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There was no consensus about global cooling in the ’70s, says study

The scientific consensus in the 1970s about “global cooling” is a beloved argument of global-warming skeptics — and little more, says a survey of scientific literature between 1965 and 1979. During that time period, seven peer-reviewed articles supported global cooling, while 44 predicted global warming. “There was no scientific consensus in the 1970s that the […]

China kicks off the coal-to-liquids rush

Looks like China is about to uncork the CTL genie, opening a plant to produce liquid fuel from coal. This won’t be the last: A study last year by the Chinese Academy of Sciences said: “Production of liquid fuels from coal is practically the most feasible route to cope with the dilemma in oil supply.” […]

Giant pythons could spread in southern U.S., say feds

You may think you’re prepared for climate change — solar-powered fan, flood insurance, nostalgic polar-bear picture, check, check, check — but are you prepared for 20-foot, 250-pound snakes? Giant Burmese pythons could find some one-third of the United States to be habitable climate by 2100, according to a new map published by the U.S. Geological […]

A sci-fi writer and an environmental journalist explore their overlapping worlds

Pump Six and Other Stories, by Paolo Bacigalupi. Science fiction writer Paolo Bacigalupi, author of the new collection Pump Six and Other Stories, envisions a future filled with environmental terrors. His characters move through worlds transformed by climate change, genetic engineering, drought, and toxic waste — places that seem exotic at first, but on second […]

USCRAP

The media was all abuzz when a bunch of big corporations got together to form USCAP, a coalition supporting the implementation of a mandatory cap on carbon emissions in the U.S. Why, big business has gone green! So the headlines said. However, as a great BusinessWeek story today explains, many of those same companies are […]

Deep thought of the day

As rising energy prices and better urban planning push the affluent back to city centers, the poor and working class will be pushed out to the suburbs. Soon, we’ll see blight, crime, the drug trade, and other social pathologies where we have been accustomed to seeing the American Dream. “Inner city” and “outer suburb” will […]

With wheat stocks at all-time lows, a fertilizer magnate utters the F-word

Famine. For us Americans, the word conjures images of heart-rending scenes from distant shores: the kind of images a sad-eyed Sally Struthers busts our chops about on late-night cable TV. Famine is an abstract concept, a specter haunting not us, but distant ancestors and exotic-looking people in faraway lands. Of course, as Richard Manning drives […]

John McCain scores a big ol’ goose egg on this year’s environmental report card

Today, the League of Conservation Voters released its annual scorecard, which rates legislators based on their votes on issues of environmental significance. The LCV scorecard has its critics, but it’s nonetheless become something of a gold standard when measuring how "green" a lawmaker is. A couple of big stories emerge from this year’s scorecard. The […]

Why are biofuels losing steam in Europe — and barreling ahead in the U.S.?

The signs are cropping up — we just need to heed them. Photo: iStockphoto “Biodiesel: No War Required,” reads a bumper sticker I see more often than you might expect in North Carolina. As in other states across the nation, a lot of activist energy here has gone into creating a market for diesel fuel […]

What makes a good climate change plan?

'Tis the season for climate plan meta-analysis. I get asked a lot about the presidential candidates' environmental bona fides, which has led me to put together the following long, dense, and absolutely riveting primer on what to look for in a good climate change plan. These principles apply to cap-and-trade style programs, because that's what all the presidential candidates are proposing.

1. Go deep

The "cap" part of cap-and-trade refers to the emissions level mandated by the legislation. Good legislation considers both the short term and the long term.

The available science indicates we need an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050. For a variety of reasons (CO2 is a long-lived pollutant; the initial cuts will be easiest, etc.) we should start cutting quickly. Twenty percent by 2020 is a reasonable interim target.

Use these figures as a benchmark, but don't obsess over them. A climate change plan that calls for an 87 percent cut is not necessarily better than one calling for an 84 percent cut. Our understanding of climate change will progress over the next several decades, and we'll adjust accordingly. The important thing for now is that the planned cuts are sufficiently deep and predictable to stimulate a cascade of infrastructure improvements.