Climate Technology

On oil and the dollar, Bush and McCain acknowledge their own cluelessness

This post was originally published at the just-launched Think Progress Wonk Room, the new public policy rapid-response blog of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Brad Johnson, the climate specialist for the Wonk Room, was a writer for Hill Heat.

Skyrocketing gas prices are crippling the budgets of Americans, as Bush has newly discovered. But he doesn't have a solution. Nor does Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). Bush's every response to energy problems is to drill for more oil and blame China. McCain has a more evolved position: his solution is to drill for more oil and build nuclear power plants, and blame China and terrorists. But neither will address a major culprit in the recent shocking spike in oil futures and gas prices -- the collapse of the American dollar due to a vicious circle of shortsighted right-wing economic policies.

Wind farms get sponsored

It seems that if you have enough money, you can slap your name on any ol’ thing: stadiums, theaters, sporting events, and now wind farms. When John Deere Wind Energy opens its eight-turbine, 10 megawatt wind farm in Texas this May, it will be setting a precedent by allowing Steelcase, a furniture company out of […]

What happened and who was there?

Well, I’m back home from the Good Jobs, Green Jobs national conference last week in Pittsburgh, and I’ve digested the speeches, the workshops, the press conferences, and the two major reports released at the event: “Green Collar Jobs in America’s Cities [PDF]: Building Pathways out of Poverty and Careers in the Clean Energy Economy” and […]

A cap-and-trade system will not by itself eliminate dirty energy’s unfair advantages

On p. 57 of Fred Krupp’s (generally excellent) new book Earth: The Sequel, it says this: In essence, renewable standards, subsidies, and other mandates assume that the government has all the answers, rather than letting the market figure out the best way to produce clean energy at the lowest cost. I’m never satisfied with how […]

Delayers and doomsayers receive a chilly reception from pragmatic business leaders

There was a lot going on at the conference, but one underlying dynamic is particularly notable. I mentioned it in my post on Jeff Immelt’s panel, but it’s worth discussing at more length. The conservative ideologues — the WSJ editorial board, invited guests Fred Smith and Myron Ebell of CEI, Steve Milloy of JunkScience — […]

On the oddity of privatizing nature

Given the uncertainty accruing to traditional investments in today's economy, here's a trend to consider: the monetizing of ecosystem services. One of the first public discussions of this, the Biodiversity & Ecosystem Finance Summit taking place in New York this weekend, aims to answer this question: how can financiers and corporations take a lead in biodiversity and ecosystem conservation? (I can think of a few ways, yes.)

Welcome to the developing area of "biodiversity finance," which seeks to monetize biodiversity and ecosystem assets like wetlands, rainforests, reefs, and so forth so they can then be protected -- at a profit. Sounds spooky, right? But there are examples out there already, and not just the conservation-minded hobby ranches à la Ted Turner that we're seeing all over the Rocky Mountain West. Take this example [PDF] from Virginia, where private equity has bought the last large piece of the Great Dismal Swamp:

Sail-powered cargo ship returns home, wave-powered vessel sets off

A cargo ship partially powered by a gigantic kite-like sail has completed a 12,000-mile roundtrip voyage across the Atlantic. Captain Lutz Heldt, who says the ship used around 20 percent less fuel thanks to kite power, says, “We can once again actually ‘sail’ with cargo ships, thus opening a new chapter in the history of […]

RFK on GDP

As I read all the fearful projections of decline in GDP if we act to address global warming, I am reminded of the words of Robert F. Kennedy on GDP: “it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.” Watch:

A few thoughts for environmentalists

As the week's news can attest, the current financial system is in pretty bad shape; we're not at complete meltdown, but it's pretty scary. Here are a few thoughts for the environmental community (aside from the general concern we should all share as citizens):

CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. offers a realistic assessment of his company’s sustainability efforts

“We are not green.” Those words were spoken by Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. during his panel at the conference. Hours later, they headlined a post on the WSJ energy blog. Hours after that, they served as the subject of a broadside from the company’s sworn enemy, Wal-Mart Watch. Sigh. Here’s the exact quote, […]