Climate Climate & Energy
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Canadian oil sands will pollute the Great Lakes
Speaking of studies on oil sands, there’s another one out of the University of Toronto showing that oil sands will pollute the Great Lakes, reversing decades of cleanup efforts in the region. "This expansion promises to bring with it an exponential increase in pollution, discharges into waterways including the Great Lakes, destruction of wetlands, toxic […]
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Why current cap-and-trade proposals are more tax than trade
A great frustration for those who (a) really care about reducing CO2, and (b) believe in the power of well-structured market mechanisms is that the current discussion around carbon policy has bastardized the language of environmental economics. There are tremendous economic and environmental benefits to be gained by a true cap-and-trade CO2 system. Unfortunately, all […]
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Nuclear proponents are, like, totally John Galt
A few days ago, NYT’s John Tierney wrote a column making what is by now a tediously familiar argument: fears about nuclear are overblown, public sentiment is shifting, and we should build a bunch of nuclear plants. There’s some absurdly tendentious material about California’s electricity situation, but in effect the entire argument hinges on a […]
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Municipal property assessment financing for solar and energy efficiency
The implosion of credit markets could mean severe problems for people looking to finance an investment in energy efficiency or solar. Frankly, financial innovation is as important as technological innovation when it comes to bringing solar into the mainstream. But now you don’t have to take some guy on a blog’s word for it — […]
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Inhofe digs deeper
“I think I was right on that … It’s not whether or not we’re going into a global warming period. We were. We’re not now. You know, God’s still up there. We’re now going through a cooling spell.” — Sen. James Inhofe, in an Oct. 7 debate with Democratic challenger Andrew Rice, defending his notorious […]
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A price on carbon will not tackle transportation pollution
A new study [PDF, via WSJ] from the Congressional Budget Office “discovers” something I guess I kind of thought was common knowledge: realistically, no price on carbon will ever be high enough to substantially curtail driving in the U.S. Even $200/ton carbon — wildly outside the range of anything Americans will accept — would only […]
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New report finds unconventional liquid fuels will boost CO2
The interwebs are abuzz over a new study from RAND Corp., which finds that unconventional liquid fuels like oils sands and liquid coal would dramatically increase greenhouse gas emissions relative to regular oil. In other news, the earth is round. It also found that Canadian tar sands are economically competitive given current (and expected) prices […]
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No cash yet offered to save Ecuador rainforest as deadline looms
In June 2007, Ecuador offered to avoid oil development in a tract of biodiverse rainforest if other nations and green groups were able to pony up $350 million a year for a decade. Reaction to the pay-to-protect idea was positive, but a twice-bumped-back deadline is coming up in Dec. 2008, and still no funding is […]
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Pay-to-protect plan for Ecuadorian rainforest on the brink
This Guardian story was written by reporter Haroon Siddique. Grist is a member of the Guardian’s Environment Network. —– A unique proposal to protect one of the world’s most biodiverse places from oil drilling is facing a looming deadline without any funding in place. The Ecuadorian government has said it is prepared to keep hundreds […]
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Verdant Power shows it’s got the RITE stuff
This is a guest post by my travel partner, Todd Dwyer, head blogger for Dell’s ReGeneration.org. —– Four times a day, without fail, New York City’s East River will change directions. It’s been doing that for ages and will continue to do so long after we are gone. The tides are a constant, […]
