Climate Change

One for All — All for One?

The Huffington Post reports that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is seeking a single, comprehensive energy bill that establishes a strategy for deriving energy independence and fighting climate change.  She is quoted as saying “I would like to see one bill, which is the energy bill, with the cap and trade and the grid …

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Is Geoengineering Inevitable?

As I write, talk, teach and think about climate change seemingly non-stop these days, I frequently come back to the pessimistic conclusion that we cannot solve the climate problem through mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions.  I have this pessimistic thought while believing wholeheartedly that we must enact aggressive policies to cut emissions dramatically. My pessimism stems …

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Why is GM using taxpayer funds to fight clean car progress?

Just back from a weekend conference where climate litigator Matthew Pawa gave a keynote address.  He’s one of the lawyers who successfully defended California’s right to demand that automakers make cars that limit their greenhouse gas emissions, calling and cross-examining witnesses in a dramatic 2007 trial that put climate change science on the stand.  In …

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Obama’s Progressive Tax and Energy Policy

Though the budget released yesterday by the Obama Administration was short on details, it was long on big pronouncements that fundamentally shift federal policy in important areas. On the climate change front, the budget for the first time reveals the administration’s thinking on how it would distribute money raised from allowances issued under a proposed …

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Environmental Refugees

The Washington Post discusses eco-migration today: In Bangladesh, about 12 million to 17 million people have fled their homes in recent decades because of environmental disasters — and the low-lying country is likely to experience more intense flooding in the future. In several countries in Africa’s Sahel region, bordering the Sahara, about 10 million people …

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New York City prepares for climate change’s impacts

New York City’s climate change task force report was released today.  This report, which discusses how climate change will affect the city’s infrastructure and residents, has attracted some media attention.  Notably, the New York Times has an article on the report.   This is important, given how little attention the impacts of climate change on cities’ infrastructure have received to …

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Statistician contests George Will’s misguided climate op-ed

Nate Silver, the statistician who blogs at fivethirtyeight.com and made national news (and the Colbert Report) last year by being the most accurate and reliable predictor of the presidential election results, has turned his attention to climate change.  In response to an op-ed yesterday by George Will in the Washington Post, Silver analyzes temperature trends and debunks the …

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Climate change is outpacing most dire models

The Washington Post reports today on Chris Field’s presentation at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in which he said: “We are basically looking now at a future climate that’s beyond anything we’ve considered seriously in climate model simulations.”  Faster development of coal-fired electrical power in developing countries is …

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The future of coal-fired electric power

Tomorrow’s New York Times has an interesting article on the future of coal-fired electric power in the United States. Coal is responsible for fully 20% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, according to the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.  “Clean coal,” meaning coal plants that result in no net emissions of carbon dioxide,  would be possible only …

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Newsflash: The Environment and the California Budget Deal

Greenwire reports: “California lawmakers are expected to vote on a budget deal tomorrow that would waive environmental reviews for some highway projects and reverse diesel regulations for off-highway vehicles and construction equipment, sources close to the process said.” However, there is also good news: “Out of the budget package are proposals to stop reviews of …

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