San Diego solar boom

Solar energy is soaring in Southern California -- surging past wind and hydro as the Golden State's top renewable energy source. On a recent visit to San Diego I was amazed at all the new rooftop solar. It seemed like every other home had solar panels on the roof, a noticeable difference from the last time I went out West a few years ago. It makes sense that San Diego would be the epicenter of America's solar boom given how much sunshine the region is blessed with all year round.

Rally for Independence from Fossil Fuels

The Rally for Independence from Fossil Fuels was the culmination of the 2013 Walk for our Grandchildren from Camp David, Maryland to the White House for a clean energy future. The event took place at Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C. on July 27, 2013 and featured climate activist and 350.org founder Bill McKibben speaking about where the fossil fuel resistance movement is right now. The main focus of the event was to keep pressure on the Obama Administration to reject the Keystone XL pipeline, which McKibben said would be historic because the president would become the first world leader to stop a project because of its contribution to climate change.

Documentary Hits Fossil Fuel Industry-Funded Climate Change Deniers

"Greedy Lying Bastards" is as timely a movie as you will ever see. The global warming documentary — directed, produced and narrated by Craig Rosebraugh — pulls no punches in a damning indictment of the fossil fuel industry-funded climate change deniers who have successfully deceived the public and prevented climate change action in Congress at a time when Americans are feeling the damaging effects of a changing climate — from Hurricane Sandy to western wildfires to devastating droughts.

Click here to read the rest of the story on The National Memo.

Terry McAuliffe Calls For Clean Energy Jobs In Virginia

Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe on Saturday said he will fight for clean energy jobs in the Old Dominion, telling the energized crowd at the campaign's first state-wide field office opening in Arlington that "I've been involved in a lot of businesses, including renewable energy. We need jobs for the 21st century. I've met some folks here doing wind and solar and I congratulate you. I promise you as governor we are going to do something about making our renewable energy standard mandatory. Because it's about job creation. We ought to have wind turbines. But we ought to build the blades and the rotors here in Virginia."

In Virginia, the 2007 Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) is voluntary, meaning the state is losing business to the 29 states and the District of Columbia that have mandatory renewable energy standards. Not a single solar, wind or other clean energy project has broken ground in Virginia since the law was passed.

Science Starting to Win Climate Change Debate

Climate change convert Richard Muller with his daughter Elizabeth at home in Berkeley, California. Photo credit: AP.

Global warming is real and humans are causing it. That greenhouse gas emissions are contributing to climate change is as accepted among mainstream scientists as the earth revolving around the sun. A recently published story on climate change denial in Australian current affairs magazine The Monthly cites a survey that found 97.4 percent of climate scientists agree that "human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures."

But what about the few scientists still skeptical of climate change? They are starting to come around as evidenced by the highly publicized conversion of UC Berkeley physics professor and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory faculty senior scientist Richard A. Muller. On the well-read pages of The New York Times, Muller explained his conversion was a result of research done on the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project, which concluded that global land temperatures have increased by 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) over the past 250 years, including an increase of 1.5 degrees F (0.9 degrees C) over the past 50 years. And that "it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases."

'Avengers' Delivers Powerful Clean Energy Message

The Tesseract. Image credit: Marvel

Unemployment. Austerity. War. Terrorism. Climate Change. The world needs superheroes now more than ever. Along comes Marvel's "The Avengers" to rave reviews and boffo box office. In tough times, movie audiences crave escapist entertainment and larger than life superheroes, which could help explain why "The Avengers" set a box office record for the biggest opening weekend ever in North America, tied for the fastest film to reach $1 billion and is currently the third highest grossing film of all time with a worldwide haul of nearly $1.4 billion.

That's a lot of people that are absorbing the film's clean energy message -- the sustainable energy source called the Tesseract. There have been different reactions to the film's renewable energy message -- some positive, some critical.

Will GOP’S Solyndra Witch Hunt Backfire?

Energy Secretary Chu and President Obama. Credit: U.S. Department of Energy.

(Cross-posted at Winning Progressive)

Solyndra was never about the facts. It was never meant to be. House Republicans put on a cynical show trial to attack the Obama Administration’s clean energy policies. They dragged Nobel Prize-winning physicist and Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu to Capitol Hill in order to brow beat one of the most respected scientists in the world over the DOE Loan Guarantee Program.

Sadly, Republicans might have committed serious damage to American competitiveness in the global clean energy race. The United States is attempting to compete with China, Germany, Brazil and other nations whose governments are massively investing in the renewable energy sector. The Loan Guarantee Program is crucial to ensuring success in the industries of the future. Now comes the news that because of Solyndra, the DOE is being overly cautious in issuing loans. The first victim could be California-based luxury electric car maker Fisker Automotive’s plans to build a hybrid-electric car factory in Wilmington, Delaware for their new model Atlantic. The project was supposed to create 2,000 factory jobs and more than 3,000 vendor and supplier jobs. Wilmington’s unemployment rate stood at 10.4 percent as of last December so the city could really use those jobs. So Fisker is now considering placing the plant and all those jobs in Finland. Fisker already manufactures its Karma plug-in hybrid luxury sedan in Finland. Fisker founder Henrik Fisker was quoted in ABC News as saying the following:

Virginia Democrat Terry McAuliffe Charged Up About Green Economy

Terry McAuliffe in a Greentech electric car.

Yes Virginia, there are forward-thinking leaders in your state. I know it seems like all hope is lost with the Republican legislature, governor and attorney general determined to turn the clock back by forcing a radically divisive social agenda upon the residents of the Old Dominion. The right-wing regime in Richmond would like to roll back all the progress that has been made. That’s one reason why it was refreshing to hear former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe give a positive message about clean energy jobs and growing the green economy.

The McLean resident spoke this past November at George Mason University’s School of Public Policy in Arlington about his electric car company and how to get Virginia and the United States competing in the global green economy. The event was titled “The Green Economy: Competing Globally for Jobs of the Future.”

Honoring Gabrielle Giffords by Embracing the Green Economy

When it comes to the green economy, sometimes it seems like the United States of America is stuck in neutral while the rest of the world is fully charged up and racing ahead at warp speed.

Take electric vehicles as an example pulled from recent headlines. The Chevy Volt, General Motors' new plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, recently became a political punching bag on Capitol Hill by a Republican-led Oversight Committee on a witch hunt against any project related to the Obama administration. Before it was Solyndra and solar energy, now it is the Volt and electric vehicles.

Lack of political will from Republican lawmakers in Congress is really the only thing that is holding back the United States of America from leading the "next industrial revolution"—the clean energy economy that is already rapidly transforming countries like Germany, Brazil, China, Canada and other governments that get it when it comes to giving the market signals with cap and trade programs and taxes on carbon. The fossil fuel industry seems to have the Republicans on too tight a leash for them to make decisions on behalf of the American people and the future of this great country.

Perhaps Gabrielle Giffords can provide some inspiration and convince at least some of the Republican lawmakers in Congress (the Obama administration and most Democrats are already onboard the high-speed clean energy train) that they must break the shackles of the oil, gas and coal industries and begin to embrace renewable power sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, biomass, biofuel, tidal and wave.

Giffords is a big advocate for solar energy because her home state of Arizona is blessed by the sun. She has supported clean energy legislation as well as ending oil industry subsidies and redirecting that money into clean energy research.

When Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) read Giffords' letter of resignation on the House floor in January, she said the following:

"In public service, I found a venue for the pursuit of a stronger America by ensuring the safety and security of all Americans by producing clean energy here at home instead of importing oil from abroad."

Here is video of the entire speech.

Panelists: America Needs to Invest More in Clean Energy

(Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images Europe)

The Clean Economy Network of Greater Washington, D.C. recently hosted a panel discussion on the state of the clean energy economy with Mark Muro of the Brookings Institution and Ethan Zindler of Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Solyndra, the California solar panel manufacturer that received a $535 million Department of Energy loan guarantee and recently filed for bankruptcy, was discussed. The two experts defended the DOE Loan Guarantee Program as being vital to encouraging American innovation and competitiveness in the global clean energy market. They both agreed that if the government is going to be in the game then there will be other losers and that accepting risks is critical.

They also said there is too much weight on loan guarantees and that there has to be a comprehensive clean energy policy in this country with things such as a carbon price and clean energy investment bank, similar to the national infrastructure bank that is included in the American Jobs Act winding its way through Congress.

According to Muro, since 2003 the clean energy sector has created 2.7 million direct, full-time jobs. That is more than the fossil fuel industry's 2.4 million jobs. More than 1/4 of the clean economy jobs are in manufacturing and there are two times more export earnings per job than the rest of the economy. Also, more than 2/3 of clean economy jobs are middle wage and middle skill.

Muro laid out the basic framework for what he termed the "Next Economy." This new economy will be export and innovation driven with lower carbon. It will also be rich with opportunity.

Will we continue to prop up 20th century industries like oil and coal or will we start playing catch-up with China and other nations and support 21st century industries like solar and wind? The panelists made a compelling case for the United States to move towards a clean economy.