Climate Climate & Energy
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Ice Melting Faster Everywhere
This Eco-Economy Indicator is written by my colleague Alexandra Giese, a staff researcher at the Earth Policy Institute. From the Arctic sea ice to the Antarctic interior and the mountainous peaks of Peru, Alaska, and Tibet, ice is melting at an alarming rate. The accelerating loss of ice sheets, sea ice, and glaciers is one […]
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Documentary examines geoengineering and the checkered history of weather modification
Geoengineering had its coming out party earlier this year when White House science adviser John Holdren told reporters that he had mentioned it to President Obama as a possible, admittedly desperate, option to combat climate change. Before then, the idea of hacking the planet was largely outside the realm of public discussion, which is why […]
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The Copenhagen Accord: A Big Step Forward
The Copenhagen climate deal that President Obama hammered out Friday night with the leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa broke through years of negotiating gridlock to achieve three critical goals. First, it provides for real cuts in heat-trapping carbon pollution by all of the world’s big emitters. Second, it establishes a transparent framework […]
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Seven steps to achieving a real climate deal
So where do we go from here? How do we get from the disorganized, disappointing, dispiriting debacle of Copenhagen to a new and worthwhile climate treaty? The world needs solid directions for getting to a real climate deal in Mexico next year.Asking the question recalls the famous joke about the Irishman who, when asked by […]
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Post-Copenhagen pledge: Coal free future begins in Kentucky
This post was co-written by Stephanie Pistello, Ben Evans, and Ben Sollee, co-founders of the Coal Free Future Project. On the heels of the Copenhagen Climate Summit, we plan to make our own post-Copenhagen pledge here at home: It’s time to envision a coal-free future. It’s time for clean energy independence. For those of us […]
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Christmas and Copenhagen
The huge—and hugely disappointing, as far as the official results—Copenhagen world climate conference has just concluded. Since the worldwide celebrations of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth are coming up later this week, I thought I would study the words of Jesus in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to see if any of what he said there was of relevance to what just happened in Copenhagen.
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Copenhagen Prognosis: The ‘almost overwhelming challenge’ of a carbon-free civilization
Cross-posted from the Wonk Room. A new scientific report, the Copenhagen Prognosis, outlines the terrible challenge the world faces from climate change — as well as several paths to safety. World leaders in Copenhagen struggled to come to a provisional accord that would provide a framework for sustainable civilization. But a team of the world’s […]
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BBC World Service: Who is to Blame at Copenhagen?
I just joined the BBC World Service for a live, hour-long program called “Copenhagen: Who is to Blame?” reflecting on the outcomes of the negotiations, including BBC’s environmental analyst, a Chinese policy specialist, WWF’s Campaign Director, India’s Vandana Shiva, and other experts (the podcast is available here, and for a cliffnotes version, start at 39 […]
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Terminator 2009
Cross-posted from TomDispatch. It’s clear now that, from her immoveable titanium bangs to her chaotic approximation of human speech, Sarah Palin is a Terminator cyborg sent from the future to destroy something — but what? It could be the Republican Party she’ll ravage by herding the fundamentalists and extremists into a place where sane fiscal […]
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Stabilizing Climate: Beyond International Agreements
Note: the following was written in July 2009, before the Copenhagen climate change conference. From my pre-Copenhagen vantage point, internationally negotiated climate agreements are fast becoming obsolete for two reasons. First, since no government wants to concede too much compared with other governments, the negotiated goals for cutting carbon emissions will almost certainly be minimalist, […]
