Climate Climate & Energy

Ts. Munkhbayar fights destructive mining in Mongolia

Ts. Munkhbayar. Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize. Born into a family of Mongolian herders, Ts. Munkhbayar remembers when the livestock was healthy, the water was clean, and kids went ice skating on the nearby river. “I had a very happy childhood,” he says. In the early 1990s, a gold-mining boom overshadowed all that; because of widespread […]

But By All Means, Keep Filling Your Tank

Gunmen attack Ethiopian oil field run by Chinese company A story unfolding at press time gives a taste of that global energy-security issue everyone’s worried about: according to news reports, gunmen attacked an oil field in eastern Ethiopia run by a Chinese company, killing 65 local workers and nine Chinese workers, and taking seven Chinese […]

I guess engineers don’t like land-based turbines anymore

Recently, I posted about a Canadian group that created a helium-filled floating wind turbine. On the opposite side of sea level, a Virgina-based team has installed several underwater turbines in New York's East River. Posted today on MIT's Technology Review (a good technology publication btw).

Oh, China, China, China

First, I see this: China warned on global warming effects And then this: China detains environmental activist Guess he shouldn’t have warned them!

Environmentalists need to fundamentally change their climate change strategy

Pro-fossil fuel forces are pursuing an effective strategy that engages the attention of climate action advocates and obscures the vigorous expansion of fossil fuel supply now underway.

Vote Surly, Vote Often

Aluminum smelting defining Iceland elections You no doubt know that Iceland’s elections are coming up on May 12. But here’s something you may not know: the country’s aluminum-smelting boom has become a key issue in the race. With three smelters up and running and three more planned, fans and foes alike are fired up. A […]

Is climate change the most important global problem?

Is climate change the most important global problem we face?

This seems on its face a good question. Economists like Bjorn Lomborg take this reductionist recipe, spice it with an unshakable confidence in future growth, and conclude that climate should be low on our list of priorities.

Lomborg's arguments follow from his assumptions. If his conclusions are wrong as they appear, perhaps the logic is wrong, or the data, or the underlying premises. All of these are good places for skeptical inquiry, and may be fruitful, but there is yet another place to look. I suggest that Lomborg asks the wrong question.

Here’s what we have to accomplish

((brightlines_include))

The supply-side solution developed in the Bright Lines exercise, drawing on Bill Hare's Greenpeace International paper "Climate Protection: The Carbon Logic" (PDF), won little support from first readers. It is included in this proposal as a concept to be explored because no other solution could be determined to meet the dictates of the climate timeframe -- and the strong responses it provokes are evidence of its strong narrative value.

A supply-side response -- imposing a cap on extractions in 2015 with 10 percent reductions at 5 year intervals until emissions are stabilized at pre-industrial levels, as shown in the accompanying chart, for example -- is the ideal climate policy. A cap and phase-down would set clear market parameters for fossil fuels phase-out and establish future economies of scale for renewables and efficiencies, encouraging early investment and driving innovation. Capping extractions would, in effect, move forward the global response to exhaustion of oil and gas reserves, a great challenge even if climate change were not a problem.

Megadroughts projected for southwest: bears

To be "environmental," in simplest terms, is to be aware of the existence of "our fellow mortals," as John Muir liked to put it. In the Southwest, where a new study for Science -- based on the results of nineteen climate model runs -- projects "megadroughts" that will be at least as devastating as the Dust Bowl, some of these mortals, such as black bears and oak trees, have already noticed changes in the climate and begun to change their behavior.

A bullet train, that is

According to this article, Brazil's transport ministry is considering whether to tender bids for a high-speed train linking São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Once (OK, if) the bullet train goes into operation, travel time would be just under an hour and a half, compared with the five hours it currently takes to drive between the two cities.