Climate Politics
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Climate policy for conservatives
Ideally, both sides will agree that this is a bad situation.Suppose you believe, as I do, in basic conservative principles (free enterprise and a market economy, limited government, and minimal change in established institutions that work well), but also acknowledge that anthropogenic climate change presents a sufficient danger that something needs to be done about […]
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Why the environmental justice lawsuit against California’s climate law is misguided
Environmental justice is a noble cause, but the lawsuit against AB 32 is misguided.On May 20, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ernest Goldsmith ruled that the California Air Resources Board had not adequately explained its choice of a market-based mechanism — a cap-and-trade system — to achieve approximately 20 percent of targeted emissions reductions by […]
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New, ‘hidden’ source of renewable energy fights for tax breaks
Waste heat: It's everywhere, and we're wasting it. (Hence the name.) Giant industrial processes throw off enormous amounts of the stuff, all of it not quite hot enough to be usable in conventional power generation. That's where the waste heat industry comes in. Using liquids that boil at temperatures significantly lower than water, they've created […]
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Denmark’s government throws down the gauntlet: 100 percent renewables by 2050
Lots of people talk about the possibility of getting to 100 percent renewables by such and such a date — if every one of these reports came true, we'd be exporting surplus wind power to the asteroid belt by now. But few countries are actually doing it. Denmark is one. And Denmark would like you […]
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Jon Stewart caused global warming
The Daily Show – Lisa P. Jackson Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook EPA administrator Lisa P. Jackson was on the Daily Show last night, where she promised she would not regulate Jon Stewart's breathing, even though he admitted that he emits carbon dioxide. UPDATE: EVIDENTLY I […]
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Dem Disease claims another victim
Beware Dem Disease.Joseph Aldy worked for a while as a top energy aide in Obama’s White House. Apparently, while he was there he caught Dem Disease. Dem Disease is an affliction that causes sufferers to prioritize being viewed as reasonable over securing reasonable policy. The primary symptom is a Tourette’s-like inability to keep from revealing […]
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Cash incentives for renewables are twice as effective as tax credits
This post originally appeared on Energy Self-Reliant States, a resource of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s New Rules Project. Using the tax code rather than cash incentives to support wind and solar power costs ratepayers significantly more. I wrote about this problem last year because project developers were selling their federal tax credits to third […]
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McCaskill defends vote to hurt sick kids by saying the League of Women Voters are ‘bad guys’
Cross-posted from the Wonk Room. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), after a recent vote to protect coal polluters at the expense of children’s health, is now attacking the League of Women Voters. The 91-year-old good-government organization is running television spots that hold McCaskill and Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) accountable for voting to block enforcement of Clean […]
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Socolow reaffirms 2004 ‘wedges’ paper, urges aggressive low-carbon deployment ASAP
This is a wedge issue.In 2004, Princeton professors Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala published a paper in Science, “Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies” [PDF]. The abstract read: Humanity already possesses the fundamental scientific, technical, and industrial know-how to solve the carbon and climate problem for the […]
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The U.K.’s emissions targets are awesome
Oh, United Kingdom! Whatever else can be said about your bad food and stupid weddings, this much is clear: You are world leaders in funny sci-fi, classic sketch comedy, thwarted imperialism, and now emissions reduction targets. The U.K. has committed to cutting emissions to 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2025, a target that's well […]
