But he's guilty of a serious (possibly fatal, given his position and influence) error in saying the petroleum is the enemy rather than coal.  Coal, as is often noted here on Gristmill, IS the enemy of humanity.  

The problem with oil is that it IS such a good fuel and there's too little of it; the problem with coal is that it's such a HORRIBLE fuel and there's so MUCH of it.  Therefore, environmentally, coal is far more disastrous as a result.

I read a paper by one of the RealClimate.org guys (title something like "a catastrophe in slow motion") and he points out that even if we were to burn all the coal and natural gas the world was thought to contain we couldn't double the atmospheric CO2.  

No, to really destroy the earth's atmospheric thermoregulation system, you need coal--we could quadruple the pre-industrial CO2 level or more and still have plenty of coal!

Certainly he's right that we don't go to war over coal--but that's simply because we've got a lot of it here.  (And you don't see people trying to take coal by force anywhere--yet--because there is still plenty of oil for the rich, for a while.)

The 5% Project

  Actually, I think "merciless Robo-Governor," has a nice ring to it. Governor Schwarzenegger is hardly a true friend of the environmental community in California or anywhere. He vetoed 50% of the environmental bills that got to his desk last year. His piece-meal signing of AB32, indeed a groundbreaking global warming bill, was done in an effort to salvage his environmental record going into a tight election. After signing this bill he vetoed many other very important greenhouse gas reduction bills.
  He also succeeded in taking credit for this bill as though it was his idea(note: photo-op con Tony Blair), even though AB32 was clearly the work of a coalition of over 45 environmental groups, plus some real enviro heroes in the Sac leg, prioritizing global warming and putting the lobby pressure on extra thick. Two weeks after signing the bill, Arnie passed an executive order to include carbon trading, which arguably hurts low-income communities.
  It is embarrassing, to say the least, that Grist (such a reputable environmental news source) would ever be convinced by (and further propagate) the strategic propaganda programs executed by the Arnie campaign in Fall '06. The fact that Arnie has come out with green rhetoric again, is simply an opportunistic way of furthering his political career.  
 Well, I for one, and I recommend the rest of the informed environmentalists out there in blog land, should not be so easily fooled. Until the bills start rolling off his desk in 2007 we should leave a very watchful eye on the governors office.
  *Let's remember he ran on a platform in '05 that said he wouldn't take special interest money (he was rich, so he didn't need to, right?), and then he proceeded to take more campaign handouts than any Governor in California history.  
   

Mollie- CLCV

Regarding the interview with Terry Tamminen, I would have liked to have read more Tamminen's vision of how states can accomplish CO2 emissions reductions.  There may be some situations that are unique to one state in terms of emissions reductions but for the most part the major emission sources are the same from state to state.   Every state contributes greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere which, for the most part, come from 3 primary sources:  (1) motorized transportation (cars, trucks, airplanes, motorized recreation), (2) space heating and (3) electric power generation and use.  Motorized transportation is the largest contributor.

In highway transportation, there are essentially three major ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation.  One is to switch to fuels that, when the fuel is burned, emit fewer pounds of greenhouse gases per mile traveled in the vehicle.  Another is to use a more fuel-efficient vehicle that burns less gasoline per mile.  The third way is for those who drive motor vehicles to reduce the number of miles they drive every year, and substitute driving with more fuel-efficient mass transit, bicycle use and walking; or at least car-pooling (or alternatively moving their place of residence or their place of business closer to one another to reduce the number of required miles of travel).  All 50 States have failed miserably on all three of these accounts.
http://epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/usinventoryreport....

In the Great Lakes region where I live, in spite of the Union of Concerned Scientists' release of its "Confronting Climate Change in the Great Lakes Region" report in April 2003 at the State Capitol in Madison, the state has done little to reduce the aggregate annual greenhouse gas emissions within the state.  As a member of the Preserve Our Climate Coalition, I actively participated in the press release and news conference on the report -- a report that was authored by 14 prominent Midwest university scientists and that projected serious economic, health, environmental and economic consequences to the state from the continued buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere if actions were not taken to reduce aggregate greenhouse gas emissions. The event failed to stir action by the state's governmental representatives at every level.  

Wisconsin's annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fuel burning increased 26% from 1990 to 2004, resulting in 31 million more tons of CO2 emitted to the atmosphere from Wisconsin sources in 2004 compared to 1990 (122 million vs. 91 million tons).  And since CO2 is additive (builds up) in the atmosphere from year to year, this means Wisconsin added approximately 1.5 additional billion tons of CO2 gas to the atmosphere during that 15 year period.  Business has continued as usual in Wisconsin, despite the public release of the report.

In April 2005, the Preserve Our Climate Coalition presented state lawmakers and the governor with their "Wisconsin Climate Change Petition", containing the names of over 500 residents of the state demanding the state to establish climate change legislation, including a program that would provide positive financial incentives to citizens who minimize motorized travel and energy use in the home on a yearly and per capita basis. It is doubtful that many of them took the time to even read the petition since they did nothing about it in response.

Although state legislators did manage to pass (and the governor signed) an energy bill last spring, which set goals for renewable energy sources in utility plants, the law omitted the whole area of reducing greenhouse gas from transportation the largest end-use sector emitter in Wisconsin.  In the area of electric power generation, coal still dominates as a fuel source in Wisconsin, supplying more than two-thirds of the state's power plants according the U.S. Energy Information Administration.  More and larger coal burning plants in Wisconsin have been approved since 2003 and are presently under construction.

Several years ago now, I authored a strategy to address the largest contributors to global warming on a statewide basis in Wisconsin. While not implemented, the concept may still have merit.

In a nutshell, the strategy is for government to reward citizens and families who conserved energy by offering financial incentives to them to reduce activities that contribute the most greenhouse gas emissions.  Funding sources would be the same as those already in place, but instead of financing  more highway expansion and power plant construction, the moneys collected would go back to the public as rebates at the end of the year.

I'm providing a link to paper I wrote that document the proposal, below.  Also included is a copy of the letter to the people I sent the proposal to.
http://www.danenet.org/bcp2006/neuman_gw.pdf

www.madison.com/communities/preserveourclimate

I guess I saw something about that on Treehugger or somewhere.  Big organizations with big buildings were supplying their own power and selling some back to the grid from rooftop collectors.  

It depended on tax incentives to get done, but the last I saw about it, it was just sort of beginning.  

If solar can get to 40% efficiency, with arrays that can go to scale, China and India will come on board maybe faster than most U.S. states.  

It'll happen first with big organizations, but that has the possibility of bringing the price low enough for real people.  

I, for one, would like a future with quiet, no-emission, local production of power.  

Mary S.