Friday Five: November 9, 2012

This week's election not only brought about a second term for an incumbent President and another divided Congress, but also some interesting ballot initiatives and some referenda on industries supporting certain candidates. In California, one measure to reform tax loopholes and use part of the additional revenue for energy efficiency won out...
Investor's political stock rises with second win
"Steyer crafted Proposition 39 so the money would be split between the state general fund and energy efficiency programs for the first five years. Democratic leaders endorsed the measure after they failed to get the loophole closed through the Legislature."

While candidates supported by a suddenly reeling coal industry had troubles that could lead to the adoption of a bi-partisan approach to solving climate issues through sound market forces.
Coal's election loss could mean gain for carbon tax
"It looks as if the U.S. may be uniting around an increasingly realistic view of the health, environmental and climate costs of burning coal. Add in the economic forces acting against coal at a time of low natural-gas prices, and there’s reason to think policy makers might now be encouraged to enact a tax on carbon emissions as part of a broader tax-reform package to help reduce the deficit."

Not all measures that made social and economic sense were able to pass, for as we learned yet again, one of the problems with a market economy is that it always favors incumbent industries over those seeking to reform or to replace. Even better ideas or solutions do not win out...only less expensive or better funded ones.
What we can learn from California's attempt to label GMOs
Does Michigan's clean energy loss mean greens are outgunned at the state level?
"You could even argue that the whole process was more about “sending a message” to food companies and politicians than it was about making sound policy. This is not to deny that passage of Prop 37 would have taken the food movement to a whole new level. But failing to get the initiative passed in California is far from a sign of significant political weakness, much less irrelevance."
"Opposing money wasn’t the only obstacle for Prop 3, of course. Five of the six initiatives on the ballot — the five aiming to amend the state constitution — were rejected by similar margins. It may be that Michigan voters simply became suspicious of all efforts to meddle with the constitution.
And it may be that they got sick of outside money flooding the state. Some $141 million was spent on ballot initiatives in the state this year — more than was spent on all Michigan races combined in 2010 — and from all reports the advertisements were incessant and annoying."

Regardless of the tool used to try to win political battles to move environmental issues to the forefront, this week taught us that lawmakers can no longer debate IF we should act...only HOW we should act.
Heat is on Congress
"Con­tin­ued in­dif­fer­ence to the is­sue of cli­mate change is a pre­scrip­tion for fail­ure. More than 100 sci­en­tists and pub­lic of­fi­cials im­plored Pres­i­dent Obama and GOP nom­i­nee Mitt Rom­ney to ad­dress the threat of ris­ing sea lev­els dur­ing their fi­nal de­bate last month, but the is­sue did not arise.
Res­i­dents of the Great Lakes re­gion may feel in­su­lated from any need to re­in­force South Flor­ida and Lou­i­si­ana coast­lines be­cause of higher sea lev­els. Yet the bil­lions of dol­lars it would cost to do this would af­fect all tax­pay­ers.
Mr. Obama ap­peared ready to make ma­jor in­roads on cli­mate change dur­ing his first two years in of­fice. Yet he has said too lit­tle about the mat­ter since the Re­pub­li­can victory in the 2010 elec­tion."

Because, as I have often said, the economic issues are a man-made concern...one that can be manipulated by the powerful for their own agenda. The consequences of inaction come from nature, and once nature is forced to respond, we have no say in the form and strength of that response.
Sandy's punch proves truth will out
"When elected officials fail to face the facts and deny the science underlying that reality, they delay, and perhaps permanently block, the best means to help their communities cope with future weather events and other natural disasters.
These examples would be funny if all they did was provide grist for late-night comedy shows. But here’s the problem: Softening the language or changing the words we use can often obscure what the problem actually is."

Happy Friday!