Environment and Energy
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Brazil Says No To Rain Forest Credits
Brazil, home to about 40 percent of the worlds remaining rain forest, is not a country youd expect to oppose a scheme that would pay developing countries large sums of money simply to leave their trees intact. But thats exactly what Brazils delegates are doing at this weeks international clima …
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Are Renewable-Energy Targets Unrealistic?
I missed this when it first came out, but Matthew Wald and Kate Galbraith had a very sharp piece in The New York Times about how utilities around the country are struggling to meet state laws that require them to get a certain portion of their power from renewable sources by such-and-such a date. Ca …
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Obama's Far-Flung Climate Team
So energy and environment types are still waiting for Obama to appoint someoneanyoneto the EPA, Department of Energy, or Interior Department, to say nothing of Agriculture and Transportation. Whats the hold-up? By some accounts, Obamas aides are debating whether to create a brand new position that …
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Climate Change Maps
Worth bookmarking: The Center for American Progress is rolling out a handy interactive map that lets you see what specific effects a warming planet will have on various parts of the world. The maps based off existing research and studies: So, for instance, there arent any consequences listed for the …
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Quick Hits: The War Against Cow Belching Edition
For anyone idly clicking around over the weekend, here are a few links of interest found while trawling the Internet on a lazy Sunday afternoon: * One of the points raised in the ongoing climate talks at Poznan, Poland, this week: how to deal with emissions from farm animals, who generate 18 perc …
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What Napolitano Means For The Border Fence
Environmentalists should be pretty excited about having Janet Napolitano as Secretary of Homeland Securityand not because, as Ed Rendell so awkwardly noted, shes single and will have more time to spend on the job. As the governor of Arizona, Napolitano has been forced to consider the impacts …
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Will the New Office of Urban Policy Go Green?
Among the major reorganizing principles telegraphed in the early days after president-elect Barack Obamas win, Im most intrigued by his announcement of an office of urban policy, to be stationed in the White House proper. Political psychologists might suggest this initiative stems from Obamas bac …
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Does Obama Need Congress To Act On Climate Change?
What happens if Congress cantor wontpass a climate bill in the next two years? Does that mean Obama will just have to abandon his promise to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions? Well, no, not necessarily. As weve discussed before, and as Marc Ambinder noted yesterday, thanks to a 2007 Supreme Court …
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Greening The Suburbs
What between the coming tidal wave of infrastructure stimulus spending, concern over global warming, and, of course, the fear that gas prices will eventually bolt back up once the world hauls itself out of recession, were no doubt going to be hearing a whole lot more about transit in the coming year …
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Last-Minute Gifts For Pigs And Mines
This is very useful: Propublica is compiling a complete, searchable list of all the last-minute regulations the Bush administration is trying to jam through before Obama takes office. Its hours of fun, if youre into that sort of thing, though three rules in particular are worth a closer look heretw …
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Quick Hits: Birdwatching In the DMZ
Noteworthy items from around the Web: * The Christian Science Monitor has a diverting piece on how the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between North Korea and South Korea has inadvertently turned into one of the worlds most important wildlife preserveshome to one-third of the worlds rare red-crowned c …
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Should We Forget About Carbon Pricing? (No.)
In this months American Prospect, Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger have yet another essay arguing that environmentalists should abandon all hope of trying to cap or tax carbon emissions, and instead focus solely on subsidizing clean-energy sources if they want to avert drastic global warming. …
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Should We Forget About Carbon Pricing?
In this months American Prospect, Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger have yet another in a long line of essays arguing that environmentalists should abandon all hope of trying to cap or tax carbon emissions; instead, greens should focus solely on subsidizing clean-energy sources if they want any …
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What Obama's Security Team Means For Energy
Over at The Washington Independent, Spencer Ackerman wonders why Barack Obama didnt name an energy secretary as part of his newly designated security team today, and its a fair question. After all, Obama himself has underscored the connection between energy security and national security (alas, the …
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Killing Undead Appliances For Good
Im always genuinely shocked to read about how much electricity appliances consume when theyre off but still in "standby" modeTV sets, especially, which stay undead after you turn them off so that they can be clicked back on with a remote. Here are some numbers from this Wall Street Journa …
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The End of Sashimi?
Over the last ten years, as sushi has gone from niche delicacy to global industry, the worlds bluefin tuna stocks have been suffering accordinglyespecially in the Mediterranean, home to 90 percent of the worlds bluefin. Lately, though, those tuna fisheries have been so decimated that many marine sc …
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The End of Sushi?
Over the last ten years, as sushi has gone from niche delicacy to global industry, the worlds bluefin tuna stocks have been suffering accordinglyespecially in the Mediterranean, home to 90 percent of the worlds bluefin. Lately, though, those tuna fisheries have been so decimated that many marine sc …
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Ethanol or Lithium: Pick Your Poison
Is there anyone who hasnt taken a good whack at corn ethanol over the past year? Its not just that, depending on how you measure things, the process of producing corn ethanol may actually create more greenhouse-gas emissions than gasoline does, once you take changes in land use and deforestation int …
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A Thanksgiving Pardon For... Utah
Heres something to give thanks for this holiday weekend: the Bush administration is partially backing off on its plans to allow oil and gas drilling on land near Arches and Canyonlands national parks in Utah. The Bureau of Land Management had planned to auction the drilling leases for the affecte …
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There Will Be Acid
Over the past few days, scientists have released a series of studies suggesting that the worlds oceans are acidifying much faster than anyone thought possible. As an increasing amount of carbon-dioxide gets emitted into the atmosphere, the oceans have, in turn, been absorbing more of it, which cau …
Environment and Energy
