Climate Climate & Energy

That’s It, No More Toothpaste For Us

Growing palm-oil plantations put orangutans in peril Thank your lucky stars you evolved, because it’s not a great time to be an ape. In Indonesia and Malaysia, forests are being converted lickety-split into lucrative palm-oil plantations, and orangutans that leave their rapidly diminishing habitat to sneak in for a palmy snack are often tortured or […]

He’s Having Nun Of It

Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson commits to business as usual It takes a brave man to stare down a pleading nun, but that’s what Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson did yesterday. At a shareholder meeting in Dallas, Sister Pat Daly of New Jersey and others spoke in support of a resolution her order submitted, proposing that Exxon […]

CTLariffic!

Business writer Marc Gunther doesn’t like liquefied coal. Neither does the New York Times editorial board. If we have any musicians in the audience, do me a favor: write a song called "Coal Is the Enemy of the Human Race." I’ll do my best to make it a hit.

Depends on how it’s made

It depends on the fuel used to drive the conversion process -- according to a new study:

In particular, greenhouse gas emission impacts can vary significantly -- from a 3% increase if coal is the process fuel to a 52% reduction if wood chips are used.

These results come from the energy life-cycle wizards of Argonne Lab, who have published a new study, "Life-cycle energy and greenhouse gas emission impacts of different corn ethanol plant types," in the open-access Environmental Research Letters.

Here is a figure showing "well-to-wheels greenhouse gas emission changes by fuel ethanol relative to gasoline":

Revkin puts global warming in AARP Magazine

Andy Revkin has a couple of new pieces on global warming in, of all places, AARP Magazine. Yup, he’s bringing the word to men and women of a certain age. Andy told me he went through several back-and-forths, over the course of many months, and I believe it — AARP’s known for having conservative (in […]

Imagine a politician leveling with citizens about something

This is a great column from a former Winnipeg mayor: "Higher oil prices or carbon tax: Take your pick." Imagine if all politicians were as frank. Why, we might even have the kind of discourse Al Gore mourns losing in The Assault on Reason.

Solar Pope

The name of my new rock band? Nope.

Sun rises in east

I suppose everyone’s heard by now that the U.S. plans to stiff Germany and the UK on climate change at the upcoming G8 summit. German and British leaders will no doubt express grave concern to the media, and then when it becomes obvious the U.S. won’t budge, try to recast their utter ineffectuality as some […]

Pick-me-up books needed

I was at a wedding last week, on the beach. Waves! Friends! Tecates! I was finally starting to unwind.

And then I did something very bad.

I picked up Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

Holy moly.

The press ignores science

The bad news is that we are in quite a pickle.

The good news about the bad news is that the national science academies of the G8 countries, along with those of Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, China, and India, have issued a unanimous and remarkably strong statement (PDF) about our global energy quandary.

The bad news about the good news about the bad news is that the press is almost totally silent about it, at least in English-speaking countries.