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Economists say that only the largest ethanol producers will survive

Of all the arguments in favor of government backing for corn-based ethanol, only one seems even remotely reasonable to me: that it could lead to real economic development in depressed areas of the Midwest. The theory goes like this: When farmers pool resources and build their own ethanol plants, they’ll capture much higher profits than […]

Cool Runnings

Effluent would be used to cool power plants in an innovative Maryland project Charles County, Md., is poised to be the first area in the U.S. to use treated sewage to cool down power-plant towers. A proverbial “win-win” scheme, the proposal would conserve groundwater, which is usually used for power-plant cooling, and would cut down […]

We Put the Unclear in Nuclear

Potentially deadly uranium spill in Tennessee kept secret As part of its model for a newer, more relevant form of democracy in the 21st century, the U.S. government in 2004 clamped down on the public’s access to information on all things nuclear, for so-called national-security reasons. Hidden in the big ol’ nuclear hidey-hole: news of […]

Other enviro issues are getting less attention

Peter Madden, chief executive of Forum for the Future, writes a monthly column for Gristmill on sustainability in the U.K. and Europe.

Are we too obsessed by climate change? Over here, climate change is coming to completely dominate the sustainability agenda. This is true in politics, business, the media, and civil society.

I was talking to our new secretary of state for the environment, Hilary Benn, the other day, about his department's strategy. He argued that all the other issues -- such as air quality, waste, water, and so on -- could all be dealt with under the climate change umbrella; government action on climate change would deliver for the other issues, and vice versa.

When we talk to companies or public authorities, it is the same. All they want is advice on going low-carbon. And since this is where the money and political attention are going, the NGO activity seems to follow, reinforcing the trend.

Of course, this is a good thing in many ways. Climate change is the major challenge we face. Sir David King, the U.K. Government's chief scientific advisor, was right when he reminded his government colleagues that "climate change is a far greater threat to the world than international terrorism."

For those of us who want to see green thinking integrated into other areas of life, climate change works well. It can't be thought of as peripheral. It will affect everything, including how we run the economy and how we live our lives.

Along with a rambling social commentary

Sicko is Michael Moore's best film yet. It brought tears to my eyes and infuriated me at the same time. I saw it last night with my youngest daughter. Ah, let me think here, how am I going to give this an environmental twist? How about using our pathetic health care system as another example of how dysfunctional our political system has become, the same one we are counting on to protect our biosphere and us from peak oil and global warming?

The film documents how Hillary Clinton was beaten into submission when she tried to reform the system and how even she is now beholden to the industry. And who is to blame for this? Would it be the politicians, the lobbyists, or the ignorant, self-deluded American citizens who allow the lobbyists to buy the politicians because they are terrified of losing their jobs, everything they are paying off, and their health care to boot? All of which is covered in the film, by the way.

Pacific Rim countries vow to do … very little

Throughout the year, members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation group (APEC) — including the U.S., Japan, and Australia, among others — have had a series of meetings. In early September, they will announce their grand plans, which, according to a leaked draft (PDF) obtained by the Sydney Morning Herald, contain "aspirational" greenhouse-gas emission targets. Here’s […]

Climate change mitigation costs less than doing nothing about the problem

I have argued previously that the landmark Stern Report got the big picture right -- strong action now to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions is economically justified, since the cost of action (i.e., mitigation), perhaps 1 percent of GDP, is far less than the cost of inaction (i.e., climate change impacts), which Stern estimates as at least 5 percent of GDP and possibly as high as 20 percent.

In particular, I (and others) argued that Stern's much-criticized choice of a low discount rate, 1.4 percent, was in fact justified -- see here and here for a good discussion.

Now perhaps the most mainstream economic policy think tank in the country -- Resources for the Future (RFF) -- has written a major report, "An Even Sterner Review" (PDF), with two key conclusions.

First, "we find no strong objections to the discounting assumptions adopted in the Stern Review."

Second:

[T]he conclusions reached in the review can be justified on other grounds than by using a low discount rate. We argue that nonmarket damages from climate change are probably underestimated and that future scarcities that will be induced by the changing composition of the economy and climate change should lead to rising relative prices for certain goods and services, raising the estimated damage of climate change and counteracting the effect of discounting.

What does RFF mean by "rising relative prices"?

Dole will make some tropical-fruit distribution carbon-neutral

U.S. residents have a heckuva hard time finding a local pineapple (Hawaiians respectfully excluded, of course). But now you can nosh your tropical fruit with less guilt; Dole Food has pledged to offset 100 percent of the CO2 emissions that come from growing bananas and pineapples in Costa Rica. Working with government agencies, the company plans to carbon-neutralize its entire supply chain, from growing the fruit to packing, transporting, and distributing it in North America and Europe. And those emissions are far from insignificant: Dole ships some 31 million boxes of bananas and 13 million boxes of pineapples annually from Costa Rica, which aims to be a carbon-neutral country by 2021.

source: Environmental Finance

A report from W. Va.

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This week, Gabriel Pacyniak and Katherine Chandler are traveling throughout southern West Virginia to report on mountaintop removal mining (MTR). They'll be visiting coalfields with abandoned and "reclaimed" MTR mines, and talking with residents, activists, miners, mine company officials, local reporters, and politicians.

We'll publish their reports throughout the week.

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At the Cabin Creek Rd. exit along Interstate 64, we turn off onto a two-lane drive that follows the creek. We pass from one hollow to another, small communities of West Virginians in the cramped valleys of Appalachia. At the end of the road, atop Kayford Mountain, lives Larry Gibson, the unofficial ambassador of the movement to stop mountaintop removal mining, or MTR. Gibson has been fighting MTR for 22 years, and has over 5,000 visitors signed into his guest book. This includes CNN's Anderson Cooper, who showcased Gibson last week on his 360 Heroes program. It is our first stop on a five-day trip across the coalfields of southern West Virginia, looking at how MTR has changed the landscape 30 years after the passage of the federal Surface Mining Reclamation and Control Act.

From the highway, it is difficult to imagine the devastation that has occurred at the mine site; the green, rolling hills seem to stretch out forever, hidden in the light haze of summer. As we continue up the road, we pass by the houses of local residents and a few community churches, following the dirt fork to the right that takes us over a small bridge. There's still no visible sign of the strip mining taking place all around us, but we do see our first sign of mining's impact -- the one-lane dirt road bridge has been reinforced to hold a 40,000-pound truck.

The blasting area at Kayford Mountain. (photo: Katherine Chandler)

Wouldn’t it be ironic …

… if we burned a bunch of oil, heated the atmosphere, melted the Arctic ice, and then had a war over who gets the oil beneath it?