Why Biden is such an important pick for those who care about the climate 7

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1. 

   Spence Posted 8:32 am
   25 Aug 2008

   Biden? No Way.Come on Gristmill, we know that John McCain will be much better for the environment. As he travels the world on the Budweiser Fun Jet, he never has to stay in hotels due to his many, many, many homes.
   
   Plus, John McCain already did "sustainable architecture". In Hanoi. For five and a half years.

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2. 

   Jonas Posted 1:54 pm
   25 Aug 2008

   China is already big on renewablesThe Chinese government is already doing quite a bit on renewables.
   Its official targets for 2020 are now the following:
   -300 GW hydro capacity
   
   -30 GW biomass capacity
   
   -30 GW wind capacity
   
   -1.8 GW solar
   
   -300 million rural citizens on biogas
   They are putting $256 billion into this plan.
   No word about 'solar baseload', because that apparently remains a rather theoretical, untried idea written about by Gristmill, but not many other people. China does have some solar PV and solar water heating in the plan (1.8 GW).
   Russia for its part is betting heavily on biomass. It's the only renewable energy source they have taken up in a recent plan on alternative energy. The Russian agriculture ministry announced the country will produce 1 billion tons of biomass for exports to China and the US, in a first phase, and in the form of either gaseous fuels (so-called synthetic natural gas), as liquids or as solid biofuels.
   Let's not forget that Russia has a gigantic potential for sustainable biomass, so large that it can rather easily supply all the energy the EU, China and India need in the future.
   Russia doesn't have that much potential for other renewables. Obviously, it will also want to perpetuate the use of its infrastructures. Biomethane can be pumped through its pipelines without any modifications.
   So I'm rather optimistic about Russia's willingness to participate in the green market, merely because it will be an unbeatable competitor, with biobased energy.

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3. 

   Jonas Posted 1:56 pm
   25 Aug 2008

   Ooops, exports to China and the EU, that isSmall typo. Russia's 1 billion ton biomass plan is meant for exports to the EU and China. Not the US.

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4. 

   dobermanmacleod Posted 3:40 pm
   25 Aug 2008

   Cutting emissions to avoid catastrophe unfeasibleIt is tragic that the consensis prescription for avoiding a climate catastrophe is to cut emissions so fast and drastically that abrupt climate change and runaway global warming is avoided.  Sorry, but we've already virtually locked in a 2C rise in temperature.  Here is what Climate Code Red says:
   --Human emissions have so far produced a global average temperature increase of 0.8 degree C.
   --There is another 0.6 degree C. to come due to "thermal inertia", or lags in the system, taking the total long-term global warming induced by human emissions so far to 1.4 degree C.
   --If human total emissions continue as they are to 2030 (and don't increase 60% as projected) this would likely add more than 0.4 degrees C. to the system in the next two decades, taking the long-term effect by 2030 to at least 1.7 degrees C. (A 0.3 degree C. increase is predicted for the period 2004-2014 alone by Smith, Cusack et al, 2007).
   --Then add the 0.3 degree C. albedo flip effect from the now imminent loss of the Arctic sea ice, and the rise in the system by 2030 is at least 2 degree. C, assuming very optimistically that emissions don't increase at all above their present annual rate! When we consider the potential permafrost releases and the effect of carbon sinks losing capacity, we are on the road to a hellish future, nor for what we will do, but WHAT WE HAVE ALREADY DONE.
   There is a very inexpensive simple way to immediately cool the Earth: just put a small amount of aerosol into the air to dim the sun. We won't be able to stop rapid ecosystem collapse without geoengineering.
   "I'm going to tell you something I probably shouldn't: we may not be able to stop global warming. We need to begin curbing global greenhouse emissions right now, but more than a decade after the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, the world has utterly failed to do so. Unless the geopolitics of global warming change soon, the Hail Mary pass of geoengineering might become our best shot." --Bryan Walsh, Time Magazine, 17 March 2008

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5. 

   caniscandida Posted 5:07 pm
   25 Aug 2008

   Danger, young environmentalists!Joseph Romm writes:
   <<
   
   Catastrophic climate change is the primary preventable threat to the health and well-being of all Americans -- as readers of this blog already understand and as pretty much everyone else will figure out in the coming years.
   
   >>
   Where in the world is he going with that?  We "readers of this blog" most certainly do NOT all "already understand" that "all Americans" (all human beings in the US?; all US citizens?) are somehow the precious ethical treasure of environmentalists.
   There are other human beings besides Americans who count for something.  And there are other living creatures besides humans who count for something.  Fortunately, at least a few of us "readers of this blog" "understand" those two great truths.
   Good thing that JR is NOT seeking a post in a future administration, as he says he is not, shaking the dust from his sandals, elsewhere in Gristmill.  We most certainly do NOT find his anthropocentric americanocentric emphases at all welcome, whatever else of interest he may write.
   
   Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

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6. 

   caniscandida Posted 4:31 am
   26 Aug 2008

   reading between the linesThere is nothing at all objectionable, dear JR, about your sentence, so far as the meaning of the words goes.  And I do not accuse you of "dissing" anyone.
   But we may very well dislike the implication, however unintended, that environmentalism, and environmental activism, can be reduced to politics, even so important a corner of politics as the US presidential election.
   At all times we must fight against any narrowing of the definition of environmentalism, and of the agenda of environmentalists.
   We could all learn a valuable lesson from my good cousin Wolverine, ex-sail-boater (whether or not we can agree with him 100%), and his excellent ethics of Earth-First!-ism.
   
   Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

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