After I posted last night, the Senate came back for a late session in which they approved a complete package. The final result was that the CAFE improvements were in, as was a huge boost in ethanol production and a requirement for ethanol use in vehicles, a frankly feel-good provision on price gouging was included, the tax […]
Tax Package , An excellent bit of legislation came to a screeching halt on the Senate floor early this afternoon. The Senate Finance Committee's tax package for energy (see my item on this in the previous post), and passed by them 14-6 just two days ago, was held from a final vote on the Senate […]
Barry Commoner , The "NY Times" has a great offering this week in its science section: A Conversation With Barry Commoner – At 90, an Environmentalist From the '70s Still Has Hope. In my post from April 5, Renewable Energy, I wrote "When I read Barry Commoner's The Politics of Energy, published in 1979, I […]
Dingell v Pelosi – This is from the Center for American Progress today: “Two senior House Democrats — facing opposition from their party’s top leader, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — have abandoned their legislative effort to block California and a dozen other states from regulating greenhouse gases from cars and trucks.” Energy in the Senate […]
The same folks who brought you the solar boat that crossed the Atlantic in May (see my post of May 14, Solar Boating and Green Building) have just had the inaugural "World Clean Energy Awards." This prestigious event had worthy folks such as Amory Lovins and Nicky Gavron as jury members (both of whom have […]
Energy in the Senate – Following up on my last post, on the energy debate in Congress, there were a couple of interesting developments yesterday. In the Senate, an amendment offered by John Warner of Virginia to allow offshore drilling was narrowly defeated. More importantly, an amendment offered by the ranking Republican on the Senate […]
After working in government for 11 years (in a state environmental agency) and having been an environmental and political activist for a fair number of years before, during and after that, I have come to have a healthy skepticism — okay cynicism — about the reach of good public policy in legislation and actual real […]
Sorry that I've been off the air since early last week. Wednesday through Friday, I was attending the annual conference of an international scholarly association, for which I am the newsletter editor. I also gave a paper there. Saturday, it was an all-day rugby tournament, a fundraiser for an injured clubmate of ours. Yesterday, I […]
As always these days, there's an awful lot going on. Here are what I hope you'll find to be pretty interesting items: Carbon Dioxide by U.S. States , The A.P. took USDOE data and analyzed it and found some interesting numbers. Not surprisingly, some of the leading states for population lead the nation in carbon […]
No matter how you slice it, global warming or climate change, according to a news search on Google, U.S. President George Bush's announcement yesterday got a lot of attention. There are over a thousand stories on Bush and either "climate change" or "global warming." From Bangkok to Bloomington, from Vladivostok to Vincennes, what the White […]
This events firm, "established in 2003 by a team of professional, environmentally aware event experts," have held conferences with over 4,000 attendees from 76 countries. You should check out their upcoming events and visit their "live" blog from the conference they're holding now in London. They've got interesting content, including some "vlogs." One post, "7 […]
I continue to be fascinated by the burgeoning of all sorts of new approaches to generating energy and saving energy. I mentioned in my post from May 16 on the Large Cities Summit that George David, the CEO of United Technologies, had some fascinating things to say about using energy and the potential for radically […]
So, earlier this week I dropped in to the Carbon Finance & Investment Summit , "Where Carbon Players Come To Do Business." Okay. I sat in on two sessions: Carbon Funds' Plans And Strategies In The Carbon Space and Private Equity And Hedge Funds' Plans And Strategies In The Carbon Space. Of the twelve worthy […]
My colleague, Derek Catsam, has been doing some great work on Africa. One of his latest posts is on Africa and Climate Change. See some of the important themes he's developing, including Capetown as a "green" city. While you're visiting, read up on some of the many important issues associated with Africa and Derek's astute […]
Carbon Offsetting , I've touched on offsets a few times along the way since March: in "The Business of Green" and in Markets, and of course, in the last post below from Kate Hamilton on Carbon Expo. Here's a succinct description of offsets from a "NY Times" article from May 8, Sale of Carbon Credits Helping […]