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Gore addresses mayors via satellite

Sorry I wasn’t able to do my signature live-blogging today — there was no wi-fi at the Edgewater, or rather, they had wi-fi you had to pay for, and I’m cheap. Plus we left mid-day to go see Clinton’s address, and there wasn’t wi-fi at Benaroya Hall either. When oh when will Seattle get municipal […]

An unseasonably warm night and a doomed-to-melt dessert

November is the new September. — Aladdin Ossorio I’ve been itching to make a Baked Alaska. In 1989, the year the Exxon Valdez spilled oil all over Prince William Sound, my friends and I had several Baked Alaska parties featuring a whiskey-laced “Exxon Valdez Fudge Sauce” that I concocted to recreate the oil slick — […]

Grist to appear on the ‘Today’ show

We're pleased as punch to let you know that NBC's Today show has invited Grist to be part of its special "Ends of the Earth" environmental coverage the week of Nov. 5. While Matt, Al, and Ann venture to exotic locales like Antarctica, the Arctic, and the equator, we'll be hangin' with Meredith in Rockefeller Plaza, offering up green-living hints from our new book, Wake Up and Smell the Planet. Keep an eye out for us on Monday, Nov. 5, and Tuesday, Nov. 6, between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m., on NBC.

And hey, while we're allowing ourselves to preen a little: did you happen to notice our recent appearances in Time and Newsweek? Yep, we're blushing, but we're also really excited that our site and our book are making a splash.

Haven't gotten yourself a copy of that book yet? Buy it today. It makes a good read, a great holiday gift, and a fantastic doorstop.

The efficient alternative to coal power in China

China's rapacious coal plant building is neither moral nor sustainable, as discussed in Part I. Yet many supply-side alternatives, like nuclear and hydro, are problematic for the country.

What should China do to satisfy its insatiable thirst for energy? Go back to their amazing energy efficiency policies of the 1980s and early 1990s.

China's energy history can be divided into several phases, as we learn from Dr. Mark Levine, cofounder of the Beijing Energy Efficiency Center (see terrific video here).

The first phase (1949-1980) was a "Soviet Style" energy policy during which there were subsidized energy prices, no concern for the environment, and energy usage that rose faster than economic growth (GDP).

The second phase (1981-1999) was "California on steroids," when the country embraced an aggressive push on energy management and energy efficiency, surpassing the efficiency efforts California achieved since the mid-1970s. This came about as a result of Deng Xiaoping heeding the advice of a group of leading academic experts who suggested a new approach to energy. Chinese strategies included:

China’s coal policy is breathtaking (literally)

Yes, America's climate policy is immoral. But that doesn't make China's rapacious coal-plant building moral. The N.Y. Times has published the sobering numbers, which bear repeating:

The country built 114,000 megawatts of fossil-fuel-based generating capacity last year alone, almost all coal-fired, and is on course to complete 95,000 megawatts more this year.

For comparison, Britain has 75,000 megawatts in operation, built over a span of decades.

China is now the main reason the world is recarbonizing -- the carbon content of the average unit of energy produced has stopped its multi-decade decline, as noted. Yes, America is still responsible for a great deal more cumulative emissions, which is what drive concentrations, and China is doing much of its dirty manufacturing for U.S. consumers (I never said our hands were clean).

But China seems to have adopted a policy of building as many coal plants as humanly possible until they are forced to stop -- or, I suspect, until they get a deal that pays the country to shut them down (much as they have gamed the clean development mechanism under Kyoto).

If China won't alter its coal policy to make its environment livable today even with the Olympics coming, it will require very strong international leadership (led by an America with a moral climate policy of our own) to have any chance at making them alter it to preserve a livable climate in the future.

So why doesn't China pursue alternatives? The NYT story explains:

Activists ask Congress to close regulatory loopholes for oil and gas companies

At a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing yesterday — Wait! It’s not as boring as it sounds! — scientists and conservationists asked Congress to plug legislative loopholes that exempt oil and gas companies from some regulatory oversight. Particularly of interest to green and health advocates are exemptions from regulation of a natural-gas-gleaning […]

The former governor of North Dakota loves biofuel and GMOs

Speaking yesterday at a gathering of the Grocery Manufacturers Association — a trade group whose member list reads like a directory of multinational food corporations — President Bush waxed coy about his new choice for USDA secretary. This afternoon I’m going to name a new Secretary of Agriculture. I’m not going to tell you who […]

A very promising climate change solution with an image problem

Bill McKibben's new column in Orion magazine reports on one of the most effective ways to cut carbon emissions that we've got, a mature technology which stands ready to recycle enormous amounts of waste heat into electricity. It boggles my mind that we're not doing this everywhere, instead of discussing new coal plants or nukes. Talk about low-hanging fruit!

The article centers on the fine work of the Chicago company Recycled Energy Development, piloted by frequent Gristmill contributor Sean Casten, and discusses the technology's image problem: it's not as sexy as wind or solar. Here's an excerpt, but the article is so short, I encourage a quick visit to the link above:

Fisheries Service releases yet another Northwest salmon recovery plan

The third draft of a federal plan for protecting endangered salmon and steelhead in the Northwest’s Columbia and Snake Rivers does not propose breaching the four hydroelectric dams that block the waterways, frustrating activists who have long lobbied for the dams’ removal. The National Marine Fisheries Service says the plan for helping the salmon is […]

Silly

But what can I say? I’m male. Scatological humor is in the DNA. (h/t: Grist reader LS)