Citizen's Climate Lobby of Rock County

           Those of us who watched Governor Evers deliver his budget proposal address this week on February 15, 2023 witnessed the effects of Wisconsin’s highly gerrymandered legislative districts.     One section was visibly smaller in number than what it would have been with democratically-drawn representative districts, and one section was much larger than it would have been with democratically-drawn representative districts.          The Wisconsin League of Women Voters is very clear on its stance regarding apportionment and redistricting in a democratic society.  According to its website, it adheres to all the traditional redistricting principles such as district maps must uphold “population equality . . . with consideration of the compactness and contiguity of districts.”  Districts must meet the requirements of the Voting Rights Act, and guarantee fair representation for ...

  To   the Editor,   Sure, it is funny to complain about global warming on the cold, snowy first day of winter. December 16’s editorial cartoon featuring a snowman, who claimed that global warming is a myth, is funny too.    It also has a hard edge of adult irony that is not funny. This joke degrades the serious work to prevent climate change. It breaks-down consensus. It makes people disbelieve. It makes them regret sacrifices to protect the environment.    Let’s keep our holiday-season good humor and dial-back our edgy irony.   Americans – and everyone else – are being asked to pull together to make the world more livable for our children and their children. Let’s not belittle their efforts by acting like children ourselves.    Gregory Turco 4006 Hearthstone Dr Janesville, WI

 

Folks, if our planet could talk it would scream for help! We can no longer assume “manifest destiny” when harvesting and over harvesting earth’s resources without thought to consequences of global warming and climate changes. The International Panel on Climate Change at the UN released the Sixth Assessment Report, focusing on mitigation strategies; how to slow the warming trend. Carbon pricing is mentioned 680 times and called “the most powerful and efficient” strategy available to reduce carbon emissions. This requires putting a price on pollution, to incentivize companies to transition to clean energy, increase jobs in clean energy, and rethink their operations to reduce carbon emissions. The good news is that it is possible here, right now. It has attracted already a great deal of study; and with the right cooperation among our governing bodies it could implemented right now. Even better? A “carbon cash back” from the monies collected from this strategy could be distributed back to ...

Three Ways Global Warming Affects Weather When there has been a big storm it is often reported that it was partly due to global warming.  Not everyone understands or believes it.  I will explain the steps in the process, working from things we already know, so that everyone can be sure it is true. Everyone can see that cloudy nights are seasonably warm and clear nights are colder.  This is because heat, as infrared light, scatters off of cloud droplets, and some of it goes back to earth.  Molecules of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases also send heat back, but in a different way.  They absorb the infrared light, and then radiate it back in random directions.  Some goes back to warm the earth and the lower atmosphere.  Since some of the heat is being sent back down, less goes to the upper atmosphere, so it becomes cooler.  This twin effect of greenhouse gases, warming lower atmosphere and cooling upper atmosphere, is the key to understanding...

 

Fighting Climate Change Requires Cultural Shift  by Nathan Dombeck The Gazette (Janesville WI);  March 31, 2022 As gas prices continue to rise, the narrative is to offer two solutions to ease the pain at the pump: increase domestic production of fossil fuels, or purchase an electric vehicle (EV). The tools to solve this crisis will not be found in innovating a better car or improving miles-per-gallon. We need to look at our societal habits and infrastructure. Janesville is emblematic of towns across suburban US. Housing tracts extend ever further from the town center. The proliferation of strip malls decentralizes the shopping experience, spreading small stores all across the city. Societal norms require that you have the latest and greatest car; you get bonus points if it is an enormous and ostentatious truck, at least in this area (never mind that you may never haul anything in its bed bigger than your groceries). These and many other factors have led to our car-driven cultu...

 Renewable Energy Can Wean Us Off Middle Eastern Oil  In 1973, the United States experienced an Arab oil embargo because of its support of Israel in the Arab-Israel War. Oil prices rose 300%. I waited in long lines to get gas, hoping the station would not run out before I got to the pump.    President Gerald Ford set a goal of energy independence in 1975. President Jimmy Carter installed solar panels on the roof of the White House in 1979. President Ronald Reagan had the panels removed in 1986.    Nearly 50 years have passed sine the 1973 embargo. Our foreign policy is still being held hostage by our dependence on oil. Now we also know that climate change is an existential threat to humans on this planet. Increased oil production is no longer a viable solution to our problem.    President Joe Biden's Build Back Better legislation ear-marked $550 billion for renewable energy and clean transportation. Not a single Republican in the Senate supported ...

Mercyhealth Can Help Combat Climate Change  The race to reduce emissions and slow the relentless pace of climate change is on; it is time for Mercyhealth to be a leader in our community and focus on sustainability. I recently read with interest the latest news from UW Health. The system proposes to drastically reduce emissions by 50% by the year 2030. This is the type of bold action we need out of our community leaders. Mercyhealth, based in Janesville but with outlying clinics in many surrounding areas and extending into Illinois, is a major employer and exerts a significant land and emissions footprint in multiple cities. Climate change threatens people's health, worsens respiratory illnesses, increases injuries from extreme weather events and increases disease transmissability; in other words, it is in a hospital system's best interest to address the climate crisis. We need Mercyhealth leaders to propose emissions and sustainability goals and formulate plans to achieve them....

  Renewable Energy Is Not More Expensive Than Fossil Fuels (Published on March 23, 2022 in The Janesville Gazette) In his letter of March 15, Dennis Hopper blamed the Biden administration for high gas and oil prices. Most economists, however, attribute the rise in fuel costs to two factors–pent-up demand from the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine–both beyond a president’s control.  The more egregious assertion in his letter, however, is that renewable energy is a “futuristic alternative still too expensive for mass use.” In fact, renewables often undercut the cheapest fossil fuels on cost. Electricity produced from fossil fuels costs 5-17 cents /kwh, while that produced by solar costs 3-6 cents and is trending downward. The situation with wind is similar; costs are comparable to that of fossil fuels and trending downward. The Montana Environmental Information Center reported in 2021 that the biggest utility in the state is producing electricity from wind at half the...

  Natural Climate Cycles and Global Warming   The question often comes up whether the changes in climate of the last few decades are due to human caused ‘global warming’, or whether they are just part of nature taking its own course.  To help answer this, we need to understand natural climate change.  There are different kinds of climate cycles, with different causes.  The biggest cycles are driven by tilts in in the Earth’s rotation axis and interaction of Earth’s orbit with Jupiter and Saturn. If you want to know more, look up Milankovitch Cycles and dig in. These are the cause of the ice age cycles, and can be considered constant during a human lifetime.          While these astronomical cycles initiate the changes from ice age to temperate and back, they are not the full story.  Carbon dioxide, like all gases, is less soluble in warm water than cold water.  It is also strongly held by permafrost.  The so...

 

 

 

Earth Day 2021 finds a country overwhelmed by interconnecting crises.   A worldwide pandemic, an economic disaster, racial discord, and overarching all of this is a climate crisis that exacerbates all of the above.  We are experiencing a crisis within a crisis.  We have just learned that CO2 levels in the atmosphere are the highest they’ve been in over 3 million years, that they are rising 100 times faster than normal, and that our global average temperature is rising 10 times faster than in the last 65 million years.   Earth Day 2021 reminds us that the climate is not   Earth Day 2021   Earth Day 2021 finds a country overwhelmed by interconnecting crises.   A worldwide pandemic, an economic disaster, racial discord, and overarching all of this is a climate crisis that exacerbates all of the above.  We are experiencing a crisis within a crisis.  We have just learned that CO2 levels in the atmosphere are the highest they’ve...

The global climate crisis is serious and calls for immediate action.  One solution to the climate emergency is to price carbon to more accurately reflect its true cost.    Economists agree that levying a tax or fee on fossil fuel emissions is the best way to address the climate crisis.  Several proposals before Congress would do this, but one stands out for its simplicity and fairness.  It is market-based and more effective than regulations.  The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act ( EICDA ) will soon be reintroduced in this session of Congress.    It has three parts:   1) Fee, 2) The dividend, and 3) Border Adjustment.   1) Fee.  Coal, oil and natural gas producers would pay a fee upfront based on how much global warming pollution their fuels generate when burned.  The fee would begin at $15 per ton – enough to raise the price of gas 16.5 cents per gallon – and increase annually by $10 per ton until emissi...

  People, including Monday's columnist Harsanyi, need to realize “affordable   fossil fuels” are only “affordable” because they free-ride on the shoulders of climate change victims .     When the costs of climate change are included, for example costs of relocating residents of south Florida and Louisiana because of sea-level rise, these fuels are not “affordable.” With a carbon tax, economics’ magic hand will quietly end petroleum use, as old equipment wears out. Serious economists, including conservative economists, endorse this approach – so it is wrong to try to pretend that climate action is a culture war issue.      America is blessed and innovative country. That why it was natural for America to lead at last week’s climate conference.      Gregory Turco Janesville Gregory Turco/4006 Hearthstone Dr/Janesville WI/608 302  7822/gregory.turco@icloud.com

  Below Terry's letter is a recent Op-Ed by Phil Smith  and Kim Suhr  that also makes the case that carbon pricing is necessary despite Biden's important first steps to address our changing climate.  Phil and Kim's piece spells out the basics of The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act--something I thought some might find useful.  Phil and Kim are both active members of the Waukesha Chapter of CCL; Phil works on business outreach in the state. Katy 608 774 5289 ( by Terry Hansen) President Joe Biden’s proposal to upgrade our nation’s infrastructure, the American Jobs Plan, has a strong climate focus. The proposal aims to make our infrastructure more resilient to climate impacts, and it includes initiatives to reduce emissions in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change. The president’s plan would provide not only funding for roads, bridges and transit systems, but also for sustainable housing and buildings, electric vehicles, and research and deve...

Feb 15, 2021  The Keystone XL pipeline will be obsolete by the time it is built because gasoline demand is down and declining, and because gasoline made from oilsands is too expensive. GM just announced that it will eliminate the internal combustion engine in by 2035 – just 14 years. Fewer gas cars will create an oil glut, and oilsands will never be able to compete.   American business is electrifying with or without the national government. Pipelines and oil refineries will be over-capacity. It will be better for Wisconsin to have the limited oil we need distilled in smaller northern refineries rather than shipping it to Texas and then back up north again.  Stan Milam asked us for rational analysis, and he is right. Rep. Steil should forget what the old-timers say, and pay attention to the bottom line. 

  October 24, 2019   To the Editor,   It is easy to see how new Congressional Representatives like Bryan Steil can build a legacy through legislation or travel down another partisan path leading to gridlock, as the Gazette pointed out last Wednesday (23 Oct.)  One example of needless gridlock is climate legislation.  Large majorities of Janesville-Beloit residents favor regulation on CO2 (75%) and favor a tax on fossil fuel producers to reduce carbon emissions (70%). Check out the Yale/George Mason climate poll for more.  Climate leadership would be a great place for Representative Steil to make a mark. It would be best for our city and for our nation if everyone could work together in the national interest.    Gregory Turco