Latest Articles
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Hack Haynes heads for the hills
In a little-noticed story earlier this week, the Dept. of Defense announced that "General Counsel of the Department of Defense William J. Haynes II is returning to private life next month." Haynes is known for being one of the most hackish Bushistas in the DOD, author of one of the worst torture memos (PDF) of […]
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U.S. forest official will not be jailed over fish-killing flame retardant
The U.S. Forest Service turned in a court-ordered environmental analysis of a fish-killing flame retardant 2 1/2 years late, and only after the agency’s top official was threatened with incarceration for contempt of court. But the USFS did ultimately conduct the environmental review of ammonium phosphate — which was dropped on an Oregon fire in […]
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A new climate science paper calls for dramatic action
Avoiding climate catastrophe will probably require going to near-zero net emissions of greenhouse gases this century. That is the conclusion of a new paper in Geophysical Research Letters (subs. req'd) co-authored by one of my favorite climate scientists, Ken Caldeira, whose papers always merit attention. Here is the abstract:
Current international climate mitigation efforts aim to stabilize levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. However, human-induced climate warming will continue for many centuries, even after atmospheric CO2 levels are stabilized. In this paper, we assess the CO2 emissions requirements for global temperature stabilization within the next several centuries, using an Earth system model of intermediate complexity. We show first that a single pulse of carbon released into the atmosphere increases globally averaged surface temperature by an amount that remains approximately constant for several centuries, even in the absence of additional emissions. We then show that to hold climate constant at a given global temperature requires near-zero future carbon emissions. Our results suggest that future anthropogenic emissions would need to be eliminated in order to stabilize global-mean temperatures. As a consequence, any future anthropogenic emissions will commit the climate system to warming that is essentially irreversible on centennial timescales.
Since the rest of the article is behind a firewall, let me extract a couple of key findings:
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Fishing for hope at a seafood-industry trade show
Photo: Chris Seufert Viewed from a distance, the Boston Convention Center looks a bit like a great white whale — an appropriate setting for the annual International Boston Seafood Show. The building’s vast interior offers great vistas for people-watching, often through huge glass windows. People move through the hallways and aisles in large groups; watching […]
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Two chapters from the book of coal
Chapter 1, courtesy of our friends at Greenwire ($ub req'd):
The coal industry is spending tens of millions of dollars to cement support among members of Congress and the top presidential candidates in an effort to fight critics of coal-fired power and is also appealing directly to the voters those politicians need.
Why, you ask?
Turn to Chapter 2, this time from The New York Times: "Stymied in their plans to build coal-burning power plants, American utilities are turning to natural gas to meet expected growth in demand ..."
Excepts from both are below the fold. Stay tuned for Chapter 3 ...
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How smart climate policy can cut our energy costs
True confessions: I love weatherstripping. And programmable thermostats. And insulation -- all kinds. Oh, and efficient shower heads with "Navy shower" shut-off valves. And high-efficiency appliances. And waste-water heat recovery systems. You get the idea: I actually enjoy the process of making buildings more energy wise -- enjoy as in, "Yippee, it's Saturday! Where's my caulk gun?" So today's topic is especially near to my heart: the role in climate policy of low-income weatherization programs and related efficiency upgrades for working families.
A quick review: climate change is economically unfair by nature; it punishes those least to blame. Auctioned cap-and-trade can counteract this injustice. I've already written about two ways to seize this opportunity: distribute the money from the auction of carbon allowances as equal dividend checks to every citizen ("cap-and-share"), or make sure dividends get to low-income families who are hardest hit by rising energy prices ("cap-and-buffer").
A third option is to invest auction proceeds in energy efficiency in ways that specially benefit working families, by weatherizing homes, for example, or improving the efficiency of household appliances. (Let's call it "cap-and-caulk.")
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Events in Seattle and Portland sure to inspire
Renewable energy installations in remote communities of developing nations encourage indigenous and rural communities to stay put and keep their traditions alive. With remarkably small power systems, these underserved villages can store vaccines in a refrigerator, pump water, light a clinic at night, or contact the outside world.
One of the key grassroots groups doing this work is Green Empowerment, which approaches all of their projects in Central/South America and Southeast Asia through a lens of generating social as well as environmental progress for communities with renewable energy & potable water delivery. GE interviews community members about what their power or water procurement needs are, recommends a system that would be appropriate -- including small hydropower, biomass, wind or solar -- supply the system, and then train a team of community members to plan, install, and maintain that system. That team can then help neighboring communities do the same, while maintaining its own.
GE is bringing two of their inspiring partners, engineer/activists from the Philippines who run NGOs there, to give folks in Seattle this Friday and Portland next Thursday a better sense of the huge possibilities of their shared projects. Highly recommended!
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Dispatches from the heart of oil country
I am here in sunny Houston today with Carl Pope, our executive director, who will be addressing today's huge energy confab.
Oil City USA is about what you'd expect. (I have some expertise on the subject, having briefly called Houston home a few years ago.) Instead of expanding public transport to its rapidly-growing Western suburbs, Houston decided that spending billions to tear down buildings and seize land within a thousand feet on either side of a 20-plus mile stretch of the freeway and expanding it to an even more obscene size was the better option.
I can only assume that my daily cursing of the D.C. Metro's foibles resulted in the karmic payback of being forced to crawl along in my rented Prius at ten miles per hour or less today for the better part of an hour as I headed to the conference.
(I spent this time dipping into my reserve of outrage as I listened to the President's press conference and his contradictory answers on skyrocketing gas prices and ridiculous attacks on the renewables tax package that the House passed by sizable margin yesterday.)
I'll be providing updates on the goings-on here throughout the day. They cap off with a speech this evening from Sen. Hillary Clinton. If the barrage of campaign ads from Hillary, Obama, and even Ron Paul is any measure, the battle for Texas ahead of March 4 is pretty fierce and I am quite interested in her remarks to these energy heavyweights.
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Ralph Nader chooses running mate
Ralph Nader has chosen former San Francisco City Supervisor Matt Gonzalez as a running mate for his 2008 presidential bid. Gonzalez was elected as a San Francisco supervisor in 2000 — the first Green Party candidate to hold the job. In 2003, Gonzalez narrowly lost a bid for San Francisco mayor to Gavin Newsom, the […]
