Climate Climate & Energy

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  • Big Cities Want Big Changes in Energy

    Today I’ll focus on yet another community suffering from coal’s pollution – but this community is a little bit larger, and it’s on the front end of an emerging trend. The city is Chicago and it’s starting what could be a national movement to clean up dirty energy in the inner city. Some of our […]

    Bruce Nilles Climate & Energy

  • Ambitious plans afoot to save turtles in the Gulf

    The Gulf spill threatens loggerhead turtles, who are nesting along the Florida coast right now.Photo courtesy Crazy Creatures via FlickrSea Turtle Conservancy Director David Godfrey took a minute to update me on what is being done to safeguard sea turtles swimming and nesting along Gulf shores this summer. He described transporting 70,000 loggerhead turtle eggs, […]

    Erik Hoffner Climate & Energy

  • Paleoclimatologist studies sea levels in a desert

    Exactly how much did the sea level rise three million years ago? Okay. Probably not a question you’ve asked yourself lately. But the question and, more importantly, its answer are significant. They will help scientists understand how fast and how high our current sea levels are likely to rise as today’s global warming trend melts […]

    Seth Shulman Climate & Energy

  • Long Island town threatens to sue Fannie & Freddie over clean-energy program

    Here’s the latest in the dispute with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE), a finance tool that helps homeowners cut energy waste: Babylon, N.Y., Supervisor Steve Bellone tells Fannie and Freddie to stop hating on his town’s clean-energy program at a rally with local building workers and homeowners.Courtesy Town of […]

    Jonathan Hiskes Cities

  • Chamber of Commerce rents its roof to Fox News, Fox News refuses to critically report on the Chamber

    Two of the leading organizations pushing disinformation on climate science and clean energy are the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (see “Luddite Chamber seeks “the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century” on global warming) and Fox News (see Fox News blurts out its agenda: “First, stop cap-and-trade, which could send these groups trillions,” and then […]

    Joseph Romm Climate & Energy

  • WI GOP Senate candidate Ron Johnson owns over $100,000 in BP stock, supports Great Lakes oil drillin

    Ron Johnson, a wealthy business executive and leading Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Wisconsin this year, is beginning to receive scrutiny for his extremist views.  Last month he was asked whether or not he agreed that “man-caused global warming is a proven fact.”   His reply: I totally disagree…I’m always surprised that people think this […]

    Joseph Romm Climate & Energy

  • Energy efficiency helps homeowners avoid foreclosure

    Energy-efficient homes have significantly lower default and delinquency rates than typical homes, according to an internal analysis conducted for a major financial institution last year. Here’s yet another reason why it makes no sense that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have effectively killed Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE), a financing tool that has helped make […]

    Jonathan Hiskes Cities

  • A good question from the Sierra Club’s chief

    The Sierra Club can claim some expertise in stopping dimwitted ideas: It’s helped block the construction of 128 coal-fired power plants, concrete and measurable victories in the oft-murky struggle against climate change. New Executive Director Mike Brune turns this record into a good question in the new Sierra magazine: Here’s an immediate challenge for all […]

    Jonathan Hiskes Climate & Energy

  • Climate & Energy Bill Will Do More For Health Than Health Care Legislation

    This post was co-authored by Dr. Rahul Rajkumar, a physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. As oil and gas continue to spew out of a broken pipe at the BP spill site in the Gulf of Mexico, those of us who rode on the health care reform bandwagon have to wonder if we […]

    Glenn Hurowitz Climate & Energy

  • In Defense of 'Energy-Only'

    Over at NRDC, David Doniger writes a last-ditch defense of a diminished, utility-only cap and trade proposal while categorically rejecting any “energy-only” legislation — e.g. legislation lacking a cap and trade component. Unfortunately, Doniger, NRDC (and EDF) wind up clinging onto a “cap” on carbon they have already given away while at the same time […]

    Jesse Jenkins Climate & Energy