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  • With green home venture, Sierra Club mixes profits with passion

    Photo illustration by Tom Twigg / GristIt’s not unusual these days for big green groups to get in bed with business, but one of the oldest and most-respected environmental organizations — the Sierra Club — is going them one better by getting into business itself. The San Francisco-based Sierra Club has launched a for-profit online […]

    Todd Woody Technology

  • University president quits Massey board after green group campaign

    After a 14-week campaign by green groups, Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee stepped down from the board of directors of mountaintop-removal mining company Massey Energy today. Ohio Citizen Action, then Sierra Club, Greenpeace USA, Earthjustice, and Friends of the Earth, said that Gee’s relationship with Massey worked against his school’s efforts to develop […]

    David Roberts Technology

  • So how much would a $20/ton carbon price really cost?

    First I said that we shouldn’t confuse wealth transfers with economic pain. Then I said that a $20/ton carbon price works out to a 1.4 cent/kWh rate increase. Astute readers may have noticed a disconnect. (Isn’t 1.4 cents/kWh economic pain?) Which brings me to the third and final part of this little series. Carbon prices […]

    Sean Casten Technology

  • Lockheed-Martin to build large CSP plant with thermal storage in Arizona

    What is the best evidence that concentrated solar thermal power (CSP) aka solar baseload is indeed a core climate solution with big near-term — and very big medium-term — promise?  One of the country’s biggest companies, Lockheed-Martin, with 2008 sales of $42.7 billion, has jumped into the race to build the biggest CSP plant with […]

    Joseph Romm Technology

  • Economic impacts of carbon pricing

    Yesterday, I explained why we shouldn’t confuse wealth transfers with taxes. Today, I fulfill my promise to follow up with math. (Contain your excitement!) On the theory that you should (a) stick with what you know and (b) avoid speculating on shoddy data, I’m limiting this math to the electric sector, but the conclusions are […]

    Sean Casten Technology

  • In Copenhagen, it’s the same old business

    Actress Cate Blanchett tried to warm business leaders’ hearts on the subject of global climate change.Copenhagen Climate Council If Al Gore and Ban Ki-moon weren’t able to get the job done, you might have thought Cate Blanchett would saved the day. But even an impassioned and remarkably erudite speech by the Oscar-winning actress failed this […]

    Geoffrey Lean Technology

  • Cap & trade: Carbon tax or wealth transfer?

    It’s an article of faith that cap-and-trade will raise our energy costs, but it’s not necessarily true. The ubiquity of this faith makes clear that the Smart People who write, talk, and vote about CO2 policy don’t really understand the issues. A quick discussion, and then some math to clarify. There are two core problems […]

    Sean Casten Technology

  • Duke Energy: We can ‘decarbonize’ without painful electricity price hikes

    Major coal utilities are now publicly endorsing electricity decarbonization, an all but unimaginable position even 12 months ago.  And although Duke is a member of USCAP, which was the basis of Waxman-Markey, it remains remarkable that the company has joined the call for strong climate action (see How does Duke CEO Jim Rogers sleep at […]

    Joseph Romm Technology

  • What the financial collapse can teach us about the food system

    In a recent New Yorker, Nick Paumgarten published a lucid, entertaining essay on the financial collapse. Titled “The Death of Kings,” it focuses on the hedge-fund managers, stock gurus, and private-equity wizards who reaped billions from the credit bubble.Is Big Ag running the food system into the ground the same way Wall Street wrecked the […]

    Tom Philpott Technology

  • Ban Ki-moon’s speech at World Business Summit on Climate Change

    The following is the text of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s May 24 speech at the World Business Summit on Climate Change (as released by the UN). Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addresses the opening of the World Business Summit on Climate Change.UN Photo/Eskinder DebebeSECRETERY-GENERAL BAN: I am delighted to be here. Perhaps more important, I am glad […]

    Grist staff Technology