In the Pipeline: 9/5/12

He definitely should.  It would help the campaign tremendously. National Journal (9/4/12) reports: “A large group of Democratic donors is threatening to withhold money from President Obama’s reelection campaign unless he breaks his silence on climate change and responds directly to GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s denigration of the issue at the Republican National Convention last week.”

I had no idea that Pleistocene-era caliche deposits release carbon into the atmosphere when exposed to the elements. WSJ(9/4/12) reports: “A couple of weeks ago we wondered if green lobbying groups would object to new Department of Interior rules to streamline environmental approval for solar energy projects on hundreds of thousands of acres of federal land. (“The Solar-Painted Desert,” Aug. 13, 2012.) Well, here we go. Three environmental groups—Western Lands Project, Basin and Range Watch, and Solar Done Right—have filed a formal complaint of the kind that often presages a lawsuit… But here’s the real shocker: The letter complains that “no scientific evidence has been presented to support the claim that these projects reduce greenhouse emissions.” And “the opposite may be true. Recent work at the Center for Conservation Biology University of California, Riverside, suggests that soil disturbance from large-scale solar development may disrupt Pleistocene-era caliche deposits that release carbon to the atmosphere when exposed to the elements, thus ‘negat[ing] the solar development C [carbon] gains.'””

You know the really sad part?  No one is really surprised. Inside Climate News (9/4/12) reports: “Mitt Romney has vowed to drill the nation’s way out of its foreign oil addiction instead of investing in clean fuel technologies—but according to Dan Senor, one of Romney’s closest political advisers, that’s bad economics.”

This is discouraging.  Again, not surprising, but discouraging. E&ENews (9/4/12) reports: “Man-made global warming is happening, President Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney agreed in answers released today on the independent website ScienceDebate, but neither candidate provided specifics about what kind of future policies would be needed to slow climate change or guard against its adverse effects.”