHGs can limit climate change risks and reduce the costs and challenges of mitigation.
Over the past five years some 2,000 scientists worked on the fifth iteration of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change’s Assessment Report. With leaders gathering to finalize the report this week, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, urged world governments not to be overcome by hopelessness as they engage in negotiations.
“May I humbly suggest that policymakers avoid being overcome by the seeming hopelessness of addressing climate change,” he said. “Tremendous strides are being made in alternative sources of clean energy. There is much we can do to use energy more efficiently. Reducing and ultimately eliminating deforestation provides additional avenues for action.”
In one hopeful indication, last week leaders of the European Union agreed to cut emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. European leaders hope this will build momentum for when the bloc hosts the critical Paris climate summit next year, and that it will encourage other major emitters yet to make pledges — such as the U.S. and China — to rise to the occasion. Countries have until early next year to announce the targets they intend to negotiate with at the Paris summit.
Wisconsinites Should Be “Angry” about the Actions and In-actions of their Governor!
Republican Gov. Scott Walker kicked up a hornets nest in Madison last Thursday, October 23, 2014, when he told a gathering of news reporters at the morning briefing that people living in Madison are driven by anger. “There are many people in Madison who are angry and they’re going to vote no (against Walker) [no] matter what, Walker said in his morning briefing.
What does he expect?
Shortly after he took office, Governor Walker surprised the citizens of Wisconsin with his now infamous “Act 10”, also known as the Wisconsin Budget Repair bill, ridding public unions of their rights to collective bargaining and deeply reducing the take home pay of all public employees, including all the public school teachers in the state. The bill was referred to the Joint Committee on Finance who then held a public hearing the same day.
When it became clear the passage of the bill was inevitable, all 14 Senate Democrats left the state to prevent Republicans from passing the measure in the Senate.
Twenty senators had to be present to hold a vote on the bill and Republicans had just 19 seats. Walker immediately advocated for taking that requirement out of the bill, so Republicans could pass it without the Democrats being present, according to an online report by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and became law in Wisconsin on June 29, 2011.
“It’s had a devastating effect on our union,”, said Wisconsin Union of State Employees Marty Beil in a report by the New York Times . It brought tens of thousands of protesters out to the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison in frigid February weather in protest.
Wisconsin had been the first state in the country to grant public unions the right to negotiate contracts with their employers, after former Governor Gaylord Nelson established the rights for all labor unions, public and private, to bargain collectively.
Nelson subsequently became a U.S. Senator, where he helped passed numerous environmental legislation, and where he famously founded “Earth Day”, a day celebrated in many public schools and communities around the world with the purpose of learning about the importance of keeping a healthy environment every April 22nd. According to Nelson: “Some people who talk about the environment talk about it as though it involved only a question of clean air and clean water. The environment involves the whole broad spectrum of man’s relationship to all other living creatures, including other human beings. It involves the environment in its broadest and deepest sense. It involves the environment of the ghetto which is the worst environment, where the worst pollution, the worst noise, the worst housing, the worst situation in this country — that has to be a critical part of our concern and consideration in talking and cleaning up the environment.”
The aftermath of schools having to abide by Governor Walker’s Act 10 has deeply affected public education throughout Wisconsin. As the 2014-15 school year unfolds, Wisconsin has seen class sizes in its public schools grow faster than the national average, a rise in the number of students living in poverty, coupled with a reduction in state support for public education.
Public schools have long been an engine of our state’s economic growth, according to The Wisconsin Budget Project, an initiative of the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families and the State Priorities Partnership, formed in 1999, who’s mission is to engage in nonpartisan and independent analysis and provide education on state budget and tax issues, particularly those relating to low- and moderate-income families.
The Partnership is coordinated by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. According to The Wisconsin Budget Project, “Wisconsin has depended on a well-educated workforce, shaped by excellent public schools, to lay the foundation for our prosperity. To ensure that Wisconsin is competitive in the future, our schools must have the resources to offer students a high-quality education. Only then can we create a future workforce that is well-qualified and globally competitive”.
However, three and 1/2 years following Act 10’s passage into law, Wisconsin classrooms have fewer teachers, resulting in more crowded classrooms and less individualized attention for students. Over the last seven years, the number of teachers in Wisconsin public schools has fallen significantly. In the 2011-2012 year alone, there was a 7.1% in the number of full-time equivalents (FTEs) teachers in Wisconsin public schools to 56,200 FTE teachers, down from 60,500 FTE public school teachers in the 2004-05 school year, even as student enrollment has increased slightly.
The decline in the number of teachers in Wisconsin has resulted in higher student-to-teacher ratios in Wisconsin. Having fewer students for each teacher helps students learn better, but in Wisconsin the trend is going in the opposite direction. In 2004-05, Wisconsin had 14.3 students per teacher; that number had risen to 15.5 students by 2011-12.
There has been a rising tide of children living in poverty in Wisconsin and attending public schools. The number of Wisconsin children who are from low-income families has climbed for ten straight years, according to Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction.
According to the Wisconsin Budget Project, the rising number of low-income students presents challenges for Wisconsin schools. Children from low-income families lag their peers in educational achievement. They also are less likely to graduate from high school and become well-educated, healthy members of Wisconsin’s skilled workforce.
In the 2013-14 school year, 43% of Wisconsin children in public schools — or 359,000 children — were eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches, A decade earlier, only 30% of students qualified for free or reduced lunches.
In each of Wisconsin’s five largest school districts — Milwaukee, Madison, Kenosha, Green Bay, and Racine — more than half the students are from low-income families and qualified for assistance for school meals. More than 8 out of 10 students in Milwaukee Public Schools were from low-income families in the 2013-14 school year. Put another way, about 69,000 children in Milwaukee Public Schools received assistance to help pay for school lunches.
Wisconsin’s public education cuts under Scott Walker are among the deepest in the country. When measured as dollars lost per student, Wisconsin’s cuts to public education over this period are second only to Alabama. Wisconsin provided $1,038 per student less in state support for public schools in 2014 than in 2008.
Changes to the state retirement system and collective bargaining rules made in 2011 forced school districts to cut compensation for teachers and other school employees and scale back academic programs. Some school districts have been forced to eliminate courses in core subject areas.
At the same time lawmakers were cutting state support for schools, they passed tax cuts that add up to $1.9 billion over four years. The tax cuts didn’t do much to lower tax bills for Wisconsin’s lowest-wage earners, but they did drain revenue that could be used for education or other priorities.
Cuts in state aid and uncertainties about future funding have caused turmoil in Wisconsin schools.
Yet while Walker’s actions have caused increased hardships on Wisconsin’s public employees, teachers and its student population, particularly for poor minority families, additional adverse impact is resulting from Governor Walker’s lack of positive environmental action.
In a recent article, Bill Lueders quotes Matt Neumann, president of the trade group Wisconsin Solar Energy Industries Association, as saying he needs only one word to describe Wisconsin’s recent record on renewable energy. He calls it “rotten.”
Neumann is equally concise in ascribing blame: “The big change happened in 2010, when the Republicans took control of the governorship and Legislature.”
Such criticism may have greater weight given that Neumann is a self-described conservative who a few years back launched SunVest, a Pewaukee-based solar installation company, with his father, Mark.
Matt Neumann says the economics of solar power have improved dramatically in recent years, to where government subsidies are no longer needed. “But we still need policies that support the ability to install solar,” he says, adding that the state is missing opportunities to grow this sector of its economy.
Renew Wisconsin, a nonprofit advocacy group, has tallied that the number of new solar electric installations in Wisconsin fell from 339 in 2010 to 136 in 2012, then rose slightly to 194 in 2013. Meanwhile, new solar installations nationally grew by leaps and bounds. More than 150,000 were added last year, about three times as many as in 2010.
For wind power, Renew Wisconsin reports that the number of commercial turbines placed in service plunged from 215 in 2008 to just 10 in 2012. Wind power in Wisconsin has since “flatlined,” according to Michael Vickerman, the group’s program and policy director. No new turbines were added in 2013 and 2014, and none are planned by state utilities, he says.
“We’re definitely falling behind,” says Gary Radloff, a researcher with the Wisconsin Energy Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It’s pretty remarkable and measurable.” Wisconsin had been seeing growth in this area before “this massive drop-off in the last few years.”
A recent poll by a bipartisan research team found that more than 80% of Wisconsin voters support raising the state’s use of various forms of renewable energy, including solar, wind and biomass.
Mary Burke, the Democratic candidate for governor, has blasted Walker for his record on renewable energy and pledged to boost state investment in wind power, biofuels and digester technologies that turn waste to watts.
Walker’s true colors of being anti-environmental were shown when it was reported he received $700,000 from a mining firm who was subsequently allowed to rewrite Wisconsin’s once strong metallic mining law to allow it to have the largest open pit mine in North America, which will wipe out an area of significant natural beauty and high natural habitat quality which is a local tribe finds irreplaceable.
Further evidence of the low priority the Walker administration has given to environmental values is its unwillingness to create rules to limit small particle pollution from power plants, forcing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to write such rules for Wisconsin. Wisconsin, the home of the late Gaylord Nelson, was once said to be a strong leader for other states to follow in protecting our environment. That can no longer be said now because of the blatant disregard for the environment the last three and one-half years by Governor Scott Walker. It’s no wonder Madison residents and undoubtedly many other residents of communities and rural areas throughout Wisconsin appear angry to Governor Walker. They’re furious – and they are saving their stingers for the voting booth on November 4th.
Source: Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
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