Planetary Ruin

Climate change hardly qualifies as good news for anyone. But for advocates of nuclear energy, these are practically glory days. As the urgency of combating global warming has risen, even environmentalists and politicians who may have once chained themselves to the reactor gates are taking another look at the industry that has languished in regulatory and PR hell since the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979. The reason? Nuclear energy, which now generates 20 percent of the nation’s electricity, does not produce greenhouse gases. “If you believe that climate change is the issue of our generation, then it’s disingenuous to say that nuclear energy is off the table,” says Bill Chameides, chief scientist for Environmental Defense, who admits his own position on the issue has evolved from “skeptical” to “agnostic.”

He’s not alone. The Energy Policy Act of 2005, supported by Democrats and Republicans alike, includes generous subsidies and tax credits for nuclear and other non-fossil fuels. President George W. Bush has consistently called for a revival of nuclear plant construction as a way of boosting domestic energy production-and curbing greenhouse gases. Even Al Gore recently told a House committee, “I am not an absolutist in being opposed to nuclear.”

Approval—or at least acceptance—also runs through the presidential field. Republican presidential hopefuls John McCain and Rudy Giuliani are both strong proponents of nuclear power. Democratic contender John Edwards said at a recent CNN/YouTube debate that he is opposed to nuclear energy because of concerns over cost and waste disposal, but his competitors have been noticeably less critical. At the same debate, Hillary Clinton also described herself as a nuclear energy “agnostic,” while Barack Obama went further, with a call to “explore nuclear power as part of the energy mix.” Obama and Clinton have joined McCain as co-sponsors of the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act of 2007, which includes an additional $3 billion in funding and loan guarantees for the construction of nuclear plants using next-generation designs that improve efficiency. A2006poll sponsored by the nuclear industry (and conducted by the same firm that works for Clinton) found that public approval for nuclear energy rose significantly when those surveyed were told that the plants emit zero greenhouse gases.

For the nuclear industry, all this means that the political climate has not been more favorable in years.To bolster its powerful lobby on Capitol Hill, the industry recently launched a new public relations offensive, hiring former Bush EPA chief Christie Todd Whitman and former Greenpeace co-founder Dr. Patrick Moore as spokespeople. Moore, who quit Greenpeace years ago after a dispute, has since rebuked his former allies in the green movement for spreading “misinformation and hysteria” about nuclear energy during the 1970s and 80s. “I was caught up in the anti-nuclear fervor of the time in which we failed to distinguish between peaceful and military uses of nuclear technology,” Moore told Newsweek. “I’m sorry I did that.” Moore , an ecologist, says all other non-fossil energy sources “pale in comparison” to nuclear, which he expects will eventually provide half of the nation’s electricity. (Solar generated less than 0.01 percent last year.)

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Sen. Barbara Boxer had been chair of the Senate’s Environment Committee for less than a month when the verdict landed last February. “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal,” concluded a report by 600 scientists from governments, academia, green groups and businesses in 40 countries. Worse, there was now at least a 90 percent likelihood that the release of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels is causing longer droughts, more flood-causing downpours and worse heat waves, way up from earlier studies. Those who doubt the reality of human-caused climate change have spent decades disputing that. But Boxer figured that with “the overwhelming science out there, the deniers’ days were numbered.” As she left a meeting with the head of the international climate panel, however, a staffer had some news for her. A conservative think tank long funded by ExxonMobil, she told Boxer, had offered scientists $10,000 to write articles undercutting the new report and the computer-based climate models it is based on. “I realized,” says Boxer, “there was a movement behind this that just wasn’t giving up.”

If you think those who have long challenged the mainstream scientific findings about global warming recognize that the game is over, think again. Yes, 19 million people watched the “Live Earth” concerts last month, titans of corporate America are calling for laws mandating greenhouse cuts, “green” magazines fill newsstands, and the film based on Al Gore’s best-selling book, “An Inconvenient Truth,” won an Oscar. But outside Hollywood, Manhattan and other habitats of the chattering classes, the denial machine is running at full throttle—and continuing to shape both government policy and public opinion.

Since the late 1980s, this well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks and industry has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change. Through advertisements, op-eds, lobbying and media attention, greenhouse doubters (they hate being called deniers) argued first that the world is not warming; measurements indicating otherwise are flawed, they said. Then they claimed that any warming is natural, not caused by human activities. Now they contend that the looming warming will be minuscule and harmless. “They patterned what they did after the tobacco industry,” says former senator Tim Wirth, who spearheaded environmental issues as an under secretary of State in the Clinton administration. “Both figured, sow enough doubt, call the science uncertain and in dispute. That’s had a huge impact on both the public and Congress.”

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Montgomery County officials are looking into whether a bond can be issued to pay for greenhouse gas reduction projects as part of a larger strategy to fight global warming.

Although local governments regularly float bonds to pay for large long-term projects, it’s not clear if cutting global climate change fits into a pre-existing category.

“The county can only do what the Legislature said it can do in writing. … We just can’t willy-nilly do whatever we want,” Montgomery County Commissioners’ Chairman Tom Ellis said at Thursday’s meeting.

Without a national strategy to cut greenhouses gases, state, county and local governments are going ahead with their own plans to curb climate change. Many have urged their citizens to do likewise.

Philadelphia has already adopted a greenhouse gas reduction plan, and Bucks and Delaware counties are both looking into doing so, said Steve Nelson, the county’s deputy chief operating officer.

Global warming falls within the county’s general purview of health, safety and general welfare because the potential effects include increased rainfall and flooding, as well as extremely hot days, Nelson said.

Armed with a graduate student’s thesis about changes Montgomery County can make, a task force appointed in January is expected to report back on its recommendations by the end of the year. It will set emissions targets for 2012, 2017 and 2025.

Montgomery County’s emissions history is not encouraging. From 1990 to 2004, carbon dioxide emissions in the county grew 34 percent while population only rose 14 percent, Nelson said.

“As you can see, the trendline is not going in the direction we would want it to,” he said.

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Iraq’s electricity grid could collapse any day because of insurgent sabotage, rising demand, fuel shortages and provincial officials who are unplugging local power stations from the national system, electricity officials said on Saturday.
U.S. President George W. Bush, meanwhile, was busy on the phone, calling Vice president Adel Abdel-Mahdi and President Jalal Talabani, urging political unity in the country, where the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is under a stiff challenge.
Abdel-Mahdi, a Shiite, and Talabani, a Kurd, provided few details of the conversations in statements released by their offices. But both men have been involved in trying to solve a government crisis after Iraq’s largest bloc of Sunni political parties ordered its ministers to quit the government.

For many Iraqi citizens, however, trying to stay cool or find sufficient drinking water was a more urgent problem. The Baghdad water supply already has been severely affected by power blackouts and cuts that have affected pumping and filtration stations.
And now water mains have gone dry in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, where the whole province south of Baghdad has been without power for three days. Power supplies in Baghdad have been sporadic all summer and now are down to just a few hours a day, if that.
«We no longer need to television documentaries about the stone age. We are actually living in it. We are in constant danger because of the filthy water and rotten food we are having,» said Hazim Obeid, who sells clothing at a stall in the Karbala market.
Aziz al-Shimari, the Electricity Ministry spokesman in Baghdad, said power generation nationally was only half of demand and that there had been four nationwide blackouts over the past two days.

«Many southern provinces, such as Basra, Diwaniyah, Nassiriyah, Babil have disconnected their power plants from the national grid. Northern provinces, including Kurdistan, are doing the same,» al-Shimari said.
He complained that the central government was unable to do anything about that or the fact that some provinces were failing to take themselves off the supply grid once they had consumed their daily ration of electricity.
Najaf province spokesman Ahmed Deibel confirmed to The Associated Press Sunday that the gas turbine generator there was removed from the national grid. He said the plant produced 50 megawatts while the province needed at least 200.
«What we produce is not enough even for us. We disconnected it from the national grid three days ago because the people in Baghdad were getting too much, leaving little electricity for Najaf,» he said.  Which confirmed al-Shimari’s charge that «we have absolutely no control over some areas in the south.

The conflict over electricity is a perennial problem in Iraq, which ironically sits atop one of the world’s largest crude oil reserves. The system became decrepit under Saddam Hussein whose regime was under a U.N. sanctions regime after the Gulf War and had trouble buying spare parts or the equipment to upgrade the system.
Al-Shimari said the electricity shortages now were the worst since the summer of 2003, shortly after the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam.
«And what makes Baghdad the worst place in the country is that most of the lines leading into the capital have been destroyed. That is compounded by the fact that Baghdad has limited generating capacity.

He said that there are 17 high-tension lines running into Baghdad but only two were operational. The rest had been sabotaged.

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From “An Inconvenient Truth” to popularizing the Prius, Hollywood has helped lead the way on some environmental issues. One of the latest initiatives: Cool Change, Fox’s company-wide program to reduce the network’s impact on global warming. As part of that effort, the seventh season of “24″ will take steps to reduce and offset the carbon emissions from the show’s production, with the goal of having the season finale be entirely carbon-neutral.

It may sound like a publicity stunt, but Fox spokesman Chris Anderson says the network isn’t after bigger ratings. “We are publicizing ’24’s’ commitment to climate change for two reasons and two reasons only: to inspire the public to take global warming seriously and hopefully to motivate other studios to make changes to their production practices as well,” he says.

After all, shooting on soundstages requires energy-hungry lighting and gear, and going on location means using portable generators and driving trucks, vans and cars loaded with equipment, costumes and people. When production on Season 7 begins this month, the show’s 26 diesel vehicles and five generators will run on a more planet-friendly biodiesel blend, which will start at 5 percent biodiesel and gradually increase, barring any problems, according to executive producer Howard Gordon.

The show’s electricity bills will go toward renewable-energy credits that will bring a share of wind, solar and water power to Los Angeles’s grid. A diesel-powered soundstage will be converted to electricity, thus lessening the show’s contribution to the local air pollution problem, and the show’s five location scouts will be given Priuses to drive. Scripts, schedules and memos — which used to be hand-delivered by car — will be sent via e-mail.

The “24″ page at Fox.com now features energy conservation tips and a public service announcement about global warming featuring Kiefer Sutherland; more information will be posted when the show airs in January. Plus, climate change will be incorporated into the series’ plot (which just might scare some viewers into taking action).

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