Climate Climate & Energy
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Coal vs. wind showdown in West Virginia today
Back in August, Kate brought you the story of Coal River Mountain, one of the last intact mountains in West Virginia’s Coal River Valley. WV activists want to site a wind farm on the mountain (see Coal River Wind); Massey Energy wants to blow the top off and mine coal out of it. Massey wants […]
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White roofs could help keep climate change at bay
This whole climate-change debacle could be significantly slowed down if the world’s 100 largest cities thing installed white roofs and more-reflective pavement, says a new study to be published in the journal Climatic Change. It may sound like greenwhitewashing, but physicist Hashem Akbari crunches the numbers: By bouncing heat away from the Earth, a 1,000-square-foot […]
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Lovins predicts the coming oil price crash won’t be like the last one
The world can always use another profile of Amory Lovins — here’s one in The Economist. (Check out the nuke boosters in comments — man, those guys are like spurned lovers. Let it go already.) My skepticism about Lovins’ rosy predictions is captured here: Fine, but what about the specific criticism that any coming oil-price […]
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Energy efficiency, part 5: ‘The highest documented rate of return of any federal program’
I was at the U.S. Department of Energy when the Gingrich gang took over and tried to shut down all of DOE’s applied energy research, claiming it was a waste of taxpayer money. I helped organize a major report documenting the large return to the U.S. taxpayers of federal spending on energy efficiency (and other […]
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Arctic shrinks by one Alaska and three Arizonas in August
Another week, another record in Arctic ice-loss announced by the National Snow and Ice Data Center: Following a record rate of ice loss through the month of August, Arctic sea ice extent already stands as the second-lowest on record, further reinforcing conclusions that the Arctic sea ice cover is in a long-term state of decline. […]
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NYT editors confused about Arctic warming
Here’s the absurd headline for the online version of Revkin’s New York Times story about how “a ring of navigable waters has opened all around the fringes of the cap of sea ice drifting on the warming Arctic Ocean”: Arctic Ice Hints at Warming, Specialists Say Hints? How about “shouts from the rafters.” After seeing […]
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In 2008, did temperatures drop as much as they rose over the whole 20th century?
(Part of the How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic guide) Objection: Temperatures plummeted over the last year (2007-2008). If you look at this data from the Met Office Hadley Centre you can clearly see that in one year alone global temperatures dropped .6°C, an amount equal to the entire warming over the 20th […]
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Palin to oversee energy in McCain administration?
OMFG: "Sarah Palin to be energy independence chief in John McCain’s government" I’m not sure how much to credit this — it’s the Brit press, after all, and tied to a single, unnamed "McCain campaign official." But it wouldn’t surprise me. They’ve somehow managed to pitch a woman whose sole claim to expertise on energy […]
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Over Nevadan objections, Yucca Mountain repository inches forward
Nevada’s Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump inched forward Monday as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission agreed to formally review the feds’ license application for the site. It will likely take the NRC four years or so to peruse the Department of Energy’s 8,600-page application and decide whether to give Yucca the go-ahead. Attorneys for the state […]
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Tom Friedman talks up the need for an ‘energy revolution’ on ‘Meet the Press’
New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman was on “Meet the Press” yesterday, discussing the need for an “energy revolution.” The appearance coincided with publication of his new book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution — and How It Can Renew America. Said Friedman, “What we need today is an […]
