Denver released the largest amount of greenhouse gases (GHG) and Barcelona the smallest amount in a new study documenting how differences in climate, population density and other factors affect GHG emissions in global cities.

Denver had the highest overall GHG emissions, with levels two to five times higher than other cities. Its high levels were due partly to its high use of electricity, heating and industrial fuels, and ground transportation, they note - Los Angeles was second on the list...

From the BBC's: David Shukman                                                                          

One of the largest glaciers in Antarctica is thinning four times faster than it was 10 years ago, according to research seen by the BBC.

A study of satellite measurements of Pine Island glacier in west Antarctica reveals the surface of the ice is now dropping at a rate of up to 16m a year.

Since 1994, the glacier has lowered by as much as 90m, which has serious implications for sea-level rise.

The work by British scientists appears in Geophysical Research Letters.

We've known that it's been out of balance for some time, but nothing in the natural world is lost at an accelerating exponential rate like this glacier                                                               Andrew Shepherd, Leeds University

Calculations based on the rate of melting 15 years ago had suggested the glacier would last for 600 years. But the new data points to a lifespan for the vast ice stream of only another 100 years.

The rate of loss is fastest in the centre of the glacier and the concern is that if the process continues, the glacier may break up and start to affect the ice sheet further inland.

One of the authors, Professor Andrew Shepherd of Leeds University, said that the melting from the centre of the glacier would add about 3cm to global sea level.

"But the ice trapped behind it is about 20-30cm of sea level rise and as soon as we destabilise or remove the middle of the glacier we don't know really know what's going to happen to the ice behind it," he told BBC News.

"This is unprecedented in this area of Antarctica. We've known that it's been out of balance for some time, but nothing in the natural world is lost at an accelerating exponential rate like this glacier."

The highlighted area shows a dense concentration of crevasses along one edge of the glacier. Large numbers of deep crevasses are a sign that parts of the glacier are moving rapidly.....

Professor Box told BBC News: "The science community has been surprised by how sensitive these large glaciers are to climate warming. First it was the glaciers in south Greenland and now as we move further north in Greenland we find retreat at major glaciers. It's like removing a cork from a bottle."

Recently in my statewide travels around Colorado, I have heard a lot about the lack of rainfall and the drought which is plaguing our state. My bud WeatherDem also has been doing an excellent job of covering the measurable effects of Climate Change and the recent mass tree die off.
He also has told us about the water grab by Shell energy.
If that was not enough, there is a Pine Beetle epidemic in our mountains, leaving numerous acres and homes vulnerable to a massive wildfire.

You can imagine my shock today when I read that Nestle co. wants to bottle up 65 million gallons from the Arkansas river.

read on...

First of all, I was pleasantly surprised by Paul Begala. The man can give a speech. He is one those rare democrats that can weave his beliefs and religion into his speech without coming across as preachy. Thank you Mr. Begala.

Secondly, our first official testing of the waters was quite successful. At the Colorado Convention Center, the annual JJ Dinner was larger than it has ever been, and our numbers of elected officials was larger than it has ever been.
As we handed our volunteers their clipboards with sign up sheets and stickers that said "Friends of Andrew Romanoff", I was a little skeptical about how willing people would be to show their support. It takes nerve for volunteers to circulate petitions for a primary at a formal function.
However, my volunteers were running out of stickers and out of sign up sheets and were turning people away by the time dinner started.

Senior Citizens don't come up to you and grab your arm and tell you "tell him we are behind him" for nothing.

And, even more so, elected officials in the State House and Senate have a lot to risk by signing our sheets to support Andrew Romanoff in a primary, yet they still did so.
And this dinner was not a freebie. Tickets were over $100, and the people there are part of the fundraising base.
Barack Obama has proven that when the people are behind you, they can outraise the millionaires and make their voices heard.

Thanks to Ray, Lori, Alex, Faren, Julia and to Sarah for your hard work last night. (sorry I did not print up more stickers and sign up sheets!!!)

Mr. Romanoff, if you are reading this, the support for you is real, the people are behind you.

So, we are starting a "Andrew Romanoff for Senate 2010" table at the Jefferson Jackson dinner on March 7th.
If you knew the people I knew who were wanting this to go forward (and there a more than a few of you) I'd bet you'd be interersted in supporting his candidacy.

Event:

Celebrating Real Change: 2009 Jefferson-Jackson Dinner  
The 76th Annual Jefferson Jackson Dinner will be held on Saturday, March 7, 2009 at the Korbel Ballroom in the Colorado Convention Center at 700 14th Street, Denver, CO 80202.  

Registration and silent auction begins at 5:30 p.m.  
VIP reception is at 6:00 p.m.
Dinner and program run from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m

Cost is $125 per ticket.
email me at ultimatepolitics@hotmail.com to arrange the ticket purchase,

and join the group here. 

1. Colorado, according to Stu Rothenberg's  What's the Top Electoral College State This Year?, Colorado is now THE swing state as Florida and Ohio were in 2000 and 2004.

2. Secretary of State Mike Coffman broke the law last year by allowing his database manager Dan Kopelman to manage the database while he was running a Republican voter database company on the side. See story by Dan Whipple

3. Coffman's State Elections Director was discovered to be staying at a loft owned by the software salesman who manages the Voting Machines for our state, machines that have already been de-certified, then re-certified by Coffman. She resigned pending an investigation, and it calls into question the veracity of our voting machine process.

4. Now, Coffman has ruled on new voter registrations and decided this:

(from Colorado Pols' Dan Willis)

At Issue: Forms used by Voter Registration Drives. They include a place for people to include their Driver's License Number, State ID Card Number or Social Security Number (only requires last 4 digits). There is a box present which states "I do not have a Colorado Driver's license or Dept. of Revenue identification number" which people are supposed to mark if they are going to only give an SSN.
The Secretary of State has included in his Rules (dated July 2008) that any new voter who does not mark that box and only gives their SSN shall not be registered to vote.  In mid-September he issued a memo to the County Clerks telling them specifically to not register anyone who does this.
Consequence: Thousands of new voters are attempting to register to vote, thinking they are successful because they signed up through some organization such as ACORN or any of the political parties, but are not registered and will not be allowed to vote if they do not correct their forms.

When I say thousands, I am not over-exaggerating. In Denver County alone (the only one I have numbers for so far) this ruling has resulting in approx. 3000 denied voter registrations! And that is just one county, and one with thousands of more forms to even look at!

The SoS's sorry excuse? They claim to upholding the law, specifically CRS 1-2-204(f.5) which states:
"In the case of an elector who has been issued a current and valid Colorado driver's license, the elector's Colorado driver's license number. If, instead of a driver's license, the elector has been issued a current and valid identification card by the department of revenue in accordance with part 3 of article 2 of title 42, C.R.S., the elector shall provide the number of the identification card. If the elector has not been issued a current and valid Colorado driver's license or identification card, the elector shall answer that he or she does not have a driver's license or identification card and shall provide the last four digits of the elector's social security number. If the elector does not have a social security number, the elector shall answer that he or she does not have a social security number."

(Here is the interview with Colorado Ethic's Watch Chantel Taylor and Colorado Media Matter's Bill Menezes on these issues and the failure of the media to report these criminal activities.)

Please continue to forward this to any lawyers you know or contact the Secretary of State's office here,
or the Denver District Attorney's office.

"Why would Angela Braly (CEO of Wellpoint) make such a comment? Would she sacrifice on the 9 million dollars she made this year, would she sacrifice?" [Angela Braly is the CEO of Wellpoint. In April she told investors "we won't sacrifice profitability for membership". [applause]

Ignagni: "You talk to a hospital, you talk to a doctor, you talk to any concerns, you talk to a profit or not-for profit industry, you hear no margin, no mission. So the question is, you rather be in the black not the red, to do anything in our society is very important."

Question - Doug, what happened with the news coverage of this case, particularly CNN? A - So Pablo Fajardo is the lawyer and he got a CNN 'heroes' award this year, a humanitarian award. He was one of 7,000 nominated and won the award in the fighting for justice category, a process which included being voted on by a blue ribbon panel with folks like Lance Armstrong. He got to go to New York and accept the award and he got his story published on the website. Q - On CNN's Website? A - Yes on CNN's website, it got published on there for a few days then a few days later it disappeared. Turns out that Chevron had just kicked off this big ad campaign worth millions to try to sell Chevron as an environmentally friendly and supportive of sustainable energy, and it turned out, Chevron talked to CNN and got them to pull the story from the website. Question - So it is not like they bowed to the advertising about any story, but a story they made, for an award that they gave out !?! A - Yes, then Chevron put out press releases in Ecuador saying Pablo had somehow defrauded and tricked CNN into giving him the award. You know Lance Armstrong voted for him for this award - how would this guy in the Amazon Rainforest somehow trick Lance Armstrong? Question - So first they scrub the story up here, then do a PR campaign in Ecuador and, if you are living in a country with not as many good educational resources, and you've got some corporation spending millions of dollars or more defrauding this person...it is so unfair. A - Yes, there is a big difference in the resources Chevron has and the resources these people have, it is a David and Goliath Story. It almost works to their advantage, because Chevron is there in California with a team of lawyers, and they can't believe that this guy 1 year out of law school could beat them, so they underestimated him at every step. Its racism really, when you are looking at this guy who doesn't have the education and hasn't grown up with all the things these Harvard lawyers have had. They think they can beat him, and they are not, and that shows that the human spirit can triumph over those folks who think they can bully you around. One of the most important things to do is to think of these folks in Ecuador as your neighbor. You meet these people and they are like anyone else, they are struggling, they are trying to get by, and they are trying to make ends meet. They are just like anyone else in the world, trying to farm and survive and they are being harmed by the stuff we put in our cars, so we need to think about that. There is a great article in Vanity Fair - google it, it is called Jungle Law. And you can go to the website texacotoxico.org or chevrontoxico.com. Jungle Law

(from Vanity Fair, by William Langewiesche)Chevron ... denies that the judge is fair, denies that the plaintiffs have legitimate complaints, denies that their soil and water samples are meaningful, denies that the methods the company used to extract oil in the past were substandard, denies that it contaminated the forest, denies that the forest is contaminated, denies that there is a link between the drinking water and high rates of cancer, leukemia, birth defects, and skin disease, denies that unusual health problems have been demonstrated--and, for added measure, denies that it bears responsibility for any environmental damage that might after all be found to exist. ... Over the 17 years that Texaco operated this conduit to the sea, until Petroecuador assumed control, in 1989, the pipeline suffered 27 major breaks and spilled nearly 17 million gallons of oil, much of which was not cleaned up. The volume of the spills has been widely reported. For comparison, the grounding of the Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons....

The Delta region, home to Nigeria's oil industry, is poor and polluted. The antiquated oil pipeline system is subject to regular spills and gas fires. The people are subject to routine savage repression by police and soldiers. In the 1990s, the government executed Ken Saro-Wiwa, a leader of the Ogoni people, along with seven others. Saro-Wiwa's brother revealed that Shell Oil, which controls 50 percent of oil operations in the Niger Delta, offered to halt the executions if Ken Saro-Wiwa agreed to call off the Ogoni people's demonstrations against Shell. The accounts are legion of oil companies, principally Shell and Chevron, hiring mercenaries or soldiers to kill political opponents or local activists.

Question - How do we get good jobs from Renewable energy and what does the Apollo alliance do? A- (Richard Eidlin) The Apollo alliance (whose slogan is: Good Jobs, Clean energy, Freedom from Foreign Oil) is a coalition of business, labor and environmental groups focused on growing the economy in a substainable prosperous way by investing in clean energy that will result in MILLIONS of good jobs across the United States. This includes jobs in the automotive industry, building and infrastructure, construction, engineering... that would impact electrical engineers, contractors, construction workers, marketing people, installation techs, bringing new jobs to the market.

(me) One of the tings you are hoping to do is to go into the urban sectors where jobs have been lost, and retrain and re-employ workers to make solar panels or intricate parts for wind turbines... (Richard Eidlin) Yes, particularly in the industrial midwest, there is a tremendous opportunity to create a manufacturing base once again. There are a lot of facilities lying dormant, many skilled workers - what we need now is the political will and capital to bring those jobs back. For instance, parts to wind turbines could be manufactured in parts of Ohio or Michigan if legislators would act on this.

Carmen, what is FRESC and what do you do? FRESC (whose slogan is Good Jobs, Good Communities) is a Colorado organization looking to create and retain good paying jobs, create and maintain low income housing with environmental sustainability in mind, and we really believe in connecting environmental sustainability with economic sustainability with workers. But, it is not going to 'just happen'. We have to be systematic and strategic about how that happens, so that people building things (like electric) light rail sysytems, that the work is done by construction workers who are making good wages and have health care. (me) you mentioned the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) in Denver moving in this direction. (Carmen Rhodes) Organized labor, like the building trade, are really training the next generation of construction workers to have the skills necessary to build with environmental sustainability. Here at the IBEW, they have installed solar panels as a training opportunity for their workers and now have also saved hundreds of dollars in energy costs.

If you put a 'V' on the country with the bottom of the V at Texas, all those plains states have enormous wind resources. If we can get transmission lines to the coast where the people live, we could put our entire auto fleet on wind generated electricity through these plug in hybrids. Question - why isn't this happening? A- People think "well, why doesn't the market just take care of this?"We don't have a free market in the energy sector. There is no aspect in energy that is near a free market. We subsidize the oil, coil and gas industry through our tax dollars. The nuclear industry is subsidized by the Price-Anderson Act (which subsidizes all clean up costs over $900 million dollars) without which the Nuclear industry could not insure itself and therefore, could not exist, so that is clearly a tax subsidy. (the only challenge to the Price Anderson Act was in my home state of NC, which went before the Supreme court and lost in the Duke Power vs. Environmental Study Group decision.)

In 1992, the Congress approved a subsidy for wind and other renewable energy, the Production Tax Credit, which equalizes the tax incentives that other energy industries get. Since then, the Production Tax Credit has gone out of existence 3 times. All of the other subsidies for the fossil industries are fixed in the tax code, they are all permanent. They must think we are stupid in Washington. We've got permanent subsidies for the things we don't want, and inconsistent subsidies for the things we do want. They need to hear from people about this. One way is to go to AWEA.org, and get on the action alert to fix this Production Tax Credit situation.

Question - Tell us, Professor McKinnon, what is the Clean Energy Progress Fund? A - The Clean Energy Progress Fund is a way to support Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency and promote carbon sequestration in agricultural soils and forests. It is a triple win, it will help us with our economy, with our energy security, and will strengthen our environment. We really need to have a more secure energy source and the Clean Energy Progress Fund will promote solar power, especially Concentrating Solar Power, which focuses the sun through mirrors on a trough, like the one in Las Vegas, which generates 64 megawatts. Through Concentrating Solar Power, we could easily generate all the electricity for Colorado, just in the San Luis Valley, and at a cost that is competitive with a coal powered plant. Many of the things we are proposing,the only way for them to happen is for the government to get involved. For Transmission lines and other upgrades, that is where the Clean Energy Progress Fund would provide money from the people. We are also helping to create community action. For instance in Boulder, (first city in the U.S. to pass a carbon tax in November 2004) we have communities that are getting together to talk about how to save energy and the environment. Because we can see changes in the environment, and there are dangers, increased droughts, wildfires, new problems like beetle infestations, and so on. Global warming is a global issue, so Colorado could eliminate our heat trapping emissions to zero and there would still be an issue, but collectively through this Clean Energy Progress Fund, Colorado can be a leader, passing the first of bill of this kind nationally.

Coal has the same CO2 emission rate as the entire transportation sector. Coal emits 40% of all CO2, 2/3rds of all sulfur dioxide, 1/3rd of all mercury. These fossil fuels have hidden costs in terms of CO2. Now fossil fuels like oil and natural gas are escalating at a rate of 15% a year. The exciting thing about renewable energy like wind and solar is that when we look at their costs in 2020, we don't have to think about what they will cost.

In Colorado, Colorado has 96 gigawatts of wind energy. In terms of Solar energy, Colorado has 200 gigawatts of energy. (me) enough to power the Midwest...? Yes more than enough. We have to give credit to Xcel who has made great gains to become a leader among utility companies.