By Judy Lin
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA - Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina on Friday endorsed an oil-company funded ballot initiative that seeks to indefinitely delay California’s landmark global warming law.
The announcement comes two days after the former Hewlett-Packard Co. chief executive refused to take a position during her debate with Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer.
In a statement, Fiorina said she prefers a national energy policy and called California’s 2006 law, known as AB32, a “job killer.”
“The real solution to these challenges lies not with a single state taking action on its own, but rather with global action,” Fiorina said. “That’s why we need a comprehensive, national energy policy that funds energy R&D and takes advantage of every source of domestic energy we have - including nuclear, wind and solar - in an environmentally responsible way.”
After Wednesday night’s debate, Fiorina told reporters she was not ready to take a position on Proposition 23.
“My emphasis in this race is on federal issues,” she said. “Look, I’m not trying to be evasive here. I really am trying to indicate that we have to put our emphasis on the right priorities.”
Boxer opposes Proposition 23. She said during the debate that Fiorina’s indecision at the time could turn into a missed opportunity for the U.S. to take the lead in developing alternative-energy technologies.
“If we overturn California’s clean-energy policies, that’s going to mean that China takes the lead away from us with solar, that Germany takes the lead away from us with wind,” Boxer said. “But I guess my opponent is kind of used to creating jobs in China and other places.”
Boxer has repeatedly criticized Fiorina for shipping jobs overseas during her time heading HP in 1999-2005. Boxer campaign manager Rose Kapolczynski on Friday said Fiorina is siding with out-of-state oil companies while Boxer supports turning California into an economic hub of clean energy that will rely less on fossil fuels.
Fiorina spokeswoman Julie Soderlund said California already leads the nation in renewable energy standards and suspending AB32 would not hamper development of those technologies.
A July poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found that two-thirds of Californians favor the state’s global warming law, which seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions statewide to 1990 levels over the next decade. It has been championed by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who says it will encourage an expansion of California’s green technology industry.
Forty-five percent of respondents said they believe cutting greenhouse gas emissions will add jobs, compared with 23 percent who said there will be fewer jobs, according to the poll.
Critics of the law say it will impose higher costs on businesses, encouraging many to move their operations out of state. Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, called Fiorina’s position a “very good move.”
“We think it’s very important that at the end of the day, it’s about the economy,” Coupal said.
If approved by voters, Proposition 23 would delay the law from taking effect until California’s unemployment falls to 5.5 percent and stays there for four consecutive quarters. That has happened just three times during the past three decades, according to the California Employment Development Department statistics.
California’s unemployment rate is 12.3 percent.
No on Prop. 23 spokesman Steven Maviglio said Fiorina is going against most Californians.
“It’s unfortunate she is out of sync with two-thirds of Californians who strongly believe in our clean-energy and clean-air standards,” he said.
Oil companies have contributed $6.2 million to the Proposition 23 campaign as of Friday, according to the secretary of state’s website.
Most of that money is from two Texas-based oil companies, Valero and Tesoro, including a recent $1 million donation from Tesoro that was publicly reported on Thursday.
Fiorina also took positions on other November ballot measures, saying she opposes Proposition 21, which would impose an $18 vehicle license surcharge to help fund state parks. In exchange, most California vehicles would get free admission and parking to state parks and beaches.
Read more here.
By Mara Gay, AOL
(Sept. 3)—When the Rev. Jesse Jackson led a rally for “green jobs” in Detroit, he arrived in the Motor City in a massive Cadillac SUV. But his exit from the Motor City was a lot more environmentally friendly—thanks to some car thieves.
The robbers stole the civil rights activist’s rented 2009 Escalade SUV on Monday. He was in Detroit for Saturday’s Jobs, Justice and Peace Rally in downtown Detroit.
“We were traveling for Jobs, Justice and Peace and we came [outside the hotel] next morning and it was gone,” Jackson told AOL News today in a phone interview. “It was obvious that it was stolen.”
Bill Pugliano, Getty Images
The Rev. Jesse Jackson at the Rebuild America: Jobs, Justice and Peace march last month in Detroit.Police found the car later that day, stripped of its wheels but otherwise intact, WXYZ reported.
Jackson, who led the march along with United Auto Workers President Bob King, said there was nothing contradictory about renting an SUV and promoting green jobs.
“We were promoting a car manufacturer and representing the American worker, whatever car they chose,” Jackson said. “My wife has a Smart Car, but for the purposes that we were traveling, the car was—it fit the bill.”
One Detroit columnist disagreed. “Add Jesse to the Al Gore-Tom Friedman-Barack Obama School of Environmental Hypocrisy,” Detroit News columnist Henry Payne wrote. “While preaching to Americans that they need to cram their families into hybrid Priuses to go shopping for compact fluorescent light bulbs to save the planet, they themselves continue to live large.”
Payne noted that Jackson wrote a column for CNN.com last month promoting energy independence. “If our country gets serious about energy savings and independence from oil, we could rebuild domestically and power the U.S. economy with American jobs,” Jackson wrote Aug. 16 along with Earth Day Network President Kathleen Rogers.
It’s not the first time a high-profile person has had his car stolen in the Motor City in recent days. A GMC Yukon Denali from Detroit Mayor Dave Bing’s security detail was stolen and stripped of its rims last week.
Bing condemned the robberies. “It is our hope the community will continue to support the administration’s effort to communicate that any activity compromising the quality of life in Detroit is intolerable,” the mayor said in a written statement to WXYZ.
Jackson said he rented a sedan, not an SUV, to drive for the rest of his trip to Detroit. He couldn’t remember the make. See more here.
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Payne: The irony of Jesse Jackson’s stripped SUV
Henry Payne, The Michigan View.com
Add Jesse Jackson’s ride to prominent vehicles being stripped in Detroit. Following the embarrassing news that Mayor Dave Bing’s GMC Yukon was hijacked by criminals this week, Detroit’s Channel 7 reports that the Reverend’s Caddy Escalade SUV was stolen and stripped of its wheels while he was in town last weekend with the UAW’s militant President Bob King leading the “Jobs, Justice, and Peace” march promoting government-funded green jobs.
Read that again: Jackson’s Caddy SUV was stripped while he was in town promoting green jobs.
Add Jesse to the Al Gore-Tom Friedman-Barack Obama School of Environmental Hypocrisy. While preaching to Americans that they need to cram their families into hybrid Priuses to go shopping for compact fluorescent light bulbs to save the planet, they themselves continue to live large.
“We need an economy that creates employment that can’t be shipped overseas,” the Green Rev wrote for CNN about the march. “Home-grown American labor will be installing windmills and solar panels. A green economy is not an abstract concept.”
Well, its certainly abstract to Jesse, but I digress.
“Even now, the only sector of the economy that has seen job growth during the recession is the green job sector. Time is of the essence.”
Actually, time long ago passed Detroit by because Jesse’ favored government mpg mandates and UAW wages stripped the Big Three’s ability to compete against non-union transplants. These jobs were real - unlike the artificial, government subsidized green jobs he shakes down the feds for today. Real jobs produced big, profitable SUVs like the one Jesse prefers to ride in. His SUV has been stripped by thugs - a fitting metaphor for what Jesse and his pals have done to the auto industry for the last 35 years.
Henry Payne is editor of The Michigan View.com
By Dr. Benny Peiser, CCNet
Excerpts from the Times of India Interview with IPCC Head Rajendra Pachauri
TOI: Anything in the UN probe report you completely or partly disagree with?
RP: They have talked about quantifying uncertainties. To some extent, we are doing that, though not perfectly. But the issue is that in some cases, you really don’t have a quantitative base by which you can attach a probability or a level of uncertainty that defines things in quantitative terms. And there, let’s not take away the importance of expert judgment. And that is something the report has missed or at least not pointed out.
TOI: Does this raise a larger issue of how science is used by society? And is there a political guidance to it?
RP: Sure…
TOI: Stifling politics out of science, does that make it devoid of its real social purpose?
RP: Let’s face it, we are an intergovernmental body and our strength and acceptability of what we produce is largely because we are owned by governments. If that was not the case, then we would be like any other scientific body that maybe producing first-rate reports but don’t see the light of the day because they don’t matter in policy-making. Now clearly, if it’s an inter-governmental body and we want governments’ ownership of what we produce, obviously they will give us guidance of what direction to follow, what are the questions they want answered.
Unfortunately, people have completely missed the original resolution by which IPCC was set up. It clearly says that our assessment should include realistic response strategies. If that is not an assessment of policies, then what does it represent?
And I am afraid, we have been, in my view, defensive in coming out with a whole range of policies and I am not saying we prescribe policy A or B or C but on the basis of science, we are looking at realistic response strategies. But that is exactly what this committee has recommended that we get out of — policy prescriptions. It is for this reason that I brought out that this what is written in the IPCC mandate. This is a misperception on the part of some people in the scientific community. And I hope I can correct it.
TOI: What are the new elements in the next climate assessment report (due in 2014)?
RP: Some of things that are certainly going to be included this time are issues of equity. It’s yet to be accepted by the panel, so I can’t really say definitely. At the meeting, we dwelt at length on Article 2 of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which says the central objective of the convention is to prevent the anthropogenic interference with the climate system which is in terms of ecosystem, ensuring food security and ensuring that development can take place. These are three central pillars. This is something that science can’t answer. Because what is perceived as dangerous, depends on value judgements. But science can provide as much information as possible by which the negotiators and decision-makers can decide what is dangerous and we are trying very hard to get this together.
TOI: Aren’t you treading on more dangerous territory with this, because this is the most contentious bit of the negotiations - the North South divide?
RP: It is but I also believe this is something the IPCC must do. And I must say I owe it to what has happened over the past few months that I have certainly shed any inhibitions or feelings of cowardice. I believe this is now my opportunity to go out and do what I think is right. In the second term I may be little more uncomfortable for the people than I was in the first. Maybe they realize it.
TOI: So the issue of equity is central to the next report?
RP: Certainly, but not only equity, we have also used the word ‘ethics’. There are certain ethical dimensions, even of the scientific assessment of climate change which we are going to try and assess.
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Editorial: Climate Of Uncertainty
The Wall Street Journal, 2 September 2010
On Monday an independent review found that the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has downplayed uncertainties surrounding climate science. The review also found that the IPCC needs more robust safeguards against conflicts of interest, that it had committed “unnecessary errors” by failing to meet its own standards, that it had inadequately flagged its use of nonscientific sources, that it made claims with “high confidence” based on “weak evidentiary basis,” and that it gave short shrift to dissenting scientists.
And for all that, the review added that the IPCC “has been successful overall and has served society well.”
This week’s report, in keeping with three earlier investigations into the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, limited its inquiry to the “processes and procedures” of the IPCC. While it found those wanting, it also saw no need to question their scientific result.
That’s too bad, since the state of the science has moved on considerably since the IPCC concluded in its 2007 report that climate change was “unequivocal.” A forthcoming paper in Annals of Applied Statistics details the uncertainties in trying to reconstruct historical temperatures using proxy data such as tree rings and ice cores. Statisticians Blakeley McShane and Abraham Wyner find that while proxy records may relate to temperatures, when it comes to forecasting the warming observed in the last 30 years, “the proxies do not predict temperature significantly better than random series generated independently of temperature.”
Also, last month, New Phytologist published a series of papers examining the Amazon rain forest’s vulnerability to drought, following years of increasingly dire predictions that anthropogenic carbon emissions and global warming will kill off Amazon trees. Climatologist Peter Cox, a co-author on four of those papers, told us, “One of the things that turns out to be important is the extent to which tropical forests respond positively to CO2 increases.”
The specifics of that relationship remain “a key uncertainty,” Mr. Cox said, and recent findings have raised more questions than they’ve answered. But the fact that higher CO2 levels can make plants more efficient at using water means that not only might rain forests survive CO2-induced drought better than previously thought, but that carbon emissions overall might even be good for rain forests, up to a point. That’s news, even if it has been little reported.
And while you’ve probably heard (frequently) that this summer appears to be the warmest on record, you may not have been told that an unusually cold spell in the Antarctic brought a chill to southern South America and is responsible for the deaths of six million fish and thousands of alligators, turtles and river dolphins, according to Nature News.
None of this proves or disproves anything, except that our understanding of how our climate works is still evolving. Is it too much to ask the climate establishment to acknowledge as much?