Last week, it was revealed that the supposed informant in the bribery case against the Ecuadorean officials deciding the $27 billion pollution case is a convicted felon. (Conspiring to traffic 275,000 pounds of marijuana, sic-ing his pit bull on a woman.) It doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s lying about the bribery charge — just that […]
For at least three decades now, personal wealth has been a political asset. In both the industrialized and developing worlds, in the words of Deng Xiaoping of China, “to get rich is glorious.” Money was access to political power, political power (especially in the developing world) access to money. I remember about four years ago, […]
Vice President Al Gore, Nobel Peace Laureate, venture capitalist, author, lecturer, Academy Award winner, activist, the man Denialists love to hate, and the man some others canonize as the path-breaking visionary on the threat of global climate change, has a new book out: Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis. It has a […]
Reuters reports rapidly melting glaciers and falling water tables in the world’s largest grain-producing nations pose a significant threat to food security. Meeting in Barcelona this week to flesh out details of the looming Copenhagen climate summit in December 2009, negotiators and participants must also taken into account the scientific reports showing unmistakable changes and […]
In the past couple days, the New York Times has published two stories about new energy. In one about new controversial gas drilling in Colorado, The Times is pretty clearly against drilling. There is a risk of pollution (there always is an environmental cost in all energy, including green energy). But what upsets The Times […]
As I noted yesterday, I’ll be visiting the subject of the intersection of animal agriculture and climate change more often here. For now, I want to note two recent items, one a “NY Times” op-ed, the other a book review in the “New Yorker.” (Yes, I live in New York City.) The former, an op-ed […]
Not everybody would have caught the headline, but when you’re as tuned into Climate Change as I am – and many of you are – then Climate chief Lord Stern: give up meat to save the planet is going to grab your attention. Who is Lord Nicholas Stern? He is a world-class economist and leader […]
Remember the fable of the grasshopper and the ant? The ant toils away storing grain for winter, while the grasshopper parties through the summer and dies of starvation in the winter. Something like that is happening in Chile. Chile is the world’s largest copper producer. Like several resource-rich countries — especially those with oil like […]
Let us now all mourn the passing of Paul Bloom. Who? I hadn’t heard of him either till he died. So I took a few moments to research. Why should you care that he died? Paul Bloom was one of those bureaucrats who — to many people who do not want to be bothered with […]
Whether you subscribe to the idea that we need to return to 350 ppm of carbon dioxide equivalent in the atmosphere or not, last Saturday’s worldwide expressions of concern were wonderful, eye-opening further evidence of how deep and how broad that concern runs.
I wrote a thumbnail sketch the other day of where we are in the US on domestic climate change and energy legislation. Let’s now take a quick look at how things are shaping up only 37 days before Copenhagen. As you know, the world has been building toward the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP […]
This is “Upgrade Your Electric” week for the Obama Administration. First, the President announced a $3.4 billion upgrade for the US electric power grid. Then yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the State Department had decided to help Pakistan upgrade its electricity to prevent the frequent outages. These electricity problems, according to the […]
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