Latest Articles
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How to save the last carbon sinks
Marcel Silvius recently declared in the Herald Tribune that palm oil is a failure as a biofuel. Rhett Butler over at Mongabay thinks otherwise, as he argues in an article titled, um, "Palm oil is not a failure as a biofuel." His main point is that even if America and Europe were to reject palm oil biodiesel as inherently unsustainable, the forests would still be converted to palm oil by China. We can't stop its development by refusing to use it, so we (by "we" he means Europe) need to get in there and finance the establishment of sustainable practices now or we will have no say in the matter later. China will own the industry: -
Methane from landfills is hott
The Boston Globe has a nice article on a source of renewable electricity that doesn’t get nearly the attention it ought to: methane generated by landfills. This, like so many cogen opportunities, is a no-brainer.
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An interview with Rep. Jay Inslee, clean-energy champion from Washington state
Rep. Jay Inslee’s two central passions, clean energy and global warming, received scant attention during his last eight years in Congress. Now, after a power shift on Capitol Hill, he’s at the center of high-profile efforts to attack climate change and promote a new energy economy — not to mention get his colleagues up to […]
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Foundation throws down big bucks for climate change mitigation policy and technology
The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation announced earlier this week that they would be doling out $100 million for global warming research over the next five years. The money will go to nonprofit groups, research institutions, and universities to support developing policies and technologies that will reduce emissions and help build a “clean energy economy.” “The […]
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Scary reading
Last week I wrote about a coming report on world coal reserves from the Energy Group in Germany, based on the IEA World Energy Outlook 2006. Here’s the report. The nut: This analysis reveals that global coal production may still increase over the next 10 to 15 years by about 30 percent, mainly driven by […]
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Extinction of an outdated industry on the horizon?
... you ignorant ass.
You may have noticed the ads here on Grist from the International Fund for Animal Welfare calling for an end to the Canadian seal harvest. This short, simple, balanced article from MSNBC is a timely rehash of this annual controversy.
Because sustainability is ostensibly the main goal of environmentalism, it's difficult to criticize the Canadian seal harvest, because it appears to be a classic case of a sustainably harvested natural resource providing poverty reduction for those who live close to that resource.
Here are the two main reasons the IFAW wants to end the seal harvest: It is cruel and puts the harp seal species at risk.
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The time to focus on policy is now
With the policy summary of the IPCC WGII report out, this is a good time to concentrate on policy. Any effort to lower emissions has to put a price on carbon and other greenhouse sources. As I think extensive discussion has shown, a carbon tax is the best way to price emissions, and to price the destruction of carbon sinks.
One advantage of carbon taxes (and auctioned permits as well -- close enough to a carbon tax for practical purposes) not often noted is that it they produce revenue that can be directed back to consumers. This is an important contrast to the Kyoto system, where large numbers of permits were given away to big polluters. As with any method of raising the price of carbon, ultimately the cost was passed on to consumers. But with the permit giveaways, the consumer did not recover any of those costs.
On a small scale, this is merely painful and unfair. But suppose this was done with a large-scale rise in emission prices -- one that increased the prices of consumer goods by 25 or 50 percent? Not only would this cause direct suffering, the odds are pretty good that reduced consumer demand would cause at least a recession, with a real risk of world-wide depression. You need to return some the costs to consumers, not only on moral grounds but on Keynesian ones -- to avoid a precipitous drop in overall demand.
I will add that when you talk about a drop in consumption for poor people, you are talking not just suffering but death. Even in the rich nations, there people poor enough that cutting their real income by a third or half will kill some of them. Cut the income of people in poor nations already living on a few dollars a day, and you are talking slaughter.
