Keynes on the New Deal, as it happened

The NYT has on file a 1934 letter to the editor from JMK, a criticism and appraisal of the New Deal.

It doesn't appear in Skidelsky's biography, or at least I don't remember it. I only found out about it because the "Economix" blog published a Bruce Bartlett editorial on what he dubs "inflation-ophobia."

I'm saving the link here so I can find the Keynes editorial easily for fall's EC 2013 Introduction to Economics class.

Why is this historical letter at all important to a blog about sustainability?

Because climate change policy is intimately entwined with macroeconomics.

You can do the work needed to understand the climate science, the best policies for mitigation, adaptation and resilience, and even get your head around the strange Through the Looking Glass world of carbon sequestration, but if you don't also begin to think about the macro-economics and geopolitics of climate policy, you'll eventually run into trouble.

Trouble of the largest possible kind: global macroeconomic and geopolitical trouble.

(Otherwise known as recession, depression, conflict and war.)

Keynes remains the world's most influential modern macro-economist, despite the rise during the 1980s of the thought of his theoretical nemesis, Hayek. He was the pre-eminent academic economic theorist of the Great Depression and World War II, and his thought shaped our world then and shapes it now.

Ergo, no understanding climate policy without first understanding Keynes.

Climate Science Legal Defense Fund

Sad that we need this, but good that we have it:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/jul/15/global-warming-games-legal-defense-fund

Topped out -- just in time

(This post mirrored between my academic sustainability blog and my personal farm blog.)

Yesterday the last structural boards were fitted to the roof of the Womerlippi farmhouse's new extension, an experiment in passive solar construction.

I was too tired and upset from the heat and heavy work to take pictures at the time. Later, when I've had chance to recover, I'll take some shots.

(This link leads to the Facebook slideshow of the construction process.)

But that was a milestone. Now we have a building, and all we need to do is put roofing on and trim it out. Wiring, plumbing, even drywall, windows, doors and trim, these are all easy to do in comparison to heavy rough-cut lumber framing, especially when you're working by yourself. Even a short two by six rough-cut board, for a stud or a plate, weighs many pounds, never mind when you've joined a whole bunch of them together to make a wall frame section or rafter truss.

The foundation was particularly heavy labor, too.

Historically, carpenters from the British Isles held "topping out" ceremonies whenever this stage of a building was completed. I'm not going to cut down a small tree and pin it to my highest rafter and drink a bunch of beer with the building crew, as the old tradition goes.

Seems like a waste of a perfectly good baby tree. And the building crew is way too small to have a party.

That would be a rather lonely ceremony, especially as Aimee, like a true scientist, despises all such "superstition.".

But I am detecting that transitional feeling, when you move from one important phase of construction work to another. And it's a good feeling, of accomplishment and of having done the right thing at the right time.

Even so, I'm going to be very glad of the upcoming break from heavy labor. It's taken me about seven weeks (with a break for a few days for an academic workshop, and another several days to put together a crew and do an anemometer job), to get this building structure built. In that time I've definitely melted fat and built muscle, and I feel a lot fitter and stronger than I have for several years, but I'm also bruised, tired and achy. My body needs a rest.

In any case, the weather won't be cooperating with building plans for the foreseeable. The forecast is for high heat and humidity through Friday.

This is an unusually long heat wave for Maine, although those of us who have to keep up with climate data for a living were expecting a hot summer this year because we're close to the top of the curve in the 11-year solar cycle, so it comes as no real surprise.

Usually we can expect a few truly hot and humid days in a Maine summer. These short heat waves occur when the jet stream is well to the north of us and the circulation from high and low pressure systems (counter-clockwise around a low, clockwise around a high) introduces warm moist airflow from the south.

We began this current heat wave yesterday, and the weather systems are currently set up to continue to pour in warm moist air for several more days. We may easily break some heat records.

We talked about the likelihood of this heat wave occurring in GL 4003 Global Change class during the spring semester, and now here it comes.

The next thing will be a hurricane. I haven't begun checking the NOAA Hurricane Center web page regularly yet, but I will. The Atlantic hurricane season is really just getting started.

I used to spend a lot of time pontificating on this blog about when the penny would drop for Americans about climate change. I'm still not sure just how many hurricanes, tonadoes and heat waves it's going to take.

More than it should, that's for sure.

But I'm glad that I just completed the structural framing on a building that is way more heat-proof, hurricane proof, and tornado proof, as well as energy efficient and low-carbon, than the average Maine building.

I don't want to fit air conditioning, but I expect I could do so if I had to. With the amount of insulation planned for the building, air conditioning would be particularly efficient.

I'd rather have some proper Maine summer weather, with regular, prolonged blasts of cool, dry Canadian air, than air conditioning. I would be happy to suffer frost warnings in mid-to-late August, to be worried about whether my tomatoes are getting warm-enough nights, and so on. That would all be preferable.

But I may not get the choice.

Keep the anemometer flying!

Our 40 meter tower in process of removal from the Dexter site. Photo Ben Holt, SEM '14.
(Click on any picture to see an enlarged, slide show version.)

Regular readers will know that I run one of two State o' Maine sponsored research programs to measure and analyze the wind patterns over Maine's land surface, producing basic science knowledge for Maine renewable energy generation.

(The other is run by University of Maine School of Engineering Technology Associate Professor Paul Villeneuve.)

Our own program's funding comes to an end on September 31st. Accordingly, we're dismantling our large anemometer sites, securing final data pulls and getting ready to write the final reports. I hired a small crew of Unity students to help with this, the third and smallest of Unity College's summer students research crews. (The others are the HEMS crew and the Bear Study.)

Because I have federally-sourced funding, from USDA and DoE, even though the money is "washed" through Efficiency Maine and I'm essentially the subcontractor, all my jobs must be open to all members of the public to apply. We've had some wonderful people and interesting characters become members of the Wind Crew before, but in this case the small number of hours available, likely less than eighty hours per worker for the summer, meant that only our own students applied, for which I was grateful, because of course, these are our students, from our own program and they are already trained and competent.

This years hires are Jake McGinley '14 and Ben Holt '14, both Sustainable Energy Management majors, both of whom were available because they are serving internships with local renewable energy firms for the summer. Ben is with Vaughan Woodruff at Insource Renewables. Vaughan also teaches at Kennebec Valley Community College, our main local partners in renewable energy technology education. Ben is with Chuck Piper at Sundog Solar Store.

What a great summer of practical experience these guys will have!

We had our first three work days last week, dodging thunderstorms (which are not good for Wind Crew workers).

(Our towers are all thoroughly grounded and double-grounded, but a foot tall metal pole stuck on top of a Maine hilltop is not a good place to be if there's thunder. We made a hasty exit from our site the first day, but the next day was dry and calm enough, so down the tower came.)

These NRG Systems Inc. towers, of which we have 30, 40, 50 and 60 meter models available, are not, as NRG Systems technical representative Welly Cobden says, "for the faint of heart." This is science on a large scale, using some serious engineering, and a lot of trigonometry and basic Newtonian mechanics is involved in raising and lowering the towers and generally keeping the anemometers flying.

NRG towers are the standard in the industry, and Unity College is pleased and proud to have received a lot of support from NRG over the years.

The crew must raise and lower the towers using a "gin pole" and a winch. This technique is used for many other kinds of towers all around the world, but particularly for small wind turbines, such as the popular Bergey "Excel" models, so the experience gained working on the Wind Crew is multi-purpose, and good for SEM majors in general.

We have a small 30 foot "training" tower facility located on campus, and so Ben and Jake were previously checked out on that equipment during various of their classes, but the real thing is a lot bigger and scarier, and can be dangerous. I'm very big on safety for wind crew workers. Unfortunately, Ben didn't take any pictures of use wearing our hard hats (which we put on, once the overhead danger was established -- as the tower was coming down.)

Here are some pictures Ben took:

Jake and I assemble the winch to the winch anchor, which in this site is a 2-inch eyebolt drilled into the solid rock. We hired a compressor for the purpose, two years ago when the tower was raised.

Shackling the gin pole. many shackles are used to connect to the four levels of guy wires that are needed to keep the tower straight while it's being lowered. All operate, as gin poles must by definition, at a mechanical disadvantage. An awareness of operating loads and Newtonian mechanics is a must-have qualification for a Wind Crew worker.

The fully assembled tower in vertical position.

Coming down! What goes up....

I always wonder what passers-by on rural roads must think when they see this sight -- the tower that was vertical now at a steep angle. Luckily, no-one ever drives up to find out -- or we'd have to shoo them off for their own safety.

A little bit at a time, so as not to overheat the winch.

The tower almost down. The point of maximum strain on the winch and winch anchor is when the tower is almost parallel to the ground but not yet on the ground. If the winch is going to break, or the winch anchor give way, this is the moment.

Here I'm checking the tension on the gin pole ropes, temporary guys that keep the gin vertical as the tower comes down. This is a key part of the process -- making sure the tension is distributed evenly throughout the system as the tower comes down. There's enough leverage with a big long stick like a 40 meter NRG tower to pull most ground anchors right out of the ground, or bend and snap the tower, if you allow any one guy to take too much strain.

The tower comes to a rest on blocks and sawhorses....

...then the gin pole too has to be lowered.

We use steps to catch the gin pole wire before it gets too close to the ground, because the leverage at that point would be severe.

 Detail of the tower head with anemometers

Everything safely on the ground. The hard hats can come off now, but not the gloves and safety glasses.

Another one bites the dust!

Now the hard work begins, dismantling all that steel and wire. It took a couple more hours' work to clear the site. These towers and the electronic equipment will be stored until the state decides it needs to know more about Maine's winds. 

And, a good time was had by all!

Update on the Womelippi passive house project

Regular readers will know that I'm engaged in a personal experiment of sorts -- to see if an effective passive solar building can be built using common and local materials for around $20 or $30 a square foot using my own labor.

This is not actually a stand-alone building. It's an extension, essentially a new wing to our existing but very small farmhouse, which was listed as 1,250 square feet, but that includes the full porch, which is around 200. But it might as well be a stand-alone new building, for the purposes of experiment. It doesn't actually need to be connected to the main house to hold itself up, so the costs and construction specs are much the same as if it had been stand-alone.

I also plan to fit an air-sealed interior door between this building and the main house, to keep it isolated as far as air-space goes, purely for the purposes of experiment.

Here's a report of what went into the building so far:

The basic foundation used a small amount of concrete, around 300 bags of ready-mix and about 300 regular concrete blocks. This is about half the concrete that a regular foundation would have used, a savings made possible by the fact that the building sits on solid rock all around. It was then insulated with 2-inch Foamular ® closed cell styrofoam board insulation. This stuff releases HCFCs in production, but Foamular is one of the better brands. You have to use a closed cell foam for underground use. Open cell foam like urethane or polyisocyanate falls apart underground.

Here's the partially completed foundation, showing how little concrete was needed -- because this grade beam is pinned to solid complete rock.

Here's the completed concrete work, with the joist structure now on top.

This structure, like all the framing we'll do for this building, uses hemlock lumber grown and milled locally, produced by and purchased from Gerald Fowler's mill in Thorndike, Maine. This is one of the best sustainability features of the building.

Hemlock is a superior framing lumber overlooked by commercial operators because it's generally produced locally by small industry and so the lumber isn't "stamped", meaning it doesn't have the black stamping found on "big box" two by fours, and so hasn't been inspected: ie, that a large commercial lumber company did not produce it. Commercial contractors essentially can't use this material because building regulations and/or insurance companies require that stamped lumber. If the structure fails because of poor quality lumber the company that stamped it can be sued.

Obviously, I'm not a commercial operator, and there's no building regulation in Jackson, Maine that calls for the use of stamped lumber. I can use this material and reap the benefits. Apart from the fact that it's a local product and grown sustainably, in the sense that almost all the hemlock-producing woodlots in the north Waldo County area are logged on a very low-intensity basis -- we're adding to our forest cover here, mostly by abandoning farm fields, not reducing it as they are in many parts of the world -- it's also almost twice as strong as planed spruce or fir lumber of the same (nominal) dimension from the box stores and lumber yards. And all the money for lumber costs will go into the local economy.

Hemlock is also cheap. My 2 by 6 hemlock studs cost the same as 2 by 4 regular studs in the box store, but are probably three or four times as strong.

The floor decking used a commercial "engineered wood product", a tongue and groove subfloor panel made of 23/32 oriented strand board. Oriented strand board uses smaller trees to produce, which, although it means that plantations are grown on short rotation, also means that it's commercially viable to properly replant them. "Proper" plywood uses lamination and so requires big trees for veneer. OSB is more sustainable.

In this case this is not a local product -- this came from North Carolina, and was probably made from lumber from the southern forest plantations of Georgia, north Florida, and from the southern Appalachians. But I needed a product that could stand up to rain, because with only one of me working on the building, there was no way that I could get all the framing done and the roof on before normal plywood flooring warped. This material was rated for 100 days of wet weather.

Here's the finished foundation structure, showing the special decking, as well as the complete sheath of R10 Foamular ® foam board insulation that will insulate and air-seal the basement.

Once the foundation and joist work was done, we could move to framing. Again, we're using local hemlock lumber. We're using 2 by 6 inch material, instead of 2 by 4, which will allow for an addition thickness of stud bay insulation. We're also using recycled foam board insulation, bought from the Unity Amish community, as an additional layer on the outside, glued at the edges for air-sealing.

That requires the use of let-in cross-braces, since the foam board must lie under the sheathing, because we plan to use local cedar shingles. (You can't nail shingles to foam board.)

The alternative would be to use the sheathing itself directly over the studs, which would provide cross-bracing, and then add a "nailer" of additional plywood or OSB over the foam board, which is wasteful. The let-in or inset cross bracing requires a little more skill from a carpenter -- you have to know how to properly use a chisel to cut a traditional joint! Heaven forbid!

But that's enough to prevent this technique from being used on almost all commercial construction sites, and so foam board insulation is rarely added to a stud wall, even though it is needed to get the insulation up to super-insulated levels.

Just for the record, the contractor that generally builds the college's buildings, alum Joe Bellerose, uses a steel let-in cross brace system, which allows all the campus buildings to be super-insulated with additional foam board insulation under the sheathing.

In this case we'll finish up with R19 fiberglass in the stud bays and 1.5 inch polyisocyanate foam board insulation under the sheathing, a total of R28, plus an inch or so of shingles, sheathing, and drywall, making an R30 wall. This is less than would be required for passive house certification, but more than 50% more than is required for Maine code. With superior air-sealing and two feet of cellulose insulation in the attic crawl spaces, we'll have a very warm, tight building here when we get done.

Here's the hemlock framing work partially complete. Weather permitting, it will be all done by next weekend. I'd like to get a roof over this building quickly if I can. I don't trust that subfloor to hold up under all the wet weather we're having.

But of course, if it continues to rain as much as it has, I may not be able to work!

There's an element of luck in any project.

For more details at any point, go to the farm blog at www.womerlippi.blogspot.comwww.womerlippi.blogspot.com

More...

Secretary of State John Kerry on cooperation with India on climate mitigation and adaptation.

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/27/kerry-proposes-u-s-india-push-on-carbon-and-climate/?_r=0#more-49918

Scroll down to read # 5 in this (early) screed here.

Why is the administration doing what we said it should do several years ago?

(See also yesterday's post)

Because they've thought it through and realized that this is the best combination of the available options to protect and expand democracy and control climate change at the same time.

Because we have to do both at once, or non-democratic powers finish up in charge.

And the option that environmentalists think they most want -- an all-out effort to reduce emissions by switching immediately in very large scale to renewables and energy efficiency, abandoning coal, oil and natural gas, fracked or otherwise, ASAP?

The 350.org solution, in other words? The option that would have won praise from environmentalists for Tuesday's speech, instead of the damned by faint praise responses that we instead heard?

(An example -- here)

Well, that's not really available, at least to this administration. That's because although it might (eventually) bring relief on the climate front would a) likely cause another recession, b) hand further geopolitical power to the Chinese and Russians on a plate, and c) lose the Democrats the next presidential election.

And it might not bring relief in any case, if China, India, Brazil, Russia and other rapidly developed countries don't follow suit.

India is our most likely ally in this effort, and the world's largest democracy.

(While America is NOT, as Kerry said, the world's oldest. That honor would, in fact, go to Iceland.)

See, that's the problem with the climate problem. It's not just another environmental problem. The best solution to the climate problem would hasten the decline of western democracy. As one commentator said (Jessy Tolkan, here), in approval of the administration's recent messaging, we have to "thread the needle" here.

Obama's long-awaited speech -- Green Keynesianism and green free trade

We'll discuss this speech critically in classes this fall. The bottom line is that is reflects much of the "green Keynesian" theory that we've discussed in these pages over the last couple of years. I don't know if we were the first green Keynesians, but we certainly were among the first observers to name the economic ideas that are at the heart of the policy.

There's also a fleeting reference to a green 'free trade zone," of which we will require more details, but this might be the green protectionist approach we were also "early adopters" of here at little UC. In this case I'm pretty sure we are the originators of the idea.

If that green free trade zone has a climate emissions enforcement arm, then the combination of Green Keynesianism and green protectionism will be the complete policy we first advocated (here, and here) many moons ago (the second, later reference is the more succinct, and the one that appeared on Revkins NYT blog and Twitter feed, so that's the one in the public record).

(I'm not sure it matters, but I had to say it.)

That's all a big "if", but I can't imagine any other way we'll get what we need here, internationally speaking. What we have to have to succeed, pragmatically speaking, is a treaty that reduces emissions in developing countries, using some mechanism that gets leverage over developing countries emissions policies, without the "differentiated" burdens Kyoto placed on developing countries.

(Just for the record, I didn't think Kyoto was that bad for the developed world, but it was a dead letter among business interests in the developed world, and they effectively had a veto over its adoption, especially here in the US but in other key countries too, Australia being the second most important, and so that's essentially why we're where we are now.)

The technical terms we've been using for this two-pronged climate economic policy are "green Keynesianism" and "green protectionism." Simply because, economically speaking, that's what they are. "Free trade" is  a more positive term. I doubt that the administrations politicos can use our terms because they carry negative freight.

But, to misquote Popeye, and to mangle the syntax all at the same time, "they is what they is."

White House transcript of President Barack Obama’s remarks on climate change at Georgetown University Tuesday, June 25th 2013.
1:45 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you!  (Applause.)  Thank you, Georgetown!  Thank you so much.  Everybody, please be seated.  And my first announcement today is that you should all take off your jackets.  (Laughter.)  I’m going to do the same.  (Applause.)  It’s not that sexy, now.  (Laughter.)

It is good to be back on campus, and it is a great privilege to speak from the steps of this historic hall that welcomed Presidents going back to George Washington.
 
I want to thank your president, President DeGioia, who’s here today.   (Applause.)  I want to thank him for hosting us.  I want to thank the many members of my Cabinet and my administration.  I want to thank Leader Pelosi and the members of Congress who are here.  We are very grateful for their support.

And I want to say thank you to the Hoyas in the house for having me back.  (Applause.)  It was important for me to speak directly to your generation, because the decisions that we make now and in the years ahead will have a profound impact on the world that all of you inherit.

On Christmas Eve, 1968, the astronauts of Apollo 8 did a live broadcast from lunar orbit.  So Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, William Anders — the first humans to orbit the moon -– described what they saw, and they read Scripture from the Book of Genesis to the rest of us back here.  And later that night, they took a photo that would change the way we see and think about our world.

It was an image of Earth -– beautiful; breathtaking; a glowing marble of blue oceans, and green forests, and brown mountains brushed with white clouds, rising over the surface of the moon.
And while the sight of our planet from space might seem routine today, imagine what it looked like to those of us seeing our home, our planet, for the first time.  Imagine what it looked like to children like me.  Even the astronauts were amazed.  “It makes you realize,” Lovell would say, “just what you have back there on Earth.”

And around the same time we began exploring space, scientists were studying changes taking place in the Earth’s atmosphere.  Now, scientists had known since the 1800s that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide trap heat, and that burning fossil fuels release those gases into the air.  That wasn’t news. But in the late 1950s, the National Weather Service began measuring the levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, with the worry that rising levels might someday disrupt the fragile balance that makes our planet so hospitable.  And what they’ve found, year after year, is that the levels of carbon pollution in our atmosphere have increased dramatically.

That science, accumulated and reviewed over decades, tells us that our planet is changing in ways that will have profound impacts on all of humankind.

The 12 warmest years in recorded history have all come in the last 15 years.  Last year, temperatures in some areas of the ocean reached record highs, and ice in the Arctic shrank to its smallest size on record — faster than most models had predicted it would.  These are facts.

Now, we know that no single weather event is caused solely by climate change.  Droughts and fires and floods, they go back to ancient times.  But we also know that in a world that’s warmer than it used to be, all weather events are affected by a warming planet.  The fact that sea level in New York, in New York Harbor, are now a foot higher than a century ago — that didn’t cause Hurricane Sandy, but it certainly contributed to the destruction that left large parts of our mightiest city dark and underwater.

The potential impacts go beyond rising sea levels.  Here at home, 2012 was the warmest year in our history.  Midwest farms were parched by the worst drought since the Dust Bowl, and then drenched by the wettest spring on record.  Western wildfires scorched an area larger than the state of Maryland.  Just last week, a heat wave in Alaska shot temperatures into the 90s.

And we know that the costs of these events can be measured in lost lives and lost livelihoods, lost homes, lost businesses, hundreds of billions of dollars in emergency services and disaster relief.  In fact, those who are already feeling the effects of climate change don’t have time to deny it — they’re busy dealing with it.  Firefighters are braving longer wildfire seasons, and states and federal governments have to figure out how to budget for that.  I had to sit on a meeting with the Department of Interior and Agriculture and some of the rest of my team just to figure out how we’re going to pay for more and more expensive fire seasons.

Farmers see crops wilted one year, washed away the next; and the higher food prices get passed on to you, the American consumer.  Mountain communities worry about what smaller snowpacks will mean for tourism — and then, families at the bottom of the mountains wonder what it will mean for their drinking water.  Americans across the country are already paying the price of inaction in insurance premiums, state and local taxes, and the costs of rebuilding and disaster relief.

So the question is not whether we need to act.  The overwhelming judgment of science — of chemistry and physics and millions of measurements — has put all that to rest.  Ninety-seven percent of scientists, including, by the way, some who originally disputed the data, have now put that to rest.  They’ve acknowledged the planet is warming and human activity is contributing to it.

So the question now is whether we will have the courage to act before it’s too late.  And how we answer will have a profound impact on the world that we leave behind not just to you, but to your children and to your grandchildren.

As a President, as a father, and as an American, I’m here to say we need to act.  (Applause.)
I refuse to condemn your generation and future generations to a planet that’s beyond fixing.  And that’s why, today, I’m announcing a new national climate action plan, and I’m here to enlist your generation’s help in keeping the United States of America a leader — a global leader — in the fight against climate change.

This plan builds on progress that we’ve already made.  Last year, I took office — the year that I took office, my administration pledged to reduce America’s greenhouse gas emissions by about 17 percent from their 2005 levels by the end of this decade.  And we rolled up our sleeves and we got to work. We doubled the electricity we generated from wind and the sun.  We doubled the mileage our cars will get on a gallon of gas by the middle of the next decade.  (Applause.)

Here at Georgetown, I unveiled my strategy for a secure energy future.  And thanks to the ingenuity of our businesses, we’re starting to produce much more of our own energy.  We’re building the first nuclear power plants in more than three decades — in Georgia and South Carolina.  For the first time in 18 years, America is poised to produce more of our own oil than we buy from other nations.  And today, we produce more natural gas than anybody else.  So we’re producing energy.  And these advances have grown our economy, they’ve created new jobs, they can’t be shipped overseas — and, by the way, they’ve also helped drive our carbon pollution to its lowest levels in nearly 20 years.  Since 2006, no country on Earth has reduced its total carbon pollution by as much as the United States of America.  (Applause.)

So it’s a good start.  But the reason we’re all here in the heat today is because we know we’ve got more to do.

In my State of the Union address, I urged Congress to come up with a bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change, like the one that Republican and Democratic senators worked on together a few years ago.  And I still want to see that happen.  I’m willing to work with anyone to make that happen.

But this is a challenge that does not pause for partisan gridlock.  It demands our attention now.  And this is my plan to meet it — a plan to cut carbon pollution; a plan to protect our country from the impacts of climate change; and a plan to lead the world in a coordinated assault on a changing climate.  (Applause.)

This plan begins with cutting carbon pollution by changing the way we use energy — using less dirty energy, using more clean energy, wasting less energy throughout our economy.
Forty-three years ago, Congress passed a law called the Clean Air Act of 1970.  (Applause.)

It was a good law.  The reasoning behind it was simple:  New technology can protect our health by protecting the air we breathe from harmful pollution.  And that law passed the Senate unanimously.  Think about that — it passed the Senate unanimously.  It passed the House of Representatives 375 to 1.  I don’t know who the one guy was — I haven’t looked that up.  (Laughter.)  You can barely get that many votes to name a post office these days.  (Laughter.)

It was signed into law by a Republican President.  It was later strengthened by another Republican President.  This used to be a bipartisan issue.

Six years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that greenhouse gases are pollutants covered by that same Clean Air Act.  (Applause.)  And they required the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA, to determine whether they’re a threat to our health and welfare. In 2009, the EPA determined that they are a threat to both our health and our welfare in many different ways — from dirtier air to more common heat waves — and, therefore, subject to regulation.

Today, about 40 percent of America’s carbon pollution comes from our power plants.  But here’s the thing:  Right now, there are no federal limits to the amount of carbon pollution that those plants can pump into our air.  None.  Zero.  We limit the amount of toxic chemicals like mercury and sulfur and arsenic in our air or our water, but power plants can still dump unlimited amounts of carbon pollution into the air for free.  That’s not right, that’s not safe, and it needs to stop.  (Applause.)

So today, for the sake of our children, and the health and safety of all Americans, I’m directing the Environmental Protection Agency to put an end to the limitless dumping of carbon pollution from our power plants, and complete new pollution standards for both new and existing power plants.  (Applause.)

I’m also directing the EPA to develop these standards in an open and transparent way, to provide flexibility to different states with different needs, and build on the leadership that many states, and cities, and companies have already shown.  In fact, many power companies have already begun modernizing their plants, and creating new jobs in the process.  Others have shifted to burning cleaner natural gas instead of dirtier fuel sources.

Nearly a dozen states have already implemented or are implementing their own market-based programs to reduce carbon pollution.  More than 25 have set energy efficiency targets.  More than 35 have set renewable energy targets.  Over 1,000 mayors have signed agreements to cut carbon pollution.  So the idea of setting higher pollution standards for our power plants is not new.  It’s just time for Washington to catch up with the rest of the country.  And that’s what we intend to do.  (Applause.)

Now, what you’ll hear from the special interests and their allies in Congress is that this will kill jobs and crush the economy, and basically end American free enterprise as we know it.  And the reason I know you’ll hear those things is because that’s what they said every time America sets clear rules and better standards for our air and our water and our children’s health.  And every time, they’ve been wrong.

For example, in 1970, when we decided through the Clean Air Act to do something about the smog that was choking our cities — and, by the way, most young people here aren’t old enough to remember what it was like, but when I was going to school in 1979-1980 in Los Angeles, there were days where folks couldn’t go outside.  And the sunsets were spectacular because of all the pollution in the air.

But at the time when we passed the Clean Air Act to try to get rid of some of this smog, some of the same doomsayers were saying new pollution standards will decimate the auto industry.  Guess what — it didn’t happen.  Our air got cleaner.

In 1990, when we decided to do something about acid rain, they said our electricity bills would go up, the lights would go off, businesses around the country would suffer — I quote — “a quiet death.”  None of it happened, except we cut acid rain dramatically.

See, the problem with all these tired excuses for inaction is that it suggests a fundamental lack of faith in American business and American ingenuity.  (Applause.)  These critics seem to think that when we ask our businesses to innovate and reduce pollution and lead, they can’t or they won’t do it.  They’ll just kind of give up and quit.  But in America, we know that’s not true.  Look at our history.
When we restricted cancer-causing chemicals in plastics and leaded fuel in our cars, it didn’t end the plastics industry or the oil industry.  American chemists came up with better substitutes.  When we phased out CFCs — the gases that were depleting the ozone layer — it didn’t kill off refrigerators or air-conditioners or deodorant.  (Laughter.)  American workers and businesses figured out how to do it better without harming the environment as much.

The fuel standards that we put in place just a few years ago didn’t cripple automakers.  The American auto industry retooled, and today, our automakers are selling the best cars in the world at a faster rate than they have in five years — with more hybrid, more plug-in, more fuel-efficient cars for everybody to choose from.  (Applause.)

So the point is, if you look at our history, don’t bet against American industry.  Don’t bet against American workers.  Don’t tell folks that we have to choose between the health of our children or the health of our economy.  (Applause.)

The old rules may say we can’t protect our environment and promote economic growth at the same time, but in America, we’ve always used new technologies — we’ve used science; we’ve used research and development and discovery to make the old rules obsolete.

Today, we use more clean energy –- more renewables and natural gas -– which is supporting hundreds of thousands of good jobs.  We waste less energy, which saves you money at the pump and in your pocketbooks.  And guess what — our economy is 60 percent bigger than it was 20 years ago, while our carbon emissions are roughly back to where they were 20 years ago.

So, obviously, we can figure this out.  It’s not an either/or; it’s a both/and.  We’ve got to look after our children; we have to look after our future; and we have to grow the economy and create jobs.  We can do all of that as long as we don’t fear the future; instead we seize it.  (Applause.)

And, by the way, don’t take my word for it — recently, more than 500 businesses, including giants like GM and Nike, issued a Climate Declaration, calling action on climate change “one of the great economic opportunities of the 21st century.”  Walmart is working to cut its carbon pollution by 20 percent and transition completely to renewable energy.  (Applause.)  Walmart deserves a cheer for that.  (Applause.)  But think about it.  Would the biggest company, the biggest retailer in America — would they really do that if it weren’t good for business, if it weren’t good for their shareholders?
A low-carbon, clean energy economy can be an engine of growth for decades to come.  And I want America to build that engine.  I want America to build that future — right here in the United States of America.  That’s our task.  (Applause.)

Now, one thing I want to make sure everybody understands — this does not mean that we’re going to suddenly stop producing fossil fuels.  Our economy wouldn’t run very well if it did.  And transitioning to a clean energy economy takes time.  But when the doomsayers trot out the old warnings that these ambitions will somehow hurt our energy supply, just remind them that America produced more oil than we have in 15 years.  What is true is that we can’t just drill our way out of the energy and climate challenge that we face.  (Applause.)  That’s not possible.

I put forward in the past an all-of-the-above energy strategy, but our energy strategy must be about more than just producing more oil.  And, by the way, it’s certainly got to be about more than just building one pipeline.  (Applause.)

Now, I know there’s been, for example, a lot of controversy surrounding the proposal to build a pipeline, the Keystone pipeline, that would carry oil from Canadian tar sands down to refineries in the Gulf.  And the State Department is going through the final stages of evaluating the proposal.  That’s how it’s always been done.  But I do want to be clear:  Allowing the Keystone pipeline to be built requires a finding that doing so would be in our nation’s interest.  And our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.  (Applause.)  The net effects of the pipeline’s impact on our climate will be absolutely critical to determining whether this project is allowed to go forward.  It’s relevant.

Now, even as we’re producing more domestic oil, we’re also producing more cleaner-burning natural gas than any other country on Earth.  And, again, sometimes there are disputes about natural gas, but let me say this:  We should strengthen our position as the top natural gas producer because, in the medium term at least, it not only can provide safe, cheap power, but it can also help reduce our carbon emissions.

Federally supported technology has helped our businesses drill more effectively and extract more gas.  And now, we’ll keep working with the industry to make drilling safer and cleaner, to make sure that we’re not seeing methane emissions, and to put people to work modernizing our natural gas infrastructure so that we can power more homes and businesses with cleaner energy.

The bottom line is natural gas is creating jobs.  It’s lowering many families’ heat and power bills.  And it’s the transition fuel that can power our economy with less carbon pollution even as our businesses work to develop and then deploy more of the technology required for the even cleaner energy economy of the future.

And that brings me to the second way that we’re going to reduce carbon pollution — by using more clean energy.  Over the past four years, we’ve doubled the electricity that we generate from zero-carbon wind and solar power.  (Applause.)  And that means jobs — jobs manufacturing the wind turbines that now generate enough electricity to power nearly 15 million homes; jobs installing the solar panels that now generate more than four times the power at less cost than just a few years ago.
I know some Republicans in Washington dismiss these jobs, but those who do need to call home — because 75 percent of all wind energy in this country is generated in Republican districts. (Laughter.)  And that may explain why last year, Republican governors in Kansas and Oklahoma and Iowa — Iowa, by the way, a state that harnesses almost 25 percent of its electricity from the wind — helped us in the fight to extend tax credits for wind energy manufacturers and producers.  (Applause.)  Tens of thousands good jobs were on the line, and those jobs were worth the fight.

And countries like China and Germany are going all in in the race for clean energy.  I believe Americans build things better than anybody else.  I want America to win that race, but we can’t win it if we’re not in it.  (Applause.)

So the plan I’m announcing today will help us double again our energy from wind and sun.  Today, I’m directing the Interior Department to green light enough private, renewable energy capacity on public lands to power more than 6 million homes by 2020.  (Applause.)

The Department of Defense — the biggest energy consumer in America — will install 3 gigawatts of renewable power on its bases, generating about the same amount of electricity each year as you’d get from burning 3 million tons of coal.  (Applause.)

And because billions of your tax dollars continue to still subsidize some of the most profitable corporations in the history of the world, my budget once again calls for Congress to end the tax breaks for big oil companies, and invest in the clean-energy companies that will fuel our future.  (Applause.)

Now, the third way to reduce carbon pollution is to waste less energy — in our cars, our homes, our businesses.  The fuel standards we set over the past few years mean that by the middle of the next decade, the cars and trucks we buy will go twice as far on a gallon of gas.  That means you’ll have to fill up half as often; we’ll all reduce carbon pollution.  And we built on that success by setting the first-ever standards for heavy-duty trucks and buses and vans.  And in the coming months, we’ll partner with truck makers to do it again for the next generation of vehicles.

Meanwhile, the energy we use in our homes and our businesses and our factories, our schools, our hospitals — that’s responsible for about one-third of our greenhouse gases.  The good news is simple upgrades don’t just cut that pollution; they put people to work — manufacturing and installing smarter lights and windows and sensors and appliances.  And the savings show up in our electricity bills every month — forever.  That’s why we’ve set new energy standards for appliances like refrigerators and dishwashers.  And today, our businesses are building better ones that will also cut carbon pollution and cut consumers’ electricity bills by hundreds of billions of dollars.

That means, by the way, that our federal government also has to lead by example.   I’m proud that federal agencies have reduced their greenhouse gas emissions by more than 15 percent since I took office.  But we can do even better than that.  So today, I’m setting a new goal:  Your federal government will consume 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources within the next seven years.  We are going to set that goal.  (Applause.)

We’ll also encourage private capital to get off the sidelines and get into these energy-saving investments.  And by the end of the next decade, these combined efficiency standards for appliances and federal buildings will reduce carbon pollution by at least three billion tons.  That’s an amount equal to what our entire energy sector emits in nearly half a year.

So I know these standards don’t sound all that sexy, but think of it this way:  That’s the equivalent of planting 7.6 billion trees and letting them grow for 10 years — all while doing the dishes.  It is a great deal and we need to be doing it. (Applause.)

So using less dirty energy, transitioning to cleaner sources of energy, wasting less energy through our economy is where we need to go.  And this plan will get us there faster.  But I want to be honest — this will not get us there overnight.  The hard truth is carbon pollution has built up in our atmosphere for decades now.  And even if we Americans do our part, the planet will slowly keep warming for some time to come.  The seas will slowly keep rising and storms will get more severe, based on the science.  It’s like tapping the brakes of a car before you come to a complete stop and then can shift into reverse.  It’s going to take time for carbon emissions to stabilize.

So in the meantime, we’re going to need to get prepared.  And that’s why this plan will also protect critical sectors of our economy and prepare the United States for the impacts of climate change that we cannot avoid.  States and cities across the country are already taking it upon themselves to get ready.  Miami Beach is hardening its water supply against seeping saltwater.  We’re partnering with the state of Florida to restore Florida’s natural clean water delivery system — the Everglades.
The overwhelmingly Republican legislature in Texas voted to spend money on a new water development bank as a long-running drought cost jobs and forced a town to truck in water from the outside.

New York City is fortifying its 520 miles of coastline as an insurance policy against more frequent and costly storms.  And what we’ve learned from Hurricane Sandy and other disasters is that we’ve got to build smarter, more resilient infrastructure that can protect our homes and businesses, and withstand more powerful storms.  That means stronger seawalls, natural barriers, hardened power grids, hardened water systems, hardened fuel supplies.

So the budget I sent Congress includes funding to support communities that build these projects, and this plan directs federal agencies to make sure that any new project funded with taxpayer dollars is built to withstand increased flood risks.

And we’ll partner with communities seeking help to prepare for droughts and floods, reduce the risk of wildfires, protect the dunes and wetlands that pull double duty as green space and as natural storm barriers.  And we’ll also open our climate data and NASA climate imagery to the public, to make sure that cities and states assess risk under different climate scenarios, so that we don’t waste money building structures that don’t withstand the next storm.

So that’s what my administration will do to support the work already underway across America, not only to cut carbon pollution, but also to protect ourselves from climate change.  But as I think everybody here understands, no nation can solve this challenge alone — not even one as powerful as ours.  And that’s why the final part of our plan calls on America to lead — lead international efforts to combat a changing climate.  (Applause.)

And make no mistake — the world still looks to America to lead.  When I spoke to young people in Turkey a few years ago, the first question I got wasn’t about the challenges that part of the world faces.  It was about the climate challenge that we all face, and America’s role in addressing it.  And it was a fair question, because as the world’s largest economy and second-largest carbon emitter, as a country with unsurpassed ability to drive innovation and scientific breakthroughs, as the country that people around the world continue to look to in times of crisis, we’ve got a vital role to play.  We can’t stand on the sidelines.  We’ve got a unique responsibility.  And the steps that I’ve outlined today prove that we’re willing to meet that responsibility.

Though all America’s carbon pollution fell last year, global carbon pollution rose to a record high.  That’s a problem.  Developing countries are using more and more energy, and tens of millions of people entering a global middle class naturally want to buy cars and air-conditioners of their own, just like us.  Can’t blame them for that.  And when you have conversations with poor countries, they’ll say, well, you went through these stages of development — why can’t we?

But what we also have to recognize is these same countries are also more vulnerable to the effects of climate change than we are.  They don’t just have as much to lose, they probably have more to lose.
Developing nations with some of the fastest-rising levels of carbon pollution are going to have to take action to meet this challenge alongside us.  They’re watching what we do, but we’ve got to make sure that they’re stepping up to the plate as well.  We compete for business with them, but we also share a planet.  And we have to all shoulder the responsibility for keeping the planet habitable, or we’re going to suffer the consequences — together.

So to help more countries transitioning to cleaner sources of energy and to help them do it faster, we’re going to partner with our private sector to apply private sector technological know-how in countries that transition to natural gas.  We’ve mobilized billions of dollars in private capital for clean energy projects around the world.

Today, I’m calling for an end of public financing for new coal plants overseas — (applause) — unless they deploy carbon-capture technologies, or there’s no other viable way for the poorest countries to generate electricity.  And I urge other countries to join this effort.

And I’m directing my administration to launch negotiations toward global free trade in environmental goods and services, including clean energy technology, to help more countries skip past the dirty phase of development and join a global low-carbon economy.  They don’t have to repeat all the same mistakes that we made.  (Applause.)

We’ve also intensified our climate cooperation with major emerging economies like India and Brazil, and China — the world’s largest emitter.  So, for example, earlier this month, President Xi of China and I reached an important agreement to jointly phase down our production and consumption of dangerous hydrofluorocarbons, and we intend to take more steps together in the months to come.  It will make a difference.  It’s a significant step in the reduction of carbon emissions.  (Applause.)
And finally, my administration will redouble our efforts to engage our international partners in reaching a new global agreement to reduce carbon pollution through concrete action.  (Applause.)
Four years ago, in Copenhagen, every major country agreed, for the first time, to limit carbon pollution by 2020.  Two years ago, we decided to forge a new agreement beyond 2020 that would apply to all countries, not just developed countries.

What we need is an agreement that’s ambitious — because that’s what the scale of the challenge demands.  We need an inclusive agreement -– because every country has to play its part.  And we need an agreement that’s flexible — because different nations have different needs.  And if we can come together and get this right, we can define a sustainable future for your generation.
So that’s my plan.  (Applause.)  The actions I’ve announced today should send a strong signal to the world that America intends to take bold action to reduce carbon pollution.  We will continue to lead by the power of our example, because that’s what the United States of America has always done.
I am convinced this is the fight America can, and will, lead in the 21st century.  And I’m convinced this is a fight that America must lead.  But it will require all of us to do our part. We’ll need scientists to design new fuels, and we’ll need farmers to grow new fuels.  We’ll need engineers to devise new technologies, and we’ll need businesses to make and sell those technologies.  We’ll need workers to operate assembly lines that hum with high-tech, zero-carbon components, but we’ll also need builders to hammer into place the foundations for a new clean energy era.

We’re going to need to give special care to people and communities that are unsettled by this transition — not just here in the United States but around the world.  And those of us in positions of responsibility, we’ll need to be less concerned with the judgment of special interests and well-connected donors, and more concerned with the judgment of posterity.  (Applause.)  Because you and your children, and your children’s children, will have to live with the consequences of our decisions.

As I said before, climate change has become a partisan issue, but it hasn’t always been.  It wasn’t that long ago that Republicans led the way on new and innovative policies to tackle these issues.  Richard Nixon opened the EPA.  George H.W. Bush declared — first U.S. President to declare — “human activities are changing the atmosphere in unexpected and unprecedented ways.”  Someone who never shies away from a challenge, John McCain, introduced a market-based cap-and-trade bill to slow carbon pollution.

The woman that I’ve chosen to head up the EPA, Gina McCarthy, she’s worked — (applause) — she’s terrific.  Gina has worked for the EPA in my administration, but she’s also worked for five Republican governors.  She’s got a long track record of working with industry and business leaders to forge common-sense solutions.  Unfortunately, she’s being held up in the Senate. She’s been held up for months, forced to jump through hoops no Cabinet nominee should ever have to –- not because she lacks qualifications, but because there are too many in the Republican Party right now who think that the Environmental Protection Agency has no business protecting our environment from carbon pollution.  The Senate should confirm her without any further obstruction or delay.  (Applause.)

But more broadly, we’ve got to move beyond partisan politics on this issue.  I want to be clear — I am willing to work with anybody –- Republicans, Democrats, independents, libertarians, greens -– anybody — to combat this threat on behalf of our kids. I am open to all sorts of new ideas, maybe better ideas, to make sure that we deal with climate change in a way that promotes jobs and growth.
Nobody has a monopoly on what is a very hard problem, but I don’t have much patience for anyone who denies that this challenge is real.  (Applause.)  We don’t have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society.  (Applause.)  Sticking your head in the sand might make you feel safer, but it’s not going to protect you from the coming storm.  And ultimately, we will be judged as a people, and as a society, and as a country on where we go from here.

Our founders believed that those of us in positions of power are elected not just to serve as custodians of the present, but as caretakers of the future.  And they charged us to make decisions with an eye on a longer horizon than the arc of our own political careers.  That’s what the American people expect.  That’s what they deserve.

And someday, our children, and our children’s children, will look at us in the eye and they’ll ask us, did we do all that we could when we had the chance to deal with this problem and leave them a cleaner, safer, more stable world?  And I want to be able to say, yes, we did.  Don’t you want that?  (Applause.)

Americans are not a people who look backwards; we’re a people who look forward.  We’re not a people who fear what the future holds; we shape it.  What we need in this fight are citizens who will stand up, and speak up, and compel us to do what this moment demands.

Understand this is not just a job for politicians.  So I’m going to need all of you to educate your classmates, your colleagues, your parents, your friends.  Tell them what’s at stake.  Speak up at town halls, church groups, PTA meetings.  Push back on misinformation.  Speak up for the facts.  Broaden the circle of those who are willing to stand up for our future.  (Applause.)

Convince those in power to reduce our carbon pollution.  Push your own communities to adopt smarter practices.  Invest.  Divest.  (Applause.)  Remind folks there’s no contradiction between a sound environment and strong economic growth.  And remind everyone who represents you at every level of government that sheltering future generations against the ravages of climate change is a prerequisite for your vote.  Make yourself heard on this issue.  (Applause.)

I understand the politics will be tough.  The challenge we must accept will not reward us with a clear moment of victory.  There’s no gathering army to defeat.  There’s no peace treaty to sign.  When President Kennedy said we’d go to the moon within the decade, we knew we’d build a spaceship and we’d meet the goal.  Our progress here will be measured differently — in crises averted, in a planet preserved.  But can we imagine a more worthy goal?  For while we may not live to see the full realization of our ambition, we will have the satisfaction of knowing that the world we leave to our children will be better off for what we did.

“It makes you realize,” that astronaut said all those years ago, “just what you have back there on Earth.”  And that image in the photograph, that bright blue ball rising over the moon’s surface, containing everything we hold dear — the laughter of children, a quiet sunset, all the hopes and dreams of posterity  — that’s what’s at stake.  That’s what we’re fighting for.  And if we remember that, I’m absolutely sure we’ll succeed.

Thank you.  God bless you.  God bless the United States of America.  (Applause.)