July 3, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) this week called for a move toward building consensus for a scaled back version of the climate legislation pending in the United States Senate. Two possible models, given the nature of the Kerry-Lieberman proposal, as written, would be to either establish at the federal level the kind of cooperative emissions reduction strategy already adopted by a coalition of states across the northeast or a limit on total carbon emissions from power plants only.
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July 3, 2010 :: Eva Scherson :: Comments Off
Sen. Olympia Snowe, Republican of Maine, is known for being a moderate, a pragmatist, and often the key to determining what gets done in a hotly divided partisan environment. She has consistently sought to take responsible positions on environmental policy, but has supported her party in many key votes. Now, she is pledging to push for a broader coalition of support for a scaled-back climate bill. Her approach is being called “utility-only”, focusing carbon emissions capping on power generation utilities, something supporters say will make the pending legislation more viable economically and administratively.
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June 29, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Between June 21 and 25, Citizens Climate Lobby took its message to Capitol Hill, meeting with 52 different members of Congress, or their energy and climate staff, in both the House and the Senate. The first CCL national conference was fortuitously timed, as the ongoing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has brought into stark relief the nature of the carbon-fuel problem and the urgent need for action to achieve a civilization-wide overhaul of energy infrastructure, and the climate bill pending in the Senate may not have the votes to override a filibuster.
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June 16, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
There is nothing ideological about the issue of renewable energy resources. Proponents tend to care about the health of the natural environment, which motivates their wish to see renewables replace high-polluting resources like oil and coal, but the technologies, the fact of their economic viability and their usefulness for society at large, are not in any way a matter of ideology.
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February 20, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
In response to a recent article, explaining that record snowfall in certain places does not equate to a proof that global warming is not happening, but rather, that global warming is an apt explanation for why the record snowfalls would occur there, a number of climate skeptics chose to attack certain points in the piece, using what they take to be established science. In some cases, the evidence cited was simply misrepresented or misinterpreted, according to the wishes of the skeptics themselves.
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February 16, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: 7 Comments
Climate-science skeptics have been gleeful in their assault on climate change theory, the hard research and tens of thousands of scientists behind it and the very concept of human responsibility to the environment, because there has been snowfall. In a stunning display of ignorance, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) openly claimed the record snows that hit Washington, DC, were evidence there was in fact no climate change, that the whole idea is just a myth.
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January 8, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
After decades of environmental scientists seeking to raise awareness about the detrimental impacts of burning ever more carbon-based fuels, the Copenhagen Accord shows a global willingness to recognize the gravity of the issue and to take concrete —if as yet unnamed— policy actions to address the challenges of coming decades.
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December 24, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
China has outraged political and diplomatic leaders around the world by aggressively blocking agreement on hard targets for binding emissions cuts, refusing even to agree to any accord that would include mention of other nations’ specific cuts. One observer told the BBC that he observed China, India and Saudi Arabia as the key powers working to prevent binding targets from being adopted, but China was the most immovable opponent to a binding agreement.
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December 21, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
(1) [W]e shall, recognizing the scientific view that the increase in global temperature should be below 2 degrees Celsius, on the basis ofequity and in the context of sustainable development, enhance our long-term cooperative action to combat climate change. … (2) We agree that deep cuts in global emissions are required according to science, and as documented by the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report with a view to reduce global emissions so as to hold the increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius … (10) We decide that the Copenhagen Green Climate Fund shall be established as an operating entity of the financial mechanism of the Convention to support projects, programme, policies and other activities in developing countries related to mitigation including REDD-plus, adaptation, capacity-building, technology development and transfer….
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December 19, 2009 :: Eva Scherson :: One Comment
After two weeks of intense and sometimes bitter negotiations, US president Barack Obama arrived in Copenhagen to marshal all his diplomatic skills in brokering the beginnings of a viable framework for global carbon emissions reductions. Late Friday, it was announced that five nations —the United States, China, India, Brazil, and South Africa— had carved out a deal that would, for the first time, bring all the world’s major economies into the same camp on efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
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December 19, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
The Philippines looks upon these negotiations in Copenhagen with a critical sense of urgency. The average world per capita CO2 equivalent emission is 6 tons and must be brought down to 3 tons to stabilize at 450 ppm in 2050. The Philippines is already doing better than that. Our emissions are only 1.6 tons per capita and we are committed to further deviate from our business-as-usual growth path.
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December 19, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
When Pres. Obama and Pres. Medvedev meet, their agenda will reach beyond carbon emissions and climate change negotiations, however.They are expected to discuss ongoing negotiations on a new nuclear arms reduction treaty. US and Russian negotiations have been meeting in Geneva, holding talks described as “intense”, in the interests of mutual nuclear disarmament. The plan will be a second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (StART 2), aimed at moving the world closer to Pres. Obama’s vision of “a world without nuclear weapons”.
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December 18, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
When US president Barack Obama arrived in Copenhagen, there was no global agreement on how to address climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, and talks were described as being “in a state of chaos”. His morning schedule of face to face meetings was reorganized so he could attend an emergency conference of key leaders. Talks were scheduled to continue through the weekend, and yet before midnight, agreement had been reached.
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December 18, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
The above video highlights the Danish city of Frederikshavn’s ongoing comprehensive plan to achieve 100% carbon neutral status by 2015, by focusing on wind and other renewable resources to produce its entire municipal energy supply. Mikael Kau, the director of the Frederikshavn energy project explains that other, larger cities in Denmark could adopt similar plans and from the local level help Denmark achieve 100% energy independence and carbon neutrality by 2015.
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December 18, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Gordon Brown plans “plan b” 2nd round of talks if Copenhagen conference fails to achieve global pact. The plan would call for a smaller number of nations to meet to agree to concrete steps to curb emissions and move their contribution to the world economy toward a green energy future.
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December 18, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
With the US promising to commit $100 billion over ten years to help fund mitigation efforts against the impacts of climate destabilization and China all but refusing outright to agree to any pact that requires international verification of emissions reductions and/or how international funds are spent, the technological solution remains a key priority.
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December 18, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Good morning. It’s an honor to for me to join this distinguished group of leaders from nations around the world. We come together here in Copenhagen because climate change poses a grave and growing danger to our people. You would not be here unless you —like me— were convinced that this danger is real. This is not fiction, this is science. Unchecked, climate change will pose unacceptable risks to our security, our economies, and our planet. That much we know.
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December 18, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
The furious negotiations of the final days of the Copenhagen conference on climate change has produced another draft of a potential Copenhagen Accord, which would drop the 2010 deadline for establishing a binding global treaty, but would keep the absolute upper limit of an eventual 2ºC global average temperature rise above pre-industrial levels.
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December 18, 2009 :: Anjika Sridhar :: One Comment
The United States is pledging to “take the lead” on a global fund of $100 billion over ten years, designed to help developing nations transition to a zero-combustion energy economy and fend off the already mounting ravages of climate destabilization. The offer was announced yesterday by Sec. of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and was intended in part to put added pressure on China to agree to a binding climate deal with emissions reduction verification processes built in.
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December 18, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The Copenhagen climate conference is intended to round out two weeks of global negotiations with an agreement of some sort aimed at securing major progress on carbon emissions limits. It remains uncertain whether an agreement will be reached, so Pres. Obama’s trip is being treated as a “high-stakes gamble” in the US media. In fact, Obama will be one of 115 heads of government in attendance, and the White House’s statement that while his attendance cannot guarantee agreement, a decision not to could scuttle negotiations, seems the most level-headed.
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December 17, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Devoting valuable grain crops to fuel production has had an immediate negative impact on the global food supply, reducing supply and pushing prices higher, even as one billion people suffer from chronic hunger. In the United States, high prices and economic crisis mean on in eight are now insufficiently able to access adequate food supplies. But a new generation of crop-based biofuels will be more efficient and need not interfere with the food supply.
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December 13, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
There has long been a view in Washington that the federal government cannot enact regulations aimed at curbing carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases (GHG) without a specific new statutory framework passed by Congress. In an effort to be conciliatory toward pro-business interests and conservatives in both parties, Pres. Obama has largely held to this view of climate-linked emissions regulations. But this view is actually not supported by existing legislation and judicial precedent.
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November 18, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Pres. Obama has reportedly secured Chinese president Hu Jintao’s pledge of cooperation on global economic recovery, efforts to curb emissions and combat climate destabilization, and nuclear non-proliferation, both in Iran and North Korea. The pledge of cooperation came despite Obama’s demand that China honor the “universal” human rights of its people, alongside differences over how strongly to pressure Iran to guarantee its nuclear pursuits are legal and peaceful in nature.
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October 20, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Insurers campaign to kill healthcare may be helping renew support for the public option, as Congress prepares to vote. A shift in subsidies is driving a clean energy boom in the American west, and emissions legislation is likely to pass Congress this year. Financial regulatory reform will establish a Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Immigration and gay-rights reform will likely wait till 2010.
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July 29, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
One day, recently, I saw a fire-engine, crawling its way through a stop light, sirens blaring, hulking its way to provide the noble service of putting out someone’s fire or performing some other rescue operation. It was pouring a dark grey exhaust from one side, looking shiny new and well cared for, but obviously lacking advanced exhaust filtering or clean-energy drive technologies.
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July 21, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Pres. Barack Obama has proposed a national high-speed rail program that would develop eight to ten regions for high-speed rail (currently, only the so-called northeast corridor, running from Washington, DC, to Boston, through Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York, has a regular high-speed service), as part of a phased-in long-term economic recovery plan. The rail project comes into play also as part of Obama’s plans for a comprehensive energy-sector overhaul, aimed at reducing carbon emissions.
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July 19, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Carbon offsets allow the use of carbon-emitting processes to help fund and develop clean alternatives, which can then compete with and possibly replace the offending carbon-emitters. But there are also ways in which carbon offsetting can be used to combat poverty around the world. If offsets are focused on reducing bad habits, resulting from those engaging in those habits having either no alternative or no training to find alternatives, people living in the poorest conditions can find themselves benefitting from the clean energy revolution.
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July 11, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Biodiesel is a controversial area of energy sourcing. Many believe it is a poor choice for breaking human dependence on carbon-based fuels, since it is essentially, yet another way of burning carbon to produce energy. But others say it is a healthy, incremental step, which can burn cleaner than petroleum fuels and will help diversify the scope of recycling and related inputs to the energy economy. Now chocolate is making its way into the biodiesel game.
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July 10, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute (GCCSI) was announced in L’Aquila by Australia’s premier Kevin Rudd. The GCCSI amounts to a global intergovernmental effort to produce state of the art carbon capture projects to sequester and store carbon produced by industry in the period leading up to a zero-emissions energy infrastructure. Rudd unveiled the project at the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, convened by US president Barack Obama alongside the G8 summit of leading world economies.
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July 8, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: One Comment
Developing nations have failed to deliver the collaborative consensus sought by US president Obama and other G8 leaders in anticipation of the Copenhagen Climate Conference scheduled for later this year. While G8 leaders agreed global climate policy should be oriented toward avoiding any increase in global average temperatures of more than 3º Fahrenheit, they did not reach agreement on how to cap or reduce emissions to set levels by 2050.
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July 2, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 7 Comments
While some industry allies claim that HR 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) will raise costs for energy-producers and thereby raise energy costs across the board, there are signs that technologies already being tested and implemented could benefit in such a way as to bring about a complete, economy-wide revolution in energy production, distribution and pricing. Renewable resources are now showing themselves to be far more efficient than ever previously thought, and bold initiatives are getting ready to test new limits that would allow even airplanes to be 100% fuel-free.
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June 27, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
One of the main objections made by those who criticize efforts to control carbon emissions is that “carbon dioxide is not an atmospheric pollutant”. This line of reasoning tends to argue that emissions-induced global climate destabilization is an elaborate anti-corporate hoax aimed at creating a one-world socialist government. The problem is that this line of reasoning conveniently, or unknowingly, ignores altogether the crises that emerge not from essential contaminants but from substances crossing a threshold, a tipping point.
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May 18, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
Today’s New York Times features an above-the-fold front-page story on the apparent probability that Congress will reach agreement on using a “cap and trade” approach to curbing carbon emissions. The massive industrial output of carbon dioxide (CO2) has been found to contribute to the destabilization of the global climate and a gradual warming effect which could lead to catastrophic risks to infrastructure and public health.
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May 2, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
Community opposition, legal challenges, and financial uncertainty over future carbon costs are prompting companies to rethink their plans for coal. Since the beginning of 2007, 95 proposed coal-fired power plants have been cancelled or postponed in the United States—59 in 2007, 24 in 2008, and at least 12 in the first three months of 2009. This covers nearly half of the 200 or so U.S. coal-fired power plants that have been proposed for construction since 2000. The vast majority of the remaining proposals are essentially on hold, awaiting word on whether the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is going to impose limits on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. With further legal challenges ahead and the regulation of CO2 imminent, 2009 may very well witness the end of new coal-fired power plants in the United States.
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April 25, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 4 Comments
Former US vice president Al Gore testified Friday in Congressional hearings on the subject of global climate destabilization. The hearings were linked to new legislation being considered that would establish regulatory measures that seek to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Gore said the legislation would serve to protect the environment, as well as national security, and urged unity in the interests of the country and the world.
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January 26, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 3 Comments
Pres. Barack Obama today addressed a room full of invited guests from the business community, to outline his position as to economic stimulus, energy innovation, climate destabilization and dependence on high-polluting combustible fuels. The president then signed more executive orders raising fuel-efficiency standards and ordering a review of the EPA’s barring California from raising tailpipe carbon-emissions standards. Striking a defiant tone, Obama declared that “America will not be held hostage to dwindling resources, hostile regimes and a warming planet”.
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January 19, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: 2 Comments
Facing an economic crisis of historic proportions, and with the nation reeling from several years of soaring fuel prices, in the face of mounting risks from climate destabilization, President-elect Barack Obama may issue an executive order to require fuel-efficiency be raised on all new vehicles.
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December 11, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The climate change conference currently underway in Poznan, Poland, seeks to build on the Bali agreement, adopted by 180 countries in 2007, in hopes of achieving a global emissions regime. A sweeping economic downturn overtaking North America and Europe, and now hitting China’s manufacturing and export base, it is feared, will hamper efforts to implement comprehensive green industrial and economic reforms.
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November 25, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: 3 Comments
The issue is not, as so many would like to believe, whether carbon-based fuels are affordable to the end-user. They are not. The total costs per gallon of gasoline are estimated at more than $11, covered by government subsidies, public-private research funding, tax incentives, military spending, public health funding, and funds devoted to cleaning up the ill effects of pollution. Capitalist markets need not be dependent on unsustainable excesses in resource use, but we are in the current global economic crunch, because they have been.
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November 17, 2008 :: Denver Lessing :: One Comment
The cloud of soot and smog choking India and China and their neighbors is worsening. The massive brown cloud hovering over Asia now poses serious long-term health risks and environmental dangers to much of the continent, according to a new UN report. The world’s largest pollution phenomenon already drastically reduces the amount of daylight reaching ground level in many Chinese cities, and there is concern the sunlight-blocking effects could impede agricultural production.
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August 29, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
China is choking under a thick covering of contaminants produced from burning carbon-based fuels for industrial production, power-generation, and transport. Environmental degradation is so rampant that much of the northwest of the country is being lost to rapidly expanding deserts. And desertification threatens the already shaky balance between China’s available arable land and its skyrocketing demand for cheap food. Policy makers and market theorists in China and abroad should be thinking about whether that desert can produce something to help China escape the mounting environmental and public health cataclysm.
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August 10, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The World Bank estimates that 750,000 people are killed each year by China’s impenetrable pollution problem; and 400 million people are expected to migrate to China’s already super-saturated metropoli by the year 2025. China is now burning one-third of the world’s coal for electric-power generation, and has opted to move its national transport infrastructure toward the automobile, a potentially catastrophic choice that could have a decidedly negative impact on health and economic wellbeing across the world.
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July 18, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: 4 Comments
The former vice president of the United States, Al Gore, yesterday announced an ambitious goal, which he says the nation can meet, of transitioning its entire domestic energy production to clean resources by 2018. The speech marks a major moment in the process of transition to the green technology boom, which will be the next step in the ongoing economic development of the United States and the world. Gore, however, warned that failing to meet the challenge to date means “the United States of America as we know it is at risk”.
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July 15, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
US pres. George W. Bush has lifted the executive ban on offshore oil drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), and has challenged the US Congress to act to open the OCS to new oil exploration, saying the US needs to increase domestic production to reduce its dependence on imported oil. The ban was put in place by his father, George H.W. Bush, the 41st US president, for environmental concerns and in part because the oil companies have leases for huge expanses of underwater terrain they have not explored or exploited.
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July 14, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: 4 Comments
The chairman of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Stephen Johnson, says the Clean Air Act is “ill-suited” to fighting the greenhouse effect, and that Congress should pass laws mandating the regulation of carbon emissions, with global warming in mind. The move may lead to a more comprehensive regulatory regime, but as the Guardian newspaper notes: “Last year’s Massachusetts v. EPA Supreme Court ruling had found that greenhouse gases can be regulated under the U.S. Clean Air Act. The decision pressured the EPA to reconsider its refusal to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from new cars and trucks.”
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July 10, 2008 :: staff :: Comments Off
T. Boone Pickens has started what USA Today reports will be “the biggest public policy ad campaign ever” to promote a national economic shift from oil to renewable fuels, primarily wind. The campaign is centered on the PickensPlan website, which shows the oil tycoon explaining how and why the US can and must break its dependence on foreign oil —for which American consumers pay $700 billion per year— by transitioning to an energy economy founded on exploiting the massive wind resources of the Great Plains.
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July 9, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
After many accusations and much speculation, a US government whistleblower has said the vice-president ordered testimony altered to hide findings of the negative impact of carbon emissions and the threats from global warming. VP Cheney is accused of demanding that official EPA findings be altered and that sworn testimony before Congress be “redacted” to exclude [...]
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January 20, 2008 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
20 January :: Electronic voting machines in Horry County, South Carolina, have reportedly failed in 100% of its precincts, creating the real possibility that South Carolina’s Republican primary vote cannot be confirmed by any official means; with the machines used already known to be vulnerable to hacking and malfunction, “Late in the week poll workers [...]
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December 27, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
26 December :: Uzbekistan’s elections have been criticized for official manipulation and declared “undemocratic”, with international observers citing a number of procedural measures and alleged incidents of intimidation that prevented a free and fair vote; Karimov, Uzbekistan’s only post-Soviet president officially won 88.1% of the votes tallied; the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe [...]
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December 22, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
22 December :: The two chairmen of the investigatory commission for the 9/11 attacks, Lee Hamilton and Thomas Kean, have said their review of classified evidence suggests the CIA made a concerted effort to “impede” the inquiry by hiding evidence of abusive interrogation techniques; according to Reuters, “Among statements that the memo suggested were misleading [...]
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