by Jon Rynn
My blog posts present and discuss holistic solutions to problems such as global warming, peak oil, ecosystem destruction, and globalization. My public Google spreadsheet, “ElectricalUse”, contains public information about energy use in the United States, and my spreadsheet “GreenhouseGasEmissions” presents data on global emissions. You can see a condensed list of my Grist blog posts here. My other writings can be seen here.
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Every job can be green, part three 1
Posted 7 months, 1 week ago This is the third and last installment of my chapter, “Green jobs in a sustainable economy,” published recently in the book “Mandate for Change.” You can read part one and part two, in which I discuss the first six out of eight ways in which to create an environmentally sustainable economy. Read More -
Cap-and-dividend, not cap-and-offset
Fast action on climate change 0
Posted 7 months, 1 week ago This is a guest post from Ted Glick, a long-time progressive and climate activist. More information and contact information can be found at tedglick.comTomorrow, April 20th, I and over 200 other people around the country and from several countries will be fasting. We'll be doing so to make a statement that it is long overdue that this country gets on the right side, gives concrete leadership, to the wide and deep clean energy revolution that is absolutely essential, and soon, if we're to have a chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change.
We're doing this tomorrow because this… Read More
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Every job can be green, part two 4
Posted 7 months, 2 weeks ago Part two of my chapter, "Green jobs in a sustainable economy," published recently in the book "Mandate for Change." Read More -
Thank you, Van Jones, for being busy
Every job can be green, part one 1
Posted 7 months, 4 weeks ago A green-collar jobs program can help create an environmentally and economically sustainable society that: drastically reduces its greenhouse gas emissions; encourages energy independence from oil; eliminates the worry of heating and cooling one's home; and increases food security, all while providing millions of high-quality, well-paying, long-term jobs, thus bringing millions of people into a stable middle class. Read More -
The 'Big Fix' is in
The economy needs to be green to be ‘fixed’ 9
Posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago As is often the case, The New York Times serves as a good example of the mistaken assumptions underlying conventional wisdom. In his Sunday Magazine cover story, "The Big Fix," Times economic columnist David Leonhardt combines many of the misconceptions surrounding the idea of "green jobs." As I fretted in a previous post, some writers, including Leonhardt, seem to be setting up some sort of cosmic battle between green jobs, cap-and-trade, and economic growth:Of the $700 billion we spend each year on energy, more than half stays inside this country. It goes to coal companies or utilities… Read More
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Preventing green vs. blue
Government investment in the Midwest will grease the skids for cap-and-trade 12
Posted 10 months ago The New York Times, in an article entitled, "Geography is dividing Democrats over energy," makes much of an alleged split between policymakers on the coasts, vs. those in the Midwest and Plains states. Somehow coal and manufacturing are grouped together, challenging a concern for global warming:"There's a bias in our Congress and government against manufacturing, or at least indifference to us, especially on the coasts," said Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio. "It's up to those of us in the Midwest to show how important manufacturing is. If we pass a climate bill the wrong way, it will… Read More
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Convenient facts about an inconvenient truth, part 2
A detailed look at building, industry, transportation, and land-use greenhouse-gas emissions 38
Posted 10 months, 2 weeks ago Greenhouse gases come in two basic flavors: carbon dioxide from fossil fuels, and emissions from land use -- agriculture, forests, peat bogs, and waste management. Fossil fuels are primarily used for energy in three sectors: buildings, industry, and transportation. Transportation is almost entirely oil-based -- according to the International Energy Association, about 0.1 percent of transportation energy currently comes from electricity.Just to make things complicated, people use fossil fuels to make electricity to use in buildings and industry. Well, actually, we use fossil fuels to make electricity -- and -- we use fossil fuels to make heat to use… Read More
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Convenient facts about an inconvenient truth, part 1
Slicing and dicing global greenhouse gas data 17
Posted 10 months, 2 weeks ago Say you said to yourself, "Gee, I wish we could prevent global warming." Your next thought might be, "Gosh, where do greenhouse emissions come from?" Well, I asked myself just that question a while back. So I decided to jump into the IPCC Working Group III Assessment Report, and I've posted a Google workbook, called "GreenhouseGasEmissions," which should let you know just about everything you always wanted to know about the global sources of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.The biggest surprise to me was the sheer number of major sources. I don't know whether it would… Read More
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The de-greening of America and China
How the U.S. and China can help, not harm, each other 19
Posted 11 months ago So this is how it worked: Instead of greening our manufacturing base, amping up our recycling system, and competing on the basis of better production technology, we shipped our production to China, which is busy polluting itself and spewing carbon dioxide. In return, the Chinese took the hundreds of billions from sales to the U.S. and reinvested the money here, helping to make our sprawl even spawlier and our military even more wasteful.According to an article from The New York Times, "Chinese Savings Helped Inflate American Bubble":
In the 19th century, the United States built its railroads… Read More
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Time for a green industrial policy?
The economy is an ecosystem, and industrial policy will help that ecosystem 24
Posted 11 months, 1 week ago Back in the 1980s, writers such as Robert Reich were advocating what was called an "industrial policy" -- that is, the government should intervene in the economy and explicitly help a particular industry or set of industries in order to make them more competitive.Yes, I know this sounds like "picking winners," except that governments have been doing this successfully for hundreds of years. Consider it as the equivalent of the Park Service being stewards of a national park, intervening when necessary to keep the ecosystem healthy. Now, think of the economy as an ecosystem, and think of industrial… Read More
