Build Back Something

Senate Democrats apparently outsmarted Mitch McConnell and agreed on an "Inflation Reduction Act" that includes $369 billion in clean energy investments. While Senator Brian Schatz calls it the "biggest climate action in human history", it's been criticized as a "climate suicide pact" by Brett Hartl with the Center for Biological Diversity for requiring new oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico and in Alaska.

It’s self-defeating to handcuff renewable energy development to massive new oil and gas extraction. The new leasing required in this bill will fan the flames of the climate disasters torching our country, and it’s a slap in the face to the communities fighting to protect themselves from filthy fossil fuels.

We can’t let the renewable energy transition be held hostage by fossil fuel companies. The Manchin bill is a devil’s bargain that ignores science and locks us into at least a decade of new oil and gas extraction. There’s a way forward that doesn’t spew more greenhouse gas pollution into the air and harm frontline communities, and it means eliminating these giveaways to the fossil-fuel industry.

This legislation may be a mixed bag and it's already greatly scaled back from initial proposals. Is there the political will to do more? Anthony DiMaggio has conducted polls of people who have experienced extreme weather events.

[M]y survey findings should provide environmental activists some encouragement. They suggest that the public is increasingly waking up to the severity of the threat at hand. People's real-life experiences with extreme weather are acting as a catalyst driving support for reducing carbon dioxide emissions, and will likely fuel rising support for action in the future as the climate crisis worsens.

Writing about record high temperatures in England, George Monbiot wonders if we can "reach the social tipping point before we hit the environmental tipping point" given that we know what really needs to be done.

Let’s stop lying to ourselves and others by pretending that small measures deliver major change. Let’s abandon the timidity and tokenism. Let’s stop bringing buckets of water when only fire engines will do.

Update (August 1):  While proponents claim IRA will reduce emissions to 40 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 (estimated to be a 20 percent reduction in the absence of this bill), it seems the oil industry views the bill as a mixed bag as well. For example, they are all for the new oil and gas leasing, but concerned about the electric vehicle subsidies and the 15 percent minimum corporate tax. Perhaps this is what political compromise is all about. It's only the future of civilization at stake.

Update (August 2):  Julia Kane, Emily Pontecorvo, and Zoya Teirstein quote Adam Orford that IRA is an "overall positive", but

experts are concerned that the permitting legislation Democrats promised to pass in a few months could make it easier for companies to get fossil fuel infrastructure approved more quickly.

And, of course, it only takes one Democrat to torpedo the whole thing--even Manchin might not be above wrecking his own bill. 

Jake Johnson quotes Lauren Pagel.

The world is on fire and Congress is attacking it with a squirt gun while giving Senator Manchin and fossil fuel executives more matches by fast-tracking oil and gas drilling and hydrogen boondoggles. Drilling for oil and gas is no solution to the climate crisis.

Noah Berlatsky acknowledges a number of shortcomings in the bill. 

However, climate advocates in general see these concessions as a small price to pay for what is in other respects easily the most substantial effort to fight global warming in US history.

Update (August 4):  Food and Water Watch criticizes Manchin's "side deal".

Creating new wind and solar tax credits while giving fossil fuel polluters a green light is the ultimate devil’s bargain. Lawmakers must speak up strongly and swiftly against this massive rollback of public health and environmental protections that will fast track fossil fuel projects.

But who knows, maybe Senator Sinema will decide the rich need to keep their tax loophole and vote down the whole thing. (A short time later) Looks like Sinema got enough changes to vote in favor.

Update (August 7):  The Inflation Reduction Act passed the Senate 50 to 50 with Vice President Harris casting the tie-breaker vote.

Update (August 9):  Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was determined to get a bill passed.

I told my caucus all along, including the most pro-environmental people, that we’re going to have to swallow some bad stuff to get good stuff.

Update (August 12):  The Inflation Reduction Act passed the House of Representatives 220 to 207. Robert Hunziker notes the urgency of our situation.

The entire planet is reeling from global warming. America’s modest couple hundred billion climate plan is a drop in the world’s bucket.

Update (August 15):  The more I read about this law, the more problems it seems to have. Incentives for carbon capture account for one-sixth to one-fifth of projected emissions reductions. Prices per ton go up for both carbon capture with storage as well as capture for use in enhanced oil recovery (though up not as much). Storage would also require the construction of thousands of miles of pipeline.

In addition, it's possible many electric vehicles will be ineligible for incentives.

[IRA] requires that new electric vehicles meet stringent sourcing requirements for critical materials, the components of the battery, and final assembly to qualify for the tax credits. While some automakers, like Tesla and GM, have well-developed domestic supply chains, no electric vehicle manufacturer currently meets all the bill’s requirements.

Update (August 16):  As President Biden signs the bill into law, I'm glad that activists such as Lisa Frank are tempering celebration with a dose of reality.

[This law is] a start to, not the culmination of, our work to reduce global warming pollution and ensure clean air, clean water, and the preservation of open spaces.

And Representative Rashida Tlaib promises to work against the noxious "side deal" which requires a separate vote.

[H]andshake deals made by others in closed rooms do not dictate how I vote, and we sure as hell don't owe Joe Manchin anything now.

He and his fossil fuel donors already got far too much in the IRA.

Update (August 18):  Carl Pope offers three steps to follow up on IRA.

Recapture fugitive methane, amounting to more than a billion tons of carbon dioxide a year.

Leapfrog over 100 gigawatts of unneeded, polluting gas power plants. Replace coal-burning plants with more solar and wind instead.

Electrify cars and trucks, and make electric vehicles a cleaner and more reliable option in every zip code.

Update (September 9):  Progressives in Congress are pushing back against the Manchin "side deal". The plan is to include it in the continuing resolution that keeps the government funded past the end of the fiscal year.

Update (September 27):  Senator Manchin's "side deal" has been removed from the continuing resolution.

Update (October 6):  Liane Schalatek gives an overview of the IRA. And Basav Sen notes that the "side deal" isn't quite dead.

Increasing Risk of Collapse

A report from the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction points out a growing probability of civilizational collapse.

Despite progress, risk creation is outstripping risk reduction. Disasters, economic loss and the underlying vulnerabilities that drive risk, such as poverty and inequality, are increasing just as ecosystems and biospheres are at risk of collapse.

Nafeez Ahmed highlights the significance.

[This report] is the first time that the United Nations has clearly underscored the impending risk of "total societal collapse" if the human system continues to cross the planetary boundaries critical to maintaining a safe operating space for the earth system.

Yet, despite this urgent warning, not only has it fallen on deaf ears, the UN itself appears to have diluted its own findings. Like the fictional film Don’t Look Up, we are more concerned with celebrity gossip and political scandals, seemingly unable – or unwilling – to confront the most important challenge that now faces us as a species.

Either way, these UN documents show that recognising the risk of collapse is not about doom-mongering, but about understanding risks so we can make better choices and avoid worst-case outcomes. As the report acknowledges, there is still much that can be done. But the time for action is not after 2030. It’s now.

Update (August 1):  A paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds a lack of investigation into the potential impacts of famine, extreme weather, war and disease due to climate change.

Prudent risk management requires consideration of bad-to-worst-case scenarios. Yet, for climate change, such potential futures are poorly understood. Could anthropogenic climate change result in worldwide societal collapse or even eventual human extinction? At present, this is a dangerously underexplored topic. Yet there are ample reasons to suspect that climate change could result in a global catastrophe. Analyzing the mechanisms for these extreme consequences could help galvanize action, improve resilience, and inform policy, including emergency responses.

Villainy

In just one of a series of despicable decisions, the Supreme Court gutted the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon emissions.

The court ruled that EPA regulations aimed at reducing carbon emissions under a specific provision of the 1970 Clean Air Act are not permissible because Congress did not specifically authorize the EPA to regulate carbon emissions.

According to the court, the EPA’s regulation of power plant emissions amounts to a large enough new regulatory proposal targeting a large enough segment of the economy to require specific congressional authorization.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote the dissent. 

Today, the court strips the EPA of the power Congress gave it to respond to the most pressing environmental challenge of our time. The Court appoints itself— instead of Congress or the expert agency— the decision-maker on climate policy. I cannot think of many things more frightening.

Robert Rohde notes the greater implication. 

The immediate issue is the limits of the EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gases. The broader issue is the ability of federal agencies to regulate anything at all.

Update (July 4):  Thom Hartmann notes the worst may be yet to come in a Fall case before the Court.

[The Independent State Legislature Doctrine]—the basis of John Eastman and [Dear Leader's] effort to get states to submit multiple slates of electors—asserts that a plain reading of Article II and the 12th Amendment of the Constitution says that each state's legislature has final say in which candidate gets their states' Electoral College vote, governors and the will of the voters be damned.

Republicans point out that the Constitution says that it's up to the states—"in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct"—to decide which presidential candidate gets their Electoral College votes.

But the Electoral Count Act requires a governor's sign-off, and half [of the battleground] states have Democratic governors. Which has precedence, the Constitution or the Act?