Climate Politics
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A flawed strategy: Why environmental groups should not be chasing carbon dollars
It’s easy to understand. We’ve had eight years of across-the-board hostility to sustainability investments by Bush & Co., and before that eight years of promises with no follow-through by the Clinton crowd. Now green groups are dazzled by the prospect of hundreds of billions of new dollars for mass transit, energy efficiency, and other projects, […]
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An apology and an explanation for Friedman
There’s an old saying my granddad was fond of. “Dave,” he’d say, rocking his chair, puffing his pipe, squinting into the distance, “don’t be such an a**hole.” Wise words. On reflection, my post about Tom Friedman’s column ended up unnecessarily heated and confrontational, even insulting. I stand by my take on the column, but Friedman […]
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Fossil Energy Reduction Standard: A better RPS
Photo: WhiteGoldWielder via Flickr Previously, I described difficulties with RPS policy, whereby layers of patches designed to address political problems create a convoluted overall structure that yields lousy policy. Today, I outline a better approach. Policy first First a caveat: Too much of our energy policy is developed based on politics. There is a point […]
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No stinkin’ green jobs or responsible mining debate!
For all of her “drill, baby, drill” cheerleading, at least Governor Sarah Palin is willing to have a discussion about renewable energy sources like wind and geothermal. According to the Coal River Wind Project, the West Virginia House of Delegates Speaker Rick Thompson and a handful of House Rules Committee members have just blocked a […]
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Oh thank goodness, I was terrified
“They need not fear what I would write as a bill, [that I would] say, ‘Let’s write a bill without coal.’ You can’t.” — Nancy Pelosi
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Fellow Washington Post columnist challenges George Will’s climate denial
Another Washington Post staffer has joined the pile-on against columnist George Will’s climate-change denial. Fellow columnist Eugene Robinson lambasted Will on the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC Wednesday night, and also called out the editors who let him get away with it. “What George Will did was cherry-pick a sentence in a report, you know, […]
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Big Ag: give us carbon credit, but don't cap our emissions
As Congress gears up to consider climate legislation, agribusiness is getting sweaty palms -- and for good reason.
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Somebody hide Tom Friedman’s ball
“Where is my ball?” Editor’s note: See David’s follow-up post to this piece. … Tom Friedman has done stellar work on green issues lately. He’s certainly given them a higher profile than any dirty blogger could. So I guess he’s owed some latitude. But his recent column is a disaster: wrong on the merits, politically […]
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RPS, EERS and energy politics
I think this one’s got it! There is a belief that with the Democratic shift in Congress, we finally have the votes to get a national renewable portfolio system (RPS). I don’t buy it. As I pointed out here, a “pure” wind-and-solar-only RPS means a wealth transfer from Eastern to Western U.S., and no political […]
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Expect sparks as the Senate takes up energy legislation
If debate in the Senate last week over some relatively non-controversial energy measures was any indication of things to come, we can expect fireworks over energy policy when legislators return from their two-week April recess. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee took up the first four components of its pending energy package last week, […]
