Climate Climate & Energy

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  • Greenpeace calls on world leaders to stop rainforest destruction

    Photo courtesy Greenpeace International via FlickrLast week, Greenpeace activists blocked rainforest destruction in Indonesia’s Kampar Peninsula by chaining themselves to excavators. Activists then draped a bright red “Obama You Can Stop This” banner over the destruction and called on the world’s leaders to stop deforestation at next month’s climate talks in Copenhagen. The protest came […]

    Darby Minow Smith Climate & Energy

  • Salvadoran mudslides: A plea for climate change solutions and holistic water policy

    Torrents of mud and boulders flattened villages in El Salvador recently, leaving over 100 people dead and thousands homeless. From all indications, climate change will be most acutely felt in an escalating frequency and ferocity of floods and droughts. It’s chilling to think that we ought to expect much more of this kind of devastation […]

    Daniel Moss Climate & Energy

  • Can perfect markets induce capital investment?

    Question: are there any examples of a completely free market inducing investment in mature, capital-intensive industries? I’m not sure there are. More problematically, I’m not sure that economists and policy makers appreciate this reality. The result is that we continue to create markets — from electricity to CO2 — that by design are incapable of […]

    Sean Casten Climate & Energy

  • Is “we’re going to burn the coal anyway” an argument for carbon sequestration?

    I’m involved in an ongoing email debate over the wisdom of “clean coal” — that is, coal power plants that capture and sequester their carbon dioxide emissions. It will eventually be published on a State Dept. website, and then in Grist. In the meantime, a preview of sorts. A frequent argument one hears in favor […]

    David Roberts Climate & Energy

  • Will South Carolina become the nation’s new Yucca Mountain?

    The Savannah River. Photo courtesy Mountain Hermit via Flickr Earlier this year, President Obama canceled the federal government’s plans to store high-level radioactive waste from nuclear power plants and weapons facilities at the controversial Yucca Mountain site in Nevada — but now there are concerns that South Carolina could become the permanent dumping ground for […]

    Sue Sturgis Climate & Energy

  • The Climate Post: Where there’s a Will there’s a fray

    First things first: U.N. General Secretary Ban Ki-moon expressed confidence that international negotiators can resolve impediments to a global climate agreement, and that Copenhagen will be a productive step in that process. Ban visited Washington, D.C., where he and climate adviser Janos Pasztor spoke with lawmakers about the international community’s expectations for U.S. leadership on […]

    Eric Roston Climate & Energy

  • Big Coal and child victims

    This Friday, Nov. 13, marks the 100th anniversary of the Cherry Mine Disaster in Illinois, when an estimated 259 coal miners lost their lives to fire and the buildup of “black damp” or toxic gases. The St. Paul Coal Company Mine in Cherry was hailed by its consulting engineer as the “safest mine in the […]

    Jeff Biggers Climate & Energy

  • Rally at Penn State: Students Taking Lead on Clean Energy

    This post was co-written by Kim Teplitzky, field coordinator for the Sierra Student Coalition Today at Penn State University, dozens of students, faculty, and community members rallied in front of university’s coal plant, calling on the university to move beyond coal to clean energy solutions. “Young people have been at the forefront of the greatest […]

    Bruce Nilles Climate & Energy

  • Disappearing slave history

    James Island’s grisly connections with the slave trade draw thousands of tourists to this shrinking patch of Gambia each year. In high season as many as a hundred tourists a day take small, motorized pirogues out to this tiny island and hire guides from nearby villages to explain the horrors once endured there. The island […]

    Lynn Morris Climate & Energy

  • We have met the deniers, and they are us

    Photo: Adam D. SacksJames Inhofe.Marc Morano.Richard Lindzen.Bjørn Lomborg.George W. Bush. Names of shame, ignominy, criminals against humanity, against planet Earth itself.  Agents of the lethal delays in our response to escalating, accelerating, catastrophic global warming. Yet, as deniers of climate change, they’re amateurs compared to us.  Us activists, environmentalists, scientists, and certainly Copenhagen politicians. Even […]

    Adam Sacks Climate & Energy