Climate Change Mitigation

Free Pass?

Ask Umbra on buying carbon offsets 11
Posted 1 month ago Your power company wants to sell you offsets, but what are they doing with the money? Umbra explains how to find out, and whether it's worth the investment.
Seeing REDD

If REDD can’t save this…. 2
Posted 1 month, 1 week ago The new forest part of the climate change treaty (called REDD) under negotiation this week here in Bangkok may end up calling it carbon savings and subsidizing its destruction.
It Could Be Verse

Climate-news poem: Tck, tck, tck edition 0
Posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago Oh climate week, with all your earnest stars and flash mobbery and noncommittal world leaders! We hardly knew ye.
Ask Umbra at the Age of Stupid premiere 0
Posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago
'Unease Is No Excuse for Inaction'

Obama’s climate speech to the U.N. 6
Posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago As international pressure mounts for true progress on climate change, President Obama addressed the United Nations today. Find out what he said.
Glass half empty

Water must be on the table at Copenhagen talks 0
Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago
The participants of the 2009 World Water Week in Stockholm today unanimously said that water must be included in the COP-15 climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December.
General Musings

GM: Innovators or crackheads? 5
Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago
Hot on the heels of last week's news about the 230-mile-per-gallon Chevy Volt comes word that GM will build a $4,000 compact. Brilliance or desperation?
Notable quotable

Yvo de Boer of U.N. climate convention says 350 ppm is pipe dream 7
Posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago
“I don’t think there is a hope in hell that people will agree to 350 in Copenhagen. I think we’ll get 2 degrees.”
Oh, Here It Is!

Four years after my pleading essay, climate art is hot 12
Posted 3 months ago
Four years ago, you'd have been hard-pressed to find a song, or a photo, or a play about climate change. All that's changed, as artists of every stripe confront our greatest global challenge.
Saving our asses at a profit

The good news about energy efficiency 3
Posted 3 months ago
Conventional wisdom has it that the effort to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions is going to be long, expensive, and painful for consumers; efficiency can at best defray the costs. But economic models consistently underestimate energy efficiency. A batch of recent studies supports that argument -- studies that examine the potential for energy efficiency to reduce emissions at a negative cost, i.e., a profit.
There is no above-it-all high enough to clear climate catastrophe

Gideon Rachman: Inability to prevent mass suffering and death a “dilemma for climate activists” 8
Posted 3 months, 1 week ago
I want to ask Rachman, and all the pundits who address climate politics: Do you believe the mainstream scientific consensus that climate change poses massive risks for humanity, and that urgent international action is necessary to reduce those risks? If not, say so, clearly. If so, then it's your fight too. You cannot stand on the sidelines.
Like splitting hairs with bald people

Sarah Palin, George Will, and Potemkin debates 21
Posted 3 months, 2 weeks ago
Debating climate policy with conservatives is a surreal exercise because, as a movement and as a party, conservatives do not believe anthropogenic climate change exists. But the mainstream media refuses to notice.
Surf's going up

Hawaii invests in climate change task force 0
Posted 3 months, 2 weeks ago
Hawaii’s state legislature established a climate change task force last week to study the potential impacts of rising sea levels, eroding coast lines, ocean acidification, fiercer storms, and other expected effects of climate change, and to suggest response strategies.
It Could Be Verse

Climate-news poem: G8 edition 3
Posted 4 months ago
This week, world leaders came to a landmark climate agreement at the G8 summit in Italy ... or just enjoyed a really good meal or two. Pasta la vista, baby.
It Could Be Verse

Climate-news poem: Breath-catching edition 0
Posted 4 months, 1 week ago
After last week's Congressional frenzy, we take a moment to reflect on the climate vote and its fallout. Next week: no ACES, we promise!
2 degrees of Earth bakin'

47 groups urge Obama to endorse 2-degree C warming threshold 5
Posted 4 months, 1 week ago
A broad coalition of environment, science, and faith-based groups sent a letter to President Barack Obama recently asking him to pursue a goal of keeping global warming to less than 2 degrees in upcoming international meetings.
National climate change policy: A quick look back at Waxman-Markey and the road ahead 1
Posted 4 months, 1 week ago
Like any legislation, the Waxman‑Markey bill has its share of flaws, but its cap-and-trade system has medium and long‑term targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions that are sensible, and the cap‑and‑trade system is -- for the most part -- well designed. With some exceptions, the bill's cap‑and‑trade system will achieve meaningful reductions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions at minimal cost to the economy.
Ya gotta have faith

Why we overestimate the costs of climate change legislation 12
Posted 4 months, 1 week ago
The way economists calculate the costs of tackling climate change misses low-carbon alternatives and underestimates innovation. Just as economic models have overestimated the cost of virtually every environmental regulation in history, so today they're overestimating the costs of the clean energy revolution.
It Could Be Verse

Climate-news poem: OMG They’re Voting! edition 1
Posted 4 months, 2 weeks ago
You've maybe noticed a certain theme on Grist lately. Call it what you will -- Waxman-Markey, ACES, The Crucialest Legislation This Country Has Seen In Recent Memory or Maybe Ever -- it's a critical battle in the climate fight. Right?
Dispatch from the Major Economies Forum

What will the U.S. and other major economies commit to? 0
Posted 4 months, 2 weeks ago
I am outside of Mexico City with delegates from the world's 17 biggest economies who are meeting this week ahead of the next G8 meeting to further negotiate international climate agreements. Issues on the table include funding for forest protection, mid-term and long-term emission reduction targets, and financing for adaption and mitigation. The outcomes from these talks remain in doubt and other questions fester, like to what will the U.S. commit to?