Can you imagine a world without oil? I can. Even with all the oil in which we’re swimming today – as pictured by this excellent graphic from the latest issue of Momentum from the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota – I can see a world powered by renewables, generating electricity […]
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 […]
There is an important series well underway at the Vancouver Observer: “The Big Grab.” It’s about how the tar sands industry is forcing choices on Canadians that they would not otherwise have to make in the absence of all the activity in Alberta. What’s particularly important about this series, it seems to me, is that […]
I have written on a number of occasions here about the Alberta tar sands. Like many environmentalists, I find the idea of ripping tar out of the ground with excavators the size of aircraft carriers – or sucking it up after spending months softening it with injected steam – repellent. The greenhouse gas implications are […]
UN Climate Change Conference in Cancún delivers balanced package of decisions, restores faith in multilateral process is the official word. The UNFCCC delegates, without all the hoopla of Copenhagen, appear to have materially advanced the cause of saving the planet – and all its people, now and for the future – from the depredations of […]
I was at this year’s Urban Green Expo in New York and vastly enjoyed William McDonough’s keynote presentation. He is an architect, designer, sustainability expert (from way back), and co-guru of the visionary Cradle to Cradle framework for building and living. McDonough’s talk had several key themes: * there are no wastes, only nutrients; * […]
Amid all the doom and gloom that the media and some of the major environmental groups promulgated before, during and after Copenhagen last December, some voices pointed out that there were important breakthroughs. One important group, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), noted that “… for the first time, all major economies, including China, India, […]
I have never been one to diminish the chutzpah of folks trying to protect their special interests by embellishing the truth. I’m actually reading a particularly compelling – often horrifying – book right now called Merchants of Doubt. There are all sorts of obfuscation, misinformation, disinformation, lies, and other forms of wrong dealing documented in […]
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 […]
Here are some updates on the carbon-intensive Alberta tar sands projects. First, the FT’s “Energy Source” blog reports on recent analysis from Citigroup that says, among other things, “It is not a fuel source that sits naturally within a low carbon economy and is unlikely to be a strategic winner as climate regulation tightens, albeit […]
First of all, I have to apologize for not being so much in evidence here over the past couple of weeks. It’s been busy: Last weekend had three – count ’em – three birthday parties, including a big (successful) surprise for my wife with many old friends, followed the next day by a museum extravaganza […]
I wrote last month about The Reaction to EPA’s proposed regulations on greenhouse gases. The virus of fear is spreading. People who should know better, in my opinion, namely eight Democratic Senators from coal, oil and industrial states, wrote to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson warning her, for all intents and purposes, to back off. Coal-State […]
This is the document that has taken many years and much blood, sweat, tears and toil from thousands of people to produce. Yvo de Boer, head of the UNFCCC, described the accord as “politically important.” It provides an “architecture for a response to climate change.” The “LA Times” had this story this morning: Climate summit ends […]
The past week of events – from a U.S. Senate hearing, to remarks by China’s State Council, to high-level talks in Beijing – have scattered a layer of rich soil from which robust US-China cooperation on climate change might spring forth. However, that soil is not uniform in content. The issue of quantifiable emissions reductions, […]