Last week, a major disaster for our climate and our nation’s clean energy future was averted – at least for now – when the Obama administration announced that it won’t consider approving the Keystone XL pipeline’s border crossing permit before it reconsiders the Keystone XL pipeline’s environmental impacts and the potential alternatives to the proposal on the table.  For all the reasons that my colleague Melissa Hoffer articulated in her post last week, the Keystone XL victory was a resounding, if limited, triumph with important lessons for environmental and climate advocates across the country as we confront, one battle at a time, the seemingly overwhelming challenge of solving the climate crisis. The Keystone XL decision also hits home in another way. It sends an unmistakable signal that the federal government’s review process for read more…

The initial short-range solutions are in.  Quick, effective and clean.  Unanimous agreement on a suite of projects to move forward to help people get around in Chittenden County.  When Vermont’s Governor, Peter Shumlin announced in May that the “Circ Highway” – an expensive, polluting and outdated ring-road around Burlington – would not be built as planned, he set in motion a Task Force to develop short, medium and long range solutions.  Since the summer the Task Force has been meeting and working.  Despite bumps, potholes and diversions in the form of more limited time and money because of the need to address problems that arose from managing the chaos Hurricane Irene left Vermont, the Task Force forged ahead.   Last week we agreed unanimously on 5 short-term projects to get started in the coming year.  They include some innovative read more…

In their rush to exploit recovery efforts from Tropical Storm Irene, ideologues who perpetually fight against regulation and science and who posture as the defenders of traditional “Yankee” values are forgetting two important rock-ribbed principles. The first is frugality. There has been a lot of loose talk about how much money was supposedly saved by largely ignoring environmental review and permitting as bulldozers, excavators and dump trucks rushed into rivers across Vermont in dozens of places. Understandably, given the dire situation facing the state at the time, these claims are based on initial, back-of-the-envelope cost estimates made with little or no analysis. However, using those alleged savings to argue for a change in policy is irresponsible as a matter of policy, and discourteous to basic math. The accounting trick the read more…

Tricia Jedele, director of  CLF Rhode Island, responded enthusiastically to new climate change adaptation legislation introduced today by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Senator Max Baucus of Montana. The Safeguarding America’s Future and Environment Act (SAFE) Act would require federal natural resource agencies to plan for the projected long-term effects of climate change, and encourage states to prepare natural resources adaptation plans.  The SAFE Act also would create a science advisory board to ensure that the planning uses the best available science. “CLF supports and endorses this legislation completely,” said Jedele.  “In Rhode Island, we are watching towns like Matunuck struggle with the serious issues posed by sea level rise and just last year we were inundated with rivers rising 15+ feet above flood level.  We need to read more…

The good news: cable TV outlet the Discovery Channel co-produced, with the BBC,  a nature series about the polar regions entitled Frozen Planet working with award winning director David Attenborough.   Discovery has proudly announced their co-ownership of the series, which is airing in Britain now (and apparently is quite hit) and will be shown in the US on Discovery in 2012. The bad news: Discovery (who I admit has gotten some free publicity from us for their Shark Week) has decided to not show the final episode in the series that presents the threats, particularly in the form of global warming, that man poses to the polar environment. In the words of an incredulous headline of a newspaper article in Britain’s Daily Mail: “Climate change episode of Frozen Planet won’t read more…

Yesterday, New England’s groundfishermen—from Rhode Island to Maine and from day boat to trip boat—took back their fishery from the politicians. In a letter addressed to the New England Congressional delegation, more than one hundred boat owners stated clearly that what they need most now is stability, profitability, and flexibility. In one of those moments that have happened too rarely over the past many years, all I can say is “amen.” read more..

In more than 50 pages of filings last Thursday, CLF responded to a pair of motions by Public Service Company of New Hampshire (PSNH) asking for dismissal of our Clean Air Act citizen suit now pending in federal district court in New Hampshire. That same day, CLF’s lawsuit got a major boost when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) filed a brief of its own, as a friend of the court, to identify the legal errors in PSNH’s key argument. One PSNH motion challenged CLF’s right to sue PSNH to protect the environmental and public health from Merrimack Station’s illegal pollution. The other motion claimed that PSNH didn’t do anything wrong when it renovated Merrimack Station because EPA regulations allow it to make changes without permits. In our briefs, CLF read more…

A study released today documents the powerful benefits of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) – the nation-leading effort by Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants while building up energy efficiency and clean energy efforts in the states. The study found that RGGI created $1.6 Billion in net economic benefits across the region ($888 million in New England alone).  The program saved electricity customers $1.3 Billion on their energy bills region-wide due to investment by the program in energy efficiency and created 16,000 Job Years (a standard measure of employment) during the first 3 years of the program (including temporary and permanent positions).   The cost of the program was minimal, creating an imperceptible 0.7% electricity price increase on customer bills across the region that read more…

I often say that there are two phrases that a professional climate advocate, whether they like or not, ends up repeating. The first one, which is not the subject of this post, is “The scary part is . . . “  As in “The scary part is that Daniel Yergin might be right when, in his new book, he suggests that climate science is right and fossil fuels are a systemic problem AND that peak oil/gas theory is wrong and we are not running out of fossil fuels.”  But that is the subject of another and different blog post to be written and just one of millions of examples of sentences beginning “The scary part is . . .” that you can write or utter about global warming. The second read more…

Catch up with the latest news from TalkingFish.org, a blog brought to you by CLF and other organizations and individuals who want to see a sustainable fishing industry in New England and abundant fish populations for generations to come. TalkingFish.org aims to increase people’s understanding of the scientific, financial and social aspects at work in New England’s fisheries. Here’s what went on this week. read more..