Climate Technology

Dynegy targeted by Sierra Club in new anti-coal campaign

Check out Clean Up Dynegy, the brand new website for the Sierra Club's campaign against the company Sierra calls "America's Coal-Fired Polluter Number 1." The campaign is significant in that it represents the first attempt by anti-coal forces to single out a single company on a nationwide basis.

It kicked off in late February with mass call-ins to Dynegy headquarters originating from twenty states -- "thousands of calls," according to the Sierra Club. Already, the campaign seems to have hit a nerve, with Dynegy's CEO, Bruce Williamson, lashing out that his company is being unfairly picked on. It probably didn't help Williamson's morale that he was also just picked as one of five executives to receive 2008 "Fossil Fool of the Year" awards.

Bond film to feature greenwashing eco-villain

Everyone’s favorite secret agent is at it again — and this time he hopes to live and let Greene die. That’s right, Craig (Daniel Craig) is filming the next Bond flick as we speak type. Quantum of Solace continues the storyline that began with Casino Royale and finds Bond shaken (not stirred) by the death […]

W.R. Grace will finally pay Montana asbestos victims

W.R. Grace & Co. has agreed to pay some $3 billion in cash and equity to settle lawsuits filed on behalf of people injured or killed by asbestos in the company’s products. Grace operated a vermiculite mine near Libby, Mont., from 1963 to 1990, infamously coating the town with asbestos fibers. The company went bankrupt […]

Labor and enviros join up for green-jobs campaign

A new green-jobs campaign has been launched by the Sierra Club, NRDC, the United Steelworkers, and the Blue Green Alliance (itself a project of the Sierra Club and the steelworkers union). The Green Jobs for America campaign, moving forward on the momentum of last month’s Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference, will be focused in 12 […]

Apple Inc. files complaint over NYC’s green branding

Macintosh manufacturer Apple Inc. and a New York City environmental initiative both have apple logos, but is that an original sin? Apple Inc. thinks problems will stem from the too-similar logos, and has filed a trademark infringement complaint against GreeNYC, the Big Apple’s campaign to boost environmental awareness. But a spokesperson for New York City’s […]

Green TNR, brought to you by BP

The New Republic has a new blog devoted to environment and energy issues. On the bright side, it includes the work of Brad Plumer, one of the most honest, thoughtful, and insightful writers in D.C. For that alone it’s worth bookmarking. On the not so bright side, it’s … "powered by BP." Really. Here’s a […]

Digging into the relationships between business and environmentalism

Admittedly, this is more of a link dump than a true blog post, but sometimes the green goodness is too good to pass up ... As Sarah and David have mentioned, the May edition of Vanity Fair is their third annual green issue. Featuring, ironically, the material girl on the cover, it's crammed with features that will enlighten, illuminate, and ... disturb.

Solving climate change can save billions, boost the economy, and create jobs

A new report from Architecture2030 shows that solving the climate change crisis can save billions of dollars, stimulate a deteriorating U.S. economy, and create high quality jobs (full report here).

Complex problems sometimes require the simplest of solutions. One of the most important questions facing those attempting to solve the climate crisis is, "How do we reduce CO2 emissions dramatically and immediately?" The simplest answer is, "Turn off the coal plants."

Although coal produces about half of the energy supplied by the electric power sector, it is responsible for 81% of the sector's CO2 emissions. According to recent paper by Dr. James Hansen et al., titled "Target CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?" (PDF), if we are to have any chance of averting a climatic catastrophe, we must implement an immediate moratorium on the construction of any new conventional coal-fired power plants and complete a phasing out of all existing conventional coal plants by the year 2030. Anything short of this will fail (call Congress on Earth Day, April 22nd, supporting the Markey Waxman bill and a moratorium on coal).

To turn off the coal plants, one must replace them with another energy source and/or eliminate the demand for the energy produced by these plants. And the economic feasibility of any proposed actions regarding climate change is a particularly important consideration in this time of looming recession.

Today, of the approximately 38.5 QBtu of primary energy consumed by residential and commercial building operations in the U.S. each year, 27.3 QBtu is consumed in the form of electricity. About 14.2 QBtu of this electricity is produced by conventional coal-fired power plants. According to a recent McKinsey Global Institute report, the implementation of straightforward, off-the-shelf residential and commercial building efficiency measures would reduce energy consumption by 11.1 QBtu for an investment of $21.6 billion per QBtu.

Day two at The Dream Reborn conference

When I left the Dream Reborn conference on Friday, I had a few questions: Exactly what are green jobs? How do we create them? And why has it suddenly become so important to talk about them? Yesterday, I got some answers. And it's a good thing, too, since the conference wraps up today.

Here's a quick rundown of some of the answers I found. (We'll have more in-depth coverage of the conference in a few days.) Pay close attention, because I'm gonna go through this stuff quickly -- and in reverse order.

First up: Why green jobs now? Here's Van Jones: "One of the reasons that it's possible to imagine a new economy now is because as much fervor as there is from the grassroots, there's also change afoot in the broader society." Most people today recognize that climate change is more than just an environmental problem. Bracken Hendricks, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, went so far as to call it "the biggest human rights crisis in the world." Various efforts to slow climate change are creating thousands of jobs. Jones, Hendricks, and their colleagues say these new green jobs will help pull thousands of people out of poverty.

Next: How do we create green jobs?

Massey wins W. Va. Supreme Court case; not doing so well in public relations

A while back, a case against mountaintop-removal giant Massey Energy reached the West Virginia Supreme Court, which overturned a previous judgment fining the company. But then pictures turned up of Massey CEO Don Blankenship canoodling around the French Riviera with one of the court judges and two female “companions.” Oops. The court decided to re-hear […]