California and China sign agreement to strengthen and coordinate efforts to improve air quality

Rush Limbaugh Touts 13-Year-Old Who 'Proved' Global Warming Is A Hoax

On his radio show this week, Rush Limbaugh was excited to find a 13-year-old caller who discovered "lots of evidence" that global warming is a hoax. 13-year-old Alex from Wilmington, Indiana said evidence he discovered at his local library made it "really easy" to disprove the science.

Limbaugh was so impressed - and genuinely shocked - that climate denier books exist at the library, he offered the kid an iPad. Here is an excerpt of the exchange:

RUSH: You mean...? Hold it just second. Alex, you're at the health food store, and it's cold out there. It's March. You're there in March, it's cold, and two people in there are surprised that it's cold because it's global warming outside?

CALLER: Exactly.

RUSH: And they still concluded, "Well, we're still in global warming"?

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: But they were shocked. This is hilarious. You know, Alex, there are none so blind as those who will not see, and that's what you're running up against. Where did you find this evidence? How hard was it for you to research?

CALLER: It wasn't that hard to learn it. There is pretty much a lot of evidence that you can find. I personally just went to the local library and looked up books. That's what I did.

RUSH: You went to the library?

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: You didn't use a computer?

CALLER: No, I didn't. Well, yeah, my mom got me one article from the computer. Yeah.

RUSH: Wow. I'm surprised you find evidence of this at the library. That's heartening. Why did you want to do this? What made you doubt the people who believe that there's global warming?

CALLER: Well, over the radio we listen to different things. I've heard lots of evidence that man-made global warming is a hoax. And since I'm doing speeches, I thought it was a very interesting topic. I want to learn more about this. I guess I just always doubted that. There's so much evidence that global warming is not man-made.

It is little surprise that Alex stumbled onto climate denier talking points, since nearly all climate denier books have ties to conservative think tanks. Internal documents obtained by ThinkProgress last year revealed that the right-wing, Koch-funded think tank Heartland Institute developed a curriculum teaching children that climate science is a controversial matter. On the other hand, a mere 24 peer-reviewed articles reject global warming, compared to a staggering 13,926 scientific articles that substantiate it.

If Limbaugh thinks a 13-year-old is where to find the truth about climate science, perhaps he can next invite a 12-year-old to discuss evolution.

Yet many top Republicans in the Senate and House subscribe to the same view. The climate zombie caucus has a wide net of Republicans, including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), former ranking member of the Senate Environment Committee James Inhofe (R-OK), House Science Chair Lamar Smith (R-TX), and House Science subcommittee chair Chris Stewart (R-UT), and many others.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/04/05/1826671/limbaugh-climate-s

Climate Change Will Double Area Burned In U.S. Wildfires By 2050, Report Warns

Wildfires in the U.S. will be at least twice as destructive by 2050, burning around 20 million acres nationwide each year, according to a federal report released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Scientists from the U.S. Forest Service, who authored the report, found regions such as western Colorado - which already experienced its most destructive wildfire in history last summer - will face an even greater risk fire risk: those regions are expected to face up to a five-fold increase in acres burned by 2050.

The report's findings are in line with previous studies on climate change's relation to fire risk: a 2012 study found that wildfire burn season is two and a half months longer than it was 40 years ago, and that for every one degree Celsius temperature increase the earth experiences, the area burned in the western U.S. could quadruple. The findings are also in line with the observed impacts climate change is having on wildfires. Wildfires in 2012 burned a record 9.2 million acres in the U.S., and record-breaking heat and dry weather in Australia provided ideal conditions for at least 90 fires that raged through the country this January.

The report also outlines the other effects climate change will have on the forests of the U.S. The Rocky Mountain forests are expected to become hotter and drier as the planet warms, conditions that in addition to wildfires will lead to an increase in infestations of insects such as the bark beetle, which has already destroyed tens of millions of acres of U.S. forests. One species, the mountain pine beetle, has already killed 70,000 square miles of trees - area the size of Washington state. As winters become milder, weather becomes drier and higher elevations become warmer, bark beetles are able to thrive and extend their ranges northward. An increase in some species of bark beetle can actually increase the risk of forest fires in areas affected by the beetle - the study notes an outbreak of the mountain pine bark beetle, which attacks and kills live trees, created a "perfect storm" in 2006 in Washington, where affected lodgepole pines burned "with exceptionally high intensity."

David Peterson, a U.S. Forest Service biologist who co-authored the report, told the Denver Post that the destruction the bark beetles have inflicted upon western forests in recent years has been unprecedented:

"We're getting into extreme events that seem to be having more and more effects across broader landscapes."

The report also predicts an increase of invasive plants and animals, as well as flooding and erosion due to increased rainfall, higher rain to snow ratios and more burned areas. It notes that U.S. forests offset 13 percent of the country's carbon emissions, and as trees killed by insects and fire decompose, they'll emit carbon themselves. Because of the sweeping impacts, the report, which is being finalized for the White House and Congress, calls on forest managers to make "climate-smart" practices, such as thinning fire-vulnerable forests, a priority.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/04/04/1821921/climate-change-wil

Obama's Climate Hypocrisy: We Need People In DC 'Willing To Speak Truth To Power ... To Take Some Risks Politically'

Some days the president seems to have no clue about what his own administration has and hasn't done on climate change.

Late Wednesday, President Obama gave a speech to a Democratic fundraiser for the House that tried to rewrite history and shift any blame for climate inaction away from his failed leadership and failed messaging.

Obama actually ended his remarks on what is needed to achieve climate action by saying:

But the most important thing that it's going to take is people in Washington who are willing to speak truth to power, are willing to take some risks politically, are willing to get a little bit out ahead of the curve - not two miles ahead of the curve, but just a little bit ahead of it. And that's why your presence here is so important.

The donor's presence is important to "support the prospect of Nancy Pelosi being Speaker once again." At a second event, Obama even went so far as to say, "If we're going to deal with climate change in a serious way, then we've got to have folks in Congress - even when it's not politically convenient - to talk about it and advocate for it."

Apparently the President is unaware that it was his own White House that shut down any serious talk of climate change by his Administration, by environmental groups, and even by Congress - see "Team Obama Launched The Inane Strategy Of Downplaying Climate Change Back In March 2009."

And, of course, the Congress did pursue serious climate action when it wasn't "politically convenient" - during the nadir of our recent economic collapse - when the House, under the leadership of then-Speaker Pelosi, passed the Waxman-Markey bill. Then leading Senators spent months trying to put together a deal.

But the President never gave one single speech on the subject, he didn't lead, and he wouldn't twist arms in the Senate on climate the way he did on health care (see "The failed presidency of Barack Obama, Part 2").

To repeat, it is just bizarre that the president would say the key thing is to elect a Democratic House who can speak truth to power and take risks politically, given that when he had a Democratic House (and as Democratic a Senate as he is ever going to see), he didn't speak truth to power and he wouldn't take risks politically.

And his other remarks on climate in the home of Tom and Kat Steyer in San Francisco are even more head-exploding when examined closely:

And something that I know is near and dear to Tom and Kat's hearts, and to Nancy's - we've got more work to do in terms of dealing with climate change and making sure that we've got an economy that is energy-efficient, that is productive, that is cutting-edge, and thinks about not just the energy sources of the past, but also the energy promise of the future.

And the thing that I'm going to have to try to work to persuade the American people a little more convincingly on is this notion that there's a contradiction between our economy and our environment is just a false choice - that if we invest now, we will create jobs, we will create entire new industries; other countries will be looking to catch up, they will be looking to import what we do. We will set the standard, and everybody else will have to adapt.

But - and I mentioned this to Tom and Kat and a few folks right before I came out here - the politics of this are tough. Because if you haven't seen a raise in a decade; if your house is still $25,000, $30,000 underwater; if you're just happy that you've still got that factor job that is powered by cheap energy; if every time you go to fill up your old car because you can't afford to buy a new one, and you certainly can't afford to buy a Prius, you're spending 40 bucks that you don't have, which means that you may not be able to save for retirement - you may be concerned about the temperature of the planet, but it's probably not rising to your number-one concern. And if people think, well, that's shortsighted, that's what happens when you're struggling to get by. You're thinking about what's right in front of you, which is how do I fill up my gas tank and how do I feed my family.

And so part of what we're going to have to do is to marry a genuine, passionate concern about middle-class families and everybody who is trying to get into the middle class to show them that we're working just as hard for them as we are for our environmental agenda, and that we can bridge these things in a way that advances the causes of both. And that's going to take some work.

"The politics of this are tough," Mr. President? That's the big insight you shared with the mega-donors.

First off, the politics of everything are tough! The politics of the stimulus bill, the politics of the financial oversight bill, and the politics of health care reform. And yet, those three all happened.

Second, and more important, the President is apparently completely unaware that his White House organized the entire climate messaging in his first term around the economic issue, around debunking the false choice - and that public opinion polls make clear that piece of messaging worked.

In "Revealed: the day Obama chose a strategy of silence on climate change," the UK Guardian quoted Betsy Taylor (and others) about the big March 2009 messaging meeting convened by the White House:

"What was communicated in the presentation was: 'This is what you talk about, and don't talk about climate change'." Taylor said. "I took away an absolutely clear understanding that we should focus on clean energy jobs and the potential of a clean energy economy rather than the threat of climate change."

The message stuck. Subsequent campaigns from the Obama administration and some environmental groups relegated climate change to a second-tier concern.

The Guardian story explains, "The White House, after studying polling and focus groups, concluded it was best to frame climate change as an economic opportunity, a chance for job creation and economic growth, rather than an urgent environmental problem."

I and others, such as the WashPost's Ezra Klein, explained at length why this was only half a message (see "Can you solve global warming without talking about global warming?").

But the President seems to have no idea that his team got everyone pushing a climate bill to focus on the economic message, on the economic benefits to the middle class of climate action - and that polling makes clear it worked at the time:

• Swing state poll finds 60% "would be more likely to vote for their senator if he or she supported the bill" and Independents support the bill 2-to-1 (9/09)
• New CNN poll finds "nearly six in 10 independents" support cap-and-trade (10/09)
• Voters in Ohio, Michigan and Missouri overwhelmingly support action on clean energy and global warming (11/09)
• Overwhelming US Public Support for Global Warming Action (12/09)
• Public Opinion Stunner: WashPost-ABC Poll Finds Strong Support for Global Warming Reductions Despite Relentless Big Oil and Anti-Science Attacks (12/09)
• It's all about Independents - and Independence (1/10)
• Yale: When asked whether they "support or oppose regulation of carbon dioxide ... as pollutant," 73 percent said yes, with only 27 percent opposed, including 61 percent of Republicans (2/10)
• Memo to policymakers: Public STILL favors the transition to clean energy (3/10)

As you can see if you click on those links, most of those explicitly polled on the question of whether the public thinks the climate bill would create jobs, foster new industries, and be good for the economy - and key middle class groups - including independents and key swing voters - overwhelmingly said yes.

Obama's remarks last night would seem to confirm that it was David Axelrod who mismanaged the messaging decisions without discussing the matter at length with the President. Even so, the president cannot be unaware of his general silence on the issue and his leadership failure at the key moment. The speech is a disappointment for anyone expecting serious leadership on this issue from Obama in his second term.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/04/04/1820951/obama-climate-hypo

NEPA: The Most Important Law You've Never Heard Of

Deron Lovaas, Federal Transportation Policy Director, Washington, D.C.

Within-the-Beltway-bubble debate about the National Environmental Policy Act or NEPA is alarmingly over-the-top. Lobbyists and legislators in the Capitol often spout heated rhetoric bashing the law, unhinged from reality on-the-ground where it's mostly applied effectively such that road and transit project designs are improved. Lo and behold, on Monday a practitioner -- a senior official at Georgia's Department of Transportation -- penned an Atlanta Journal Constitution piece about the importance of NEPA. I am in agreement with his column. Environmental reviews are a crucial tool for moving transportation projects AND improving the environment. Here it is, reprinted with the author's permission, in its entirety:

NEPA is the guide star

Posted: 12:12 p.m. Monday, April 1, 2013 on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution web site here

By Glenn Bowman

Shortly after signing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) into law on New Year's Day in 1970, President Richard Nixon discussed it in his State of the Union Address:

"The great question ... is shall we make peace with nature and begin to make reparations for the damage we have done to our air, our land and our water? ... Clean air, clean water, open spaces - these should once again be the birthright of every American. ... The price tag is high. Through our years of past carelessness, we have incurred a debt to nature. Now that debt is being called."

Now, 43 years later, that price tag is even higher. Some old problems remain, and daunting new challenges loom. Still, NEPA's impact is unquestionable; it remains the nation's environmental guide star.

At Georgia's Department of Transportation - the entity responsible for more earth work in this state than any other - NEPA has a huge impact on planning, designing and building transportation infrastructure. Virtually everything we do begins with "complying with the NEPA process."

We must:

• Protect water quality, air quality, endangered plant and animal species and their habitats, migratory birds, wetlands, streams, rivers, harbors, flood plains, farmlands and the soil itself;

• Preserve historic and culturally significant buildings and places;

• Save archaeologically significant resources;

• Guard against noise pollution;

• Make certain native peoples and the disadvantaged are treated equitably;

• Mitigate for unavoidable impacts, and always engage the public in our decision-making process.

This requires a considerable investment in time, staff and money. Making a project NEPA-compliant sometimes requires re-routing; re-locating cemeteries and historic structures; and archaeological "digs" to recover important artifacts. We create or improve wetlands and streams to mitigate for like areas that need to be altered. We work with affected residents to help offset impacts to their neighborhoods and lives.

Recently, the need to study areas of North Georgia for the presence of the endangered Indiana and gray bats has garnered attention. Such examination simply is part of a process we are required by law to undertake for numerous plant and animal species, be they cuddly or creepy.

With as many as 700 projects ongoing at any time, not everyone is always going to be satisfied. But our foremost mission is to help make those 700 projects realities; keep motorists safe and moving, and grow that network as Georgia grows.

Meeting our transportation needs and protecting our environment are not mutually exclusive objectives; doing both does not have to be a contentious, adversarial struggle. Working together - internally, with partner agencies, businesses, local governments and citizens - we can repay our debt to nature, have a world-class transportation system, and preserve the beauty and many wonders of Georgia for generations to come.

Glenn Bowman is administrator of Georgia DOT's Office of Environmental Services.

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/dlovaas/a_peachy_opinion_piece_nepa_

Thin, low Arctic clouds played an important role in the massive 2012 Greenland ice melt

Clouds over the central Greenland Ice Sheet last July were "just right" for driving surface temperatures there above the melting point, according to a new study by scientists at NOAA and the Universities of Wisconsin, Idaho and Colorado.

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2013/20130403_greenlandicemelt.htm

Clean Fuels In Beautiful Places: U.S. Parks Service Goes Even Greener

For those readers living in one of America's big cities, concrete jungles strewn across the North American landscape, it's easy to forget that hundreds of thousands of acres are set aside in some states as National Parks. Isolated from the bustle of busy cities they're idyllic spots, precious for their history, beauty--and clean air. The National...

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1083315_clean-fuels-in-beautiful-p