Environmental Roundup Week of June 16

1) 350 Campaign

The 350 Campaign website is now fully live and the campaign is underway. So check it out. Learn about why 350 ppm CO2 is an important number and help spread the word.

2) Is NIMBY-ism Fueling Climate Change?

Over at the Earth Island Institute the Editor's Blog tackles that very topic:

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) is eager to build an electricity transmission line from planned geothermal generators near the Salton Sea to its 4 million customers, who currently get about half of their energy from coal burning power plants.

Desert residents are vehemently opposed to the proposal. They say the construction of the transmission lines — which will run from 160-foot-tall steel towers, occupying a footprint 330 feet wide — will destroy the surrounding wilderness and threaten marginalized species such as the fringe-toed lizard and the endangered peninsular bighorn sheep. Mojave dwellers also say the plan is a throwback to age of Mulholland, when Los Angeles brazenly scoured the region for resources (especially water) to fuel its growth.

...

Well, how about a constituency that recognizes that climate change is already dangerously altering Western ecosystems, contributing to droughts, wildfires, and shrinking and shifting habitats?

There’s no question it’s important to try to protect the lizards and the sheep. But if we decide that keeping power lines out of the desert is more important than shutting down coal plants, there may be no lizards or sheep to protect. Some opponents of the power lines, it appears, are missing the forest for the (Joshua) trees.

And he invokes a bitter reminder about the folks who fought the wind turbines off Martha Vineyard a few years back here in Massachusetts.

I distinctly remember that when a number of wealthy and powerful individuals fought them complaining about them interrupting the ocean view for their vacation homes.

I don't seem to recall any of them invoking outrage over incinerators in pre-dominantly poor urban areas.

An excellent book to read for folks who weren't in the area to follow it in the papers is Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics, and the Battle for Our Energy Future on Nantucket Sound by Wendy Williams.

3) Investing in Climate Action and Protection Act (iCAP), H.R. 6186

Congressman Edward Markey has long been a favorite of mine (makes me sad that I moved out his district a few years back.) Recently (just last week) he introduced a climate action bill that would be an excellent start. Info including detailed PDFs about the bill are here at the Congressman's website. You can also follow the bill via Thomas.

Here's some highlights from the press release:

The bill is called the Investing in Climate Action and Protection Act, or iCAP for short, the small “i” a tip of the cap to the technological potential of clean energy. The bill also proffers a new paradigm in global warming legislation: the Cap-and-Invest system. The bill caps pollution at 85 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. It then uses an auction system that sets a price on carbon, and allows companies to compete for reductions, or buy or trade credits within the system.

It then takes the expected $8 trillion in revenues expected from polluters over the length of the bill, and reinvests that money back to American families and workers and into promoting a clean energy economy. More than half of the funds from the bill goes directly back to low- and middle-income American families to offset any increases in energy costs from the transition of the economy to low- or zero-carbon energy.

iCAP also invests in green collar job training for workers in a clean energy economy, mass transit and smart growth, energy efficiency programs, adaptation measures here in the United States and around the world, and many other programs that will benefit both the economy and the environment.

Currently the bill is in the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment. These are the members of that committee:

Democrats:

Nick Lampson (Texas), Chairman

Jerry F. Costello (Illinois)
Lynn Woolsey (California)
Daniel Lipinski (Illinois)
Gabrielle Giffords (Arizona), Vice Chairman
Jerry McNerney (California)
Mark Udall (Colorado)
Brian Baird (Washington)
Paul E. Kanjorski (Pennsylvania)

Bart Gordon (Tennessee), ex officio

Republicans:

Bob Inglis (South Carolina), Ranking Member

Roscoe G. Bartlett (Maryland)
Judy Biggert (Illinois)
W. Todd Akin (Missouri)
Randy Neugebauer (Texas)
Michael T. McCaul (Texas)
Mario Diaz-Balart (Florida)

Ralph M. Hall (Texas), ex officio

If any of these folks are your representative you might see where they stand on the bill and consider urging them to support it if they don't already.