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Will carbon cap-and-trade be the next Ponzi scheme?

Even as the tsunami of Bernard Madoff’s busted Ponzi scheme was submerging hapless rentiers around the world, another esoteric financial enterprise quietly took a step forward this week. At a couple of hundred million bucks, this new venture is just spare change alongside Bernie’s 50 billion. But in time it could grow to rival Madoff’s […]

Sleep tight everyone!

What a comforting thought: The safety of Russia’s nuclear industry is being undermined by the country’s economic crisis and the situation is expected to to worsen in 2009, according to a newly released annual report by the Russian nuclear regulatory body. Ongoing job cuts at nuclear facilities include the personnel directly responsible for safety control, […]

Thinking big on climate offers better ratio of risk to reward than timidity

The cost of keeping climate-chaos temperature rise under two degrees centigrade may be only 2 percent of world GDP, according to a new study by leading international scientists released in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences into preprint on Dec. 22, 2008. But they say that spending much less than this will be […]

Biochar: magic bullet?

“If biochar could be massively applied around the globe, we could end the emissions problem in one to two years.” — soil scientist and Cornell professor Johannes Lehmann

Old Man Winter declares war on renewable energy

Guess what. The sun doesn’t shine as much in winter, so your home solar system won’t generate much power in the cold months. Oh, and it might SNOW on your solar panels, so you’re gonna have to get out there and sweep them off. But relax solar fans. You’ve got it better than those wind […]

N.Y. Times is ready for regime change at the EPA

The Gray Lady’s editorial board offered up a big lump of coal to President Bush’s EPA chief in a Christmas Day editorial. The NYT notes that even former GOP-appointed EPA leaders are frustrated with Stephen Johnson’s tenure at the nation’s top environmental enforcer. Money quote: “It was Mr. Johnson who refused to grant California a […]

Vote for the worst piece of writing on climate change

Every year the Poor Man Institute gives out awards for a range of wanktastic behavior from the lunatic right. Highlights include the Chickenhawk of the Year award (for rhetorical courage), the Fluffy award (for egregious ass-kissing), and the Purple Teardrop With Clutched Pearl Cluster award (for melodramatic offense-taking). Of particular interest to Gristians, however, is […]

Tennessee ash spill more than three times larger than originally thought

NYT: “Coal Ash Spill Is Much Larger Than Initially Estimated“ Initially authorities said there were 2.6 million cubic yards of ash in the pond, and 1.7 million spilled. Now they’re saying 5.4 million cubic yards have spilled — more than double the original estimate of the total in the pond. Fills you with trust in […]

American taxpayers help pay for coal sent to China

Lee Buchsbaum writes that U.S. coal producers increasingly find it more profitable to export their product: With the falling dollar, selling to Asia, Europe or South America is giving coal producers a higher return than selling into the United States. "If I were running a coal company and I looked at what’s happening on Capitol […]

Deep Christmas thought

Watching my kids’ absolute, uncontainable delight as they play with cheesy, old, used Star Wars toys that my wife and I Santa got off eBay, a thought occurred to me. I’ve argued before that “materialism” isn’t really the right word for what plagues affluent developed countries. We don’t seem to care about material — that […]