House Floor Vote – The word from Capitol Hill is that the crucial vote on the Waxman-Markey package of energy and climate change titles is going to happen this week. The timing as Steny Hoyer indicated previously was to be sometime on either side of the July 4th recess. The word yesterday was that it […]
This cartoon, from Alex Gregory at “The New Yorker” (May 11, 2009), is a pause for fresh air.
I wrote here recently about some developments in concentrated solar power (CSP). The “NY Times” had a really interesting read the other day on the confluence of American labor – in the shape of California Unions for Reliable Energy (CURE) – and the exploding solar power industry. The article wraps up with, to my mind, […]
I went to GreenBuildingsNY 2009 the other day and had a fine time. The show had everything from windows and doors, to toilets and garbage disposals, to solar PV and green roofs – and beyond. Knowledgeable vendors, great stuff. Green building, for my money, has nothing but upside. As I wrote in my article for […]
Deutsche Bank yesterday unveiled an enormous display outside New York’s Madison Square Garden/Penn Station complex. What’s it show? “The current quantity of long-lived greenhouse gases in the atmosphere as shown by the Carbon Counter is 3.64 trillion metric tons, increasing by approximately 2 billion metric tons per month,” according to DB’s release. “‘The Carbon Counter […]
We’ve been seeing a lot of activity in the past few months in the House of Representatives on climate and energy – see a number of blog items here on the Waxman-Markey bill. The Senate hasn’t been idle, certainly, but they’ve been flying a bit below the radar. Senator Boxer, chair of the Environment & […]
The airline industry has an awful lot at stake in the debate about how to address the specter of climate change. I’ve written a few times about what they’re doing, here and here for instance, and in a magazine article I wrote on sustainability at the airports. Emissions caps seen costing airlines $7 billion a […]
As you no doubt know, the latest round of UNFCCC negotiations concluded in Bonn last week. UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer seemed generally pleased. The representatives had, for the first time, a negotiating text with which to work. It was delivered on schedule and that in itself was a significant achievement. The AP reported […]
I would like to note here that only one Republican on the House Energy & Commerce Committee voted for the Waxman-Markey bill. Mary Bono Mack from California deserves, in my opinion, a pat on the back. Here is an article from the “Press-Enterprise” about her vote and the political pressures on her. The article notes: […]
After China and the US, which together contribute 40% of the world’s burden of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, you come to Indonesia and Brazil. Why? In a word, deforestation. Japan, because of its industrial emissions, comes in 8th overall. So when there’s news on the intentions of these major economies on reducing their GHG, we should […]
I continue to be knocked out by all the innovation and hard-driving progress in building out a zero-carbon world. I was telling a young man today, a very smart carbon offset development consultant, that I truly never thought, 15 years ago, that I’d live to see the day when we would have the activity and […]
Project Better Place is coming along nicely. These are the folks who could catalyze the quest for the electric car’s full penetration into all the world’s markets. I love this stuff – see Future Car for instance. Here’s an eye-opening interview with Shai Agassi, PBP’s founder. I mean, how cool is this?!
If you hadn’t guessed, I love looking at the arcane world of politics inside the Beltway and elsewhere. There’s a really readable article in this week’s “NY Times” magazine by the perspicacious Matt Bai. It’s about the politics of health care reform but you could transpose energy and climate change into what’s being said. There’s […]
“From here on, the primary judgment of all human institutions, professions, programs and activities will be determined by the extent to which they inhibit, ignore or foster a mutually enhancing human-Earth relationship.” This is what Thomas Berry said in an interview a few years back, as quoted in his recent “NY Times” obituary. Berry was […]
I hope to sit in on a couple of local events here in NYC in the next couple of weeks. The first is Carbon Finance North America 2009, June 11 and 12. The keynote speaker is Eileen Claussen, President of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, and there will be worthy panelists from government, […]