Latest Articles
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Bush and farm policy ‘reform’
In the farm bill debate, the Bush administration has joined Environmental Defense Fund, The Environmental Working Group, and other Big Green groups in taking a “reform” position: subsidies are bad, so let’s cut them. I’ve been arguing that this position amounts to no reform at all, because it doesn’t address the underlying problem of U.S. […]
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Saving ourselves means trench warfare, not waiting for breakthroughs
On online wag recently noted that at Bell Labs -- one of the most productive, innovative places the world has ever seen -- the slogan was "Never Schedule Breakthroughs." A breakthrough is just that: a radical and unpredictable reorganization of understanding. Waiting for one is like trying to solve one of those elaborate circular garden mazes by assuming a teleporter to take you straight to the center.
We might well need some breakthroughs to survive the climate crisis, and it will be nice if we get them, but I'm much more impressed by things like this, a serious incremental step, than I am by the wondertoys we're so often told to ogle. The FLOX work is a great example of the trench warfare of science and technology. It can help buy us time to radically reduce our energy demands and switch off fossil fuel use entirely -- time to aggressively apply every off-the-shelf idea and practice we have now, without hypnotizing ourselves with the need for "breakthroughs."
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Methane hydrates: What’s the worst — and best — that could happen?
Methane hydrates (or clathrates), "burning ice," are worth understanding because they could affect the climate for better or worse. You can get the basics here on ...... a solid form of water that contains a large amount of methane within its crystal structure [that] occur both in deep sedimentary structures, and as outcrops on the ocean floor.
The worst that could happen is a climate catastrophe if they were released suddenly, as some people believed happened during "the Permian-Triassic extinction event, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum." The best that could happen is if they could be recovered at a large scale safely -- then they would be an enormous new source of natural gas, the lowest-carbon and most efficient-burning fossil fuel.
A recent workshop was held: "Vulnerability and Opportunity of Methane Hydrates," International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, March 13-14, 2008. You can find most of the presentations here. Science magazine recently ran a summary ($ub. req'd) of the meeting, which I will reprint below [unindented]:
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An earthy recipe for treading lightly on earth and pocketbook alike
As Earth Day approaches this year, it seems that people are thinking more about food’s price than its ecological footprint. A simple trip to the grocery store tells the same story we’ve been hearing on the news: it’s getting more and more expensive to feed ourselves. The morel of the story. I’ve been thinking a […]
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National Journal on the EPA tailspin
The following post is by Earl Killian, guest blogger at Climate Progress.
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been failing spectacularly to do what the law requires, as determined by numerous federal judges (including the Supreme Court). For a more in-depth look, consider a pair of articles by Margaret Kriz in the National Journal. "Vanishing Act" looks at many of the failures of the EPA. "The President's Man" presents an interview with EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson and gives insight into his twisted thinking. For example, when asked about issuing ozone standards weaker than the unanimous recommendation of the EPA's independent Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, Johnson replies:
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Notable quotable
“Emissions are growing much faster than we’d thought, the absorptive capacity of the planet is less than we’d thought, the risks of greenhouse gases are potentially bigger than more cautious estimates, and the speed of climate change seems to be faster.” — Nicholas Stern, author of the seminal Stern Review on the Economics of Climate […]
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Nicholas Stern says climate change worse than he thought
Nicholas Stern, the British economist known for a major report in which he declared that combating climate change would cost less than ignoring it, has announced that he was wrong — about how bad the problem is. “We badly underestimated the degree of damages and the risks of climate change” in the Oct. 2006 report, […]
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We need to be freed from gas, not the gas tax
John McCain’s proposal to institute a gas tax “holiday” during the summer driving season is as clear an example of a pander as one is likely to see during election season, but its inclusion in a major economic policy speech suggests that this is no easily ignorable one-off. As Joseph Romm notes, any hope progressives […]
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Bush’s unambitious climate speech bashed by other major economies
President George W. Bush took his unambitious views and goals on climate and stuck them into one mediocre speech Wednesday. Bush called for U.S. emissions to “slow over the next decade, stop by 2025, and begin to reverse thereafter,” an aim far short of what other developed countries are suggesting and what experts think is […]
