The Financial Times reports today on a report prepared by 11 retired US admirals and generals on the security implications of global warming. The authors concluded that global warming would worsen regional conflicts, worsen living standards, and undermine stability. These findings are consistent with earlier reports that discussed the large-scale dislocation that would result from […]
Read more...A front page story in today’s Financial Times, “Foreign carmakers doubt Detroit’s ethanol,” report on a split of opinon within the auto industry as to which technology to pursue to reduce carbon emissions. US automakers are keenly promoting E85, which is a mixture of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline; foreign companies are investing in diesel, […]
Read more...The summary of the second report is due out this Friday. Oddly, this sneak preview appears, at least so far, only in the Financial Times (I checked the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times). As described below, the second report delves deeper into the nature and scope of likely changes, and how they […]
Read more...I was sent a link to this Onion classic, “Nation’s Snowmen March Against Global Warming,” and thought it was timely in light of this week’s Congressional hearings. Braving balmy temperatures and sunny skies, millions of scarfless snowmen and snowwomen gathered in cities across the world Tuesday to raise public awareness about the heavy toll global […]
Read more...Some powerful organizations are taking up the banner of climate change. According to today’s Wall Street Journal, a group of influential investors, including Allainz, Calpers, and Merrill, ….waded into the fray, pressing for legislation mandating emissions cuts ranging from 60% to 90% by the middle of this century and requiring companies to disclose investor risks […]
Read more...This excellent post by reader Stormy appeared at Angry Bear today. It makes the point that whether or not you believe that human activity is contributing to global warming, CO2 emissions are making the oceans more acid. This makes them increasingly hostile environments for shellfish and coral reefs. No kidding, we are talking about a […]
Read more...We’ve discussed before that, despite the popular coverage that it gets in the business press, carbon trading, or “cap and trade” is not as efficient or effective a way to reduce greenhouse gases as taxation. If you would like official confirmation, Harvard economics professor Greg Mankiw (who is far from being liberal; he’s an advisor […]
Read more...Gregg Easterbrook, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, wrote an op ed piece in the New York Times, “Al Gore’s Outsourcing Solution” that makes a few valid observations. But his central recommendation, “America needs legislation capping carbon emissions here, but Congress should allow American companies and consumers to use investments in carbon offsets in China […]
Read more...This week’s Economist discusses “Plan B for global warming,” which is to implement measures directed at cooling the earth’s temperature. It’s an idea which is pragmatic (it acknowledges that collectively we aren’t likely to take concerted enough action to stop, let alone reverse, the rising levels of greenhouse gases that are producing higher temperatures). But […]
Read more...A Reuters story, “U.S. struggles to build green homes,” describes Americans’ deep seated resistance to doing the right thing, energy-wise: Regardless of the sales pitch, energy efficiency is an opportunity that Americans shun…. While gas-guzzling vehicles draw the most criticism, homes and businesses consume even more energy — 40 percent of the U.S. total in […]
Read more...In a very interesting turn of events, Environmental Defense, the group that negotiated for some environmental concessions to win its support for the leveraged buyout of TXU, the Texas utility, by Texas Pacific Group and KKR, has engaged boutique investment banking firm Perella Weinberg. The New York Times, in the story, “Environmental Group Behind the […]
Read more...A great post, “CAFE Standards,” from James Hamilton at Econbrowser on how fuel efficiency standards (technically, corporate average fuel efficiency, or CAFE) work and their effects in practice. He in turn cites research by Marc Jacobsen, an economics PhD at Stanford. I found it useful to understand a bit more about how these standards are […]
Read more...Roland Piquepaille’s Technology Trends, in his post “Super-green minivans possible today,” picks up on a Mercury News story that discusses what amounts to a low-emissions minivan, one that meets the stringent California requirements for 2016. Except this car hasn’t been built yet: According to the Mercury News, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has designed […]
Read more...A very good piece in today’s Financial Times, “Make greenery a part of Australia’s landscape,” by Victor Mallet on the political machinations that have ensued in Australia due to a sharp pro-green shift in prevailing sentiment. The subtext of this opinion piece is that even Australia, which is very thinly populated (20 million people on […]
Read more...This BBC story, “US CO2 emissions ‘violate human rights’,” describes how a group of Inuit made their arguments pursuant to a 2005 complaint filed with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, calling for limits on greenhouse gas emissions. The claim resulted from a four-year study, the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, in which hundreds of scientists […]
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