Climate Change

A study, Extreme Weather, Climate & Preparedness in the American Mind, just out from the excellent Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and its partner, the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, purports that “A large majority of Americans believe that global warming made several high profile extreme weather events worse…”  Coverage in […]

The inherent gross inefficiency of the internal combustion engine surpasses even that of conventional thermal power plants.  About 5% of the energy in the fuel actually moves a typical automobile.  Battery electric vehicles, fuel-cell electrics, plug-in hybrids and others that eschew ICE technology get much more bang for the buck.  California is proving this, as […]

Here’s just a quick hitter, bringing you a snappy, very well-informed, entertaining smart grid video from Accenture, the global consultancy.  

I had the opportunity to go to a real stimulating talk the other day.   Jochen Flasbarth, the President of the Federal Environment Agency of Germany, had just been to the big do at the NY Times, the “Energy for Tomorrow” conference.  Flasbarth was on a panel, moderated by Tom Friedman, with worthies such as Carol […]

I wanted to note some follow-up discussion to material that I have flagged here recently at the blog.  The first was my post On the Denialists from March 2nd.  The NY Review of Books has printed a reply to William Nordhaus’s refutation of the claims of the climate denialists, that I discussed at earlier post.  […]

Okay, the U.S. may have been the first to the moon, but we have not been the first to regulate greenhouse gases.  However, we’re getting there.  California has been advancing its cap-and-trade regime among other terrific programs, we’ve got the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in the Northeast and there are all sorts of other programs […]

Why Not Frack? is the title of an article in a recent issue of the “NY Review of Books.”  One of the best environmental journalists we’ve got, Bill McKibben, is the author.  McKibben, of course, is more than just a journalist.  He’s a ground-breaking thinker and, in recent years, a very serious and effective activist.  […]

In this climax of crises, the middle class is not the only one to have considerably suffered; the environment has been the other loser. Social policies and the welfare state have been slashed across Europe and the U.S. in the name of austerity measures and debt crisis. The environment has been increasingly slaughtered in the […]

The distinguished economist William Nordhaus has a succinct and useful piece in the latest issue of the “NY Review of Books” that refutes the now mildly famous letter to the Wall St. Journal from 16 scientists from January.  (I am reminded of the famous quote from Erwin Chargaff about James Watson and Francis Crick:  “That… […]

What could prove to be a critical component in the effort to successfully confront the climate crisis was launched today by Hillary Clinton at the State Department in Washington.  Secretary Clinton announced the formation of the “Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants.”  What are these short-lived climate pollutants?  Methane, black carbon […]

Leave it to Gary Trudeau to distill something to its basics.  God love him.  As Daniel Patrick Moynihan noted some time back, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”  The science is settled.  And no, my Denialist friends, I am not going to enter into yet-another long hassle.  You can […]

A comment came in recently asking me if I characterized American voters of being fanatics if they voted for and supported those politicians who fight, tooth and nail, against progress on confronting the climate crisis and fostering our transition to clean tech.  I said, “Um, yes.” Here’s an article from today’s NY Times, secular socialist […]