Grist | Topics | 253 Results

RESULTS		Results 176 – 200 of 253
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Headline	Author	Published	Section
A trillion here, a trillion there Another day, another trillion dollars for the clean-tech industry	Mark Pawlosky	19 Feb 2008	Gristmill
It seems that a day doesn't slip by without someone raising the stakes in the alternative-energy poker game. The most recent bombshell wager: Cambridge Energy Research Associates report that alternative energy investments will -- hold on to your hats! -- top $7 trillion by 2030. That's an audacious number by any measure, and normally it would be enough to suck the oxygen right out of a convention of wind-farm enthusiasts. But that's not the half of it. The most sta ...
Topics: business, economy, energy, investing, renewable energy, tech (all these topics)

The subsidy tease, part II Renewable energy incentives were stripped from the energy bill; what should be done next?	Joseph Romm	14 Feb 2008	Gristmill
This post is by ClimateProgress guest blogger Bill Becker, executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project. ----- The energy bill passed by Congress last December originally contained a beneficial, if temporary, set of financial incentives to spur the growth of renewable energy technologies in the United States. The bill included a renewable energy portfolio standard (RPS) that would require states to acquire part of their electric power from r ...
Topics: climate, economy, energy, politics, renewable energy (all these topics)

Houston, we have a problem Opinion writer suggests efficiency stimulus would be more effective	Sarah K. Burkhalter	13 Feb 2008	Gristmill
An opinion writer at the Houston Chronicle says: Congress missed a major opportunity with the stimulus package. They could have invested in something that would have been good for the consumer (encouraging energy savings), the environment (reducing emissions) and the economy (stimulating development of products that represent our future).The magic elixir?Energy efficiency is the best thing we can do for our economy and environment right now. Instead of $600 o ...
Topics: economy, energy, energy at home, energy efficiency, legislation, politics (all these topics)

Maxed out We've borrowed more than we can afford to borrow, sprawled more than we can afford to sprawl	Ryan Avent	11 Feb 2008	Gristmill
There are a lot of moving parts involved in the current, sputtering condition of the economy, which can't yet be declared a recession but may well become one. I'll summarize as best I can. Very cheap credit led to a housing upturn, which became a boom, which became, in many parts of the country, a speculative bubble. The cheap credit was the result of a number of factors, including lax monetary police at the Federal Reserve, but of high importance were the huge foreign ex ...
Topics: economy, energy, placemaking (all these topics)

Next market bubble: farmland! Thanks to the ethanol boom, big investors are plowing cash into corn country	Tom Philpott	07 Feb 2008	Gristmill
Big investors seem to have forgotten how to exist without some sort of speculative bubble. In the last decade, they've whipped cash from tech stocks to bonds to emerging markets to real estate to junk mortgages. With the latter bubble now deflating rapidly, they've turned to ... Midwestern farmland? Yes, big cornfields. Here's a Chicago asset manager talking about who's buying up farmland, quoted in USA Today: It's everybody from the person concerned about the sto ...
Topics: agriculture, biofuels, business, economy, energy, ethanol (all these topics)

Where's the straight talk express when you need it? Green stimulus bill falls short by one vote -- McCain's vote -- in Senate	David Roberts	06 Feb 2008	Gristmill
So, remember the stimulus bill? The one with all the green tax breaks and incentives? It lost today in the Senate today, by one vote. Every Dem voted for it, as did moderate Republicans Specter, Collins, Snowe, Smith, and Coleman, plus Grassley, Dole, and Domenici. Gregg and Sununu voted the wrong way (as they did on the energy bill). So who could have made the difference on this crucial fight in the battle against global warming? Why, maverick climate crusader Jo ...
Topics: economy, politics (all these topics)

Stimu-lie? The green tax credits are good ideas, but not good stimulus ideas	Guest author	05 Feb 2008	Gristmill
The following is a guest post from Jim Barrett, an economist and Executive Director of Redefining Progress. ----- So, maybe you've heard: the economy looks like it might be headed for the tank. You may have also noticed that there's an election this year. That means it must be time for a stimulus package on Capitol Hill. No one up there wants to head into reelection with rising unemployment, a rash of foreclosures, and falling incomes on their hands, without at l ...
Topics: economy, energy, green jobs, politics, renewable energy (all these topics)

Donkeys v. ponies The latest on green tax breaks in the stimulus bill	David Roberts	05 Feb 2008	Gristmill
I hope everyone saw Josh's Saturday update on the green tax breaks that may or may not end up in the stimulus package. The L.A. Times has another update today. There are quite a few Dem heavyweights behind Baucus' alternative stimulus bill, the one with green tax breaks, but its fate is unclear. The vote happens Wednesday. Two bits of the story are worth specifically calling out. First, this: ... the proposed benefits for green energy mark another advance for an ...
Topics: economy, energy, legislation, politics, renewable energy (all these topics)

A trillion here, a trillion there Converting the permanent military economy to a green economy	Jon Rynn	04 Feb 2008	Gristmill
In the 1960s, the silver-tongued leader of the Senate Republicans, Everett Dirksen, is reputed to have said, 'A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you're talking real money.' According to a recent article by Chalmers Johnson, 'Going Bankrupt: Why the debt crisis in now the greatest threat to the American Republic,' we may have to replace Dirksen's 'billion' with the Pentagon's 'trillion.' By Johnson's accounting, the military is now spending over $1 trillion a year ...
Topics: economy (all these topics)

Jobs, jobs, jobs Green energy projects bloom in California	Adam Browning	04 Feb 2008	Gristmill
Right on the heels of Tappergate, The New York Times comes out with a couple of articles exploring the economic benefits of fighting global warming. As is evident to anyone but a Taphole, the energy business is the largest business there ever is or was or will be, and therein lies not only enormous money-making opportunities but jobs, jobs, jobs. These things, we hear, are good for the economy. So, take California, which decided to get serious about developing a so ...
Topics: California, economy, energy, green jobs, renewable energy, solar voltaic power (all these topics)

Nice (stimulus) package The state of play on green incentives in the stimulus bill	Guest author	02 Feb 2008	Gristmill
The following is a guest essay from Josh Dorner, deputy press secretary of the Sierra Club. ----- Greens were heartbroken last year when a package of tax incentives for clean energy and renewables fell short in a 59-40 vote during December's energy bill battle royale in the Senate. Greens, renewables folks, and the Democratic leadership have been looking for a clear path forward ever since. As these particular incentives actually do stimulate the economy, atta ...
Topics: economy, legislation, politics (all these topics)

Whither the alternative energy market? Q&A with Eric Janszen on whether an alt-energy bubble is in the making	Mark Pawlosky	01 Feb 2008	Gristmill
Eric Janszen Eric Janszen, the founder and president of iTulip.com, recently argued in Harper's Magazine that the alternative energy segment is a prime candidate for a massive asset bubble, potentially dwarfing both the dot-com and housing bubbles. I wrote about Janszen's prediction last week. This week, Janszen joins us for a question-and-answer follow-up.Grist: You make a convincing argument that a financial bubble in the alternative energy industry ...
Topics: business, economy, energy, interview, investing, renewable energy, tech (all these topics)

Thought leader Gristmill's most persistent troll earns props	JMG	01 Feb 2008	Gristmill
The estimable George Monbiot channels Gristmill's most execrable troll, proving once again the old chestnut about stopped clocks being right twice a day.
Topics: economy, population (all these topics)

Jake Tapper is a hack Campaign reporter misrepresents Clinton, responds to correction with pissy snark	David Roberts	31 Jan 2008	Gristmill
So Jake Tapper -- the very model of the modern gossip-obsessed campaign reporter -- goes to see a Bill Clinton speech and returns to write a blog post: "Bill: 'We Just Have to Slow Down Our Economy' to Fight Global Warming." Ha! Finally the dirty liberals admit it! They want to destroy the economy! The post ended up on Drudge, from whence it made the usual rounds of the dingbatosphere. Only Tapper was full of shit. As the Clinton campaign rushed to point ...
Topics: Bill Clinton, climate, economy (all these topics)

An infrastructure problem Public works and investment must be part of the solution to global warming	Gar Lipow	30 Jan 2008	Gristmill
As I've said before, certain types of goods -- public goods -- simply cannot be allocated efficiently through market mechanisms alone, even if we get prices right. Now this is not a 'government good/private sector bad' post. It is a suggestion, as was my original post on this subject, that a market system requires not only regulation but large-scale public investment, and that one of the places we are making way too few public investments is energy infrastructure. Again, ...
Topics: economy, climate, energy, climate change mitigation (all these topics)

Bubbling up ... Could alternative energy companies drive the next big market bubble?	Mark Pawlosky	26 Jan 2008	Gristmill
In case you missed it, the Dow Jones Industrial Average experienced a violent and exhausting 1,000-point swing the past week, down 450 points on Tuesday before trimming its losses and then tumbling 330 points on Wednesday before rebounding with a 299-point gain. It's not the only financial freefall of late. The housing market bubble was punctured last fall and has been leaking like the Hindenburg ever since. (And long before that, the economy experienced the ...
Topics: business, economy, energy, investing, renewable energy, tech (all these topics)

Memo to candidates Green-collar jobs mean standing up for people and the planet	Van Jones	25 Jan 2008	Gristmill
For those of us who are a part of the movement for 'green-collar jobs,' last Sunday's Democratic presidential debate was a real watershed moment. Van Jones. Clinton, Edwards, and Obama were in the debate of their lives. And all three of them passionately championed the importance of creating good jobs in the clean energy sector. They presented 'green-collar jobs' as a way to simultaneously boost the economy and beat global warming. Their words ...
Topics: economy, elections, environmental justice, green jobs, politics, presidential race 08, Van Jones (all these topics)

Notable quotable What is a conservative?	Sean Casten	24 Jan 2008	Gristmill
From Restructuring Today ($ub req'd), reporting on Markey's hearings on allocation vs. auction as a cap & trade methodology: Even conservative Harvard economist Gregory Mankiw believes a free allocation amounts to corporate welfare. Even conservative?
Topics: carbon trading, climate, climate change mitigation, economy, politics, quotables (all these topics)

'Green-collar' jobs The latest eco-buzzword	Joseph Romm	24 Jan 2008	Gristmill
The Washington Post has a good article yesterday on the explosion in the use of the term 'green-collar' jobs. You will no doubt be hearing much more of this term since it is a favorite of Clinton and Edwards; Me and the Center for American Progress are on the bandwagon; and even the super trendspotting Tom Friedman has glommed onto it. No, it's not a perfect term. G-C jobs -- my effort to coin the ultimate eco-buzzword -- won't get you a green uniform and green po ...
Topics: business, economy, environmental justice, green jobs, Van Jones (all these topics)

Under pressure E.U. considers pollution charges on imports from U.S. and other climate scofflaws	Patrick Mazza	23 Jan 2008	Gristmill
U.S. failure to enact limits on global warming emissions could cost American companies that export to the European Union. E.U. President Jose Manuel Barroso on Sunday said the European Commission is considering a charge on importers from nations without carbon limits. Companies from those countries may be required to buy carbon emissions allowances on exports into the E.U. This is intended to level the playing field with European companies who are already part ...
Topics: business, climate, economy, European Union, international politics, politics, state politics, United States (all these topics)

Leap year Climate legislation may be easier next year, but it won't be easy	David Roberts	23 Jan 2008	Gristmill
I argued the other day (and Chris Mooney argued here) that we'd be better off waiting until 2009 to push for climate legislation, since anything likely to be passed this year will be fatally weakened and the political terrain is likely to be much friendlier next year. I do not, however, want to give the impression that I think we're going to emerge from a dark tunnel into a field of ponies next year. Things will be marginally more propitious, but only marginally -- l ...
Topics: climate, economy, energy, legislation, politics (all these topics)

If you build it, they will come Growing solar industry depends on key tax credit that will expire this year	Adam Browning	22 Jan 2008	Gristmill
Advocates talk a lot about how renewable energy is not just good for the environment, but good for the economy as well. And here is some real-world proof: New Mexico, with strong leadership by Gov. Richardson, PRC Commissioners Lujan and Marks, and many others, has done more than most to establish the full suite of policies necessary to build a solar market. And the reward? Schott AG is investing $100 million in a new manufacturing facility outside of Albuquerque. It w ...
Topics: business, economy, energy, New Mexico, renewable energy, solar voltaic power (all these topics)

Moving on out There are limits to the positive environmental change we can expect from high gas prices	Ryan Avent	22 Jan 2008	Gristmill
You can scarcely pick up a paper or turn on the television these days without hearing the word recession. Leading economic indicators have wiggled in different directions over the past few months, but the general trend appears to be negative. The conventional wisdom points toward an economic downturn of some kind during 2008, and businesses in all sorts of consumer markets are bracing for the inevitable tightening of purse strings. A funny thing happened on the way tow ...
Topics: consumerism, economy, energy, gas prices, oil, placemaking, sprawl, urban planning (all these topics)

Honoring Dr. King in the economic stimulus bill A way for Congress to provide economic stimulus that is green and just	Billy Parish	21 Jan 2008	Gristmill
Forty years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was in Memphis, where he was assassinated, to help support the long struggle of the city's sanitation workers for decent jobs and dignity. He was also speaking out against the Vietnam War, organizing a Poor People's March on Washington, and crafting an Economic Bill of Rights, calling for massive government jobs programs to rebuild America's cities. In Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community, the last boo ...
Topics: climate, economy, environmental justice (all these topics)

Can the environmental economy dodge a recession? As economic indicators trend downward, the clean-tech sector is still looking up	Mark Pawlosky	18 Jan 2008	Gristmill
As one key economic engine after another -- housing, finance, autos, retail -- sputters and stalls out, the fledgling eco-economy is purring right along, fueled in no small part by venture capital firms hungry for new opportunities in industries that promise outsized returns on their investments. In the first three quarters of 2007, VCs poured $2.6 billion into alternative energy and clean-tech firms, more money than they invested for the whole of 2006. The new y ...
Topics: business, economy, energy, investing, renewable energy, tech (all these topics)

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