Nobel Laureate wants to talk to You!

No, not Al Gore, though that’s not a bad guess.

Jody Williams, who was awarded the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for her work to ban antipersonnel landmines, has something to say to Marylanders. She wants to talk to you – and to me – about Constellation Energy. Specifically about their latest and greatest idea to ensure Maryland’s electricity supply: building another nuclear reactor.

So when’s this happening?

On August 12th, from 6:30-8 at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Jody Williams will be giving the opening remarks at a Public Meeting on Nuclear Power in Maryland. And you’re invited!

Fuel efficiency. You know, for kids!

Fun fact: by the time Bush’s proposed increases in drilling have one cent of effect on American gas prices the average family will have spent over $57,000 on gas.

So if you needed any more convincing on why the proposed drilling is a gadawful idea for a solution, you can chew on that little gem.

Maybe instead of pumping oil from under the sea we should tap into the potential of technology we already have, by, say, raising the minimum standards for fuel efficiency. If the average family has 2 cars, they probably are due to replace one of them in the next few years. And if that new car gets 50 miles to the gallon (attainable!), which is roughly double the current average MPG, they save 50% on fuel costs for that car. With an average fuel consumption of 678 gallons per year (according to the US Bureau of Labor and Stats), and with gas at $4 a gallon, over 5 years that bump in fuel efficiency will save that family about $6800. Hooray! Johnny gets a new saxophone! Little Margie can get braces! Sammy’s going to summer camp!

And the $6800 savings is over just 5 years, with one car. Bush’s drilling isn’t supposed to make a difference for 10-15 years or so. If we raise mileage standards next year families that buy new cars can start saving even sooner, bringing the savings during the drilling lag even higher. The sooner we convert the fleet to higher fuel efficiency vehicles the sooner we can start actually helping ease the burden of gas prices. Oh, btw, a rise in minimum fuel efficiency really helps slow global warming.

Let's Make History Again

The Baltimore Sun

By Mike Tidwell

I recently stood on the windy coast of North Carolina where Orville and Wilbur Wright made their maiden flight in 1903. That motorized glider, constructed with bicycle parts, lifted off and flew nearly 900 feet in 59 seconds. Americans, astonishingly, were walking on the moon 66 years later.

Continue reading

Would Orville Wright Drill Offshore?

See below for an Op-Ed published today in the Baltimore Sun by CCAN Director Mike Tidwell. Enjoy.

Let’s make history again

By Mike Tidwell
July 23, 2008
Baltimore Sun

I recently stood on the windy coast of North Carolina where Orville and Wilbur Wright made their maiden flight in 1903. That motorized glider, constructed with bicycle parts, lifted off and flew nearly 900 feet in 59 seconds. Americans, astonishingly, were walking on the moon 66 years later.

The miracle of U.S. air and space travel, achieved in an eye blink, is something we should keep in mind as we once again turn to our coastlines for answers. The same windy Atlantic shore that gave rise to human flight now offers a new fork in the road with two profoundly different technological and moral visions awaiting our national decision.

One vision involves turning thousands of miles of our shoreline – on both coasts – into new havens for oil drilling. Never mind rapid global warming. Never mind our reckless addiction to oil. Never mind federal government data showing it would do little for gas prices. The new drumbeat, even among many Democrats, is, “We gotta get more – offshore, onshore, wherever.”

That’s certainly one vision for our coastlines for the 21st century.

Thankfully, there’s another, entirely different, vision out there. It embraces the pioneering spirit of the Wright brothers. It promises positive, transformative, sky’s-the-limit change. It’s a vision that says: Let’s build along our coastlines, but instead of oil platforms, let’s put up wind farms. And let’s tap the power of ocean waves and ocean tides for energy, rather than climate-wrecking crude oil. In the process, let’s make history so that schoolchildren remember 2008 they way they now remember 1903. Continue reading

Amory Lovins sounds off on the economics of energy

In the past few weeks, Amory Lovins, the co-founder, chairman and chief scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado, who has been described as “one of the Western world’s most influential energy thinkers,” was all over the airwaves, talking about the rapid switch to renewable energy that will be necessary in the next few years, if we are to effectively combat the climate crisis.

The Goracle redefines climate leadership

Image by Chris Eichler

Al Gore may have lost the 2000 presidential election, but as the speech that he delivered Thursday to a packed house at the DAR center in DC indicates, he has definitely beaten his old rival George W. Bush when it comes to being presidential.

While most bloggers and commentators out there were quick to start parsing all the nitty-gritty particulars of Al’s speech yesterday, I would venture that the majority of them

Coal is what it is–VP candidates and coal

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Barack Obama shone some of his rays of hope on the climate movement. He named “serious” action on global warming as one of the benchmarks for success in his first term. “If I haven’t gotten combat troops out of Iraq, passed universal health care and created a new energy policy that speaks to our dependence on foreign oil and deals seriously with global warming, then we’ve missed the boat.”

In order to deal “seriously” with climate change, we need a moratorium on new coal plants. According to James Hansen, “it’s just silly to build a new one now.” And yet VP hopeful, our own Governor Tim Kaine, aggressively pushed for his and Dominion’s coal plant in Wise County. As Gov. Kaine says on this video, “There are some who say that you can’t build any new coal plants, and I don’t agree with that.”


Join the campaign at www.chesapeakeclimate.org/nocoal

Another VP hopeful, Kathleen Sebelius, has a record on coal that is much more promising than Gov. Kaine’s. She made herself a hero by standing up to a Republican legislature and strong utilities by blocking a coal plant from being built. Even the Republicans have a strong hero in the VP running. Florida Governor Charlie Crist successfully halted the construction of a new coal plant and stated his strong support of renewable energy. “Coal is what it is and I know it’s been an important source of energy in the past. But you know we have solar, we have nuclear, we have wind and other alternative opportunities for energy in the Sunshine State.”

It’s obvious that Kaine supports coal. He wants coal now, and he wants coal in the future. Is this going to meet up with Obama’s stated goal, to seriously address global warming?

Sneak Preview of the Maryland Climate Action Plan

Exciting news for Maryland climate action aficionados! A plenary session of the Maryland Commission on Climate Change convened in Baltimore today for a final discussion and review of their hotly anticipated Climate Action Plan, and I had a front row seat to all the action. The Plan is officially scheduled for public release on June 25th, so mark your calendars and prepare a nice cozy spot to kick back and enjoy what is sure to be a truly climatolicious read.

Though access to advance copies of the report has been restricted thus far to Commission members and government officials, the Commissioners did drop a few tantalizing hints as to its content. According to commissioner George “Tad” Aburn, the real meat of the report is contained in Chapter 2 – a comprehensive assessment of climate change in MD – Chapter 4 on carbon reduction strategies and Chapter 5 on adaptation strategies. Most of the content is sure to be on the wonky side, but for those of you who’d prefer a more publicly accessible version, fear not, there’s an executive summary for the uninitiated. Indeed, the report contains something for climate watchers of all stripes. Of particular interest to the CCAN community is the Chapter entitled Next Steps which discusses work that will need to be done in coming months to turn the report’s stellar recommendations into stellar public policy. To that end, the Commissioners will be meeting informally with environmental, labor, and industrial interests over the next few months to start hammering out a policy road map that everyone can live with. A more formal stakeholder process will follow in September, and the Commission will also sit down with Governor O’Malley sometime before summer’s end.

At the end of what turned out to be the shortest meeting in the Commission’s history the commissioners formally ratified the new report by unanimous vote. If the report ends up bearing legislative fruit, it would undoubtedly propel Maryland to the head of the learning curve on the national climate action front by putting the state on a path to an spectacularly ambitious 50 percent reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020, and 90 percent by 2050. Such bold action would be particularly apropos for a state that is so vulnerable to climate change, and would set a fantastic example for other states and our foot-dragging federal neighbors to follow. So lets make sure that our legislators get on the ball this year and heed the recommendations of the Commission. The rewards of action will be a boon to Maryland and the country at large; the cost of inaction could be unthinkable.

Just how unthinkable? Log on to the Commission’s website on the 25th and download your personal copy of the report to find out.