So while American politicians and environmentalists slug it out over a proposed pipeline, China is stocking its rainy day shale and oil sands fund. Let’s start with the recent news out of Canada: China will take over full ownership over a Canadian oil sands project for the first time after Athabasca Oil Sands Corp announced…Continue Reading…
Yesterday’s announcement by the Obama Administration to postpone a final decision on the Keystone pipeline until after the 20012 Presidential has triggered much chatter and insta-analysis. There are two smart takes worth pointing out. The first is this NYT op-ed by Michael Levi, a climate and energy expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, which…Continue Reading…
Michael Levi, a climate and energy analyst with the Council on Foreign Relations, shoots down Joe Romm and Real Climate in one post. I sense that it pains him to do this, especially with regard to the latter. More on that in a minute. First, I want to point out that Levi’s argument about the…Continue Reading…
Last week, the New York Times put out a special section on energy that didn’t pass muster with Joe Romm. He declared: I think it is safe to cancel your subscriptions to the one-time paper of record. While there are 1 or 2 reporters at the New York Times who get climate and energy, it’s obvious that most…Continue Reading…
I imagine that some folks in the climate policy and politics arena have been growling at this essay in Nature by Jane C. S. Long. Why would that be? Let’s just say that some advocates for climate reality have a little problem with energy reality. And some of them are probably howling at Andy Revkin for his follow-on…Continue Reading…
According to the Guardian, a UK report finds that despite householders’ efforts to switch to energy-efficient products, we are actually consuming more energy than five years ago, with almost a third of all the UK’s carbon emissions coming from the home. Hmm, where have I heard about this phenomena before? As highlighted in the Guardian’s subhead,…Continue Reading…
I’m not sure what to make of this story in Foreign Policy. It seems like a textbook case of China’s nationalist capitalism trumping U.S. security interests. On the other hand, the writers of the piece might have a bad case of sour grapes (but they are upfront about their advisory role to a Western oil &…Continue Reading…
That’s my translation of Monbiot’s position on the huge gas reserves recently discovered in the UK. Today, in a follow-up post, he writes that any shale gas finds raise our exploitable reserves of fossil fuels, just as we should be reducing them. The world’s minerals companies have already found far greater reserves than we can afford to…Continue Reading…
I can’t remember the last time I stood in a room full of people concerned about climate change that was so full of optimism. That would be the launch party of a new foundation devoted to promoting the advancement of thorium. Why would we want that? The idea is to create a new generation of…Continue Reading…
Here’s some straight talk on climate politics: A facile explanation would focus on the ‘merchants of doubt’ who have managed to confuse the public about the reality of human-made climate change. The merchants play a role, to be sure, a sordid one, but they are not the main obstacle to solution of human-made climate change. The bigger problem…Continue Reading…