Special Series
Word on the Street
In a Series
Californians are Climate Trendsetters
I've said it before; I'll say it again: Strong bi-partisan leadership in California puts state residents ahead of the public opinion curve when it comes to climate policy. It makes you wonder what actions the rest of the country would get behind if Cali-style forward-thinking was coming as loud and as clear from more leaders on the national stage.
A new poll, released just as the California Air Resources Board gears up to unveil the most aggressive energy policies to date to reduce global warming pollution (California's AB 32: Global Warming Solutions Act), including Americans first cap on greenhouse gas emissions, shows broad public understanding that fixing climate change goes hand in hand with energy stability and economic prosperity. David Metz, polling firm Fairbanks, Maslin, Maullin & Associates Senior Vice President said, "From a pollster's point of view, these numbers are definitive - California voters want strong state action to address global warming."
Indeed. The policy package, aimed to transform the state's energy profile and cut pollution, gets 79 percent support among state voters. A solid 58 percent say they support the climate policies even if they increase the cost of gas, electricity and some consumer goods. (Party lines haven't been entirely obliterated; that's 71 percent of Democrats, 65 percent of Independents and 37 percent of Republicans.)
More highlights from the survey:
Germany Gradually Weaning Itself From Oil?
Germany's been a global leader in energy policy for some time now. (For what it's worth, we picked Germany as the "model" for the Cascadia Scorecard's energy indicator because it was doing such a bang-up job with its energy policy.)
And if anything, it looks like their efforts to reduce emissions are picking up steam:
German use of oil, gas and coal in 2007 fell by 5.6 per cent compared with 2006, according to a new report from [oil company] BP...
The report emerged as the German government passed a new round of environmental laws designed to ensure the country meets ambitious carbon dioxide reduction targets.
I took a look at the BP Statistical Review of World Energy -- and the news report is correct: Germany has made some impressive strides in reducing energy consumption, not just recently, but over the course of a decade. The graph to the right shows oil consumption per person -- which has fallen by 18 percent since 1997.
File this in the "Yes, sane energy policy is possible" file.
Greenhouse Gases: Where Do They Come From?
The World Resources Institute has a geekalicious image (see page 15 of this pdf) that shows how human activities contribute to global warming. Click on the image below to get a legible, full-sized version.
The most interesting bit, to me, is the massive contribution of agriculture and land use -- the green and purple areas on the bottom left -- to global climate change. Worldwide, the net impacts of land use are far more significant than global transportation emissions.
But in the Northwest, the situation is reversed. At the moment, forests in this part of the world appear to be carbon sinks, and transportation is far and away the largest single source of climate warming emissions. So just because transportation isn't the biggest deal globally, it's still where state and regional policymakers should focus their attention.
[Thanks to Clayton O'Brien-Smith for the tip.]
Update: In comments, milan points out original graphic on WRI's website: small version, large version. If you're planning on using some version of this graphic for your own purposes, I'd use the ones from WRI, since they've got the WRI logo on them already. I just copied the ones above out of their pdf, so they're not quite as pretty.
