It is appropriate that Maine Public Broadcasting did this solid little story about the Supreme Court decision in AEP v. Connecticut.

The Supreme Court decision makes it clear that Congress, by enacting the Clean Air Act, entrusted the US EPA with the job of tackling air pollution emissions like the greenhouse gases causing global warming – and that if EPA does not use that power to address harm to the environment that the door is opened to private lawsuits against polluters.

This all means that Congress, particularly key “swing votes” like the Senators from Maine, should resist calls to distract EPA from doing its job.   The time for political game playing around this critical issue is long passed and EPA action, meeting its Clean Air Act responsibilities, is long overdue.

Today, the United States Supreme Court returned to the fundamental environmental challenge facing our nation and planet when it decided AEP v. Connecticut, a case in which a group of States, joined by the City of New York and private land trusts, brought a lawsuit against some of the largest emitters of the Greenhouse Gases causing the global warming and climate change that is causing harm to our environment and the public health.

First the biggest of the bad news:  The court said that the plaintiffs bringing the lawsuit could not, at this time, use federal “common law” to hold the polluters accountable.  It is always bad when misdeeds and harm are left unaddressed.

But there is a lot of good news:  The Supreme Court emphatically reiterated the obligation of the EPA to take action to deal with Greenhouse Gas emissions reasserting strongly the decision in Massachusetts v. EPA (a case brought by States and environmental groups including CLF).  In MA v. EPA the court clearly stated that the plain words of the Clean Air Act require EPA to begin the process of regulating Greenhouse Gas emissions.

In the decision today the Court said:

[The Clean Air] Act itself thus provides a means to seek limits on emissions of carbon dioxide from domestic power plants—the same relief the plaintiffs seek by invoking federal common law. We see no room for a parallel track.

This decision reaffirms the absolute importance of EPA doing its job and following through on the orders it was given by Congress in the Clean Air Act.   The time is long past for that task to be brought to completion.

It was bad enough when Senator Scott Brown voted to roll back the Clean Air Act and then lashed out against folks who criticized his vote.

Now the MBTA is blocking climate activists from running ads in the subway that call out Senator Brown about that same vote.

The MBTA has made this mistake before – forgetting that as government agency they can not reject ads because they feel it is controversial.  They should take the ad money the activists are offering – run the ads and concentrate on providing transit service, not acting as a censor that is reviving the bad old days of “Banned in Boston.”

Ever buy a furnace? How about a central air conditioning system?

Even if you haven’t you can guess that finding one that is right for your home, your bank account and will not be an energy hog is a tricky business.  Especially if it is wintertime in a cold place and you need to get the heat back on NOW.  And while air conditioning can be a luxury for some of us, imagine if you lived in a hot place and you have a family member with a medical condition who really needs cool and filtered air.

These kinds of examples – and the fact that the ability to shop for these large heating and cooling devices is limited, not to mention the fact that they are often installed by landlords, prior owners and others who don’t end up paying the bills of running them.

Driven by the need to improve the basic efficiency of all furnaces and central air conditioners a group led by the Appliance Standards Awareness Project crafted a set of new standards for these vital machines that were acceptable to environmental and efficiency advocates and to industry.  In a press release the good folks at ASAP summed up this development this way:

A diverse coalition of consumer, manufacturing, and environmental groups praised new energy efficiency standards just released by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) establishing the first-ever regional standards for central air conditioners and furnaces, as well as strengthened national standards for heat pumps. The new rules are based on a joint recommendation filed with DOE by the groups in 2009.

“Climates as different as those of Minneapolis and Miami need different furnace and AC standards,” said Andrew deLaski, Executive Director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project (ASAP). “Until now, we’ve had one-size-fits-all national standards. These new, regional standards are a major breakthrough that will benefit consumers and the environment.”

Once the latest updated standards take effect, a typical new air conditioner in the South will use about 40% less energy, and a typical new furnace in the North will use about 20% less than before national standards were established in the late 1980s. According to DOE’s analysis, the improvements to the air conditioner and heat pump standards announced today will save 156 billion kilowatt hours of electricity over 30 years, or about enough to meet the total electricity needs of all the households in Indiana for three years, while delivering net savings of more than $4.2 billion to U.S. consumers. The new furnace standards will save 31 billion therms of natural gas, or about enough natural gas over 32 years to heat all the homes in New York State for more than 11 years and save consumers $14.5 billion.

While the Federal Government took a ridiculously long time to approve these standards their issuance is still very good news.

For more information check out the ASAP fact sheet on this.  Or if you want the down and dirty details the actual rule is available for light reading.  And if you think this is important then let your voice be heard – the US Department of Energy, in that notice, actively asks for input on the rule saying they may back off from it “if adverse comments are received”.

But hopefully this rule will move forward and the day when all furnaces and central air conditioners are efficient and kind to both our wallets and our environment will arrive sooner than later.

I finally got around to posting a blog entry about the latest report by the International Energy Agency about the terrible trajectory that our species is putting the planet’s climate but then I saw that Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby had weighed in with good news: he has found one physicist who disagrees with the rest of the scientific establishment and therefore we can stop worrying about this fundamental threat to our environment, society, health and economy.

If Jacoby was only a lone crank offering his opinions and “facts” on his own website that would be one thing – but he is the primary “conservative” columnist (although how ignoring science and real threats to the environment and the economy is conservative is  a bit of a mystery) at one of the leading news sources in New England.

Mr. Jacoby is the local voice of well-financed effort to generate doubt about climate science and he is seeking to undermine support for the affirmative steps taken in Massachusetts, and New England, to attack this most fundamental of problems.

The people stepping up to take action to protect our climate, our public health and to build a new clean energy economy come from our religious communities, our businesses, our neighborhoods as well as the public policy and political worlds.

This broad and deep support for action is grounded firmly in the science, the need to protect and conserve our environment and economy – as well as a recognition that getting out of the curve on global warming and energy independence will help build a more prosperous Commonwealth, region and nation.

The International Energy Agency has issued an analysis of current emissions of the greenhouse gases causing global warming and the trends and implications that can be seen in the data – and their conclusions are terrifying.

Using language that is unusual for a sober technical adviser the IEA states that “the prospect of limiting the global increase in temperature to 2 degrees Celsius is getting bleaker.”  A broad range of scientists have long agreed that moving beyond that level of global climate change would be disastrous, and that is why it is the target agreed to by the world’s governments.  The IEA noted that this target is getting harder and harder to reach because “80% of projected emissions from the power sector in 2020 are already locked in, as they will come from power plants that are currently in place or under construction today.”

In an article in the Guardian newspaper, Professor Lord Stern of the London School of Economics (who, the Guardian notes, was the author of the influential Stern Report into the economics of climate change  in 2006) issued this dire warning about the new IEA analysis: “These figures indicate that [emissions] are now close to being back on a ‘business as usual’ path. According to the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's] projections, such a path … would mean around a 50% chance of a rise in global average temperature of more than 4C by 2100,” he said.

“Such warming would disrupt the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people across the planet, leading to widespread mass migration and conflict. That is a risk any sane person would seek to drastically reduce.”

How are we going to change this disastrous course?  We have  all the tools in our hands to do it – moving rapidly away from coal fired power plants, unleashing the full energy efficiency potential all around us, building the renewable energy resources that will convert the wind and sun into energy we can use.

Sad news from Western Massachusetts: the Boston Globe and the Daily Hampshire Gazette report the death of Bob Paquette, the longtime host of Morning Edition at WFCR, the public radio station in Amherst MA.   Bob, who often interviewed CLF staff about our work and reported on environmental issues, is warmly remembered by his colleagues.  His intelligence and engagement were rare and he will be missed.

Deepest condolences to his many friends and his family, especially his husband Michael Packard.

A guest blog post from Juliana Kaplan:

As an avid reader of Scholastic’s series The Princess Diaries, let me just tell you one thing about Scholastic’s recent coal product placement: Princess Mia would not like it.

While such products as the Spongebob Squarepants digital monopoly game and Cheerios counting books lining their shelves, Scholastic is no stranger to product placement. But as Scholastic’s recent product placement decisions come to light, many are questioning whether such an educational company should be using these products in their material.

Scholastic’s recent deal with the American Coal Foundation which agreed to sponsor an educational poster called “The United States Of Energy”, which if you asked them, is a purely educational map featuring several sources of energy around the U.S. Of course, one of the extremely highlighted and detailed sections features coal production, and the accompanying teacher’s guide suggests a full class period to learn about the steps of coal production and how it makes electricity. So let’s get this straight: Coal companies are paying Scholastic, which in turn makes coal map and coal lesson. Do you see a common theme here, too?

So here’s where it gets difficult: how much is too much? This is a wide debate, and while many might say “Well, of course, there is a limit.” But when their companies are booming because of product placement, it turns into the sky is the limit. But if we keep pushing the boundaries, keep throwing money at each other, keep turning a blind eye, how far can we push the envelope? Am I supposed to start my college year with English: Brought to you by Microsoft Word ? I was recently watching an episode of iCarly with my little sister, about how the girls are paid to have a subtle product placement in their show, and soon regret it. But I have seen many a Nickelodeon show subtly advertise other shows of Nickelodeon origin. So, while there may be many shocked and dismayed by Scholastic’s map and curriculum, let me just tell you right now: this may just be the beginning.

Two of the best sources of information and dialogue about climate and related issues are the Climate Progress blog edited by Dr. Joseph Romm a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, author, former Clinaton Administration official and general smart guy (pretty much known to everyone as Joe) who is now assisted by longtime renewable energy writer/editor/video producer Stephen Lacey and the Dot Earth blog maintained on the New York Times website by Andrew Revkin, who started the blog while working as a staff reporter at the Times and has continued with it while moving to a new day job at Pace University (and yes, he is known to one and all, including people who just know him as the guitar player in Uncle Wade, as Andy).

Andy Revkin and Joe Romm often disagree in ways that can be grating and sometimes, less often, entertaining.   So it is striking when they converge on the same topics.

In a Dot Earth post on May 25 Revkin calls out with approval for Romm’s blog post about tornadoes and global warming quoting Joe’s conclusion that:

When discussing extreme weather and climate, tornadoes should not be conflated with the other extreme weather events for which the connection is considerably more straightforward and better documented, including deluges, droughts, and heat waves.

Just because the tornado-warming link is more tenuous doesn’t mean that the subject of global warming should be avoided entirely when talking about tornadoes.

In the same blog post Andy complements another Climate Progress blog post about the full greenhouse gas emissions associated with natural gas use, specifically discussing a new analysis from the National Energy Technology Laboratory (that is not yet peer reviewed) that, “appears to strongly undercut the widely cited conclusion by Robert Howarth of Cornell that leakage and other issues make natural gas a greater greenhouse threat than coal.”

These are two very important topics: the causal relationships that can be seen between global warming and our immediate environment, teasing apart the very real effects of climate change from other phenomena, and understanding the true environment effects of choices we make like increased extraction and use of natural gas.