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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 […]

Moving toward a better energy policy

There's a great line often ascribed to Yogi Berra: "If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else." This perfectly describes U.S. energy policy -- and offers a way forward that would not only create lots of social benefits, but just might make energy policy something that matters to U.S. electoral politics.

To see why, try ranking those events in political history when politicians really got it right. Declaration of Independence? Emancipation Proclamation? Man on the moon? Pick whichever ones you'd like. Here's my prediction: those great moments were all framed around goals we sought to achieve, without prejudice to the path we took to get there.

Why does this matter to energy policy? Because we've never had an energy policy that got beyond a narrow focus on the path.

Fair-trade market boosted by consumer demand

An ever-greener and ever-more-caffeinated world is boosting the fair-trade market — not just for coffee, but for products such as cocoa, cotton, tea, pineapples, and flowers. The certification, which holds growers to strict standards per child labor, pesticide use, recycling, and more, is not a phenomenon specific to hippie shops: all Dunkin’ Donuts in the […]

Bluefin tuna population in Mediterranean declining, sushi blamed

The population of bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean Sea is plummeting and could be seeing the start of a collapse, warn experts from the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna and the World Wildlife Fund. High-end sushi restaurants in Japan fuel demand for premium catches of the fish, which can net some $15,000 […]