Climate Climate & Energy
All Stories
-
Is there a tradeoff between economics and the environment?
This article was first published on Clean Energy Wonk. California’s RETI process lends insight into the near-term prospects of solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass. In September, California’s Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative (RETI) released their Phase 2A report, which outlined potential transmission corridors to collect renewable energy from Competitive Renewable Energy Zones (CREZ) that had been […]
-
Bring on all the water news — the good, the bad and the ugly
It’s not so unusual to see water stories topping the news these days. Even when that news is very bad, that’s very good news indeed. The stories are frequently troubling; they should be. Climate change is increasing the ferocity of floods and droughts and water privatization is drowning our democracy. But it’s about time that […]
-
A scientific hack job that won’t cripple climate talks
Once again, the opponents of climate action are relying on spurious, deceptive, dishonest, and possibly illegal practices to disrupt the world’s steady march to achieving a solution to a warming planet.
-
Treat energy efficiency like a utility
With David Leonhardt’s piece on a new weatherization program/jobs bill nicknamed “Cash for Caulkers” generating buzz, as well as questions, it seemed a good time to resurrect a post I wrote about a year ago on the general subject of energy efficiency improvement. I had been inspired by a lengthy Grist post on a post-carbon […]
-
![]()
![]()
Copenhagen, U.S.A. December 7
If the Obama administration is unwilling or unable to stop the massive environmental destruction of historic mountain ranges and essential drinking water for a relatively tiny amount of coal, can we honestly believe they will be able to phase out coal emissions at the level necessary to stop climate change? –Dr. James […]
-
![]()
![]()
Environmental education in Guinea Bissau
The Presidential Palace. The Presidential Palace in Guinea Bissau lies derelict and burnt out. You can walk amongst the shards of broken crockery, blackened banisters, and singed carpets. Its empty rooms are a fitting metaphor for this failing state. Teachers in the public sector have not been paid in years. Portuguese, the official language, is […]
-
![]()
![]()
Skeptics claim global warming is fake after top scientists’ emails hacked at CRU
Shucks, we shoulda known!Photo courtesy Andrew Ciscel via Flickr With the Copenhagen climate talks upon us we learn that hackers recently broke into thousands of emails and internal documents from a leading climate research center and dumped them onto an anonymous Russian server. The hacked emails (160 MB worth, unzipped) came from the University of […]
-
FOX News and TrollCat agree: Global warming is BUNK!
FOX News evidently agrees with Global Warming Skeptic Trollcat (see above): Thousands of emails from the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit were hacked recently and dumped on a Russian web server. Fox News and right-wing bloggers believe the illegally obtained emails prove that “global warming is a MYTH.” Oops, that’s Global Warming Skeptic […]
-
![]()
![]()
‘Heretic’ battles straw man
Energy Self-Reliant States [PDF], a flawed study on local Renewable Energy availability from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ISLR) found that 18 of the 50 states could not meet their electricity needs with local renewables. In fact, no state can meet its electricity demand through local renewables without expensive electricity storage. On a national basis, […]
-
![]()
![]()
New photography project provides stark proof of melting glaciers on the roof of the world
Global warming is melting 18,000 Himalayan glaciers — the largest concentration of glaciers outside the great polar ice sheets. If the present melt rate continues, many of these glaciers will be gone by the middle of this century, disrupting the perennial water supply to hundreds of millions of people. To explore this growing collection of […]
