Climate Climate & Energy

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  • A plan to jumpstart the global economy, defuse terrorism, and restore America’s world standing

    America has lost its stature as a moral leader in today’s world. The global financial system continues to unravel with devastating consequences. The escalating threat of terrorism, driven by persistent inequity between the world’s rich and poor, seems immune to military solutions.  The global climate stands at the threshold of runaway changes.         What […]

    Ross Gelbspan Climate & Energy

  • Coal the culprit in rising emissions intensity

    I wrote last week about a curious fact:  even though total CO2 emissions from the US electric power sector have dropped during the recession, the emissions intensity of the US power supply — that is, the amount of carbon per megawatt hour produced — actually inched upwards.  The decline in total emissions is good news […]

    Clark Williams-Derry Climate & Energy

  • Let's make this Earth Day about cooperating

    Cross posted at the NDN blog. Forty years have passed since John McConnell, a peace activist and plastics pioneer, proposed the first Earth Day at a Unesco conference in San Francisco as a way to focus attention on our role as stewards of the planet. In that period, environmentalism has grown into a worldwide passion […]

    Michael Moynihan Climate & Energy

  • Earth Day gets no respect

    Grist hates Earth Day because it thinks every day should be Earth Day. I’ve got a different grievance, however. There’s no @#$&ing enforcement with Earth Day. Anyone can claim anything on Earth Day.

    John Passacantando Climate & Energy

  • Anti-wind now not just for NIMBY’s

    Opposition to wind power used to be the province of NIMBY’s who quailed at the supposed intrusion into their viewsheds and soundsheds. No more. Wind power is big — its share of U.S. electricity reached 1.3% last year — and getting bigger fast enough to alarm the Far Right and other feeders at the trough […]

    Charles Komanoff Climate & Energy

  • CHP primer: Fun with thermodynamics

    Those of us who believe (as I do) that there are massive opportunities to reduce US energy costs while simultaneously lowering our greenhouse gas footprint spend a lot of time getting into arguments with bad economists.  These folks remember just enough of freshman theory (supply, demand, price, blah blah blah) to assert confidently that if […]

    Sean Casten Climate & Energy

  • What baseball can teach policymakers

    With the Major League Baseball season having just begun, I’m reminded of the truism that the best teams win their divisions in the regular season, but the hot teams win in the post-season playoffs.  Why the difference?  The regular season is 162 games long, but the post-season consists of just a few brief 5-game and […]

    Robert Stavins Climate & Energy

  • Another 125 million?

    As climate change impacts ramp up over the coming years, we have a serious choice to make. We can try to run in between the raindrops, or we can figure out how to build the equivalent of sturdy, innovative umbrellas. Millions more people, mostly living in the world’s poorest regions, are expected to be directly […]

    David Waskow Climate & Energy

  • Steven Chu doesn’t talk in sound bites

    My oh my, how times have changed. For eight years, Washington was run by a crew that seemed to take delight in not sounding brainy, in being plain-spoken and “common-sensical.” Time after time, you’d see reporters banging their heads against the wall when President Bush or his minions would answer complex questions with non-answer answers […]

    Russ Walker Climate & Energy

  • Fast action on climate change

    This is a guest post from Ted Glick, a long-time progressive and climate activist. More information and contact information can be found at tedglick.com Tomorrow, April 20th, I and over 200 other people around the country and from several countries will be fasting. We’ll be doing so to make a statement that it is long […]

    Jon Rynn Climate & Energy