The Political Climate: an ongoing commentary on the NH Primary and Climate Change

Dreaming of a white Christmas is the closest anyone in New England, and many other spots around the world, will get to a dashing-through-the-snow, winter wonderland day that we all romantically long for over the holidays. 

Instead Anne Raver, writer for the New York Times, has traded in holly for fresh spinach, which is still growing in her Maryland garden.  She says she’s not surprised by this late growth because it’s only following typical climate trends that have occurred lately–insects are present all winter and poison ivy and ragweed are rampant.  In fact, the Agriculture Department’s Research Service is revising its hardiness zone map (Raver’s gardening zone has jumped from a 7 to an 8), as temperatures over the last 30 years grow steadily warmer.  Raver provides a list of gardening tips that can help combat global warming–composting, planting rooftop gardens, limiting fertilizer use, and avoiding gasoline-powered tools like mowers and leaf blowers.  But she concludes that “gardens alone can’t save the polar bears, or all the other species that could vanish.  Only a radical reduction in the burning of fossil fuels can do that.”  (Read the entire article here.) On the bright side, the oranges that Granite Staters get in their stockings could one day be harvested locally…

Gardens aren’t the only thing green around these parts.  This article in today’s Boston Globe shows a picture of a skier sitting on a chairlift, the typicaly white background many shades darker and greener, and a caption noting “unlike the slopes we used to know.”  Ski areas all around the Northeast are suffering not only from lack of snow, but also from warm temperatures.  Warm days are carrying over into warm nights, which hinder snow-making efforts.  Ed Beckley, general manager of Mount Southington in CT, explains “we’ve lost Christmas,” which accounts for as much as a third of the mountain’s annual revenue. 

New England isn’t alone.  The Washington Post reported on “balmy Europe,” which is experiencing the warmest year in the Alpine region in 1300 years.  A street vendor in Moscow, a city that prides itself on a cold, harsh climate, says “I want snow…this is a disgusting winter.”  According to Yulia Vaganova, an avid skier in the region, skiing is “absolutely impossible” under these conditions. (Read the entire story here.)

Fortunately, these temperatures aren’t going unnoticed.  Today Marty Meehan, a representative of the fifth Congressional District of Massachusetts, and Paul Epstein, associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, have an opinion piece in the Boston Globe, “Making Noise on Global Warming.”  The piece begins with a quote by Rev. Martin Luther Kind Jr., “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”  Global warming is one of the “few matters of international importance that could have more dire consequences than being silent about the dangers.”  Maybe a muddy Christmas and empty slopes over this holiday season will send another strong message.

I almost did not open a Mark Warner envelope in yesterday’s mail: who needs an end-of-the-year appeal from a PAC connected to a person who is no longer running for president?

Anyway, the Forward Together PAC letter to Granite Staters was not an appeal for money–just a reminder of recent “successes” and 2007 “challenges.”

Indeed, one of the challenges was “to work towards solutions to the dramatic challenges we face as a nation–like our failure to connect the dots between energy, global warming, national security and the possibility of creating more American jobs in renewable energy industries.”

Did EVERYONE who received Warner’s letter get the same letter, or is this simply a cut-and-paste, mail merge pandering paragraph?  Well, the same language is in Warner’s web blog. 

Great that presidential drop-outs are pandering (see what Bayh said about climate recently in Cornish).  NH is still seeking real commitment to real climate change solutions from ALL the possible surviving candidates. 

Speaking of ALL the candidates–enough about the democrats.  Regarding solutions, there is good diversity among republican wannabe candidates.  Here’s a sampling of what a few had to say last year:

“Currently actions are being taken to turn the research into new beneficial farming practices for our farmers in Kansas.  This initiative will not only help us fight off global climate change by storing a leading greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, in trees and soils–it will also preserve habitat, prevent runoff pollution in our water and create better soil fertility for our farms.”  The state gives it away but it’s not Bob Dole…

“A sound energy policy must include sensible and effective climate policies reflecting the reality that strong economic growth and abundant clean energy supplies go hand in hand.  Innovation and technology are building blocks for an effective and sustainable climate policy.  Climate change does not recognize national borders.  It is an international issue.  It is a shared responsibility for all nations.”  Got his Christmas card, too…

“The United States needs to make wise decisions about fuel choices and encourage energy efficiency.  one step in that effort is to identify  and eliminate regulatory and infrastructure barriers to use of the plentiful domestic natural gas reserves.  The billions spent on questionable research into renewable energy could be better directed to squeezing more oil and gas from our reservoirs and lowering finding costs.”  Whoa.

“For argument’s sake, let’s say…that the science that we are relying on is wrong–yet we enact legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” says ___________. “What harm will that action cause?  Clean air and a more competitive industrial base.”  Isn’t building support fun?

The folks at the Carbon Coalition will send a nip of maple syrup to the first person who matches the names and faces and signs up for our newsletter.

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone that snowmobile registrations are down so far this season.  We are kind of lacking one of the fundamental ingredients to the sport–snow.  According to this article in the Union Leader, registrations are down by an estimated 10,000 to 15,000.  NH Fish and Game Maj. Tim Acerno says, “I’ve never seen that much of a drop in one year.  Last year, we had about 60,000 registrations” and some years they have as many as 75,000.  Already northern parts of the state are suffering from cancellations over the holiday season.  The Carbon Coalition recently released a report, “Winter Recreation, Global Warming and New Hampshire, ” which researched this problem.  The results of the study are pretty much common sense–”cold snowy winters bring more visitors and generate more economic activity than warm, slushier winters.”  However, this years drop in snowmobile registrations is much more precipitous than the 11% decline that the report estimates.

Today The Washington Post published this article about the “inconvenient controversy” between Laurie David, a producer for “An Inconvenient Truth,” and the National Science Teacher Association (NSTA) (TPC reported on this story here).  Global warming has not yet become a formalized part of the science curriculum around the country, even though Gerry Wheeler, executive director of the NSTA, puts it on the top of his “must-teach” list along with HIV/AIDS education. 

Last week National Public Radio’s, “Living on Earth” interviewed both David and Wheeler.   David explained her outrage over the NSTA’s deferment of her generous offer of 50,000 free copies of “An Inconvenient Truth:” “what I was hoping to accomplish is to get this movie…into schools so school kids can see the truth about what’s happening with this issue.”  Although spreading global warming information is a concern of Wheeler’s he explained, “the reason we turned it down is because of our endorsement policy or our non-endorsement policy.  The NSTA does not endorse any materials produced by any group outside of the NSTA.”  David didn’t accept this as a reasonable excuse.  Listen to the heated interview here.

The Campus Climate Challenge isn’t waiting around for organizations like the NSTA to begin incorporating climate change into science curriculums.  Instead it’s calling for a youth movement across the country, “Rising to the Challenge,” which is asking students from January 29th to February 2nd to “speak to their campus leaders and our new congress about how the decisions they make today directly affect the world we inherit tomorrow.” 

After all the presidential noise this weekend, you would never know the election is actually two years down the line!  Three potential candidates made the rounds in the Granite State this weekend. 

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson spoke to the Union Leader yesterday after making several stops around the state.  He appears to be ramping up for a presidential run: “I know the media’s not taking me seriously right now.  I know the pundits aren’t, and that’s fine with me…you’ve got to peak at the right time.  I don’t want to peak now” (read more about Richardson’s trip here).  Sen. Joe Biden spoke to Granite Staters calling for bipartisan cooperation in Washington.  Former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich echoed Biden’s remarks, saying he hopes the upcoming campaigns will bring “a new wave of ideas, a wave of solution,” for all candidates and both parties.  Gingrich also announced that he will wait until next September to decide whether or not he will make an official run for president.  He praised Romney, McCain, and Giuliani as being well-qualified contenders and he will wait to see if any of them have a strong advantage before he makes a decision. (Read Gingrich article here and Biden article here.)

Sen. Evan Bayh who was in New Hampshire last weekend, announced on Saturday that he will no longer attempt to run for president in this upcoming election. He explained, “the odds were always going to be very long for a relatively unknown candidate like myself,” and he acknowledged that it didn’t seem like he would be able to compete with better known contenders, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama.  Sen. John Edwards went the opposite direction–he plans to announce an official run sometime between Christmas and the New Year (read the entire article from the Union Leader here).

New Hampshire ski resorts aren’t alone in suffering from warm temperatures.  This article in the New York Times  reports that ski areas in the Alps are being hit hard by high temperatures.  Two new studies have explained that these temperatures are something that should be taken seriously.  One study shows that the Alps are the warmest they’ve been in 1,250 years, while the other study predicts that “an increase of a few more degrees would leave most Alpine resorts with too little snow to survive.”  In fact, research has shown that the Alps are warming twice as fast as average worldwide warming, changing a 75% Alpine glacier advancement in 1980 to a now 90% glacier retreat.