I’ve been thinking about the language people use to describe their ideas about climate change. Kate Sheppard at Mother Jones had a post about the efforts of 3 congressmen to defund NASA’s monitoring of changing climatic conditions, which brought to the front of my mind all the efforts of GOP congressmen to end monitoring a changing climate, stop measuring it, and/or stop doing anything about it.

I think the PR people for this movie were trying to get in touch with us at the public radio station where I work:

The tagline for Climate Nation is “a climate change solutions movie that doesn’t even care if you believe in climate change.” Is this brilliant? I’m pretty sure they’re talking about a belief in human-influenced climate change…so, yeah, those people who don’t accept certain scientific findings, they can fork over money to see this and not regret it! Everybody can go! A win-win. Etc.

But it made me wonder about the efficacy of potential solutions to something that may or may not exist. Giving up that second part…isn’t that losing ground, if you accept scientific findings that support the notion that people contribute to a warming planet?

Then this weekend I was watching Meet the Press, and John Boehner was talking about birthers.

David, it’s not my job to tell the American people what to think. Our job in Washington is to listen to the American people. Having said that, the state of Hawaii has said that he was born there. That’s good enough for me. The president says he’s a Christian. I accept him at his word.

William Saletan in Slate goes ahead and points out all the ways that Boehner has responded to the questions birthers raise about Barack Obama being Muslim and having a faked birth certificate. Another one I like, this one a response to Brian Williams:

The state of Hawaii has said that President Obama was born there. That’s good enough for me.

[The revelation I'm having - I use that term advisedly - is on par with the time I figured out in season 6 apropos of nothing that the kids on Friends hung out in Central Perk, which was a play on Central PARK. Nevertheless.]

To use the language “believing in” something – citizenship, climate change – is to bring along with it the baggage, the connotations of “belief.” Which is that you can, and often do, do it when there’s no evidence for something. (The existence of God, for example.) Which is that you do it independently, alone, a deal between you and the object of your belief. (A personal relationship with Jesus Christ, for example.)

If you believe Plato, knowledge is a justified true belief. A well-intentioned belief that is not supported by evidence, well, that ain’t knowledge. A truth that nobody believes is not knowledge either – because it’s not known.

So are public dialogues about climate change and about Obama’s birth certificate undermining knowledge? is that bad? And if we were to undermine other pieces of knowledge similar to these two subjects – in the same way as they’re being undermined – do we know anything?

A federal district court has upheld key provisions of a program designed to clean up air pollution at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, in part by requiring trucking companies to employ their drivers rather than contract with them.

In a written statement, Geraldine Knatz, the executive director of the Port of LA, said port officials are pleased. “Our ability to have direct enforcement of the truck bans and other important features of our concession agreements with the trucking companies that call at the Port of Los Angeles thousands of times a day will help provide a safer and secure trucking system for the long term.”

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is also declaring victory for what’s been called the “blue-green coalition” – an alliance of environmental and labor interests.

The trucking industry and other opponents of the employee-driver requirement have raised concerns that mandating drivers’ status as employees will speed organizing efforts by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Officials at the Port of Los Angeles have maintained that the rule would promote safety on local roads and shift the burden of purchasing newer, cleaner trucks onto the companies that operate them, speeding transitions to cleaner equipment.

“This decision is evidence that we are making real progress on growing and greening our Port. Now we can finally move forward with our Clean Truck Program, a model for ports around the nation,” Villaraigosa said in a written release.

The American Trucking Association challenged 5 provisions of the concession agreements the Port of Los Angeles required of trucking companies: the employee driver requirement, parking restrictions, maintenance requirements, a rule that trucks must display placards so that if they’re polluting the public can call a number to report them, and a demonstration of financial responsibility.

Judge Cristina A. Snyder’s opinion finds that the port can make these rules as part of concession agreements because it’s acting as a market participant to further its interests, much as private businesses would do. Requiring truckers to be employees of companies, rather than contractors, is a move “designed to transfer the financial burden of administration and record-keeping onto the trucking companies instead of the Port. This is clearly an economically motivated action, and one that a private company with substantial market power—such as the oligopoly power of the Port—would take when possible in pursuit of maximizing profit. The provision was also designed to help protect the Port’s investment in retrofitted trucks.

Snyder’s ruling also finds environmental protection to be a justifiable aim for a business trying to grow. As evidence, Snyder quotes a declaration from David S. Freeman, formerly of the Port of Los Angeles. “We quickly realized that in order to grow the Port, we had to abate the pollution because the people in San Pedro and Wilmington were not only angry and not only suffering from terrible air pollution, but they had learned that the law was there to protect them, and the NRDC and others had filed lawsuits, and they had stopped the Port from growing. So green growth which is what we called it was an absolute business necessity” Freeman said in testimony considered at trial. “[W]e responded with what we call our Clean Air Action P[lan], and it was a business necessity. I mean, we could not grow the business without attacking the pollution problem.”

Managing air pollution, Snyder wrote, promotes the success of the port’s business. “The evidence demonstrates that Port-generated air pollution interfered with Port growth and has jeopardized the Port’s continued viability as a commercial enterprise. The Concession Agreement helps the Port manage its property and facilities as any private landlord and facilities operator would.”

The American Trucking Association has not yet been available for comment, but an appeal of Snyder’s decision is likely.

Oops! Forgot about this over the weekend: which magazines, you ask? The Atlantic and The New Republic, actually. (Preaching to the converted?)

Bradford Plumer makes the point that state-level climate policy matters in The New Republic:

Renewable standards, efficiency laws, a utility-only carbon-trade system that’s currently operating in the Northeast… And looking ahead, a number of Western states are watching California closely and mulling the possibility of linking up with its cap-and-trade system down the road. Assuming that Congress doesn’t pass its own climate bill, then these states are going to shoulder a good deal of the burden in cutting carbon emissions.

Nicole Allan in The Atlantic repeats the economic-apocalypse claims of Proposition 23 proponents:

Anita Mangels, the campaign’s communications director, stressed that there’s more to Schwarzenegger’s prized AB 32 than just cap-and-trade. “It has a low carbon fuel standard, which would increase gas diesel costs by $4 billion a year,” she said. “Its renewable electricity standard would cause electricity rates to rise. It has green building standards that would add $50,000 to the cost of a home.”

I’m looking forward to getting cites for the first and third assertions by Mangels – particularly curious about the 50Gs for the cost of a home. Seems, for lack of a better word, random. I’ll present it when I have it.

Opponents to AB32 – supporters of Proposition 23 – I write both so that I beat it into my own head that 23 opposes 32 – say they’re concerned that cutting greenhouse gas emissions even on an oft-delayed schedule will wreck the state’s economy. A bunch of pointy-headed intellectuals beg to differ.

And within that group of intellectuals, some of ‘em are complaining about it. The Union of Concerned Scientists has a new letter out from a group of 118 economists they roped together. It’s presented with a cover page: “The most expensive thing California can do is nothing.”

From the letter:

The current recession and the very high unemployment rate in California present daunting challenges. Some have argued that these economic conditions warrant suspending the imple- mentation of emission reduction policies. We disagree. Delaying action now and waiting for the future before initiating accelerated action to reduce global warming gases will be more costly than initiating action now. Acting now is more likely to limit further environmental degradation, lower the cost of mitigation, and spur innovation in renewable energy and conservation technologies. Furthermore, policies that reduce global warming pollution are likely to provide immediate benefits to the health and welfare of residents by reducing local pollutants.

Now, of course, they’re assuming that governments are going to get around to it sooner or later, and California will be forced in that instance to mitigate its impacts. Is that an unfair assumption?

Oh, and, from UCSB’s Charles Kolstad:

The risk of significant negative consequences of our current emissions path should be sufficient for us to take meaningful action to cost-effectively moderate our appetite for emitting carbon and to spur innovation into carbon-lean technologies. Starting with automobile pollution control in the 1960s, California has been a leader in managing environmental problems. We are better off for it.

It was written a few days ago, but nevertheless: from the Bay Area Bureau* comes an article about the connection between high-speed rail positions and the governor’s race.

…which is apparently a litmus test for how the governor’s race will go. Which again makes climate a litmus test for how the governor’s race will go.

Choice excerpt:

Meg Whitman, the Republican candidate and former eBay CEO, said through a spokeswoman on Friday she “believes the state cannot afford the costs associated with high-speed rail due to our current fiscal crisis.”

She lives in the wealthy town of Atherton, which is ground zero for the anti-bullet train movement because of concerns about the tracks that would run through the tony community.

Nowhere in the article is mention of climate change, or climate policy. But advocates for integrated planning for carbon and GHG reduction argue high speed rail is a big way to mitigate global warming.

The Center for Neighborhood Technology has a pretty good backgrounder on high speed rail as a climate issue – you can even download a report that does a corridor-by-corridor analysis of greenhouse gas emissions savings as a result of high-speed rail.

*Note that the BAB is fictional. Love the reference to Atherton, though, where, yes, Frank Stoltze, I DID go to high school.

I couldn’t agree more, Phil Trounstine & Jerry Roberts.

The whole thing’s well worth a read. Do that here.

Trounstine & Roberts point out that Prop 23 is starting from a weak position, with a little more than a third of those polled in favor.

But a separate crosstab that the Field Poll ran at our request showed that voters who favor Proposition 23 are supporting Whitman over Brown by 55 percent to 34 percent while those who oppose the measure are supporting Brown by 54 percent to 34 percent – virtual mirror images.

At the same time, and even more impressive: Whitman voters are supporting Proposition 23 by 45 percent to 36 percent, but Brown supporters are opposing the measure by an even stronger 60 percent to 28 percent. These are differences you can call statistically significant.

They also give Barbara Boxer a tip:

The undecideds in the Senate race are opposed to the measure 47 percent to 28 percent – giving Boxer an opening to make inroads among voters who haven’t made up their mind about the Senate race but who know for sure they don’t want to roll back California’s climate change law.

Boxer v. Fiorina, Brown v. Whitman, proposition 23: reading about November’s races, it’s clear that climate figures into key decisions the state’s going to make in a matter of months. It’s not clear the substance of climate policy will have anything to do with those decisions, but it’s worth taking a look.

I’m going to start doing a regular roundup of the week’s developments in climate politics. It seems like a good way to keep my head in the game.

This week’s pretty easy – two main developments:

The Field Poll released numbers on the propositions. Looks like voters are skeptical about Proposition 23, which would put AB 32 on hold until the state’s unemployment drops to 5.5% for 4 consecutive quarters (or, you know, until hell freezes over; keep in mind we’re around 12% right now, facing the prospect of a double dip).

PG&E – you know, the guys who wanted Prop 16 to win recently – has decided to oppose Proposition 23 – so, continues to support AB 32 moving forward as it has been.

Cities along the Los Angeles River face increasing responsibility for preventing bacteria from entering the waterway after regional water regulators passed new standards at a meeting in Glendale on Friday.

The rules will apply to all cities whose storm drains empty into the river or its tributaries. The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board passed the standards over the loud objections of the cities. They’re claiming that the added responsibility of eliminating bacteria from water entering the river could cost millions to billions of dollars.

The water board gave cities 25 years to achieve standards. Heal the Bay’s Mark Gold says that’s too long. But federal regulators – who earlier this week adopted the position that the LA River deserves fuller protection – said they’d impose limits on bacteria immediately if state officials took no action.

The regional board’s approval sends the plan to the state board in Sacramento. Then federal Environmental Protection Officials sign off on it to make the bacteria standards final.

UPDATE: Check out Rebecca Kimitch’s report from the meeting here.

Even famous people who get Emmy nominations for shows I watched (mostly on Alex Axles Cohen’s couch) for years sometimes have problems with the Department of Water and Power.