Emissions trading: A mixed record, with plenty of failures

In arguments over carbon trading, both sides often assume that past emission trading schemes have been notably successful. But in...

How far has the movement come in the last 20 years?

Quick, name a historic moment from 1987. I’ll wait. Well, yeeessss, that was the year that gave us timeless songs...

An interview with underground foodie hero Sandor Katz

Sandor Katz. Like a well-made batch of kefir, the ancient cultured milk drink, Sandor Katz has an effervescent quality. Spend...

And global warming

I’m seeing lots of links to this ScienceDaily story on Anthony Leiserowitz, a prof at the Univ. of Oregon who...

Beans, beans, good for your recipe

In keeping with the recent topics of eating low on the food chain for environmental reasons (e.g., beans instead of meat) and cooking for a crowd, I dug out an old recipe for a curried red lentil soup with an apple cider or pear juice base, so I could double it to serve 10-12 people instead of 5-6.

I've always been told that to double a recipe, you should double the basic ingredients but not the spices. What I do is adjust the spices by slowly adding small increments and tasting the results. The amounts that work usually do turn out to be less than twice the original.

Also, ew

Denise Caruso, author of Intervention: Confronting the Real Risks of Genetic Engineering and Life on a Biotech Planet, has an excellent op-ed that explains the deep concerns about animal cloning. If you have doubts about this issue, or want to be better informed, this piece is a good place to start.

I thought the green job market was hot!

“If the green job market’s so hot, why can’t I find a job?” I’ve been talking up the rising eco-job...

David James Duncan, author and fly fisher, answers questions

David James Duncan. What work do you do? I’m an author and essayist, a fly fisher and river guardian, a...

Here’s what we have to accomplish

((brightlines_include))

The supply-side solution developed in the Bright Lines exercise, drawing on Bill Hare's Greenpeace International paper "Climate Protection: The Carbon Logic" (PDF), won little support from first readers. It is included in this proposal as a concept to be explored because no other solution could be determined to meet the dictates of the climate timeframe -- and the strong responses it provokes are evidence of its strong narrative value.

A supply-side response -- imposing a cap on extractions in 2015 with 10 percent reductions at 5 year intervals until emissions are stabilized at pre-industrial levels, as shown in the accompanying chart, for example -- is the ideal climate policy. A cap and phase-down would set clear market parameters for fossil fuels phase-out and establish future economies of scale for renewables and efficiencies, encouraging early investment and driving innovation. Capping extractions would, in effect, move forward the global response to exhaustion of oil and gas reserves, a great challenge even if climate change were not a problem.