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Blog Action Day: Is The CBO Trying To Kill Humanity? »

Today is Blog Action Day, with thousands of blogs discussing global warming.

Doug Elmendorf, CBO

Yesterday, Doug Elmendorf, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, testified before the Senate energy committee about the “comparatively modest” cost of a cap-and-trade system to limit carbon pollution. The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal blared “Congressional Budget Chief Says Climate Bill Would Cost Jobs” and “Cap-and-Trade Would Slow Economy, CBO Chief Says.” Conservatives leapt on the reports to cheer the “end” of “cap-and-tax.”

Of course, Elmendorf’s testimony is nothing new. Elmendorf warned that jobs in the fossil fuel industry would be lost, and that overall GDP growth would be slowed by less than one percent by 2020. No one is arguing that there won’t be a shift from pollution-based industries to clean-energy industries. But doing so will create millions more jobs than are lost, as energy companies invest in American workers instead of foreign oil and mountaintop removal. The effect on GDP is within the margin of error of future estimates of growth. Even pessimistic studies by the National Association of Manufacturers find that U.S. GDP will increase by $9 trillion with limits on carbon pollution.

What upset me, however, was the portion of Elmendorf’s testimony that was not reported. Although he recognized that his estimates do not take into account the economic impacts of climate change, he testified that the changes that scientists call “catastrophic” would be barely noticeable in the U.S. economy:

Most of the economy involves activities that are not likely to be directly affected by changes in climate. Moreover, researchers generally expect the growth in the U.S. economy over the coming century to be concentrated in sectors — such as information technology and medical care — that are relatively insulated from climate effects. Damages are therefore likely to be a smaller share of the future economy than they would be if they occurred today. As a consequence, a relatively pessimistic estimate for the loss in projected real gross domestic product is about 3 percent for warming of about 7° Fahrenheit (F) by 2100. [Dale W. Jorgenson et al., 2004]

Elmendorf goes on to cite Nordhaus & Boyer (2000) to claim “the risk of catastrophic outcomes associated with about 11°F of warming by 2100″ gives a projected “loss equivalent to about 5 percent of U.S. output and, because of substantially larger losses in a number of other countries, a loss of about 10 percent of global output.” (By way of comparison, US GDP collapsed by nearly 50 percent during the Great Depression.)

This is frighteningly nonsensical. The CBO is arguing that the collapse of the national electricity grid, water supply, food system, and physical infrastructure from heat waves, desertification, disease outbreaks, wildfires, floods, and catastrophic storms would barely affect the national economy. In fact, seven to 11° F (4 to 6°C) warming would lead to unimaginable changes in our planet by 2100: More »« Less

Entergy CEO Warns Of Humanity’s Extinction If Climate Legislation Not Passed »

Last week, over a hundred CEOs of American companies broke with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to lobby Congress to “pass comprehensive climate change and energy policy legislation this year.” The U.S. Senate is now considering the Kerry-Boxer Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, which would set a market-based limit on global warming pollution. Participants in a Clean Energy Economy Forum at the White House included J. Wayne Leonard, the Chairman and CEO of Entergy Corporation, the utility giant based in New Orleans, Louisiana. Speaking at the White House event, Leonard called for action on climate change and clean energy not just for economic reasons but starkly moral ones:

We are virtually certain that climate change is occurring, and occurring because of man’s activities. We’re virtually certain the probability distribution curve is all bad. There’s no good things that’s going to come of this. But what’s uncertain is exactly which one of those things are going to occur and in what time frame. In the probability distribution curve is about a 50% probability that about half of all species will become extinct or be subject to extinction over this period of time. What we will never know on an ex ante basis is whether or not man be one of those casualties or not.

We condemn Wall Street for taking risks with our economy — risks that all of you are trying very hard to reverse — but at the same time we’re taking exactly the same kind of risks, with no upside whatsoever, with regard to our climate, failing to practice even the basic risk management techniques in terms of climate change reduction.

Watch it:

In a powerful speech, Leonard called a national system to cap carbon pollution “an investment that by all facts, figures and analysis pays back many times over,” and warned that “history will judge us if we don’t pass comprehensive climate and energy reform now” for “cheating [our children] out of their future.”

Entergy serves “two-and-a-half million customers in the mid-South and the Gulf South portion of the country, some of the poorest people in the country,” Leonard noted. These customers already suffered the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, which global warming likely fueled.

Although Entergy’s website warns that the “ramifications of global climate change, while uncertain, paint a devastating portrait of an unsustainable world” and that what “the United States does now is critical to eliminating or at least reducing the possibility of catastrophic outcomes for future generations,” the corporation is a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is spending millions of dollars to fight the regulation of climate pollution. Entergy plans to remain in the climate-denial organization in an attempt to “convince other members to agree to emissions limits.”

Transcript: More »« Less

Teabaggers Erupt At ‘Traitor’ Lindsey Graham: ‘Wussypants, Girly-Man, Half-A-Sissy’ »

Right-wing activists across the nation are enraged by Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) decision to work with Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) to craft comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation. In an op-ed published in Sunday’s New York Times, Graham and Kerry discussed their agreement on a framework for mandatory global warming pollution reductions linked to government support for the nuclear, coal, and natural gas industries. The Natural Resource Defense Council’s Dan Lashof embraced the announcement as a “game changer.” Bill Scher noted that Graham has “crossed the climate Rubicon,” abandoning denialist conservative activists by recognizing the threat of global warming and working with Democrats. Graham has even said “it doesn’t bother me one bit” if President Obama gets credit for a policy victory:

I think the planet is heating up. I think CO2 emissions are damaging the environment and this dependence on foreign oil is a natural disaster in the making. Let’s do something about it. I’d like to solve a problem, and if it’s on President Obama’s watch, it doesn’t bother me one bit if it makes the country better off.

Graham’s willingness to drop blind partisanship for the chance to shape corporate-friendly climate legislation is making him the latest target of the extremist right, who drove Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) out of the Republican Party and demonized Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE). Yesterday, Graham held a town hall meeting in Greenville, South Carolina in which local Tea Party activists accused him of “going to bed with John Kerry” and making a “pact with the devil,” accusations which generated tremendous applause by the assembled crowd.

Watch it:

This unhinged response is reflected in the conservative blogosphere, where Graham has been called a “fake Republican,” “RINO” (Republican in name only), a “traitor,” “disgrace,” “asshat,” “democrat in drag,” and a “wussypants, girly-man, half-a-sissy”: More »« Less

PG&E CEO: We Left The U.S. Chamber Of Commerce Because They Lied To Us About Climate Policy

Tom Donohue, the embattled president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, today defiantly defended the attacks on clean energy legislation and climate science that have caused a mass exodus of companies from his organization. Donohue told reporters, “We’re not changing where we are,” saying of critics, “Bring ‘em on.” One of the chamber’s sharpest critics is Peter Darbee, chairman, president, and CEO of electric utility Pacific Gas & Electric, which was the first company to quit the chamber after they called for “monkey trials” on climate science. In a recent interview with E&E News, Darbee explained that his company quit the chamber after they repeatedly lied about their approach to climate policy:

The reason for our departure from the chamber is that we had repeated discussions with the chamber about how the direction they were on was not consistent with our position, in fact, very much at odds. And their response was, “We’ll take care of it. Really, our position and yours, PG&E, are much closer than you believe them to be, and don’t be concerned about that.” And we went down a road over several years, and there was fact after fact, development after development that caused us to believe that fundamentally we had entirely different positions.

Watch the video at E&E News.

The Chamber claims that federal regulation to limit global warming pollution would “strangle the economy.” and has even called for a “Scopes monkey trial” on the science of global warming. Darbee, not surprisingly, called that “extreme language, certainly not language that we at PG&E were comfortable with.”

FLASHBACK: In Bush Era, Inhofe Decried ‘Chilling Effect’ Of Probing White House ‘Regardless Of Administration’ »

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), who attacked investigations into the years of interference on global warming regulation by the Bush White House, is now calling for probes into Obama’s “Presidential czars” who are taking action. Yesterday, Inhofe, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) and Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) sent a letter to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson “requesting specific information about White House Coordinator of Climate and Energy Policy Carol Browner, and how her office has exercised authority over the Environmental Protection Agency.”

This champion of “transparency,” however, attacked an investigation into the White House’s interference with the EPA last year, saying that “regardless of Administration, the President acting through the entire executive branch is fully entitled to express his policy judgments to the EPA Administrator”:

Instead we are here to politicize the internal deliberative process of the Administration under the guise of an update on the science of global warming hearing. While I welcome the opportunity to discuss the latest science on global warming, doing it in this heavily political setting with a predetermined outcome focused on internal deliberations of the Executive is not the right venue for such discussion. It is my view that regardless of Administration, the President acting through the entire executive branch is fully entitled to express his policy judgments to the EPA Administrator, and to expect his subordinate to carry out the judgment of what the law requires and permits. It can be argued that the “unitary Executive concept” promotes more effective rulemaking by bringing a broader perspective to bear on important regulatory decisions. . . .

Therefore, I consider this debate over censorship within the Administration to be a nonissue. All administrations edit testimony and all documents go through interagency review before any final agency action. I cannot support any investigations that could have a chilling effect within the deliberative process of the Administration, and cause future career and political employees from refraining from an open and honest dialogue.

By some strange miracle, Inhofe has had a complete change of heart on the inviolability of the “unitary executive” during the Obama presidency. In yesterday’s letter, Inhofe requests “all correspondence and records” from “all meetings, discussions and conversations between EPA and Carol Browner,” which “includes but is not limited to the following: letters and other written communications, electronic communications, phone records, meeting notes, documents prepared to summarize meetings and agendas, meeting dates, including attendees of listed meetings, and transcripts and notes from stakeholder briefings.”

In June, Inhofe even supported a criminal investigation into whether the EPA was “suppressing science.” Inhofe’s newfound love for transparency in the executive branch stands in utter contradiction to his professed outrage last year: More »« Less

Chamber To Apple: You Don’t Understand Our ’21st Century Approach To Climate Change’ »

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue, who last year called for further “scientific inquiry” into climate science because of a “cooling trend,” today rebuked Apple for leaving his organization, claiming they did not understand the Chamber’s “21st century approach to climate change“:

I am sorry to learn of Apple’s resignation from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It is unfortunate that your company didn’t take the time to understand the Chamber’s position on climate and forfeited the opportunity to advance a 21st century approach to climate change.

Apple — recognized as the most innovative company in the world — had criticized the Chamber for not having a “more progressive stance” on climate change, saying, “We strongly object to the Chamber’s comments opposing the EPA’s efforts to limit greenhouse gases.”

Apple is right. The Chamber of Commerce has a 19th-century stance on global warming, opposes regulating greenhouse gas emissions, and has become an enemy of a clean-energy economy. The Chamber has promoted the work of climate skeptics on the radical fringe from 1992 to the present day. This year, the Chamber called for a “Scopes monkey trial” on climate science, attacking the scientific evidence of the threat of global warming pollution to the public welfare in a legal filing against the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Chamber claims to “support strong federal legislation and a binding international agreement to reduce carbon emissions and address climate change,” but has virulently opposed any such legislation, including McCain-Leiberman in 2003 and 2005, Lieberman-Warner in 2007, and Waxman-Markey in 2009.

Furthermore, the Chamber has set an impossible standard for climate legislation: the Chamber’s “support” for federal legislation is “conditional on an international agreement that requires full international participation,” knowing full well that such a treaty is impossible without U.S. legislation. Worse, the Chamber is opposed to the United States setting tariffs on countries that don’t limit their greenhouse gases even if we do, claiming that would “set off a trade war.”

The energy industries of the 19th century — coal and oil — are controlling U.S. Chamber of Commerce energy policy. We can only hope that the future of the United States is determined instead by 21st century companies like Apple, and the hundreds of others that are calling for strong climate action today.

The letter in full: More »« Less

Saving Ourselves By Saving The Forests

According to the World Resources Institute, the razing of forests from Indonesia to Brazil is responsible for the release of five billion tons of carbon dioxide a year, which amounts to 12 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions — more than all the cars and trucks in the world. The international effort to comprehensively fund forest protection as part of a new climate treaty is known as reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD). Experts estimate that an investment of about $10 to $20 billion a year will cut deforestation by half, if properly implemented. This is one of the cheapest routes to cutting global warming pollution, even ignoring the $4.5 to $5 trillion in benefits of saving the world’s tropical forests. As Papua New Guinea’s climate negotiator Kevin Conrad said last month:

We have to value forests when they are alive and standing. Presently, we only value them when they’re dead.

Saving the world’s tropical forests is a profound challenge. A funding framework controlled by corporations and international bodies raises great concerns from representatives for indigenous people, who worry that “States and Carbon Traders will take more control over our forests.” “Where countries are corrupt,” the United Nations notes, “the potential for REDD corruption is dangerous.” Realizing these fears, a $100 million scandal involving false carbon credits swept Papua New Guinea this summer.

“Logging companies may turn into carbon companies,” warns conservationist Rob Dodwell, who notes that only efforts that strengthen local communities rather than reward multinational corporations have any chance of being fair, sustainable, or trustworthy. An international framework to solve deforestation cannot ignore the “links between the exploitation of natural resources and the funding of conflict and corruption.” In other words, storing carbon must not be the only reason to save the forests.

Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) have been leading efforts in the U.S. Senate to confront international deforestation. In February, Lugar said he hopes the United States will “exercise leadership in protecting forests and responding to the risks of climate change”:

Deforestation is a critical national security challenge because of its connections with threats from climate change and food security.

The Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), passed by the House in June, “provides funding for tropical countries to prepare and implement plans to reduce deforestation, as well as for achieving these reduction goals.” ACES establishes private and public financing from polluters to prevent deforestation, and would create an “International Climate Change Adaptation Program within the U.S. Agency for International Development to provide adaptation assistance to the most vulnerable developing countries.”

Last week, Sens. Kerry and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) introduced the Senate version of ACES, the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act. The international forestry provisions in the bill “echo those originally included in the House bill,” though it “would allow international offsets to account for a quarter of projects annually rather than the half called for in the House bill,” thus making the private offsets program more reliable, and shifting more responsibility to public deforestation projects.

Read more at the Progress Report, the daily email newsletter from the Think Progress and Wonk Room team.

American Companies Tell The Senate: ‘We Can Lead’ On Clean Energy

Hundreds of business executives are descending on Washington this week in support of a clean energy economy. Calling for investment in American jobs instead of global warming pollution, the CEOs participating in the Business Advocacy Day for Jobs & Competitiveness — an effort organized by the new We Can Lead coalition — will tell the Senate to take action with strong climate legislation like the Clean Energy Jobs Act introduced last week by Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA). Several of these companies have written a public letter to Congress and the administration calling for “comprehensive legislation to cut carbon pollution”:

We need you to swiftly enact comprehensive legislation to cut carbon pollution and create an economy-wide cap and trade program. We support this legislation because certainty and rules of the road enable us to plan, build, innovate and expand our businesses. Putting a price on carbon will drive investment into cost-saving, energy-saving technologies, and will create the next wave of jobs in the new energy economy.

Carol Browner, the director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy and EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are confirmed speakers before the We Can Lead companies, who will be lobbying Congress on Wednesday, October 7 on behalf of strong climate legislation. Many of the participants in the lobby day have endorsed the House legislation, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, and others have called for even stronger action. In addition, the CEOs are “scheduled to eat dinner with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Tuesday, and to hold a White House meeting with Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke on Wednesday morning.”

Politico reports that “28 companies and labor and green groups — including United Technologies, Johnson & Johnson, GE, Weyerhauser, the Nature Conservancy and the Environmental Defense Action Fund — are launching” a million-dollar ad campaign “in support of comprehensive clean energy and climate change legislation.”

We Can Lead is a collaboration between the Clean Economy Network, Ceres, and other business groups including:

– Arkansas Business Leaders for Clean Energy Economy
– Apollo Alliance
– Business Council for Sustainable Energy
– Business Forward
– Environmental Entrepeneurs
– EDF – Less Carbon More Jobs
– Indiana Businesses for Clean Energy Economy
– National Venture Capital Association
– Ohio Business Council for a Clean Economy
– Pennsylvania Business Leaders for a Clean Economy
– Renewable Energy Business Network
– TechNet
– US Climate Action Network

GE’s Right-Wing Media Hosts Jim Inhofe: CO2 Is Not A ‘Real Pollutant’ »

Appearing on General Electric’s conservative-skewing business network, CBNC, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) argued that carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas, is not a “real pollutant.” In an interview with right-wing economist Larry Kudlow on Thursday, Inhofe repeated lies about the cost of climate legislation. Kudlow, praising Inhofe for telling Americans about this “very scary story,” attacked the prospect of global warming regulation as a “backdoor energy tax” that “can drive stocks into the ground.” Inhofe claimed that President Obama wants to “intimidate Congress” into passing “$300 to $400 billion a year” in taxes, so that the American people will blame Congress instead of him:

The reason why I don’t think they’ll try to do that through regulation is because certainly this president, President Obama knows that once the American people find out that they’re going to pay about $2,000 a year in taxes for something that doesn’t do anything, there’s going to be an outrage. And they want to be able to say, “Oh, no, that was Congress that did it.” My feeling is they’re using this for intimidation purposes and they’re going to try to intimidate Congress to do this.

Watch it:

CNBC’s promotion of right-wing fantasies originating from polluter-funded think tanks and conservative bloggers is nothing new. Energy and media multinational General Electric is often portrayed as a climate-friendly corporation which influences American politics to the left, primarily because of the presence of Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz, and Keith Olbermann on MSNBC’s afternoon programming. On Fox News, Glenn Beck rants that GE is going to get “all kinds of contracts from the government on green energy” because it is “in bed with Obama.” The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Steve Milloy claims the new Kerry-Boxer clean-energy jobs act is larded with “payoffs to GE.” Bill O’Reilly claims GE “is also pushing for the proposed cap-and-trade program” and “using its power and the airwaves to influence politics” so that it can “reap billions of dollars if the Feds OK the carbon deal.”

Not only does GE attack climate action through its CNBC network, it also supports several national lobbying campaigns against clean-energy legislation, through its membership in the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (GE Energy), the American Petroleum Institute (GE Oil & Gas), and the National Association of Manufacturers (GE Enterprise Solutions). Unlike GE, companies such as Duke Energy have abandoned NAM and ACCCE for their retrograde position on climate change.

Transcript: More »« Less

George Will Believes The Hottest Decade In History Shows An ‘Absence Of Significant Warming’ »

Blue Jays win the World Series in 1993.

Washington Post opinion page editor Fred Hiatt continued to disgrace his paper, publishing yet another column questioning climate science by George Will, the seventh this year. “Cooling Down the Cassandras” (alternatively titled “For Alarmists, Ugly Truths on Global Warming”) is a master class in cherrypicking words and misinterpreting science. Will’s thesis — that there has been no global warming since 1998 — is based on his reading of a poorly written article about temperature trends by New York Times climate reporter Andy Revkin:

By asserting that the absence of significant warming since 1998 is a mere “plateau,” not warming’s apogee, the Times assures readers who are alarmed about climate change that the paper knows the future and that warming will continue: Do not despair, bad news will resume.

By Will’s logic, we’d have to conclude that the Toronto Blue Jays just clinched the A.L. East division title — after all, they’ve won six games in a row and are 9-1 in their last ten games, while the New York Yankees lost their last game and are only 7-3. However, when the Wonk Room contacted Mr. Will to confirm this theory, he responded:

You don’t seem to understand baseball. The Blue Jays are not even in contention.

Will’s persistent assertion that global warming has stopped during the hottest decade in recorded history is just as nonsensical as the idea that a team that is nine games below .500 is beating one that is 45 games above .500. Unfortunately, Will hung up before we could ask who he believed was the hottest team in baseball. More »« Less

Around The Nation, Chambers of Commerce Promote Climate Denial

Yesterday, Nike became the latest major company to abandon the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over its opposition to global warming action. The Chamber has tried to stop the hemorrhaging by claiming that it has “never questioned the science behind global warming,” and that it “continues to support strong federal legislation and a binding international agreement to reduce carbon emissions and address climate change.”

The former claim is demonstrably false, and the latter claim is laughable. The Chamber’s “support” for federal legislation is “conditional on an international agreement that requires full international participation.” Since such an international treaty is profoundly unlikely unless the United States passes federal legislation, the Chamber’s “sensible” policy is a recipe for inaction. Paradoxically, the Chamber even opposes tariffs on imports from countries that don’t limit greenhouse gases, claiming that would “set off a trade war.”

Furthermore, the state-level chambers of commerce, affiliated with and supported financially by the U.S. Chamber, continue to promote extremist global warming denial, paying climate skeptics Roy Spencer, Glenn Beck, Steven Milloy, and Steven Hayward to speak before their members.

Kansas Chamber of Commerce, September 21:

Global warming? So what. That was the message Monday from research scientist and best-selling author Roy Spencer to legislative leaders, lobbyists and leading business officials at the Kansas Chamber of Commerce business and energy summit. Spencer is a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and author of “Climate Confusion.” Spencer doesn’t deny that Earth is warming, but he attributes that to natural climate cycles and not to the increase in greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels.

Michigan Chamber of Commerce, September 15:

Although Glenn Beck’s race-baiting and McCarthyism have led a massive advertiser boycott of his Fox News program, the largest business lobby in the United States has chosen to embrace him as the “dinner keynote speaker” for the 2009 “Future Forum” at Michigan State University’s Kellog Forum on September 15th.

West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, September 4:

The Chamber announced last Wednesday that it was giving a major platform at the Business Summit to Steven J. Milloy, the founder of the Web site JunkScience.com. Milloy is expected to talk about his book, Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them,” as an introduction to the “save coal” session. Steve Roberts, the Chamber president, said: “Steve Milloy’s remarks will be timely and interesting, given the current controversies that are being driven by the debate over environmental issues such as global warming, energy use and the economic impacts of all of this. West Virginia is one of the states that could be affected significantly depending on how things go with the scientific and political debate over current environmental issues.”

Indiana Chamber of Commerce’s Economic Club, April 29:

More recently, environmental experts such as April 29 Economic Club of Indiana speaker Steven Hayward, have publicly disagreed with Gore and company. Hayward, an environmental researcher holding numerous prestigious fellowships and an adjunct professorship at Georgetown University, starred in a film rebutting Gore’s claims of pending disaster as a result of climate change. Hayward is of the belief that the planet goes through natural periods of warming and cooling and is not tremendously influenced by the activity of human beings.

EPA Will Begin Regulating Industrial Global Warming Pollution In March, 2010

Appearing at a climate summit in Los Angeles today, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson will announce the administration’s plan to regulate industrial global warming pollution, with or without the support of Congress. In May, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed global warming standards for motor vehicles, applauded by the auto industry. Under the rules of the Clean Air Act, when these regulations go into effect in March 2010, all major greenhouse gas polluters — from coal-fired power plants and oil refiners to methane-emitting landfills — are automatically subject to regulation:

Under EPA’s current interpretation of PSD [Prevention of Significant Deterioration] and title V applicability requirements, promulgation of this motor vehicle rule will trigger the applicability of PSD and title V requirements for stationary sources that emit GHGs.

Today’s proposed rule — which allows public comment until December — technically is a “tailoring rule” to limit regulation of global warming pollution to emitters of 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year, instead of the automatic statutory amount of 250 tons. This 250-ton standard would cover about four million businesses and homes — the “glorious mess” President Bush used as an excuse for his inaction. The EPA plans to raise the pollution limit to 25,000 tons, so that only 14,000 industrial pollution sources nationwide would be covered by the regulations, 11,000 of which are currently covered by the Clean Air Act permitting requirements already. Each stationary source covered would be required to apply for a title V operating permit, and all new sources would require a new source review permit.

Today’s announcement by the EPA comes hours after the introduction of legislation to limit global warming pollution by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) this morning, two-and-a-half years after the U.S. Supreme Court mandated action on global warming pollution, and 17 years after the United States ratified the Rio de Janeiro climate treaty, pledging to “prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”

Kerry-Boxer Clean Energy Jobs Act Strengthens American Power

Today, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) introduced the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, comprehensive legislation to stave off catastrophic global warming by investing in clean energy. This environment committee proposal, in concert with the renewable energy bill drafted by the energy committee, represents the Senate version of the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the green economy legislation passed by the House of Representatives this June. Incorporating the efforts of a number of senators, the Kerry-Boxer legislation has strengthened a number of provisions:

EMISSIONS LIMITS: As Sens. Ben Cardin (D-MD), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) requested, the 2020 target for greenhouse pollution reductions has been strengthened to 20 percent below 2005 levels, instead of Waxman-Markey’s 17 percent target. “At the end of the day, what happens early on is what’s most important, not what your goals are 50 years from now,” Sanders told E&E News. “That’s a significant step forward.” Reflecting the fact that emissions are already 8.5% below 2005 levels, these stronger standards will spur greater investment in clean-energy jobs.

GREEN TRANSPORTATION: Kerry-Boxer includes Sen. Tom Carper’s (D-DE) push for green transportation, devoting “a guaranteed share of revenues from carbon regulation to transit, bike paths, and other green modes of transport.” The SmartWay Transportation Efficiency Program is modeled on the Clean, Low-Emission, Affordable, New Transportation Efficiency Act (S. 575 / H.R. 1329), co-sponsored by Sens. Arlen Specter (D-PA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), and Ben Cardin (D-MD).

COAL PLANT GREENHOUSE GAS REGULATION: Kerry-Boxer follows Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s (D-NY) call that “the EPA has to have authority to regulate coal plants under the Clean Air Act.”

Kerry-Boxer includes placeholder language for carbon market regulation, to be provided by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME). Sen. Boxer plans to hold hearings on the legislation over the following weeks, with the aim of reporting the bill out of committee by the end of the October.

At the behest of a bloc of senators from states with major natural gas reserves — Michael Bennet and Mark Udall (D-CO), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Mark Begich (D-AK), Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and David Vitter (D-LA), Arlen Specter (D-PA), Sam Brownback (R-KS), and Tom Udall (D-NM) — Kerry-Boxer also includes provisions that provide extra rewards for coal plant owners to switch to natural gas. Murkowski, Landrieu, Vitter, and Brownback are still expected to oppose the legislation as a job-killer.

Several senators, led by Sens. Tom Udall (D-NM) and Mark Udall (D-CO), are hoping to reform and strengthen the federal renewable energy standard included in the Energy Committee companion bill when debate reaches the Senate floor.

A number of senators have committed to passing strong climate and clean energy legislation, including Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD), who is “optimistic we can turn energy potential into reality and help create new job opportunities at home by producing more clean energy in the United States.” After telling a global warming skeptic that “climate change is very real,” Stabenow was eviscerated by the right wing. Both Brown and Specter have committed to voting against a Republican filibuster of climate legislation — a key move for President Obama’s progressive energy agenda.

Defenders of a pollution-based economy are already attacking the legislation. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) called the strengthened 2020 target “problematic” because of his state’s reliance on coal. “At a time when our businesses are struggling, when we want to create jobs, not lose jobs, I think this is a very bad bill at this particular time,” said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX). She falsely claimed that “your home electricity bill will go up 90 percent because of this legislation.” In fact, the EPA estimates that electricity bills will go down.

U.S. Chamber Of Commerce: ‘We’ve Never Questioned The Science Behind Global Warming’

Tom Donohue, U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO

Energy companies are abandoning the sinking ship of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in droves over its opposition to climate change action. The Chamber is aggressively opposing efforts by President Obama and the Congress to fight global warming pollution, saying federal regulation would “strangle the economy” and cap-and-trade legislation would be “economically disruptive of business and industry activities.” However, responding to the criticism of the companies who have left the Chamber, spokesman Eric Wohlschlegel claimed his organization respects the science of climate change:

We’ve never questioned the science behind global warming.

This is a blatant falsehood, by any definition. The Chamber has a long history of questioning the science of climate change. The Chamber’s present campaign against regulation of greenhouse gases by the Environmental Protection Agency questions the existence of global warming as well as the scientific evidence of its impacts on the public health and welfare. The Chamber promotes global warming denier books “to advance our thinking about issues of significance,” and has promoted the work of global warming denier Pat Michaels since at least 1992:

2009: Chamber SVP Kovacs Calls For ‘Scopes Monkey Trial’ On The ‘Science Of Climate Change.’ “It would be evolution versus creationism. It would be the science of climate change on trial.” Chamber of Commerce Senior Vice President William Kovacs explained that the Chamber was seeking a “Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century” on global warming to prevent the EPA from declaring greenhouse gases a threat to the public welfare. [Los Angeles Times, 8/25/09]

2009: Chamber Claims No ‘Plausible Theory’ To Link ‘Climate Change With Extreme Weather Events And Disease In The United States,’ Disputes ‘Claims Of Ocean Acidification.’ In an official filing prepared by the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis for the comments on the EPA’s proposed endangerment finding for greenhouse gases, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce cited blog posts by global warming deniers such as Pat Michaels and Chip Knappenberger to challenge a broad range of climate change science, including sea level rise and the “UN/IPCC forecasted temperature increases.” [U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 8/25/09]

2009: National Chamber Foundation Promotes Global Warming Denier Book As ‘#1′ Top Book Of The Year. Promoting “Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don’t Want You to Know,” the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s National Chamber Foundation writes: “Climatologists Patrick J. Michaels and Robert Balling Jr. explain that climate science is hardly unbiased,” and that the “pop-culture icons of climate change turns out to be short on facts and long on exaggeration.” On Twitter, the National Chamber Foundation ranked the book “#1″ in its “Top Books of ‘09.” [National Chamber Foundation, 8/20/09]

2008: National Chamber Foundation Promotes Global Warming ‘Deniers’ Book Against ‘Global Warming Hysteria.’ The National Chamber Foundation selected “The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution and Fraud; And those who are too fearful to do so” by Lawrence Solomon to “help shape the debate on issues important to the business community.” [National Chamber Foundation, 2008]

2008: Chamber President Tom Donohue Says ‘Scientific Inquiry’ Into Climate Change ‘Should Continue’ Because Of ‘Cooling Trend.’ On March 4, 2008, U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue revealed his true thoughts to the Chamber’s board, questioning the science of global warming: “As the scientific inquiry continues (and given the recent reports indicating a cooling trend over the last year, such inquiry should continue) the Chamber supports public and private sector action to control the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.” [U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 3/4/08]

2003: Chamber Says ‘We Need To Have Better Science’ To Justify Climate Action. Following the defeat of the McCain-Lieberman cap-and-trade climate legislation in 2003, William Kovacs, the Chamber’s vice president for environment, technology, and regulatory affairs, told the Heartland Institute, “We need to have better science to support any efforts to restrict energy use before Americans can justify sacrificing their jobs, quality of life, and paying almost double for their utility bills.” [Heartland Institute, 11/21/03]

2003: Chamber Claims ‘Every Aspect Of The Environment’ Is ‘Getting Cleaner.’ Praising George W. Bush’s environmental record, William Kovacs dismissed the concept of global warming pollution. “The air, along with every other aspect of the environment, is getting cleaner. I think that has been a true statement for the last 30 years, and it will continue to be. I think Bush has been continuing along that path.” [New York Times, 2/23/2003]

2001: Chamber Claims Global Warming ‘About One Percent From Human Activity,’ Says ‘Things Just Change.’ Appearing on CNNFN, William Kovacs challenged the “link” between human activity and global warming and called for more research. “Let me address two issues. One is, the link. You know, let’s be realistic, 95 percent of all greenhouse gases, you know, really come from water vapor; and another 3 or 4 percent from natural causes, and we’re down to about one percent from human activity. So the Bush plan is really twofold. One is, we’re going to spend another 120-$130 million to see if we can get some of the tough issues, and make the links. Even EPA agrees. You know, yes, there is global warming, but you know, 20 years ago, we were worried about global cooling. Things just change, and before we sink the economy, we need to make sure we’ve got the right research done.” [CNNFN, 7/16/2001]

1992: Chamber Sponsors Global Warming Denier Pat Michaels To ‘Refute The Global Warming Warnings.’ “Bankrolled partly by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Global Climate Coalition, a group of manufacturers fearful of new environmental regulations, Patrick Michaels and Washington, D.C., attorney Eugene M. Trisko have been traveling cross-country to refute the global warming warnings from environmentalists.” [Chicago Sun-Times, 5/13/1992]

Bingaman Rejects Appeasement: Don’t Add Polluter Subsidies To Clean-Energy Legislation

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), the influential chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, opposes efforts to add coal and nuclear subsidies to win votes for climate legislation. In an interview with Grist, Bingaman disagreed with Sen. Joe Lieberman’s (I-CT) strategy to make the Senate version of the American Clean Energy and Security Act “more attractive to Republicans and conservative Democrats” by “including greater funding for coal and nuclear energy,” saying that instead climate leaders should put forward “a proposal people are confident will work“:

Frankly I don’t believe that gaining support of conservative Democrats depends upon putting more money into nuclear and coal power…. I think what’s really needed to get conservative Democrats supporting cap and trade legislation is to be able to put forward a proposal that people are confident will work and that people are confident will not impose an undue burden on rate payers or on our overall economy.

Watch it:

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and John Kerry (D-MA) intend to introduce their climate legislation to the Senate on Wednesday. Senators such as John McCain (R-AZ), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Mark Udall (D-CO), and Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) have implied they will only support climate legislation that includes increased subsidies for the nuclear, coal, or agribusiness industries. However, as Sen. Bingaman indicates, the only successful strategy to overcoming a Republican filibuster of clean energy reform is to convince the Senate that reform will create jobs, expand the economy and preserve and create prosperity.

Fortunately for advocates of reform, each day brings new evidence that a clean-energy future is just what America needs to rebuild our economy and prevent catastrophe. The UK Meteorological Office has found that global warming is accelerating. Military analysts warn “climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions.” The “Chinese decision to go green,” New York Times columnist Tom Friedman argues, “is the 21st-century equivalent of the Soviet Union’s 1957 launch of Sputnik.” And despite the ideological rantings of polluters who have crippled the global economy, non-partisan analyses repeatedly find that the tremendous benefit of halting global warming by investing in American jobs comes at a pricetag of a postage stamp a day.

“The carbon-based free lunch is over,” Exelon CEO John Rowe explained today. “But while we can’t fix our climate problems for free, the price signal sent through a cap-and-trade system will drive low-carbon investments in the most inexpensive and efficient way possible.” Rowe also announced his company was severing ties with the right-wing U.S. Chamber of Commerce because of its opposition to clean-energy investment.

Exelon Ditches U.S. Chamber Of Commerce Over Climate Denial

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the largest lobbying force in the nation, promoting a right-wing agenda as the “voice of business.” The Chamber claims that federal regulations to limit global warming pollution would “strangle the economy” and has even called for a “Scopes monkey trial” on the science of global warming.

Today, Exelon CEO John Rowe announced that his company — the largest electric utility company in the United States — would not renew its membership in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because of its opposition to global warming action. In his keynote address to the annual conference of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), the nation’s largest association of energy efficiency experts, Rowe said that the Chamber’s multi-million-dollar campaign against clean energy legislation is incompatible with Exelon’s commitment to climate change leadership. As Rowe said when he accepted a leadership award from the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce in 2008:

Exelon has staked out an industry-leading position on the issue of climate change and, in the spirit of Daniel Burnham, we have launched our own “not so little plan” to eliminate the equivalent of our entire carbon footprint by the year 2020. I do not know if it will stir men’s souls, but I hope it will stir policymakers and others in our industry to action.

Confirming Exelon’s decision to ThinkProgress, a spokesperson explained that “Exelon is a big supporter of climate legislation.” Exelon is the third energy company to sever ties with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in the past week, joining Pacific Gas & Electric and PNM Resources.

Cross-posted at ThinkProgress.

Ira Magaziner On ‘Creative Destruction’: From Buggy Whips To The Global Warming Imperative

Editor’s note: The Wonk Room is reporting from the Clinton Global Initiative conference this week. This is our sixth post.

On the final day of the Clinton Global Initiative, the Wonk Room caught up with Ira Magaziner, the senior advisor for policy development in the Clinton White House and now the chairman of the William J. Clinton Foundation’s Climate Initiative. We discussed the Clinton Climate Initiative’s approach to the challenge of global warming, including its work to advance energy efficiency projects in the world’s cities from the Empire State Building to Lagos, Nigeria. Magaziner also directly addressed why critics argue that advocacy of clean energy is a socialistic economy killer, citing Adam Smith’s recognition of the need for governmental action to address market externalities. As we neared the conclusion of the interview, Magaziner tied all the threads of the conversation together into one impressive discourse on building a clean-energy economy.

Watch it:

CREATIVE DESTRUCTION — PAST VS. THE FUTURE

MAGAZINER: Schumpeter — yet another capitalist economist — talked about creative destruction. Periodically, as new technologies develop and new needs arise, business systems and economic systems need to be remade — creatively destroyed and remade. We don’t need a buggy whip industry any more. We’ve got automobiles. And the buggy whip guys may not like it, but they ought to switch to making automobiles if they’re going to have a future.

What always happens in those periods of transformation is that some people oppose and some people see the future. We went from mainframe computers to minicomputers to PCs. And as we went through those transformations, different companies succeeded. DEC and Wang and companies that were the minicomputer companies didn’t understand the potential of the PC. So you had the Dells and others who developed them. In some cases, companies do make the transformation and they go with the future instead of the past.

We have a similar situation with clean energy and energy efficiency. You have some companies now, like GE, and there’s a bunch of others, who are saying, “I want to go with the future, and I’m going to invest in wind, I’m going to invest in solar. I’m going to invest in these things that I know are going to eventually be the future.” And you’ve got others who say, “I’m going to defend the past and stick with what I’ve got,” and fight Congress to prevent the future from coming.

BRINGING THE FUTURE FASTER

MAGAZINER: I think, in this case, in the case of clean energy, we have a public interest in bringing the future faster, because of global warming. We know that if we don’t bring the future faster with clean energy and with energy efficiency, that it’s going to have a tremendous economic and social cost. Therefore, we have to accelerate the process of that future coming.

That’s why government has to especially play a role in this revolution. I mean, it played a stimulative role in the Internet revolution, but in this revolution it has to play a much more active role. Because the negative consequences of not doing so are going to cause governments and people and economies tremendous unhappiness.

There have been so many reports written. The thousands of scientists in the International Panel on Climate Change established that the world is warming, they’ve established what the impacts can be, and there’s only now a few dissident scientists left. The overwhelming 99.9 percent opinion is very clear on this.

Economists like Nicholas Stern who have done serious work on this have said we can lose 5 to 10 percent of GDP in the next ten years, fifteen years if we don’t act, because of all the major dislocations. And if we spend one percent of our GDP to bring the transformation faster, we’ll save ten percent or 15 percent of our GDP. So there are enough studies out there.

THE CLINTON CLIMATE INITIATIVE

MAGAZINER: What we’re trying to do with the Clinton Climate Initiative is to make it real.

It’s very important that global leaders, the political leaders agree to set targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It’s very important they pass legislation to put a price on carbon — because it does have a price for society — to help speed the transformation.

What we’ve said, what we’re doing, is say, even after that’s done, what you’re going to still need projects that demonstrate in large scale how to do this, what the business models are what the government models should be, so that government money gets spent well, carbon credit money gets spent well, and ultimately businesses can move into this in an accelerated way to make this happen. And so that’s why we’ve focused on these projects.

We’ve worked on energy efficiency, clean energy, and the third area we’re working on is forests, preserving forests around the world. What we as a human race have been doing is at the same time we’re putting all this CO2 into the air — which is poisoning the atmosphere — we’re cutting down the forests — which are nature’s way of taking carbon dioxide out of the air. We’re making the problem worse on both ends.

So we have major projects that we’re doing in Indonesia, and Cambodia, Guyana — Africa and the tropical countries — to help preserve forests and create economic value in preserving forests.

So that’s what we’re up to and we’re trying to make our contribution. That’s going to require a lot of different groups working in a lot of different ways to make a contribution.

THE MULTIPLIER EFFECT

MAGAZINER: What we do is: we do these projects and can measure the direct impact, and say there’s this many millions of tons less of CO2 going into the air because of the projects we have done. And then we’re creating these models which we can spread to others, so that we can have a multiplier effect that multiplies the impact of what the direct projects we’re doing can accomplish.

That’s why when we show that we can do an integrated waste management project in Delhi — in a very complicated, large city that’s never had integrated waste management — what we did in Delhi is the first integrated waste management project in the whole of southern Asia. We showed that it can work, it’s actually returning a profit to the commercial developers, it’s saving the city money, and it’s working in terms of making Delhi a cleaner place.

And now there are ten other cities that are ready to do it. As soon as we finish the project in Lagos — Lagos, Nigeria is a place with 21 million people in that city, growing a million and a half people per year — and they had no waste system. We’re putting the first integrated waste system there. We’re now doing it in Dar Es Salaam and Tanzania. We have requests from a number of other African cities. So our goal is to create these models and then spread them, because that’s really where we’re going to get at the problem.

Scientists: Political ‘Reality’ Will Lead To Climate Catastrophe

“Climate researchers now predict the planet will warm by 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century even if the world’s leaders fulfill their most ambitious climate pledges, a much faster and broader scale of change than forecast just two years ago.” This analysis was conducted by the Climate Interactive project, led by climate scientist Dr. Robert Corell, the chair of the Heinz Center’s Climate Action Initiative. The researchers fed the possible commitments by the world’s nations for the global climate deal to be negotiated this December in Copenhagen, Denmark into a dynamic model that projects how the climate will respond:

We collected emissions reductions proposals in the public domain up until September, 2009 – and found that even if these were fully implemented they would be far from sufficient to meet the goal of stabilizing atmospheric CO2 levels at or below 350 ppm, reaching instead about 716 ppm CO2 and 944 CO2e by 2100. These proposals would not be sufficient to limit warming to 2°C over pre-industrial temperatures, creating instead approximately 3.5°C of temperature increase by 2100.

As top climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf explained at the Copenhagen Climate Change Congress in March, even limiting global warming to two degrees Centigrade above historical levels — 1.3 degrees (2.3 F) above current temperatures — isn’t as safe as Russian roulette. However, the scientists behind the analysis recognize that taking action is dramatically better than business as usual. Andrew Jones writes that this finding could also be described in a positive light — “New Analysis Shows Growing Commitment to a Global Deal Will Help Stabilize Climate“:

Following the “current proposals” path is much better than “business as usual” path. Many countries have offered concrete proposals, others (like China) are looking more encouraging, and the results add up. About 3100 gigatons of CO2e would be kept out of the atmosphere between now and the end of the century, resulting in CO2 levels 239 ppm lower and the world a full degree C cooler by 2100 (3.5 degrees C vs. 4.5).

The leaders of the world’s top economies — and greatest polluters — are now meeting in Pittsburgh for the G-20 summit. The chair of the International Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri, and Center for American Progress president John Podesta have now made a dramatic appeal to those leaders to “reflect this imperative” that “that temperatures should not be allowed to exceed 2 degrees Celsius and that, as a consequence, global emissions must be reduced 50 percent by 2050.”

The Climate Initiative analysis provides evidence that even that target is likely insufficient to keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius. The G-20 should accept scientific reality and recognize that the goals they are now debating represent a minimal effort to stave off planetary catastrophe.

SurvivaBalls Take Manhattan

This Tuesday, as President Barack Obama and other world leaders addressed the United Nations on the need to tackle global warming, some entrepreneurs hoped to demonstrate their own solution. Notably, this solution allows humanity — at least those who are sufficiently wealthy — to completely ignore climate change. The Yes Men displayed SurvivaBalls, self-contained survival suits impervious to the ravages of global warming, on the banks of the East River:

When the planet heats up, it will be time to slip into something more comfortable – like the SurvivaBall. A self-heating, self-cooling and self-powered pod, the SurvivaBall is designed by top scientists to weather all of the effects of climate change to keep its user alive through catastrophe. Even though it makes its occupant resemble a giant tick, it’s also luxurious – “Like a gated community for one,” claims the SurvivaBall’s site. And only for the low price of $100 million!

Although the demonstrators of “Halliburton’s solution to global warming” hoped to reach the United Nations headquarters, they were detained by New York City police. However, CNN’s Jeannie Moos was able to file a report on the pranksters’ novel approach to a planet under siege. Watch it:

Just as Yes Men activists were detained on Monday “when they handed their own version of the New York Post (headline: ‘We’re screwed!‘) to the paper’s conservative owner, Rupert Murdoch, the group’s founder was arrested during the roll-out of the SurvivaBall.” After all charges were dropped, Yes Men founder Andy Bichlbaum has been released.

Global Boiling: A Drop In A Bucket, Dust On The Scales

Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket;
they are regarded as dust on the scales;
he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust. — Isaiah 40:15

As the United States Senate dithers over the possible costs of global warming policy, the world’s increasingly unstable climate is extracting a deadly toll.

Surely the nations are like a drop in the bucket . . . Residents of Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee now have “a chance to mourn, recover and repair after devastating floods” killed ten people earlier this week. Gov. Sonny Perdue “has declared a state of emergency in 17 flood-stricken counties, and State Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine estimated that the flooding has caused an estimated $250 million in losses.” The catastrophic flooding comes after a “two-year regional drought that had residents more used to water restrictions than inundated interstates.” In 2007, Gov. Perdue prayed for rain.

They are regarded as dust on the scales . . . Eastern Australia is suffering an “unprecedented” dust storm, a catastrophic combination of “earth, wind and fire.” The epochal dust storm, “carrying an estimated 5 million tons of dust,” has “turned Sydney into Mars.” Up to “75,000 tons of dust an hour” are being blown across Sydney by winds of more than 60 miles per hour. Much of the dust is dessicated topsoil, as eastern Australia enters its twelfth year of severe drought. Since 1979, “all but four years have been warmer than average in Australia.” The catastrophic dust storm follows Australia’s unprecedented wildfires in March. This August, the heart of the Australian winter, Australian mean temperatures were “2.47°C (4.4°F) above the long-term average, breaking the previous record by 0.98°C.”

He weighs the islands as though they were fine dust. Each year, the oceans, swelled by heat and melting glaciers, further submerge the islands of the world. “If things go business-as-usual, we will not live, we will die,” Maldives President Mohammad Nasheed told the UN General Assembly on Tuesday. “Our country will not exist. We cannot come out from Copenhagen as failures. We cannot make Copenhagen a pact for suicide. We have to succeed and we have to make a deal in Copenhagen.”