Climate Climate & Energy

Some Arab countries have passed the U.S. in per capita oil consumption

A fascinating and important article was the lead story in Sunday's New York Times:

The economies of many big oil-exporting countries are growing so fast ... several of the world's most important suppliers may need to start importing oil within a decade to power all the new cars, houses and businesses they are buying and creating with their oil wealth.

Judge tosses out Big Auto’s suit against California

Automakers must have been bad this year, because Santa has given them a big holiday disappointment. And by Santa we mean U.S. District Judge Anthony Ishii, who today declared that California has the authority to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from vehicles, and tossed out automakers’ lawsuit against the state. Automakers had sued in 2004 when California […]

Notable quotable

“Within the last few months, most of the planned coal plants in the United States have been cancelled, denied permits, or been involved in protracted litigation. Accordingly, the company submits that IPP 3, Bridger 5, and the IGCC option at Jim Bridger, are no longer viable options for the 2012 and 2014 time frame, respectively.” […]

How does Jane Fonda keep defeating the U.S.?

Full disclosure: I was born in 1981, and as far as I can recall I never masturbated to a picture of Jane Fonda.

Too much information, I know. But what else can I do? An eternity ago (September) the guys who brought you Freakonomics brought you this little gem, blaming Jane Fonda for America's CO2 emissions. Seriously:

U.S. blocking agreement on emissions goal at Bali conference

Defying all predictions, the United States delegation at the United Nations climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, appears to have successfully blocked agreement on specific emissions-reduction targets so far. Europe and many developing nations have called for cuts of 25 percent to 40 percent by 2020 to avoid the effects of catastrophic warming, but in the […]

Offshore wind

This exciting story about offshore wind in Britain reminds me that I meant to link a while back to a fascinating post on offshore wind by Jerome Giullet, who works in the industry. At the bottom are links to a bunch of other posts he’s done on wind. As he says, "Wind is free, clean, […]

Michael Gelobter argues that the hair-shirtists need to give it a rest

Ask "how can we break our addiction to fossil fuels and stop global warming?" and climate, renewable energy, and peak oil advocates reply in unison: it's going to be hard.

They do couch their warnings in beautifully written and, for the most part, evocative essays on the difficulty and loss involved in weaning ourselves from dinosaur fuel. They express significant melancholy for the (wayward?) ways of wanton energy use and thoughtless environmental destruction we leave behind. But underneath it is always the the hair-shirt: in the creed of those not motivated by greed (lefties), nothing worthwhile could ever be easy.

There are two problems with the "anti-easy" argument:

1. It's wrong, and
2. it's bad political strategy.

The backlash against coal has not made it to the halls of power in WV

There are some heartening recent stories from the land of Coal Backlash. Portland-based PacifiCorp is giving up on new coal plants entirely — not for environmental reasons but for economic ones. (Lesson: coal isn’t cheap.) Missouri is probably the most hostile state for climate activists. It ranks among the top five states for emitting CO2, […]

Greenland ice sheet is meeeelllting, it’s meeelllting!

The Greenland ice sheet is melting at an alarming rate! As in, faster than it has since satellite measurements began in 1979, and with 10 percent more melting in 2007 than in the previous record year of 2005. Allow researcher Konrad Steffen to put it into perspective for you: “The amount of ice lost by […]

What happens to a woman without a country?

By Amanda McKenzie, national coordinator of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition.

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Along with 10 other young Australians, I traveled to Bali to bring the voice of Australia's youth to the U.N. Climate Change Conference. We have been reminding world leaders that our future is threatened. However, my personal concerns about my future were eclipsed when a young woman named Claire from the small island nation of Kiribati stood up in front of 200 international youth and told her story. For Claire, climate change is more than a future concern. It is right here, right now.

Youth from all over the world, including Australia, had come together to share their stories and successes in raising awareness and taking action on climate change in their home countries. Every participant was humbled by Claire, who offered her heartfelt thanks to all of us for our efforts. Her home, only two meters above sea level, is rapidly being inundated by the rising ocean. Two islands that make up Kiribati have already been submerged. Claire's island, home, culture, and future are all under imminent threat from climate change. It is likely that her entire nation will have to be evacuated in the near future. Where do you go when your country simply vanishes?

Claire's voice, and the voices of the Pacific, are largely absent from the U.N. Climate Change Conference. These nations are small in terms of their size, population, wealth, and greenhouse-gas emissions. That's the irony: those who have contributed the least -- and benefited the least from the extraction and burning of fossil fuels -- will suffer first. Kiribati will be underwater before the bulk of the Australian population realizes that climate change is the most serious issue on the planet.