Category Archives: Global warming

Is All Growth Good? The Case of China

Growth versus “groaf” had become a favorite topic of the NC commentariat. This article sets forth some of the ways for differentiating between them, using China as an example.

Green Growth or No Growth?

Many readers have taken the position that we need to put a brake on growth in order to cut greenhouse gas emissions and reduce consumption of other resources.

In a Real News Network interview, Robert Pollin goes through the math of carbon output and shows why a no growth approach is inadequate.

Michael Klare: How Big Oil Is Responding to the Anti-Carbon Movement

Yves here. It should be no surprise that Big Oil is not about to go down without a big fight. And they continue to copy from the playbook used by Big Tobacco. Behind the scenes, they go to great lengths to trying to undermine the already strong and ever-increasing evidence of the connection between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, including openly offering bribes to scientists to attack the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports. In addition, frontally, they try to present their products and their social role as positive.

Bill Moyers’ Last Show: Our Children’s Trust Climate Litigation

Yves here. We will all miss Bill Moyers, who in an important act of public service came out of retirement twice at viewer request. I was lucky enough to appear on his show twice. Bill is both a gentleman and a true pro, and went to great lengths to make his interviewees look good. His […]

Obama Administration Muzzling Its Climate Scientists

Yves here. The fact that Team Obama is gagging its climate scientists should come as no surprise. First, the Administration is obsesses with secrecy and image-management, as its extremely aggressive posture on classifying records and prosecuting leakers attests. Second, Administration climate policy is founded on a Big Lie. As Gaius Publius has written at length, its greenhouse gas measures exclude methane, the most potent greenhouse gas. That omission favors fracking, which fails the “clean green” test when you factor in methane releases. And that’s before you factor in contamination of water supplies.

Michael Hoexter: Naomi Klein’s “Hard-Money” Ideas Undermine Her Laudable Climate Action Goals

A review of “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate,” with special attention to Klein’s “polluter pays”/Robin Hood funding mechanisms.

Michael Mann Interview: Very Little “Burnable Carbon” In Our “Budget”; Emissions Ramp-down Must Start Now

One of my hats is as a climate interpreter to the interested lay person. I have something of a science background and can read the papers “in the original.” Another hat is as an occasional interviewer for Virtually Speaking. This month the two hats merged on the same head, and I got to interview the “Hockey Stick graph” climate scientist, Dr. Michael Mann.

For this interview I focused on the basics:

▪ Can humans burn more carbon, create more emissions, and still stay below the IPCC’s “safe” +2°C warming target?

▪ Is the IPCC’s +2°C warming target truly “safe” at all?

▪ We’re already experiencing warming of about +1°C above the pre-industrial level. Even if we stop now, how much more is “in the pipeline,” guaranteed and unavoidable?

▪ How do we defeat the Big Money ogre that stands in our way?

And my personal favorite:

▪ Will the answer to global warming come from the “free market”?

350.org’s Bill McKibben, His Parachute, and His Bubble

I know, I know. Criticizing Bill McKibben is like kicking a puppy.

Life Inside America’s Oil Boom

Yves here. Be warned, this isn’t standard Naked Capitalism fare. It’s a bit of “road trip meets oil boom subculture.” But while there has been a lot of reporting on what is happening in communities where fracking is underway, there has been comparatively little on-the-ground-coverage of what is arguably the bigger story, the development of the Bakken oil field.

Religion vs. Risk Management on Climate Change

Can the religious hear a message on climate change if it is framed in terms they can understand and accept?

Ilargi: Can Money Save The Climate?

Spoiler: No Money cannot save the climate. Not without checks and balances to keep the power-hungry from dominating.

Oil Is Back! A Global Warming President Presides Over a Drill-Baby-Drill America

Yves here. It should come as no surprise that Obama’s rhetoric on climate change is sorely out of whack with his policies. Indeed, as Michael Klare reports, there’s been enough of a economic rebound in the US to lead to more driving, and hence more oil usage. And rather than regard that as a problem, the Administration has shifted from talking up clean energy to pushing more domestic oil production.

Gail Tverberg: US Energy Sources and Uses Show Limits of Renewable Energy Strategies

Yves here. In this post, Tverberg contends that renewable energy sources are not the remedy for global warming that its proponents hope they will be. Too often, “clean” energy sources have not been properly costed out in resource, and sometimes even in carbon terms.

Don Quijones: Spain’s Silent Reconquest of Mexico

With the ink still drying on Mexico’s historic energy reform, global oil and gas majors are salivating at the prospect of gaining access to one of the world’s largest and until recently most nationalized energy markets. One of those companies is the Spanish electricity giant Iberdrola, which expects to massively expand its operations in Mexico through increased investments of close to €1 billion.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: €1 billion is chicken feed in this age of inflated corporate balance sheets. Indeed, for some corporations such a sum is probably hardly worth getting out of bed for these days. However, in Mexico it can go a very long way, much further than it can in Europe or the US – especially when you have paid moles lobbying for your every interest at the highest level of government.