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Record amount of sewage dumped into China’s Yangtze River

Last year, China’s state media deemed the Yangtze River “cancerous” with pollution; to stick with the analogy, it appears the cancer has spread, as a record amount of sewage was dumped into the river in 2006. That’s 30.5 beeeeeellion tons of (mostly untreated) industrial and human waste, an increase of 3.1 percent over the year […]

Grist to sponsor first presidential candidate climate and energy forum

Haven't had your fill of the energy and environmental platforms of the presidential candidates? On Sat. November 17 at 2pm PST, Grist will be sponsoring the first-ever candidate forum focusing on the issues of energy policy and climate change, in Los Angeles. It will be webcast live on this page.

All major presidential hopefuls were invited; Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich have agreed to attend. L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will introduce the evening, Living on Earth host Steve Curwood will moderate, and questions will come from panelists Mary Nichols of the Calif. Air Resources Board and David Roberts of Grist.

The event will be presented in partnership with the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, California League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, Center for American Progress Action Fund, NRDC Action Fund, and the Presidential Forum on Renewable Energy. Registration is full, but click here to get on the waiting list. You never know.

Pennsylvania bans hormone- and antibiotic-free labels on dairy products

Pennsylvania agriculture officials have banned the use of hormone- and antibiotic-free labels on dairy products sold in the state, upsetting food-safety advocates and handing the chemically enhanced dairy industry a significant victory. The ruling takes effect Jan. 1 and would affect at least 19 companies that label their milk or other dairy products as having […]

E.U. Parliament approves plan to require airline emissions reductions

A European Union plan to bring the airline industry into its carbon-trading market has just passed the E.U. Parliament, angering many airlines, the United States, and other countries. Parliament voted to require steeper emissions cuts than the E.U. Commission’s relatively weaker airline plan. Under the amended version, by 2011, all airlines flying within or into […]

NYT’s Andy Revkin pens another stinker on the so-called ‘center’ of the climate debate

“This wind is extremist!” Andy Revkin has been doing such great stuff on his Dot Earth climate blog, I wanted to ignore the story he published yesterday in the NYT: “Challenges to Both Left and Right on Global Warming.” Pretend it never happened. But I can’t. It’s just … awful. The preposterous claim at the […]

A look at Mitt Romney’s environmental platform and record

Update: Mitt Romney dropped out of the presidential race on Feb. 7, 2008. Key PointsRepublican presidential candidate Mitt Romney isn’t convinced humans are a big contributor to climate change, but he supports efforts that would cut greenhouse-gas emissions while pushing America toward energy independence. As governor of Massachusetts from January 2003 to January 2007, he […]

New York Times supports renewables in energy bill

Just in time to be too late? The New York Times has some good advice for the congressional leadership:

The House bill requires utilities to generate 15 percent of their power from renewable sources like wind by 2020. Republicans, pressured by a few big utilities like the Southern Company, blocked a similar provision in the Senate. Almost two dozen states have already figured out that this is both good for the environment and good for the economy and have enacted renewable energy standards, which will create jobs, stabilize natural gas prices and reduce global warming emissions.

Yet this provision is in greater danger than any other of getting tossed overboard. Ms. Pelosi should insist that it remain in the bill and Mr. Reid should enlist the support of governors from those nearly two dozen states to change Republican thinking in the Senate.

Automakers want to delay the transition to electric vehicles

The following is a guest essay by Marc Geller, who blogs at Plugs and Cars, serves on the board of directors of the Electric Auto Association, cofounded Plug In America and DontCrush.com, and appeared in Who Killed The Electric Car.

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The IEEE Spectrum Magazine for November 2007 touts on its cover: "Battery or Fuel-Cell Cars? A California Cabal Will Decide." Interesting choice of headlines. Surely a strong argument can be made that something approaching a cabal turned a practical electric-cars-on-the-road mandate into a research and development program for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

Carmakers are desirous of delaying the inevitable but problematic move to electric drive. Oil companies shut out of electric markets are exploring biofuels and hydrogen as potential markets they could control. Academics awash in government and corporate grants analyse and research biofuels and hydrogen. The problem with electric is it is here now. Proven, ready to market. No significant need for research. Batteries could always use a nudge, but the 100-plus-mile battery has existed for over a decade. Price needs to come down by a factor of two at most, not a factor of 100. Economies of scale, baby!

Facts are facts. Not five years ago we had thousands (about 6,000, to be exact) of battery electrics as daily drivers for consumers like you and me and utility fleets like PG&E and SCE. Thanks to Plug In America's predecessor DontCrush.com, about 1000 of those cars still drive today on the original batteries using existing electric infrastructure. Their owners love them, and when one appears on the used car market it sells for more than the $42,000 original MSRP.

Britain quickly running out of landfill space, says study

The British, who apparently have a penchant for tossing rubbish willy-nilly, may run out of landfill space in a mere nine years, says a new report. Says Paul Bettison of the Local Government Association, which conducted the research, “Britain is the dustbin of Europe, with more rubbish being thrown into landfill than any other country […]

China is prepared to make a climate deal

Potentially a very big deal -- The Independent reports "China 'will agree to cut its carbon emissions'":

China, now the world's biggest greenhouse-gas emitter, will eventually agree to cut its soaring carbon dioxide emissions, one of the country's leading environmentalists forecast yesterday -- but only on the basis of a deal with the United States and the rest of the developed world.

When is eventually?

The Chinese would be very unlikely to set their own unilateral target for reducing CO2, said Professor C S Kiang, the founding dean of the College of Environmental Science at the University of Beijing. But they would join in the next, post-2012 stage of the Kyoto protocol, the international climate change treaty, and seek to reduce their emissions to a definite figure, as long as this was part of a global agreement that involved all countries acting together -- including the US -- and the transfer to China of modern energy technology, he said.

Now, Kiang says, all the world needs is a new U.S. President: