Climate Change
Chilly in Baltimore: Energy Efficiency and Wind Power
I heard an interesting story on NPR today about “district cooling” in which a company in Baltimore uses ice to produce chilled water, which is transported to a number of building in the city for supplemental cooling. What really struck me as cool about this (sorry about the pun) is the fact that this system …
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CONTINUE READINGMountaintop Removal: Incompatible with Climate Solutions and Incompatible with the Environment
Monday thousands of people converged on Washington, D.C. for the Appalachia Rising Rally to protest mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining. Activists dumped 1,000 pounds of Appalachia dirt on EPA’s front lawn before marching on the White House. At a sit-in at PNC bank, four people were arrested while protesting that bank’s financing of MTR coal mining. …
CONTINUE READINGSuccess in Restoring the Ozone Layer, Mixed News for Climate Change
The good news is that the ozone layer is recovering. The reason it’s recovering is because the international community agreed — in the Montreal Protocol — to phase out harmful chemicals that were depleting the layer and causing huge holes in it. That’s the conclusion of 300 scientists who recently issued a “Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion …
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CONTINUE READINGIt’s All About the Feedback
A fairly common reaction to climate science is to wonder how changes in the concentration of a trace gas can have a substantial effect on the world’s climate. As it turns out, this is exactly the right question to ask. There’s a great post at RealClimate working through the logic. The direct effect of increased …
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CONTINUE READINGProp 23: Spinning the Poll Numbers
A new email blast from the California Jobs Initiative trumpets: “Brand new Los Angeles Times poll puts Yes on 23 in the LEAD!” That’s true, sort of. Or at least it has what Stephen Colbert calls “truthiness.” The LA Times story is headlined: “Proposition 23 poll shows a dead heat among California voters.” As shown …
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CONTINUE READINGMeg Whitman, Prop 23, and AB 32
Meg Whitman takes the position that Prop 23 is wrong, but she says that she’ll suspend California’s keystone climate legislation,AB 32, for a year if she’s elected. The Berkeley White Paper on Prop 23 takes a different view than she does of the economic impact of Prop 23. Her proposal, which takes advantage of an …
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CONTINUE READINGAir Resources Board Does Some Punting On SB 375 Targets
As I blogged, the California Air Resources Board yesterday set greenhouse gas targets for the eighteen metropolitan regions in the state, which these regions must try to meet through a land use and transportation planning process. The Board basically split the difference of what the staff recommended. For the four largest regions, staff wanted 5-10% …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Myth of SB 375
Today is a big day for SB 375, California’s much-heralded land use and transportation law. The Air Resources Board is setting greenhouse gas emissions targets for each metropolitan region covered by the law. The regions then have to develop a plan to meet these targets through comprehensive land use and transportation planning. That means reorganizing …
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CONTINUE READINGProp 23 and PG&E: Setting the Record Straight
The California Jobs Initiative is spreading a highly misleading story about PG&E’s opposition to Prop 23, the ballot measure to suspend California’s keystone climate legislation (AB 32). The story appears in an email that they’ve circulated widely. To make it easy to understand, I’m leaving the truthful parts of their story in black and putting …
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CONTINUE READINGWill the Future Be “Made in China”?
America used to b a place where the future happened first. Now we seem to be fight any kind of change, whether the issue is immigration, health care, the financial system, or energy.
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