Climate Climate & Energy

Putting the US in a Strong Position to Secure an International Climate Agreement: Waxman-Markey Bill

The Waxman-Markey “American Clean Energy and Security Act” (HR 2454) is now out (see here for the full bill and here for NRDC’s top line summary of the entire bill).  The House Energy and Commerce Committee is focused this week on intensive sessions to pass the bill (you can watch it all live on the […]

MIT doubles its 2095 warming projection to 10°F

Today’s question:  How the heck does the Greenland ice sheet survive accelerated disintegration from projected 20°F warming by the 2090s? I previously blogged on how the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Climate Change has joined the climate realists — the growing group of scientists who understand that the […]

The iceman walketh

To study the conditions of sea ice, one must walk very carefully across it. Here, two members of the Catlin Arctic Survey team maneuver a supply sled through a rough patch.Courtesy Catlin Arctic Survey To millions around the world, Pen Hadow — the first person ever to trek to the North Pole alone without any […]

Coal Ash Dumped on the Disadvantaged

In December, a coal slurry impoundment owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) gushed 50 times more toxic waste than the Exxon Valdez in a well publicized and inevitable disaster that unjustly ruined many homes and downstream ecosystems. So how to describe what’s happening to the sludge currently being dredged from waterways and swimming pools? […]

Be part of the green solution (and the Manchester Report)

The following post was written by The Guardian’s Dunan Clark The climate change debate often seems to focus more on the problems than on the solutions. It’s not hard to understand why: almost every week brings another scientific report predicting impacts sooner and more devastating than we were previously expecting. With so many gloomy headlines, […]

Sustainable America?

New Lancet report on health and social effects of climate change

The Lancet and the University College London (UCL) Institute for Global Health have been engaged in a year-long research project on the health and social effects of climate change. The final report was just released. The overall conclusion? “Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century.” It’s grim, grim stuff. So […]

What happens when you mandate clean coal

A plan to build a “clean coal” plant in Washington state is officially dead: Energy Northwest officials said they could not produce a required plan for capturing carbon emissions from the proposed plant in the foreseeable future. A 2007 Washington law sets strict limits on carbon emissions from coal plants and requires that utilities show […]

Bike to work, bike from work

Today is Bike-To-Work day. If you don’t have a job and are feeling left out, you have other options. Frankly, I can’t think of a better way to wait out the recession than to take a bike tour. It’s cheap, especially if you camp. It’s the right speed to see a country. It’s carbon-free, natch. […]

Report: Climate change will bring big problems for small number of countries

Here’s one way to break down the effects of fiercer storm surges that will be wrought by climate change: Most land lost: Latin America Most people displaced: Middle East and North Africa Most economic losses: East Asia World Bank economists reached these conclusions in a new draft report [PDF] that assesses the effects sea-level rise […]