North Polar Ice Cap: Another Record Low in Store?

One more weather post while we're on the topic. Last year, the north polar ice cap made news when it shrunk to the smallest it's been since modern measurements have been taken.




It looks like this summer will be a repeat, or at least close. Here's the data:

By this point last summer there was slightly less sea ice in the northern hemisphere than this year, then it leveled out. If September is unusually warm (or sunny), this year could still break the record. In any event, the older, thicker sea ice is rapidly disappearing, being replaced by thinner new ice.

The melting sea ice has negligible impact on ocean sea levels, but could be a harbinger of things to come if melting of the Greenland ice sheet also accelerates.

By the way, last summer the Global Warming Deniers could at least point to Antarctica to offset alarm over the melting north pole, as the extent of southern hemisphere sea ice reached a record high (it's winter down there, so the ice is going in the opposite direction). But that's not the case this summer. Instead, southern sea ice is significantly below last year's pace, and for the first time in the past 12 months is below the average (technically, mean) level of the past 20 years.

We're sure the GWD's, aided by a few Exxon dollars, will come up with something, however.

Why Is The Arctic Warming Faster Than The Antarctic?

[Readers: sorry, we had a technical problem with Blogger, which has now been solved. We hope to have additional posts later today.]

Over the past couple of decades, warming in the Arctic has proceeded at an astounding pace, but the Antarctic has seen relatively little in the way of warming. Why?

It's explained here in a release from NOAA. (In large part, it has to do with the ozone hole in Antarctica.)

Slip-Sliding Away: Anarctica Melting Faster Than Thought

Today's news brings us word that the western Antarctic ice sheet is melting a good deal faster than previously thought. (See "Escalating Ice Loss Found In Antarctica" in the Washington Post.)

Since air temperatures have not risen appreciably in the Antarctic--at least not yet--compared to a fairly dramatic rise in the Arctic, scientists had not expected to find much in the way of melting to the South. It turns out, however, that because the ocean itself is getting warmer, the portion of ice in Antarctica that sits on the water is melting, more so than previously thought.

Significantly, in the most recent IPCC report on global warming, the forecast sea level rise by the end of the century, which was modest, excluded any contribution from melting in Antarctica and Greenland, the two potentially largest contributors to rising oceans. By the time of the next IPCC report, additional data may merit some rather dramatic revisions to the predictions for coastal flooding.

We do wish, however, that the Post's article--similar ones in other publications--had addressed the data from this past summer (the Antarctic winter) reporting that sea ice formation was at a record high, which is certainly different than one would expect with warming. There may be reasonable explanations for both the observed melting and the anomolous record ice formation, but we'd like to hear them, and, at a minimum, have the ice formation story acknowledged when reading stories about melting in Antarctica.

As for the Curmudgeon, we're sticking to mountain properties for our old age.

The Green Curmudgeon

With 2007 coming to a close, we thought it time to review how the Curmudgeon family did in its efforts during the year to reduce our large footprint on the world.

Electric Consumption

We did best in reducing our consumption of electricity. With our solar panels at work for the full year, we generated roughly 2600 kilowatt hours of emission-free renewable solar power, offsetting between 20-25% of our electricity needs.

We also had the first full year of benefit from our other conservation measures, including replacement of most of our light bulbs with compact fluorescents and turning off most of our electronics when not in use. Those measures--which cost a lot less than putting in solar panels--had about the same impact, reducing our consumption by about 2800 kilowatt hours.

All in all, we reduced our electric consumption by a third, from 15,800 kwh in 2006 to 10,400 kwh in 2007. Even more impressive is that since 2004 we have reduced consumption by TWO-THIRDS, from 29,400 kwh to 10,400 kwh. One key: in 2004 we had an electric heater in our greenhouse that used roughly 10,000 kwh by itself, just to keep a little room at about 55 degrees. We replaced the greenhouse with a very well-insulated sunroom, which is pretty much paying for itself in energy savings. (That's our greenhouse effect.)

A word to the wise: if you are using electric heat anywhere in your house, it's probably costing you a bundle. We have some friends in Scarsdale, NY, who had an enormous electric bill, and discovered one of the prime reasons was the electric heating in their garage.

It will be difficult for us to reduce electric consumption much further, absent a new, more efficient air conditioner. One of our a/c units is pretty old, so that upgrade may not be too far off.

Natural Gas Consumption

We've also made some progress in reducing our consumption of natural gas, which we use for hot water, heating, cooking and fireplaces.

In 2004-05 we averaged 2350 Therms of gas use, whereas in 2006-07 we averaged 1960 Therms, a nearly 20% reduction. We've done that without making our home uncomfortable--we keep the thermostat at 71 degrees, lest Mrs. Curmudgeon complain.

The keys, so far: turn down the thermostat when out of town; put in a storm door; turn down the heat in unused zones of the house (like the guest bedroom).

We need to do more, and are thinking of the following: programmable thermostats (to turn down the heat late at night) and replacing our older windows with today's double-paned energy efficient versions. Both of those steps will probably cost a good deal more than the savings they will generate, however (we have four thermostats and lots of old windows). We could also get a more efficient hot water heater, although hot water only accounts for about 150 Therms per year, so there's no big savings to be had there.

The good news is that natural gas is a very efficient energy medium for the uses to which we've put it--heating--so we're doing pretty well even without additional reductions.

Gasoline

Our progress in reducing gasoline consumption has been slow because we haven't replaced any cars in the last three years. We estimate that we have reduced consumption by about 10% by changing our driving habits--more coasting to stop lights, slower acceleration, better highway speeds.

In 2008 we may replace one car, and in 2009 the lease will be up on the Curmudgeon's Acura. We hope to get much more efficient replacements for both, but we can't be too radical--we still have to ferry two boys and all their stuff--and the occasional friends--all over creation. And we're pretty sure that "travel soccer" will result in an increased carbon burden as we travel farther afield to get to the games.

Solid Waste

We made good progress this year in boosting our recycling and reducing our garbage/trash. We are now meticulous about what goes into recycling--not just newspapers and magazines, but mail, school flyers, cereal boxes, other food containers. We also save all those plastic bags that the newspapers come in, along with the ones from stores, and put them into the plastic bag recycling at the grocery store. That has probably resulted in a couple thousand less plastic bags at the landfill from us this year. And we're religious about recycling cardboard, plastic bottles, metal cans--anything that is eligible for recycling.

We've also started doing some composting, but we could do better. So far, we're probably only fattening up our local squirrels, but a resolution for the new year is to come up with a good system to maximize composting.

Still, we put a lot of trash out each week. It'd be nice to reduce it further.

Water

Water is not energy per se, but it is a precious resource and it takes a lot of energy to get it to and from your home, so it's worth looking at how much you're using. We just started looking into this, creating a baseline of water use over the past three years so we can figure out whether we're making any meaningful reductions.

With this summer's drought, we certainly wished we'd had some rain barrels. Typically, a barrel will hold 50 gallons of water, and even a small rain storm will re-fill it. We could easily put out four rain barrels--one on each corner downspout--and with re-fills get several thousand gallons of water over the course of the spring/summer/early fall watering season.

Sustainability

Organic products and other renewable products obtained from sustainable practices also reduce energy needs and conserve the environment. We are gradually adding more organic products to our diet--eating out less would help(!)--and trying to incorporate sustainability into our purchasing decisions. It ain't easy, though.

Our bottom line: we made terrific progress in 2007, but we've probably harvested all the low-hanging fruit. It's doubtful we'll make as much progress in 2008, but our hope is that we will continue to reduce our collective Curmudgeon-household footprint as we go forward.

Energy Independent By 2050?

This week's Scientific American has an interesting proposal to end U.S. dependence on foreign oil and slash our greenhouse emissions by 2050. In "A Solar Grand Plan," a trio of scientists in the energy field put forth a plan to build massive solar installations in the deserts of the southwestern U.S. and route electricity to the rest of the country via a new direct-current transmission backbone.

It's an interesting idea. The authors project that the plan would require about $420 billion in governmental subsidies between now and 2020. That sounds like a lot, but it really isn't--it's less than we'll spend on the Iraq war, and it's less than one year's worth of agricultural subsidies in the U.S. The money could be raised by a modest carbon tax paid over a number of years.

The plan may be pie in the sky. Many energy plans we read about are. What we like about this particular one is that it would practically replace all foreign oil imports over a time frame that is probably reasonable, and it would do so without impacting our food chain--in contrast to the pie in the sky biofuel proposals out there--while also vastly reducing our output of greenhouse gases.

It would be nice to hear some of the folks running for President discuss something like this, but they, of course, are so busy pandering to Iowa farmers and various other existing energy interests that it will never happen.

Mayor Bloomberg: perhaps this is an issue for you to get on board.

Another Globally Warm Year

NOAA's preliminary annual report on the 2007 year in climate is out, and it's been another warm year. Although the year is not quite done, it's pretty certain that 2007 will go down as the fifth warmest worldwide since records have been kept starting in 1880. (All of the top ten warmest years globally have been in the past decade.)

It was the warmest ever for land temperatures across the globe.

It will also be one of the ten warmest years in the U.S., which is in keeping with trends over the past 10-15 years. The ongoing exceptional drought in the Southeastern U.S. was also worthy of mention. It looks like the La Nina that has been contributing to that drought is beginning to weaken, so we hope that cities like Atlanta and Raleigh will be able to recover in 2008.

Below is NOAA's graphic representation of tempeature anomalies in 2007--as you can see, if was particularly warm in the northern hemispere, especially in northern Europe and Asia.

Can LED's Save The World?

One of the great "green" advances of this Holiday season is the advent of affordable holiday lights made with LED's--light emitting diodes--in place of energy-hogging incandescent bulbs.

As a general rule, LED's use roughly one-tenth the electricity of incandescent bulbs to generate the same amount of light, so they certainly are energy efficient.

Lights made with LED's also are more flexible--they can be made into many different shapes, can be embedded in various materials, and, because they use so much less electricity, can be run for long periods off batteries, remote from an electric outlet.

And, LED's are more durable--they're very difficult to break--come in more and brighter colors, and last longer. In short, they're perfect outdoor lights.

And therein lies the problem. You see, humans love to light up the night. If they can do it various colors, all the better. So, will humans simply replace all their incandescent (and fluorescent--LED's are three times as efficient as fluorescents) bulbs and save the universe by reducing electricity use for lighting by 90%?

Of course not. Instead, they'll simply have more lights. As the cost of LED's continues to decline, expect to see them where you wouldn't have before.

Do you like that nifty floor lighting in the airplane that will guide you to the exit in an emergency? Imagine if every highway, every sidewalk, every driveway, were lined with such lights.

Do you think it's cool when a building is outlined in colored lights? Imagine if LED's are embedded into building materials to create massive masterpieces of illuminated building art.

What about those truck drivers with the lights all over their trailers? Now they can go hog wild. And yes, auto manufacturers are already looking for ways to incorporate the lights throughout the next generation of vehicles.

Then there's the third world, where lighting and the energy to run it is very expensive. But you can imagine remote villages suddenly lit up by LED's.

Another quality of LED's is their brightness--some can easily give off that nice Christmas-tree effect even in daylight. And so they will--instead of turning on the lights at night, why not burn them all day!

No, LED's probably won't save the world from global warming. But they might help us illuminate as tourist attractions the various underwater cities we'll be creating in the next century!

Southeast Drought a Bush Plot To Entrench Republicans?

Here it is the latter part of October and we're still wearing shorts here in Washinton.

What up with that?

Is it global warming? We can't say--it's almost impossible to link anomalies in our daily weather to longer term climate trends. After all, the weather is weird, somewhere, every year.

Nonetheless, in Washington--and much of the East Coast--we're looking at by far the warmest October on record. At present, October's temperatures here are running almost 10 degrees warmer than average (!) The record is around 6 degrees above average, and if temperatures were to revert to average for the rest of the month (as appears more or less likely), we'd easily smash the old record (set in 1984).

And who's to say that endless summer is no fun?

Unfortunately, our warm trend has been coupled with a very dry trend. Now, us golfers normally like warm and dry, but it does have to rain every now and then to keep the course in good shape. (Mondays would be good).

In fact, the drought is getting to crisis proportions in much of the Southeast. Could it be God's punishment for all those red states that so thoroughly supported Bush for President? [If we were any good at all with graphics, we'd superimpose the latest national drought monitor map on the electoral maps for 2000 and 2004--we think you'd see red for drought and red for Bush in just about the same places.]

Or maybe this is all part of a Bush/Rove plot: a secret NSA sponsored weather program to create a drought so severe that all the poor people in Atlanta and other Southern cities have to move out--i.e., a lot of African-Americans--thereby enhancing Republican majorities in those states, right before redistricting. Hey, it worked in New Orleans! Yep, that's what we think it is.

Even if it's not, here's one thing you can count on if big cities like Atlanta and Raleigh really do go dry: they won't get any help from ol' Bushie. Yes, he'll buzz by in Air Force one, maybe even turn the spigot on a water truck while the TV cameras are rolling, but don't expect any kind of meaningful help out of Washington. After all, the Republicans in those cities will find a way to help themselves.

Antarctic Freeze-up

Well now, while the Arctic is melting, it seems the South Pole is freezing up. Of course, you say--it's winter down south. But that's not what we mean.

Interestingly (hat tip to Mattnoyes for this), while the Arctic Ocean set a record for least ice cover this week, the Antarctic set a record for maximum ice cover. For complete information on both the Arctic and Antarctic, check out The Cryosphere Today (you'll probably want to bookmark this site to make sure you don't miss a thing on the cryosphere!)

What does this all mean? Not clear. Certainly, there is clear evidence of dramatic, sustained warming at the North Pole, and we're likely to see more of the same. The Southern Hemisphere is a bit different, however.

Global warming skeptics will no doubt pounce on the Antarctic news to bolster their claims. But no one expects the effects of warming to be uniform across the globe. Indeed, even in the Antarctic there is variation, and there is evidence that some of the large glaciers that form the southern ice cap are accelerating.

It is also certainly possible that more than one thing is going on at a time--normal weather cycles that are still poorly understood may account for both the Arctic warming and Antarctic cooling, while global warming could well be exacerbating the trend in the north, and perhaps ameliorating it in the south (we don't have many years of data on the Antarctic).

We agree with MattNoyes on one thing: the media shouldn't report on warming in the north and then simply ignore the news from the south.

I'm Melting--The Incredible Shrinking Polar Ice Cap

Like the Wicked Witch, sprayed with water by Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, our polar ice cap is melting fast (but not into a yucky puddle of green with a hat on top).

The National Snow and Ice Center in Boulder, Colorado, reports that arctic sea ice is at a record low right now, shattering the previous record, set in 2005, with a 20 percent greater reduction. See "Actic Sea Ice Cover At Record Low." (The satellite photo to the right here shows quite a bit of open ocean at the North Pole. If you really zoomed in, you might see Santa sun-bathing.)

Based on this data, scientists are now saying we may have an ice free North Pole (at the end of summer)by as early as 2030.

Wow, that was fast! It was only a week ago that we passed on new research predicting an ice free arctic by 2050, which moved up earlier predictions from the year 2100.

The good news is that melting of the arctic ice cap does not raise sea levels appreciably. Indeed, it could open up the fabled "Northwest Passage" for ship transit from the Atlantic to the Pacific, making a lot of Panamanians very unhappy about the sudden reduced relevance of their canal.

Unfortunately, the bad news is a lot worse. If the Arctic Ocean is melting much, much faster than most computer models projected, then it is likely that other melting--the kind that does raise sea levels--is also accelerating faster than expected. The big ones are the Greenland ice sheet and Antarctica. If the Arctic ice is melting at a record pace, then Greenland is probably not far behind. (It's more difficult to measure Greenland--we'll see those reports later in the year after more data is crunched.) Antarctica doesn't necessarily follow what's going on in the Arctic, but it stands to reason that warming is accelerating at the South Pole too.

We expect that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to significantly revise--upward--its projections of sea level rise over the next century. A more rapid rise in sea levels has a number of very serious implications. For one, we'd be foolish to invest billions in trying to protect all of existing New Orleans if it's just going to be a losing battle. Instead, we need to give serious consideration to other at risk cities, such as New York, Norfolk, Baltimore, Miami, Tampa and quite a few others.

Arctic Melting Faster

Here's some cheery news: "NOAA Scientists Say Arctic Ice Is Melting Faster Than Expected."

According to the Post's story, most of the north pole will be ice free in summer by 2050, instead of 2100. And, there's nothing we can do about it, because that's based on the current levels of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere.

The good news: the Curmudgeon may be able to take a polar cruise in his rapidly approaching old age.

Other good news: "This [the melting] will open up vast waters for fishermen and give easier access to new areas for oil and gas exploration." Goody--more greenhouse gases, so we can melt the South Pole too!

Sensible Advice On A Global Global Warming Pact

Former Secretary of State George Schultz has some sensible advice in today's Post on how to achieve a viable global warming pact amongst all the countries of the world.

In "How To Gain A Climate Consensus," Schultz draws on experience with the Montreal Protocol, successfully used to address the ozone depletion issue. There's no rocket science here. Achieving a meaningful consensus on climate change will require some give and take, some compromise, and some hard bargaining.

No treaty will be perfect--we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We need to get something started, and over time we can make it better.

Incidentally, Schultz argues that "a straight-out carbon tax is simpler and likelier to produce the desired result" than a complicated cap and trade system. We've previously argued for cap and trade, but mainly on political grounds--that irresponsible Republicans in the U.S. will argue for political gain against anything that is labelled a "tax." We do agree, however, that a carbon tax is far more efficient and likely to be more effective.

It would be nice to see the U.S. take the lead on climate change, rather than be dragged along kicking and screaming. For that to happen, however, we'll have to wait about another year and a half.

Global Warming Deniers

Newsweek has a nice little cover story this week on the global warming denier industry: "Global Warming Deniers--A Well Funded Machine."

Some Like It Hot

The Weather Service says tomorrow will be downright hot--around 97 degrees and sticky humid.





Think that's bad?





Take a look at this forecast from the UK Met Office Hadley Centre--a leading authority on global warming--for the average highest temperatures fifty years from now in the eight capitals of the G8 nations. (Hat tip to Capitalweather.com for this one.)

To put this is perspective, the average hottest day in Washington since 1987 has been 37 degrees C--or a toasty 99 degrees F. If global temperatures rise 2 degrees centigrade over the next 50 years, as forecast by the IPCC, then the average hottest day in DC will be 42 degrees C--or 108 degrees F.

(Why, you ask, would the temperature in DC rise more than 2 degrees C if worldwide temps rise an average of 2 degrees C? The answer is that warming is uneven--less at the equator, more in higher latitudes.)

Better hope the old folks home has some good A/C.

Or, maybe we'll all be living in Greenland by then. Today's Washington Post reports on how Greenlanders are rather happily adapting to the warmer temperatures. Turns out that like the rest of us, Greenlanders would just as soon have it be not quite so cold in the winter. With a longer growing season and the opportunity to fish nearly year round, the residents of the not-so-green land are finding better economic prospects up north.

So here's our suggestion to the enterprising Greenlanders: retirement homes. Could be the new Florida!

The China Excuse

Bush says we shouldn't have to do anything on global warming until China does.

So he's off to the G-8 summit, meeting with leaders of countries who ARE doing something about warming, and urging them that, gosh, we really need to get China going on this.

What a moron.

Yes, China needs to get going on global warming, but that's not an excuse for the largest, richest, most carbon polluting nation in the world to sit back and do nothing.

The U.S. could play a useful role by SHOWING China the way. Lead by example. Yes, we know that's a tough one for the W-meister, but he might try it once in awhile.

No doubt the Chinese, who are awakening to the issue, have a different view, to wit: why should WE, a country with per capita income less than one fifth that of the U.S., a country still far below Western standards of living, have to make sacrifices when those fat Americans are sitting on their air conditioned butts complaining about a little $3 gas.

(Air conditioning is so out of control in the U.S. that one commenter on a recent blog piece on saving energy asked how he could get employees in his office to stop running electric HEATERS under their desks during the summer because they were cold from too much air conditioning! The solution, of course, was not to ban the heaters, but to turn down the freakin' AC, which is often colder than anyone would be comfortable with when heating their house in the winter.)

Cheap Talk From Bush On Global Warming

Frankly, we'd rather see George W. Bush continue in his role as a global climate change denier rather than his weak embrace of the issue late last week.

This is a pretty typical conservative move--pretend to embrace an issue with rhetoric--one that shows why it is all the more important that Democrats in Congress move PROMPTLY to put a strong bill on the President's desk during this legislative term. He may well veto it, but at least it will separate rhetoric from action.

All Bush is doing now is stalling. The science of global climate change, not to mention the ongoing reality before our very eyes, has made it virtually impossible to simply deny warming anymore. Dick Cheney and Oklahoma's Sen. James Inhofe are about the only ones still clinging to the flat earth view of the climate change world--no doubt they also think it's still "unproven" that smoking causes cancer, too.

Most conservatives, however--including all the GOP presidential candidates--now accept global warming as a fact, but don't really want to do much about it. And that's where we are with Bush.

Bush now says--at the end of his incompetent presidency--that we should start to talk about what to do down the road so that maybe, by 2012, we can put in place some "aspirational" goals to reduce global warming later in this century.

Bush rejects out of hand a German proposal to limit the worldwide temperature rise this century to 3.6 degrees fahrenheit (which would translate to a much higher rise at the poles). He says it's "impractical."

Bush, and many other conservatives, have an odd way of looking at the economic costs of limiting global warming. In their calculus, any tax or cap and trade system is a "cost," but they ignore the costs--such as the $100 billion in Katrina damage--of doing nothing.

They also fail to factor in the economic benefits of new technologies--manufacturing solar panels, wind turbines, electric batteries, fuel cells, etc.--that will accrue to those nations that take the lead on these issues. Already, the U.S. is falling behind in these critical technologies, ceding leadership to Europe, Japan and China, while we continue to invest in and protect old technologies--oil, coal, gasoline engines, etc.--that WILL decline as the century progresses.

The only thing Bush is right about is the need for China and India to join in action on global climate change. But while Bush uses the exclusion of China and India from the Kyoto accords as an excuse for us to do nothing, China, at least, is starting to realize on its own that the magnitude of the problem requires aggressive action. Indeed, China is embarking on a major campaign to build new, mostly carbon neutral, nuclear plants throughout the country. China's political system is capable of responding to the challenge much faster than ours (as opposed to India, which is likely to be paralyzed).

The bottom line is that Bush is proposing to do only one new thing: talk. Talk is cheap. Our children and grandchildren deserve better.

Cape Cod Windbags

A new book, Cape Wind, details the battle between wealthy, well-connected and mostly liberal New Englanders to prevent construction of an offshore wind-energy farm near Cape Cod.

The biggest windbag in the story is Senator Ted Kennedy, with nephew Robert Kennedy, Jr., presidential candidate flip-flopper extraordinaire Mitt Romney, and historian David McCullough not too far behind.

Energy entrepeneur Jim Gordon has been trying for six years now to put 130 large wind turbines on Horseshoe Shoal, off Nantucket Sound, to provide about 420 megawatts of clean energy--75% of Cape Cod's annual consumption--to Massachusetts. The wind turbines would be about five miles from the Kennedy compound, nine miles from Martha's Vineyard and 14 miles from Nantucket (a distance at which they'd barely be visible).

So, have the Kennedy's, and Romney--all of whom profess to be for energy independence, renewable energy, clean energy and effors to reduce global warming--used their considerable influence to get this worthy project on the fast track?

Nope. They've done everything they can to stop it, citing everything from "visual pollution" (wait until you see the visual pollution of a major hurricane bearing down on the Cape) to a presumed decline in property values along the shore (evidently, being able to point proudly to the clean energy being produced just offshore doesn't help one's property values in stodgy Massachusetts).

We say, a pox on Cape Cod and its wealthy limousine liberals. Poetic justice would be a major hurricane, inflamed by warm ocean waters from global warming, sending a 20 foot storm surge across the Cape, wiping it clean for new development. More likely, your tax dollars will go to shoring up the Cape as gradually rising oceans lap ever higher on its shores. Maybe in 50 years, when the Cape is gone, someone will put an offshore wind farm right on top of what had beenTed Kennedy's old homestead.

How Long Will EPA Take?

Now it's just a waiting game. The EPA has held a hearing on California's request to grant a waiver allowing it to institute rules much tougher than EPA's on auto emissions, in an effort to reduce greenhouse gases. (See, e.g., "Battle Heats Up Over Emissions" in the Post.)

Now the question is whether EPA will simply sit on the decision until the Bush administration ends, essentially running out the clock. We hope not, but fear so.

Delaware Wind Farm Approved

Following up on one of our earlier reports, Delaware authorities have now approved construction of a wind farm off the Delaware coast. According to the Post article, the wind energy complex may be a bit smaller than the original proposal, but it is likely to be built.

This is a great step forward. If the backers of the Delaware project are successful in getting clean, carbon free kilowatts flowing onshore, more similar projects are likely to crop up along the Atlantic coast, perhaps, even, in Virginia.

Ahnold To EPA: Get Out (Of My Way)

Just to show that there is, in fact, still a progressive wing of the Republican Party (or perhaps a refuge for somewhat conservative Democrats), today's Post features an op-ed piece by Republican governors Arnold Swarzenegger and Jodi Rell (Connecticut) decrying the EPA's continued interference with state efforts to combat global warming.

Lead or Step Aside, EPA; States Can't Wait on Global Warming

Maybe there's still hope for the center in American politics, at least if the GOP doesn't completely melt down over immigration.