durban

Critical List: Obama boosts clean energy; Bingaman energy standard coming soon

“I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy,” President Obama said in his State of the Union. He didn’t talk about fighting climate change, though. The state of the union is: unsurprised. Sen. Jeff Bingaman says he’ll release his proposal for a clean energy standard in the next few weeks. Durban could […]

What exactly happened at Durban?

Ok, kids, Durban is over, and it's time for the world to return to its regularly scheduled programming of carbon-induced DOOM. What exactly did the world's long-suffering climate negotiators accomplish? They agreed on a "platform" outlining how they’ll keep trying to create a new climate treaty. Well, it’s … progress towards progress? Here are the […]

Critical List: Durban is over; Rick Perry is an idiot

The Durban round of COP talks ended over the weekend with a "platform" that outlines how work towards a new climate treaty will progress over the next few years. But that's really not good enough. Rick Perry thinks the company called Solyndra is a country called Solynda. That's in Africa, right? It's easier to find […]

Critical List: EPA releases draft fracking report; Gingrich’s new climate change book

The EPA released a draft of its fracking report and found chemical contamination in a gas field well. The draft summary says that "EPA is concerned about the movement of contaminants within the aquifer and the safety of drinking water wells over time." The U.S. got a little warm and fuzzy about a climate roadmap […]

Critical List: Huntsman goes right on climate change; the Mob goes green

Among Republican presidential candidates, denouncing climate science is like a bug. They all have it now. Even Jon Huntsman. Ban Ki-Moon is not particularly hopeful about the prospects of success at Durban. Justifiably. Britain is losing three-quarters of its butterfly species. Katharine Hayhoe is a climatologist and evangelical Christian, which means she spends a lot […]

Critical List: Solar will go on military housing; U.S. net petroleum imports

Who needs government loan guarantees? SolarCity is going to put solar panels on 120,000 military houses with financing from Bank of America-owned Merrill Lynch. (Er, down with the banks?) Environmental regulations have "benefits and costs." They do kill jobs, but they also create new ones. The Wall Street Journal reports that the U.S. is close […]

Critical List: 2011 was pretty darn warm; dams could exacerbate climate change

2011 will be the tenth or eleventh warmest year on record, depending on who you ask. All but one of the nine or ten warmer years were in the last decade. (The only exception is 1998.) The Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs is required to approve renewable energy projects on Native American-owned […]

Critical List: Durban climate talks begin today; UK secretly supporting tar sands

This year's international climate negotiations begin today in Durban, South Africa. This round of talks is basically the opposite of Copenhagen: hopes for anything at all happening are very, very low. The British government has been supporting Canada's tar sands projects in secret. One new study found that the climate is less sensitive to carbon […]

Critical List: U.S. winning solar trade fight; the rise of agroforestry

The U.S. is winning the trade spat with China over solar manufacturing. Agroforestry — growing crops under a tree canopy instead of on clear-cut land — is growing in popularity. Hydrofracking gone wrong looks "like 1,000 Alka-Seltzers going off" as gas bubbles through puddles, according to a whistleblower. China's Durban strategy includes a drive for […]