Fox and foreign press find fault but climate bill is progress

This week’s Media Mayhem column from the Mother Nature network.

I was so proud of the House of Representatives for its recent passage of legislation to tackle climate change. Finally.

27 GOP’ers run risks with ‘no’ vote on climate bill

Since Friday’s House vote, there’s been a lot of political reporting about how risky a “yeah” on the climate change bill would be for Democrats in conservative districts, or in districts that depend heavily on coal for their electricity.

If you take the climate vote in isolation, however, it seems more likely that more Republicans who voted against the bill will be vulnerable in 2010.

As the National Journal’s Ron Brownstein points out, 20 of 49 House Democrats from districts that Republican John McCain carried last November voted for the climate change bill. The vote could be used against Democrats in districts that lean Republican already, especially in states that are dependent on coal.

The reverse, Brownstein notes, is true for more Republicans:

In contrast with the Democrats from split districts, 27 of the 34 Republicans from Obama-districts held with their party and voted against the legislation. California crystallized that trend: Of the eight Republicans there in districts that Obama carried last year, only Mary Bono Mack from Palm Springs supported the bill.

When it came to the Republicans, however, Brownstein didn’t take that observation to the next level: Read more

Wait a sec’ … who’s biasing science around here?

The climate-change denial camp argues that “alarmist” scientists, industrialists and politicians are grotesquely biasing the debate because they stand to make so much money from legislation to limit greenhouse gases.

Well, if you stand to make money on something, and if you have the means to influence the debate, it stands to reason that you’d spend a lot to make a lot more on down the road. How else could you bias things?

Surprise. Surprise. The interests that stand to gain from doing nothing  about climate change (or close to nothing) are spending five to 10 times as much as the interests that want the country to take aggressive action. At least, that’s the case when it comes to lobbying expenditures. Read more

Climate contest — $175 reality vs. $3,100 fiction

In a rational world, the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that the Waxman-Markey climate bill will cost the average American family only $175 a year by 2020 would deflate arguments that the legislation is horribly expensive.

Well, better late than never for the CBO, I suppose. Last week’s study did get coverage in major news sources — except, of course, in Fox.

But I’m skeptical that the actual estimate of $175 will become the accepted number in popular culture.

For weeks, industry groups, anti-solution politicians and professional crisis deniers have been throwing around two numbers — $1,600 per year and $3,100 per year — as scare tactics. Read more

Heartland ads a last gasp for climate deniers?

This week’s newspaper ad campaign by the Heartland Institute is a last gasp in the losing efforts of climate-change skeptics, argues Mitchell Anderson of DeSmogBlog.

Let’s hope so, but I’ll only believe it when I see it.

Heartland is among the most prominent in a herd of “free-market” think tanks — often funded by the fossil fuel industry — that’s peddled the argument that there’s no scientific consensus on climate change.

Today, the organization wraps up three straight days of full page ads in the Washington Post in which it claims, among other things, that “politicians, environmental advocacy groups, and the media routinely ignore and silence the scientists, economists, and other experts who say global warming isn’t a crisis.”

The ads are designed to influence debate while Congress considers the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill. If they were all you read this week, you’d think that recent studies had poked holes in climate change science. Read more

Media Mayhem: A plague of ‘think tanks’

I write the Media Mayhem column every week for the Mother Nature Network. Here’s this week’s:

The Goliaths are crazed environmentalists, corrupt scientists and secret socialists, on a mission to manufacture a crisis so they can implement a stealth agenda of government control, toy-sized automobiles and pork-barrel grants — grants the scientists can then use to live off the hard-earned money of taxpayers forever.

Cue evil laugh track: Hah-hah-hah-hah-hah!

The Davids are the few brave souls who dare counter that juggernaut — that hoax — by pointing out that science is a complex endeavor, rife with unfulfilled hypotheses, and whose reputations have suffered because of their independence.

You may not see the debate that way. I sure don’t.

Whatever you and I think, though, the David/Goliath storyline, or something like it, will have more to do with the outcome of Congress’ current climate debate than will another dozen studies firming up the actual consensus that climate change is happening, is caused by humans, and is on a trajectory to lay a big whammy on civilization.

The Davids played their role in a Washington hotel last week at the Heartland Institute’s grandly named Third International Conference on Climate Change.

Read the rest of this column on the Mother Nature Network.

LOL GOP video: How not to appear cool

An unintentionally funny video of the GOP’s noble efforts to fight the Waxman-Markey climate change bill has got to cheer the bill’s supports. As Grist’s Kate Sheppard says:

Now the House Republican Conference has produced a “greatest hits” reel on their travels (and if these were the highlights, we’d hate to see the lowlights).  With melodramatic music and stiffs in suits, we think it could be the comedy sleeper hit of the summer.

I’m actually most fond of the red arrows that leap across the map from city to city, as if we’re in 1940s espionage drama.

Seriously: this can’t be for real. Did some congressmen con his colleagues to give the contract to make the video to his out-of-work grandpa?

Fox News turns a red herring into red meat

My first “Media Mayhem” column for the Mother Nature Network:

OK. Take a few deep breaths. Don’t get as worked up about these things as I do: This is how cable news coverage of the climate change bill that’s working its way through Congress will go for the next two months — at least in some media quarters.

Story continued on Mother Nature Network

Editorials say climate’s ripe for climate bill

The landmark climate-change bill approved by a key House committee may be a whipping boy for Fox News and Rush Limbaugh But the legislation won strongly favorable reviews last week on U.S. newspaper editorial pages.

If anything, the most searing (certainly the most cogent) criticism of the Waxman-Markey carbon “cap-and-trade” bill came from editorial writers who believe it doesn’t go far enough. Among those was Boston Globe:

[I]n an attempt to build broad support for the measure, sponsors Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Henry Waxman of California have given away too many allowances, reducing pressure on firms to curb their emissions. …

The bill’s supporters say auctioning off all allowances would put too many industries, such as steel, at a competitive disadvantage with foreign rivals. But a strong US climate-change bill would give US negotiators the clout they need in upcoming global climate talks to insist on similar reductions in other nations, leveling the economic playing field.

Favorable editorial treatment during just one step toward passage is just a snapshot. The legislation still hasn’t passed the full House, and in July, the Senate’s expected to become the real battleground over passage. Surely by then the Wall Street Journal will weigh in, as will other papers. Read more

Europeans stew and Chu over U.S. climate bill

Hey, guys give us a break.

Five days days after a key U.S. House committee approved landmark climate change legislation, European environmental groups are expected to greet Energy Secretary Steven Chu with protests. And Ban

OK, I know the Waxman-Markey bill, which includes a carbon cap-and-trade system and hard targets for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, ain’t perfect. And, yes, I was disappointed when Chu indicated last month that he wouldn’t fight some new coal power plants.

But a serious U.S. push — finally — to address carbon should be welcome. It gives both Europeans and enviros a chance to show that they’re not just scolds. A dose of positive reinforcement might actually help give the legislation some of the momentum it’ll need to make it’s way through the Senate.

Then, again the two biggest European governments are showing us the love in a way I’m not sure they should. They’re willing to let us off the hook for big (25 percent) carbon reductions just because we’ve been such laggards on the issue.

Don’t grade us on a curve when it looks as if everyone’s gonna need even bigger carbon reductions. At the same time, give us a bit of positive reinforcement. Headlines from Europe that show some appreciation for us finally doing might help build instill a bit of political will to do more.

This guy has it about right.