The Heat Is On: Global Warming Conference This Weekend

This news just in: “Last year was the warmest the world has experienced since records began more than a century ago, the United States space agency, NASA, revealed last night… Mr Hansen [James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies,] blamed a build-up of heat-trapping greenhouse gases for making Earth heat up by just over 1F in the past 30 years.”

The evidence keeps mounting that greenhouse gases resulting from energy production, such as the kind CUB helps monitor, are changing the planet we live on in dangerous ways.

For electric power in the U.S. alone, 2-1/2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) are produced in a single year. This is a large amount of carbon dioxide, but perhaps not a surprising number since approximately 50% of American electricity produced comes from coal generation, a major source of CO2. (These numbers apply to most recent year available, 2004, taken from the Energy Information Administration.) Of all the facts in dispute regarding global warming, it seems pretty clear by now that large quantities of carbon dioxide emissions, along with sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions, are contributing mightily to the observable environmental changes that spell climate disruption and possible extinction for many species. Addressing this problem must include a change in how we produce electricity.

That work is being carried out in our region by groups such as The Climate Trust, the Energy Trust of Oregon, The Greenhouse Network, and many others. Founded by Professor Eban Goodstein of Lewis & Clark College, The Greenhouse Network is sponsoring a conference on global warming this weekend, the 14th conference on global warming the group has pulled together in the past 5 years! The Northwest Climate Education and Action Workshop begins on Friday afternoon at Lewis & Clark College and will continue throughout Saturday and on into Sunday morning.

As you might expect, CUB will be there to discuss clean energy. On Saturday morning at 9:30, CUB Staff Attorney Jason Eisdorfer will discuss Clean Energy Initiatives, such as carbon allowance standards, Oregon’s existing Public Purpose Fund, the Portfolio of Energy Options offered by PGE and Pacific Power (putting them in the top 5 renewable purchasers nationwide), the West Coast Governors’ Global Warming Initiative, and how to enhance our already-successful energy programs. Jason will form a panel with K.C. Golden of Climate Solutions and Chris Hagerbaumer of Oregon Environmental Council.

Then at 10:15 a.m., Jeff Bissonnette, CUB’s Organizing Director, will take the stage to discuss Clean Energy & Electoral Politics, because it is important to be thoughtful about the policy that will bring about positive change, but it is just as crucial to be savvy about the politics that can make it happen. Joining the panel with Jeff will be Jefferson Smith of the Bus Project and Amy Hojnowski with National Environmental Trust.

In an article that discusses the politics surrounding global warming, Professor Goodstein writes: “A clean energy agenda is a way to stitch together many ... progressive themes:  rewiring the world with safe, clean energy would create millions of new jobs, deprive Middle East terrorists of their source of funding, address the asthma crisis in our cities, stop oil drilling in sensitive habitat, and begin to stabilize the global climate.” We agree.

That is why we fought against PacifiCorp’s recent request to gain Public Utility Commission approval for a new pulverized coal generation plant. We argued that, with an already coal-heavy energy portfolio, PacifiCorp would be adding fuel to the fire of global warming, and exposing customers to unknown future financial risks (due to carbon regulation expected to be implemented within the next decade). This week, the PUC decided against acknowledgement of the new coal plant. We thank our allies in this battle for our shared victory: Renewable Northwest Project, Northwest Energy Coalition, and the Oregon Department of Energy.

The battle will continue on many fronts, large-scale electricity generation being only one of them. If you would like to learn more about the opportunities for cleaning up our energy policy, an absolutely necessary step for ourselves and our children, come out this weekend to the Northwest Climate Education and Action Workshop at Lewis & Clark College. Because, as climate expert Ross Gelbspan says, The Heat Is On.

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