Climate Climate & Energy

Race to make the Earth look like the Moon

What with drought threatening large sections of the American West and South, perhaps it should not be surprising to see this article from the Chicago Tribune, "Great Lakes key front in water wars; Western, Southern states covet Midwest resource," in which the reporter warns:

With fresh water supplies dwindling in the West and South, the Great Lakes are the natural-resource equivalent of the fat pension fund, and some politicians are eager to raid it. The lakes contain nearly 20 percent of the world's surface fresh water ... Water levels of the Great Lakes are down substantially, and while that may be part of the historic cycle of ups and downs, water managers argue the region must jealously guard what is here

Even New Mexico Governor and Presidential candidate Bill Richardson couldn't resist the temptation to speculate on using the lakes. Fortunately, there is a concerted attempt to protect them:

Eight Great Lakes-area states, from Minnesota to New York, and two Canadian provinces have proposed a regional water compact that would, among other things, strengthen an existing ban on major water diversions outside the Great Lakes Basin, home to 40 million Americans and Canadians

The many ways big money seeks to avoid reducing fossil fuel use

The following is a guest essay from Peter Montague, executive director of the Environmental Research Foundation. —– It now seems clear that the coal and oil industries are not going to allow the United States to curb global warming by making major investments in renewable sources of energy. These fossil fuel corporations simply have too […]

What if there were more Berkeleys?

Imagine if more cities started doing this — neutralizing the upfront costs of solar. It would stimulate competition and innovation in the solar industry (more than there already are). Pretty soon there would be large economies of scale for solar power and the price would drop (faster than it already is). More cities would be […]

In the end …

… it will be transparency — political and financial — that kills the coal industry.

Why I don’t agree with James Kunstler about peak oil and the ‘end of suburbia’

The remarkably low fueling cost of the best current hybrids (like the Toyota Prius) and future plug-in hybrids are major reasons I don't worry as much about peak oil as some do.

James Kunstler, for instance, argues in his 2005 book The Long Emergency (see Rolling Stone excerpt here) that after oil production peaks, suburbia "will become untenable" and "we will have to say farewell to easy motoring." In Rolling Stone, Kunstler writes, "Suburbia will come to be regarded as the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world." (No -- that distinction probably belongs to China's torrid love-affair with coal power.)

But suppose Kunstler is right about peak oil. Suppose oil hits $160 a barrel and gasoline goes to $5 dollars a gallon in, say, 2015. That price would still be lower than many Europeans pay today. You could just go out and buy the best hybrid and cut your fuel bill in half, back to current levels. Hardly the end of suburbia.

Umbra on solar holiday lights

Dear Umbra, As the holiday season approaches, I’m trying to figure out how to spread good cheer in home decorations while being sensitive to the environment. Years ago, my husband and I purchased strings of lights that we wrapped around the trunks of palm trees in our front yard. Now the wiser, I’d like to […]

We need a grid as smart as our bombs

So much talk about new energy supplies ignores the wisdom we supposedly learned in the '70s about "negawatts" being the most efficient, effective, and environmentally friendly source of power around.

It's good to see that we might finally make some progress in this direction, learning to shave demand peaks and save a bundle (and open the way for integrating more renewables into the grid):

It’s not whether we’re responsible, but whether we’re prepared that counts

I’ve been meaning to write something about the questions prompted by the California wildfires. The Mustache helped me this weekend by picking out what is, in my view, exactly the wrong question: "Did we do that?" Most news stories and blog posts that tried to connect the wildfires with climate change were constructed around that […]

Nobody fights for change unless they see there’s a problem

Ugh. So my local paper decided to print its own local blend of Nordhaus-Shellenberger drivel. Did you know that "it's time to stop blaring dire warnings about the perils of climate change and, instead, start enthusiastically proclaiming solutions"? I sure didn't. It's not as if people like Amory Lovins, Paul Hawken, Bill McKibben, or I dunno, Gar Lipow have spent years talking about exactly that. It's not like the central message adopted by successful climate change activists for the last decade has been "hey, this will be easy and make you money!"

See, I thought I'd read Lovins' Natural Capitalism, all about solutions, when the paperback was put out in 2000. But apparently not!

Boy, if it weren't for the timely warnings of Nordhaus or Shellenberger, the environmental movement might not have embraced their positive brand of technological fixes and business-friendly activism ... ten years ago.

European Parliament votes to require car ads include warnings on CO2 emissions

The European Parliament recently voted that car ads must include warnings on vehicle CO2 emissions. If the rule successfully negotiates the rest of the European Union legislative process, 20 percent of a car ad would have to warn or educate consumers about the CO2 emitted from the vehicles advertised, as well as their fuel consumption. […]