Climate Technology

All Stories

  • 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

  • Critique of auto standards misses how they save consumers money compared to gas taxes

    Robert Stavins thinks an increased gasoline tax or cap-and-trade would make Obama’s tougher auto efficiency standards redundant.  This offers an excellent illustration of how even economists who are not market fundamentalists can miss the way well-designed regulation improves economic efficiency. Yes, cap-and-trade or a rising gasoline tax will reduce driving and gasoline use. But because […]

    Gar Lipow Technology

  • Fighting Coal in the Rockies

    Fighting for the Waxman-Markey climate bill may be sexy and hip (and worthwhile), but here in the Roaring Fork and Vail Valleys of Colorado, without much fanfare, we are engaged in some trench fighting to solve climate change. A view from one of the ski lifts at Vail in Colorado.Courtesy Pravin8 via FlickrThe battle: trying to elect […]

    Auden Schendler Technology

  • AFL-CIO’s John Sweeney endorses approach of Waxman-Markey climate and clean energy bill

    For those who know the history, the relationship between the environmental movement and the labor movement has been cool, at best, for a long time. But the two groups have been talking to each other much more in recent years and have come to a better understanding of how to work together.  The environmental movement […]

    Joseph Romm Technology

  • Planting green moles in corporate America

    On the 28th floor of a San Francisco skyscraper, a cadre of 26 young men and women called the Climate Corps is being briefed. They won’t be planting trees or serving as Al Gore’s cap-and-trade shock troops. Rather, these are MBAs on a mission to infiltrate the Fortune 500 and help them save … money […]

    Todd Woody Technology