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Obama talks about fighting the nuclear industry, but his record is less strident

Barack Obama talks on the campaign trail about fighting the nuclear power industry, but the real story is more complicated, reports The New York Times in a front-page story. In 2006, Illinois residents were up in arms after finding out that Exelon Corp. had not informed them about radioactive leaks at one of its nuclear […]

Our command-and-control air-pollution regulations are working against our climate policy

With the climate policy discussion now settling into lines of cap & trade vs. carbon tax, and allocation vs. auction, it has implicitly moved beyond the top-down, command-and-control models favored by early plans (and in particular the multi-pollutant, "4P" bills).

This market focus is a good thing, on balance. What isn't good is that it's only being applied to greenhouse gas pollution. Our existing air pollution laws create disincentives to GHG reduction. Modernization of these (non-carbon) pollution laws may be the single most important thing the federal government can do to lower GHG emissions. As we head out of the harbor, it's time to haul up the anchor.

Relevant history

The Clean Air Act, coupled with New Source Review, has dramatically lowered SOx, NOx, and particulate emissions. It has also substantially increased GHG emissions. The reasons why are three-fold:

1. The rules were set on a so-called "input basis." Come under a certain parts-per-million of exhaust and you are OK. Exceed it and you're in violation.

This has the perverse effect of discouraging energy efficiency: if I lower absolute pollution (tons/yr) by 40% and cut fuel use by 50%, I have reduced the flow of fuel and combustion air by more than I've reduced pollution (e.g., the "millions" in the parts-per-million formulation). Thus my ppm actually increases and I can't get a permit anymore.

Where are the environmental messengers in the South?

Via Sam Smith, this important insight from "Facing South:"

Obama Super Bowl ad

Far as I know, Obama was the only candidate to buy an ad during the Super Bowl today, one that ran in 24 states, to the tune of $250,000. It’s interesting to me that in perhaps the highest profile, highest stakes ad the Obama campaign has ever run, the focus is on two strongly progressive […]

A Gore-aphobia

The OMFG WILL GORE ENDORSE NOW?! stories are getting almost as tiresome as the OMFG WILL GORE RUN NOW?! stories got. One of the sillier aspects of the Silly Season, I guess. Noam Scheiber speculates why Gore might keep waiting, despite the many people begging him to enter the fray.

New tool tracks financial ties between politicians and oil companies

Check out Follow the Oil Money, a tool from the Center for Responsive Politics Oil Change International. You can find out exactly how much oil money any politician is getting (by zip code). You can also see cool charts showing the oil connections among sets of politicians. Here, for instance, is a chart of the […]

Aspirational green

The general public doesn’t seem as fired up as one might like. I’m starting to think that the thing to do is pivot completely from global warming to one-earth living. Global warming creates the condition of necessity. It is background. Foreground the positive opportunities: reducing energy bills through efficiency and green building; generating clean energy […]

Canadian sportswriters better than 99.9 percent of U.S. media

It's truly depressing to find a better, more solid treatment of climate change and peak oil in the fricking sports pages of a Canuck paper then you will ever find in most U.S. papers. This sports writer schools the NHL and educates readers with a technique unheard of down here: assuming the readers aren't morons! What a nefarious trick!

Dept. of Energy paints different picture of clean coal than president’s SOTU

Over at Solve Climate, David Sassoon is taking a nice leisurely stroll through the Dept. of Energy’s Carbon Sequestration Technology Roadmap and Program Plan (2007). Some astonishing sights await! First, he notices that despite some big talk in recent press releases, the DOE road map says frankly that "as a technology and a research discipline, […]

The quest for the Perfect Late-Evening Repast is over; I win

You only have so many peak experiences in one lifetime, so it seems worth sharing the good news that I have found the perfect late evening repast. As with all the best snacks, this one begins at Trader Joe’s. In the North Seattle branch, they are featuring, and I quote, "dark chocolate almonds, made with […]