There are more than a few problems in the People’s Republic of China, to be sure, but the one to which I’m referring here is pollution. I went to an event last week sponsored by the Innovation Center for Energy and Transportation (ICET) and hosted by the India China Institute as part of Climate Week […]
On Clean Energy, China Skirts Rules was a front-page story at the NY Times this past week. The gist: China is cranking up its exports of wind turbines and PV, eclipsing other leaders like the US and Germany. However, they’re doing it largely on the strength of subsidies illegal under international trade agreements, namely the […]
Tom Friedman’s latest column, Dreaming the Possible Dream, touches on some companies and their promising technologies that we’ve seen here, namely Calera (cement) and Bloomenergy (fuel cells.) Everybody has seen the hype for Bloomenergy. I sincerely hope they live long and prosper. I quoted Bill McKibben here a while ago in his review of a […]
I wrote in September about what I identified as Tom Friedman’s Strange Call on China. I was reporting that the “NY Times” hadn’t printed a letter I’d written in response to one of Friedman’s columns – Our One-Party Democracy – and so wanted to share the column and response. Funny thing: They did print […]
If you know me or have been reading this blog with any regularity, you know I’m a skeptic. Not about climate change but about China. I made an analysis several years back that, in retrospect, seems mistaken. I perceived that the economic and political pressures of the liberal democracies would push and pull China toward […]
I read a really good book by Steve Schlesinger a few years back called Act of Creation. It’s about the San Francisco conference at which the United Nations was born. There was a lot of intrigue and high drama, with plenty at stake. There are stories of heroes, too, like Edward Stettinius, the unsung Secretary […]
I have written before about the out-of-balance role of contractors in development and in US foreign policy in general – with the hope that the ongoing QDDR will take a hard look at how much is contracted out, to what sorts of entities and with what kind of alignment with development goals and foreign policy interests. Yesterday, […]
I wrote a letter to the “NY Times” in response to Tom Friedman’s column last week, Our One-Party Democracy, in which he says, essentially, that because the Chinese have an autocracy they are better at promoting renewable energy. The “International Herald Tribune” had my letter forwarded from the “NYT” and I had hoped they would […]
I’ve written about the revolution in low-tech. “Teach us delight in simple things …” are words, in my opinion, by which to live. I wrote about a different view of freedom in which the idea of using less energy and consuming fewer resources might actually be construed as liberating. I’ve quoted Bill McKibben in my […]
A question arose for me the other day: How would the world regard the Skeptics/Denialists if they were Holocaust Deniers? The short answer is the “NY Times” wouldn’t have a cover story in their Sunday magazine on a prominent and well-regarded scientist who is, for whatever inexplicable reason and using whatever tortured logic, an outspoken […]
Here are some great stories from major media that merit a look. Beyond these stories, these publications have consistently great coverage on climate change and matters directly relevant to our subject. There’s also a book here for your consideration. National Geographic – This old and universally respected magazine has had an increasingly high profile on […]