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Opening night film relives 1960s activism, but who even cares anymore?

Not to further the dirty hippie debate any, uh, further, but it’s on my mind here in Utah as I take in what film elites have dubbed the Next Big Things in film. Sundance 2007 officially started last night, with screenings of this year’s most-hyped premier, the animated documentary Chicago 10. The film centers on […]

An NY chef’s searing op-ed on the Farm Bill

Edible Media takes an occasional look at interesting or deplorable food journalism on the web. Ann Cooper, Berkeley’s crusading lunch lady, is not the only chef intervening in the national debate around food and agriculture. New York chef Dan Barber has for years been penning thoughtful op-eds on food politics for the New York Times […]

Good on him

Via Treehugger, I just stumbled on this column from Reason magazine’s science writer Ronald Bailey from back in September. To summarize, he says: I was wrong about global warming, but I wasn’t paid to be wrong. It would be easy to lampoon the column, or jump down Bailey’s throat. The commenters over at TH seem […]

From Globes to Graffiti

Global swarming The first-ever “green” Golden Globes awards bash was held Monday in an eco-space filled with foliage, reclaimed-wood tables, and organic foodstuffs. Among the attendees were Amy Smart, Daryl Hannah, Green Pink, and Napoleon Dynamite, who caught a delicious Lance Bass. Photo: John Shearer / WireImage.com Dress reversal We were going to attend the […]

Eh, why bother

Of course not. That would release CO2, and we'd have to buy an offset or plant a tree or something.

I jest, of course. The reason this comes up is a flaming debate going on right now.

Over on the weather channel blog, Heidi Cullen asks:

If a meteorologist can't speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS shouldn't give them a Seal of Approval.

(FYI: AMS is the American Meteorological Society.)

Marc Morano, the high-strung Inhofe staffer, responded on the EPW blog:

They Grow Up So Fast

Corporations join green groups to push for U.S. climate action Quivering under the bed was an option, but 10 major corporations have bravely formed a coalition with four U.S. green groups instead, calling for a national limit on carbon emissions. Their aim is a 10 to 30 percent cut over the next 15 years, using […]

Baoxing Match

Fast-developing China to push for $200 billion energy-efficiency investment China will try to nudge its burgeoning economy in a green direction by prompting building owners to spend some $200 billion by 2020 on energy efficiency for apartments and office buildings, Vice Minister of Construction Qiu Baoxing announced yesterday. Construction makes up 27 percent (and rising) […]

My Dinner With Bob

Intrepid Grist intern follows a climate film to Sundance The Sundance Film Festival kicked off this week with a VIP showing of Everything’s Cool, a humorous documentary about climate change. And where climate change and humor overlap, can Grist be far behind? We sent Kate Sheppard to the scene to report on the raves the […]

Austin Legal

Citizen, environmental groups sue Texas guv over controversial coal plants The big ol’ mess in Texas over TXU Corp.’s plan to build 11 coal-fired plants just got messier: four citizen and environmental groups have sued the state’s governor, Rick Perry (R), for fast-tracking the permit process. Thanks to a swaggerific executive order Perry issued two […]

State Supreme Court rules utility cannot offset emissions

Just when US federal climate policy looks like a possibility, Seattle's prospects take a turn for the worse. The Washington Supreme Court just ruled that Seattle City Light -- the first (and only?) major utility in the nation to achieve climate neutrality -- can no longer use ratepayer money to buy emissions offsets.

Luckily, I think this problem can be fixed fairly easily. But before I get to fixing things, I have a small rant to get off my chest.

According to the court's reasoning, offsets are not sufficiently related to the utility's core business of generating electricity. I'll leave the legal parsing to be debated by the lawyers, but I will make two remarks.

First, almost all of City Light's power comes from hydroelectricity, which in turn comes from dams that rely on rivers that are fed by snowmelt. And -- I think you know where I'm going here -- climate change is very bad for snowpack. It's like this: no snow, no electricity.

So here's a simplified version. Global warming reduces the city's access to electricity. So the utility zeros out its contribution to global warming. But then the courts say that the activity is not sufficiently related to supplying electricity.

That noise you just heard was my head exploding.

Of course there are heaps of other sources of climate-changing emissions too. But City Light can't very well do anything at all about those. All it can do is bring its own contributions to zero and thereby create a national (and even international) model of sustainable power generation. In fact, its leadership was probably much more important than its emissions cuts. But no more.

The rant continues after the jump.