Climate Climate & Energy

Let It BP

BP making big boost to clean-energy spending Oil giant BP plans to invest up to $8 billion of its oil-and-gas profits into clean energy technologies and greenhouse-gas abatement projects over the next 10 years. An $8 billion investment would represent an eightfold increase over the company’s clean-energy outlay in the past decade, says CEO John […]

Leggo My Negotiation

U.S. gums up works at Montreal climate talks Representatives of the world’s governments are currently gathered in Montreal for a historic summit on the most pressing problem facing civilization: global warming. And the U.S.? “The United States is opposed to any such discussions,” says Harlan Watson, who bears the somewhat misleading title of “chief U.S. […]

Carbon Choppy

Northeast greenhouse-gas pact delayed The long-negotiated and much-anticipated — by us climate geeks anyway — cap-and-trade climate pact among nine Northeast states, originally set to be announced this week, has been delayed. Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) has extended negotiations, saying that with recent spikes in energy prices, the plan would raise the cost of […]

See the Forest for the Fees

Tropical nations want payment for protecting carbon-sinking rainforests “Cough up the dough, Mr. West, or the forest gets it!” OK, we’re being a little dramatic. But a group of 10 developing nations has made it clear this week at the U.N. climate summit in Montreal that it wants a little … inducement … to preserve […]

At Least He Can Pronounce “Nuclear”

Blair softens on mandatory emissions targets and warms to nuclear power British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s shifting approach to climate change has environmentalists in a stormy mood. Earlier this fall, he hinted publicly that he was cooling his support for extending the Kyoto Protocol’s mandatory greenhouse-gas reduction targets beyond the treaty’s conclusion in 2012. Now […]

Are gas prices and gas consumption connected?

It may come as a bit of a surprise: Despite rising gas prices over the past few years, total consumption of highway fuels in the U.S. has actually increased rather than fallen. Some have seized on this phenomenon -- prices and consumption rising in tandem -- to suggest that changes in gas prices have no discernible effect on how much gas we actually use.

The idea that gas prices have no effect on consumption doesn't square with economic theory, to put it mildly. And this Excel spreadsheet (courtesy of Charles Komanoff and the ever-informative Todd Litman) sheds some light on what's really going on. Apparently, even as U.S. gas prices have risen, so have population and GDP. And GDP growth tends to push consumption levels up -- in fact, over the short term, gas consumption seems to be far more responsive to changes in GDP than to changes in prices.

See You in the Handbasket

Climate-change studies project fun future of droughts, floods, illness The latest issue of the journal Nature has three new studies on the likely impacts of climate disruption. Turns out it’s gonna be a cakewalk! Ah, sadly, we kid. Millions who depend on mountain snow and glaciers for their water supplies — especially in Asia and […]

Syriana

Damn, this looks like a good movie. From IMDB:

From writer/director Stephen Gaghan, winner of the Best Screenplay Academy Award for Traffic, comes Syriana, a political thriller that unfolds against the intrigue of the global oil industry. From the players brokering back-room deals in Washington to the men toiling in the oil fields of the Persian Gulf, the film's multiple storylines weave together to illuminate the human consequences of the fierce pursuit of wealth and power. As a career CIA operative (George Clooney) begins to uncover the disturbing truth about the work he has devoted his life to, an up-and-coming oil broker (Matt Damon) faces an unimaginable family tragedy and finds redemption in his partnership with an idealistic Gulf prince (Alexander Siddig). A corporate lawyer (Jeffrey Wright) faces a moral dilemma as he finesses the questionable merger of two powerful U.S. oil companies, while across the globe, a disenfranchised Pakistani teenager (Mazhar Munir) falls prey to the recruiting efforts of a charismatic cleric. Each plays their small part in the vast and complex system that powers the industry, unaware of the explosive impact their lives will have upon the world.

Get the official synopsis here.

Visitors to the official movie site are also encouraged to participate in "Oil Change," a campaign to reduce our dependence on oil.

And as TH reported this summer, Syriana, which opens nationwide on December 9th, may also help promote TerraPass.

What to expect from the U.N. climate-change negotiations in Montreal

“Conference of Parties” sounds like a contradiction in terms: conferences are dull talkfests punctuated by free booze, and parties are free boozefests punctuated by dull moments of trying to talk over loud music. More of the former than the latter is likely to go on later this month in Montreal, during the Conference of Parties […]

A refresher on the basics of climate conferences and Kyoto

Later this month, a mess of world leaders will be gathering in Montreal to discuss climate change. The conference is a rendezvous — we must use French words when speaking of Quebec — of COP 11 and MOP 1. And it has to do with the Kyoto Protocol! Isn’t that mysterious and intriguing? One of […]