As this post and this article in Nature suggest, going all-out renewable will gobble up some major habitat–if it’s not done right. There are two money quotes in Amanda Leigh Mascarelli’s excellent Nature piece. The first is from Jimmie Powell, a policy expert at The Nature Conservancy: If we are to prevent serious, damaging climate…Continue Reading…
The Sept/Oct issue of Foreign Policy magazine is a must-read for anyone interested in energy and climate change-related issues. I’m just starting to work through it. David Rothkopf’s “Is a Green World a Safer World?” should prompt some interesting reax from the env security think tanks.
You have to read this final report just issued by the Interior Department to appreciate the blatant disregard for the West’s air quality demonstrated by the Bush Administration in its final weeks. First, some background. Late last year, I wrote a piece for High Country News that revealed the blistering critiques EPA’s Rocky Mountain office…Continue Reading…
Green the Pentagon’s mighty military apparatus and everyone else will follow. At least that’s the WSJ’s Keith Johnson’s useful interpretation of the latest CNA report, entitled, “Powering America’s Defense: Energy and the Risks to National Security.” Johnson’s historical perspective is instructive and makes me think that the clarion call issued on Monday by a high-voltage…Continue Reading…
During Bush’s two terms, I wrote a bunch of magazine stories about oil & gas development on public lands. I never encountered so many pissed off people. Many of them felt steamrolled by the energy boom– ranchers in Wyoming and New Mexico, environmentalists in Colorado, and archaeologists in Utah. Lots of career staffers in the…Continue Reading…
I’m confused. Several weeks ago Stephen Payne at Oil and Gas Investor said the latest James Bond movie taught him a valuable lesson, which he boiled down to this: in order to have access to oil, geopolitics unfortunately requires politicians to have a sort of flexible morality when it comes to from where we import…Continue Reading…
American environmentalists don’t do complexity well. They live in a binary world of good guys and bad guys. Of late, the global warming issue has revealed this most starkly. So it bears watching how this will play out. Keith Johnson’s excellent take over at Environmental Capital covers all the bases.
This morning, Michael Shellenberger assessed the cratering political landscape for cap-and-trade legislation, and his analysis strikes me as an accurate picture of where things stand now. Among the many he took to task was the President: If there is a strategy coming from the White House, it’s not obvious what it is. Well, a few…Continue Reading…
In case anyone missed, it, Andrew Revkin’s post on the possible unintended effects of a renewable energy breakthrough is must reading. Revkin’s provocative thought experiment has inspired a lively conversation on his essential blog, dotearth, with over 100 comments. Reader reactions have run the gamut, but the one that caught my eye was this one,…Continue Reading…