Climate Climate & Energy

Addicted to Oil, with Tom Friedman

I poke fun at Thomas Friedman on occasion. His platitudinous, gee-whiz, American-tourist prose, presented with a heaping helping of deep-think pretension, is a target-rich environment. But that gee-whiz persona serves him well when he’s right, and he’s right about energy. His Discovery Channel program Addicted to Oil, which aired Sat. night, is absolutely stellar. Catch […]

Au revoir, Greenland

Meanwhile, over at the L.A. Times, we find that the Greenland ice sheet is melting faster than climate models predicted.

Hey, I figure, more freshwater for us! Our grandkids? Eff them.

Fuel tax magic, part one

The following is part one of a guest essay from Charles Komanoff, an economist and environmental activist in New York City. For more on taxing carbon fuels, go to http://www.komanoff.net/fossil/.

For part two of this essay, go here.

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"Pam and Matt Keith spent Memorial Day weekend on a houseboat on Lake Oroville in Northern California. But because of high gasoline prices, the Keiths never even untied the boat from its mooring slightly offshore. When they ventured away from the shore, they supplied their own power -- in kayaks."

So began The New York Times take on the start of the summer driving season in an age of $3 gas: "Holiday Travelers Hit the Road, but Scrimped a Bit."

The Times' page-one piece was guaranteed to bring smiles to both economists and despisers of motorized recreation. As a member of both camps, I ate it up. I loved that the Keiths were kayaking instead of houseboating around the lake, and that another California couple, Celia and Michael Shane, had shelved their annual jet-skiing trip in Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada. "To save the $70 per tank it now costs to fill up their minivan," the Times reported, "the Shanes were barbecuing instead." For guys like me who can let a single roaring jet ski ruin an entire beach day, fewer decibels mean more happiness. And after a year's drumbeat of articles insisting that higher gas prices hadn't dented Americans' "love affair with their cars," it was heartening to see the paper of record start acknowledging the No. 1 tenet of economics -- higher prices mean lower demand.

The world's thirst for petroleum breeds war, props up dictators, and imperils the climate. Known oil deposits are shrinking by the day. So no question in economics is more pressing than whether, and by how much, changes in the price of gas reduce the demand for it. I've been examining this question since May 2004, when the price first edged past two bucks. Every month I faithfully enter the latest price and consumption data into a spreadsheet. This has to be done just right. For one thing, because gas use follows seasonal patterns, monthly data must be compared over intervals of 12 months (or 24, etc.). For another, changes in price must be adjusted for general inflation. Most important is netting out the upswing in gasoline use that ordinarily accompanies expanding economic activity when the price of gas is stable. Only after taking these steps can one isolate the effect of higher pump prices on gasoline demand.

Goodell on coal gasification

My officemates are furiously packing, washing, dusting, and hauling in preparation for the Big Grist Move (you could help out by sending a few dollars our way!). I fled the scene to come home, using the excuse that somebody has to keep the blog going. So I guess I better blog about something ...

On Wednesday, I had a long, fascinating conversation with Jeff Goodell, author of Big Coal. I hope we can get it up in a week or so. In the meantime, check out the great op-ed Goodell just wrote for the NYT, which echoes many of the things we discussed. It's mainly about the big push behind coal-to-liquid plants.

About sequestration:

It’s Wicked, Wicked Real

Two new high-profile studies reaffirm global-warming science Last year, the National Academy of Sciences was commissioned by Congress to rigorously assess a notorious climate study that has become a flash point in the debate between global-warming denialists and the other 98 percent of us. The study contained a graph that’s come to be known as […]

Sear in the Headlights

Summer in Western U.S. is off to a hot, dry, fiery start In Western states, wildfires and heat waves are getting an early start this year — a pattern unsurprising to climate scientists, and likely to get worse. Wildfires have already burned more than 3 million acres, more than triple the average for this time […]

An Irritating Truth

EIA predicts world will continue to guzzle energy According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, growing public consciousness of the impending worldwide energy crisis is going to … well, have basically no effect at all. World energy demand will surge 71 percent between 2003 to 2030, predicted the EIA yesterday, and energy-related carbon dioxide emissions […]

Interview with Jeff Goodell, author of Big Coal

I'm not sure what I expected when I picked up Jeff Goodell's Big Coal, but I was pleasantly surprised. It is neither a number-and-graph-filled wonkfest nor a provincial, narrow examination of a particular set of companies. Instead, it's an engagingly written narrative that travels through every stage of coal -- from extraction through travel through burning -- and ends with a broad examination of the consequences for the climate. I really can't recommend it highly enough. It's a book even your grandma could enjoy. I hope to post some more on it soon.

But for now: I'm meeting with Goodell on Wednesday for a nice long chat. What should I ask him?

And Things Were Going So Well …

Struggling Iraqi refineries dump oil byproduct near Tigris River The government of Iraq has been disposing of millions of barrels of oil refinery byproduct by pumping it into mountain valleys in the north of the country and setting it on fire. The result: huge black bogs and thick smoke carried as far as 40 miles […]

Guess It’s Not So Perma After All

Melting Siberian permafrost could release billions of tons of CO2 As it melts, Siberian permafrost could release up to 500 billion tons of carbon dioxide from ancient plant roots and animal bones into the atmosphere — twice what scientists had previously expected, says a new study in Science. It’s a (woolly) mammoth amount: at present, […]