2008 Top Green Stories

[Mrs. Sharon B. Hodge]

2008 Top Green Stories


1. Election of Barack Obama
by Bryan Walsh

When the presidential campaigns began, greens might have thought they'd win either way: Both Barack Obama and John McCain were on record supporting strong action on climate change — and McCain could even point to his co-sponsorship of one of the first carbon cap-and-trade bills in Congress. But as the campaign wore on, the details set them apart. McCain re-entered the fold of the Republican orthodoxy, chanting "Drill, baby, drill" along with the best of the fossil-fuel enthusiasts, while Obama built a compelling program around alternative-energy investment to create viable green jobs. As President-elect, he's pledged to put energy at the forefront of his agenda — and says he won't back down on cap-and-trade even in the face of the recession. If Obama can pull that off, he'll be America's first truly green President.

2. Congress Passes Renewable Energy Credits

The federal tax credits that helped build the solar and wind industries in the U.S. were temporary and set to expire by the end of 2008, which would have decimated the renewable energy industry just as it was poised for serious growth. All year, partisan gridlock repeatedly prevented Congress from passing laws that would have extended the credits — without which the renewable energy can't compete with cheap fossil fuels, as long as there's no price on carbon pollution. It wasn't until the credits were tacked onto the $700 billion economic bailout bill in October that they were finally passed, and then only as an afterthought — which pretty much describes where renewables rank on the list of America's priorities. But given that the alternative is the end of their industry, executives of solar and wind companies won't complain.

3. Offshore Drilling Debate

The Republican chant reverberated this summer from Anchorage to Miami: "Drill, baby, drill." And despite the endless analysis proving that offshore drilling would have little effect on the sky-high price of gas, the slogan caught fire. Even in green Santa Barbara, Calif., where a devastating oil spill in 1969 helped rally public support against offshore drilling, county officials in August voted in favor of opening coastal waters to petroleum exploration. But with Obama in the White House and Democrats in control of Congress — not to mention the fact that oil prices are less than half what they were in June when President George W. Bush called on Congress to allow offshore drilling — coastal waters are likely safe for now. The very volume of that chant, however, means the debate is far from over.

4. Failure of Warner-Lieberman

It never had a chance. With President Bush firmly opposed, the first national carbon cap-and-trade legislation to reach a full vote in the Senate was never going to make it into law. Initially, environmentalists considered it a victory that the bill — co-sponsored by Joseph Lieberman, an independent Democrat, and John Warner, a veteran Republican — had even made it to the Senate floor. But then came the debate. With gas prices at near-record levels, critics in the Senate argued that a cap on carbon emissions would raise energy prices on American consumers. Economists disagreed, but the doubters won out, and the bill fell a dozen votes short of the 60 needed to beat a Republican filibuster. Obama has said he'll try again, with a strengthened Democratic Senate majority — but don't bet on this bill passing in the middle of an economic meltdown.

5. New Rules Put a Freeze Coal Plants

Dirty, cheap coal provides 49% of the electricity in the U.S. and 30% of the country's carbon emissions — which means that if the more than 100 new coal plants currently in the development pipeline get built, the planet is doomed to get warmer. That's what made a decision on Nov. 13 by an obscure appeals board at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) so important. Responding to a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club over a new coal plant being built in Utah, the board ruled that the EPA had no grounds to refuse to regulate the CO2 emitted by new coal plants. Immediately, that made it virtually impossible for the EPA to certify any new coal plant, freezing development. In the long term, it gives the incoming Obama Administration an opening to force the coal industry to clean up — or shut down.

6. Ethanol Bubble Bursts

For all the green fantasies about endless solar panels and sprawling wind farms, the only alternative energy truly to achieve scale in the U.S. has been humble corn ethanol. Thanks chiefly to generous federal corn subsidies, ethanol has become a $32 billion industry, with scores of refining plants scattered throughout the Midwest and a quarter of the nation's corn crop turned into fuel. But in 2008, several new scientific studies undercut ethanol's green credentials, while the poor around the world came to blame record high food prices on the biofuel boom. Inevitably, the bubble burst — overinvestment led to a collapse in ethanol prices, even as fuel costs rapidly declined from their summer highs. Respected investors like Bill Gates who had sunk money into ethanol plants lost millions. Although government subsidies ensure that ethanol isn't going anywhere, the dream that the U.S. would replace oil fields with cornfields is surely dead.

7. Polar Bear Listed

f there were a prize for grudging environmentalism, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne would win hands down. On May 14, Kempthorne announced that the polar bear would be listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), making it the first animal to be listed due to global warming: As temperatures rise, the Arctic sea ice that is the polar bear's habitat recedes, putting them in danger. Yet Kempthorne emphasized that the listing would in no way be used to force reductions in U.S. carbon emissions — even though the point of the ESA is protect endangered species, and in the polar bear's case, the danger comes from greenhouse gas emissions. But with the polar bear being only the first of countless species that will be endangered by global warming, expect the ESA to become a potent weapon against CO2.

8. Indonesia Warms to Avoided Deforestation
By BRYAN WALSH

Tree loss accounts for at least 20% of global carbon emissions. What would help cap that output is an international market — similar to that in the power industry or manufacturing — that allows tropical nations to preserve their rainforests in exchange for selling the carbon emissions contained within them. That doesn't exist, in part because major tropical countries like Brazil and Indonesia have been reluctant to accept international carbon finance, for fear of losing control over their natural resources. But Indonesia — the world's third biggest carbon emitter, thanks chiefly to its high deforestation rates — now seems ready to open up. At California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's climate summit in November, Indonesian officials announced their government would set up a regulatory framework for carbon forestry programs, and signed an agreement with California to help shepherd those projects. Translation: Indonesia appears ready to help wealthy California help Indonesia preserve its rapidly dwindling rainforests — and the climate will benefit.

9. First CO2 Auction

Greens agree that the most politically feasible way to put a price on U.S. carbon pollution is to install a cap-and-trade program. But when American utilities and other major emitters are simply given free permits to emit greenhouse gases, the effect of the carbon cap is dulled. That's why the first carbon auction in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative — a pact by 10 northeastern states to cut carbon emissions jointly — was so important. Utilities in the region bid $38.5 million for the right for emit 12.5 million tons of CO2, generating revenue that the states will be able to put toward climate change action. More important, by forcing utilities to buy emission allowances, the government sends a signal that their carbon caps will have teeth — something to consider when Obama takes his run at national cap-and-trade legislation in 2009.

10. Word of the Year: 'Hypermiling'

Real men hypermile. That's the "attempt to maximize gas mileage by making fuel-conserving adjustments to one's car and one's driving techniques," according to the Oxford American Dictionary, which named "hypermiling" the 2008 word of the year. (It beat out terms like "staycation" and "frugalista.") Hypermiling techniques include keeping tires perfectly inflated, killing engines at stoplights, turning off the air-conditioning and driving at a steady speed, with as little rapid acceleration or deceleration as possible. Originally coined in 2004 by a driver named Wayne Gerdes, who has earned several gas-mileage records, hypermiling really caught on in 2008 as gas prices passed $4 a gallon in much of the country. While few drivers are prepared to go as far as the hardiest hypermilers — they'll even coast downhill with the engine off, which is far from safe — the growing popularity of hybrids and smaller cars shows that fuel efficiency is no passing trend.