Okay, the U.S. may have been the first to the moon, but we have not been the first to regulate greenhouse gases. However, we’re getting there. California has been advancing its cap-and-trade regime among other terrific programs, we’ve got the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in the Northeast and there are all sorts of other programs […]
(Thanks to ProPublica for this graphic.) Thankfully, we are, slowly but certainly, entering a new ballgame on hydraulic fracturing. Yes, we need the gas trapped in shale – in the medium term. Long term: renewables. But, for now, as we transition to renewables, we’ve got to reduce the carbon footprint of the electric power, transportation […]
I was talking to a fellow sustainability geek the other day. He was telling me about the new gadget, installed by his friendly, neighborhood electric utility, that very closely monitors his home energy use and gives vivid color readouts on just how much juice is being consumed. You won’t be surprised to learn that he […]
There have been a number of useful developments recently in which electric power utilities are showing that big-ticket programs are now and are going in the near future to make a difference. TVA – The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has announced that they are going to phase out 18 coal-fired power plants, replacing them with […]
In the post below, I wrote about the recent and instantly controversial study from Cornell that calls into question the greenhouse gas advantage that natural gas was assumed to have over coal and oil. This BBC article, for instance, points out what may seem like the obvious: As one very involved British geologist says “By […]
I’ve said this any number of times: Environmental protection is much more about public health than it is about the natural environment. Every time you hear somebody tear down the EPA or some other environmental protection agency, just remember that sometimes they may be the only thing standing between you and lung disease, cancer and […]
I’ve written many times about the “despicable practice” of mountaintop removal mining. (Al Gore called it that – and he couldn’t be more right.) There’s an op-ed in the NY Times today from one of the co-authors of a new book: Something’s Rising: Appalachians Fighting Mountaintop Removal. Silas House remind us in “My Polluted Kentucky […]
Invoking a rarely used feature of the Clean Water Act that allows EPA to bar actions that would cause “unacceptable adverse effects” to the environment, water quality, or water supplies, the agency halted a major mountaintop removal mining project. The EPA release quotes EPA Assistant Administrator for Water Peter S. Silva: “The proposed Spruce No. […]
It’s been a busy week. I hope you didn’t get caught in any of the massive travel snafus in Europe or the US that have made holiday travel a nightmare for hundreds of thousands. If you did, then I hope you survived with most of your sanity intact. It’s a cold, windy morning here in […]
“Lisa Jackson is doing exactly what an Environmental Protection Agency Administrator is supposed to do – thoughtfully and carefully but aggressively implementing our environmental laws to protect public health and our environment. The job of the EPA Administrator is not to make people happy but to make them and their environment healthier.” That was Time’s […]
I attended this recent biannual conference examining key and emerging environmental issues in the EPA Region 2 area. It was organized by Columbia Law School’s Center for Climate Change Law (CCCL). There was a lot of interesting discussion of climate change and air pollution, including some of the critically important ins and outs of litigation […]
To tell you that I haven’t been skeptical about the value of a weak Senate climate and energy bill would be lying to you. For one thing, I’m pretty happy with how the EPA has been approaching the regulation of greenhouse gases. I’d hate to see strong programs like this and the Regional Greenhouse Gas […]
My head is spinning from the latest developments in the long-running soap opera of climate and energy legislation in the US Senate. Plus, I am finally reading How Democratic Is the American Constitution? and I’m even more depressed now than when I wrote this post, SPQR. Basically, we can never be a real democracy – you […]
We have made still another breakthrough on greenhouse gases. The EPA and the US Department of Transportation have established new standards for fuel economy and GHG emissions from cars and light trucks. The EPA release includes soundbites that have Lisa Jackson saying “We expect to reduce greenhouse emissions by the equivalent of 42,000,000 cars over […]
As you know if you follow the blog at all, mountaintop removal mining is right up there with tar sands extraction at the top of my list of destructive, hateful businesses. Al Gore calls it a “despicable practice” in Our Choice. (This, by the way, is a truly terrific book.) Here is an article from […]