For the next couple of years, Obama is playing defense on climate change, and that could explain the fairly tame energy policy he announced yesterday, says Ezra Klein of The Washington Post. Like the Kung-Fu masters of yore, he knows that he cannot hope to defeat his opponents in a frontal assault. These are, after all, politicians who would strip the EPA of even its existing power to regulate greenhouse gases, so there's no way in hell they'd vote for strong action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Rather, he's got to bend like the reed. If he puts forth a …

The latest rage in Washington policy discussions these days (that's relevant to climate change) is renewed interest in renewable electricity standards, this time in the form of so-called "clean energy standards." I've written about this policy approach recently and will do so again in the near future, but for today I want to turn to an important issue -- for the long term -- on the related topic of the international dimensions of climate change policy. The current state of affairs Despite the death in the U.S. Senate last year of serious consideration of an economy-wide cap-and-trade system for carbon …

Woman carrying water through the Dharavi slum of Mumbai.Photo: Meena KadriCross-posted from Cool Green Science. Imagine living on less than a bathtub of water for all your daily needs: drinking, cooking, bathing, washing clothes ... and everything else. By 2050, more than 1 billion city dwellers may be doing just that if we don't build new infrastructure or begin new water conservation efforts, according to a new study [PDF] by scientists at The Nature Conservancy and other institutions. And more than 3 billion in cities may suffer similar water shortages at least one month of every year, says the report. …

Don't be confused, we've got some good news.Photo: Corie HowellCross posted from Sightline's Daily Score blog. Great Scott, how did I miss this? Late last month, the EPA released a draft greenhouse gas inventory, showing that net climate warming emissions from the U.S. fell by a whopping 15 percent from 2000 through 2009 [PDF]. A 15 percent decline? Wow. Just wow. But the story gets even more dramatic. Over the same period, the U.S. population grew by about 9 percent. Combining the two trends, net per capita greenhouse-gas emissions fell by 21 percent over the decade. And most of that …

Or, the other option.The world's cities are going to have to move aggressively to curb their greenhouse-gas emissions, or the whole planet is going to pay for it. That's the word in a new report from the United Nations Human Settlement Program, or UN-HABITAT. The report is called "Hot Cities: Battle-Ground for Climate Change," (you can find a summary and links to purchase the full report here). It paints a dire picture of how an increasingly urban and wealthy global population could mean "potentially devastating effects of climate change on urban populations": Urban centres have become the real battle-ground in …

Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, The other day I was sitting on the couch after a day of eating an onion-rich diet and wondered ... how much impact can a person have on climate change by avoiding flatulence-producing foods? Resourcefully yours,Rob D. Troubled by your bubbles?A. Dearest Rob, I appreciate your desire to not turn the Earth into a Dutch oven, Rob. So let me cut to the cheese, if you will. According to the National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse of the National Institutes of Health, "most people produce about 1 to 4 pints a day and …

A German wind farm.Photo: Dirk Ingo FrankeAs the nuclear reactor accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant continues to dominate the world's attention, Germany has quietly broken more renewable energy records. The conservative government of Chancellor Angela Merkel, struggling to stay ahead of public attitudes toward nuclear power in the run-up to regional elections, issued its annual report on the contribution of renewable energy to the German energy market in 2010. Wind turbines, hydroelectric plants, solar cells, and biogas digesters now provide nearly 17 percent of Germany's electricity. Meanwhile, the German network agency Bundesnetzagentur issued its final update on the installation …

  Fotopedia.comIf we’re going to save this rock, we might have to save the Earth Summit in Rio next year first. I've got good news and bad news about the future of the planet. Good news first. Next year, a honking big global Earth Summit is coming our way -- one with a proud heritage. Formally titled the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development, the meeting is known as RIO+20 because it will come 20 years after the first Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. That original Earth Summit (itself 20 years after the equally important Stockholm Convention on the Environment …

Photo by Gonzalo Déniz. As Japan's nuclear disaster stretched into its second week, traces of radiation from the stricken power plants showed up in several U.S. states, and as far away as Iceland. With the reactors and uranium fuel rods still proving difficult to bring under control, the disaster could be the "death knell" for nuclear power, some analysts said. Countries around the world -- from China to Germany -- are taking a closer look at their nuclear plants and plans, while the U.S. intends to complete an initial review of its reactors within three months. Some are still arguing publicly for more nuclear, such as European Union …

In a recent House Energy and Commerce Committee climate hearing, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) jokingly asked if some of his fellow colleagues were going to overturn the law of gravity, "sending us floating about the room." It seems funny until you realize that it's in response to a disturbing trend in Congress of misusing, manipulating, or ignoring scientific facts and academic research. As Lisa Jackson, the head of the EPA, put it, if they keep it up, "[p]oliticians overruling scientists on a scientific question would become part of this committee's legacy." Just one example: in another Energy and Commerce Committee …