When China makes international news these days, it’s often because of its densely polluted air. The public health aspect of this story is usually front and center, while the global warming angle is somewhat muted. Still, there’s no getting around the climate implications of China’s reliance on coal. There are signs that China is trying to…Continue Reading…
If I were a coal executive I wouldn’t worry about a solar and wind revolution (see Germany’s Energiewende) or President Obama putting me out of business. I’d be worried about the shale gas revolution (and I’d hope environmentalists were successful in stopping it). If I were a coal executive, I’d want fear to continue dominating public discussion of nuclear…Continue Reading…
In a recent report, the International Energy Agency (IEA) lamented: The picture is as clear as it is disturbing: the carbon intensity of the global energy supply has barely changed in 20 years, despite successful efforts in deploying renewable energy. Another fact, noted in the IEA’s report, will disturb anyone concerned about climate change: The unremitting…Continue Reading…
Senator John Kerry’s confirmation as Secretary of State has generated positive vibes in the environmental community and given climate campaigners a little hope. (Incidentally, does anybody else find it odd that Kerry, despite “his long record as one of the Senate’s strongest advocates for climate action,” as the Guardian noted, is just now divesting from…Continue Reading…
Do you remember BP’s Beyond Petroleum ad campaign in the 2000s? As a writer at Adweek noted in 2010 (in the wake of BP’s disastrous Gulf of Mexico oil spill), the campaign “has always been borderline ludicrous, positioning the oil company as essentially anti-oil (or post-oil).” Well, if that was ludicrous, what do we call the idea…Continue Reading…
Two bits of climate news caught my attention today. One comes from Grist’s David Roberts, who says: Yikes: Avoiding dangerous climate change is still possible, but just barely. Whew. Good to hear us humans are still mathematically in the race to avert climate doom. But then I saw this article from ClimateWire, reporting: India is poised to…Continue Reading…
Michael Bloomberg, New York City’s billionaire mayor for the last decade, can be a force for good when he’s not strong-arming local pols to alter NYC election laws (so he can run for a third term) or installing cronies to important positions they are eminently unqualified for. For example, I can now have a drink in…Continue Reading…
UPDATE: Whoops! No sooner did I hit the publish button did I discover that the Coal Cares campaign is an elaborate parody. But it seems real if you know the history of various industry campaigns, which is what the rest of my post is about. Lots of people are shaking their heads over this Coal Cares…Continue Reading…
It wasn’t that long ago that George Monbiot was accusing Stewart Brand of running the most insidious and subtle exercise in corporate propaganda I have yet encountered. I thought it was a tad hyperbolic. But that was then. It turns out that both of these environmentalist icons share remarkably similar views on nuclear power, coal, and…Continue Reading…