by Terry Tamminen

Posted 4 days, 18 hours ago California is at it again. State regulators just set energy efficiency standards for new TVs, mostly the big flat panel models that gulp kilowatts. As a result, consumers will save about $8 billion in the next decade in the form of lower electricity bills and carbon pollution will drop equal to removing 100,000 cars from the road. As my dad used to say, “a penny saved is a penny earned” - - so why doesn’t the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) want you to get your share of that saved carbon or those 800,000,000,000 pennies?

The CEA fears that TV… Read More

Posted 1 week, 4 days ago You might not hear that exact question any time soon, but don’t be surprised if companies start shifting carbon risk from their balance sheets to someone else’s, using the time-honored marketplace tool of insurance. And when that happens, expect the price of products to reflect the new reality.

China, India, and other emerging economies argue that we became prosperous using up the atmosphere and must now bear a disproportionate share of the burden to fix the problem, at least in the first few years of any new global deal. One proposal floating around before the global climate talks in… Read More

Posted 3 weeks ago As the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee began hearings on carbon regulation, debate ran along traditional battle lines, but with a new script. Democrats Barbara Boxer (CA) and John Kerry (MA) moved away from discussing the environmental impacts of climate change - - and the reason, therefore, to take action to reduce carbon emissions - - and focused instead on the economic benefits of a domestic clean energy economy. Meanwhile, Republicans James Inhofe (OK) and Lamar Alexander (TN) complained that energy bills would rise and Americans would lose jobs.

It’s a good thing that Congress is finally looking… Read More

Posted 4 weeks, 1 day ago California’s state budget gap was about $40 billion this year. New York’s some $50 billion. Every state in the Union is struggling with drastically lower revenues and higher costs for services of every kind, washing state capitals with red ink. At the polls next year, governors who are facing elections - - including Governor David Paterson of New York - - may find themselves politically drowned by such gargantuan deficits.

So, faced with closing schools, hospitals, fire stations, and kicking struggling families off of welfare roles, governors are turning instead, like the famous bank robber Willy Sutton, to wherever… Read More

Posted 1 month ago It’s not just the ads showing a baby-boomer couple sitting in matching bathtubs on a beach at sunset where you can find performance anxiety these days. Try looking in the hardware aisle and at the gas station. Read More

Posted 1 month, 1 week ago A decade ago, health-conscious consumers forced manufacturers to list nutritional information on food packages. We’ll soon be able to make buying decisions based on carbon content too - - taming our waistlines and “waste lines” at the same time. Read More

Posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago I had a dream about watching one of those high stakes poker games that you see on TV. Barack Obama and Hu Jintao were at the table, each with so many chips before them that you could barely see their cowboy shirts. But the purpose in their deadly stares could not be obscured, even by the dark Ray Bans that shaded their eyes. Read More

Posted 1 month, 3 weeks ago Millions of people come and go from New York’s iconic Empire State Building every year. The 102 floors bristle with keyboard-clicking, ballpoint-wielding, paper-shredding cubicle dwellers, none of which would appear out of place in an episode of “The Office”. But something very different is happening on the fifth floor - - a magical workplace that may soon transform the entire skyline of a big city near you.

At the recent Clinton Global Initiative conference (CGI) in New York, I caught up with Marc Porat of Serious Materials (www.seriousmaterials.com). He’s part of a team working on the Empire State Building,… Read More

Posted 1 year, 11 months ago In late November, I began a three-week stay on the CCGS Amundsen, a Canadian Coast Guard ice-breaker and scientific research vessel that is spending 15 months in the Arctic. This expedition will be the first ever to spend the winter moving through sea ice north of the Arctic Circle -- and at present, I am the only reporter on board. The logistics of such an expedition are extremely difficult. But we are here now because it is so important to predict the effects of climate change in the Arctic.