Latest Articles

Obama’s first budget includes green spending and anticipated revenues from a climate plan

President Barack Obama on Thursday outlined his first proposed budget, notably including billions of dollars for renewable energy investments and taking into account billions in expected revenues from a carbon pricing scheme. In his remarks on Thursday, Obama also reaffirmed his directive to Congress to send him legislation putting a price on carbon. The “climate […]

British recycling site to feature celeb cast-offs

This just in: MySkip.com, which as near as I can tell is the British version of Freecycle (TM!), is hosting a 24-hour Celeb Throwaway next week to show users just how sexy recycling can be. While the names of the participants have been revealed, their items have not. What will Boy George donate? Sheryl Crow? Cuba Gooding Jr.? The cast of Mamma Mia? One's imagination hardly dares wander.

Salazar withdraws leases for oil shale development

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Wednesday reversed the Bush administration’s move to open up tens of thousands of acres in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming to oil-shale development, the latest in a series of energy policy overhauls out of his department. Salazar — who as a senator was the most vocal opponent of the Bush administration’s […]

Advances in climate science took a nosedive in NASA satellite crash

By now you’ve probably heard about NASA’s carbon-measuring satellite, the one that went kerplunk into the ocean near Antarctica in a disastrous launch attempt Tuesday morning. I was feeling bummed that my “gee, this is going to be really cool and useful” pre-launch story is now very much irrelevant. Then I realized NASA’s team of […]

Solar hot water heating's day in the sun

The California Center for Sustainable Energy is implementing a pilot solar water-heating incentive program in San Diego. The success of the pilot will go a long way in determining how the program gets rolled out to the rest of California -- which is important because, as you can see from this great study by CalSEIA, the value of solar hot water is quite high. That's why it was nice to see a weatherman from a local news station get in on the act, climb up a roof, and tell people just what they should be doing with a sunny day. (Video here.)

[Note to Al Roker: I also heard the San Diego TV guy say there's no way you could do as good of a job. He dared you to try to promote solar nationally as well as he did locally. He also called you a punk.]

Also of note: a local solar installer has announced a $0-down financing program, with payments set at avoided energy cost (estimated at a 7-year payback). That's the first time I've heard of a program like that for solar water heating, and is the kind of innovation that will be necessary for the technology to find its place in ... wait for it ... the sun.

Congress starts to outline how they’ll meet Obama’s directive on climate and energy legislation

President Barack Obama issued a directive to Congress in his address on Tuesday night, calling for a climate bill and energy measures. Now we’re getting a clearer ideas from Congressional leaders about how they plan to respond. On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters that he plans to achieve three legislative priorities to […]

Higher productivity and lower health costs outweigh additional spending

Grist has discussed the consensus among most economists that the net cost of solving the climate crisis will be around 1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Basically this consensus says that total expenditures in various greenhouse gas emitting sectors will increase by 1 percent for the same economic output if emissions are controlled.

To be fair to economists, these estimates are based on studies that include substantial increases in energy efficiency -- even count some of the maintenance and capital savings. They are actually taking a stab at following Amory Lovins' dictum to count all costs and benefits.

Nonetheless, I think there are some good reasons why the consensus is wrong about there being a net cost at all. I think the overwhelming evidence is that a climate-stable future will have a higher GDP, even before avoided climate disruption is counted.

The main extra benefits economists overlook are the helpful side effects other than mitigating the climate crisis -- "positive externalities," in economic jargon.

For example, about half of all economic activity takes place in climate-conditioned buildings. Greening these buildings could increase[PDF] productivity [PDF] by around 10 percent. Similarly, switching most long-haul freight trucking miles to long-haul freight rail would increase productivity in transportation. Many energy-saving practices in industry, such as reducing scrapping and reducing spills and other types of emitting stoppages, would increase productivity as well. A switch to wind and solar would reduce labor productivity in the electricity sector; the conventional wisdom is that a switch to organic agriculture would do the same in that sector, though I think this is much less certain that people think. At any rate, sectors where productivity would rise greatly outnumber the tiny sectors where it might fall -- resulting in a huge net increase, probably greater than 5 percent for the economy as a whole.

Another example would be huge benefits to health. Eliminating or greatly reducing the use of fossil fuels would reduce air pollution, water pollution, and exposure to toxics. A switch to organic and low input agriculture would decrease direct ingestion of toxics, and increase available vitamins and minerals in food. Whether such a switch alone would encourage a switch to healthy increase in the consumption of non-starchy vegetables and fresh fruits I don't know, but it certainly could be part of policy that accomplished this. Overall, I think it is almost impossible that switching from fossil fuels to renewables and efficiency, that switching from toxic soil-consuming agriculture to non-toxic soil building agriculture, from unsustainable to sustainable forestry, would not increase GDP.

Two last points.

Umbra on LCD vs. plasma TVs

Dear Umbra, My husband and I are going to be buying a new television soon. Between an LCD and a plasma set, which is the more environmentally friendly? Lorraine B. Ossining, N.Y. Dearest Lorraine, Welcome to the promised follow-up to our previous examination of the digital television revolution. This week we finally take an opportunity […]

Green Energy Act introduced to Ontario's provincial parliament; feed-in tariffs key mechanism

The following is a guest essay by author, advocate, and renewable energy industry analyst Paul Gipe. His latest book, Wind Energy Basics, will be published by Chelsea Green in early 2009.

-----

On February 23, Ontario's powerful Minister of Energy and Infrastructure George Smitherman introduced into provincial parliament in Toronto Bill 150, to be known as the Green Energy Act.

The massive and far reaching bill -- the summary alone is eleven pages -- tackles renewable energy, energy efficiency, and building codes as well as streamlines project permitting.

Among its many provisions is the Ministers ability to use feed-in tariffs as a key implementation mechanism. Unlike the German Renewable Energy Sources Act, Bill 150 does not include specific feed-in tariffs. The tariffs will be determined in a separate administrative process.

Minister Smitherman is not only the Minister of Energy and Infrastructure but also Deputy Premier. As such, Smitherman is second only to Ontario's premier Dalton McGuinty in the cabinet.

In recent public presentations, both Minister Smitherman and Premier McGuinty have emphasized that they intend for the Green Energy Act to push Ontario to the forefront of renewable energy development in North America. Most ambitiously, they have said that the Green Energy Act will create 50,000 new jobs in the province within three years.

Ontario has been hard hit by the collapse of the auto industry. Before the financial crises, there were more people employed in the auto industry in Ontario than in the entire state of Michigan. Since the middle of 2008, Ontario has been shedding tens of thousands of auto industry jobs.

The government hopes to turn some of the now idle factories to manufacturing green products such as wind turbines and solar panels.

In Ontario's Westminister form of parliamentary rule, a majority government can almost guarantee passage of a bill introduced with the support of the cabinet. Amendments may be offered and debated but passage of the bill is almost certain.

In the red

Before the 2007 IPCC report was released, this infographic was taken out (click for larger version):

Seems the scientists were uncomfortable with it, deeming it too subjective, or too scary, or something. Basically the red shows the growth of various risks between 2001 and 2007. Surprise: risks have grown!

Andy Revkin has more.