Morocco To Invest $9 Billion To Install 200MW of Solar Power

As much good as America’s new President has already done, in a very short time, on energy and climate issues, the rest of the world, developed and developing countries alike, continue to surge forward toward 21st century energy technologies.  Morocco announced this week that they are prepared to invest $9 Billion to install 200MW of solar power in their deserts by 2020.  And:

The nation is vying with Algeria, Tunisia and Libya for 400 billion euros ($596 billion) of investments in solar-energy systems over the coming decades as the EU seeks to trim emissions from coal and natural gas power plants by importing clean power from the Sahara.

This announcement comes as part of plans with Germany to develop desalinization plants and electricity generators for the country.

[h/t Climate Progress]

Tidbits From the Blogosphere

Sometimes, others say what you wanted to, but oh so much better than you could.  Here are some of those from today.

From Hunter, who dishes out the best smackdowns around (emphasis mine):

A very large chunk of our greatest-deliberative-body Democrats don’t want to pass healthcare reform, they want to kill it. Our leadership, frankly, doesn’t seem to give a rat’s ass either way, and all parties involved think we have the intelligence of doorstops, but I think what we would all really, really like most of all, in this ongoing and thoroughly asinine “debate”, is if this vaunted national leadership of ours would quit trying to blow smoke up our ass and tell us we’re hickory-smoked.

Fine, we get it, senators: you’re corporate whores, money-grubbing professional campaigners who don’t have the slightest interest in actually solving this problem. You seek any avenue to avoid the obvious, most cost-effective option, the one that will insure the most people and do the most to control costs, itself a mealy compromise offered to avoid plans that would work even better — but which none of the offending companies offering up their opinions and lobbyists for this debate would possibly tolerate.

I would add that they don’t have much, if any interest, in solving any problem that faces Americans.  The only problem they see: getting re-elected.

——————-

From math4barack, an admonition against the CorporateDem Blue Dogs, who only care about debt and deficits when their party proposes spending money.  Record debt was recorded under the last “administration” and they spoke nary a peep about it.  Republicans since St. Ronnie have deliberately run up the debt in the hope that programs created by Democrats and loved by the rest of America are cut from the budget.  The hypocritical Blue Dogs should switch parties and save everybody from the grief they cause.

Chrysler Shoots Itself In The Foot … Again. Good Riddance.

I haven’t been a fan of American auto manufacturing corporations for years.  By that, I mean the executives deigned worthy enough to run the companies … right into the ground.  I fully support the hard-working men and women employed by these over-sized behemoths.  The workers are the backbone of America’s middle class and receive my full support.  It’s not their fault their corporations have been run by greedy, immoral hypocritical liars for decades.

The latest proof?  Chrysler, who announced that they were dismantling their electric vehicle engineering team.  That’s the same team and program they promised American taxpayers would be in place as the begged for millions of our tax dollars to prop up their purposefully dysfunctional wasteland of a company.

This is obviously a very stupid move.  Regulations are now in place to force Chrysler and other car manufacturers to improve fuel efficiency (a standard Chrysler and the others paid millions of dollars to fight for years).  The cost of meeting these standards are not prohibitive.  Chrysler and the others exist in the European and Asian car markets, which have had more robust standards for years.  They chose to make inefficient vehicles for American customers.  Given the price of oil and gas, guzzlers are no longer profitable to make because the American public has shifted its buying habits.  Shutting down an electric vehicle engineering team as the marketplace transitions to more fuel efficient vehicles is an absurd move to make.

But it goes further than just that.  It hurts other corporations and other workers.  A123 systems manufactures electric batteries for use in vehicles, among other things.  They could be a viable American success story: using ingenuity and entrepreneurship to exploit a market need.  They contracted with Chrysler to provide batteries earlier this spring.  What are they supposed to do?  What happens if they fail because Chrysler’s executives decided they wanted to fail?  That unnecessarily hurts the entire hybrid and electric vehicle market.

Much like the Wall St. banks who gladly accepted trillions of taxpayer bailout dollars with few strings attached, Chrysler has spit in Americans’ faces.  By doing so, they cement the company as the most likely to fail moving forward.  They have continued their crappy decision making from the 20th century too far into the 21st century.  By doing so, I say good riddance.  One less non-responsive corporation in the marketplace will do nothing but benefit consumers.

[h/t Climate Progress]

I Love This Feature

An by feature, I mean regularly occurring diary series.  I remember the original piece the diarist refers to because I copied part of it here.  The following is a copy of the follow-up, written today:

Dear Conservative Free-Market Capitalism Muckety Mucks,

Ninety-one days ago I gave you thirty days to fix the U.S. economy that you broke:

I’m just a simple, average citizen who has listened to you jawbone for decades—amplified non-stop by Fox News, CNBC, the Wall Street Journal and right-wing radio—about how perfect your system of “unfettered everything” is. How greed is good and regulation is the devil’s work. And yet, you seem to be strangely ineffective at fixing it when it breaks. Could it be you’ve been bullshitting us all along? …

Fix the damn economy on Main Street already, you Ayn Rand-worshipping free-market capitalist wizards. Show us how it’s done. Be the heroes we’ve been holding out for.

Bummer. You couldn’t do it, even with a two-month extension. Not even close. Instead of rolling up your sleeves and getting to work, all you’ve done is continue pointing your fingers at the Big Bad Government—the one that statistics confirm single-handedly saved your asses from Great Depression II—and whine. Hell, even your Savior of All Things Economic, Grover “Ayn Rand With a Beard” Norquist, couldn’t convince voters in Washington and Maine that your ideas were worth a bucket of warm spit.

Oh, sure, Wall Street is thriving, in large measure because they’re up to their old backroom book-cooking tricks again. (I did challenge you to work your magic “honestly, ethically and legally,” remember?) But Main Street is still tanking. So I guess it’s true—you’ve been bullshitting us all along.

That doesn’t sit well with me. Because, see, I’ve been programmed by Frank Luntz and the GOP spin machine to think of two things when I hear the word conservative: fiscal competence and defense. You fucked up the defense part real good. And now you’ve failed to prove your worth on the economy. I mean, good gracious Gerty, I gave you 90 days and look at what you did: in what should’ve been your moment of triumph, you dithered.

State of the Arctic – 11/9/09

The state of the Arctic ice in November 2009 is the worst of any November in recorded history.  Arctic areal sea ice extent didn’t break the 2007 record for the absolute minimum, but it has never been this low in November.  Further, the extent continues to be nowhere near the climatological average, just like it hasn’t been for most of this year.  As I’ve stated before, that’s indicative that a new phase of the Arctic has been reached.  For three years in a row, sea ice extent has bottomed out at well below two standard deviations from the average extent.  For three years in a row, all-time ice-extent lows have been reached at some point in the season.

Here is my State of the Arctic post for Sep and for Aug.  I didn’t post anything in late October because I had a feeling a record low extent would be set shortly, which it did.  The big change since my last post is the presence of weather conditions that have kept ice from refreezing at the rate it normally does this time of year. Two years ago, adverse weather conditions developed during the summer.  This year, they’re around in the fall.  The effect is the same: relatively little ice compared to climatological norms.  Here is a satellite representation of Arctic sea ice conditions from yesterday:

Compared to the minimum reached earlier this year, there has been a recovery in ice in the Canadian archipelago, along the northeast coast of Greenland and from the Arctic Sea toward Siberia.

For comparison purposes, here is the similar picture from August:

Here is the time series graph through yesterday:

Notice the rapid refreezing that occurred in 2007, but which didn’t happen so far this fall.  No, this fall, a high-pressure system sat over the Beaufort Sea, while unusually low pressure dominated the Barents Sea, according to the NSIDC.  This brought 6C (11F!) warmer than normal air temperatures up from Siberia, preventing robust ice growth in that area.

Sea ice extent averaged over October 2009 was 7.50 million sq. km., 1.79 million sq. km. below the 1979 to 2000 mean for October, and only 730,000 sq. km. above the record low for the month, which occurred in October 2007.  I expect the average extent for November to be very close to 2007′s, perhaps a little higher, perhaps a little lower, but in poor shape compared to climatological conditions.

The NSIDC released a report at the beginning of November with an additional time series representation of conditions. It shows the last two years’ worth of time series data, plus 2005′s time series, with +/- 2 standard deviations from the climatological average on the same graph:

This graph was made before 2009′s time series line crossed over 2007′s (as in the graph above), but the point remains: ice extent conditions in the Arctic have entered a new state, a state much lower than the 1979-2000 average.  The volume of ice has decreased year after year recently, leaving one- or two-year old ice the predominant type in the Arctic.  This ice is less capable of withstanding the warmer temperatures that October’s weather patterns produced.  New ice is less able to grow around the younger ice.  While refreezing will occur every winter, the times when ice does or does not refreeze is more dependent on favorable weather regimes.  Additionally, since the Arctic waters absorbed large amounts of solar radiation again this year, the water is warmer than it used to be this time of year.  It has to release a lot of heat to the atmosphere before freezing can occur.  Thus, the past few falls have seen ice growth in fits and starts, remaining well out of the 2 standard deviations of extent, which is becoming increasingly statistically significant.

The U.S. Senate is slowly drawing closer to considering climate and energy legislation.  The 2009 Copenhagen climate summit starts in less than a month.  So there are important policy decision points staring us in the face.  What will we do about them?  The Arctic has demonstrated quite clearly that it has shifted to a new state.  The consequences of a warming planet are showing up all over, in places and in ways that were unforeseen even a few years ago.  The rate of warming and of other climate change indicators are occurring much faster than recent predictions indicated, exposing our lack of understanding of the complex systems in play.  Do we really want to keep trying to kick the can down the road and letting some other group to deal with things?  Or do we recognize that it damage to ecosystems and societies is already occurring and now is the time to act to prevent catastrophic situations?

Cross-posted at SquareState.

Sen. Bernie Sanders Takes On Banks “Too Big To Fail”

Excellent news from the Independent Senator in Vermont.  Sen. Sanders has introduced legislation (2 pages for whiny Cons that can’t read!) that directs the Treasury Dept. to identify institutions that pose a threat to the American economy, being classified as “too large” if their failure would cause harm to the economy, and to break them up any way the Dept. chooses to a point where they no longer constitute a threat.

Sen. Sanders has been talking about this concept for over a year now – since the economic meltdown precipitated by gambling centers masquerading as banks took hold last fall.  These institutions were bailed out by American taxpayer money to the tune of Trillions of dollars.  We saved them from their crappy gambling habits.  And we haven’t gotten anything in return except for an uneven field to play on.  These institutions were labeled as “too big to fail” by too many politicians who had relationships that many judged to be too cozy.  They “had” to be saved.  Why?  For what purpose?  What is going to stop them from making the same crappy decisions in the future since the taxpayers bailed them out against their will?  Nothing.

Nothing except legislation like this.  If the banks want to become gambling houses and be irresponsible, they don’t deserve to exist anymore.  Sen. Sander’s legislation would force them to act like banks once again.  What a concept!

h/t Turkana

Health Care Bill Passes House; Senate Next

I’m sure I’ll have plenty to write about this legislation as it continues to make its way through Congress and as its effects become more clear.  Quite frankly, I get the feeling that there is more I don’t like about it right now that there is I do like about it.  Supposedly, that’s the process that must take place for progress to be made … someday.  But this is today and the American people did not get out of the House what they voted to get out of the House.  Smart people will assess the landscape that developed this year as Democrats sold out issue after issue to appease their corporate masters and desperately trying to avoid mean-sounding ads in the media next year.  As to that latter point, does any sane person really expect future Republican challengers to go easy on Democrats because they voted against this bill?

The main point I wanted to highlight in this post is the truly disgusting and immoral Stupak Amendment – the one that was written to prevent private insurance plans from covering abortions.  Somehow, something like this still has the ability to stun me.  As written, a woman’s private insurance would be prevented from covering a procedure that she and a doctor came to a decision about.  This issue must be resolved – and so-called advocacy groups are failing time and time again to do anything about it.

I’m going to copy and paste a list from another blog.  It is the list of the 64 Democrats who voted with the Cons to pass this foul intrusion into women’s lives.  Not so surprisingly, only 2 of the Democrats voting for it were women.  So 62 male Democratic Representatives voted to make a procedure for women even harder to perform.  I’m keeping an eye on their 2010 races.  If some look close, I’m donating to their opponents’ campaigns.  If NARAL and Planned Parenthood won’t hold these trolls accountable, I hope the people will.  Emphasis below is mine.

For future reference, here is the list of Democrats who voted “Aye” on the Stupak-Pitts Amendment.

AL-2 Bright, Bobby; AL- 5 Griffith, Parker; AL-7 Davis, Artur; AR-1 Berry, Robert; AR-2 Snyder, Victor; AR-4 AR-4 Ross, Mike; CA-18 Cardoza, Dennis; CA-20 Costa, Jim; CA-43 Baca, Joe; CO-3 Salazar, John.

GA-2 Bishop, Sanford; GA-8 Marshall, James; GA-12 Barrow, John; KY-6 Chandler, Ben; IL-3 Lipinski, Daniel; IL-12 Costello, Jerry; IN-2 Donnelly, Joe; IN-8 Ellsworth, Brad; IN-9 Hill, Baron; LA-3 Melancon, Charles; ME-2 Michaud, Michael.

MA-2 Neal, Richard; MA-9 Lynch, Stephen; MI-5 Kildee, Dale; MI-1 Stupak, Bart; MN-7 Peterson, Collin; MN-8 Oberstar, James; MS-1 Childers, Travis; MS-4 Taylor, Gene; MO-4 Skelton, Ike; NM-2 Teague, Harry

NC-2 Etheridge, Bob; NC-7 McIntyre, Mike; NC-11 Shuler, Heath; ND Pomeroy, Earl; OH-1 Driehaus, Steve; OH-6 Wilson, Charles;  OH-9 Kaptur, Marcy; OH-16 Boccieri, John; OH-17 Ryan, Timothy; OH-18 Space, Zachary.

OK-2 Boren, Dan; PA-3 Dahlkemper, Kathleen; PA-4 Altmire, Jason; PA-10 Carney, Christopher; PA-11 Kanjorski, Paul; PA-12 Murtha, John; PA-14 Doyle, Michael; PA-17 Holden, Tim; RI-2 Langevin, James

SC-5 Spratt, John; TN-4 Davis, Lincoln; TN-5 Cooper, Jim; TN-6 Gordon, Barton; TN-8 Tanner, John; TX-16 Reyes, Silvestre; TX-23 Rodriguez, Ciro; TX-27 Ortiz, Solomon; TX-28 Cuellar, Henry.

UT-2 Matheson, Jim; VA-5 Perriello, Thomas; WV-1 Mollohan, Alan; WV-3 Rahall, Nick; WI-7 Obey, David.

Here is the list of 26 Democrats who voted “Aye” on Stupak (to discriminate against women) but “Nay” on the final bill (H.R. 3962; to deny Americans health care choice):

Altmire, Barrow, Boccieri, Boren, Bright, Chandler, Childers, Davis (AL), Davis (TN), Gordon (TN), Griffith, Holden, Marshall, Matheson, McIntyre, Melancon, Peterson, Ross, Shuler, Skelton, Tanner, Taylor, Teague

Catholic Church & Life

Wouldn’t it be nice to hear about the Catholic church requiring Congresspersons to amend legislation so that people that were already born weren’t killed by U.S. military action?  They keep saying they’re against wars, invasions and occupations – on the pretense of preferring people stay alive.  But there was no strong-arming Representatives to hold up legislation to invade Afghanistan or Iraq.

This particular exercise was futile for additional reasons: private insurers are already barred from using federal funds to pay for abortions.  That’s been the law for years.  This amendment is simply political grand-standing by a group of people who love to proclaim how victimized they are.  The amendment would prevent women who buy private insurance from being able to us that insurance to pay for an abortion in the unlikely event they need one.

This is encouraging:

Female Democrats on the Rules Committee, including Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter, left the room during consideration of the Stupak amendment and didn’t cast a vote.

They should do more than this.  They should vote against the bill in its entirety if the amendment hangs on to the end.  Why?

“This amendment would violate the spirit of health care reform, which is meant to guarantee quality, affordable health care coverage for all, by creating a two-tiered system that would punish women, particularly those with low and modest incomes,” said Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America in a late-night release.

What procedures do Catholics object to men having?  None?  Gee, I wonder why that is.  The Catholic church wants to set up a health care system where women continue to be treated as second-class persons.  In the 21st century.  That’s immoral.

[Update]: As another blogger reminded me, this is why I don’t donate to NARAL or Planned Parenthood anymore.  They know this amendment was likely to be introduced and they chose to do nothing to prevent that.  They both have millions of dollars at their disposal that they could use to pressure Democrats with, but they choose not to.  The people donating to these organizations and using their services are the ones who will suffer the most because of the political decisions the groups have made.  Hope that works out well for them.

Europe to Receive Saharan Solar Power By 2015?

It looks increasingly likely that they will be able to, according to this Guardian article.  Plans to install renewable energy infrastructure across Europe and Northern Africa continue to mature.  By 2050, the plan is to have 15% of Europe’s power being delivered across the Mediterranean Sea.

Meanwhile, the Cons and ConservaDems in the U.S. continue to lavish billions of dollars in tax breaks on dirty energy corporations and are fighting legislation to make renewables be more competitive, reduce harm on the climate and improve national security.  What patriots they are.  Europe is going to continue to dominate more of the renewable energy industry than the U.S. in the 21st century.

[h/t Climate Progress]

CDC Approved H1N1 Shots For Wall St Firms; Massive Shortages Elsewhere

In contrast to this diarist, words don’t fail.  It’s the same thing over and over again.  The $12Trillion bailout with taxpayer money wasn’t enough.  Despite vaccine shortages across the country, someone at the CDC made an immoral decision: staff at Wall St. firms were somehow cleared to receive some of the sought-after vaccine doses.

159 million shots are needed to cover every at-risk person in America.  To date, only 32.3 million have been manufactured.  The diarist was correct about this: Someone should be fired.  Immediately.

Oh, these same firms are planning on issuing Billions more in bonuses to executives who created the Great Recession, the worst economy since the Great Depression.  I supported Obama with some reservations.  This is why I had reservations.  Where is the change?