Climate Climate & Energy

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  • Palin on Energy: The Bad, the Ugly, and the Response

    Barbara Boxer, chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and John Kerry, chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, write in “What Palin Got Wrong About Energy“: Whether it was the debate over the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Superfund law or any other landmark environmental law, one pattern has always been […]

    Joseph Romm Climate & Energy

  • “Clouds Appear to Be Big, Bad Player in Global Warming” — an amplifying feedback

    The best evidence is that the climate is now being driven by amplifying feedbacks (see Study: Water-vapor feedback is “strong and positive,” so we face “warming of several degrees Celsius”), most notably: The defrosting of the permafrost The drying of the Northern peatlands (bogs, moors, and mires). The destruction of the tropical wetlands Decelerating growth […]

    Joseph Romm Climate & Energy

  • Will we see record low Arctic ice volume this year?

    “Daily sea ice extent as of July 21. The solid blue line indicates 2009 … the purple line shows 2008; and the solid gray line indicates average extent from 1979 to 2000.” The blogosphere and scientific community are all abuzz as to whether 2009 will beat 2007 in minimum Arctic sea ice area. See, for […]

    Joseph Romm Climate & Energy

  • Is the proposed clean energy agency a dirty deal for taxpayers and the environment?

    Will the proposed clean energy agency become a slush fund for nuclear power?U.S. lawmakers are considering legislation that would create a new independent federal agency to promote government investment in clean energy. But watchdogs are raising questions about whether the way the proposed agency is structured is unfair to taxpayers and bad for the environment. […]

    Sue Sturgis Climate & Energy

  • Damning look at Canada’s tar sands tops enviro journalism awards

    Canadian journalist Andrew Nikiforuk won the top prize from the Society of Environmental Journalists’ annual reporting awards for his investigation of oil extraction in the tar sands of northern Alberta. Nikiforuk’s book — Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent — examines the high social and environmental costs of the process of […]

    Jonathan Hiskes Climate & Energy

  • Does CEQ-EPA regulatory banter abet historicide?

    Mired in the acrobatics of regulatory doublespeak, the Obama administration’s increasing oversight of the unbearable daily toll on Appalachian coalfield residents from mountaintop removal begs the question: Are Obama’s well-meaning but irresolute environmental administrators abetting the crimes of human rights violations and historicide? Whether they are unaware of decades of regulatory circumvention by Big Coal […]

    Jeff Biggers Climate & Energy

  • Solar Power, Yes We Did! (& Will!)

    The outlook for all three categories of solar power in the United States is bright, according to a new study by the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC). The IREC reports that photovoltaic (PV) capacity grew by 63 percent in 2008 alone. The study’s author,  Larry Sherwood, credits the federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC) for a […]

    Osha Gray Davidson Climate & Energy

  • The Climate Post: Smalls steps and giant leaps

    First Things First: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited India last weekend to inch forward collaboration on regional security, global business, nuclear power, and climate change. U.S. papers played up the real-time meltdown between Clinton and Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh. The two appeared before cameras on a trip to a new, energy-efficient office building […]

    Eric Roston Climate & Energy

  • Memo to Post: If George Will quotes a lie, it’s still a lie

    When New York Times columnist Tom Friedman called upon “young Americans” to “get a million people on the Washington Mall calling for a price on carbon,” another columnist, Mark Steyn, responded: “If you’re 29, there has been no global warming for your entire adult life. If you’re graduating high school, there has been no global […]

    Joseph Romm Climate & Energy

  • “Realistic” first-generation CCS costs a whopping $150 per ton of CO2 — 20 cents per kWh!

    Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs has published a blockbuster study, “Realistic Costs of Carbon Capture.” The paper concludes that First-of-a-Kind (FOAK) carbon capture and storage plants are going to be much more expensive than most people realize: 1.  The costs of carbon abatement on a 2008 basis for FOAK IGCC plants are […]

    Joseph Romm Climate & Energy