Climate Change

Green Roofs – I have seen the future and it works.  (Well, in the case of the Soviet Union, it didn’t, but with green roofs, it definitely does and will.)  I’ve written before on this unbeatable approach to lowering the urban heat island effect, diminishing the troublesome problem of stormwater runoff, and providing a stunningly […]

The “NY Times” reports today on the massive cost overruns of a nuclear power plant at Olkiluoto in Finland and, in the end, the uncertainty of the date of its completion, testing and operation – if ever.  The article reports that the difficulties with this flagship in the new generation of nuclear plants is making […]

Major Economies Forum (MEF) on Energy and Climate – After the second of four meetings scheduled to take place among the world’s major economies – all major contributors to global warming – the participants announced progress on finance.  The 2nd MEF meeting took place this week in Paris.  (See my notes from April on the […]

There’s a characteristically comprehensive special report on energy in today’s “Financial Times,” a series of interesting articles, mostly on the state of play of fossil fuels.  There’s also a great guest column from Jeremy Leggett the founder of Solarcentury, a provider of “intelligent generation.”  Nota bene:  According to Leggett, “In 2008, for the first time, […]

I’m out of town and so all I’ve got time to offer today is a note on a pretty good bit of political analysis on the cap-and-trade and energy bill from the “NY Times” today.  I think that Tim Wirth, who leads the United Nations Foundation, always good for a good quote, has a salient […]

KISS – the engineer’s way of designing things that work.  Solving the climate change crisis with nuclear fission plants to power the separation of oil from the billions of tons of tar in which it’s embedded – and destroying hundreds of thousands of acres of forest to get at the tar – is not a […]

I touched on the massive oil prospecting and processing operations in Alberta here in February, and here a while back.  (For a characteristically articulate and comprehensive overview, you can’t beat Betsy Kolbert’s “New Yorker” article, Unconventional Crude.) StatoilHydro, the Norwegian state oil and gas company, one of the biggest in the world, has a big […]

That’s how I’d paraphrase the old Bill Clinton internal campaign motto in the context of the present-day campaign to get an American law into place to combat GHGs.  I’ve written about cap-and-trade and the Carbon Markets dozens of times here, including on the cap-and-trade vs. carbon tax debate.  For an interesting look at the history […]

I just wanted to flag what I thought were some pretty good items out and about in the media lately. China and Climate Change – One of the go-to guys for progressive economics, Paul Krugman, has a column today, Empire of Carbon, that is both pessimistic and optimistic.  (Boy, do I know that feeling when […]

A deal has been done between the Democrats in the House driving for a strong, aggressive, meaningful climate change and energy bill and those who are fearful for and/or protective of the special interests of the big utilities, the oil & gas industry, the auto manufacturers and some other heavy industries.  The “discussion draft” of […]

I had a chance to review a great new collection of essays on the science and policy of climate change. It’s illustrated with some stunning photographs. I’m very happy that this is appearing in “Nature Reports Climate Change,” a pretty important voice in the discussion.  Here’s the website for the book.

First of all, sorry to have been absent for a week (plus), but I’ve been wrapping up the end of semester with my great students at NYU, been to a conference (more on that next week), had a house guest with whom I did some local culture, and a few other odds and ends.  I’ll […]