Climate Climate & Energy
All Stories
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Pacific Northwest says goodbye to salmon, skiing; hello to heat waves
The new U.S. climate change impacts report — on which we’ve been reporting all day — includes some hard-hitting regional data. For example, did you know that annual average temperatures in the Northwest rose about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit over the last century — with some areas seeing increases up to 4 degrees? And the rising […]
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Lots of great green stuff in the latest issue of The Atlantic
I haven’t read The Atlantic much lately, but I picked up the latest issue at the airport and it is superb. Three pieces are worth particular note. First, Joshua Green has a piece on “The Coming Green Economy” that is as good as anything I’ve ever read in popular media about the contours of the […]
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EPA refuses to reveal dangerous coal ash waste sites
Around the United States today, there are 44 coal ash waste disposal sites so hazardous that — were they to fail like the one at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston plant did last December — they could kill untold numbers of nearby residents. In fact, the sites are so dangerous that last week the federal […]
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Greenland ice sheet could raise East Coast sea levels 20 inches by 2100 – to over 6 feet
The eastern United States must plan on the very real possibility that total sea level rise by 2100 will exceed 6 feet on our current emissions path. Sadly, the Washington Post got the story only half right. This week I’ll focus on our best understanding of the impacts that Americans face from human-caused climate change. […]
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Robert F. Kennedy first challenged our Ponzi scheme pursuit of growth for growth’s sake
Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated 41 years ago last week. He challenged our monomaniacal pursuit of GDP in “one of the most beautiful of his speeches,” as Obama described it an August 2008 NYT profile of his economic thinking. Obama is one of the few major politicians who constantly challenges our unsustainable economic worldview today […]
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How to get involved in the fight against climate change
Wondering what you can do? These groups have climate campaigns and info galore — check out their sites, connect with them on social networks, and get involved! Climate-focused groups 350.org A grassroots group led by author Bill McKibben and born out of the belief that climate change needs a robust social movement behind […]
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A tour through Indian energy projects suggests small is beautiful
A local irrigation project in southern India.Courtesy Michael Foley Photography via FlickrGeorge Black has a fascinating story about how India might lift its people out of poverty without torching the environment in the current issue of OnEarth, the magazine run by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Written largely as a travelogue through clean energy innovations […]
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The case for carbon speed limits
If the earth was a car, it would come with an operating instructions not to drive faster than 350 parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere. Unfortunately, like an unruly teenager, humanity – with the United States in the drivers seat – has already revved up the engine and broken all speed limits – […]
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Hydrogen fuel cell cars are a dead end from a technological, practical, and climate perspective
Using fuel cell vehicles and hydrogen from zero-carbon sources such as renewable power or nuclear energy has a cost of avoided carbon dioxide of more than $600 a metric ton, which is more than a factor of ten higher than most other strategies being considered today…. So I wrote in a 2005 journal article, “The […]
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“We will have a bill,” Pelosi vows — several House Republicans agree
“We will have a bill,” the California Democrat said in a brief interview today after her weekly press conference. So Greenwire (subs. req’d) reports this afternoon, for those who had any remaining doubts about whether the Waxman-Markey clean energy and climate bill would pass the House (see also Boucher predicts “I think we’ll do far […]
