Category Archives: Environment

Auerback: Drinking the Austerity Kool Aid in 2011

By Marshall Auerback, a portfolio strategist and hedge fund manager; cross posted from New Deal 2.0

What’s coming in 2011? We asked thought leaders to share their perspectives on the biggest challenges for the year ahead, along with the changes they’d like to see and the hopes they cherish. Marshall Auerback explains how misguided attempts to reduce the deficit kill jobs, squeeze the working and middle classes, and inflate crude oil prices. And a corrupt political system doesn’t help.

The beginning of the year always seems a good time to lay out some broader themes which could develop throughout the year, good and bad, so here goes:

“The Blue Ocean in RED”

A short film by Howard Hall (hat tip reader Sundog) The Blue Ocean in RED from Howard Hall on Vimeo.

Rare Earths Row Continues to Build

Bloomberg reported on a rather peculiar announcement from the Chinese officialdom, which comes off as a rather lame rationalization of its ban on rare earths exports. If you are late to this cause celebre, rare earths confusingly really aren’t rare, but they are found only in fairly low concentrations and are nasty to mine. They […]

Now It’s Official: Obama Administration Blocked Scientist Estimates on BP Spill

Last night, some fresh comments by Obama Administration officials confirmed its cynicism and duplicity in its Ministry of Truth version of health care reform. It’s one thing to suspect Team Obama was playing the public for a fool, quite another to have proof. Today we have more corroboration of Obama Administration double dealing, this on […]

Tom Friedman Embraces the Electric Car 15 Years Late

When you start advocating Federally backed “moon shots” as a way to compensate for the shortcomings of American management, you know you are in deep doo doo. Tom Friedman has a characteristically breathless article at at the New York Times arguing America better get off its duff because China is very serious about electric cars: […]

What to Make of Banks’ Hesitance to Lend to Environmentally Dubious Projects

The New York Times reports on a welcome development: some banks are getting cold feet about lending to projects that are legal but still produce environmental damage: After years of legal entanglements arising from environmental messes and increased scrutiny of banks that finance the dirtiest industries, several large commercial lenders are taking a stand on […]

New Data Suggests Gulf Oil Spill at Second or Third Biggest Ever

A breaking story at the Washington Post, based on a new analysis of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, puts the total at 4.9 million barrels: BP’s Macondo well spewed 62,000 barrels of oil a day initially, and as the reservoir gradually depleted itself the flow eased to 53,000 barrels a day until the well was […]

Federal Government Covering Up Severity of Gulf Oil Spill?

It looks as if Team Obama has reverted to form. In a repeat of its perfromance post the financial crisis, it appears to believe that no problem cannot be solved by PR, which puts it in league with the perps. Hat tip Glenn Stehle:

Summer Rerun: The FT : “We Need a Clear and Predictable Price for Carbon”

This post first appeared on February 5, 2007 We have to admit to being a little slow on the uptake from time to time. We reported on the FT’s February 2 editorial, which commented on the publication of the first of four reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (Media watch item: still no […]

Is BP Rejecting Skimmers to Save Costs?

Readers may recall that we harped on BP’s refusal to try to contain oil around the site of the leak, and later, its failure to do proper booming to contain and remove oil and so reduce the amount that came ashore (note that the US also failed abjectly as a second line of defense; the […]

Concerns About BP Relief Well Success Rise Along With Evidence of Chemical Damage, Spread of Oil

The Financial Times highlights a concern we had raised early on about the effort by BP to drill a relief well to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf. While many analysts have acted as if the BP forecast, that the well would be completed by August, there is no reason to assume the […]

Guest Post: The Second Energy Revolution

By Wallace C. Turbrville, the former CEO of VMAC LLC who writes at New Deal 2.0 In the 1930s, a great many Southerners had no access to electricity. The Roosevelt administration perceived an enormous opportunity to restructure the region’s economy. By building facilities to bring power to the rural South, jobs would be created from […]

On the Curious and Misguided Defenses of BP

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