Al Gore's ambitious call for 100 percent domestic clean energy within 10 years strongly evoked President John F. Kennedy's "moon shot" speech. But a better starting point on the road map for today's clean energy transformation may be where the space race began: Sputnik.
Energy is now the No. 1 issue in the 2008 elections, with both candidates touting new plans to deal with soaring energy prices. Meanwhile, Congress is at a standstill, arguing over the renewal of critical clean energy incentives and a push for more offshore drilling. But above the partisan cacophony is a proposal all Americans can get behind: a new national education initiative to meet the energy challenge.
"Breakthrough Generation (BTG) - the youth leadership initiative of a progressive think tank called the Breakthrough Institute
is advancing an innovative form of political organizing it calls
"intellaction," centered on the power of cutting-edge ideas,
multidisciplinary analysis, and modern communication and information
technology. BTG is a new organization headquartered in Oakland, CA with
two young directors and fourteen fellows, who were each selected
through a rigorous application process."
The Cape Wind project, plagued by opposing NIMBY-ers for years, was given a victory Friday when a judge dismissed four out of five counts brought forth in a lawsuit by the opposition group.
The Cape Wind project was given a victory Friday, when Barnstable Superior County Judge Robert Kane ruled to dismiss four out of five counts filed in a lawsuit brought forth by the National Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound and the Town of Barnstable. This ruling represents a step forward for the project, which hopes to create America's first offshore wind farm, leading the way in renewable energy development.
Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus are guest contributors in The Economist's Debate Hall series this week. Without outside pressure, will corporations take meaningful action on sustainability?
For the past week, The Economist's online readers have been engaged in a debate over Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and sustainability as part of the Debate Hall series. The proposition is "This house believes that without outside pressure, corporations will not take meaningful action on sustainability." Pro and con speakers are industry professionals, users are invited to vote and comment on the debate, and Breakthrough Institute founders Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger contributed their own two-cents as guest participants.
Bjorn Lomborg wrote an op-ed today for the Washington Post calling for a global investment of $33 billion per year in clean energy research and development (R&D). Lomborg is on the right track, but if he truly aims to reduce the price of clean energy below that of fossil fuels and achieve a prosperous clean energy future, he should support our calls for investments in R&D as well as demonstration and deployment -- an agenda which calls for much larger investments.
Bjorn Lomborg -- the famous "Skeptical Environmentalist" -- wrote an op-ed today for the Washington Post, A Better Way Than Cap and Trade, calling for a global investment of $33 billion per year in clean energy research and development (R&D).
"The answer is to dramatically increase research and development so that solar panels become cheaper than fossil fuels sooner rather than later...
The United States has an opportunity to lead the world on research and development, which would give it the moral authority to demand that everyone else do the same. The world's sole superpower could finally provide the leadership on climate change that has been lacking in the White House.
Even if every nation spent 0.05 percent of its gross domestic product on research and development of low-carbon energy, this would be only about one-tenth as costly as the Kyoto Protocol and would save dramatically more than any of Kyoto's likely successors."
In the United States, this approach would open up new avenues for the nation's creative, innovative spirit and leave behind the political mess of Kyoto-type negotiations.
A low-carbon energy, high-income future is possible. Unfortunately, the political battles we just witnessed in Washington have done nothing to make it a reality.
Government investment -- long-term incentives, an RD&D push, enabling infrastructure and public works projects, and government procurement programs -- can speed solar on it's path towards "grid parity," the point where solar on your roof beats paying your utility bill.
The solar industry is booming, ramping up production capacity and driving costs down steadily towards the mythical "Grid Parity" point - the price point when solar on your roof beats paying your utility bill. That's a game changer and the solar industry is steadily heading that direction.
Those of us who are children of the climate movement must never forget that we are
standing on the shoulders of all those who came before us. One of those great individuals is Dr. James Hansen, a man who has dedicated his life to getting the facts right and raising scientific awareness on global warming. For his unwavering courage and commitment we should be deeply grateful.
Those of us who are children of the climate movement must never forget that we are standing on the shoulders of all those who came before us. One of those great individuals is Dr. James Hansen, a man who has dedicated his life to getting the facts right and raising scientific awareness on global warming. For his unwavering courage and commitment we should be deeply grateful.
But as the national debate has shifted from climate science to climate policy, Dr. Hansen has proven his limits as a political spokesperson. The latest incident took place two days ago in a testimony to Congress (PDF), when Dr. Hansen declared the fossil fuel industry should be tried for high crimes against humanity and that he would "fight" against any policy proposal except a 100% cap-and-dividend agenda.
The crux of the matter is this: Dr. Hansen is a climate scientist -- not a policy expert, nor an energy scientist, nor a politician. He has limited political and policy instincts, and he is undermining his scientific credibility. From here on out, Dr. Hansen should concentrate on the climate science -- and climate advocates should be wary of placing him on the pedestal he has been given.
Dr James Hansen throws down the gauntlet, calling for "100% Cap-and-Dividend or Fight!" This Breakthrough Generation fellow says investing in a clean energy future that will spark lasting economic prosperity AND slash greenhouse gas emissions is what's really worth fighting for.
For more than twenty years, your scientific expertise and public statements have helped many (including myself) understand the relationship between human activity and global warming. I felt a sense of urgency as I read your latest testimony to Congress (PDF) regarding the need to curb greenhouse gases and put us on the path to building a clean energy economy. I can only imagine how frustrated you must be by the inability of Congress to pass meaningful and comprehensive energy and climate legislation. As I read your testimony it was clear that you fully grasp the scale of the energy and climate challenge and desire to implement effective solutions that will tackle it head on.
That's why I felt totally lost when you articulated what you feel is the best way to transform our current energy system. You said, "One hundred percent dividend or fight!"
Jeffrey Sachs joins the ever-growing number of energy scientists and policy experts who are challenging the efficacy of carbon pricing and calling for massive public investments in clean energy.
In a recent article in Time Magazine, Jeffrey Sachs took up the call for a $30 billion annual investment in clean energy:
At the start of the next Administration, it will be high time to increase our annual energy-research budget to $30 billion, which would make it at least comparable to what we spend on medical research each year at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). And I propose, with the same sense of mission that gave rise to NASA and NIH, that we create a National Institutes of Sustainable Technology.
Sachs joins the ever-growing number of energy scientists and policy experts who are challenging the efficacy of carbon pricing and calling for massive public investments in clean energy. If anything, Sachs is calling for an even greater level of investment, since his $30 billion proposal would apparently be reserved for research-only.
In December 2007, a group of over 30 energy scientists, including several Nobel Laureates, called upon Congress (PDF) to invest $30 billion per year in clean energy research, development, demonstration, and deployment:
Breakthrough Senior Fellow Dalton Conley argues that the social safety nets of the 21st Century may be modeled more on the open source communities of the Wikipedia era than the government programs of the Roosevelt age.
Today's highly networked social order requires a new social contract -- that's the conclusion of Breakthrough Senior Fellow Dalton Conley, who just wrote a piece for the New York Times magazine illuminating the challenges involved in creating social policy for a complex modern society. Although many may be calling for a new "New Deal" to shore up current societal insecurities, the social safety nets of the 21st Century may be modeled more on the open source communities of the Wikipedia era than the government programs of the Roosevelt age.
Who is Jim Rogers? For starters, he's the head of one of the country's biggest coal-burning entities, Duke Energy. But how many coal barons lunch with the likes of James Lovelock, originator of the Gaia theory, and James Hansen, one of the first scientists to publicly warn about global warming? He may represent the dirtiest of dirty energy, but if someone's got to do it, we should be glad it's him.
What would the world look like at night if everyone consumed electricity like Americans do? Researchers use the familiar "Earth at Night" map to provide visual illustration of the radically transformed energy atlas of the global energy future. No surprise here: China and India will sharply alter the geography of world energy consumption in their pursuit of energy development.
We talk a lot about the future of global energy consumption, and the implications of continued development in China and India, but it is a hard future to conceptualize. We do not really know what it will look like to add billions of people to our energy grid. Luckily, for the visual learners out there, the folks over at The Electronic Journal of Sustainable Development (EJSD) did a simple light experiment to help people envision the future of global energy use in our current system - literally.
First, they examined a map of global night brightness in 1996 - an image that serves as an excellent proxy for where energy use is concentrated.
The quandary for capping and trading is straight out of Econ 101: As long as some countries restrict emissions and some don't, many firms will simply move their emissions rather than eliminate them, seriously compromising CO2 reduction targets.
Imagine it's 2010. The environmental lobby and its governmental allies have finally managed to implement a carbon cap-and-trade system. Under this plan, CO2 emissions are limited to those allowed by a set number of permits; companies who emit more than their allotment have to buy permits from those who don't, and as caps tighten over time, most everyone is required to lower their emissions.
Sounds good, right? An elegant scheme to be sure, and one that has borne fruit in the past - cap-and-trade policies are widely credited with America's drastic reductions in the pollutants that form acid rain. But can a rigorous American cap-and-trade system work similar wonders for CO2? I don't think so.
Silicon Valley innovators tinker with microbes that excrete a kind of renewable petroleum - "Oil 2.0." Just another example of the kind of boundless human ingenuity that will help us meet the energy needs of the 21st Century.
Scientists in Silicon Valley are spending their time and energy on teeny, tiny bugs, planning for big results. The organisms may be microscopic in size but they do something extraordinary: they excrete "renewable petrol" as they feed on agricultural waste.
While the scientists and entrepreneurs behind developing "Oil 2.0" are in California, this is not fodder for Hollywood. The companies experimenting with genetically altered bacteria and oil production have notable investors on board (like Vinod Khosla, founder of Sun Microsystems), the attention of many oil industry veterans, millions of dollars, and what they are doing may have real implications for our energy future.
A new Dutch analysis says that China contributed two-thirds of last year's global increase in carbon dioxide emissions. With a national increase of 8% in 2007, China was the only nation that saw a significant rise in emission levels.
A new Dutch analysis says that China contributed two-thirds of last year's global increase in carbon dioxide emissions. With a national increase of 8% in 2007, China was the only nation that saw a significant rise in emission levels. According to the agency that conducted the analysis:
Mark and Peter Teague propose that the next time the nations of the world meet for a Kyoto-type conference on global warming it be in conjunction with the greatest world's fair of all time.
Mark Teague is one of the the country's leading authors and illustrators of children's books. He is the author eleven picture books and the illustrator of more than twenty others, including the Poppleton series, the First Graders from Mars series, The Great Gracie Chase, and other favorites.
Peter Teague is the Program Director for Environment & Contemplative Practice at the Nathan Cummings Foundation. Peter Teague has extensive experience in the field, having served as senior environmental policy advisor to Congressman Leon Panetta, Senate candidate Diane Feinstein and Senator Barbara Boxer.
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Looking north from 35th Street, from what was the top of a hill in the days before Manhattan was shorn of its topography, you'll see into the yawning concrete pit -- several square blocks of it -- that forms the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel. The pit was once, believe it or not, a little valley so verdant that the Dutch called it the bloomingdale. Almost no one misses it because almost no one knows it was ever there.
A new Gallup poll reveals a clear message from Americans: economic concerns and energy prices trump all. That's a message that cannot be ignored by proponents of climate solutions and a clean energy revolution.
Gas station marquees have apparently displaced body count headlines in the minds of Americans. As gas prices skyrocketed over the past few months, concerns with fuel and oil prices have quickly risen to eclipse the Iraq War and secure the second highest ranking on Gallup's monthly "Most Important Problem" poll, released yesterday.
According to Gallup, the 25% of those polled citing fuel and energy prices in June as the nation's top problem is up dramatically from 17% in May and 6% in January.
Despite the rise of fuel price anxieties (or perhaps because of it), the economy and jobs retain the first position in the Gallup list of most pressing concerns. According to Gallup, concern with the economy is about as high today as it has been at
any time since the start of George W. Bush's presidency in January 2001.
The message from Americans is clear: economic concerns and energy prices trump all. That's a message that cannot be ignored by proponents of climate solutions and a clean energy revolution.
Dr. Roger Pielke Jr., a Senior Fellow at the Breakthrough Institute, published an invited op-ed in today's Financial Post arguing that the remaining uncertainties in climate projections should be a case for action -- not delay.
Dr. Roger Pielke Jr., a Senior Fellow at the Breakthrough Institute, published an invited op-ed in today's Financial Post arguing that the remaining uncertainties in climate projections should be a case for action -- not delay. Instead of overselling the scientific certainty -- a strategy which could create serious obstacles in the face of near-term climate variations -- climate advocates would be better served by acknowledging the uncertainties and using them as a call to action.
A new study in the journal Climatic Change confirms reports that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has drastically underestimated the rate of emissions growth.
A new study in the journal Climatic Change confirms reports that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has drastically underestimated the rate of emissions growth. The new study points to far more rapid global economic growth, driven largely by China and Asia, as a major source behind far higher global emissions increases. The report comes days after a new study found that China's annual emissions are now 14 percent higher than U.S. emissions.
Kyoto is dead--and that's a good thing. In its place, we need massive global investment in new clean energy technology. Nordhaus and Shellenberger in Democracy Journal. (PDF)
It is time to stop messing around with a bill that has immediate and hard-hitting effects on our economy, our ability to be an international clean energy leader, and ultimately our energy prosperity.
On Tuesday the Senate failed to pass the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008 (50-44).
The bill contained, among other things, critical production tax
incentives for the rapidly growing renewable energy industry. The
Senate may get another chance to vote on the incentives this month, but
their bickering, politicization of the issue and ultimate stalling is
looking more and more like a de facto decision: No to clean energy.
If the renewable energy industry is unable to count on the
incentives for next year they will count them out as they shape their
workforce plans and pace of development. In other words, they'll cut
thousands of jobs and scale back investments as they prepare to weather
yet another expiration of the critical renewable energy incentives.
The departure of Brazil's environment minister signals the end of the small-is-beautiful vision of sustainable development in the Amazon. Since the U.N. conference in Rio in 1992, everyone has learned that there are no simple solutions to deforestation. It's now time to realize that there are no small ones either.
When Brazil's Environment Minister Marina Silva quit her office last month to protest President Lula's decision to move forward with dam and road building in the Amazon, environmentalists in Brazil and the U.S. rightly worried that her departure was a harbinger of accelerated deforestation to come. But the episode also revealed the failure of the small-is-beautiful vision of sustainable development for the Amazon, represented by "extractive reserves," which have been championed by conservationists, Silva, and her late mentor, Chico Mendes, since the late 1980s.
Mendes came to worldwide fame in the late 1980s as a rubber tapper who had created a political alliance with indigenous groups and American environmentalists. He organized forest communities to engage in civil disobedience to block logging operations. He lobbied international banks to stop financing deforestation. And he proposed that extractive reserves be created throughout the Amazon where rubber tappers, peasants and Indians could sustainably harvest nuts, oils and other products from the forest.
Mendes was killed by landlords in 1988 but his vision took off in 1992, the year the United Nations held an environment meeting in Rio de Janeiro. Foreign governments subsidized the reserves and sympathetic foreign companies like Ben and Jerry's and the Body Shop announced deals to purchase their nuts and oils. Many foreign observers saw in the extractive reserves the seed of a new kind of development, one that could leave most of the forest standing while also creating jobs for poor Brazilians.
But extractive reserves never became self-sustaining, much less capable of generating the billions Brazil needed to service its gargantuan $500 billion debt. By 2005, Leonardo Coutinho, an intrepid reporter for Brazil's largest newsweekly, Veja, reported that many if not most of the residents of the reserves turned to cattle ranching to survive. Even Mendes' widow was raising cattle within a reserve named after her husband. In many cases poor migrants gravitated to extractive reserves for work, but with no work available, turned to logging and cattle ranching. Poor Brazilians -- and Amazon ecosystems -- would have been better off had foreign investments been made to create jobs in cities, not the forest. In short, the problem with the small-is-beautiful approach is that it too often loses sight of the big picture.
How fast can you bring 1.3 billion people out poverty and into the modern world? That's the massive, unprecedented experiment China is running, and depending on how you look at it, it's either a triumph of human ingenuity or an ecological disaster. Whatever it is, China is one of the largest forces shaping the world today.
How fast can you bring 1.3 billion people out poverty and into the modern world? That's the massive, unprecedented experiment China is running, and depending on how you look at it, it's either a triumph of human ingenuity or an ecological disaster. Whatever it is, China is one of the largest forces shaping the world today.
In India, a generation of people who never learned to read are now able to pursue their dreams of car ownership. With the second largest population in the world, India is at a crossroads, with rapid technological innovation and development alongside high levels of poverty, illiteracy, and malnutrition.
In India, a generation of people who never learned to read are now able to pursue their dreams of car ownership. With the second largest population in the world, India is at a crossroads, with rapid technological innovation and development alongside high levels of poverty, illiteracy, and malnutrition.
Environmentalist efforts to save the rain forest tend to brush over the plight of the Brazilian people, but until the country's widespread poverty is addressed, Brazilians will keep hacking down trees to eke out a living.
Brazil is a country of stark contrasts. It is the land of the Amazon and the favelas. Of breathtaking natural beauty and rampant violence. Its forests hold what some have called "the lungs of the earth," but the desire for a better life is driving their destruction. Environmentalist efforts to save the rain forest tend to brush over the plight of the Brazilian people, but until the country's widespread poverty is addressed, Brazilians will keep hacking down trees to eke out a living.
"A global revolution is needed in ways that that energy is supplied and used." That's the main thrust of the International Energy Agency's landmark report, Energy Technology Perspectives 2008, released last Friday, which calls for massive investments in clean energy technology and infrastructure.
A sustainable and prosperous energy future is within our reach, but
only if we launch an all-out effort to ignite an "energy technology
revolution" through massive investments in clean and affordable energy
technologies and infrastructure. That's the main thrust of the International Energy Agency's landmark report, Energy Technology Perspectives 2008, released last Friday.
"A global revolution is needed in ways that energy is supplied and used,"
the 600+ page IEA report concludes. Recognizing the central energy
challenges facing the global community in the 21st Century, the report
delves into what it would take for "all countries to put in motion a
transition to a more secure, lower-carbon energy [system], without
undermining economic growth" (ETP2008 Fact Sheet available here [pdf]).
The short answer: we
need massive investments in the research and development,
demonstration, and deployment of a broad portfolio clean energy
technologies and the infrastructures that will enable them.
If you throw away consumption because of the utilization of non-human natural resources, you also throw away the utilization of human resources that comes with it and actually forms the bulk of consumption.
One major tendency among many environmentalists today is to valorize asceticism and to criticize consumerism. On this topic a lively debate has ensued over the last few days in response to Michael Shellenberger's blog post criticizing Gandhi for his advocacy of poverty and rejection of modernity.
Michael and Ted have the lead article in the new, summer 2008 issue of the Democracy Journal (free log-in required) this month. "Scrap Kyoto" argues that with the failure of Kyoto to reduce emissions in Europe, and China's steadfast rejection of emissions caps, anyone concerned about climate needs to re-think the conventional wisdom that we can price our way to a new clean energy economy.
Breakthrough Generation, a new national youth organization sponsored by the Breakthrough Institute, has officially launched, with two new directors and thirteen fellows.
Breakthrough Generation, a new national youth organization sponsored by the Breakthrough Institute, has officially launched. Breakthrough Generation has two directors and thirteen Fellows for the summer and beyond - some of the top young thinkers and organizers in the country (see profiles below) - and for the next two months we are working together in our Oakland office to help advance a more powerful, intellectual, expansive youth progressive movement. Our blog and website are located here:
For all his criticism of modernity, Gandhi, unlike Zafar, was firmly rooted in the modern world. His critique of modernity was located within modernity itself.
A few days ago, Michael Shellenberger blogged about how some of India's most prominent thinkers, like the leader of the downtrodden, Babasaheb Ambedkar, and poet and writer Rabindranath Tagore, have critiqued Mahatma Gandhi's anti-technology, anti-modern and anti-Western-Civilization views. Not only are Ambedkar and Tagore's views important, if one takes a closer look at Gandhi's life, one does not really find a clear-cut rejection of modernity even there.
Don't you ever wonder how you found yourself to be advocating for clean energy? How you end up glued to progressive blogs and the New York Times, sometimes at odd hours of the day/night, constantly searching for information relating to Obama, the latest on cap-and-insert new word here, or wind turbines?
Don't you ever wonder how you found yourself to be advocating for clean energy? How you end up glued to progressive blogs and the New York Times, sometimes at odd hours of the day/night, constantly searching for information relating to Obama, the latest on cap-and-insert new word here, or wind turbines? Or, how we all ended up in this kind of wonkish section of the population where we actually need to remind ourselves that the world does not revolve around what exactly Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky says about the Climate Security Act?
If we take the IEA's marginal cost estimate of $200 to $500 per ton for mitigating carbon dioxide, then a simple estimate of the full costs from a frozen technology baseline would be an additional $210 to $530 trillion above the $45 trillion cited in the report. Yes, you read that right.
by Roger Pielke, Jr. This post was originally published at Prometheus
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Last week I mentioned the conclusions of the IEA Energy Technologies Perspectives report. I have had a chance to look at the full report in some depth, with an eye to the assumptions in the report for the spontaneous decarbonization of the global economy.
There's a Catch-22 at work preventing industry-level energy innovation. In most businesses, there is an advantage to being first -- to come out with the smallest microchip or the thinnest TV-screen -- but not so with coal plants.
There's a Catch-22 at work preventing industry-level energy innovation. In most businesses, there is an advantage to being first -- to come out with the smallest microchip or the thinnest TV-screen. Not so with coal plants. The New York Times reported today that when it comes to cutting carbon emissions, most companies would rather let someone else be the trailblazer:
The new political center on climate will be defined around cost-containment and technology investment. If it's done right, it will establish American economic leadership on energy, strengthen our economy, and create a win-win for Americans and Chinese alike.
Who killed cap and trade? Dogmatists on left and right.
On the right, Senate Republican leadership insisted that the problem of climate change isn't serious and nothing should be done. On the left, environmentalist Democratic Senators insist that the only way to emissions reductions is to price our way to a clean energy economy. In this way Democrats actually helped Republicans, who didn't need to do much more than repeat "higher gasoline prices" to defeat the bill.
The price-centric approach is a political, technological, economic, and ecological loser. Voters, and thus politicians, will never accept raising energy prices high enough to make clean energy cost competitive.
A new IEA report says we need a massive global investment in clean energy development and deployment if we want to avoid catastrophic climate change. From AP:
Efforts to couch mitigation policies as low cost (in the short term) or of immediate benefit will likely fail, because presently this simply is not true.
The International Energy Administration released its Energy Technology Perspectives report today, with a view on the prospects of returning global emissions to present values by 2050 and also more aggressively cutting them by half in 2050.
Does the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act contain a loophole that would allow financial speculators to manipulate the price of carbon allowances, escalate the cost of U.S. emissions reduction efforts, and hinder the development of clean energy?
Does
the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act (here), which is up for a vote this week on the
Senate floor and would regulate over $6.5 trillion in emissions trading, contain
a loophole that would allow financial speculators to manipulate the price of
carbon allowances, escalate the cost of U.S. emissions reduction efforts, and
hinder the development of clean energy?Given the recent economic impacts of housing market speculation, such a
large vulnerability could raise serious concerns among consumers, policymakers,
and industry.
Europe is seen as a paragon of environmental virtue for signing Kyoto. But it has failed to reduce its emissions, and now is on a coal building spree. Given the failure of Kyoto, what's the alternative?
Europe is seen as a paragon of environmental virtue for signing Kyoto. But it has failed to reduce its emissions, and now is on a coal building spree. Given the failure of Kyoto, what's the alternative?
The real solution to soaring energy costs is to ignite a clean energy economy powerful enough to end our addiction to fossil fuels, re- ignite America's economy, solve the climate crisis and build a more sustainable, just, and prosperous future.
Capping greenhouse gas emissions will hurt Americans, American families, the American economy, America, etc.
As supporters of the Climate Security Act call on Congress to "Act Now!" to tackle climate change, the corporatist, fossil fuel-lovin' right-wing of the Republican party has a ready response: doing something will do far more harm than good. Regulating emissions will raise energy prices at a time of economic uncertainty, hurt American families (especially the poor), and export jobs overseas. In short, it will cripple the American economy.
If we want to protect the atmosphere for generations to come, revenue recycling is a giant step backwards, squandering funds that could be better used to drive down the price of clean energy.
With the Lieberman Warner Climate Security Act (CSA) on the floor this week, senators from both parties are worried about how their constituents will react to higher energy prices. According to our calculations, this Kyoto-style cap and trade proposal would cost the average family of four, $2,360 a year. Some politicians are turning to "revenue recycling" as a way to offset these costs. Senator Bob Corker and Rep. Ed Markey have both introduced bills that would return auction revenue to households to compensate for higher energy costs.
A new study by Dr. Gregory Nemet, "Cost Containment for Climate Policy Requires Linked Technology Policies," questions the efficacy of a federal emissions cap-and-trade system and concludes that achieving IPCC emissions reduction targets will require a federal clean energy technology development fund. Nemet proposes an innovative solution that would supplement the inevitable cost-containment provisions in cap-and-trade with a proportional level of federal investment in low-carbon energy technology.
Most of the fundamental breakthroughs in science, math, culture, music, or business, [Andreesen] says, came from people in their early twenties. "As far as I can tell, it's not because those people are particularly brilliant or unusual, it's because... you're so young, you know little about what's been done before. You've not bought into the assumptions that exist in any field.
From last month'sBusiness Week excerpt of a new book on Netscape co-founder Marc Andreesen:
Personally, 36-year-old Andreessen feels he no longer has to prove anything to anyone. While people have been calling him a has-been, his net worth has grown nearly fivefold and is now well north of $600 million. But he is disturbed by one fact: Most of the fundamental breakthroughs in science, math, culture, music, or business, he says, came from people in their early twenties. "As far as I can tell, it's not because those people are particularly brilliant or unusual, it's because you know enough to be able to actually produce something.... You have enough of an education and training," he says. "But you're so young, you know little about what's been done before. You've not bought into the assumptions that exist in any field. By the time you're 35, you start to have a really good understanding of the things that are possible to do and not possible to do." So while he's happy he has gained the experience to know that good times always come back in Silicon Valley, the confidence to tell doubters they're flat wrong, and the money to do whatever he wants, Andreessen knows his experience may be a hindrance if he wants to truly change the world again.
I'm 36 so if Andreeson's right, it's up to Breakthrough Generation to make the political breakthroughs a reality.
Few movies have inspired me more than "Gandhi." It seemed to have it all: a great story, great cinematography, and great acting. I still remember the great man's defiance of the arrogant Brits. The courage of the Salt March. The power of nonviolence.
But later, as I learned more about him, I was less inspired by Gandhi's view that India should embrace poverty, religion, and tradition against modern prosperity and freedom. Now, in the context of debates over what to do about global warming, two Indian American bloggers have written thoughtful posts about faux ecological asceticism in the U.S. in the context of the anti-modern Gandhi, who for many Western environmentalists was a paragon of ecological sensitivity and wisdom.
'Gay Science': this signifies the saturnalia of a mind that has patiently resisted a terrible, long pressure -- patiently, severely, coldly, without yielding, but also without hope -- and is now all of a sudden attacked by hope, by hope for health, by the intoxication of recovery.
Many factors have converged to put me in a good mood. Today is the second day of the first annual Breakthrough Summer Fellows program, and in the two large rooms next door to me are 14 of the country's best and brightest undergraduates and recent grads. Expect great things from them this summer, on this blog and in the world.
The other factor is my recovery from a bad cold last week. I am now fully recovered. This morning I swam laps, and all of the various things annoying me (read: Lieberman-Warner) rolled off me with the water.
This got me reaching for Nietzsche, which will surprise anyone who thinks of him as a grumpy philosopher. In his most upbeat work, appropriately titled The Gay Science, sometimes translated as the Joyous Philosophy (the word for science in German is broader than our word, and connotes wisdom and even philosophy), he reflects on what a good mood recovery puts us into. He uses this to offer his characteristic observation that we and the world are in a constant state of change and becoming. As much as it confuses and troubles us, health flows from sickness, power from powerlessness, justice from injustice, and good from bad. A reason, perhaps, for us to be optimistic about the post-Bush era? Or a warning?
'Gay Science': this signifies the saturnalia of a mind that has patiently resisted a terrible, long pressure -- patiently, severely, coldly, without yielding, but also without hope -- and is now all of a sudden attacked by hope, by hope for health, by the intoxication of recovery. Is it any wonder that in the process much that is unreasonable and foolish comes to light, much wanton tenderness, lavished even on problems that have a prickly hide, not made to be fondled and lured? This entire book is really nothing but an amusement after long privation and powerlessness, the jubilation of returning strength, of a reawakened faith in a tomorrow and a day after tomorrow, of a sudden sense and anticipation of a future, of impending adventures, of reopened seas, of goals that are permitted and believed in again.
Nobel laureate Dr. Steven Chu says that climate change is not like dealing with the ozone hole. Transforming the energy economy requires something quantitatively and qualitatively different.
Andy Revkin blogs that Nobel laureate Dr. Steven Chu says that climate change is not like dealing with the ozone hole.
Avoiding a lot of warming and climate change while heading toward 9 billion people seeking a decent life will require an utter transformation of the multi-trillion-dollar energy system, Dr. Chu said. An audience member wondered whether spiking gas prices would propel the change. Dr. Chu said higher energy prices would not be enough on their own, adding that the necessary energy transformation will also require decades of sustained research, development, and deployment of new technologies.
Apparently Dr. Chu didn't get the memo that explained how a price on carbon dioxide will magically transform the global energy economy.
Climate activists have succeeded in getting politicians to commit to reducing U.S. emissions 80 percent by 2050. But the Lieberman-Warner Climate Stewardship Act reveals that the obsession with targets and timetables gives politicians the political cover they need to postpone actual action until 2025 and probably much later - all while spending next to nothing on technology development and deployment today.
Sometime in late 2006, American climate activists got the idea that one of the highest priorities of the movement should be to pressure politicians to endorse the goal of reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050. This goal is broadly consistent with reducing global emissions 50 percent by the same date. Rallies were held. Protesters formed the words "80 by 2050" with their bodies so they could be photographed by helicopters.
