Latest Articles

Lots of fruits and bread in Sicily; lots of junk in North Carolina

There is a fascinating photo essay over on Time magazine's website. Using a format similar to that used by photojournalists who have posed families in front of their entire household possessions, this one shows what a few families around the world typically purchase to eat over the course of a week.

Not exactly a scientific survey, but revealing nonetheless.

More Colbert on Griffin

You can see part one here. Here’s part two:

I’M IN UR PLANET, GETTIN ALL HOT N BOTHERED

Things that global warming is responsible for: Melting glaciers, skinny polar bears, disappearing coastlines, and rampant kitty sex. That’s right. We’re seeing an increase in hot pussy action as global warming gets America’s cats all hot and bothered. Climate change is expanding the kitty mating season and creating — you guessed it — more baby […]

Wisdom from the heart of coal country

It's not news when I criticize Congress's proposals to subsidize coal-to-liquids (CTL). After all, my focus is avoiding serious global warming, which CTL would only make more likely.

But when two newspapers from traditional coal regions say "no" to CTL, that is a man-bites-dog story.

The Kentucky Herald-Leader has a great headline:

Liquid coal a new version of snake oil: Don't subsidize energy plans that would worsen global warming.

The Roanoke Times of the coal-region of Southwestern Virginia has an equally strong headline:

Billion-dollar boondoggle: Coal-to-liquid technology is expensive, harmful to the environment and inefficient. The federal government should take no part in subsidizing it.

Wisdom in the media on these issues is rare. Kudos to both papers for putting the long-term national interest above short-term local interests.

Color me unimpressed

You can color me unimpressed by the big news today in the Globe and Mail: Quebec just became the first Canadian province to pass a carbon tax. For one thing, the tax is tiny, just 0.8 cents per liter of gasoline, and at comparably low levels on natural gas and diesel. (For non-metricized Americans, that's 3 cents per gallon.) So that makes Quebec's new approach not quite as aggressive as -- to pick just one example at random -- Idaho's 5 cent per gallon increase circa 1996.

Now in fairness to Quebec, the new carbon tax revenue, which weighs in at about $200 million, will be spent on seeking greenhouse gas reductions. That's a big improvement over previous gas taxes in the States, where the money normally gets shoveled back into roads.

Strangely, however, Quebec's government seems intent on preventing the tax from actually influencing consumer behavior. To wit:

Natural Resources Minister Claude Béchard called on the oil companies to be good corporate citizens and do their share to protect the environment by absorbing the cost of the new tax. "We call on their good faith and social responsibility."

Wait, what?

Australia tries to distract from Kyoto

Looks like somebody’s been taking lessons from Bush. Get this: “The Kyoto model — top-down, prescriptive, legalistic and Euro-centric — simply won’t fly in a rising Asia-Pacific region,” Howard told an Asia Society Australasia dinner. Gag.

Are the two inextricably linked?

The G8 wants to “decouple economic growth from energy use.” Is that possible? That’s the central question of out times, I guess. Walden Belloon thinks not: The only effective response to climate change is to radically reduce economic growth rates and consumption levels, particularly in the North, and in the very near future. The climate […]

Carbon tax v. cap and trade — the hottest arguments since McCartney v. Lennon

The argument over the best climate change mitigation policy is gathering steam. Busting out all over. Topping the charts. All the kids are dancing to it. Before getting to the latest, though, it’s worth making a simple point: either cap-and-trade or a carbon tax could reduce GHG emissions if properly designed and implemented; either could […]

A guide to their positions

I keep meaning to mention this incredibly useful guide to the presidential candidates’ positions on global warming, hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations. Why didn’t we think of that?

The U.S. outmaneuvered European leaders, yet again

All right, the more I read about this G8 climate agreement the more it becomes clear that the Bush administration completely outplayed the other developed countries on this. That, at least, they’re good at. Blair, Merkel, and Sarkozy all went into the summit staking their credibility on forcing an agreement: mandatory emissions cuts based on […]