Climate Politics

That’s what his support for CTL shows

The LA Times has a long story about the growing conflict over coal-to-liquid (CTL) fuel. This is the most important paragraph in the piece, though it is inexplicably buried at the bottom: A new study has concluded that turning coal into liquid fuel yields 125% more carbon dioxide than producing diesel fuel and 66% more […]

The dots

An energy consultancy firm says that state ownership and resource nationalism are the big threats to global oil supply. In other news, Russian President Vladimir Putin this week obliquely compared U.S. foreign policy to that of the Third Reich.

Friday Never Felt So Right

Interior officials messed with science, say witnesses at House hearing Think you’ve had a rough week? Imagine how the U.S. Interior Department feels. This week saw a heated House hearing in which activists and former officials testified about Interior’s nasty habit of meddling with science. “This is an agency that seems focused on one goal: […]

Excuse Us While We Pick Our Jaws Up Off the Floor

Canadian bureaucrat fights charges over leaked climate document This week’s hottest eco-scandal comes from Canada. For real! Where else would Mounties descend on a federal office to arrest an anarchist-leaning, punk-drumming bureaucrat for allegedly leaking a climate document to activists and the press? We swear on our stack of Celine CDs: this happened Wednesday at […]

State emissions registry

When I interviewed Terry Tamminen about (among other things) California’s experience putting together a climate plan, he stressed the importance of putting together a comprehensive inventory of GHG sources: We had pretty good knowledge of emissions from the utilities sector, but it was poor in terms of the agriculture sector, the cement sector, etc. We […]

UN Secretary-General appoints climate envoys

I haven’t been keeping very close tabs on this, but apparently new(ish) UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon — who is determined to make climate change a priority — has named three Special Envoys for Climate Change. What’s a Special Envoy, you ask? Good question. I searched in vain for answers, and all I found is this: […]

A bill to subsidize making biogas from cow manure

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) has just submitted a bill in the Senate that would establish federal tax credits, loans, and loan guarantees to encourage production of "biogas" from cow manure. Three Republicans are co-sponsoring the bill: Senators Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Wayne Allard of Colorado, and Larry Craig of Idaho. A similar bill has been introduced in the House. As described by an article in the Omaha World-Herald, the legislation would "help ease America's addiction to fossil fuels by encouraging a renewable resource."

Here we go again.

It’s not an alternative, it’s a subset

Newt Gingrich has a new book out called A Contract with the Earth, which purports to outline a "green conservatism." For a summary, you can check out this brief op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I approached it with an open mind — eagerly, even. There’s nothing I would like more than for a vibrant green […]

So much goodness you could waste a day

Every since my Brooklyn vacation, I’ve been behind and struggling to catch up. You know what that means … a link dump! Enjoy. In the course of joining the wonkosphere’s call for a carbon tax, Fareed Zakaria comes very close to repeating my slogan: Understanding the causes and cures of global warming is actually very […]

I Don’t Want a Pickle, I Just Want a Fuel-Efficient Vehicle

Senate committee OKs bill to raise fuel-economy standards A Senate committee has approved legislation that would increase average vehicle fuel efficiency to 35 miles per gallon by 2020, with a 4 percent annual increase from 2021 to 2030. For nearly two decades, U.S. passenger cars have averaged 27.5 mpg, while light trucks and SUVs have […]