Environmental Policy posts, articles, and infographics

Sierra Club admits taking money to promote natural gas over coal

February 7, 2012 by Rod Adams
with 396 views

On February 2, 2012, the Sierra Club allowed a Time magazine blog to break a poorly kept “secret” whose existence had threatened to get out of hand. In a post titled Exclusive: How the Sierra Club Took Millions From the Natural Gas Industry—and Why They Stopped Bryan Walsh described how one of the oldest, largest, and best endowed... [read more]

Is Climate Change Bringing the Arctic to Europe?

February 7, 2012 by Joseph Romm
with 634 views

Less Summer Arctic Sea Ice Cover May Mean Some Colder, Snowier Winters in Central Europe [For Now] [T]he probability of cold winters with much snow in Central Europe rises when the Arctic is covered by less sea ice in summer. Scientists of the Research Unit Potsdam of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in... [read more]

Decarbonizing California requires relying more on electricity, once it's low carbon

February 4, 2012 by Karen Street
with 195 views

A 2006 California law, Assembly Bill 32, obligates the state to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 (30% below business as usual), and to 80% below that level by 2050 (90% below business as usual). How is it to done? A team from UC, Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, and elsewhere examines this... [read more]

Are Republicans Turning Congress Into A Permitting Body?

February 1, 2012 by Frances Beinecke
with 128 views

House Republicans are once again talking about weighing down the tax relief bill with riders designed to force the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline and block clean air standards. But, even these lawmakers seem to recognize the public won’t like their political maneuverings. Despite the trouble they got into in December over holding... [read more]

Super Hot Salt: The Newest Energy Storage Innovation?

January 31, 2012 by Joseph Romm
with 714 views

Policymakers and energy industry experts often talk about clean energy as though it isn’t reliable. In fact, while an MIT study recently found the existing grid would probably be up to the challenge of absorbing clean energy, intermittency does present a real challenge that renewables must address to get to high levels of... [read more]

State of the Union Addresses All-of-the-Above Energy

January 25, 2012 by Geoffrey Styles
with 205 views

Anyone expecting the announcement of big new energy initiatives in this year's State of the Union address was disappointed last night. What was new, however, was a welcome shift in the President's emphasis on conventional energy--the fuels he referred to as "yesterday's energy" in last year's speech. Never mind that the resurgent oil... [read more]

Why Natural Gas is a Bridge to Nowhere

January 24, 2012 by Joseph Romm
with 393 views

President of American Gas Association, 1981: “In fact, gas energy — currently America’s largest domestically produced fuel — could prove to be the keystone to solving the nation’s energy crisis by serving as the ‘bridge fuel’ to the next century’s renewable energy technologies.” VP of AGA, 1988, “refers to natural gas as a bridge... [read more]

Is Economic Contraction a Climate Solution ?

January 24, 2012 by Matthew Stepp
with 189 views

Matthew Stepp and Jesse Jenkins examine whether voluntary economic contraction is a key strategy in reducing emissions “as quickly as possible.” What do you think? [read more]

The Environmental State of the Union

January 24, 2012 by Frances Beinecke
with 143 views

The annual State of the Union Address is a time for taking stock. Tonight President Obama will assess our nation's progress on a range of urgent issues of urgent issues, but today I want to look closely at one critical indicator of America's well being: the health of our environment. Is America's air getting safer to breathe than... [read more]

How the Keystone XL rejection is inspiring young environmentalists

January 23, 2012 by nrdc switchboard
with 196 views

It’s not often that we win. Especially for the current crop of college students, who grew up in the Bush years, environmental victories have been small, few and far between. Last week, though, we won. Let January 18th, 2012 go down in the record as the day when the people stood up to Big Oil and came out victorious. [read more]

How overturning conventional energy wisdom could resurrect real progress in climate talks

January 23, 2012 by Jim Pierobon
with 308 views

Ever since the Copenhagen round of global climate talks failed in 2009, there have been no shortage of prescriptions and declarations about what needs to change. The subsequent failures in Cancun in 2010 and Durban last year underscore the need for a new way of thinking. There is no denying the world needs, and is going to be using... [read more]

Are President Obama’s Policies Causing U.S. Oil Production to Rise?

January 23, 2012 by Robert Rapier
with 695 views

Question: What do President Barack Obama and ex-President Jimmy Carter have in common? Answer: Both presided over strong increases in domestic oil production that were a result of decisions made before they took office, as I explain in this post. [read more]

Michael Graetz’s “The End of Energy” Surveys 40 Years of Energy Policy-- And It Isn’t Pretty.

January 17, 2012 by Michael Giberson
with 319 views

Michael J. Graetz, "The End of Energy," MIT Press, 2011. Michael Graetz’s The End of Energy is a fascinating run through 40 years of U.S. energy policy making. Engaging and at times even entertaining if you are at all interested in energy issues. In Graetz’s telling it is mostly a story of 40 years of failure, though he notes a few... [read more]

2 Steps Forward, 1 Step Back on Carbon Pricing

January 17, 2012 by David Hone
with 106 views

2011 turned out to be a busy year for the development of carbon pricing. Long the cornerstone of EU climate policy, the approach continues to find favour with governments focused on the issue of managing emissions, rather than those trying to manage the shape of the entire energy mix. [read more]

What We Talk About When We Talk About Protecting and Saving

January 11, 2012 by Scott Edward Anderson
with 145 views

Everything we think about saving or protecting ecosystems and habitats is wrong. This week, I'm at the Aspen Environment Forum, where tomorrow morning I'll be on a Panel called "Nature's Place: Saving Ecosystems and Habitats." [read more]