Latest Articles
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Cellulosic ethanol ranks dead last
Mark Jacobson (associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, Stanford University) has just published a paper in the journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry. You can read the entire article here (PDF). BEV = battery electric vehicle HFCV = hydrogen fuel cell vehicle CSP = concentrated solar panels PV = photovoltaic CCS = carbon […]
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IYD: Next global climate agreement must safeguard survival of all countries, all peoples
This is a guest post from Poznan by David Sievers of SustainUS, an organization for 18-26 year-olds from the United States who are interested in engaging with global processes on sustainability. —– I am writing in the midst of a dramatic shift in global climate policy. The official President’s Summary of COP-14 bears witness to […]
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IYD: Next global climate agreement must safeguard survival of all countries, all peoples
I am writing in the midst of a dramatic shift in global climate policy. The official President’s Summary of COP-14 bears witness to this shift and signals the guiding principle of a just and equitable post-2012 climate agreement next year in Copenhagen. And this outcome is due in large part to the work of young […]
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Wind ranks as least harmful source, ethanol last – worse than coal & nukes
Mark Z. Jacobson, one of the world’s leading experts on wind energy looks at broader issues, trying to rank energy sources in order of least social costs to worst. He includes both commercial and prototype technology in his ranking. He ranks wind as the best, concentrating solar (CSP) second, with photovoltaic power further down the […]
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Updates on secretary of agriculture appointment
In the five weeks since the election and almost a month since my first post about the secretary of agriculture, a lot has changed. But one thing has become increasingly clear: The people who voted for Barack Obama expect change at the head of USDA. The next person to head the Department of Agriculture needs […]
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Obama’s new climate czar on various environmental issues
Carol Browner is set to become Obama’s czar point-person on climate and energy issues. To get a flavor of her thinking, check out the short videos she did for the On Day One project. Here she urges the next president to reassert the importance of independent science: Here she urges the next president to reverse […]
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CO2 — but not the sun — ‘is significantly correlated’ with temperature since 1850
The lead author of a new study ($ub. req’d) says Inhofe’s office mischaracterized her work with its blaring headline, “Study: Half of warming due to Sun!” Far from supporting Inhofe’s denialist fantasies, the research, led by Anja Eichler, senior scientist at the Switzerland’s Paul Scherrer Institute, is actually one more piece of observation-driven analysis that […]
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Doubts Chu’s ease of transition from the ‘academic world to the administrative world’
You might think someone who had utterly failed in his or her job might have learned enough humility to avoid criticizing others attempting a similar job. But not Bush’s first EPA administrator, Christie Todd Whitman, who told MSNBC: As for Steven Chu, Obama’s apparent choice to head up the Energy Department, Whitman expressed concerns over […]
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It’s ‘premature’ to declare the death of an agreement in Copenhagen
[I’m going to reprint dispatches from the climate talks in Poland by Center for American Progress senior fellow Andrew Light, which were first printed in WonkRoom.] It goes by various names here: “The chicken and egg problem,” “The ping pong problem,” mostly though it’s just “The American problem.” All are various terms for the same […]
