We don't need no stinkin' green badges

Big businesses appear to be having second thoughts about whether green is their color, and the state of Texas is going to court against the EPA butting into our state business.

Myron Ebell, director of energy and global warming policy for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, just had a pr firm send out an e-mailed comment from him about BP America, Conoco Phillips and Caterpillar dropping out of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership.

I don't know that he's right, but at least the Twitter world is abuzz with the "news."

Anyway, Myron's take is this on the big businesses.

They “are recognizing that cap-and-trade legislation is dead in the U. S. Congress and that global warming alarmism is collapsing rapidly. We hope that other major corporations will soon see the light and drop their support for cap-and-trade and other energy-rationing legislation,” Ebell said.

Not being tied into an industry mouthpiece group like Ebell, I can’t swear by all that, but the hits keep coming.

According to another industry group, the CLEAR Act that advocates a cap and dividend program in which greenhouse gasses are controlled but there’s no trading of carbon credits in a marketplace that could involve speculation by those Wall Street types is generating a huge buzz of lobbying in Washington.

Really? I wouldn’t have dreamed.

And then there’s the EPA opposition by the state of Texas. The good governor, attorney general and ag commissioner announced today they will lay siege on the U.S. Court of Appeals to challenge the EPA finding that greenhouse gasses are a danger, and we need federal regulations to curb them.

Of course, Texas’ argument is the same as the industry groups’ – money matters more. (Let the kids fend for themselves. We’ve got an empire to defend.)

Rick Perry, according to a news release, said this: “The EPA’s misguided plan paints a big target on the backs of Texas agriculture and energy producers and the hundreds of thousands of Texans they employ. This legal action is being taken to protect the Texas economy and the jobs that go with it, as well as defend Texas’ freedom to continue our successful environmental strategies free from federal overreach.”

Besides, Perry doesn't look good in green. He's more of a red-white-and-blue man.

But to be fair, the Texans at least offer a compromise to “just say no.” They want to continue developing alternative energy production with tax credits to multi-national companies.

Seems this could be another momentum switch as the carbon-laden winds blow another direction. Doesn’t mean we will see a resolution, just a shift in who thinks they’re winning the hearts and minds.

There’s billions of dollars involved, so the dancers should continue to swirl and twirl.

Get Smarter About Water

Ducks take off from the Taylor Lakes playa unit between Clarendon and Memphis. Courtesy Texas Parks & Wildlife.

The thousands of playa lakes across the plains, including the Panhandle, are scattered wet treasures in need of a little TLC to stay their best, and several groups have gotten together some presentations for landowners on what we’re talking about.

Classes, including lunch, will be from 11 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. on Feb. 3 in the Swisher Memorial Building at 127 S.W. Second St. in Tulia.

Playas are hangouts for all kinds of birds and provide what little recharge the Ogallala Aquifer gets. So it’s important to keep them healthy and happy.

“Since most playas are found on private land, landowner management is essential to maintaining and preserving playas as a linchpin in our precious water cycle,” said Darryl Birkenfeld, director of Ogallala Commons.

The workshop presentations will touch on depletion rates of the Ogallala, playa conservation programs, and techniques for playa grazing management. And best of all it’s free.

Dave Haukos, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service migratory bird specialist at Texas Tech University will begin with an overview. Kevin Mulligan, a Tech geographer, will talk about saturated thicknesses and depletion rates of the Ogallala. Manuel De Leon, wildlife biologist with the Natural Resource Conservation Service, will cover federal incentive programs like the Wetlands Reserve Program and the Grasslands Conservation Program. He will also discuss grazing practices that enhance playa functioning and increase wildlife habitat, according to a news release.

To reserve a place at this workshop, or for more information, contact Jeff Lewter, NRCS District Conservation in Tulia at 806-995-4126, ext.3.

The workshop is sponsored by Ogallala Commons, with its partners: the Natural Resource Conservation Service, Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, and Playa Lakes Joint Venture.

graphic from Playa Lake Joint Ventures

Cap and trade is so passé

There’s a push on to cut those nasty Wall Street people out of climate control in the U.S. It’s called cap and dividend as in there are still permits for businesses to belch global warming gasses, but the income generated through sales of the permits mostly go back to the public. They wouldn't be traded in the Chicago marketplace specially established for that and patterned after the Mercantile Exchange there.

Every energy conference I’ve been to has provoked questions about how to curb financial speculators in the market for carbon credits. You know, those people who like to make money for nothing. (I wish I hadn’t said that because the MTV song is in my head now, probably for hours.)

Continuing. The supporters of the proposal say while energy prices will go up under any cap system, especially as the permits shrink, allowing fewer emissions. The key is consumers under the dividend version get – dividends. They would amount to about 75 percent of the income the government gets for the permits. The rest of the green would go to environmental research.

The bad news is both the passed House version of climate legislation and the proposed Senate version are cap and trade. The good news is the new proposal would limit a business’ ability to use offsets, like planting trees in Sri Lanka, to make their emission quota. And then there's that limited trading of greenhouse gas permits.

The cap and dividend proposal has a Republican, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, as a co-sponsor, so maybe it would have some momentum since Republicans who support cap and trade are an endangered or extinct species. However, even if the Senate passes a dividend plan, they would have to negotiate with those House people who make those Wall Street people look like school kids.

Did somebody get the number of that bus?

Whew! When I say I feel like I got run over by a bus, I'm not joking.

Ever on the edge of sanity, the holidays on top of the crazed year of service I've had with the family took me down.

But no mas!

Here's a light start to build up momentum to do better in 2010. I know, heard it before, but here goes.

Want the easy road to green? Try out these actual books that came out this fall: The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Renewable Energy for Your Home
The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Greening Your Business
It's easy, really.

While I was contemplating these, I got sidetracked, kind of like reading three unrelated pages of the dictionary because of the cool stuff I see when I look up something like "jalap" (The dried root of a Mexican vine of the morning glory family, formerly used as a purgative, according to Webster's).

So on the sidetrack, I found these books (also actual) that came out this fall, just in time for Christmas cheer:

The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Creating a Graphic Novel
The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Connecting with Your Angels
The Complete Idiot’s Guide® Numerology Workbook
The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Getting Government Contracts
The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Making Money with Craigslist

So far, so good, but is this one really going to help if you need it?
The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Getting into Top Colleges

Can't imagine what this would be about without being gross.
The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Eating Clean

If you want to brush up on being authentic,
The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to the American Accent

And a few more just to round out the selections.
The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Natural Childbirth
The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Yorkshire Terriers, Second Edition
The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Buddhism, Third Edition
The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Werewolves

It's easy, really.

Make up your mind

New Pew Research Center survey shows Americans are less hot under the collar about global warming - much less.

In a recent Pew poll, 57 percent of respondents said there is "solid evidence" the average temperature on Eargh is getting warmer. In April 2008, 71 percent said that and in 2006 and 2007, that opinion hit 77 percent.

What gives? Is solid not solid? Is squishy the new solid?

Pew opines the sucking sound of the economy is to blame. The center cites drops of about 10 percent in people saying immigration, health care and crime are top priorities for the president and Congress, as signs people are more focused on jobs and pay checks.

Pew says even Gallup and Fox News have seen similar results in polls.

What could this sort of sentiment do to the cap-and-trade train that is just aching to be fueled up with government dollars to get it out of the station?

What do you think? You can e-mail me at kevin.welch@amarillo.com.

Mayhem on Main Street - The controller from outer space

The city of Amarillo is giving rebates up to $50 per water customer to people who buy controllers that turn their sprinkler system off when it's raining or near freezing, but Tom Ash thinks that's a "baby step."

Ash is the director of conservation for HydroPoint, a company that offers more than just a puny rain/freeze controller. They can input what plants you're growing, the slope of the yard, how much exposure to the sun there is, the soil type. Then the controller crunches the data to calculate the most efficient irrigation schedule for you.

But wait. There's more.

Just picture all the information flying through space from Earth to satellite to Earth to satellite to Earth as HydroPoint constantly collects information from the National Weather Service, other government weather observatories and private weather stations. They do some kind of way-too-complicated number work and figure out the evaporation and transpiration rates in the "micro zone" your yard is in. (That means how much water vapor is going back into the air and how much the plants are releasing in the surrounding half square mile.)

All that figuring goes into tweaking the irrigation schedule that is transmitted by satellite to the controller.

There is a monthly fee for all this high-tech aid, but Ash says you save water, but also energy to pump the water. Then there's the carbon dioxide that would have been created by the Harrington Power Station while Xcel Energy to makes the electricity to power the pumps that move the water for the house that Jack built.

Let's see, that's a win, win, lose...well, good thing I'm not doing all this high-concept calculating.

I don't know if it works, but it is an interesting idea.

Oh yeah, and you can wire a "baby-step" rain sensor in for an extra charge.

Say what?

Just in time for the global warming debate to move from the House to the Senate, the Grist online magazine, which calls itself “a beacon in the smog,” has an interesting research project on its site.

Grist writers looked at the official Web sites of all U.S. senators to see how clearly they express their views on the environment. It didn’t matter what the views were. All that mattered was how well a visitor could understand the senator’s point of view.

Our Republican Texas senators had a mixed showing.

Out of a possible 25 maximum points, John Cornyn came in with 13 points, a solid C. Not a bad showing against people like New Mexico Democrat Jeff Bingaman at 8 and Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat, at 10.

Not that a Republican do better than some Democrats on being transparent on their environmental stance. In fact, the project showed no real pattern by party.

Then there’s Kay Bailey. Senator Hutchison earned an F with 4 points. Now she did beat out Democrat Tom Harkin of Iowa, with a 2, Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, who got a 0, and couple of other people. So I hope Rick "I-Never-Met-A-Can-Of-Hairspray-I-Didn’t-Like" Perry doesn’t use the poor showing against her. But maybe he uses a pump bottle instead of a spray.

There were several surprises, like Republicans Orrin Hatch, of Utah; Olympia Snowe, of Maine and James "Greenhouse-Warming-Is-A-Hoax" Inhofe, of Oklahoma, all trouncing Ted Kennedy.
The big winner with 24 out of 25 points? That would be Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota. Never heard of her. But I’m sure she’s very popular up north, and they can be proud she’s their senator.

By the way, the other Democratic Minnesota senator, Al Franken, didn’t have a Web site to survey at the time.

All in the family

The Center for Public Integrity reports Podesta One and Podesta Two are going head on.

Seems John Podesta, formerly known as co-chair of the Obama transition and Clinton chief of staff, is head of the Center for American Progress, and they really don’t like the term “clean coal.” In fact, they accuse the coal industry of using it to mislead in the debate about energy production, greenhouse gases and air pollution.

Then there’s lesser-known but equally well-connected Tony Podesta. The Center for Public Integrity describes him as “one of Washington’s most successful lobbyists." He's also John's brother. One of his clients? The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. The coalition paid his Podesta Group lobbying firm $50,000 in the second quarter to make its case during the climate debate in the House.

One of the policy papers by the Center for American Progress lambasts ACCCE as a group of coal and utility companies just stalling on making clean coal mean something. The report says the companies made a combined profit of $57 billion in 2007 but invested only a "paltry" $3.5 billion in clean coal research over several years.

Now I could be wrong, but $3.5 billion isn't extremely paltry in my checkbook, but I get the center's point.

"Meanwhile, atmospheric greenhouse gas levels grow, ice sheets melt, hurricanes become more ferocious, and the day of reckoning for the Earth looms closer," according to the center's paper.

Even the Podestas' gotta make a buck, but there may be a "day of reckoning" in Podestaland if this climate debate thing keeps going.

Burp control for a cooler planet

Short of using a cork, there have been few answers to how to control the methane emissions from cows, but there may be at least a partial answer.

Stonyfield Farm, a supplier of organic dairy products, says it is having success developing a "Greener Cow." The idea is to alter the bovines' diets to reduce their burps which would mean less methane and less global warming, they say.

The company began feeding cows diets high in natural omega-3 sources like flax last year at Vermont dairies that supply milk to it. This supposedly "re-balances" the cows' main stomachs resulting in not only less methane, as much as 18 percent less, but less saturated fat in their milk.

So the process is good for the planet and good for you. That's right, a win/win. We love win/wins. And if it keeps the EPA off your back, it's a win/win/win. Wow.