Category Archives: Environment

Fantasia on a Theme by Bill McKibben

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Last night I had the strangest dream… 

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VTGOP Reverses Course On Carbon Tax

At a hastily-called news conference at the Statehouse, Republican leaders announced a sudden change of position on climate change: they are endorsing a carbon tax proposal that’s been languishing in the Legislature.

“It’s the right thing to do, and now is the right time,” said Senate Minority Leader Joe Benning.

“We’ve all been kidding ourselves,” added House Minority Leader Don Turner. “But the longer this winter went on, with so little snow and such high temperatures, well, we just couldn’t ignore it anymore.”

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The fish in the coal mine

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Truly disturbing news in today’s VTDigger feed. (Oh, Digger, why must you spoil my Monday mornings?…)

A significant majority of Missisquoi River’s male smallmouth bass bear eggs, a characteristic known as “intersex.”

… A report published this fall, the most comprehensive of its kind, found 60 percent to 75 percent of male smallmouth bass in the Missisquoi River carry eggs.

Yikes!

Sixty to 75 percent???

That’s overwhelming evidence of an ecosystem ravaged by outside forces.

Okay, that’s the scientifically disturbing fact of the day. Now for the politically disturbing fact.

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Who speaks for renewables?

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The anti- wind and -solar crowd had a big to-do at the Statehouse yesterday, wearing construction-type green vests and lugging all kinds of props as they pressed their case for the current iteration of anti-renewables legislation: a ban on ridgeline wind and “local control” over siting decisions.

This post is not about their arguments. This post is about the absence of response from those who supposedly favor renewable energy.

With the exception of VPIRG, our environmental groups have been curiously silent. On paper, they support renewables as part of a broad-based effort to combat climate change. But in practice, they stay off the battleground.

Disclaimer: I don’t have pipelines into their war rooms, and I don’t know the details of their lobbying efforts. I’m judging based on what I can see. And what I see is an extremely active anti-renewable movement and a distressingly quiescent response.

I’m talking VNRC, the Conservation Law Foundation, and the Sierra Club among others. They all pay lip service to renewables, but what do they actually do? Where is the pro-renewables gathering at the Statehouse?

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Feeling a little jet-lagged, Governor?

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Okay, look. Personally, I don’t have a big problem with the Vermont Gas pipeline. It would mean Vermont is consuming more natural gas — but we already consume quite a bit, so it’s not like we’d be losing our fracking virginity. (Much of our natural gas consumption is in the form of electricity generated in out-of-state gas-fired plants and purchased on the spot market.)

You ask me, I’d say don’t build it. But Vermont faces far greater environmental challenges, and I’m not sure why the Vermont Gas pipeline became the poster child for activists. If they wanted to have a positive impact on climate change, they’d be better off advocating for renewable energy and lower dependence on out-of-state sources including natural gas, nuclear, and ecologically destructive “industrial” hydropower from Quebec.

That said, Governor Shumlin pulled a substantial boner upon being repeatedly interrupted by anti-pipeline activists at the Paris climate summit.

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VPIRG still serious about carbon tax

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Interesting hire by VPIRG. They’ve signed on businessman and veteran Democrat Tom Hughes as Campaign Manager of Energy Independent Vermont. EIV, for those just tuning in, is a coalition of businesses, nonprofits, academics, and advocates with the goal of addressing climate change and as VPIRG puts it, “grow[ing] the economy by putting a price on carbon pollution.”

Also known as the carbon tax. Well, not exactly, but more on that later.

The hiring of Hughes is a little unusual, in that advocacy organizations like VPIRG usually fill their staffs with energetic and (ahem) cheap young people. Hughes has been around for a while. “Our partners and our financial resources allowed us to bring in a really seasoned person,” said VPIRG chief Paul Burns.

Hughes was a top Democratic activist in the late 90s and early Aughts. He served a shift as VDP Executive Director and held the same post for Howard Dean’s Democracy for America, he was a staffer in five presidential campaigns, and managed Doug Racine’s gubernatorial campaign in 2002.

He’s spent the past several years in the business world, as a division president of Country Home Products and co-founder of a renewable energy firm. Burns cites the combination of political and business experience as key in the EIV campaign. “Tom has a stellar reputation,” he said. “He’s not a partisan hack. He’s distinguished himself as someone who can run campaigns and be effective in the business world.”

Speaking of the carbon tax, despite the scare-mongering of Vermont Republicans and the timid response from leading Democrats, EIV will actively promote a carbon tax in the 2016 legislative session. Not that they expect to prevail: “I won’t predict that a bill will pass the Legislature and land on the Governor’s desk in 2016,” said Burns. “But we’re making progress each day toward our goal.”

Still, “2016 is a really important year to move the conversation forward. The challenges are really great for passing [the carbon tax], but there’s an awful lot of progress we can make and a lot of conversations we need to have.”

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So you say we can’t do it…

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Well, this is timely.

No sooner do I write a post about Vermont’s leading climate change deniers, than here comes a real success story from an unlikely place:

In less than 10 years, Uruguay has slashed its carbon footprint without government subsidies or higher consumer costs, according to the country’s head of climate change policy, Ramón Méndez.

In fact, he says that now that renewables provide 94.5% of the country’s electricity, prices are lower than in the past relative to inflation. There are also fewer power cuts because a diverse energy mix means greater resilience to droughts.

Until recently, Uruguay was as fossil fuel dependent as the next country. But it developed a sane, balanced, not at all extremist policy that has reaped incredible benefits in a short amount of time: “…renewables account for 55% of the country’s overall energy mix (including transport fuel) compared with a global average share of 12%.”

And they’re meeting more than 90% of their electricity demand “without the back-up of coal or nuclear power plants.”

How did they do it? The sensible way.

There are no technological miracles involved, nuclear power is entirely absent from the mix, and no new hydroelectric power has been added for more than two decades. Instead, he says, the key to success is rather dull but encouragingly replicable: clear decision-making, a supportive regulatory environment and a strong partnership between the public and private sector.

I strongly recommend reading the whole article. It’ll put a smile on your face and a little bit of hope in your heart.

Of course, it’ll also make you wonder why in hell we can’t do it here.

Climate incoherence, stage right

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Very sorry to have missed Thursday’s carbon tax debate, featuring the Good Guys (Paul Burns of VPIRG and UVM’s Jon Erickson) against the Death Star Duo, Rob Roper and John McClaughry of the Ethan Allen Institute.

Oh yes, fair and balanced shall I be.

I’m sure the DSD walked away believing they’d won, because they are dyed-in-the-wool true believers whose outlook is hermetically sealed against the intrusion of actual evidence. Also, lest we forget, they’ve received hundreds of thousands of dollars from out-of-state conservative donors with ties to the Koch brothers.

The really striking thing about their presentation was the difference between Messrs. McClaughry and Roper. McClaughry is an out-and-out denier. Roper acknowledges climate change but says there’s nothing we can do about it, so we shouldn’t even try.

Yeesh.

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He shoots — and misses! Again!

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In basketball, there’s a derogatory term often applied to very good players: “Volume shooter.” It refers to a skilled offensive player who hogs the ball and shoots a lot. If most of ‘em go in, it’s good. But when he’s missing, he keeps on shooting, often to the detriment of his team.

The NBA’s current king of volume shooting is the formerly great Kobe Bryant, limping through his final season with stat lines like 7 for 26 (12/1 loss to Philadelphia), 4 for 20 (11/29 loss to Indiana) and 6 for 22 (11/22 loss to Portland). Enough bricks to build a full-scale replica of the Capitol Plaza Hotel.

The #1 volume shooter in Vermont politics is David Sunderland, chair of the Vermont Republican Party. He’ll fire off a press release whenever he sees the faintest opening to score a political point. Like the 2015 Kobe, he shoots a lot but seldom scores. Unlike the real Kobe, he doesn’t have a Hall of Fame career in the rear-view.

Sunderland’s latest desperation heave is a thoroughly nasty (even by his standards) attack on Governor Shumlin for having the audacity to attend the Global Climate Summit in Paris. He begins by totting up the imagined sins and shortfalls of the Shumlin administration, and then gets to the red meat:

While we can appreciate why you would want to leave your many problems behind for a few days, that’s not leadership. And it’s certainly not the job you were narrowly re-elected to do.

It is not necessary for you to attend this meeting. It would be far more economical — and far more environmentally responsible — to send your thoughts in writing or attend by video conference. You’ve frequently touted the state’s telecommunication advances — you should be taking advantage of them now.

The whole thing reads like that. Never does Sunderland pass up an opportunity for snark.

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Wait, was that Vermont or Texas?

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Imagine, if you will, a high-profile statewide campaign launch held in the ballroom of a semi-swanky hotel.

In addition to the usual banners, balloons, etc., the room also contains four gas-powered vehicles (or representations thereof): a vintage tractor, a miniature race car and bulldozer, and a full-sized stock car. The candidate himself is a stock car driver; the car is decked out as a rolling campaign billboard; and his logo features a checkered flag. All that’s missing is a model of an oil derrick.

The event occurs in late afternoon. For most of the day, the same room had hosted the annual meeting of the state’s biggest construction trade association. The candidate is a prominent member of the group.

Now tell me: what kind of environmental policy would you expect from this candidate?

I’m speaking, as you already know, of putative moderate Phil Scott. The trade group? The Associated General Contractors of Vermont. (You don’t often see so many portly, pasty-faced men in one place. It was like hippos at the watering hole, except with suits and ties.)

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Phil Scott, ultraconservative

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In my previous post, I explored the fiduciary contradictions of Lt. Gov. Phil Scott’s recently posted essay on VTDigger. For those just joining us, Scott believes he can hold the line on state spending and reject any tax or fee increases, while also increasing spending in several areas and somehow hold harmless our social safety net and environmental protections. Which, hahahaha.

That was enough for one post. But there’s something else in his essay that’s worthy of attention. It’s stunningly radical, putting him way, way out in Tea Party territory on a crucial, all-encompassing issue of governance.

… the Legislature needs to set a clear standard for all legislation. If a proposal responsibly decreases the costs of living and doing business in Vermont, they should pass it. If it increases costs in any way and leaves us open to financial uncertainty, they should set it aside.

Whoa. This ain’t the bland, inoffensive, centrist Phil Scott we’ve all come to know and love. This is a hard-line stance that would warm the cockles of David Koch’s heart, if he’s got one.

It’s also completely unworkable, natch. In the abstract it’s simple and elegant; in practice, it would create all sorts of problems.

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