climate change mitigation

It’s seductive — and wrong

A new piece of conventional wisdom is rapidly congealing among mainstream pundits: global warming is happening, but there’s nothing we can do about it. Might as well just batten down the hatches and hope for the best. You’ll hear the same basic message from Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson, Newsweek columnist George Will, […]

More fun with analogies!

I commend everyone to this article by Ben Adler on American Prospect, which addresses a perpetually overlooked strategy to reduce oil use and combat global warming: With all the focus on … “alternate energy programs,” too many [politicians] are ignoring a long-existing technology that, unlike, say, ethanol, already has the power to radically reduce our […]

A guest essay from Environmental Defense

The following is a guest essay from Bill Chameides, the Chief Scientist at Environmental Defense. He maintains a blog on global warming at climate411.org. —– Some folks think global warming is best fought through a federally-imposed tax on greenhouse gas emissions — often called a carbon tax. The government would use the additional tax dollars […]

One of them is missing

Bad Actors and their enablers have been pushing a particular spin on the climate debate: it has "two sides," the denialists and the alarmists. What can wise people above it all in the center do but roll their eyes at the grubbiness of it all? I’d like to introduce you to one side of the […]

Coolio

Here’s an interesting bit from a Q&A with Reid and Pelosi: I have a couple questions about global warming. First, to Mr. Reid, does the Senate plan to follow Ms. Pelosi’s plan to create a new select committee? Will you actually create a new select committee? And then for both of you, I’m curious, you’ve […]

It muddles the science and policy debates together

The darling of the the climate blogosphere for the last two days is an article by Andy Revkin on the silent middle ground in the climate debate. Since I am nothing if not a blogosheep, I felt compelled to follow the pack and weigh in.

The problem I have with the article is that it confuses two separate debates, one scientific (is climate change real?) and one value-based (what should we do about it?). By putting these two issues into the blender, the article confuses rather than clarifies.

Let's consider the first question: is climate change real?

Poor countries can’t afford to tackle climate change

I know, I know, this is a false choice that skeptics use to stall action on climate change. Or is it?

Check out this article from Reason. It makes some interesting points. Here's a quick summary:

It’s time to move on

It's time for everyone to move past the Kyoto Protocol.

For those not familiar with the details, Kyoto imposes specific emission-reduction targets for each industrialized country over a five-year "commitment period" of 2008-2012. Targets were defined for total emissions of CO2 and five other greenhouse gases: the required emission reductions were 8 percent for the European Union and a few other European nations; 7 percent for the United States; 6 percent for Japan and Canada; and zero (i.e. hold emissions at their baseline level) for Russia and Ukraine. If all nations met their targets, the total emission reduction from these nations would be 5.2 percent below 1990 levels.

An interview on planning for climate change

An interview I recently did has been published in the newsletter of Caisse des Depots, a state-owned financial institution that performs public-interest missions on behalf of the French government. Also quoted in the interview is Patrick Criqui, Director of the Energy and Environmental Policy Department of the Grenoble LEPII. You can get the full newsletter here (PDF). It's all about the problems posed by the long timescale climate change operates on, and is definitely worth reading.

Here is the interview: