Latest Articles
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Roberts, take 2: We don’t have time for capital-intensive industrial mega-projects
This is the fourth entry in a series of six email exchanges between two climate-change experts on the future use of coal. The series was originally posted here. Editorial note: Time is of the essence, Roberts argues. We must be agile and find solutions that can be rapidly implemented, learned from, and refined, rather than […]
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Mackler, take 2: We don’t have time for major shifts in energy policy
This is the third entry in a series of six email exchanges between two climate-change experts on the future use of coal. The series was originally posted here. Editorial note: Mackler argues that the world lacks time for its leaders to navigate the political process necessary for a complete change of energy policy direction. Large-scale […]
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Roberts, take 1: Coal is in short supply, expensive, and cannot be made clean
This is the second entry in a series of six email exchanges between two climate-change experts on the future use of coal. The series was originally posted here. Editorial note: Roberts argues that the key question is not “how can we best reduce carbon dioxide emissions?” Rather, we need to confront a more fundamental question […]
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Mackler, take 1: Clean coal is a necessary part of fighting climate change
This is the first entry in a series of six email exchanges between two climate-change experts on the future use of coal. The series was originally posted here. Editoral note: While Sasha Mackler agrees that coal is one of the primary contributors to detrimental climate change, he argues that using current technology to develop low-carbon […]
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Shared fate under the ‘fault lines’
We hear plenty about the divisions that make reaching a global climate agreement in Copenhagen daunting. “Negotiators at Climate Talks Face Deep Set of Fault Lines,” as the New York Times put it on Sunday. Indeed, the opening salvos from the negotiators confirm that they have a long way to go in less than 2 […]
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Money’s coming to cool the planet: What’s the winning spending plan?
With their natural resources pilfered, have Native American gambling casinos been payback, a further pillage (described as Tonto’s revenge during the Abramoff scandal) or perhaps both? It’s a relevant debate for today’s global warming talks. During these next weeks of climate change deliberations in Copenhagen, environmental service payment programs will be hammered out. What’s the […]
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A new world order: Automakers and Copenhagen
As world leaders meet in Copenhagen to seek consensus on ways to reduce carbon emissions, the world’s automakers are on the doorstep of a revolutionary change in how the vehicles we all depend on are designed and powered. From batteries, to plug-in hybrids, to next generation biofuels, clean diesels and hydrogen powered autos, to dramatic improvements in old combustion […]
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FDA moves to reform nutrition labels
Still smarting over the industry’s shenanigans over the “Smart Choices” label, the FDA has decided to pick up the pace of change. Marion Nestle dug up a set of proposed new front-of-package nutrition labels that the FDA is studying, one of which may ultimately get the agency’s final approval. Here they are: My faves are […]
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How James Hansen gets cap-and-trade wrong
Climate scientist James Hansen has gone on the warpath against cap-and-trade. (See this op-ed in the NYT, among other recent examples.) Perhaps what’s most alarming is that, for all his intelligence, Hansen doesn’t appear to grasp even the basic elements of cap-and-trade systems. In a blog post last weekend, economist Paul Krugman took him to task: … […]
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Where is the fossil-fuel industry in Copenhagen?
The action at the Bella Center in Copenhagen. Can you find the oil lobbyist in this picture?Photo: doug mcneall Just past the security gates and the main entrance to the Bella Center, the site of the Copenhagen climate change conference, attendees must pass through a forest of exhibition booths—there are ones set up by conservation […]
