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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.

Climate change skeptics try to seduce us to inaction

Every once in awhile, I'm struck by something that makes me realize how the ancient storytellers were terrifically acute observers of the human condition, and used metaphor brilliantly to convey their observations.

Perhaps the most salient example these days is the song of the sirens, the beauties whose songs would lure sailors toward them until they grounded their ships on the rocks and drowned. The modern-day sirens, Avery and Singer, are taking up the cause by trying to lure the world away from any action to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Their song is that this is all just a natural cycle, and the skyrocketing CO2 concentrations can just be ignored.

Discover Brilliant: Renewables and buildings

Now it’s "Moving the Technology Frontier," about technologies that are going to create "tectonic shifts" in the cleantech space, with Stan Bull, head of R&D at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and Steve Selkowtiz, Building Technologies Program Leader at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Bull is first up. Says NREL’s budget is $200-$250 million. That seems […]

DNA testing helps to settle claims of chemical exposure

Think you’ve been exposed to toxic chemicals on the job? Hand over your hair. A new DNA testing technique can help verify or refute claims of workplace poisoning by exposing a healthy person’s DNA to the chemical in question to see how the genes are affected, then comparing to the employee’s DNA. It seems like […]

Veganism: All or nothing?

The average American weighs about 170 pounds, eats about 180 pounds of meat, gets about 24 mpg, has about two kids, owns about one-third of a cat or dog, and lives in a 2,350-square-foot home. There are lots of ways to alter your carbon footprint. Depending on your personal proclivities, some ways are "easier" than others. You get to pick what is "easiest" for you. For some, the "easiest" thing to do is not have kids. For others it is to go car-free. Not having cats and dogs is easy for many. Choosing a small, energy-efficient home, condo, or apartment works great for some. Eating less meat or less environmentally destructive meats is also an option. This explains why a street person (being largely child-free, car-free, pet-free, meat-free, and homeless) would win any carbon-footprint pissing match. I suppose one could eat meat but still promote veganism, just as I support women's reproductive rights even though I have two children.

Here in America, corn ethanol is supposed to be about 13 percent carbon neutral, and soy biodiesel about 40 percent. Let's say just for the sake of discussion that the less meat you eat, the more vegan you are. Eating no meat makes you 100-percent vegan (100-percent meat neutral). Eating half the national average would make you 50-percent vegan, and eating the national average would make you 0-percent vegan. The beauty of this concept is that we all get to be vegans! I put together a spreadsheet to see how your degree of veganism compares to other choices when it comes to carbon neutrality:

A strange and old-fashioned way to start a hip, cutting edge conference

I’m in a session about “Energy, Climate Change & Resource Nationalism” with General Bruce Wright, commander of U.S. Air Force in Japan, and Dr. Liam Fox, Shadow Secretary of State of Defence and Member of Parliament in the UK. These are old-school guys, fairly conservative, and they’re painting a grim picture. China is ravenous, buying […]

A look at the Emmy’s eco-efforts

The carpet may still have been red at the Emmy Awards last night, but the entire production definitely had a tinge of green. As reported in Grist List on Friday, the event included a solar panel canopy over the grandstands outside, hybrid and alternative-fuel vehicles for transporting stars, locally grown and/or organic food in the […]