Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair will meet Indian political and business leaders on Wednesday to urge them to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
While the U.S. tries to figure out how to fight climate change, and how much it will cost, Japan is crunching the numbers on what it will cost to meet the commitments it’s already made.
The upshot, according to a new study presented today by Japan’s trade ministry? Picking the low-hanging fruit will lead to modest cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions. But it would carry a hefty price tag and still won’t be enough for Japan to meet its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, let alone its more ambitious targets for mid-century.
Japanese households and businesses could end up paying more than $500 billion to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 11 percent over the next decade, the trade and industry ministry said Wednesday.
A bill to slash Maryland's carbon emissions as a way to address global warming was delayed Wednesday by senators who feared the bill could hike energy prices and put factories out of business.
For the first time in the U.S., carbon dioxide goes on sale in September — and the bidding will start at $1.86 a ton. A consortium of 10 states, including Connecticut, said Monday it will hold the first auction of carbon emissions "allowances" on Sept. 10, part of a plan to curb greenhouse gases from the region's power plants and slow global warming.
Three cheers for Representative Michele Bachman, who this past week introduced the Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act (H.R. 5616), which would repeal the mandated phase-out of the incandescent light bulb.
Last December, Congress passed, and the President signed, an abomination of an energy bill, that, among other things, bans the incandescent light bulb because it is too energy inefficient.
But some consumers, like me, prefer incandescent light bulbs because they make our pasty white skin look tan at bars and restaurants. Other consumers don’t want to have to go through the hassle of cleaning up broken energy efficient light bulbs, which contain mercury, and are therefore difficult to dispose (the EPA has published a 7 page instruction manual on cleaning up a broken CFL).
Whatever the reason, let’s applaud Rep. Bachman for her efforts on behalf of consumer choice.
Gotta love this NPR headline, “The Mystery of Global Warming’s Missing Heat”. This is the most recent in a refreshing series of sober assessments that of course brief periods are not climatically meaningful, be they a month, a year, three years…or the past ten years without any warming. Imagine how surprised NASA’s PR shop is going to be.
Things are wonderfully captured in this euphemistic kicker from the article: “it may be that we are in a period of less rapid warming.” Like, maybe, this?
What’s global warming without the warming called? Come on, you can say it.
Some 3,000 scientific robots that are plying the ocean have sent home a puzzling message. These diving instruments suggest that the oceans have not warmed up at all over the past four or five years. That could mean global warming has taken a breather. Or it could mean scientists aren't quite understanding what their robots are telling them.
Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch
The close relationship between the advocacy-oriented Pennsylvania Environmental Council and the Center for Climate Strategies, which has managed global warming commissions (it claims as an “objective consultant”) for governors in several states, has been well established. Statements from their 2006 Form 990 tax return explains that PEC formed Enterprising Environmental Solutions, Inc. (where CCS is housed) to “carry out their non-regulatory agenda.” The tax return also explains, “EESI has its own board of directors and is controlled by PEC, since PEC is the only member of EESI.” Also, EESI/CCS exists to “advance, support and promote the purposes of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council….”
Now here’s the latest revelation uncovered in e-mail correspondence obtained from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, which was sent by Kimberlea Konowitch, who is identified as the senior accountant for EESI/CCS. Her email address, like others who handle administrative work for EESI/CCS, is identified by a pecpa.org domain. But here’s the kicker, in your average legal disclaimer (“only intended for the recipient,” blah, blah…) that you find at the end of emails: “The Pennsylvania Environmental Council and any of its subsidiaries each reserve the right to monitor all e-mail communications through its networks.”
So now EESI/CCS is recognized as an official subsidiary of PEC. And the continued insistence by CCS executive director Tom Peterson that advocates for PEC don’t work on these state projects, and that EESI/CCS does not have an advocacy history, that they are objective, becomes more laughable each time he repeats it. CCS’s only reason for existing is to promote PEC’s agenda.
While we’re talking about Kansas: CCS has been hired by KDHE to do its greenhouse gas emissions inventory, which always precedes the creation of a climate commission in a state and then the hiring of CCS to run the process. In a document that justifies hiring CCS without going through a competitive bidding process, they are praised for having a “proven track record” and are described as “an objective facilitator and expert party.” That’s true if your greatest passion is reducing greenhouse gas emissions without concern for destroying the economy.
France, one of the world's largest producers of atomic energy, must act fast to avoid a shortage of skilled staff to run its reactors and win a role at the heart of a global nuclear revival.
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