by Jim Ball

Just yesterday Energy Secretary Steven Chu was asked a question by a reporter about the "sequestration," in this instance an inside-the-beltway political junkie term related to the budget and the so-called fiscal cliff. He gave a long answer about carbon sequestration. When told the reporter was referring to the budget, Secretary Chu responded,

"See what a nerd I am. I didn't know what he meant."

That captures what we love about Secretary Chu: self-effacing, mildly tone-deaf politically, and simultaneously brilliant. In the self-depreciating words of President Obama, Secretary Chu is someone who "actually deserved his Nobel Prize."

In light of his announcement today that he will be stepping down as Energy Secretary, he also deserves our heartfelt thanks.

Well done, good and faithful servant.

I believe history will show that Secretary Chu has been our best Energy Secretary to date.

In his wonderfully wonky 3,800-plus word letter announcing his resignation, Secretary Chu quoted Michelangelo, Martin Luther King, and said things like this:

"The Department has made significant progress in breaking down the walls between our basic science and applied science programs " Brainstorming sessions where young scientists are encouraged to share ideas and joust with Department veterans have begun."

Secretary Chu never waivered in his idealistic desire to let the best ideas win, irrespective of rank or political ties of those proposing them. Quite inspiring.

His resignation announcement letter is filled with the tremendous accomplishments of his term, but I want to close with a quote from near the end:

"Ultimately we have a moral responsibility to the most innocent victims of adverse climate change. Those who will suffer the most are the people who are the most innocent: the world's poorest citizens and those yet to be born ... A few short decades later, we don't want our children to ask, 'What were our parents thinking? Didn't they care about us?'"

Amen. Thank you, Steve Chu.

The Rev. Jim Ball is EEN's Executive Vice President for Policy and author of Global Warming and the Risen LORD: Christian Discipleship and Climate Change.

We should embrace higher fuel standards

Published: Thursday, August 23, 2012, 12:33 AM

By Patriot-News Op-Ed

By The Rev. Mitchell C. Hescox and the Rev. Dr. Emilio Marrero

What's in your wallet? For many for us,what's not in our wallet is extra cash. And none of us wants to spend the extracash paying for gasoline. That's justone of the reasons we favor the new fuel economy standards soon to befinalized.

Vehicles that get better gas mileage will cost a bit more, it'strue, but the average family will still save from $6,000 to $8,000 through thelife of the vehicle. That's certainly good news for our wallets. About 45percent of our daily petroleum use goes toward driving our cars and lighttrucks " 3.1 billion barrels per year, the equivalent of 620 Gulf oil spills.Reducing oil consumption by more than 2.2 million barrels by 2025 and foreignimports sounds like a good idea to many.

This month, during a raucous Senate hearing, Sen. Jeff Sessions(R-Ala.) told Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), "Fuel efficiency standards aresomething we can all agree on." Sen.Sessions got it right. Carmakers, autoworkers, retired military leaders,environmental organizations, more than 74 percent of the American public andfaith community leaders such as us are all rallying in support for new fueleconomy standards that will double fuel efficiency to 54.5 mpg by 2025.

A decade ago, the Rev. Jim Ball initiated one of the most coveredstories in 2002 " the "What Would Jesus Drive" educational campaign. WWJDrive focused on the moral implicationsfrom our love affair with the automobile and the need for more fuel-efficientvehicle choices.

Pollution pours out the tailpipes of our cars and threatens publichealth. Soot, smog, ozone-forming volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxideand carbon pollution contribute mightily to Pennsylvania's polluted air. Whilewe have made progress, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh still make the top 10 inworst particle pollution and the top 20 in ozone pollution.

Those living in south-central Pennsylvania who believe theybreathe easy should remember this: York, Dauphin and Lancaster countiesreceived failing or close to failing marks in pollution measurements providedby the American Lung Association's "Stateof the Air 2012" report.

Car and truck exhaust in medical study after study causesincreased asthma, more heart attacks and premature death. Research that is morerecent links autism and other serious threats to our unborn babies fromtransportation-related pollution. All in all, our love affair with the carmakes us sick, and better fuel efficiency reduces pollution and affords anopportunity for a healthy and abundant life.

In a year without winter and now drought, covering 63 percent ofthe United States, one cannot help to think of the weird extreme weather thatseems to be all too common these days.

Scientists seem to issue daily additional peer-reviewed studiesthat confirm our extreme weather results from a changing climate. The new fueleconomy standards limit vehicle carbon pollution. Through their lifetime, thesestandards will reduce carbon pollution significantly, enough to equal oneyear's worth from all sources at today's levels. Although only a beginning, thenew standard has us traveling on the right road in reducing climate-change pollution.

The standard will double fuel efficiency, save us money, reducedependence on foreign oil, reduce health threats, save lives and create jobs. It's good for all America.

Let's applaud these new standards and find more ways to work together and find solutions. We believe Jesus wants us to drive as good stewards of all creation.

The Rev. Mitchell Hescox is president/CEO of The EvangelicalEnvironmental Network. The Rev. Dr. Emilio Marreroretired as a captain from the U.S. Navy and now serves as vice president forNational Programs of Esperanza.

© 2012 PennLive.com. Allrights reserved.

by Jim Ball

In the summer of 2008 gas prices reached over $4 a gallon, helping to tip the economy into the Great Recession from which we are still recovering. Could we be heading towards $4 a gallon once again, this time helping to stall our still fragile recovery?

According to the federal government's Energy Information Administration (EIA), the average price for gas around the country was higher than any February in history even before the crises in Egypt and Lybia kicked in. Subsequently, gas prices during the last week alone jumping 20 cents a gallon.

One reason gas prices spiked in 08 was due to speculators, a situation that probably won't be repeated this year. However, unease in the Middle East has been driving prices upward, and no one can predict what the situation there will be when the summer driving season hits.

Even without such instability, EIA projects that prices will continue to rise. Looking even further out to 2012, a recent CEO of Shell, John Hofmeister, has predicted that gas could be over $5 a gallon in 2012. And secret State Department cables on WikiLeaks has revealed that even a senior Saudi official privately admits that Saudi reserves may have been overstated by as much as 40%, and that by 2012 his country could no longer be counted on to pump enough extra oil to keep prices from rising too high.

Meanwhile the current rise in gas prices threatens our recovery and is already having detrimental impacts on US consumers. According to an economic analyst at Moody's, if the price for a barrell of oil averages over $90 this year -- and EIA's projection even before the Middle East unrest was $93 -- it would erase a quarter of the $120 billion payroll tax cut recently enacted to further stimulate the economy.

As for consumers, the NYTimes reports:

Rising gasoline prices have already led Jayme Webb, an office manager at a recycling center in Sioux City,Iowa, and her husband, Ken, who works at Wal-Mart, to cutback on spending.

In the last month, they have canceled their satellite television subscription and their Internet service. They have also stopped driving from their home in rural Moville to Sioux City on weekends to see Ms. Webb's parents.

Along with making their commutes to work more expensive, rising oil prices have driven up the cost of food for animals and people. So the couple have stopped buying feed for their dozen sheep and goats and six chickens and instead asked neighboring farmers to let them use scraps from their corn fields.

"It's a struggle," said Ms. Webb, 49. "We have to watch every little penny."

Interestingly, in the same NYTimes article they interviewed an owner of a company that makes church pews:

"Revenue is down, costs are up, and you can't make anymoney," said R. Jerol Kivett, the owner of Kivett's Inc., a company that manufactures pews and other church furniture in Clinton, N.C. "You're just trying to meet payroll and keep people working, hoping the economy will turn. But it just seems like setback after setback after setback."

Given all of this, isn't it well past time we really started moving the country towards energy independence through increased fuel economy and the development of alternative fuels and electric vehicles powered by clean electricity?

Rising gas prices are bad news for most of us and the economy in general, but good news for oil companies because their profits go up. Indeed, the big 5 oil companies have done exceedingly well over the past decade, earning nearly $1 trillion in profit.

So here's an idea. Why not take the billions in subsidies we give to oil companies and use it instead to invest in efficiency, renewables, electric vehicles, and alternative fuels -- in a true transition towards energy independence, in other words? Certainly in an era of national debt and budget cutting some of the richest corporations in America don't need public assistance to incentivize them to find and produce oil when it's at $100 a barrel? Indeed, former President George W. Bush, a former oil man himself, proposed that the oil companies do without public assistance when oil was at $55 a barrel. So, surely, they don't need our subsidies when it's at $100 and they've earned nearly $1 trillion in profit in the last decade? Surely this rich and mature industry, which began receiving subsidies in 1916, is ready to be weaned off public assistance? Let's take the $36 billion they would receive this decade and create a better future with it, ok?

Well, unfortunately, House Republicans still think these rich oil companies need our tax dollars even as they cut funding for research that would help to create energy independence and a clean energy future (see my earlier blog). On Tuesday (Mar 1) every single House Republican (except for 4 who didn't vote) voted to keep the billions in public assistance/subsidies flowing out of the US Treasury and into the oil company's coffers. As they vote to protect public assistance for oil companies, they do so against the wishes of the American people, as reflected in a NBC/WSJ poll out this week showing 74% approval for eliminating these unnecessary subsidies.

With gas prices once again approaching $4 a gallon this summer and many families like the Webbs already struggling just to get by, the oil companies certainly don't need any more of our money. And it's well past time for us as a country to make real investments in energy independence and clean energy.

The Rev. Jim Ball, Ph.D., is Executive Vice President at EEN and author of Global Warming and the Risen LORD.

by Jim Ball

Today former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger gave a rousing, entertaining speech to the Department of Energy's ARPA-E team that focuses on cutting edge clean energy R&D (click here to listen). And given the fact that House Republicans have profoundly cut their funding in the budget they just passed, they could use some bucking-up. (Click here for a great NYTimes article on ARPA-E.)

The former Governor was quite impressive and persuasive in making the case that there is a great deal of political common ground to be found in creating a clean energy future. And I certainly hope he will continue to help create that common ground. Thankfully, he concluded by quoting one of his lines from The Terminator movie: "I'll be back."

We need leaders like Gov. Schwarzenegger to help create common ground, especially at the federal level.

Here were some of the excellent points he made:

• We need a new vision to insipre people of a clean energy future, or a "green economy" as he put it.
• He stated that this green/clean economy is "the largest source of growth in California," with growth that is "10 times higher than any other sector."
• One third of clean tech investment capital is flowing into California because of their global warming policies.
• CA is 40% more energy efficient than the rest of the country. If the rest of the country was as efficient, households would save on average $560. And CO2 would be reduced by 16 percent.
• If the rest of the country adopted CA's 33% renewables requirement for electricity production, we would see a 24% reduction on CO2.
• And if the country implemented fuel economy standards like CA it would save consumers on average $1,300 per year and reduce CO2 10 percent.
• Just the building efficiency and renewables requirements would create a 50% CO2 reduction and shutter 3/4s of the coal plants.
• We need to also talk about the health benefits from cleaning up the air, given that 100,000 die each year from polluted air.

But we can't go along completely with his prescription for finding common ground, because it includes setting aside discussions about global warming. Because powerful people in his own political party won't see the light, his solution is to avoid the discussion.

I agree that we must find common ground on creating a clean energy future, one that can deliver great benefits in terms of jobs and health. I provide numerous examples of how we can do so in my book.

But overcoming global warming is not just about the causes or the pollution. It is also about the consequences or impacts, and what we need to do to prepare or adapt to them -- and how we need to help the poor in poor countries adapt. As Christians, that's just not something we can agree to disagree on. But with that important caveat aside, we're grateful for the Governor's words.

The Governor concluded by saying to DOE's ARPA-E team of energy innovators that while he played action heros in movies, "You are the true people of action ... [working] to overthrow the old order and to transform the world."

Hear, hear, and Amen to that.

The Rev. Jim Ball is Executive Vice President at EEN and author of Global Warming and the Risen LORD.

by Jim Ball

In its legislation to fund the federal government through September (in this instance a Continuing Resolution or CR), House Republicans, driven in large measure by tea-party inspired new Members, have offered radical cuts in funding for climate and clean energy programs. Here are some examples:

• Block EPA from implementing new climate regulations required by law.
• Slash EPA's budget 29%.
• Cut by one-third the federal program to study potential impacts of climate change.
• Cut completely funds to the World Bank to help poor countries develop cleanly and cope with the consequences of climate change. These funds are designed to attract private investment, increasing total investment 10-fold on average, according to one expert.
• Cut nearly $11 billion in funding for energy efficiency and renewable energy applied research programs. (In contrast, fossil fuel and nuclear programs take much smaller cuts.)
• Cut funding for breakthrough energy technologies (the so-called ARPA-E program) from $300 million to a mere $50 million.
• Cut $2.5 billion from President Obama's high speed rail initiative.

(For more, go here.)

These cuts and the effort to stop EPA from implementing climate regulations by cutting off funding are reckless and irresponsible. Instead of beginning to play our part as a nation in overcoming global warming, instead of beginning to seriously play our part in helping poor countries adapt to climate impacts and make sustainable economic progress via clean energy, instead of investing in the clean energy future in this country, House Republicans would take us in the opposite direction.

Rev. Jim Ball, Ph.D., is Executive Vice President at EEN and author of Global Warming and the Risen LORD.

by Jim Ball

Michael Levi of the Council on Foreign Relations has done some quick crunching of the numbers to compare President Obama's goal of 80% of electricity coming from clean energy by 2035 announced last night in his State of the Union speech.

By Levi's calculation, this would generate more clean energy than last year's proposed legislation by Senators Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman (74% by 2035). It would also have carbon's price per ton at around $90 in 2035, which would be a healthy price signal.

If a Clean Energy Standard that achieved 80% by 2035 were to pass Congress this session (a very big if), it would be a major step forward in overcoming global warming and helping our country create a clean energy future. It's not all we need to be doing. But it would be very important.

Rev. Jim Ball, Ph.D., is Executive Vice President at EEN and author of Global Warming and the Risen LORD.

by Jim Ball

Last night President Obama gave his State of the Union speech. His basic theme was summed up in this phrase: "The future is ours to win." He went on to say, "But to get there, we can't just stand still. As Robert Kennedy told us, 'The future is not a gift. It is an achievement.' Sustaining the American Dream has never been about standing pat. It has required each generation to sacrifice, and struggle, and meet the demands of a new age."

We agree.

We were pleased to see that the first thing he said we needed to invest in as a country to win the future was clean energy. Here's an extended excerpt:

"This is our generation's Sputnik moment. Two years ago, I said that we needed to reach a level of research and development we haven't seen since the height of the Space Race. And in a few weeks, I will be sending a budget to Congress that helps us meet that goal. We'll invest in biomedical research, information technology, and especially clean energy technology -" (applause) -- an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet, and create countless new jobs for our people.

Already, we're seeing the promise of renewable energy. Robert and Gary Allen are brothers who run a small Michigan roofing company. After September 11th, they volunteered their best roofers to help repair the Pentagon. But half of their factory went unused, and the recession hit them hard. Today, with the help of a government loan, that empty space is being used to manufacture solar shingles that are being sold all across the country. In Robert's words, "We reinvented ourselves."

That's what Americans have done for over 200 years: reinvented ourselves. And to spur on more success stories like the Allen Brothers, we've begun to reinvent our energy policy. We're not just handing out money. We're issuing a challenge. We're telling America's scientists and engineers that if they assemble teams of the best minds in their fields, and focus on the hardest problems in clean energy, we'll fund the Apollo projects of our time.

At the California Institute of Technology, they're developing a way to turn sunlight and water into fuel for our cars. At Oak Ridge National Laboratory, they're using supercomputers to get a lot more power out of our nuclear facilities. With more research and incentives, we can break our dependence on oil with biofuels, and become the first country to have a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015. (Applause.)

We need to get behind this innovation. And to help pay for it, I'm asking Congress to eliminate the billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies. (Applause.) I don't know if -- I don't know if you've noticed, but they're doing just fine on their own. (Laughter.) So instead of subsidizing yesterday's energy, let's invest in tomorrow's.

Now, clean energy breakthroughs will only translate into clean energy jobs if businesses know there will be a market for what they're selling. So tonight, I challenge you to join me in setting a new goal: By 2035, 80 percent of America's electricity will come from clean energy sources. (Applause.)

Some folks want wind and solar. Others want nuclear, clean coal and natural gas. To meet this goal, we will need them all -- and I urge Democrats and Republicans to work together to make it happen. (Applause.)"

The President's call to have 80% of our electricity come from clean energy sources by 2035 was a pleasant surprise. And we think paying for the innovation to get us there by using subsidies we currently give to oil companies is exactly right.

Rev. Jim Ball, Ph.D., is Executive Vice President at EEN and author of Global Warming and the Risen LORD.

by Matt Walter

With the stall of the Clean Energy and Security Act in the senate in 2010, one may ask, "What is the future of clean energy legislation in 2011?" The answer is that it faces a step uphill battle with other issues such as continued high unemployment and health care in the center of attention. The goal of 20% of U.S. energy consumption to come from renewable resources by 2020 will be an incredibly tough goal to reach. With all the political turmoil in Washington, lawmakers are unwilling to risk their jobs on standing for or against such firm climate action. This means that legislation will most likely remain stagnant in 2011. But there is some hope.

Both republicans and democrats have shown support for new nuclear power plant construction. While nuclear energy is not "renewable", it is very clean, safe and reliable. For a 20% renewable energy by 2020 plan, only new nuclear power would contribute toward the 20% renewable number. The two limiting factors stopping nuclear from contributing to this 20% are time and money. A single new plant takes about 7 years to design and construct at a cost of approximately $5 billion. While the federal government has given out a few loan guarantees, dozens of these would be required for nuclear to fill this 20% gap. This seems like a daunting task, and it is, but it may be one of the best approaches in the near term to fill our energy needs. In 2010, new wind and solar energy started to slow down, most likely due to economic factors. While wind and solar are both great forms of energy, they can be poor "base load" energy producers since they are, on some level, affected by various weather patterns. The U.S. has tapped most of the major hydroelectric sources domestically. This leaves nuclear in a position for growth in 2011 if loan guarantees can be secured.

Many uncertainties remain for 2011 energy policy. Solar and wind will most likely not be as strong as previous years due to economic factors. New climate legislation will most likely not be passed. New nuclear plants could be the shining star in 2011 if more loan guarantees are secured.

The Greenhouse Gamble

The graphs below show the results of a study on global temperature increases as a result of no major policy change (left) and with major policy change (right) from 1990 to 2100. The models that scientists use to predict future temperatures have a certain amount of uncertainty built into them. These charts provide a way to think about the range of potential outcomes with two different scenarios. It is clear that if no major policy changes are enacted to limit greenhouse gas emissions, temperatures will likely rise 4 °C to 7 °C by 2100.

Matt Walter is a graduate of Roberts Wesleyan University and currently resides in Castle Rock, CO. The views above do not necessarily reflect the policy views of the Evangelical Environment Network. The Creation Care Blog is a venue to express multiple prospective on contemporary policy questions.