Latest Articles

Investors meet at U.N. to discuss how to stay wealthy amid climate change

Nearly 500 corporate leaders and institutional investors representing $20 trillion in capital met at the United Nations Thursday to discuss the risks and opportunities presented by climate change. The gathering called itself the largest ever meeting of investment types specifically convened to discuss climate change. Attendees mused about how they could continue to make money […]

Prince Charles, Richard Branson compare climate crisis to war

Prince Charles warned in a speech on Thursday that if a “courageous and revolutionary” approach to tackling climate change is not undertaken, “the result will be catastrophe for all of us but with the poorest in our world hit hardest of all. In this sense it is surely comparable to war.” Also this week, Virgin […]

John McCain avoids using the word ‘mandatory’ when discussing cap-and-trade

When will the media stop calling McCain a straight-talker and realize he is a pathological doubletalker?

I realize the "L" word is frowned upon in politics, so instead of using that word, which, in any case, doesn't do justice to the full range of doubletalk in the political arena -- let's just imagine there is an agreed-upon objective scale from 1 to 10 of veracity (with 5 being half-true) that goes something like this:

(10) Fred Thompson, December 2007: "I'm not particularly interested in running for president."

(9) Bush, May 2000: "I think we agree, the past is over."

(8) Bush, January 2000: "When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world, and you knew exactly who they were. It was us vs. them, and it was clear who them was. Today, we are not so sure who the they are, but we know they're there."

(5) Bush, June 1999: "I am a compassionate conservative."

(3) Bush, September 2002: "There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."

(2) Nixon, November 1973: "I'm not a crook."

(1) McCain, January 2008 (in reply to Tim Russert's statement, "Senator McCain, you are in favor of mandatory caps" [which would be a 10 on this scale]): "No, I'm in favor of cap-and-trade."

Plan to combat warming by seeding ocean with iron runs out of funds

Planktos, the company that proposed fending off global warming by seeding the ocean with iron dust, has failed to get enough funding to go forward with planned tests. Under the Planktos business plan, iron fertilization would encourage phytoplankton blooms, which would suck up extra CO2, allowing the company to sell carbon offsets. But it was […]

A pair of decadent desserts guaranteed to sweeten up your Valentine’s Day

Like every food writer the world over, I am duty-bound to offer a chocolate recipe for Valentine’s Day. I was fortunate to get a recipe for Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes from the Woodstar Café in Northampton, Mass., a bakery whose goods are so delicious that I have been known to eat there twice a day when […]

A view behind the scenes at the EPA and the White House

It is now less than four weeks until the EPA announces its decision on whether to change current national standards for ozone or smog. And things are getting very interesting behind the scenes.

Officially, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget website, the EPA has not yet transmitted its plan to the White House for review. The truth is, the EPA is obviously being picked at by the OMB already.

The Bush administration is just trying to keep the details of this matter as secret as possible. (Some business lobbyists have heard that the EPA is pushing a tougher new standard, though weaker than that recommended by their science advisers.)

Despite the efforts at secrecy, some information is creeping out as EPA puts information in its official regulatory docket. (You can see this for yourself here by searching for docket number EPA-HQ-OAR-2005-0172. )

Bush administration misses deadline for decision on polar bears

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has again missed a deadline for announcing whether or not it will declare polar bears a threatened species.

While global GMO acreage surges, herbicide-resistent weeds thrive

Global acreage of genetically modified crops jumped 12 percent in 2007 — “the second highest increase in global biotech crop area in the last five years,” gushes a report from the pro-GMO International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA). Farmers planted an additional 30 million acres of GM crops in 2007, an area […]

CDC confirms FEMA trailers tainted with formaldehyde; residents urged to move

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has confirmed that the trailers used to house Gulf Coast hurricane victims are tainted with high levels of formaldehyde. The Federal Emergency Management Agency urged residents of over 35,000 of the trailers to move out as soon as possible, especially families with kids, elderly folks, and those with chronic […]

Renewable energy incentives were stripped from the energy bill; what should be done next?

This post is by ClimateProgress guest blogger Bill Becker, executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project.

-----

The energy bill passed by Congress last December originally contained a beneficial, if temporary, set of financial incentives to spur the growth of renewable energy technologies in the United States.

The bill included a renewable energy portfolio standard (RPS) that would require states to acquire part of their electric power from renewable resources. The RPS would have guaranteed a market for these technologies -- one of the ways to help a new industry establish a foothold in the economy.

The energy bill also contained an extension of the Production Tax Credit (PTC) -- a tax break for emerging renewable energy industries that Congress has a history of approving for only a year or two at a time. (See "The subsidy tease, part I".)

The PTC and a package of other clean-energy incentives would have been funded by taking back about $12 billion in tax breaks from the oil industry. The trade-off was sensible not only because the oil industry doesn't need the money, but because in some small symbolic measure, the repeal would have helped level the playing field for those young renewable energy industries trying to compete against oil, gas, and coal industries that have been fattened for generations by the nation's taxpayers.

When the White House yelled "Tax increase!" and threatened to veto the energy bill, Congress backed off.

As a result, many of the energy efficiency incentives contained in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 died on December 31, and others will expire in a few months. They include incentives for efficiency in commercial buildings; tax credits for installing efficient furnaces, air conditioners, water heaters, windows, and other improvements in existing homes; incentives for manufacturers to make high-efficiency refrigerators, dishwashers, and washing machines; the tax credit for residential solar system installations; and a tax credit for plug-in hybrid vehicles.