Climate Climate & Energy
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Vote early and often
I don’t usually pay much attention to the Weblog Awards, but it has come to my attention that the odious skeptic blog Climate Audit has marshaled its flat earth fanboys to push it in the lead for “best science blog.” That just ain’t right. Unless you want to hear Glenn Beck repeating a new talking […]
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Clinton, Daley to green Sears Tower, other Chicago landmarks
The tallest building in North America is officially going green, along with a few of its Windy City counterparts. At a green building expo in Chicago yesterday, former President Bill Clinton and eterna-Mayor Richard Daley announced a partnership to retrofit landmarks including the Sears Tower and the Merchandise Mart, the nation’s largest commercial center. Using […]
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Misleading Shell Oil ads removed from British media
Shell Oil has removed ads from Britain’s media after the country’s Advertising Standards Authority criticized the company’s claim to consumers that “we use our waste CO2 to grow flowers.” A complaint from activist groups estimated that perhaps 0.325 percent of Shell’s emission of poor, misunderstood CO2 emissions are used to grow flowers.
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Fiji Water announces plan to become carbon negative
A bold new plan to bypass carbon neutrality and become carbon negative has been announced by, of all things, a bottled-water company. Fiji Water has announced specific goals to pursue renewable energy, forest preservation, and water conservation, and will buy carbon offsets to cover 120 percent of its greenhouse-gas emissions. Which is good and all, […]
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Maine rejects coal, embraces wind power
Three cheers for the people of Maine (Mainites? Mainians? Mainists?): The community of Wiscasset rejected a zoning ordinance change that would have allowed a new coal gasification plant, while the state’s Land Use Regulation Commission approved a 57 MW wind farm in Washington County. Give ’em all a lobster!
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How high a price on carbon is needed to make renewables competitive?
I’ve argued before that electricity cost comparisons are, in Walt Patterson’s memorable phrase, "an artifact of prior decisions otherwise concealed" — i.e., based on unstated moral, social, and economic assumptions. Most of those assumptions, for reasons of habit, custom, and occasionally pecuniary interest, are weighted toward the traditional way of doing things: a hub-and-spoke electricity […]
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Politicians here and abroad are refusing to listen to arguments against biofuels
Gristmill reader KO has directed me to George Monbiot's latest article in the Guardian. You folks out there with "biodiesel / no war for oil" stickers are accused of perpetuating a crime against humanity. The article is a (concise and articulate) compilation of my most recent rants against biofuels. Some money quotes:
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Energy demand, greenhouse-gas emissions expected to soar, says report
The International Energy Agency has released its annual World Energy Outlook, and it’s fair to say that the outlook is, um, not good. World energy demand is projected to surge by 55 percent by 2030, with China and India accounting for nearly half of that increase and China overtaking the U.S. as the globe’s primary […]
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Why we’re not conserving like it’s 1980
On Tuesday, the price of oil set yet another all-time nominal high, leaping above $97/barrel. More importantly, it has just about reached its all-time inflation-adjusted high, reached amid the turmoil of the Iran hostage situation way back in 1980, the Associated Press reports: Crude prices are within the range of inflation-adjusted highs set in early […]
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You can’t begin an argument about coal’s future by assuming coal’s future
I swear, I don’t mean to just rant about stupid coal articles every day. But people keep writing stupid coal articles. I’m like Pavlov’s dog at this point — they say stupid things, I bash them. Good boy! The latest is this interview in Wired’s Planet Earth blog with Jeremy Carl, who researches how to […]
