Climate and Atmospheric Circulation

Over the past year or more, I’ve profited from a series of conversations and exchanges with Yale’s Dan Kahan, the NSF supported researcher who has made great waves studying how our cultural values predispose us to discount certain risks (like, say, climate change). Kahan’s schematic for approaching this question—dividing us up into hierarchs versus egalitarians, and individualists versus communitarians—is a very helpful one that gets to the root of all manner of dysfunctions and misadventures in the relationship between politics, the U.S. public, and science.

Kahan says that his goal is to create a “science of science communication”: In other words, understanding enough about what really makes people tick (including in politicized areas) so that we know how to present them with science in a way that does not lead to knee-jerk rejections of it. Thus, for instance, presenting conservatives with factual information about global warming packaged as evidence in favor of expanding nuclear power actually makes them less defensive, and more willing to accept what the science says—because now it has been framed in a way that fits their value systems.

This is a very worthy project—but it doesn’t only tell us how to communicate science to conservatives. It tells us something scientific about who conservatives are. They are people who are often motivated—instinctively, at a gut level—to support, default to, or justify hierarchical systems for organizing society: Systems in which people aren’t equal, whether along class, gender, or racial lines. And they are motivated to support or default to individualistic systems for organizing (or not organizing) society: People don’t get help from government. They’re on their own, to succeed or fail as they choose.

It is one thing to accurately and scientifically explain how these values motivate conservatives. And it is another to reflect on whether one considers these values to be the ones upon which a virtuous and just society really ought to be built.

Kahan’s way of explaining conservatives, based on their moral values, is closely related to other approaches, like the well known one of University of Virginia social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Haidt does it a little differently, talking about the different “moral foundations” of liberals and conservatives. But there’s a heck of a lot of overlap. For Haidt, liberals care about fairness or equality, and they care about protecting people from harm. This is roughly analogous to egalitarianism and communitarianism. Conservatives, however, have other “moral foundations”: They care about respect for authority (e.g., hierarchy). They care about loyalty to the group (or to put a more negative spin on it, tribalism). And they care about purity or sanctity and whether someone does something perceived to be, you know, disgusting (especially sexually).

 Again, when one reflects on whether these values are actually, you know, good ones, I would have to answer “no.” I don’t think respecting authority is so great—authorities are too often naked emperors—and this is of course why I am an anti-authoritarian liberal. I definitely don’t like tribalism, though I do appreciate the power of loyalty in a foxhole or on a football team. And I don’t think the “yuck factor,” or someone’s personal sense of what is disgusting, is a good basis (standing on its own, anyway) for deciding how we ought to be governed.

The point is that it is one thing to understand how to reach conservatives—e.g., frame information in the context of these sorts of values—and it is another thing to understand conservatives, and to really think about what it means that human beings divide up, politically, based upon these kinds of differences.

And of course, Kahan’s and Haidt’s approaches are just two out of many scientific approaches for understanding the differences between what makes liberals, versus conservatives, tick. Other approaches have focused on left-right personality differences, on different physiological responses to stimuli and patterns of attention, on some differences in brain structure and function, and even, believe it or not, on genes.

This stuff is, if anything, even more wildly controversial than Kahan’s or Haidt’s work. But it, too, is good science: peer reviewed, insightful, important.

I bring all of this up, by the way, because Kahan has just written me a “Hey, Chris Mooney” open letter. He knows I have a book coming out on the science of liberals and conservatives, a science to which he himself has contributed, even if this is not his primary goal. He says he welcomes my project, but asks me to imagine a different one—he calls it the “Liberal Republic of Science” project—and whether it is worthy:

Imagine someone (someone very different from you; very different from me)— a conservative Republican, as it turns out—who says: "Science is so cool — it shows us the amazing things God has constructed in his cosmic workshop!"

Forget what percentage of the people with his or her cultural outlooks (or ideology) feel the way that this particular individual does about science (likely it is not large; but likely the percentage of those with a very different outlook — more secular, egalitarian, liberal — who have this passionate curiosity to know how nature works is small too. Most of my friends don't—hey, to each his own, we Liberals say!).

My question is do you (& not just you, Chris Mooney; we—people who share our cultural outlooks, worldview, "ideology") know how to talk to this person? Talk to him or her about climate change, or about whether his daughter should get the HPV vaccine? Or even about, say, how chlorophyll makes use of quantum mechanical dynamics to convert sunlight into energy? I think what "God did in his/her workshop" there would blow this person's mind (blows mine).

I actually do know how to talk to this person about climate change—though I wouldn’t be the best person to do it, since I can’t walk the walk and wouldn’t sound at all authentic. But the answer is to talk about the biblical mandate to serve as stewards of the creation. And research like Kahan’s has been critical in helping us generally understand how to frame science for different audiences—for people like this hypothetical conservative.

Kahan goes on to ask:

I look forward to reading The Republican Brain.

But there's another project out there — let's call it the Liberal Republic of Science Project — that is concerned to figure out how to make both the wisdom and the wonder of science as available, understandable, and simply enjoyable to citizens of all cultural outlooks (or ideological "brain types") as possible.

The project isn't doing so well. It desperately needs the assistance of people who are really talented in communicating science to the public.

I think it deserves that assistance.  

Wouldn't you agree?

Yes, I agree very strongly, though I don’t think the project is ailing as badly as Kahan suggests. If  you look at now, versus five years ago, there is much more openness to the project than there was before. Approaches that I got virulently attacked for advocating in 2007 and 2009—like “framing” scientific information and pushing scientists to engage in outreach, as I did in the book Unscientific America—now scarcely meet with a peep of protest within the scientific community.

So I actually think that ball—call it the “science communication” ball—has left the pitcher’s hand. People are out there trying to communicate science in all manner of sophisticated and increasingly audience sensitive ways (including conservative audience-sensitive ways). Kahan’s research is, I’d wager, having a profound influence on that enterprise.

I’m part of that enterprise, I devote myself to it every month, and I believe in it deeply.

But here’s the thing: I’ve also read my history of science. And it tells me that sometimes, when science comes along, it is fundamentally challenging to the most firmly held worldviews, and meets with adamant rejection—because people just can’t face the music.

This certainly describes global warming science today. It describes the science of evolution. And although we don’t really know yet, it may well describe the science of liberals and conservatives.

In other words, while you may well be able to use research like Kahan’s to make conservatives receptive to certain types of science, there may also be some aspects science that they are just bound to reject. And ultimately, there may be only so much you can do to blunt the force of such science through some type of frame game.

Science is, let us remember, one of the most destabilizing forces on the planet. It is relentless in its constant driving of change—change not only in how we live, but how we think. In this, it is a liberal force—always searching after the new and different. So sometimes, it can’t help but clash with conservative forces—striving to preserve and avert change.

So Hey Dan Kahan, here’s what I’ll say: Without your project we’d be much, much poorer.

But the fact is that when it comes to understanding our politics, and our politics of science, and our science of politics, we live in really….interesting times. Too interesting, I predict, for some people to handle—and too interesting for other people, including scientists, to resist.

A compelling new study from Media Matters for America reveals that proponents of the Keystone XL pipeline were granted far more time in the media than those who opposed it. As their study reveals, the majority of the coverage of the proposed pipeline regarded the creation of jobs, which was overwhelmingly discussed in a positive light, with most news outlets reporting only the industry’s own analysis of the jobs that would be created, even as reports repeatedly showed the industry’s job numbers to be false.

In general, the report shows that the pipeline issue was often covered in a positive light, with industry “experts” being quoted or hosted on TV news programs, as well as in print. The only two print outlets that the study found to have reported more negatively about the pipeline were The Los Angeles Times and USA Today. However, they note that the USA Today editorial board did come out in favor of the pipeline.

Here is a chart detailing coverage by type of media outlet:

As mentioned above, the main area of concern for the media was on the job creation issue, which is exactly what the industry wanted them to focus on. In contrast, the potential environmental damage and costs were often completely overlooked. From their report:
  

The pipeline proponents won the day on the issue of jobs, and many media outlets blindly repeated the industry’s own numbers without any sort of critical analysis of the numbers, or any reporting on the plethora of information that showed that the industry’s numbers were bogus. In total, the TransCanada’s talking points on jobs were repeated, verbatim, 76 times in the media.

Here is another chart from Media Matters that tells the talking point parroting story:



Cable TV news stations followed predictable patterns with their coverage of pipeline issues: MSNBC reported on environmental impacts of the pipeline in 50% of their coverage, while Fox News only reported on the massive protests against the pipeline in 15% of their coverage. In all, MSNBC was the only network that covered environmental impacts in half of their coverage, the closest behind them being ABC News, which covered environmental issues in 33% of their coverage.

Surprisingly, CNN reported on environmental concerns regarding the pipeline the least (even behind Fox News) with only 22% of their coverage being devoted to covering the potential environmental impacts of the pipeline.

The new study certainly reveals that the media did their best to help make the Keystone XL pipeline a reality. But what’s really surprising is that it didn’t seem to make a difference. The project is indefinitely stalled for now. This could be a strong indication that independent media (and independent thinking) are beginning to have just as much impact on policy and public attitudes as the traditional media outlets.

On January 16, the Los Angeles Times revealed that anti-science bills have been popping up over the past several years in statehouses across the U.S., mandating the teaching of climate change denial or "skepticism" as a credible "theoretical alternative" to human caused climate change came.

The L.A. Times' Neela Banerjee explained,

"Texas and Louisiana have introduced education standards that require educators to teach climate change denial as a valid scientific position. South Dakota and Utah passed resolutions denying climate change. Tennessee and Oklahoma also have introduced legislation to give climate change skeptics a place in the classroom."

What the excellent Times coverage missed is that key language in these anti-science bills all eminated from a single source: the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC.

In summer 2011, "ALEC Exposed," a project of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD)**, taught those alarmed about the power that corporations wield in the American political sphere an important lesson: when bills with a similar DNA pop up in various statehouses nationwide, it's no coincidence. 

Explaining the nature and origins of the project, CMD wrote, "[CMD] unveiled a trove of over 800 'model' bills and resolutions secretly voted on by corporations and politicians through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). These bills reveal the corporate collaboration reshaping our democracy, state by state."

CMD continued, "Before our publication of this trove of bills, it has been difficult to trace the numerous controversial and extreme provisions popping up in legislatures across the country directly to ALEC and its corporate underwriters."

CMD explained that ALEC conducts its operations in the most shadowy of manners (emphases mine):

"Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve 'model' bills…Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations. Participating legislators, overwhelmingly conservative Republicans, then bring those proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations—without disclosing that corporations crafted and voted on the bills."

So, what is the name of the "model bill" this time around?

The Trojan Horse in this case is an Orwellian titled model bill, the "Environmental Literacy Improvement Act."[PDF]

The bill was adopted by ALEC's Natural Resources Task Force, today known as the Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force, at ALEC's Spring Task Force Summit on May 5, 2000 — it was then approved by the full ALEC Board of Directors in June of 2000.

The bill's opening clause reads [PDF], "The purpose of this act is to enhance and improve the environmental literacy of students and citizens in the state by requiring that all environmental education programs and activities conducted by schools, universities, and agencies shall…"

Among other things, the bill stipulates that schools, universities and agencies should, 

• "Provide a range of perspectives presented in a balanced manner."
• "Provide instruction in critical thinking so that students will be able to fairly and objectively evaluate scientific and economic controversies." 
• "Be presented in language appropriate for education rather than for propagandizing."
• "Encourage students to explore different perspectives and form their own opinions."
• "Encourage an atmosphere of respect for different opinions and open-mindedness to new ideas."
• "Not be designed to change student behavior, attitudes or values." 
• "Not include instruction in political action skills nor encourage political action activities."

How does this language compare with legislation passed or proposed in various states? A review is in order.

The "Environmental Literacy Improvement Act," or at minimum, the crucial language found within it, has been proposed in seven states, and passed in three states, Louisiana in 2008, Texas in 2009 and South Dakota in 2010.

Louisiana

In 2008, the Louisiana state legislature introduced and eventually passed S.B. 733, the Louisiana Science and Education Act. The bill was originally sponsored by four members of the Senate, three of whom are current dues paying members of ALEC: Sen. Ben Wayne Nevers, Sr. (D-12); Sen. Neil Riser (R-32); and Sen. Francis Thompson (D-34).

The three ALEC members received a total of $9,514 from the oil and gas industry in the 2008 and 2010 election cycles in campaign money combined, and the four of them together received $13,814 in campaign cash from the oil and gas industry, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics' FollowTheMoney.org.

ALEC Model vs. S.B. 733

The Louisiana bill calls for, "an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including…global warming…" The bill also calls for "instructional materials to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review scientific theories in an objective manner."

This bill mirrors the provisions of the ALEC bill which say that teachers should "provide instruction in critical thinking so that students will be able to fairly and objectively evaluate scientific…controversies," and mandates that "balanced and objective environmental education materials and programs will…be used."

South Dakota

In 2010, the South Dakota Legislative Assembly passed House Concurrent Resolution 1009, a non-binding resolution introduced by 33 members of the House of Representatives and 6 members of the Senate, 39 in total, and 12 of whom are current members of ALEC. The bill calls for "balanced teaching of global warming in the public schools of South Dakota."

The 12 members of ALEC who sponsored HCR 1009 received $1,900 from the oil and gas industry in the 2008 and 2010 election cycles combined, according to FollowTheMoney.org.

The bill mirrors the provision of the ALEC bill that call for the providing of "a range of perspectives presented in a balanced manner."

Kentucky

In 2010, the Kentucky state legislature proposed H.B. 397, the Kentucky Science Education and Intellectual Freedom Act, a bill that eventually failed to pass.

The bill was co-sponsored by two members of the Kentucky House of Representatives who were not members of ALEC, but one of whom, Tim Moore (R-26), took $3,000 from the oil and gas industry in the 2008 and 2010 campaign cycles combined, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics.

ALEC Model vs. HB 397

Two key provisions of the H.B. 397 "encourage local district teachers and administrators to foster an environment promoting objective discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of scientific theories" and "allow teachers to use, as permitted by the local board of education, materials in addition to state-approved texts and instructional materials for discussion of scientific theories including…global warming…"

This bill mirrors major provisions of the ALEC model bill that say teachers should "provide instruction in critical thinking so that students will be able to fairly and objectively evaluate scientific…controversies," and mandates that "balanced and objective environmental education materials and programs will…be used."

New Mexico

In 2011, ALEC member, Rep. Thomas A. Anderson, introduced H.B. 302. In the 2008 and 2010 campaign cycles, he raised $2,650, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics' campaign finance database.

ALEC Model vs. H.B. 302

H.B. 302 says that schools shall "not prohibit any teacher, when a controversial scientific topic is being taught in accordance with adopted standards and curricula, from informing students about relevant scientific information regarding either the scientific strengths or scientific weaknesses pertaining to that topic." One "controversial scientific topic" listed is the "causes of climate change."

This bill mirrors the provisions of the ALEC model bill which call for teaching "a range of perspectives presented in a balanced manner," teaching "different perspectives" to allow for students to "form their own opinions," and creating an "atmosphere of respect for different opinions and open-mindedness to new ideas."

Tennessee

Tennessee's House bill, H.B. 368, essentially a replica of the ALEC model bill, overwhelmly passed the House in April 2011, but its Senate-version cousin, S.B. 893, failed to pass. As the Los Angeles Times article makes clear, efforts to push the bill through are far from over.

Key clauses of that bill read,

• "[T]eachers shall be permitted to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught."
• "[P]ublic elementary and secondary schools…[should]…respond appropriately and respectfully to differences of opinion about controversial issues." 

These excerpts match, almost to a "T," bullet points one, three and four of the ALEC model bill.  

Nine of the 24 co-sponsors of the H.B. 368 are ALEC members, according to CMD's ALEC Members database.

In addition, these nine ALEC member co-sponsors received $8,695 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry combined in the 2008 and 2010 campaign cycles, according to FollowTheMoney.org. The other 15 sponsors of the bill, while not members of ALEC, received $10,400 in their campaign cofffers in the 2008 and 2010 campaign cycles combined.

S.B. 893, on the other hand, was sponsored by Sen. Bo Watson (R-11), a recipient of $1,800 in oil and gas industry money in the 2008 and 2010 election cycles combined.

Translation: between the 25 of them, on top of a model bill handed to them by corporate oil and gas industry lobbyists, they were also furnished with $20,895 in campaign cash by these industries with the expectation to do their legislative bidding.

Oklahoma

Titled, the “Scientific Education and Academic Freedom Act,” H.B. 1551 is also essentially a copycat of Tennessee's version of the ALEC model bill — it failed to pass. A Senate version of that bill, S.B. 320, was also proposed in 2009, but failed to pass through committee.

Key clauses of that bill read (emphases mine),

• "[T]eachers shall be permitted to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories pertinent to the course being taught."
• "[N]o student in any public school or institution shall be penalized in any way because the student may subscribe to a particular position on scientific theories."

Notice how the first bullet is exactly the same in both the Tennessee and Oklahoma bills — also notice how similar bullet number two is in both language and substance in both states' bills.

Rep. Sally Kern (R-84), sponsor of H.B. 1551, is a member of ALEC, according to CMD. She received $12,335 from the oil and gas industry in the 2008 and 2010 election cycles, in total, according to FollowTheMoney.org. Sen. Randy Brogdon (R-34), sponsor of S.B. 320, while not a member of ALEC, received $22,967 from the oil and gas industry while running and losing for Governor of Oklahoma in 2010, according to FollowTheMoney.org.

On the whole, sponsors and co-sponsors from the six states in which the ALEC bill was proposed were recipients of $44,409 in campaign money from the oil and gas industry, a miniscule down payment for some of the most lucrative corporations known in the history of mankind.

Texas, in this case, is a bit of a wild card. Rather than a bill proposed by a state legislature, in 2009, the Texas School Board passed an amendent calling for the "balanced" teaching of climate change, meaning both science and "skepticism."

The Austin Statesman explained,

"The State Board of Education…adopted standards on the teaching of global warming that appear to both question its existence and prod students to explore its implications.

Standards are used to guide textbook makers and teachers.

Language…instructed students to 'analyze and evaluate different views on the existence of global warming,'"…

This provision mirrors and is likely inspired by the ALEC model bill provision on global warming, which suggested science teachers should "Provide a range of perspectives presented in a balanced manner."

The money paper trail for this ALEC model bill runs deep, to put it bluntly. 

When the ALEC model bill was adopted in 2000 by ALEC's Natural Resources Task Force, the head of that committee was Sandy Liddy Bourne, who after that stint, became Director of Legislation and Policy for ALEC. She is now with the Heartland Institute as vice-president for policy strategy. In Sandy Liddy Bourne's bio on the Heartland website, she boasts that "Under her leadership, 20 percent of ALEC model bills were enacted by one state or more, up from 11 percent." 

SourceWatch states that Liddy Bourne "…is the daughter of former Nixon aide and convicted Watergate criminal G. Gordon Liddy, who spent more than 52 months in prison for his part in the Watergate burglary…[and her] speech at the Heartland Institute's 2008 International Conference on Climate Change was titled, 'The Kyoto Legacy; The Progeny of a Carbon Cartel in the States."

The Heartland Institute was formerly heavily funded by ExxonMobil and Koch Industries, just like ALEC was at the time that Liddy Bourne's committee devised the "Environmental Literacy Improvement Act." These two corporations are infamous for their funding of climate change "skeptic" think tanks and front groups.  

Today, the corporate polluter members of ALEC's Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force include representatives from American Electric Power, the Fraser Institute, the Cato Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Institute for Energy Research, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, the Heartland Institute, and the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, to name several.

In the United States, the politics of big-money backed disinformation campaigns have trumped climate science, and serves as the raison d'être for DeSmogBlog. Polluters with a financial interest in continuing to conduct business without any accountability for their global warming pollution have purposely sowed the seeds of confusion on an issue seen as completely uncontroversial among scientists.

Maneuvering to dupe schoolchildren is about as cynical as it gets. Neuroscience explains that young brains are like sponges, ready to soak in knowledge (and disinformation, for that matter), and thus, youth are an ideal target for the "merchants of doubt."

The corporations behind the writing and dissemination of this ALEC model bill, who are among the largest polluters in the world, would benefit handsomly from a legislative mandate to sow the seeds of confusion on climate science among schoolchildren.

Alas, at the very least, the identity of the Trojan Horse has been revealed: it's name is ALEC.

*Sorry Alec Baldwin, this isn't about you, please resume your Words With Friends. This ALEC is far more scandalous.

**Full Disclosure: At the time of the ALEC Exposed project's public release in mid-2011, Steve Horn was an employee of Center for Media and Democracy.

The Obama Administration’s recent decision to deny TransCanada’s application to build the Keystone XL pipeline is monumental. Alongside the rousing display of public environmental activism sparked by the proposed pipeline, the US government finally showed its environmental assessment process has a backbone. And given this timely announcement, which coincides with the Enbridge Joint Panel Review of the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline, it might be cause for some optimism. That is, it would be if the Enbridge hearing wasn’t built to fail.

But the hearings are built to fail. The National Energy Board (NEB), the federal body tasked with overseeing the Enbridge hearing, issued a general directive one year ago designed to exclude input from prominent environmental groups critical of the astonishingly rapid expansion of the tar sands – an expansion that only stands to increase with the proposed pipeline. 

According to the NEB, information regarding the cumulative environmental impacts of the tar sands – including climate change impacts – is irrelevant to the hearing, which is intended to consider information regarding the pipeline alone.

The NEB’s muzzle tactics affected groups like the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, the Living Oceans Society and Forest Ethics, all prominent organizations critical of the environmental threats posed by the tar sands. Facing the board’s enforced censorship, these groups teamed up with EcoJustice to appeal the directive.

Paul Paquet, biologist and senior scientist with the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, headed up the organization’s submission to the NEB. The group's plan to discuss the pipeline in the context of the tar sands ran aground with the release of the January 2011 NEB directive entitled “Panel Session Results and Decision." Their submission “became a major issue,” Paquet told DeSmogBlog, “because of course we were looking at the tar sands.”

It looked to Raincoast like the NEB had responded to their application, and others, by issuing a gag order. And indeed, they had.

“Nobody has been silenced directly; only by the directive that came from the NEB…And that’s right across for everybody, not just us," said Paquet. "I think it's scandalous.”

The NEB justifies the exclusion - which denies some of Canada's leading environmental scientists the right to talk about climate change, greenhouse gasses and Canada's energy future throughout the hearing - rather crudely:

“…we do not consider that there is a sufficiently direct connection between the [Pipeline] Project and any particular existing or proposed oil sands development, or other oil production activities, to warrant consideration of the environmental effects of such activities…Subject to consideration of cumulative effects…we will not consider the environmental effects of upstream hydrocarbon production projects or activities in our review.” [emphasis mine]

To an environmental scientist like Paquet, the full significance of the directive was shockingly obvious:

“it was a general directive in order to try to constrain the hearings…including issues of cumulative effects or sustainable development that are supposed to be looked at. You can hardly talk about sustainable development that relates to the pipeline by excluding a discussion of the tar sands,” Paquet told DeSmogBlog.

But when EcoJustice began investigating the energy board’s hearing strategy they realized that was exactly what was slated to happen: a hearing crafted to overstate the benefits of the pipeline by ignoring the inherent costs of the tar sands. Although the NEB hasn't been entirely consistent in their rationale. Apparently when it comes to the tar sands, not all opinions are equal.

Duplicitous Directive

Though the NEB termed Raincoast’s treatment of the tar sands irrelevant to the pipeline, the Pipeline Partnership’s treatment of the tar sands was fair game – a little inconsistency EcoJustice thought pertinent to mention in its appeal.

According to Barry Robinson, the EcoJustice lawyer representing the three environmental groups, the hearing is strategically biased. "We generally see this as an unbalanced approach," he told DeSmogBlog, "to consider the economic benefits but not the environmental impacts."

And if you're going to include the one you should, as a matter principle, be open to including the other. "Since Enbridge is relying on the economic benefits of the oil sands and its one of the reasons to approve this then you must equally consider the environmental impacts of the oil sands," he continued.

The premise of Enbridge's Project Application submitted by the Northern Gateway Pipelines Limited Partnership falls entirely upon the benefits the pipeline will bring to tar sands development. The pipeline is in no way a standalone project; its contribution to the tar sands economy is its only measure of success.

And that is why the Partnership's application relies so heavily on the projected economic benefits the pipeline will bring to the tar sands.

In the words of the Partnership:

“There is a clear opportunity to link, by new pipelines and marine transportation, regions of rapid demand growth with new, secure supplies of oil, such as those that are increasingly available from Canada’s oil sands. The Enbridge Northern Gateway Project (the Project) will create that link by connecting to suppliers of oil delivered at the Edmonton hub…”

“…As nations continue to develop and grow, oil sands supply will continue to respond by increasing production. It is critical, however, that oil sands producers can access new global markets to support their development so that Canada obtains full value for its secure oil production…”

“…Enbridge’s Gateway Project is an important part of Canada’s energy future and will help ensure there is enough capacity to transport new oil from Canada’s oil sands in the years to come…”

EcoJustice challenged the NEB’s disingenuous claim that there is no “significant direct connection” between the Northern Gateway proposed pipeline and “existing or proposed tar sands development.”

But EcoJustice's appeal is something the National Energy Board refused to reconsider, twice. 

"Early in the panel process we formed a letter on behalf of the three groups [pushing] that the environmental impacts…should be considered…Then the panel came out with…the panel decision and they declared that 'no, we are not including upstream impacts.' We subsequently submitted a formal motion to the panel, arguing that the upstream impacts should be included…and they once again decided that the impacts are outside the scope of what the hearing will consider,"Robinson told DeSmogBlog.

The apparent double standard on NEB's part here is clear: Gateway supporters are welcome, while critics who bring up the larger issue of the tar sands are muzzled.

From a legal perspective, says Robinson, "the panel, particularly in its role as a National Energy Board panel, has to decide if the project is in the public interest…and they are required to balance both the benefits and the burdens of the project."

Legality, however, might have little to do with it, says Paquet. “It's just one of those issues where justice and the law aren’t necessarily going to be the same.”

Image: Burning oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Used with permission from Kris Krug.

EVER heard the one about climate scientists being a bunch of rent-seekers just out to chase taxpayers money, or the one where climate change scientists are just part of an elite left-wing conspiracy out to trample on the heretics?

It is hard to believe that it's been almost four years since Americans were bombarded by the cry of “Drill baby, drill” that echoed throughout the halls of the Republican National Convention in 2008. That slogan became a rallying cry for conservatives who believed that increasing oil drilling – in spite of the environmental costs – would lead to an economic boom in the United States, and would also help ease prices at the pump for American consumers.

So today, nearly four years after those words were uttered to millions of conservatives, we have domestic oil production reaching a 24-year high, according to new reports. By industry and conservative logic, this should also mean that economic productivity has risen while consumer gasoline prices have fallen. But nothing could be further from the truth.

It turns out that increased oil production has nothing to do with the prices Americans pay at the pump. While industry leaders point to increased production in 2008 that was followed by lower prices, experts counter that the drop in price was due to simple market fluctuations: specifically, a drop in demand due to the global recession.

People travelled less and therefore didn’t use as much gasoline, creating a surplus that companies had to expel by lowering prices. These same experts also say that a rise in renewable energy use contributed to lower fossil fuel prices during this time period.

The truth is that the United States just doesn’t have enough fossil fuels to bring down the price of energy for American consumers. Even with our current rise in domestic fossil fuel production, prices continue to rise or remain steady without any signs of falling. The reason for this is because OPEC sets oil prices on the international stage.

When the United States increases their oil production, those figures are sent to OPEC, who then adjust the global price of oil based on our own production. Experts say that opening up all of our available areas to drilling, once factored into OPEC equations, would only reduce gasoline prices by a mere three cents per gallon, and that price drop would only last a few years.

Interestingly enough, industry leaders are still beating the (oil) drum for increased drilling and domestic oil production, even as oilrigs are sprouting up across the country, to almost no one’s benefit except the oil companies. And they are being aided along the way with their allies from conservative think tanks, conservative media, and Republican politicians.

In fact, Republicans in Congress have been so eager to open up new lands for drilling – again, in spite of the fact that drilling is occurring at a record pace – that they held 20 hearings on ways to speed up the permitting and drilling process in the last year. This was during a year where oil drilling had increased a staggering 60% since the previous year. (Think Progress has a chart showing the dirty energy industry campaign donations that went to the politicians holding these meetings.)

Even today, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce continues to urge President Obama to "#getserious" about domestic energy production by increasing the lands available for energy industry exploitation.

As mentioned above, there are two factors that have been proven to lower fuel prices – economic recession and replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy. And both of those factors work the same way, which is to decrease the demand for fossil fuels. Until demand falls, the industry has absolutely no reason to lower prices. In fact, the companies are legally required to do all that they can to protect their profits and the “best interest” of their shareholders, so lowering prices because of increased production is not even an option that is on the table.

It is doubtful that the industry, and those with financial or political ties to the dirty energy industry, will ever concede the fact that increased oil drilling will not lower energy prices. But the facts are not on their side, so no matter how often they repeat those talking points they will never be truthful.

Do you get your climate science from your weatherman? If so, you might be the dupe of an ongoing anti-science campaign, played out by some of national television’s most recognizable TV weathercasters – more than half of whom are climate change deniers. 

After smashing Mitt Romney in the South Carolina primary, former House speaker Newt Gingrich has now emerged as tied with the onetime Republican presidential frontrunner. So it’s time to look closely at Gingrich's record on science—which is not, perhaps, as dismal as Rick Santorum’s, but still gives ample cause for concern.

When it comes to Newt on science, we're presented with a complex picture. Gingrich holds a Ph.D. in history, which suggests that he might be considered a scholar and intellectual. And he professes to love science and technology. Ten years ago in 2002, he called for tripling the budget of the National Science Foundation, a goal I heartily endorse.

And yet…here are no less than four issues where Gingrich’s science record raises serious concern:

The Undermining of Science Advice. In 1995, Gingrich-led congressional Republicans did away with the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), which had previously served as their in-house source of science advice. As I reported in my book The Republican War on Science, Gingrich instead espoused a “free market” approach to scientific expertise: Rather than having institutional science advice in place, members of Congress could just meet with scientists as they saw fit in order to inform themselves.

Is this a good idea? My book included this quote from Robert Palmer, a longtime Democratic staffer on the House Science Committee: “Gingrich’s view was always, ‘I’ll set up one-on-one interactions between members of Congress and key members of the scientific community. Which I thought was completely bizarre. I mean, who comes up with these people, and who decides they’re experts, and what member of Congress really wants to do that?”

One of the pathologies of American politics today is our unending “my expert versus your expert” games. If you don’t want to believe in global warming, then hey, just find yourself a scientist who says it’s not caused by humans. There are plenty of them around, after all. That this strategy is considered acceptable is attributable, at least partly, to Gingrich-style political thinking. And sure enough, as I went on to report in Republican War, once Gingrich and his allies got rid of OTA they proceeded to hold hearings to attack mainstream science on global warming, ozone depletion, and other issues.

Evolution. I personally doubt that Newt Gingrich, a Catholic, denies evolution. However, he’s certainly willing to pander to the Christian Right on the matter. In a recent video captured by Think Progress, he could be found uttering the following: “I always tell my friends who don’t believe in [God], fine, how do you think — we’re randomly gathered protoplasm? We could have been rhinoceroses, but we got lucky this week?” Calling evolution by natural selection “random” is a well known creationist talking point. See here for a rebuttal.

Stem Cells. In the same video, Gingrich dramatically distorted stem cell science. In a bout of truly irresponsible rhetoric, he likened embryonic stem cell research to “killing children”—it is nothing of the sort—and called so-called adult stem cells “regular stem cells,” as if embryonic ones are somehow irregular. The scientific consensus is that research on both types of stem cells is important.

Global Warming. Gingrich wrote an entire book espousing his own particular form of free market environmentalism. In a now infamous video with Nancy Pelosi, meanwhile, he stated that “our country must take action to address climate change.” But Gingrich later flip flopped and claimed not to support cap and trade—and he also seems to have flip flopped on the core question of whether global warming is caused by humans. For a full overview of Gingrich’s changing views on climate change and what to do about it, see here.

In other words, much like Mitt Romney, Gingrich comes across as a politician who will contradict his previous views—or utter anti-science things—because it is politically expedient. It’s hard to believe, at least for me, that Gingrich actually doubts evolution, or that he really doubts that global warming is caused by humans. But at minimum, he’s out there playing politics on both topics and scoring points.

This stance itself links back to Gingrich’s “free market” views of scientific expertise. If you’re not bound by what the consensus of experts say—if you’re free to go shopping for science, to pick-and-choose—then it certainly becomes easier to find convenient support for the opinion or view that you need to "have" in a particular moment.

In sum, then, Gingrich is no Rick Santorum—no ardent science denier. But on the other hand, his apparent cynicism in the handling of scientific knowledge is disturbing enough. 

Damned if we do, damned if we don't - this is the CliffsNotes version of the ongoing Keystone XL pipeline debate. President Barack Obama recently halted TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline project, which would bring tar sands crude, or dilluted bitumen ("dilbit") from Alberta through the heart of the U.S., to Gulf Coast refineries near Port Arthur, Texas, where the oil would then be exported to the global market.

Most environmental organizations declared victory and suggest the Keystone XL pipeline is dead. Unfortunately, this is far from the case. Republican House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) recently told The Hill he may attempt to rope the pipeline into the next payroll tax extension. Furthermore, a recent Congressional Research Services (CRS) paper said that under a little-used Consitutional clause, the two chambers of Congress, rather than the White House, could have the final say on the pipeline's ultimate destiny. CRS explained, 

[I]f Congress chose to assert its authority in the area of border crossing facilities, this would likely be considered within its Constitutionally enumerated authority to regulate foreign commerce.

Because the pipeline crosses the U.S.-Canada border, many thought that the U.S. State Department, and by extension the White House, had the final say in the manner. This may no longer be true.

On the other hand, even if the Keystone XL becomes a "pipe dream," the grass isn't necessarily greener on the other side.

Two days after Obama's Keystone XL announcement, the Oil and Gas Journal discussed another possible TransCanada pipeline proposal involving the Bakken shale formation. Below is an excerpt (emphases mine): 

TransCanada Corp. is considering possibilities for moving Bakken shale crude south to the US Gulf Coast via a stand-alone system following the US rejection of the company’s permit application for the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline. TransCanada had originally envisioned moving Bakken crude south as part of Keystone XL, concluding a binding open season for its Bakken MarketLink Project in early 2011.

Options for moving Bakken crude south could include…modification of Bakken MarketLink plans to route Bakken production to the existing Keystone pipeline, already delivering Canadian crude to Cushing, Okla. TransCanada declined to comment on specific possibilities, saying that discussions need to occur with customers and nothing has been finalized.

The Bakken Marketlink Project was originally intended to connect the Alberta tar sands to the Bakken Shale oil and unconventional gas production project, via the Keystone XL Pipeline. 

Keystone XL would have carried a dirty trio of oil, unconventional gas, and bitumen to a refinery in Cushing, OK, a current key pitstop for TransCanada's existing Keystone Pipeline. From Cushing, the oil and gas would travel via pipeline to Port Arthur, TX refineries and export terminals and on to the global market. 

In his January 18 statement on the Keystone XL, President Obama indirectly mentioned the Bakken Marketlink project, as well as the idea of extending the existing Keystone pipeline from Cushing to the Gulf, stating,

In the months ahead, we will continue to look for new ways to partner with the oil and gas industry…including the potential development of an oil pipeline from Cushing, Oklahoma to the Gulf of Mexico…and invest in alternatives like biofuels and natural gas.

The Bakken Marketlink would fulfill both the Cushing extension and the fracked natural gas prongs of the Obama statement.

An important January 23 story appearing in the National Journal explained (subscription required),

Most of Washington’s attention to the controversial pipeline has focused on the 700,000 barrels of Canadian oil it would ship daily from Alberta’s carbon-heavy oil sands to refineries in Texas. But almost a quarter of the pipeline’s capacity would have been oil from the recently discovered Bakken shale formation that spans North Dakota and part of Montana. (Snip)

Although it probably wasn’t intentional, Obama’s denial of the Keystone permit has made it more difficult for some U.S. companies to do what his administration and reelection campaign are taking credit for: increasing domestic oil and gas production. It’s an ironic twist, considering that the Bakken oil link likely sweetened the project for the administration initially.

Despite this development, the National Journal's Amy Harder noted the Bakken Marketlink Project is still considered a possibility for TransCanada, even without the Keystone XL.

Yet, if the Marketlink Project goes down in flames alongside the Keystone XL, that means, ironically, more flames in the form of gas flaring.

The New York Times, in a key September 2011 investigation, revealed that the oil and gas industry flares roughly 30-percent of the gas fracked from the Bakken Shale. 

The Times' Clifford Krauss wrote,

Every day, more than 100 million cubic feet of natural gas is flared this way — enough energy to heat half a million homes for a day.

The flared gas also spews at least two million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, as much as 384,000 cars or a medium-size coal-fired power plant would emit, alarming some environmentalists.

Why flare? 

“I’ll tell you why people flare: It’s cheap,” said Troy Anderson, lead operator of a North Dakota gas-processing plant owned by Whiting Petroleum in The Times article. “Pipelines are expensive: You have to maintain them. You need permits to build them. They are a pain.”

Though cheap, flaring is certainly not good for public health or the environment. Greener grass?  Perhaps not.

The game of pipeline whack-a-mole will continue unabated unless the root of the problem is addressed: prohibiting what Professor Michael Klare calls "energy extremism," or the extraction of tougher to reach, dirtier fossil fuels. Basically, we're grasping for leftovers from the original fossil fuel frenzy, and still ignoring the fact that we're not only running out, we're also cooking the atmosphere with global warming pollution in the process.

Alas, until we awaken from this delusion, it's still damned if we do, damned if we don't.

Some day maybe we'll pursue a real clean energy future. Until then, it's "pipe dreams" for the foreseeable future.

On the heels of receiving over 40,000 citizen comments on their environmental impact assessment, it looks like the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is also getting flack from the EPA on their fracking proposal.

The EPA's concerns echo those being shouted from the rooftops (or at least outside local town halls) for months from New York and Pennsylvania residents and advocacy groups, who are alarmed about the inherent risks to public health and drinking water that fracking imposes. The other looming question is whether the DEC can handle such a lofty task, seeing that they've experienced budget cuts and layoffs over the past couple of years.

Mainly, there are major concerns over drinking water buffer zones, wastewater treatment plans, those pesky earthquakes that seem to hang out near fracking-related sites, and the radiation hazards that could threaten workers and nearby residents.

The EPA boasts that their regulations prohibit gas drilling wells within 1 mile of public water supply areas while the DEC is only proposing 150 feet. That's less than one New York City block (the smaller ones), half the length of a football field, or roughly the distance between you and the next-door neighbor whose bathroom horrifyingly has no blinds (although to be honest, there's no adequate buffer zone for that).

Furthermore, apparently the impact assessment includes a clause that allows trucks to spread salts from "produced water" (the water that comes back up after fracking), over roadways during inclement weather during the winter months. EPA urges them not to do that, and in fact states:

"It is unclear why this distinction was made by the NYSDEC as produced water will have higher concentration of natural contaminants…".

That's nice that the DEC is attempting to embrace the whole "reduce, reuse, recycle" mantra, but it's kind of missing the point if you sprinkle the roads with salt extracted from water that has previously contained over 600 toxic chemicals. 

And on the radiation? The EPA is concerned that the data they are using in the impact assessment is outdated, since radioactive materials in Pennsylavania have been found to have higher radiation counts than expected, and that the DEC hasn't taken into consideration all the potential points along the way where radiation could concentrate and contaminate local land and water resources.

Even so, the document also advises that homeowners preemptively test their water supply (through water quality testing facilities of their choosing) to "remove any concerns about the water testing results being biased."

This "vote of no confidence" should really spark people to question whether this process can be adequately regulated, even with all the pitfalls and obstacles to continually overcome and oversee. People that continue to say wind and solar are too expensive clearly do not calculate all the external costs associated with fossil fuel extraction. This is why algebra is important- because when the equation doesn't add up, the x and y you are solving for is often the cost to people's health and livelihoods, as well as the long-term or irreversible damage to the surrounding ecosystems and the global climate.

Read the EPA's statement here.

AP - June Tierney and Kellie Burke never envisioned island living in the Vermont woods, but Tropical Storm Irene had other ideas.