Climate Politics

Baltimore baker takes on great quacking menace

Last week, The New York Times' David Streitfeld told the story of one J.R. Paterakis, a Baltimore "baker" who opposes the Conservation Reserve Program, which provides incentives to farmers to set aside their land for wildlife, clean water, and (incidentally) massive carbon sequestration. Seemed like an opportunity to deploy my rye wit.

The program has been a huge success -- protecting 35 million acres of land and partially restoring the "duck factory" of the upper Midwest that fills the skies of North America with quacks and hunting opportunities -- so why has Mr. Paterakis put this great environmental success story in his sights?

McCain adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin opens up on climate and energy

Douglas Holtz-Eakin. Opinions differ on the quality of John McCain‘s domestic policy agenda, but you’d have trouble finding anyone in Washington who would disparage the man he’s chosen as one of his top advisers. Douglas Holtz-Eakin has a dauntingly long resume and a reputation among policy wonks on both sides of the aisle for fair-minded […]

Enough with the internecine warfare over Lieberman-Warner

A lot of green folks of my acquaintance seem to have two and only two things to say about the Lieberman-Warner climate bill: It won’t achieve what science demands. Those who support it, even with qualifiers, even while pushing for improvements, are earth f*cking, corporate bootlicking sellouts. Maybe I’m just feeling kumbaya because it’s 4/20 […]

RFK Jr. advocates for cap-and-trade, renewables, smart grids

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s got a three-point plan for the next president. I think it would work.

New analysis explores whether Congress can do a better job with CCS than Bush administration

One of biggest debates about climate solutions is whether coal generation with carbon capture and storage (CCS) is going to be practical and affordable on the timescale needed to avoid catastrophic outcomes. And, of course, there are many who don't think coal should be saved at all.

I am not in the second camp, but I doubt coal with CCS is likely to exceed one wedge (I'll discuss this more next week). And we probably need 14 wedges to stay below 450 ppm. I have no doubt concentrated solar will delivery far more power than coal with CCS -- two or three wedges are possible.

The coal industry has long been in denial about the reality of human-caused global warming, so they are woefully unprepared for what is to come. And the administration has botched FutureGen, the centerpiece of its CCS effort.

Can Congress do a better job? The answer can be found in a new analysis by Bob Sussman and Ken Berlin for the Center for American Progress, "Maximizing Carbon Capture and Storage Under the Lieberman Warner Global Warming Bill." Here is a summary:

NYT columnist gives president too much credit on climate, which ain’t hard

New York Times columnist Gail Collins begins today’s piece with a glaring error. She says: Didn’t know we had any goals for curbing global warming? Where were you in 2002 when the president put us on the road toward reducing the growth of greenhouse gas emissions by 18 percent by 2012? Now, Collins spends the […]

Cap-and-dividend: YEAH!

I think "cap-and-dividend" is a clever climate policy, if unlikely to win the day in Congress. But I have trouble imagining how any climate policy could get me as excited as these people.

Notable quotable

“I think some people have overlooked the major news that the President made yesterday, which was committing a national economy-wide goal to halt carbon emissions.” — White House spokesflack Tony Fratto, confusing a policy that would allow unrestrained growth of carbon emissions for the next 17 years for one that would “halt” carbon emissions

A biologist explains what security experts can learn from nature

Raphael Sagarin. Marine biologist Raphael Sagarin has eclectic interests. During the course of his career, he’s scoured an Alaskan gambling record for clues to climate change, retraced John Steinbeck’s and Ed Ricketts’ survey of the Sea of Cortez, and even studied how Easy Cheese escaped early chlorofluorocarbon regulations. In 2002, as a science fellow on […]

A bright trend for dark times: kitchen gardening

Last week, we ran a guest post about a topic dear to my heart: serious home vegetable gardening. In that piece, Bill Duesing argued that the USDA should take home food production seriously, by providing research and extension services to gardeners. Now Anne Raver, the veteran New York Times garden writer, has come out with […]