Climate Politics

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  • Policy fixes to unleash clean energy, part 7

    Having noted in part 2 that all barriers to clean energy deployment can be lumped into utility policy, environmental policy, and out-of-date policy — and having outlined the necessary fixes for the first two in parts 5 and 6 — we now address out-of-date policies. This is perhaps the hardest to address, because it is […]

    Sean Casten Politics

  • Obama’s Partnership for Sustainable Communities will put the feds’ weight behind smart growth

    The word “silos” is most often used to talk about grain or coal, not the federal government. But in the case of transportation and housing — two sectors that accounted for more than 43 percent of the nation’s carbon emissions in 2008 — Washington’s siloed approach of divided, blindered policymaking could put wheat farmers to […]

    Elana Schor Politics

  • Van Jones is back

    Van Jones.Center for American ProgressVan Jones, who resigned from the White House Council on Environmental Quality last fall in the face of a coordinated smear campaign by conservative activists, has emerged from his self-imposed semi-exile with a bang. He’ll be teaching a policy seminar at Princeton next year. He’s accepted a senior fellowship at the […]

    David Roberts Politics

  • Is there too much ‘Let’s Hope’ in the ‘Let’s Move’ anti-obesity campaign?

    The industry talks a good game, but keeps churning out the same old junk. It’s no mystery that Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move anti-obesity campaign is built on industry cooperation. It’s also true that many experts are skeptical of the wisdom behind it; nutritionist Marion Nestle has been particularly critical both of the government’s food industry […]

    Tom Laskawy Politics

  • EPA’s Jackson establishes deliberative path to control global warming pollution

    Big oil, the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), and senators including Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) are whipping up hysterical fears that the Environmental Protection Agency will use its existing authority under the Clean Air Act to immediately restrict global warming pollution for even the smallest of emitters. For instance, NAM President John […]

    Daniel J. Weiss Politics

  • Obama’s ‘director of game changers’ talks energy breakthroughs

    Arun Majumdar, director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, spoke at the University of Washington last Friday on the need to fund ambitious energy research.Grist photo/Jonathan Hiskes When the Soviet Sputnik beat American satellites into space in 1957, the U.S. tried to reclaim its technological edge by creating the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which […]

    Jonathan Hiskes Politics

  • Seattle to go carbon neutral?

    Over at top-notch young Seattle news site Publicola, Erica Barnett brings news of what could be a momentous decision by the Seattle City Council: to set about making Seattle a carbon-neutral city. From the Council’s 2010 Priorities: CARBON NEUTRALITY Adopt a carbon neutral goal for Seattle with specific milestones and implementation steps, along with a […]

    David Roberts Politics

  • Sen. Mark Udall: “I think it’s crucial to price carbon”

    Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.)Mark Udall — son of legendary enviro-friendly Arizona Rep. Morris “Mo” Udall — had been a member of Colorado’s House delegation for 10 years when he won the race to replace retiring senator Wayne Allard. Just 17 days into his first term, Colorado’s other senator, Ken Salazar, left to head up Obama’s […]

    David Roberts Politics

  • Energy Secretary Steven Chu posts his nuclear rationale on Facebook

    Originally posted at Inventing Green. Following the Department of Energy’s announcement of a loan guarantee for a new nuclear plant, the Nobel Prize-winning head of the agency, Steven Chu, laid out his rationale for nuclear in clear and plain language. It’s a pretty conventional argument: 1) “no single technology will provide all of the answers,” […]

    Alexis Madrigal Politics

  • Getting China wrong

    It’s been a long time since Copenhagen. A few weeks after it ended, chatting to a friend about some stupid comments I’d overhead during that long last night, he said that “everyone gets a pass for anything they said during the first week.”  The first week after Copenhagen is what he meant — a time […]

    Tom Athanasiou Politics