Grist | Topics | 586 Results

RESULTS		Results 351 – 375 of 586
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Headline	Author	Published	Section
Brazil ...	David Roberts	31 Jul 2007	Gristmill
... realizes that global warming is going to hurt it too, and starts to come around on the notion of market mechanisms that could prevent further deforestation in the Amazon, one of the principal global sources of greenhouse gas emissions.This is good news -- it needs to become more profitable to save the forest than to cut it down, and quickly.
Topics: Brazil, climate, climate change mitigation, deforestation, greenhouse-gas emissions, rainforests (all these topics)

Against a gas tax It's not the same as a carbon tax, and it's not cool	David Roberts	31 Jul 2007	Gristmill
I've noticed that lots of people talk about a carbon tax and a gas tax as if they're interchangeable, or the same thing, or connected parts of some larger package. That's bad. Please stop it. A carbon tax is just that: a tax on carbon content. It could take numerous forms, but it's generally agreed that the best would be to tax as far "upstream" as possible -- as close as possible to the sources of carbon-heavy fuels -- so as to minimize the number of taxe ...
Topics: carbon tax, climate, climate change mitigation, energy, oil (all these topics)

Magical pony plans: A public service announcement A note to the environmentally self-righteous	David Roberts	31 Jul 2007	Gristmill
Frequently, when a small, incremental measure to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions is proposed, environmental commentators argue that it should be rejected. Why? Because it is a "distraction," a way of enabling us to continue our horrid, depraved lifestyle, methadone for our addiction to iniquity, a sop to our corporate overlords, mere playing of games, a highly Unserious Frivolity, etc. etc. Instead, we should choose the Magical Pony Plan for a Totally and A ...
Topics: climate, climate change mitigation, greenhouse-gas emissions (all these topics)

Hansen's 'two plus two solution' to global warming Two actions and two 'tweaks'	Joseph Romm	30 Jul 2007	Gristmill
Hansen offers his climate solution -- two important actions and two 'tweaks': When you are given a list of 101 things that you should do to save the planet, it is easy to get discouraged. Well, that way of looking at the problem, without some overall understanding, is discouraging! Moreover, you would need to convince everyone else to do all those things! Fat chance of that. Even if you convinced a very large number of people, the net effect would be to reduce ...
Topics: climate, climate change mitigation (all these topics)

Policies to promote technological innovation Here are some	Jason D Scorse	30 Jul 2007	Gristmill
Last week I discussed the basic arithmetic associated with population and economic growth, which will make it impossible to dramatically reduce greenhouse-gas emissions without major improvements in technology. (Some commenters protested, saying that current technology is sufficient, but they are mistaking the ability to reduce emissions based on current levels of income and population and what emissions will be as countries grow and economies expand.) Now I wo ...
Topics: climate, climate change mitigation, innovation, tech (all these topics)

Baskets, eggs, and the precariousness of Homo Economicus Put a whole society on a tightrope without a net and wait	JMG	29 Jul 2007	Gristmill
The venerable Tom's Dispatch has a powerful essay from Chip Ward called 'How Efficiency Maximizes Catastrophe.' It uses honeybee climate collapse disorder to illustrate a hugely important point: where nature overprotects, and uses redundancy with abandon, mankind attempts to engineer everything to the last decimal place, with all redundancy removed in the quest for maximum profit. A suicidal cultural pattern, probably. Excerpt below the fold.Resilience. You may not have heard m ...
Topics: climate, climate change mitigation (all these topics)

Rule three of offsets: No geo-engineering Smacking down a bad idea	Joseph Romm	27 Jul 2007	Gristmill
I know you've all been eagerly waiting for this (don't worry, I don't have many more rules). I got sidetracked by last week's offset hearing. Offset projects should deliver climate benefits with high confidence -- that's a key reason trees make lousy offsets, especially non-urban, non-tropical trees. An even more dubious source of offsets is geo-engineering, which is 'the intentional large scale manipulation of the global environment' (PDF) to counter ...
Topics: carbon offsets, carbon sequestration, climate, climate change mitigation, energy, geoengineering, oceans (all these topics)

Same carbon credits sold twice (as CDM and on voluntary market) Double counting does not legally qualify as fraud	Gar Lipow	27 Jul 2007	Gristmill
The ENDS Report -- July 2007, issue 390 ($ub. rqd): ENDS has learned that chemical corporation Rhodia is using carbon credits from the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to meet voluntary corporate targets -- only to sell them at a profit to be counted again elsewhere. Cement company Lafarge has not ruled out the same practice. Companies like Rhodia can use CDM credits to comply with mandatory targets under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. But they can also use t ...
Topics: business, carbon offsets, climate, climate change mitigation (all these topics)

Jack Bauer is going to stop global warming The TV show 24 will reduce its carbon footprint	Chris Schults	27 Jul 2007	Gristmill
Fans of 24 know that if there's one person that can stop climate change, it ain't Al Gore. It's Jack Bauer. If you are not familiar with Jack, here are some of his qualifications from the site Random Jack Bauer Facts: There are two hands that can beat a royal flush. Jack Bauer's right hand and Jack Bauer's left hand. Most people would need months to recover from 20 months of Chinese interrogation. Jack Bauer needs a shower, a shave and a change of clothes. ...
Topics: biofuels, carbon offsets, climate, climate change mitigation, ecological footprint, energy, green living, greenhouse-gas emissions, renewable energy, TV (all these topics)

Carbon sinks threatened by increasing ozone More great news from the climate	Joseph Romm	27 Jul 2007	Gristmill
Nature has published another landmark study showing how the complex interplay of human-generated pollution with natural systems worsens climate change. Their news article (subs. req'd) explains: Rising levels of ozone pollution over the coming century will erode the ability of plants to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, a new climate-modelling study predicts. Ozone is already known to be a minor greenhouse gas, but the new calculations highlight a ...
Topics: air pollution, climate, climate change mitigation, greenhouse-gas emissions (all these topics)

Why does Robert Samuelson hate America? He thinks we're too shallow to beat global warming	David Roberts	26 Jul 2007	Gristmill
For the most part, the jackassery of Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson is background noise for me, easy enough to ignore. But when he writes about global warming, I can't help but pay attention, despite the dyspepsia that inevitably ensues.Samuelson has one of his characteristically cranky, daft columns up, making an argument that Matt aptly summarizes as, "since the best measures to stop global warming are politically unpopular, it's obvious that enviro ...
Topics: climate change mitigation, climate (all these topics)

GE's climate credit card Mock, yes, but then take a closer look	David Roberts	26 Jul 2007	Gristmill
How about that GE Money Earth Rewards Platinum MasterCard? Hard not to make fun of it, right? So hard, in fact, that Daily Grist failed. To not make fun of it. That is to say, they made fun of it. And by "they" I mean "we." Moving on. Beyond the mockery, there's actually a reasonably interesting story here, and less of a Paradigmatic Example of Our Greedy, Rotten Culture than you might think. Joel Makower, as usual, has the goods. This is parti ...
Topics: green living, shopping, climate, climate change mitigation, carbon offsets (all these topics)

Economic effect of cap-and-trade: A wager Will you take it?	David Roberts	25 Jul 2007	Gristmill
So, Reuters took a look at the EPA's economic analysis of the Lieberman-McCain Climate Stewardship Act (so I didn't have to!). In case your memory is hazy, the CSA is a cap-and-trade bill that would cut emissions 65% by 2050. Here's the nut: The EPA found that the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act of 2007 would shave up to 1.6 percent, or $419 billion, off a baseline forecast for U.S. gross domestic product in 2030 and up to 3.2 percent, or $1.332 trillion, by ...
Topics: carbon trading, climate, climate change mitigation, energy, legislation, politics (all these topics)

Offset mania Can't we offset something other than carbon?	David Roberts	25 Jul 2007	Gristmill
Lordy, this is getting out of hand: Under the agreement announced Wednesday, the Forest Service and the National Forest Foundation will allow individuals or groups to make charitable contributions that will be used to plant trees and do other work to improve national forests. ... Under the new program, known as the Carbon Capital Fund, consumers can 'offset' their carbon emissions by investing in projects on national forests to plant trees and improve water qu ...
Topics: carbon offsets, national forests, energy, climate, climate change mitigation (all these topics)

NASA's Hansen on Live Earth, Gore, and coal It's all about coal	Joseph Romm	25 Jul 2007	Gristmill
More from James Hansen's email: I was invited to go on stage at "Live Earth" at the Meadowlands, between Jon Bon Jovi and Smashing Pumpkins performances. I agreed to this, on the condition that I could bring my grandchildren, Sophie and Connor. I assumed it would be like last year when I appeared with Al Gore before a young audience, with a rather impromptu discussion of global warming. Bad assumption. When I asked "Where's Al?", I was told th ...
Topics: Al Gore, climate, climate change mitigation, coal, energy, green living, James Hansen, music (all these topics)

Timber industry rent seeking Making things out of wood sequesters carbon, turns out	David Roberts	25 Jul 2007	Gristmill
One telling point that carbon tax advocates make against cap-and-trade systems is that they create an enormous incentive for rent-seeking. Now it seems the timber industry is getting in on the game. Via Greenwire (sub rqd), this has my BS alarm all a-ringin': [Timber] Industry groups are lobbying Congress and making a public relations push to promote privately managed forests as carbon sinks -- a bid for a place in potential cap-and-trade schemes for greenhouse gas e ...
Topics: carbon offsets, carbon sequestration, climate, climate change mitigation, logging (all these topics)

Technology is the solution For reducing the climate crisis	Jason D Scorse	24 Jul 2007	Gristmill
There are ongoing debates about the best way to address global warming, with most centering on whether a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade scheme is best (or some combination of the two). There are also some lively, though less extensive, debates about the extent to which we should balance our attempts to reduce global warming with mitigating its effects. I would like to shift the focus a little and ask the question: which policies will best promote technologic ...
Topics: climate, climate change mitigation, energy, tech (all these topics)

Climate change message: positive or negative? Al Gore does both	David Roberts	24 Jul 2007	Gristmill
Both:'What we're facing worldwide really is a planetary emergency,' Gore said. 'I'm optimistic, but we're losing this battle badly.' That's in an article about Al Gore at the Aspen Institute.It's going to take a 90-percent decrease in carbon emissions from developed fossil fuel guzzlers like the U.S. and a 50-percent decrease worldwide to get a handle on the problem, Gore said -- changes that will take major leaps of political will far beyond what current politicians s ...
Topics: Al Gore, climate, climate change mitigation (all these topics)

Lieberman and Warner move closer to climate legislation But what will it look like?	David Roberts	24 Jul 2007	Gristmill
Sens. Lieberman (I) and Warner (R) are, as you may know, attempting to put together a global warming bill that can get through the Senate. They're picking bits and pieces from all the other bills floating around. A hearing on Wed. Tues., with testimony from a variety of big money types, should reveal something about how they plan to play it. Here's what E&E has to say (sub. rqd): Lieberman and Warner are a little more than three weeks into talks on a comprom ...
Topics: climate, climate change mitigation, legislation, politics (all these topics)

Dick, Dick, Dick Just stay out of it, won't you?	David Roberts	23 Jul 2007	Gristmill
In an article about the Bush administration's halting, grudging baby steps toward maybe, somewhat, possibly considering the eensiest-beensiest mandatory restrictions on carbon emissions, perhaps, some day, if it doesn't cost any industry any money, we get this beautiful capper of a final paragraph: A number of big businesses, including some oil, chemical and utility companies, view a cap-and-trade system such as Europe's as inevitable. Opposition to caps -- led by V ...
Topics: carbon trading, climate, climate change mitigation, greenhouse-gas emissions (all these topics)

Playing climate change poker Ante up	Joseph Romm	20 Jul 2007	Gristmill
Colin Challen, a member of Parliament and chair of the All Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group, has a good editorial in the latest issue of Science (sub. rqd). He makes a key point that is often missed in the debate: Not only must we reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, we need a timetable that reduces the risk of positive feedbacks and sink failures that could lead to runaway catastrophic climate change. We are "playing climate change poker ...
Topics: climate, climate change mitigation, greenhouse-gas emissions, international politics (all these topics)

Oh, jeez, not another carbon offset post ... Just when you thought it was over	biodiversivist	19 Jul 2007	Gristmill
Spreadsheets are wonderful things. Rhett Butler has put together a really nice cost analysis comparing the value of tropical peat bogs to palm oil. In a nutshell, this chart shows how much money the owners of these peat bogs could make in the next thirty years, depending of course on the future prices of palm oil and carbon offset credits: Take a look at the lower left-hand corner. Note that carbon credits put money in the landowners' hands from day one, while a new ...
Topics: carbon offsets, climate, climate change mitigation, energy (all these topics)

More fresh, hot data nuggets on carbon offsets Highlights from a report on the state of the U.S. carbon market	Adam Stein	19 Jul 2007	Gristmill
Yesterday morning I attended a "special presentation" of the carbon market survey David summarized earlier. The panel discussion was a chance for the report's authors to present the findings to industry participants. A couple of further comments, for those interested in this topic: The market is probably bigger than reported. Due to difficulties gathering data on this young and highly fragmented industry, the authors feel the market size estimate is con ...
Topics: energy, carbon offsets, climate, climate change mitigation (all these topics)

House offset hearing on Wed.	Joseph Romm	17 Jul 2007	Gristmill
This hearing is the main reason I haven't had time to post more "rules" -- I know, I know ... you have been waiting for them as anxiously as for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming hearing on voluntary carbon offsets tomorrow will be webcast at globalwarming.house.gov -- and I have been reliably informed that if there's any problem with that website, the direct link to the hearing room ...
Topics: carbon offsets, climate, climate change mitigation, Ed Markey, energy, politics (all these topics)

First grants from $100 million Duke Foundation Climate Initiative announced The winners? ED, NRDC, The Pew Center for Climate Change, and other familiar faces ...	Ken Ward	17 Jul 2007	Gristmill
The first round of grants (PDF) from the $100 million climate fund established last year by the Doris Duke Foundation were announced last week. Funding priorities and grant recipients were identified in an exhaustive 18-month process of extensive literature reviews and interviews with more than 75 distinguished scientists, economists, environmental leaders, investors, energy industry representatives, and public policy experts. The result? A total of $3.6 million ...
Topics: climate, climate change impacts, climate change mitigation (all these topics)

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Stories About: climate change mitigation