What Democrats Do and What Democrats Don't

Inspiration in Chicago, and Not Much in too many state capitols

One of these women has been demonstrating dynamic leadership. The other is New York governor Kathy Hochul

Much of my past month has been spent Kamaling—I don’t know if I hold the record, but along with helping organize and MC the Elders for Kamala call, I’ve made cameos on Climate Leaders for, Oudoor and Conservation Leaders for, Christians for, and Vermonters for. I’m for. Harris and Walz have run a sparkling campaign so far, and this week’s convention in Chicago is a reminder that Democrats look and sound like America at its best. As opposed to the monochrome and bitter gathering that nominated Trump (“Mass Deportations Now”), it’s been one long Party party. (When Patti LaBelle kicked off last night’s proceedings, the musician gap with the GOP grew unbridgeably wide).

Which is not to say that Harris will be a sterling climate president—we’ll have to wait and see, because we had no primary to press her on it. I don’t like long campaigns any more than anyone else, but in our system they are the only place activists can actually make a forceful case—that’s how climate became a real presidential issue for the first time in the 2020 race, which led quite directly to the Inflation Reduction Act. (And now, instead of a second-term Democrat freed to act with relative abandon, we’ll have a first-termer constrained by thoughts of her re-elect). So we’ll doubtless have to push her, once we’ve helped push her into the White House.

The reminder that there’s no automatic connection between a D next to your name and some courage on climate comes from many spots around the country, including even some where lots of good work has been done. Gretchen Whitmer and Coach Walz have gotten high high marks—converting narrow legislative margins into big action packages.

But places where it should be easier—in the deep blue, not the purple— haven’t gone as well. Gavin Newsom’s California has accomplished a lot with the move to solar power, as I’ve been writing about all spring—but he also has gutted both rooftop solar and community solar this spring. According to the Solar Rights Alliance, 22% of all solar jobs in the state have disappeared. That’s just stupid policy: rooftop solar, among other things, has dramatically decreased the amount of electricity the grid needs to provide, which may be why the utilities hate it. (Texas Republicans, meanwhile, have made one attempt after another to gut renewables, but they may have waited too long—there’s enough money behind wind and sun now to defeat such efforts, and the state’s renewables (and just as importantly its battery fleet) are now growing like topsy.)

And on the other side of the country, in the deep blue Northeast?

New York could and should be a renewable powerhouse. It lacks a Mojave Desert, but Long Island Sound could be the Qatar of offshore wind—the DOE estimates it could power 11 million homes, which is four million more homes than New York contains. With NYSERDA, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, it has some of the finest energy conservation minds in the country. And it has an environmentally minded populace—everyone thinks about New York City as a liberal bastion, but it was upstaters who banded together to force a ban on fracking.

And yet the state is lagging badly, in no small part thanks to Governor Kathy Hochul. The Buffalo-area pol, who ascended more or less accidentally to her job when Andrew Cuomo couldn’t stop grabbing the women who worked for him, got perhaps her biggest moment of infamy earlier this year when, out of nowhere, she shifted 180 degrees her position on congestion pricing in lower Manhattan and nixed the program—weeks after she’d given a long speech extolling it, and past the point where the city and state had spent hundreds of millions of dollars buying the cameras to make it work. But that’s not her only anti-climate act. She’s also sat on her hands for months now after the state legislature passed the Climate Superfund act, which would send the bill for climate disasters to the oil companies that caused them. (You can sign a petition for the Superfund here). And now she’s “pondering” a “relaxation” of the state’s basic climate law, which promises to use renewables for 70 percent of the state’s power by 2030. According to Inside Climate News, she told reporters recently that “the goals are still worthy. But we have to think about the collateral damage of these decisions. Either mitigate them or rethink them.”

Why? Well, because she’s hearing from groups like

the Business Council of New York State ... They want to go beyond pushing back CLCPA deadlines. They hope to rewrite the law itself, targeting mandates to electrify buildings, passenger vehicles and school buses.

“We are now at a point where implementation challenges call for a reassessment of the underlying statutory mandates,” the Business Council said July 30 while releasing a letter to Hochul signed by 60 business, fossil fuel, labor, farming and small business groups.

This is the kind of utterly predictable pushback that confident legislators simply manage with a few well-chosen words, even as they push forward. (See, Joe Biden). But Hochul shows no sign of that kind of confidence. NYRenews, the group that has helped push much of the New York legislation, released a report yesterday showing that under Hochul’s leadership, the state’s four key implementation agencies are sitting on their hands.

Only a handful of agencies have issued specific guidance or regulations to support compliance efforts. Notably, it appears that the state’s largest and most powerful agencies have entirely failed to comply with the Climate Act and have not yet issued policies or guidance on implementation of the law.5

For example:

• The New York State Department of Transportation (“NYSDOT”) has pushed forward at least 40 highway expansion projects without properly assessing their impacts on DACs and the climate;

• Empire State Development (“ESD”) has awarded at least $780 million in clean energy funding without ensuring that 40% of the benefits go to DACs;

• The New York Education Department (“NYSED”) has approved at least 25,971 construction projects at public schools across the state without properly assessing their climate and DAC impacts; and

• The New York State Department of Health (“NYSDOH”) has approved at least 223 construction projects for new and renovated healthcare facilities without assessing or mitigating their climate impacts.

This is where leadership makes a difference, one way or the other. You need some nerve—(something like, though in reverse, the chutzpah of the New York Republican legislator who last week penned an oped explaining that this summer’s violent storms were a reason to postpone climate action). Hochul, casting New York’s votes at the convention last night, cited the Empire State as the birthplace of the women’s rights and gay rights movement. If she were smart she’d listen to impassioned voices from the climate movement, who also know something about reality: listen to Bob Howarth, the world-leading methane scientist who also sits on the board charged with implementing the new law.

“I am appalled at this pushback against the CLCPA by business interests pushing their short-sighted agenda,” Howarth told WaterFront. “Climate change is very real. The consequences of climate disruption (floods, droughts, fires, crop failures) are becoming increasing obvious to all. 

“The political leaders of NY understood these dangers when they drafted the CLCPA and its predecessor beginning in 2015…. Due to political delay, we may miss CLCPA targets by a few years.  But the needed trajectory remains clear.”

Howarth sits on the state’s Climate Action Council, which passed a plan to implement CLCPA in December 2022 (by a vote of 19-3). The council had determined that “it was entirely possible and reasonable to meet the CLCPA goals and targets … that would benefit individual homeowners,” Howarth said.

Furthermore, the successful implementation of CLCPA would set an example to the world by showing “that a globally important economy could thrive while addressing the climate crisis and moving away from fossil fuels,” he added.

But the council hasn’t met for many months. “The state simply has not seen adequate political leadership to move ahead with the CLCPA goals and the council’s plan,” he said.

Something similar is happening in New York City where mayor Eric Adams, in between dealing with corruption investigations, has done his best to weaken the city’s landmark Law 97. As Pete Sikora of New York Communities for Change explained to me, he’s pushed back the implementation date for the statute, which mandates efficiency improvements in big buildings. (Not surprisingly, he’s taken lots of campaign money from real estate interests).

The two year delay he's created will cost thousands of jobs and raise pollution yearly by a few hundred thousand tons per year as landlords put off energy efficiency projects (more worrying: it's a signal he'll further weaken the law if re-elected and the major pollution limit starts in 2030).

But Adams—well, he’s also attempting to turn one of the city’s neighborhood landmarks, the Elizabeth Street Garden, into a housing complex. The city needs housing, which is why the garden’s friends have come up with all kinds of alternate sites in the same neighborhood, but so far he hasn’t yielded, even thought even Murdoch’s New York Post has made it clear what a bad idea the development is. Now, the Times reports, there’s been a huge letter-writing campaign from local public school students.

For the 575 or so students who attend P.S. 130, Elizabeth Street Garden serves as an extension of the classroom. The elementary school lacks green space, but it is only a 10-minute walk from the garden, allowing for frequent visits and class trips. So the garden has become a de facto playground and nature center where the children can plant seeds, learn about nature and have Easter egg hunts.

“Tree’s also provide homes for animals like birds, squirrels, and raccoons. This is why we should save the garden!” wrote one student.

Another explained, “The garden adds color and brightness to the city.”

Many were concerned about their favorite play space disappearing: “One reson why we should keep the garden is because with all the trees, we can play hide & seek and eat lunch.”

One reason that pols like Hochul and Adams can get away with moves like this is that there’s very little coverage—the Elizabeth Street garden is the exception that proves the rule. Indeed, the Times announced last week that it would no longer endorse candidates for local office, which is odd since those were probably the only endorsements the paper made that actually moved voters. Albany, meanwhile, exists in a news vacuum—the number of voters who know that Hochul is emerging as a northern DeSantis on climate issues is minuscule.

The closer we move to actual implementation of the big climate promises that politicians made during the Greta years, the more of this kind of backsliding we’re going to see. Consider, just as a random example, Connecticut, where utility regulators have introduced an excellent system of performance based regulation for power providers, moving away from the old system which basically just takes a utility’s costs and adds a chunk of profit on top. The Nutmeg State’s two big utilities have fought it from the start, and now they’re moving to have the regulator who introduced it, Marissa Gillett, fired. The state’s governor, Ned Lamont, said when the law was introduced that “you just don’t get paid an automatic 9% whether you do good work or bad work,” he said. “You get paid for doing good work.” Now we’ll see if he has the courage to keep her at her job. Or Massachusetts, where the legislature adjourned without taking up the crucial enabling legislation for the state’s climate law—there’s some talk that governor (and climate hawk) Maura Healey might call them back for a special session, but more likely it will drag on for another year. Delay is the new denial.

Or take Delaware—the state needs to develop its offshore wind resources to meet climate goals. Indeed, given its relatively small population, it could become a linchpin for the entire Atlantic seaboard. But though polling shows strong support across the region, well-financed opponents have successfully made it appear that grassroots opposition is growing, particularly in coastal communities. I’ve watched it happen in Cape Cod, where activists are trying to block the cable necessary to bring power onshore from turbines, and in Maine where other activists want to block the construction of the terminal to support the offshore farms. There are always arguments—perfect enemy of the good—but none of them make much sense in a world where August looks like it will be even hotter than last year’s all-time record. It’s why, when real champions emerge—say, former National Wildlife Federation CEO Collin O’Mara, running in the Democratic primary for Delaware governor—change gets so much easier.

The default is always to the status quo. For Republicans that means fossil fuel uber alles. For Democrats, too often, it means ‘don’t ruffle more feathers than you have to.’ That’s why we always have to make sure that there are plenty of climate hawks with plenty of feathers.

In other energy and climate news:

+ The effort to pass the Polluter Pay superfund bills includes some pretty powerful billboards showing up in California, New York, Arizona, and Pennsylvania

+The UN says the global war against new renewable energy is being stoked by, wait for it, the fossil fuel industry.

Selwin Hart, the assistant secretary general of the UN, said that talk of a global “backlash” against climate action was being stoked by the fossil fuel industry, in an effort to persuade world leaders to delay emissions-cutting policies. The perception among many political observers of a rejection of climate policies was a result of this campaign, rather than reflecting the reality of what people think, he added.

“There is this prevailing narrative – and a lot of it is being pushed by the fossil fuel industry and their enablers – that climate action is too difficult, it’s too expensive,” he said. “It is absolutely critical that leaders, and all of us, push back and explain to people the value of climate action, but also the consequences of climate inaction.”

He contrasted the perception of a backlash with the findings of the biggest poll ever conducted on the climate, which found clear majorities of people around the world supporting measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The survey found 72% of people wanted a “quick transition” away from fossil fuels, including majorities in the countries that produce the most coal, oil and gas. Green parties and plans may have suffered reverses in some parts of the world, he said, but in others they have gained seats, and seen policies that would once have been considered radical enter the mainstream.

+The great Gus Speth, who has spent decades at the center of the environmental fight, has an important essay on next steps for climate action

Across the pond, Europe has adopted a new system of carbon border tariffs to protect its companies from unfair competition from imports from countries without carbon controls. That will put real pressure on the laggards.  To address the financing needed in the developing world, the Bridgetown Initiative proposes a new global financial architecture to make a lot more money available and to create financial guarantors for larger private sector funding. As has happened with the treaty to protect the ozone layer, other treaties can be mobilized to help with climate. The Convention on Biological Diversity should be next.

The international community needs urgently to pursue new ways of tackling greenhouse gas emissions, like going after the big banks. New avenues have been proposed and more should be developed. The treaty process with its endless conferences needs to be revamped. This comprehensive effort should be a major, priority project of all those institutions and individuals now in the fight against climate change.

+A record number of countries have set new all-time heat records so far this year.

An additional 130 monthly national temperature records have also been broken, along with tens of thousands of local highs registered at monitoring stations from the Arctic to the South Pacific, according to Maximiliano Herrera, who keeps an archive of extreme events.

He said the unprecedented number of records in the first six months was astonishing. “This amount of extreme heat events is beyond anything ever seen or even thought possible before,” he said. “The months from February 2024 to July 2024 have been the most record-breaking for every statistic.”

This is alarming because last year’s extreme heat could be largely attributed to a combination of man-made global heating – caused by burning gas, oil, coal and trees – and a natural El Niño phenomenon, a warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean surface that is associated with higher temperatures in many parts of the world. The El Niño has been fading since February of this year, but this has brought little relief.

“Far from dwindling with the end of El Niño, records are falling at even much faster pace now compared to late 2023,” said Herrera.

+When you shake hands with Elon Musk, count your fingers

+Ailton Krenak is one of the world’s most interesting people—he’s got a new book that lets us understand even better the indigenous Amazonian roots of his worldview

What he provides in his latest book, Krenak said, is less a solution than a challenge. He delivers a sharp criticism of capitalism and of a development paradigm he blames for making the planet increasingly uninhabitable. But what he proposes, he said, is not “to end capitalism and go live in the wild,” but to strengthen society’s relationship with living things, and to develop a worldview that has the fullness of nature at its center.

+More data keeps emerging about the planned expansion of LNG terminals along the Gulf Coast. This will be a huge test for the White House post-election, and as the Greenpeace numbers show it’s not just about climate:

Air pollution from currently operating LNG export terminals is estimated to cause 60 premature deaths and $957 million in total health costs per year. If all the planned LNG terminals and expansion projects are built, those numbers would increase to 149 premature deaths and $2.33 billion in health costs per year. By 2050, the same permitted air pollutants from currently operating LNG export terminals alone would yield cumulative impacts of 2,020 premature deaths and $28.7 billion in total health costs, with these figures rising to 4,470 and $62.2 billion respectively in a scenario where all planned terminals are built.

+A video worth a look, from Project InsideOut and Renee Lertzman. We need more of this kind of thinking from people trained in psychology and neuroscience—there have got to be better ways to bet the human brain and heart focused on the greatest crisis our species has ever faced

+Cli fi sci fi from Felicity Harley!

+Important new research from the Science and Environmental Health Network on using carbon dioxide captured from powerplants to push yet more oil out of the ground

While the industry claims that carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery (CO2 EOR) is a tool of climate mitigation, it actually perpetuates oil and gas extraction and generates more greenhouse gases. Subsidized by public money through excessively generous tax credits, CO2 EOR not only exacerbates climate change, it causes unusual public health and environmental damage.

Not just that, but a Politico story makes it clear that the LNG export juggernaut is a gift mostly to China

Former President Donald Trump plans to ramp up natural gas exports if elected this fall, and a surge in shipments could mean more business with one of the biggest U.S. foes: China.

That would put a second Trump administration in an awkward position, as much of his campaign platform focuses on combating the Asian economic giant — and slapping major tariffs on goods imported from it.

+New UK research shows that solar farms can increase pollinators

+Speaking of new research, Nature reports that scientists are lowering the temperature which they think humans can survive

Heat thresholds for humans have been poorly defined in part because public-health bodies have over-relied on a theoretical study published¹ in 2010, says Jay. In that paper, researchers used mathematical models to define the ‘wet-bulb temperature’ (WBT) at which a young, healthy person would die after six hours. WBT is a measure that scientists use when studying heat stress because it accounts for the effects of heat and humidity.

The models churned out a WBT of 35 °C as the limit of human survival. At that threshold, the body’s core temperature would rise uncontrollably. But the model treated the human body as an unclothed object that doesn’t sweat or move, making the result less applicable to the real world.

In a 2021 study, Kenney and his colleagues provided a better estimate: a WBT survival limit of around 31 °C. They calculated it by tracking the core body temperature of young, healthy people under different combinations of temperature and humidity while they were cycling.

As a result, experts and everyday people are figuring out new approaches for beating the heat. According to a big Bloomberg report

When Vivek Shandas knows he’ll be spending a day out in high temperatures, the Portland State University professor — who studies heat — starts preparing 24 hours in advance. “I’m hydrating. I’m avoiding alcohol. I don’t overdo caffeine,” he says. “I don’t eat inflammatory foods, like very heavy foods that I know my body is going to be kind of overheated by.”

For fieldwork, Shandas dresses in loose clothing that covers up much of his body, and packs a collection of crucial accessories: sunglasses, a wide-brimmed hat made from natural fibers, a wet towel, and ice to hold against his wrist and neck. But most important is water. “I always have water in my bag,” Shandas says. “Usually I use a little insulated thermos.”

When working outdoors, Shandas keeps his hands free for the tools he uses to measure temperatures. But for many people, this summer’s hottest accessory is a small portable fan. Google searches for “portable fans” and “neck fans” hit a five-year high, and in June they were briefly among Amazon’s top 30 most-searched terms in the US, according to e-commerce industry researcher Marketplace Pulse. Popular models, some of which come with a mister, can be handheld, worn around the neck or clipped onto a belt.

And it’s not just people. A great story from Zoe Schlanger in the Atlantic on what’s happening to steel as the planet heats

A basic fact of thermodynamics is coming to haunt every foot of train track in the United States. Heat makes steel expand, moving its molecules farther apart, and as hot days become hotter and more frequent, rail lines are at risk of warping and buckling more often.

Any fix must deal with this fundamental truth of physics. Railroads can slow their trains down, which avoids adding more heat. Or they can leave gaps in a rail (or cut them as an emergency measure), which relieves pressure that causes track to bulge but means a potentially bumpier and slower ride. Painting tracks white would help deflect heat, but the paint would need to be reapplied frequently. Adapting to this reality will be expensive, and might ultimately just look as it does now: slow the trains, cut the track, issue a delay.