Climate Climate & Energy
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Demand No More Coal, No More Oil This Independence Day
No surprise here, on the heels of President Obama’s Tuesday night speech, the coal industry front group — American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity — released a statement saying they agree with his call for a clean energy future: “The president also renewed his call for bolder action to create a clean energy future. We […]
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EPA Analysis: Rainforests Key to Climate Legislation Affordability, Integrity
This post was co-authored by Andrew Stevenson of Resources for the Future and Climate Advisers. The EPA analysis of the American Power Act shines a light on a key fact about climate policy: strong rainforest protections, especially in the short run, are essential to keeping costs low and emissions goals strong. The analysis finds that […]
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An Electrifying Vision: 20 Million Plug-in Hybrids in 5 Years (Video)
With the backdrop of devastated communities and ecosystems in the Gulf, President Obama took the opportunity to challenge the nation to move our clean energy transition forward–but what would that look like? Marc Spitzer of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) makes his case for a transformation of our vehicle fleet to plug-ins. He is […]
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Local power: tapping distributed energy in 21st-century cities
Hammarby Sjostad “eco-cycle”Source: HammarbySjostad.de Residents of Hammarby Sjöstad, a district on the south side of Stockholm, Sweden, don’t let their waste go to waste. Every building in the district boasts an array of pneumatic tubes, like larger versions of the ones that whooshed checks from cars to bank tellers back in the day. One tube […]
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Where's the damn pony?
When life gives you lemons … add some lemon dispersant and they’ll disappear from sight. Okay, wrong metaphor. Obama has suggested many times that he aspires to be a transformational leader like President Reagan, the “great communicator.” Tonight, we may well find out to tonight whether Obama is a Reagan or a Carter. Does Obama […]
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NOAA: Warmest May, spring, and Jan-May on record
NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center has published its monthly “State of the Climate Report.” The combined global land and ocean surface temperature was the warmest on record for May, March-May (Northern Hemisphere spring-Southern Hemisphere autumn), and the period January-May. The warming in May is greatest precisely where climate science suggested it would be – the […]
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The talking points are better than the speech
Here are the key talking points the White House sent around with the speech: This economic and environmental tragedy underscores the urgent need for this nation to embrace a clean energy future. For years, there has been little more than lip service given to the need to end our reliance on fossil fuels. That failure […]
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Rand Paul: “I believe business should be left alone from government.”
Sure the WashPost mocked Sen. James Inhofe (R-OIL) as “the last flat-earther.” But that was a purely metaphorical description of the pro-pollution right-winger. Turns out U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul’s (R-KY) actually thinks a lot of Kentucky would be “quite desirable” if it were literally flattened by big coal. The scientific reality is quite […]
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Enemies of the Earth
It is extremely disheartening that serious climate change policy appears unlikely to pass Congress this year, and may very well not be on the agenda for years to come (if ever). I blame Obama for not making comprehensive energy reform a serious priority, and not using the disaster in the Gulf to make a forceful […]
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Fight for the right to clean air and clean water
A new proposed initiative for the California ballot purports to defend the people of California’s unalienable right to air, water, energy, and natural resources by prohibiting the government from regulating the industries that exploit these common resources. This referendum is either an attempted shell game on the citizenry or a product of dire ignorance. If […]
