Category Archives: Environment

South Portland, Maine: The Mouse That Roared on Canadian Tar Sands

Yves here. The article below illustrates how local communities are throwing spanners in the works of various North American energy plays. For instance, New York State’s highest court (confusingly called the Court of Appeals) ruled that towns have the authority to ban fracking via local ordinance, a decision that sent shivers down the spine of natural gas developers.

Another development that is causing some consternation to energy industry incumbents is an ordinance passed by the city council of South Portland, Maine, which put in place new zoning rules that would prohibit the export of Canadian tar sands through the port.

Libertarian Belief in Absolute Property Rights Leads to Climate Change Denialism

Climate-change denialism is but a species of externality denialism.

New York Times Hit Piece on Tom Steyer and Fossil Fuel Divestment

Word came recently that both the Philadelphia Quakers and the Unitarian General Assembly have decided to divest from fossil fuels. It followed by a few weeks the news that the Roman Catholic University of Dayton and Union Theological Seminary, the home of many a great thinker, had done likewise.

Gaius Publius: IPCC’s “Carbon Budget” Gives One-in-Three Chance of Failure

All of the talk in the lead-up to this year’s meeting in Paris of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will be about how much “burnable carbon” we can still emit. In other words, what’s our remaining “carbon budget”? Or more to the point, how much more money can Exxon make and still be one of the good guys?

Ilargi: Overshoot Loop and Evolution

Yves here. As Ilargi himself acknowledges, even by the standards of his fare, this post on “overshoot” is plenty sobering. We do seem to be on our way to precipitating a mass species die off (as in it’s underway already and humans seem remarkably unwilling to take sufficiently stern measures to stop it). The end of civilization as we know it seems almost inevitable, given that most “advanced” economies are seeing serious erosion of their social fabric, as reflected in falling social well-being measures.

However, the provocative point that Jay Hanson argues is that our hard-wired political habits guarantee our undoing.

Gaius Publius: Arctic Seafloor Methane Release is Double Earlier Estimates

one of the cornerstones of the idea that mankind still has a “carbon budget” — that we can still release even more CO2 and other greenhouse gases like methane, though a “limited” amount — is the idea that we can do a good job of modeling climate-changing feedbacks. We can do a good job of modeling some feedbacks, but we’re very bad at modeling others, and some feedbacks have so much randomness about them that modeling them becomes next to impossible.

The release of frozen methane is one of the biggest uncertainties in climate modeling. Results so far are much worse than forecasted.

“Risky Business” Climate Report: Paulson, Bloomberg, Rubin, Schultz Late to Combat the Denialists

Those who have been involved in trying to raise awareness of the risks of global warming might have to repress a “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts” response to a new, accessible, and well written report on the probable impact of climate change on the US. The effort, called “Risky Business” has Hank Paulson, Michael Bloomberg, and Thomas Steyer, retired chairman of Farallon Capital, as co-chairs, with its other committee members including Bob Rubin, George Schultz, Henry Cisneros, Gregory Page (the executive chairman of Cargill), Donna Shalala, and Olympia Snowe. In other words, when Hank Paulson looks like the best of a bunch, there’s reason to be cautious.

Nevertheless, the report is meant to demonstrate that the US is long past having the luxury of debating whether global warming is happening, and that a sober look at the seriousness of the outcomes says we need to do something, pronto. If nothing else, it presents some important new analysis and represents a split among the elites, always a welcome development.

Why a Carbon Tax is Better Than Obama’s Cap and Trade

This weekend, former Treasury secretary Hank Paulson weighed in at the New York Times abouyt the need for more urgent action on the climate front, and described how various indicators of how quickly climate change is taking place, such as the speed of Arctic and Antarctic ice melt, are moving much faster than models had predicted.

Paulson, who has long been an ardent conservationist (and in contrast to his alpha Wall Street male standing, lives modestly), made a forceful pitch for carbon taxes. The irony of this proposal is that we have a Republican showing what a right-winger Obama really is.

The Pragmatic Case for Fossil Fuel Divestment to Address Climate Change

College students and faculty members have started organizing to press college endowments, cities and states, and religious institutions to divest their holdings in fossil fuel companies.

Gaius Publius: Did the “Clean Natural Gas” (Methane) Lobby Help Write the EPA “Clean Power Plan”?

Obama’s energy plan ignores methane as a greenhouse gas. That reflects the Administration and EPA buying into Big Oil and “clean energy” propaganda so as to permit more fracking.

Obama’s Climate Plan is Leaking Methane

Obama’s climate plan encourages electrical plants to convert from coal to natural gas, completely ignoring methane as a potent greenhouse gas.

Gaius Publius: Obama’s Flawed Cap-and-Trade, Um, Pay-to-Pollute, Emissions Plan

There’s little force in most market-based systems for carbon emissions. Cap-and-trade works better (depending on the implementation) if the goal is to reduce pollution (like sulphur) by an industry you want to preserve (like coal-burning energy facilities). Cap-and-trade works terribly for an industry you want to destroy — like coal-burning energy facilities. But Obama wants the public to believe that this sort of “market-based approach” is a great solution.

Michael Klare: Energy Companies Persuade Emerging Economies To Embrace Environmental Destruction, Erm, Growth

How major energy companies are selling their former first world product, fossil fuels, to the third world, replaying Big Tobacco’s ploy.

America: Europe and Canada’s Willing Chump

How America facilitates a labor and environmental race to the bottom, helping companies based in Europe, Canada, and Mexico.

Gaius Publius: “Erring on the Side of Least Drama” — Why Climate Scientists are Inherently Conservative

Climate scientists are understating their findings to a significant degree. “Least drama” might be too kind a characterization. “Self censorship” might be closer to the mark.