“Fact: The only sustainable path to growth is a low-carbon path.” Felipe Calderón, President of Mexico The last newsletter of the year from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has useful information on a number of subjects including adaptation, finance and technology. Here is President Calderón in a clear, succinct message before the […]
In time for Thanksgiving in the United States, The New York Times featured an article about the emergence of the sweet potato from an American holiday vegetable to one of the fastest growing vegetables in American diets, both at home and in restaurants. “Food and farming experts attribute the sweet potato’s escape from the limited […]
Further to my post from yesterday in which I noted that researchers were recording ever-increasing carbon dioxide emissions from China and, to a lesser extent, India, there have been some articles recently on the rapid rise in China’s coal consumption. The graphics here are from Elisabeth Rosenthal’s article yesterday in the NY Times about how […]
Or, as my grandmother used to say: “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.” So, with that in mind, here are two stories representing the bad and the good. First, the bad news: 2009 carbon emissions fall smaller than expected is the headline from the BBC. In a letter to “Nature Geoscience,” leading researchers […]
I wouldn’t be the first person to analogize Americans’ thirst to fossil fuels to an addiction. The arch-environmentalist George W. Bush said the US was “addicted to oil” in his State of the Union address in 2006. What we do for the Mexican drug gangs in terms of addiction to their products while advancing their […]
The World Food Program has released a hunger quiz in which an anonymous donor will feed a child a warm meal for every person who completes it. The short quiz challenges some basic assumptions about hunger, such as where it is in the world, who it disproportionately affects, and how much it takes to feed […]
Being a lifelong and avid NY Giants fan, I am not generally given to blowing the horn for the Philadelphia Eagles. However, there was a great story in the NY Times yesterday about how the Eagles’ stadium, Lincoln Field, is going to be tricked out with a particularly impressive array of renewable energy upgrades. This […]
An article from Reuters yesterday flagged the fact that the US fleet has been averaging more miles per gallon thus reducing gasoline use and fewer carbon dioxide emissions. The President made an announcement on raising the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards last April but the trend to more MPG and fewer GHGs has been […]
The Financial Times had another blockbuster special report on energy out a couple of weeks back. Some highlights: US policy: A nation in thrall to the power of oil in which we learn that federal policy has been generally a failure for decades – no news there, I’m afraid. “The only really successful federal policy […]
Want to save the planet? I do. Want to save money, the public health, energy and not be reliant on Big Oil? Me too. Okay, here’s the equation then: Internal combustion engines are inherently inefficient – losing as much as 85% of the power that goes into the gas tank along the way to moving […]
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won the George McGovern Leadership Award given by the World Food Program USA on October 5th, 2010. Secretary Clinton received the award for establishing the U.S. government program Feed the Future (FTF). According to the press release, Feed the Future will be a “comprehensive approach to food security that increases […]
I’ve been lauding the good folks of California for their progressive views – expressed at the polls last Tuesday – on climate and energy. I should toot the horn for my own state, New York, too. I worked for 11 years for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and came to have a […]
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