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Pope lauds Montreal Protocol, Vatican aims for carbon neutrality

The Montreal Protocol turned 20 this weekend — and you forgot to get it a gift, didn’t you. As nearly 200 nations convene this week to discuss the protocol, which has been successful in spurring an international phaseout of ozone-depleting chemicals, it has been lauded by no less a person than Pope Benedict XVI, who […]

Residents in over 100 Chinese cities urged to walk, bike, or use public transit this Saturday

China, once famed as a bicycling nation, tries to put the genie back in the bottle.

Hey …

… did you hear that Al Gore won an Emmy? After the Nobel Peace Prize, what’s left for the guy to win?

Discover Brilliant: Business something something

Next up, a full panel of folks discussing sustainable business opportunities. On the stage: Mossadiq Umeday, chair of Xantrex Technology Inc., Andrew Mangan, executive director of the US Business Council for Sustainable Development, and John Kaestle, president and CEO of Halosource. … Oh screw it. This one was so boring I could barely focus.

Second-warmest U.S. August ever

Let's look at some of the records for the month:, according to the National Climatic Data Center, a division of NOAA:

• For the contiguous U.S., the average temperature for August was 75.4°F (24.1°C), which was 2.7°F (1.5°C) above the 20th century mean and the second warmest August on record.
• More than 30 all-time high temperature records were tied or broken, and more than 2000 new daily high temperature records were established.
• Raleigh-Durham, N.C., equaled its all-time high of 105°F on August 21, and Columbia, S.C., had 14 days in August with temperatures over 100°F, which broke the 1900 record of 12 days. Cincinnati, OH, reached 100°F five days during August, a new record for the city.
• The warmest August in the 113-year record occurred in eight eastern states (West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida) along with Utah.
• Texas had its wettest summer on record.
• This was the driest summer since records began in 1895 for North Carolina, and the second driest for Tennessee.
• At the end of August, drought affected approximately 83 percent of the Southeast and 46 percent of the contiguous U.S.

Coincidence? I think not!

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Army Corps must halt work on destructive Missouri river project

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was ordered this weekend to cease work on a Mississippi River flood-control project in Missouri that would have cut the river off from its last remaining floodplain, devastated tens of thousands of acres of wetlands, and, um, not controlled flooding. Ordering the Corps to remove any part of the […]

Umbra on meat eating and global warming

Dear Umbra, I see that PETA’s latest campaign says that meat eating is the No. 1 cause of global warming, not SUVs. This statement may be manipulative and political, but — is it true? J.Helena, Mont. Dearest J., I’ll bite. Shallow digging on one People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals site quickly uncovered their […]

Discover Brilliant: The policy and investment landscape

Next up, H. Jeffrey Leonard, president of the Global Environment Fund. He wants America to "get real." 1. Aggregate global use of fossil fuels will not fall in the next two decades. 2. American "energy independence" is an unrealistic pipe dream driving bad policy. 3. The Biofuels Initiative won’t achieve anything environmentally speaking, and is […]

On subsidizing ‘green’ energy R&D

In its "green" issue this week, The New Republic features an excerpt from Ted Nordhaus and Michael Schellenberger's new book, Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility.

Their basic point is that the emphasis of the political debate is all wrong. I'm not sure they really understand how things are shaping up, but they're saying that politicians should spend less "time" talking about regulatory approaches, and more time reiterating the importance of innovation.

This gives pretty short shrift to the fact that a carbon tax (or cap-and-trade program that auctions credits) is basically an in-kind subsidy to clean energy. But still, regulation and direct subsidies aren't mutually exclusive, and I think the reason you don't hear a lot of hand-wringing about subsidies for green R&D is that securing real (as opposed to de facto) subsidies -- in any future climate change bill -- to well-positioned clean energy companies will be the easy part.*

* Keep in mind that part of the reason this will be easy is that the biggest subsidy winner will almost certainly be King Coal, who will almost without a doubt receive billions and billions of dollars to refine and implement carbon capture and sequestration technology across the country and, perhaps, the entire world.

Alaska joins regional climate initiative

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has created a climate-change committee and joined her state with the cool kids at the Western Climate Initiative.