Politics, Energy and Why It Matters

That the US consumes 25% of the world's resources makes any consideration of energy crucial to begin at home with us as individuals and our municipality.

Even as the Middleboro Board of Selectmen are supporting a massive energy and resource glutton in the proposed casino, they have yet to address municipal energy consumption in a cash strapped budget. Other towns have done it. Why not Middleboro? Taunton saved $570,000.

The plight of endangered species represents ecosystems in distress. Those ecosystems no longer suitable for species that have evolved to survive over millions of years represent environmental destruction that is becoming less habitable for the human species. So while some dismiss the tree-huggers, they overlook that as a species, we are successfully destroying the environment that sustains our very survival.

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Continuing to invade other nations, employ the US military as mercenaries for oil companies and drilling ourselves to destruction won't solve the problem.

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The solutions begin with indiviuals understanding the issues and reducing household consumption in simple ways, beginning with CFLs (compact fluorescent lights), and minor additional changes, like reducing Junk Mail. Although a personal annoyance, if 1,000 Middleboro households reduced their Junk Mail, that's 41,000 POUNDS that doesn't require disposal or recycling or transport.

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Your individual commitment to empty your mailbox of unwanted solicitations might seem trivial until the magnitude of the potential is presented. That's more than 20 TONS when combined with others.

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Information has previously been posted about stopping Junk Mail
Previous LINK

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Household lighting accounts for ~ 15% of electric consumption. Local Middleboro stores offer an assortment of CFLs for ~ $1.00. Don't have the money to replace every bulb in the house at once? First replace those bulbs that are left on the most - for night lights, for safety like stairway illumination. But DO IT!

The following are some of the articles posted:

Wind Energy and Middleboro

Not in Middleboro! #2

Not in Middleboro!

Where is Middleboro?

Energy Resources

Energy Savings? Not in Middleboro

Politics, Energy, Vested Interests, Consumers Come Last

NESEA
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The greatest acknowledgement by scientists today is that the problems of global warming were UNDERESTIMATED.

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Below are an array of articles addressing the issue.

The American Denial of Global Warming
(#13459; 58 minutes; 12/12/2007)Polls show that between one-third and one-half of Americans still believe that there is "no solid" evidence of global warming, or that if warming is happening it can be attributed to natural variability. Others believe that scientists are still debating the point. Join scientist and renowned historian Naomi Oreskes as she describes her investigation into the reasons for such widespread mistrust and misunderstanding of scientific consensus and probes the history of organized campaigns designed to create public doubt and confusion about science. YouTube
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Cape Wind Energy Project Project Description and Status

The MMS Public Connect on-line commenting system may be used to submitted electronically. To navigate to the comments, from this page click Quick Search; type in Cape Wind. The MMS has received a request from Cape Wind Associates, LLC (CWA) for a lease, easement or right-of-way to construct and operate a wind park located in Federal waters 4.7 miles offshore Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Landfall for the transmission cable would be in Barnstable County.
The MMS will accept written comments from the public until March 20. In addition, MMS will receive comments at public hearings in Hyannis/Yarmouth, Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and Boston, Massachusetts. MMS

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A new energy future for MassachusettsWe may finally be at a breakthrough moment for energy policy in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Legislature has debated major changes to our energy policy in the past few months. And with growing alarm over global warming, energy security and skyrocketing oil prices, our leaders on Beacon Hill are making a change. Environment Massachusetts

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From the NYT:
February 10, 2008

Editorial Clean Power or Dirty Coal?

Opposition to new coal-fired power plants built without new technology — that is, without the capacity to capture greenhouse gas emissions — is rising on both Wall Street and Main Street. Citizen opposition has led companies to cancel some high-profile projects, including a proposed plant near the Florida Everglades. Pressure from environmental organizations has persuaded major banks to begin weighing the risks of global warming when deciding whether to finance new plants. This is good news. Coal-fired power plants are big contributors to global warming. In the United States alone, they generate half the country’s electricity and nearly a third of its emissions. Meanwhile, scientists have left no doubt that the world has just a few years to make deep cuts in emissions or begin to suffer the worst consequences of rising temperatures. This means that scientists will have to figure out a way to capture carbon dioxide from coal plants, or coal will have to be replaced with cleaner fuels.
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John Kerry
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MassAudubon
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GreenPeace
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Rural casinos leave a huge carbon footprint

By George Bachrach and Philip Warburg February 11, 2008 Globe
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Court overturns mercury emissions plan February 09, 2008 6:00 AM WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court struck down a Bush administration policy exempting power plants from certain environmental regulations. The court said the policy was unlawful. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit negated a rule known as cap-and-trade. That policy allows power plants that fail to meet emission targets to buy credits from plants that did, rather than having to install their own mercury emissions controls. The rule was to go into effect in 2010. ST
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No climate for old men

Why John McCain is not the candidate to stop global warming.

By Joseph Romm Feb. 08, 2008

Sen. John McCain is the only GOP candidate who believes in the science of global warming and who has proposed specific legislation that mandates a reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, especially carbon dioxide. That said, a President McCain would not be the climate leader that America and the world requires. As increasingly desperate climate scientists have been telling us, the effects of global warming are occurring faster than anyone had thought possible. The next president must make reducing GHG emissions a central focus of his or her administration if we want to avoid the worst impacts of global warming: catastrophic sea level rise, widespread drought and desertification, and loss of up to 70 percent of all species. While McCain may understand the scale of the climate problem, he does not appear to understand the scale of the solution. He understands the country needs to put in place a mandatory cap on GHG emissions and a trading system to energize American innovation. But in a recent Republican debate, he denied that a cap and trade system is a mandate, even though it would arguably be the most far-reaching government mandate ever legislated. Salon
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Global Climate Change Response Can Spur $7 Trillion in Clean Energy Investment by 2030: CERA Analysis
February 5, 2008 In “Launch Pad” scenario, Renewable Power & Biofuels Could Supply 16% of Global Electric & Transportation Fuel Needs by 2030. Press Release CAMBRIDGE, Mass.
Increasing public concerns about climate change -- and its potential economic and political security consequences -- are driving public policy and private investment to bring clean energy technologies from the fringes of the global energy industry to the center of activities as quickly as possible, a new analysis by Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) has concluded. CERA
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Democrats Push "Green" Energy Tax Breaks
By Noam N. Levey
The Los Angeles Times Tuesday 05 February 2008 Their proposal is part of an effort to expand the multibillion-dollar economic stimulus package. Washington - As Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus talked up his proposal Monday to expand a multibillion-dollar economic stimulus package, he spoke of the need to help seniors, disabled veterans and the unemployed. There was just one industry the Montana Democrat singled out for special assistance: renewable energy. As Senate Democrats push ahead with legislation to blunt a possible recession, they are trying to get support for tax breaks for wind-farm developers, builders of more efficient appliances and businesses that install fuel cells. TO
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Scientists identify 'tipping points' of climate change
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Tuesday, 5 February 2008 Nine ways in which the Earth could be tipped into a potentially dangerous state that could last for many centuries have been identified by scientists investigating how quickly global warming could run out of control. A major international investigation by dozens of leading climate scientists has found that the "tipping points" for all nine scenarios – such as the melting of the Arctic sea ice or the disappearance of the Amazon rainforest – could occur within the next 100 years. Independent
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Is There a Plan for Life After Peak Oil?
The Last Straw Posted February 12, 2008 A new generation of biofuels turns out to be another environmental disaster

By George Monbiot.

Published in the Guardian

12th February 2008

Now they might start sitting up. They wouldn’t listen to the environmentalists or even the geologists. Can governments ignore the capitalists? A report published last week by Citibank, and so far unremarked by the media, proposes “genuine difficulties” in increasing the production of crude oil, “particularly after 2012.”(1) Though 175 big drilling projects will start in the next four years, “the fear remains that most of this supply will be offset by high levels of decline”. The oil industry has scoffed at the notion that oil supplies might peak, but “recent evidence of failed production growth would tend to shift the burden of proof onto the producers”, as they have been unable to respond to the massive rise in prices. “Total global liquid hydrocarbon production has essentially flatlined since mid 2005 at just north of 85 million barrels per day.”
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Bracken Hendricks, author of Apollo's Fire: Igniting America's Clean Energy Economy

Date: 2/20/2008 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm Location: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Building 35 (Sloan Laboratory), Room 225, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg?selection=35&Buildings=go. Cost: Free

Bracken Hendricks will be in Boston for a reading & signing of the book he co-authored with U.S. Representative Jay Inslee, "Apollo's Fire: Igniting America's Clean Energy Economy" (Island Press).

In the book, they argue that the kind of leadership that put men on the moon in 1969 is the kind of leadership we need today to free ourselves from our fossil fuel dependency. Following the reading will be a question and answer session and a book signing. Co-sponsoring environmental organizations will also briefly discuss the missions of their organizations and current projects. Nexus
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The Center for Public Integrity
Here’s the report that top officials of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention thought was too hot for the public to handle—and the story behind it.
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Here’s the report that top officials of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention thought was too hot for the public to handle—and the story behind it.

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Admit it: You don’t know where the !@#$% Tajikistan is

Published February 12th, 2008 in Articles
by Greg Palast

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Or Kyrgyzstan. Or Turkmenistan. But as your kids will be fighting there among the oil pipes, you should kiss Ted Rall’s crazy ass for going there first - and getting it all down in a book of dead-on cartoons and reportage, Silk Road to Ruin.

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....what Rall’s story is about is what everything’s all about: oil. The ‘Stans are drenched in it, floating on it, or in the way of it. Thus, the book’s sub-title, “Is Central Asia the New Middle East?”

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THE 3R'S STILL RULE

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Nobel Laureate Urges Oil Cos To Help Cut Emissions
US: February 14, 2008
HOUSTON - Rajendra Pachauri said he thought he was "walking into the lion's den" Tuesday when he told oil executives they need to take a lead in cutting greenhouse gas emissions in order to save the earth. PlanetArk

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PublicCitizen

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Improving Our Green Job Prospects

By Kelpie Wilson

t r u t h o u t Environment Editor
Friday 15 February 2008
On the one hand we have a deepening economic recession, a mortgage and debt crisis, and rising unemployment. On the other hand is the growing energy and climate crisis, shadowed by the specters of peak oil and planetary meltdown. Rising prices for energy, food and health care are hitting the poor and middle class hard. We have ourselves in quite a mess.

The Bush-Cheney record speaks for itself, as does the John McCain record. McCain played a linchpin role in the two most recent Republican filibusters of renewable energy programs. He failed to show up and vote for the strong version of the energy bill in December when the Democrats had 59 votes for the bill and McCain's vote for renewable energy would have ended the filibuster. On February 6, McCain did it again - went AWOL when the Democrats had 59 votes to add green jobs to the stimulus package. Not only that, but according to the Sierra Club, his office is lying about the vote, claiming that he voted for clean energy when he did not. TO

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Let There Be (Fluorescent) Light UCSUSA

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