The Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (NEEA) is seeking qualified applicants for the following positions:

Lead, Stakeholder Relationship Management 

The Stakeholder Relationship Management Lead is responsible for ensuring high-functioning business relationships between NEEA and its many stakeholders and funders.  In addition to leadership and accountability for NEEA’s relationship management activities, this person plays a key leadership role inside the organization: developing NEEA staff knowledge and understanding of stakeholder perspectives; ensuring an effective and efficient stakeholder relationship management system; establishing and ensuring standards for excellence in stakeholder interactions; and establishing measurable stakeholder relationship goals.  This person reports to the Director of Stakeholder Services, with dotted-line accountability to the Executive Director of NEEA.

So, while the dams present problems for fish (mostly salmon, who are carnivores and probably shouldn't be eaten by humans anyway), not having dams presents more problems.

I present to you a Scientific American article that talks about dolphins and the challenges they're having with climate change.

Excerpt:

[O]ur unrelenting demand for seafood—which has caused rampant overfishing throughout the world’s oceans—means that dolphins, which feed on smaller fish such as mackerel, cod and herring as well as squid, are having a harder and harder time finding food. And in Turkey, Peru, Sri Lanka, Japan and elsewhere, dolphins are hunted as a delicacy and also to decrease competition for fish resources.

As if these problems weren’t enough, climate change also looms as one of the biggest threats of all to dolphins. “Due to the rapidly rising oceans temperatures, the dolphin’s primary food sources are seeking deeper cooler waters,” reports the Defenders of Wildlife. “Scientists are concerned that the dolphins will have difficulty adapting as quickly as necessary to find new feeding grounds to sustain their populations.”
 

Can you imagine having to hold your breath longer to catch dinner?  Can you imagine having to risk getting the bends to just have a meal?  That's screwed up.

In other news, I just read that the twister in Joplin, MO was a half-mile wide.  Yikes.

It seems to me we're coming up against some serious trade-offs.  We have the choice to save the lives of dolphins, plants, bees, polar bears, penguins, human beings, the Maldives, coastal cities everywhere, and billions of animals in the ocean and on land.  Or we can continue to use fossil fuels to increase our creature comforts.

Salmon are gorgeous creatures that have a real history here in the NW.  They're are a reminder that we are linked to the ocean and that our impacts on the land and water have real consequences.  We should learn our lesson, and we should do our best to save them as a resource.  And we should be mindful that carbon dioxide affects them as well as those who lost their lives and homes in Joplin and throughout the US.  Storms are becoming stronger and more intense.  And while some of us are doing our best to alleviate those pressures, there is always more to do.

 

Be mindful.

Here's what 205M gallons of oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico last year looks like... if processed of course.

We're blessed with an extremely dense form of energy that took millions of years to be created. It does make me a bit sad that we've overused black gold to the extent that we have. Instead of treating it as precious, it is a commodity.

What in your life is precious? And would you ever treat it as a commodity?

If we could achieve a cost of $50 per ton of CO₂, what would that do to energy prices? Every $10 per ton of CO₂ increases the cost of electricity by 1 cent per kilowatt hour, and increases the cost of gasoline by 10 cents per gallon. So a $50 per ton cost to capture CO₂ would, if applied back to the cost of CO₂ emissions, raise electricity prices by 5 cents per kilowatt hour and raise gasoline prices by 50 cents per gallon. That is not a bad price for avoiding catastrophic changes to the planet.

The best way to go about doing this is to place a price on carbon. Pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, where it causes long term damage to a planet shared by all, should be something one needs to pay for. The price paid should be at least commensurate to the cost of undoing any harm. On the flip side, efforts that remove a pollutant from the atmosphere should be rewarded at the same rate.

We’ve seen estimates of cost of mature carbon capture systems that range from $35 - $70 / ton, and of the very first systems at around $150 / ton. ...I would propose a price that starts at zero but ratchets up progressively to $100 / ton (in today’s dollars), at an automatic increment of $5 / ton each year. $100 / ton gives buffer room over the current price estimates for carbon capture and storage. This allows for some flexibility if cost estimates turn out to be too low. ...The gradual and predictable increase in the carbon price would soften the immediate economic shock of it, while giving both consumers and corporations clarity about the future and the ability to plan logically for it.

The industry isn't sexy, like renewable energy.  But it is much more stable than that.  Millions of houses need insulation.  Insulation saves people money (conservation in energy=conservation in dollars), as do solar panels.  But insulation does so 100% of the time, whereas wind and solar energy are spotty when it comes to timing.

As we get into developing the Smart Grid (whereby energy is coupled with data and used more efficiently and stored in places so it doesn't have to be so real-time), the skills and breadth will grow, as will the sexy integration of renewables.  But until then, many renewables are funded by grants and finicky governments (who are starved for cash, which seems to be a trend that isn't ending soon).  Utility programs for energy efficiency are standing on their own two feet, and while we're working against that $0.19 of profit per lightbulb for GE, there are lots of other opportunities for these same corporations to make money from what it is we're doing.

And, I can sleep at night.

• The Deepening Crisis: When Will We Face the Planet's Environmental Problems?, which looks at our divided-we-fall approach to global environmentalism
• If the world is going to hell, why are humans doing so well?, which examines the kicking of the Doom Can down the road, be it with environmental degradation, farming (mis)practices, and the rampant use of fossil fuel, which steals from both the energy of past and future.

"We have farming, tourism, fishing, shrimping — I mean, we've got other industries," Allen says, "but nothing close to what the oil and gas industry provides."

The oil and gas industry pervades the culture of Cajun South Louisiana. Note the symbol of Morgan City's annual Shrimp & Petroleum Festival — a shrimp in a hardhat wrapped around an oil derrick.
...
"These oil companies have, basically, from Huey Long all the way up to [current Gov.] Bobby Jindal, paid for the social services that we have in Louisiana," says Paul Leslie, a historian at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux.

What Louisianans get out of the bargain are low property taxes and good oilfield jobs. Today, a young man out of high school can make $70,000 a year offshore, with full benefits, working only half the year.

But Louisiana has paid dearly for its oil wealth, long before the present Gulf oil calamity.

More than 50,000 wells have been drilled onshore in coastal Louisiana, accessed by 8,200 miles of canals crisscrossing the swamps, marshes and bayous. Experts estimate that mineral extraction is directly responsible for one-third of all the coastal wetland loss and land subsidence.
-http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128064058

Because many can (viably) argue: Why should they change?  But I would like to know what the other costs of this industry are.  

I don't have time to do the research, but I would venture a few guesses here.  Feel free to comment if you have the time.
 

• What are the effects of environmental health problems in Louisiana compared to non-agricultural, non-petroleum-extractive states?  What are the rates of cancer, for example?
• What is the difference, the socioeconomic gap, between the haves and the have-nots? (I know, conservatives don't care about this issue, but it prevents have-nots from climbing the economic ladder)
• Where does LA rank in education vs. other states in quality of education?  (The premise here that there is no incentive to educate people when they can make 70K$ out of high school)
• What is the instance of generational complacency in LA, i.e. how long do families stay in LA?  (The theory here is that they have few transferrable skills that will move them to other states)  Especially with respect to people with a non-college education.  Do they stay there longer than people from other states?
• What is the high school graduation rate?

In my world, I want clean energy because this sort of stuff doesn't happen when you're doing solar panels.  Wind power, tidal power, and a few other things have predictable environmental problems (as does hydro), but that's the thing: it is predictable.  Currently, wind power is keeping many farmers in this state in business.  That's a good thing and is a win-win.  But oil: oil is putting many in LA, AL, MS, and FL out of business who depend on the sea for their livelihoods.

Additionally, let's assume (as I do) that carbon and greenhouse gases are indeed a problem.  The dead zones, change in oceanic patterns, and a bunch of things we do as humans that impact the environment create problems that many-times we just don't see; it is out of sight, out of mind.  Farmers don't see dead zones that are created by the eutrophication due to their fertilisers.  Those who build parking lots don't see the impacts on fisheries and oyster beds.  There is a disconnect, and it is the role of government to connect those dots and do everything in their power to make things equitable.

BP's lack of progress shows that multinationals can't be trusted with our environment, our livelihoods, nor our profitability.  We need to get off dirty fuels that directly and indirectly pollute our environment.  This is a call to arms.

The only way that cap and trade will raise your energy bills is if you: do not change your behaviours; buy from conservative power companies who have no idea that a market is coming for carbon; and ignore market economics.
 

Mr Will, stop ignoring the market you supposedly love and wake up to economics.  Cap and trade is good for energy, good for the environment, good for the economy, good for democrats, good for conservatives, good for America (and its long-term job prospects), and good for the biosphere.  It is good for your precious insurance companies, it lowers risks, it increases equity, and maintains (conserves) extraction industries (farming, crabbing, fishing, etc.).  In fact, by continuing to spew fossil fuels, conservatives are pro-change and will have to adjust, change, and backtrack plenty.