At the turn of the century, atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen introduced a new phrase for the current age: Anthropocene. It was a nod to the "Holocene," the geologic term for the existing time period that began about 12 millennia ago; it substituted the prefix "anthropo-" to reflect humankind's impact on the planet. Like all scientific terms, Anthropocene is ostensibly a neutral coinage to reflect the scale of change that human activity has had on the geologic landscape. But in reality, it's anything but a compliment. Now Crutzen, a professor at Germany's Max Planck Institute for ... Read More
Ponderous Polluters Let a Little Light Shine in
July 17, 2009 • By • 1 Comment
Driving a Prius down the highway and passing those gas-guzzling SUVs gives a sense of greenness that owning an automobile has never provided before. Those who install SunTech solar panels or other brands from overseas enjoy a similar pride in their commitment for a cleaner world; they feel greener than those bare-roofed people next door. Knowing of the cloud of emissions pouring from the smokestacks of the container ships that brought these commodities to their doorstep might give them second thoughts. But they shouldn't feel too bamboozled. When negotiating the Kyoto Protocol, climate ... Read More
Carbon-Fighting Cost Falls Unevenly
May 22, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
While President Barack Obama during his run for the White House urged Americans to pay no heed to pundits dividing the country into red states and blue states, a recently released paper demonstrates that when it comes to carbon output there’s a reason for the divide. (A tip of the hat to Grist for alerting us to this.) The paper — “Carbon Geography: The Political Economy of Congressional Support for Legislation Intended to Mitigate Greenhouse Gas Production,” — by Michael Cragg of the financial consultancy The Brattle Group and Matthew Kahn, professor of economics and public ... Read More
Reducing the ‘Car’ Part of Carbon
May 5, 2009 • By • 1 Comment
California is not fueling around. Its California Air Resources Board set the world's first carbon-fuel emission standards on April 23 — a week after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, for the first time, proposed declaring greenhouse gasses a threat to public health. That's almost three years after California started acting on the issue, at times in the teeth of opposition from the White House. The Golden State's new standards require fuel providers, refiners, importers and blenders to make sure their products for the state's market — the largest single-state market in the ... Read More
Is White the New Green?
April 3, 2009 • By • 13 Comments
In early January, Hashem Akbari sent federal officials a rather improbable sounding proposal. An Iranian-born nuclear engineer who, for the last three decades, has worked as a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Akbari would like to see $3 billion of the economic stimulus package directed toward painting white or a light color as many of the nation's roofs, and as much of its pavement, as possible — all with the goal of directing more solar radiation into space. Akbari, along with Surabi Menon, another LBNL scientist, and Arthur Rosenfeld, a former LBNL scientist and ... Read More
Protect a Levee, Protect the World
December 12, 2008 • By • Leave a Comment
It's obvious that carbon is stored in wetlands. But could it be stored at a rate that would merit their inclusion in carbon cap-and-trade programs? That question has been asked since researchers looking at the safety of levees uncovered a promising way to capture atmospheric carbon. The preliminary answer is a definite ... maybe. Well before Katrina, scientists studying central California's Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta speculated that restoring wetlands on abandoned farmland would mitigate the hydraulic force on miles of delta levees, which in some places hold back 20 feet of ... Read More
Dream Memo
August 29, 2008 • By • Leave a Comment
CONFIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM To: Member Companies From: Association for Corporate America Subject: Advantages of a Carbon Tax Date: January 10, 2009 Consistent with promises made during the campaign, and motivated by the need for revenue, the Obama transition team has made enactment of a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas emissions a top priority. After careful deliberation, our policy development committee recommends that we conditionally support a carbon tax as an alternative to cap-and-trade. This will be at the top of the agenda for our annual meeting next ... Read More
Putting Corporations on the Carbon Scale
August 21, 2008 • By • Leave a Comment
Mike Wallace and I are talking in a café in San Francisco's Financial District when a giant mobile shredding truck pulls up to the curb outside. Its driver starts feeding blue wheelie bins of paper into the truck's maw, and hundreds of pounds of financial documents begin disappearing in a blizzard of confetti. But, Wallace explains over the roar, most of that paperwork probably never reflected the companies' true cost of doing business, anyway. Traditional accounting methods have often made corporations look more financially sound than they really are. Now, though, Wallace is helping ... Read More
Burning Down the House to Keep Warm
August 19, 2008 • By • 1 Comment
During the first weeks of June, a barrage of editorials appeared in newspapers across the U.S., all with a theme: It is time to develop America's domestic energy resources, too long shut away by bans or restrictions. Gasoline prices hovered around $4 per gallon, which seemed to be the proverbial tipping point where concern turned to fear. Whirlwinds of information and misinformation swept the land, along with dust devils of blame. George Will penned a column for The Washington Post titled "The Gas Prices We Deserve," denouncing anyone who questioned the need for more domestic drilling. Like ... Read More
Ecologist Dismisses ‘Ethanol Solution’
May 16, 2008 • By • Leave a Comment
Ecologist Alan Townsend doesn't pull any punches: "To me, ethanol is a loser!" The ecologist and biochemist at the University of Colorado can't find any benefits in America's love affair with corn- and sugar cane-based ethanol. While discussing the nitrogen cycle with Miller-McCune.com, Townsend noted the pernicious effects of ethanol production and what has been called "the forgotten greenhouse gas." Much of his concern centered on the production of corn and sugar cane used to distill ethanol, and in this he suggested those who tout ethanol's contributions in stalling global warming ... Read More
