Latest Articles

New book details successes; join a chat with Paul Hawken

At work today I received a review copy of Building the Green Economy: Success Stories From the Grassroots, which just hit the presses and looks interesting. It's a diverse roundup of grassroots efforts aimed at stewardship and urban renewal toward a cleaner economy and greener, more just communities. Green economy superstar Van Jones is interviewed, of course, but I didn't notice a nod to Paul Hawken right off the bat, whose pioneering books on the topic of greening the economy laid the groundwork for the idea, and whose new book, Blessed Unrest, details the incredible, ever-widening scope of the global grassroots movement for a better future (excerpt here).

I'm planning to ask him how he envisions the role of commerce in this new civil society era during a conference call I'm hosting this Friday the 5th, for the Orion Grassroots Network. If you'd like to join this conversation on the global grassroots and pitch Hawken a question of your own, the dial-in info is here.

Corps may buy out coastal Miss. towns, encourage residents to move inland

The Army Corps of Engineers is seeking support from three coastal Mississippi counties for a proposal to buy out 17,000 homes and encourage residents to move inland. The Corps generally reserves buyouts for areas prone to river flooding; the new proposal is an indication that the U.S. may be seriously considering the risk of sea-level […]

Why we shouldn’t forget the Farm Bill

Once again, a prime example of our misguided farm policies hits like a ton of factory-farm manure sludge -- or in this case, a massive sack of federally insured, genetically modified corn.

Last Wednesday, Monsanto announced that the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) approved a pilot program that will give farmers a 20 percent discount on insurance premiums if they plant a majority of their corn acres with seeds featuring Monsanto's trademarked YieldGard Plus with Roundup Ready Corn 2 or YieldGard VT Triple stack technology. This is the first time the FCIC Board has approved a crop insurance discount for specific crop traits, but not likely the last.

For the moment, let's set aside the potentially sordid nature of this public/private arrangement. What is particularly ironic and imbalanced is that organic producers pay an extra 5 percent surcharge when they sign up for crop insurance because of the perceived additional risks associated with organic production.

That's right. Organic producers are actually penalized for using production practices that have been shown to lessen risks.

Simply put, this is bad policy that should be reformed when the Senate takes up the farm bill this month.

Krupped up

I have been informed by people reliably more environmentalish than I that my qualified partial not-quite-endorsement of ED’s Fred Krupp makes me a corporatist dupe and a sell-out. I have turned in my environmentalist badge and look forward to reprogramming.

The greening of Chevron is not as impressive as they’d like you to think

Those greenwashing ads are really starting to bug me. "It took us 125 years to use the first trillion barrels of oil. We'll use the next trillion in 30." And you're proud of this fact -- proud of your role in bringing about the wholesale destruction of this planet's climate?

Will you join us? No, I won't. I'm trying to figure out a way to get people to use a lot less of your polluting product.

And now, "Chevron Announces New Global 'Human Energy' Advertising Campaign." I suppose it's better than the ad campaign for "inhuman energy" that they have been running for decades -- though it strikes me as a lame ripoff of Dow's "Human Element" campaign.

Chevron has taken the equivalent of three full-page ads in today's Washington Post. One of the ads says, "We've increased the energy efficiency of our own operations by 27% since 1992." To quote Clarence Thomas, "Whoop-Dee-Damn-Doo."

Federal officials claim ethanol, border fence green as can be

Well, phew. Ethanol’s not to blame for high food prices and a fence on the U.S.-Mexico border will actually benefit the environment. If we can’t believe the top federal farm official and the top federal security official, whom can we believe?

President of Nature Conservancy resigns

The subhead doth not mislead you: The president of the Nature Conservancy, Steven McCormick, has abruptly resigned.

Clinton’s 21st century climate philanthropy

I heartily recommend this month’s Atlantic Monthly cover story, "It’s Not Charity" (via Yglesias). It’s mostly about Bill Clinton’s post-presidency adventures and the new model of philanthropy he’s trying to develop. Embedded within is a description of a fascinating climate program he’s been developing with Ira Magaziner. An excerpt: The climate initiative, in typical Magaziner […]

‘Long-term’ climate sensitivity of 6 degrees C for doubled CO2

The nation's top climate scientist is prolific: He has co-authored another important article: "Global Warming: East-West Connections" (PDF). And I'm not just saying that because he cites one of my articles. In fact, we've been having an email exchange and he strongly disagrees with me that it is too late, in a practical sense, to save the Arctic (and hence the polar bear). He believes strong and smart action now could work -- whereas I believe we need such action now to save the Greenland ice sheet, but doubt we can or will act in time to stop the total loss of Arctic summer ice.

I have previously written about the crucial climate variable -- the equilibrium climate sensitivity (typically estimated at about 3°C for double CO2) -- and how it only includes fast feedbacks, such as water vapor. Now Hansen has a draft article that looks at both current climate forcings and the paleoclimate record to conclude that "long-term" sensitivity is a stunning 6°C for doubled CO2. Here is what Hansen says on the subject (though when you read it you may wonder why Hansen is more optimistic than I am, rather than less):

States adopt decoupling plans to encourage energy efficiency

It’s a scheme that turns the traditional business model on its head: power companies can make more money by selling less power. Under “decoupling” plans, state regulators give incentive payments to electric utilities that encourage energy efficiency by their customers. “Before there was almost a disincentive to go hard at efficiency because we weren’t recovering […]