Climate Change

How can you not love California if you’re an environmentalist?  I’ve lauded the Golden State a few times here for its forward-thinking, smart, and economically advantageous approach to power, transportation, planning, building and curtailing greenhouse gases.  The federal government has so many times taken California’s lead, most recently in pumping up the Corporate Average Fuel […]

GDTV is back on the air with a series of eight programs that encapsulate the issues rolled out this year for the Foreign Policy Association’s annual Great Decisions discussions.  These discussions take place in the many and far-flung FPA groups and also in classrooms across the country.  There is a bonus TV program in the […]

So, the environmental movement drew the proverbial line in the sand:  no Keystone XL pipeline.  We’ve been fighting the tar sands for years, and will continue, but the Keystone XL has been the first clear solid rallying point and the first time in years that we greens have taken it to the street.  Bill McKibben, […]

I went to an interesting event last week, the first of a four-part series:  Discourses on Nature and Society.  The discussion by a star panel of energy and environment experts was titled Energy for the Next 20 Years: Protecting the Environment and Meeting Our Demands.  The series is being cosponsored by the venerable NY Academy […]

I’ve written a good number of times here about how I admire what the Obama Administration has achieved in the teeth of vigorous – some might say fanatical – opposition from Republicans on the Hill and elsewhere, as well as from Democrats too, mostly those beholden to the fossil fuel special interests.  (Here are some […]

Having done the Year End Review, I’ve been looking a bit at some of the end of year/beginning of year lists lately and thought I’d share some of these.  (Sorry to have been off the air for so long, but I had final papers to evaluate, had shopping to do, letters to write, helped out […]

The final paper assignment for my class on energy and the environment at NYU’s MS in Global Affairs program this semester was to “…provide for all the energy needs of the world in the year 2050.”  I said “In the next 40 years, we will need to transition to safe, secure, affordable, clean and abundant […]

An agreed outcome with legal force – That’s the major aim of the conferees from the 17th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change that wrapped up its work this past weekend in Durban.  What that headline phrase signifies, according to a decision of the parties, is that work will […]

The year is certainly not over yet – the annual international UN climate conference is ongoing in South Africa for the next ten days.  Nevertheless, here’s a quick look at what we’ve seen – and what we might expect in 2012. Casting back to my look at 2010 and beyond, I predicted witch hunts from […]

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) came into being at the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992.  The 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) to the convention got underway yesterday in Durban, South Africa.  There are 194 countries that are party to the convention, plus the European Union.  There are also […]

As you undoubtedly know, thousands of people, young and old, descended on Washington on November 6th, ringed the White House and told the President that the Keystone XL pipeline was not in the best interests of either the US or the planet.  The fact of the turnout was great news in itself, but even better […]

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has produced four comprehensive Assessment Reports since 1990 detailing the science behind climate change, the impacts, ways to mitigate our radical forcing of the climate system, and ways to adapt to the clear, present, and intensifying dangers that this crisis engenders.  The IPCC has also produced some extremely […]