Over the past several days as we've seen the death and damage from the storm in Burma/Myanmar metastasize, there has been a greater-than-usual sense of impotency on the part of the international community in its inability to rise to the challenge. There is the extraordinary scale of the disaster, and the fact that so much […]
Here's an eye-catching quote: "I believe the age of fossil fuels is coming to end – and that the age of clean energy will follow." That's what Massachusetts Governor Deval L. Patrick told the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce last week. See this from the AP. Massachusetts is home, as you probably know, to the […]
Deanne Upson, a consultant on climate change in Washington, posed a great question at my post below on soot and solar cookers. In a nutshell, she asked how would you design an energy-efficient home for low and middle-income people in the developing world or in economically distressed areas. I thought a reply rated a post […]
In my post from March 29 on the "State of the Planet "08" conference, sponsored by The Earth Institute and "The Economist," I talked about a close encounter I had with the gentle Chairlady of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. We talked about nuclear power and I said, among other things, that societies needed […]
The outspoken "NY Times" columnist, Tom Friedman, takes some serious shots here, Dumb as We Wanna Be, at two of the three Presidential candidates for their recommendation on suspending the 18.4¢ a gallon federal excise tax on gasoline during the heavy summer driving season coming up. "The McCain-Clinton gas holiday proposal is a perfect example […]
I touched on an important subject here earlier in the month when I mentioned a new study purporting that the spread of black carbon , or soot , from industrial and transportation sources, and from developing world cooking practices, is having a significantly more potent impact on climate change than previously thought. This release from […]
KPMG is a global network of auditors and business consultants operating in 145 countries. According to the new Climate Changes Your Business report from them, six industries in particular have to watch out because they are not sufficiently aware of and ready to manage the risks of global warming. The winners (or potential losers) are: […]
I just finished watching a truly terrific Nova special, Car of the Future, with the thoroughly irrepressible Tom and Ray Magliozzi, known to their adoring public as Click and Clack from Car Talk, the NPR supershow. Along with the laughs, you get a look at lightweight materials to revolutionize car manufacturing , the same materials […]
We’ve seen a couple of great documentaries in my climate change class recently: Fighting Goliath and Burning the Future: Coal in America. I’m particularly excited that we’re having Burning the Future’s director in next week. We’re also reading the outstanding Big Coal. So, we’re into coal, in a big way. More about the documentaries and […]
MEM in Paris , The two-day Major Economies Meetings (MEM), talks among major carbon emitting nations, took place last week. The economies of these 16 countries account for around four-fifths of global output of greenhouse gases. The meetings aim to put these countries into some sort of unified trajectory as the world heads toward coming […]
Earth Day is this coming Tuesday, April 22. There's an awful lot going on all over the world. Dating myself, I can tell you that my buddy, Donald, and I went to the first Earth Day in 1970 when we were teenagers. He claims it was primarily to meet girls. My rejoinder is "That's natural." […]
… plus c’est la meme chose. Well, much to probably nobody's surprise, the present President of the United States has once again distinguished himself by being just about the only top political leader in the industrialized democracies who doesn't subscribe to the belief that climate change is upon us, will overwhelm us if we don't […]
Energy Boost is the title of the article from yesterday in the "Washington Post." The Senate has agreed to " extend solar and wind energy tax breaks as part of a housing bill that is likely to win approval in the House." This article keys in on some businesses that are happy about the tax […]
"No good times, no bad times, There's no times at all, Just The New York Times" Here's some good, recent stuff from the venerable "New York Times." The "Business of Green" is a special section from a few weeks ago. (I wrote at some length over a year ago on their special of the same […]
I've written about the growing evidence that biofuels are becoming increasingly recognized as a menace to the environment, not the boon they were once thought to be. In Are Biofuels A Bummer? in February, I reported on a couple of recent studies showing how pressure on land use from biofuel production was creating the deleterious […]