Climate Technology

An interview with eco-certification expert Michael Conroy

Michael Conroy. Photo: Chris Conroy Photography As a shopper, you can’t turn around without running into some type of green label, from Fair Trade to FSC-certified. But what do they all mean, and where the hell did they even come from? Economist Michael Conroy digs into the history behind these increasingly common labels in his […]

What drives climate change denial?

David and I have apparently crossed blog streams (very dangerous; never do this), but I do want to expand a bit on this basic idea: climate change skepticism has little to do with science. Rather, it is an outgrowth of the culture war.

This point seems both totally obvious and strangely unremarked. At the risk of generalizing, environmentalists tend to view climate change denialism as a top-down, money-driven phenomenon. Energy producers, auto manufacturers, oil companies, and other interested parties court politicians, buy friendly scientists, and groom armies of lawyers, lobbyists, and op-ed writers to push their agenda. Or so the theory goes. And, of course, there's a lot of merit to that theory. You don't need a compass to follow the trail of money.

But the theory only goes so far. A shrinking but significant proportion of average American citizens reject the reality of climate change. The reasons for this are surely overdetermined -- scientific confusion, media spin, hopelessness in the face of a big problem, etc. -- but it's impossible to ignore the basic cultural resentment underlying everything from Planet Gore to the regular flow of blog comments and email I get from dedicated dead-enders.

The Western Climate Initiative’s first proposal ducks biggest climate problem

The Western Climate Initiative is a path-breaking effort. Insufficient federal progress prompted seven states and two provinces to join together to reduce climate pollution by means of an economy-wide cap-and-trade program. It's a momentous opportunity, and many folks have been working hard to ensure that it's a success.

Unfortunately, there's now cause for serious concern.

Yesterday evening, WCI released its draft proposal (PDF). It proposes an initial cap that would cover less than half of the region's total emissions. Most surprisingly, WCI does not recommend including emissions from transportation fuels, by far the largest source of climate pollution in the West. [Update 3/7: The recommendation doesn't exclude transportation precisely, but rather defers the decision until further economic studies are completed.]

The proposal is at odds with WCI's own stated principles that include a commitment to cover "as many emissions sources as practical." And for an effort born of frustration with federal lawmakers, it's bizarre that the proposal is significantly smaller in scope than recent federal bills (PDF), including Leiberman-Warner.

There are no big technical challenges to including transportation fuels. In fact, the WCI admits that while there are a couple of hurdles, it's administratively feasible to include transportation emissions. So what's going on?

No one knows for sure.

As energy, healthcare, and feed costs skyrocket, organic dairy farmers get squeezed

The following is a guest post by Ed Maltby, executive director of the Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance.

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Deerfield, Mass.: What is more important to Stonyfield Farm and HP Hood, market share or the health and welfare of their organic family farmers?

If you ask 24-year-old Mark Ouellette Jr., who supplies organic milk to HP Hood that is sold under the Stonyfield label, his answer is very clear: market share. "I'm losing up to 60 cents per gallon producing milk for the Stonyfield brand. I've used up my line of credit, I'm close to maxing out my credit card because of spiraling feed and fuel costs." He adds, "Last fall, I and many other organic farmers told both Stonyfield and HP Hood what was happening and we were given a 3 cent per gallon increase. Now another 8 cents starting on April 1. This is a slap in the face."

Mark's father was one of the first dairy farmers to sell organic milk in Maine, and Mark started working with him when he was 14, with a dream of working together to expand the family farm. After graduating from high school, Mark realized he needed more experience and equity and started working on the farm, which he purchased two years ago. "I had the opportunity to buy this farm and everyone said there was a tremendous future in organic dairy," says Mark, "so my family and I made the commitment and invested over half a million dollars believing that [Stonyfield CEO] Gary Hirshberg would stand by his pledge to his organic dairy farmers."

Startup company makes thin-film solar cells via new process

Solar company Konarka has announced that it successfully developed a new process to manufacture solar cells that could lead to a range of new solar-powered products and applications. The solar cells are made without silicon and are manufactured into a thin, light film via an inkjet printer, which means they don’t need to be born […]

Bush’s refusal to consider clean technologies could be repeated by McCain

So, who said:

With $55 oil we don't need incentives to oil and gas companies to explore. There are plenty of incentives.

Yes, that would be our president, three years ago. And yet with oil at nearly twice that price, Bush still refuses to cut subsidies and shift that money to clean technologies. And he still claims that the solution to our energy and climate problems is "technology, technology, technology, blah, blah." But, as we've seen, that is all just rhetoric or sleight of hand.

Daniel J. Weiss, Director of Energy Strategy at the Center for American Progress, has an article on the urgent need for this switch in priorities: "Unbearable cost of oil: Record prices require Senate action." As Weiss points out, this will be one more chance for McCain to do the right thing:

Years after everyone else, GM and Toyota execs skeptical about hydrogen cars

That Saturday Night Live-esque headline was inspired by a story in The Wall Street Journal yesterday:

Top executives from General Motors Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp. Tuesday expressed doubts about the viability of hydrogen fuel cells for mass-market production in the near term and suggested their companies are now betting that electric cars will prove to be a better way to reduce fuel consumption and cut tailpipe emissions on a large scale.

Really? Hydrogen cars of dubious viability? Who ever could have guessed that in a million years? And electric cars are "a better way to reduce fuel consumption and cut tailpipe emissions on a large scale"? I'm shocked, shocked that anyone could come to that conclusion.

Bank of America can’t make the call in green buildings

Bank of America says that energy-efficient windows in its newer buildings are blocking cell-phone signals.

If deals go through, three firms will own 90 percent of the U.S. beef market

In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. You’d be hard-pressed to find an industry more consolidated than beef-packing. Just four companies slaughter 83.5 percent of cows consumed in the United States. In standard antitrust theory, a market stops being competive when the four biggest players control 40 […]

New survey of U.K. youth reveals mixed attitudes about the future of the planet

Ben Tuxworth, communications director at Forum for the Future, writes a monthly column for Gristmill on sustainability in the U.K. and Europe.

Debates about how we should save the planet tend to explore the impossibility of almost every approach until someone says, "We need to change the education system," at which point it is deemed churlish to snigger. Catch 'em young, and it's job done seems to be the hope. Well, with only 100 months of planet-saving time left, according to Greenpeace, this approach has worked as much as it is ever likely to. So, are the young going to save us?

Fresh perspective comes from the Future Leaders Survey, a scan of 25,000 applicants to U.K. universities and colleges published last month. The survey, carried out by Forum for the Future and UCAS (the central admissions service for higher education in the U.K.), paints a picture of young Brits facing a fairly terrifying future with an odd mixture of denial, irritation, and pragmatism.