Climate Climate & Energy

Dingell floats it; Boucher knocks it down

Hmm? What’s all this now? John Dingell is floating the possibility of a carbon tax? From CongressNow (sub. rqd.): Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), who will play a key role in crafting the House version of comprehensive climate change legislation, on Wednesday night downplayed speculation that the House bill could include some form of a tax […]

Even in Canada

So, about a year ago I wrote briefly about Marc Jaccard, a Canadian economist whose book, Sustainable Fossil Fuels, has been exceedingly popular in Canadian policy-making circles. No surprise there -- any book that says we can have our cheesecake and eat it too is going to find a wide audience among politicians averse to making any tough decision, ever.

I was, you could say, less than charitable to Jaccard's ideas. But the latest news from Canada's Conservative do-nothing-about-global-warming government makes me almost feel sorry for him.

What good carbon policy should — but often doesn’t — reward

Too much of the debate on carbon-control policy starts from flawed assumptions. Take those assumptions away, and one quickly realizes that we have a lot of pretty good options.

Let's parse the carbon policy argument, and think for a moment about how to best engender the most economically beneficial carbon reduction policy.

First, let's strike any false assumptions from our logic:

1. Let's not assume that it costs money to reduce carbon emissions until proven otherwise.
2. Let's not presume that any of us know what the answer is.

Take these away, and you can pretty quickly get a good model. Picture, if you will, a 2x2 matrix of all the world's policy options. On one axis we list things that reduce or increase carbon emissions. On the other, we list things that cause GDP to grow or shrink. The middle of the plot (0,0) is the status quo. No change in emissions, no change in the economy.

Clearly, we ought to preferentially deploy resources towards those options that win on both metrics. Equally clearly, we ought not to spend any time on options that lose on both metrics. And once we've picked up all the low-hanging fruit in that win/win box, we can start getting into really hard political debates about whether win/lose beats lose/win.

And yet ... and yet.

Orange You Glad We Didn’t Say Switchgrass?

Fruit may be the latest source for biofuel madness Could your kumquat power your Kia? A team of U.S. scientists has made a low-carbon fuel from fructose, the sugar in many fruits. It could be a better bet than ethanol, with 40 percent more energy, less vulnerability to water, and more stability; since it can […]

Turns out we don’t know how much there is

Yesterday, the National Academy of Sciences released a Congressionally mandated report on coal-related R&D challenges. Coal-state senators Arlen Specter (R-Penn.) and Robert Byrd (D-W.V.) requested a report on possible impediments to future coal production, and areas that need to be researched to keep the coal coming. Given that essentially coal-positive mandate, naturally NAS introduced the […]

An entire nation of sexy beasts

There is a large amount of literature discussing the "Resource Curse" (sometimes called the Oil Curse, but established before that for silver, gold, etc.), in which countries blessed with an abundance of a desirable resource often turn into kleptocracies ruled by thugs.

Oddly, countries like Japan and Taiwan, with few (if any) local resources, often soar because their cultures build in a premium on efficiency ...

It appears that Sweden -- while not as resource poor as many others, but certainly not as resource rich as most other developed nations -- enjoys the same advantage.

As my adviser used to say as we struggled with our designs, "Uh-oh, out of money -- time to think!"

That you won’t hear in the mainstream media

China has officially passed the U.S. as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. This is likely to prompt a lot of misinformation and obfuscation from the usual quarters. So here are some simple truths about China and global warming that everyone should remember as the debate proceeds. 1. The U.S. still vastly outpaces China […]

Quench Warners

Desalination won’t solve world’s water woes, report says Another high-tech environmental solution may be going out the window: a new report from the World Wildlife Fund says desalinating water could hurt more than it helps. Estimating that there are more than 10,000 desalination plants around the world, WWF says the energy-intensive practice of filtering salt […]

And They’re Off

China overtakes United States as world’s biggest polluter, agency says The United States is no longer the world’s biggest polluter. That honor goes to China, which emitted some 8 percent more carbon dioxide in 2006 than Bushland, according to the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. But on a per-person basis, Americans pollute roughly four to five […]

Is anyone listening?

James Hansen has a new paper out, co-authored with six other scientists: "Climate Change and trace gases." It appears in the current issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, and Hansen says: "In my opinion, among our papers this one probably does the best job of making clear that the Earth is getting […]