| Headline |
Author |
Published |
Section |
Nibbling the hand that supplies you Saudi Arabia to host summit on high gas prices |
Joseph Romm |
24 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| Since when do we deal with our addiction by going to summits hosted by drug suppliers? Yet here is the Washington Post: 'Saudi Arabian Oil Summit Hopes to Isolate Cause of Price Rise' JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia, June 21 -- Leaders from oil-producing and oil-consuming nations will meet here Sunday to try to pinpoint the reasons behind the rise in oil prices, which have doubled over the past year, and to find ways to bring them down. You cannot make this s ... |
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| Topics: climate, energy, gas prices, oil, oil and gas drilling, politics, Saudi Arabia (all these topics) |
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Climate change ideas for On Day One A UN Dispatch-Grist collaboration |
Ideas for On Day One |
23 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| This week marks the twentieth anniversary of NASA Scientist James Hansen's groundbreaking Congressional testimony on global warming, an event that put climate change squarely on the political agenda. In honor of the anniversary, UN Dispatch, On Day One, and Grist are partnering to discuss ideas the next president can adopt to take on climate change. We are joined by a panel of experts who will weigh in on ideas submitted to On Day One by every ... |
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| Topics: climate, energy, James Hansen, legislation, politics, renewable energy (all these topics) |
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A Cambridge physicist's cooling summer treat
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JMG |
22 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| Download 'Sustainable Energy -- Without the hot air' for free. You'll be glad you did. |
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| Topics: climate, energy, renewable energy (all these topics) |
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A hundred miles of mirrors Solar thermal can save us, but it needs public clamor |
Ted Nace |
22 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| [Editor's note: When this post was originally run, the phrase '100 miles by 100 miles' was changed to '100 square miles,' which is very different. The article has now been corrected (or rather, unmiscorrected) and the appropriate intern flogged; our apologies to Ted and Alex.] This post was coauthored with Alex Carlin, organizer of Let's Go Solar and instigator of the recent Environment America study (PDF), 'On the Rise: Solar Thermal Power and the Fight Against Global ... |
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| Topics: climate, climate change impacts, energy (all these topics) |
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Hill heap A weekly roundup of greenish news from the Capitol |
Kate Sheppard |
21 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| A few of this week's environmental happenings that I've been meaning to point out: Oilman-turned-clean-energy-evangelist T. Boone Pickens came to town to testify about the country's transmission problems that are preventing wind from becoming a major source of power. Pickens, who is attempting to build the world's largest wind farm in Texas, joined experts from the Department of Energy and wind-energy lobbyists in testifying before the Senate Committee on Energ ... |
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| Topics: climate, energy, Muckraker, news, oil, politics, wind power (all these topics) |
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A huge tax increase? The GOP disinformation machine settles on an angle |
Ryan Avent |
20 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| It seems that another way that the GOP will try to win on this issue is by painting carbon pricing as a massive tax increase. This is just dishonest, though politically it's their best bet (assuming a complete lack of regard for actual outcomes). Let's all think back to the Lieberman-Warner debate, when Bush did his best to scare the crap out of everyone by arguing that L-W would increase gas prices 53 cents-per-gallon by 2030. In fact, it's difficult to imagine th ... |
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| Topics: carbon trading, climate, energy, gas prices, politics (all these topics) |
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Big bad boom Radioactive deja vu in the American West |
David Roberts |
20 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| This is a guest essay from Chip Ward, author and board member of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. It was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom's kind permission. ----- In the American West, we take global warming personally. Like those polar bears desperately hunting for dwindling ice flows, we feel we're on the frontlines of the new weather regime. The West is drying up. For example, canyon-hugging conservationists ... |
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| Topics: business, climate, energy, environmental movement, nuclear power, politics, water pollution (all these topics) |
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The Grand Ostrich Party Conservative heads increasingly buried in sand |
Ryan Avent |
19 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| Andrew Sullivan reads this Jim Manzi post (Conservatives are going to win on climate change! By doing nothing!) and says he's on board. He then proceeds to blow my freaking mind: The key will be private and public innovation of non-carbon energy, and possibly carbon capture technology. Frankly, however painful it is for many, the high price of gas is perhaps the best anti-global warming non-policy there is. Now, why is it that the high price of gas is the best an ... |
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| Topics: climate, energy, fossil fuels, gas prices, politics, renewable energy (all these topics) |
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EIA to McCain: Drop offshore (drilling) Offshore drilling will have no impact on oil prices through 2030 |
Joseph Romm |
19 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| McCain has flip-flopped his position on offshore drilling, pandered to the oil companies, and embraced the exact same strategy endorsed by the man McCain is trying so hard to run away from -- President Bush. He must have a damn good policy reason: 'Tomorrow I'll call for lifting the federal moratorium for states that choose to permit exploration,' McCain said. 'I think that this and perhaps providing additional incentives for states to permit exploration off their co ... |
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| Topics: climate, energy, John McCain, oil and gas drilling, politics, presidential race 08 (all these topics) |
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More on the cost of GHG regulation Short-term high gas prices (hopefully) mitigate long-term environmental disasters |
Andrew Dessler |
18 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| I have been reading Sean Casten's post on the economics of carbon pricing with interest. After some thought, here's my take. A carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system will, without question, raise the price of energy, at least in the short term. In the long-term, it may well be that technological developments lead us to new energy sources that turn out to be cheaper than anything we have today. But that's pure speculation. But in the short term, the costs of a c ... |
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| Topics: carbon trading, climate, energy, energy efficiency, gas prices (all these topics) |
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Mother Earth's triple whammy Why North Korea was a global crisis canary |
Guest author |
18 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| This is a guest essay from John Feffer, co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies and the author of numerous articles on food policy and on North Korea. It was originally published on TomDispatch and is reprinted here with Tom's kind permission. ----- Gas prices are above $4 a gallon; global food prices surged 39 percent last year; and an environmental disaster looms as carbon emissions continue to spiral upward. The global ... |
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| Topics: agriculture, climate, energy, international politics, North Korea (all these topics) |
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Calamity Kaine Virginia Gov, possible veep, afraid of Big Coal |
Glenn Hurowitz |
17 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine set a new standard for politician mealy-mouthedness with a letter to his Virginia Air Board (tip of the hat to Raising Kaine for digging this one up). Although he asserts that his letter isn't about any particular decision, everyone outside the governor's office knows that the letter is about one thing: The proposed massive coal-fired power plant being planned for Wise County, Virginia. His bureaucratic opacity (PDF) is sure to be taught in gov ... |
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| Topics: climate, coal, energy, politics, presidential race 08, Virginia (all these topics) |
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Mixed messages McCain releases new climate ad ahead of speech calling for more drilling |
Kate Sheppard |
17 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| John McCain unveiled a new climate-change ad today -- hours before he's scheduled to give an energy speech in Texas that will call for building more oil refineries and lifting a federal ban on offshore oil and gas drilling. 'John McCain stood up to the president and sounded the alarm on global warming, five years ago,' says the ad. 'Today, he has a realistic plan that will curb greenhouse-gas emissions. A plan that will help grow our economy and protect our envi ... |
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| Topics: climate, energy, John McCain, Muckraker, news, oil, oil and gas drilling, politics, presidential race 08 (all these topics) |
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Mildly different Are McCain's environmental views really so far from Bush's? |
David Roberts |
17 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| The New York Times' Elisabeth Bumiller says, "On the environment ... Mr. McCain has strikingly different views from Mr. Bush." Is that true? Bush wants unstinting federal support and pork for the nuclear industry. He supports "clean coal." He is against raising CAFE standards on automobiles or boosting efficiency and performance standards on other individual economic sectors. He supports removing the moratorium on offshore drilling. He believes in ... |
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| Topics: climate, energy, George Bush, John McCain, legislation, politics (all these topics) |
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Moral obligation, patriotic duty State poll shows Oregonians ready and willing to do what it takes to halt climate change |
Anna Fahey |
17 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| The National research firm Public Opinion Strategies recently conducted a survey of 500 likely Oregon voters to assess views on the issue of climate change and to gauge support for the basic principles of policy measures like the proposed cap-and-trade system in the Lieberman-Warner Act (a.k.a. the Climate Security Act -- legislation that was recently defeated last week in the U.S. Senate, but marked a step forward on national climate policy.) The survey, which presents ... |
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| Topics: cap-and-dividend, carbon trading, climate, economy, energy, greenhouse-gas emissions, Nature Conservancy, Oregon, politics (all these topics) |
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The Brownstein diagnosis What went wrong on Lieberman-Warner? |
David Roberts |
16 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| Ron Brownstein -- for my money the best political reporter out there -- examines the implosion of the Lieberman-Warner bill in National Journal. Here's his three-paragraph summary of what went wrong: The bill would have established enough boards and regulations that the chamber [of commerce] was able to distribute a devastating chart, modeled on those used against Hillary Rodham Clinton's health care plan in 1993, that portrayed the proposal as an impossibly tang ... |
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| Topics: climate, energy, greenhouse-gas emissions, legislation, politics (all these topics) |
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Pump Up the Volume China's carbon emissions highest in the world last year, study says |
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16 Jun 2008 |
News |
| Posted at 6:35 AM on 16 Jun 2008 China's carbon emissions were the highest in the world in 2007, exceeding those of its closest rival, the United States, by 14 percent, according to a new study from the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. The NEAA also found in a study last year that China was the world's top polluter in 2006, a finding some other energy agencies disputed. However, the emissions incr ... |
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| Topics: China, climate, energy, news, United States (all these topics) |
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GHG policy thoughts, economics edition The goal of climate policy is not high GHG prices |
Sean Casten |
15 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| There's an implicit assumption in much of the climate policy debate that to meaningfully lower greenhouse-gas emissions, we need a high price on carbon. The assumption is wrong. Economics 101 In a market setting, price is a function of supply and demand. For a given commodity, prices will be high when demand outpaces supply and low when supply outpaces demand. Thus oil, for instance, is expensive. And autographed copies of my pen and ink cartoons are cheap ( ... |
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| Topics: carbon trading, climate, economy, energy, greenhouse-gas emissions, renewable energy (all these topics) |
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The price isn't right Nuclear power is expensive |
Joseph Romm |
14 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| In mid-2007, a Keystone Center nuclear report (PDF), funded in part by the nuclear industry estimated capital costs for nuclear of $3600 to $4000/kW including interest. The report notes, 'the power isn't cheap: 8.3 to 11.1 cents per kilo-watt hour.' In December 2007, retail electricity prices in this country averaged 8.9 cents per kwh. Mid-2007 has already become the good old days for affordable nuclear power. Jim Harding, who was on the Keystone Center panel and was ... |
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| Topics: business, climate, economy, energy, nuclear power (all these topics) |
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Against cap-and-dividend Peter Barnes' carbon policy proposal would not spur the economic changes we need |
Guest author |
13 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| This is a guest essay from Jim Barrett, an economist and Executive Director of Redefining Progress. ----- I should preface by saying that I am a fan of Peter Barnes. He's an emeritus board member of Redefining Progress. He's a smart and thoughtful guy. But I'm not a fan of his cap and dividend idea, mostly from an economic perspective. First, the idea that a price on carbon would be transformative, and that we should do that first and then come in with other ... |
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| Topics: cap-and-dividend, climate, energy, politics (all these topics) |
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Manifestos for the next president Climate action plans for the first 100 days and beyond |
Maywa Montenegro |
12 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| I am blown away by the depth and scope of the nonpartisan Presidential Climate Action Project. Its centerpiece is a first-100-days plan, detailed in a 300-page report, covering issues ranging from energy policy and green collar jobs to the farm bill and ethanol subsidies to the Law of the Sea. My only quibble is the continued support for grain ethanol -- although the project does advocate quick turnover to cellulosic sources -- how quick that evolution will be is a ... |
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| Topics: ag policy, climate, energy, ethanol, politics (all these topics) |
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Dingell dangle Dingell promises climate bill friendlier to manufacturers |
Kate Sheppard |
12 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair John Dingell (D-Mich.) has been saying for months now that a climate bill from his committee is on the way. Yesterday he talked about his pending legislation to industry folks, promising it would be friendlier to their interests than the Senate bill that failed last week: Dingell told the Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association, the auto supplier trade association, at a luncheon on Capitol Hill Wednesday that the cl ... |
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| Topics: climate, energy, legislation, Muckraker, news, politics, US House of Representatives (all these topics) |
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Corn polls New surveys suggest changing views on biofuels |
Ron Steenblik |
11 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| Biofuel policy has made it to the polls. Yesterday, the National Center for Public Policy Research, a nonprofit, non-partisan educational foundation based in Washington, D.C., released the results of a survey (PDF) conducted at the beginning of this month which claims to have found that most Americans -- 'including those in the Farm Belt' -- want Congress to reduce or eliminate the mandated use of corn ethanol. In response to the key question, 'What do you think Congr ... |
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| Topics: agriculture, biofuels, climate, energy, ethanol, European Union, politics (all these topics) |
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Action on Solar Investment Tax Credit Delayed Lack of credit threatens solar industry |
Michael Moynihan |
11 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| Originally posted at the NDN Blog. The failure of the Senate to obtain cloture on the Solar Investment Tax Credit -- coming on the heels of the collapse of climate change legislation last Friday -- should send a wake up call to the environment and clean technology communities that a new more forceful strategy is needed to make progress on climate change and energy independence. At a moment when the U.S. economy is suffering from the effects of a full blown oil sh ... |
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| Topics: business, climate, economy, energy, legislation, politics (all these topics) |
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Wait, they're not the same?!
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David Roberts |
11 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| In the Boston Globe, Carol Browner and Bob Sussman construct a short and powerful critique of McCain's climate/energy positions, tacking against the kind of foolishness that has addled the brains of the folks over at the L.A. Times. |
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| Topics: Barack Obama, climate, energy, John McCain, messaging, politics, presidential race 08 (all these topics) |
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