By Siddhartha Shome

"It's over folks"

That's how a columnist at the Detroit News described the state of the American Auto Industry. But is this really the end of the road for Detroit?

Continue reading "Energizing the Auto Industry by Investing in Innovation" »

"I think we already have a green revolution, because I separate my plastics and I eat Kashi cereal. So...What more are we supposed to do, Thomas Friedman??"

-Steven Colbert, from his interview with Thomas Friedman on last Thursday's Report

The UK Government auctioned the first four million allowances to emit greenhouse gases under their portion of the European Union's Emissions Trading System this week, raising 54m British pounds ($80.9m). However, the government is drawing fire for failing to earmark the auction revenues to investments in clean energy and energy efficiency that could further cut emissions and help reduce the costs of compliance with the cap and trade program. Instead of reinvesting the revenues in clean energy ventures, the government is reportedly planning to add revenues to the general budget.

Continue reading "UK Auctions First Carbon Permits; Government Hoarding Revenue" »

Representative Henry Waxman of California defeated Representative John Dingell of Michigan in the battle for the gavel of the influential House Energy and Commerce Committee today.

Over the past two weeks, the two senior Democrats waged one of the most hotly contested challenges for committee chairmanship in recent Congressional history. Waxman was announced the victor today after a 137-122 vote of the full House Democratic Caucus, ending Dingell's nearly 28 year reign as Chair of the committee, which has jurisdiction over several key issues, including energy, interstate commerce and health care.

Continue reading "Waxman Bests Dingell in Contest Over Influential House Committee" »

By Robert Margolis

In 2006 this writer most likely purchased the last stick shift automobile he would own. It took weeks to find a new car that was equipped with what appears to be a fading technology. Although I enjoy the greater feeling of control provided by a manual transmission, it is most likely when I purchase a replacement vehicle, it will probably not only have a different transmission, but it will also contain many other technological differences reflecting a reinvented US automobile industry This essay will discuss both the fading technologies and the up and coming technologies (e.g., exit the stick shift and enter the continuously variable transmission) that will transform the US automobile industry.

Continue reading "How I Will Miss the Stick Shift: Reflections on the Reinvention of the US Automobile Industry" »

With the election of Barack Obama, we are entering a new period of progressive governance in America, but not necessarily a new era of progressivism. Progressivism in this country is still defined by its opposition to conservatism. Opposition is easy. All a movement in opposition must do is deflate the reigning movement's intellectual principles and debunk that movement's narrative. All you have to do is criticize.

But now, as Barack Obama assumes the presidency, the time has come for progressives to create. We must build our own intellectual principles and or own defining narrative. This is the only way for a new progressivism to be born out of this political moment. We must build an identity that is more than "non-conservative."

Continue reading "Movement Building, the Market and a New Progressivism" »

From the Wall Street Journal Online:

Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle has accepted President-elect Barack Obama's offer to serve as secretary of Health and Human Services, according to an official familiar with the situation.

Atop HHS, Mr. Daschle is expected to play a key role in moving Mr. Obama's ambitious health care agenda through Congress...As a veteran of Washington and of Capitol Hill, he brings knowledge about how to move legislation through Congress. He has a particular interest in health care and is co-author of a book published this year, "Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis."

Its interesting how many of Obama's appointments are people who have experience in the legislative branch, including Joe Biden. With talk of either Clinton or Kerry at State, Rahm as Chief of Staff, and now Daschle accepting the HHS position, it is starting to look like many key members of the Obama administration will have spent significant time in Congress. Hopefully this points to Obama's willingness to work closely with legislators, a departure from the past eight years and Bush's less-than-Constitutional expansion of executive power.

President-elect Barack Obama's incoming Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, called for major reforms to our nation's health care, financial, and energy systems at the Wall Street Journal's CEO Council today, challenging CEOs to embrace an ambitious reform agenda.

"When it gets rough out there, a lot of business leaders get out of the car and say, 'We're OK with minor reform.' I'm challenging you today, we're going to have to do big, serious things," Rahm Emanuel said, speaking at a forum convened to elicit corporate opinion on the challenges facing the new president.

The soon-to-be White House Chief of Staff said the Obama Administration sees the economic crisis as an opportunity to advance a suite of bold solutions that would put America back on track. "You never want a crisis to go to waste," Mr Emanuel said, before continuing, "and what I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things you couldn't do before."

Mr Emanuel said the incoming administration would "throw long and deep," taking advantage of the economic crisis to advance wholesale changes in health care, taxes, financial re-regulation and energy. "The American people in two successive elections have voted for change, and change cannot be allowed to die on the doorsteps of Washington," he said.

Continue reading "Obama's Chief of Staff Says to Prepare for Major Reforms in Energy, Health Care, Economy" »

"Government accounting is different from that in the private sector. A firm that borrows to make a good investment will see its balance sheet improved, and its leaders will be applauded. But in the public sector there is no balance sheet, and as a result, too many of us focus too narrowly on the deficit. In reality, wise government investments yield returns far higher than the interest rate the government pays on its debt; in the long run, investments help reduce deficits. To cut them is penny-wise but pound-foolish, as New Orleans' levees and Minneapolis' bridge attest."

-Joseph E. Stiglitz, Mother Jones

From the Obama Campaign Health Care Plan FAQ:

"Q. Obama says his plan will save $2,500 annually for my family. How?

A. ...[By] ensuring every American has health coverage, which will reduce spending on the "uncompensated" care of uninsured people who end up in emergency rooms and whose care is picked up by institutions and then passed through higher charges to insured individuals."

The claim that we can reduce spending by reducing costly and inefficient emergency care by extending health care to more people certainly made the rounds this past campaign. Obama mentioned this fact in the debates and in his stump speech. It is an ultimate political winner--think about it: "we are going to lower everyone's costs by giving health care to more people." Is there anything that people would support more than this idea?

Continue reading "Health Care and Moral Hazard" »

"Back in the 1980s and 1990s, a government-financed initiative like that would have been called "industrial policy," which real capitalist democracies were supposed to avoid. When the Japanese perfected this approach -- with a mix of research help, tax incentives and government "guidance" -- American presidents would dispatch negotiators to demand a halt to the practice. The Japanese took them out to nice sushi dinners, gave them a police escort back to the airport, and ignored them."

-NYTimes

Mother Jones ran a great piece by Chris Mooney in its November/December 2008 Issue, "How to Rescue the Economy and Save the Planet," that recommended a National Energy Education Act:

THE GEEK SHORTAGE: According to the National Science Foundation, American universities graduated a record number of science and engineering PhDs in 2006--almost 30,000 of them. So we should have plenty of scientists to set to work on the energy challenge; yet, as a recent study from the Urban Institute explains, "each year there are more than three times as many S&E four-year college graduates as S&E job openings." What gives? Turns out a lot of those graduates are in the biological sciences--which, coincidentally, saw a massive boost in federal funding a few years ago.

What we need is a new Sputnik scare: After the Soviet Union put the first-ever satellite in orbit, Congress passed the National Defense Education Act, providing about $6.5 billion worth (in today's dollars) of funding for graduate fellowships, low-interest college loans, and new research equipment and facilities. Why no National Energy Education Act today?

Continue reading "National Energy Education Act recommended in Mother Jones" »

In a New York Times op-ed published on the first Sunday after Barack Obama's presidential election, Nobel prize winner Al Gore shifted from his longstanding focus on regulating carbon pollution to advocating direct government investments in clean energy as the best way to deal with climate change. Gore is the country's most prominent spokesperson on climate change and a shift in his thinking in reaction to new economic and political circumstances is highly significant.

Of Gore's five recommendations to President-elect Obama, the first four are for investment--in solar thermal plants, energy efficiency, a new electrical grid, and in electric cars--and only the final is for regulation, establishing a price for carbon. But even on this last point, Gore was far from aggressive, suggesting merely that the United Nations meeting to replace to Kyoto treaty in Copenhagen next year should result in countries agreeing to "invest together in efficient ways."

Read the full article...

By Felix Kramer

Developments in Washington have become "fast and furious." From day to day, it appears Congress (especially but not only Republicans) may be insufficiently receptive to steps to keep the Detroit Three alive.

Many are focusing more on blame for past mis-steps than on a responsible appreciation of the consequences for communities and for our green automotive future if these companies go under. We hope that this turns out to be brinkmanship and that Congress will in fact act next week. (If they ignore the crisis, attitudes reflected in aphorisms like, "they made their own bed" or "let them stew in their own juices" -- or "what, me worry?" will prove to be short-sighted.)

The California Cars Initiative (CalCars.org) developed what follows as a contribution to an effort by a number of organizations to provide Washington lawmakers with specific conditions for additional federal aid to automakers. We're not suggesting this is the only criterion -- and we hope that the issue actually does come before Congress.

Next week the U.S. auto industry will fight for its life in the chambers and hallways of Congress. No one who recognizes the industry's central position -- and the lives and livelihoods that depend on its continuation -- wants to see any of the Detroit Three fail. They need immediate life support -- and a medium- and long-term way to return to growth and prosperity.

Continue reading "Setting a 2012 Milestone for the Detroit Three" »

One of the leading causes of confusion when it comes to health care reform is the misuse and conflation of the terms "health insurance" and "health care." This sort of confusion manifests itself throughout the debate.

Insurance is the pooling of risk. The members of an insurance plan pay a premium that is used to help those members who face an adverse event. In the case of auto insurance this could the cost to repair a rear-end collision, in the case of health insurance this might be the cost to repair broken bone. Insurance as it exists is marked by two pillars:

Continue reading "What is Health Insurance?" »

The stark tone of the International Energy Agency's World Energy Outlook 2008 is a dramatic departure from their normally staid and frequently rosy projections about the world's energy future (I presented highlights from the piece in this proceeding post). The report's opening statement that current world energy trends are "patently unsustainable" will no doubt receive the most attention in headlines across the blogosphere and mainstream news. But in this post, I want to delve deeper into the key statement that follows it:

"It is not an exaggeration to claim that the future of human prosperity depends on how successfully we tackle the two central energy challenges facing us today: securing the supply of reliable and affordable energy; and effecting a rapid transformation to low-carbon, efficient and environmentally benign system of energy supply."

While the environmental community focuses primarily on the latter of those two concerns, the IEA appropriately recognizes that the future of human prosperity depends on our ability to tackle both challenges: decarbonizing the energy supply and providing ample and affordable energy supplies to power global development.

In short, the IEA confirms what is perhaps the central challenge of the 21st century: developing clean and affordable energy sources to power the globe.

Continue reading "IEA Report Confirms Clean and Cheap Energy Needed to Power Global Development" »

By Jeffrey Feldman

Up to this point in our history, when Americans imagined 'the future,' they thought about cars that could fly, a cognitive frame inherited from old time TV shows like Flash Gordon and The Jetsons. Instead of that cartoon image, we would be wise to start seeing our future in terms of three far-reaching goals for the American auto industry: sustainable engines, sustainable factories, and sustainable communities.

Continue reading "Seeing Our Future In The American Car" »

The world's energy watchdog, the International Energy Agency, released their annual World Energy Outlook report today, and it starts out with a bang. The first paragraph of the IEA report reads:

"The world's energy system is at a crossroads. Current global trends in energy supply and consumption are patently unsustainable - environmentally, economically, socially. But that can - and must - be altered; there's still time to change the road we're on. It is not an exaggeration to claim that the future of human prosperity depends on how successfully we tackle the two central energy challenges facing us today: securing the supply of reliable and affordable energy; and effecting a rapid transformation to low-carbon, efficient and environmentally benign system of energy supply. What is needed is nothing short of an energy revolution."

Continue reading "World's Energy Watchdog Warns Current Energy Trends are "Patently Unsustainable"" »

Cross posted by Prometheus

Last spring along with Tom Wigley and Chris Green we published an article in Nature (PDF) arguing that the IPCC had underestimated the magnitude of the mitigation challenge. Today I'd like to illustrate how the IEA's World Energy Outlook, published yesterday, also dramatically underestimates the magnitude of the mitigation challenge.

The figure below is taken from the IEA's publicly-available packet of key graphs (here in PDF). I have annotated it as follows to illustrate how the IEA has significantly underestimated the mitigation challenge.

Continue reading "IEA World Energy Outlook: Understating the Mitigation Challenge" »

Today the IEA released its World Energy Outlook 2008. Here are some interesting excerpts from the Executive Summary here in PDF:

First, the IEA comes down clearly on the debate over whether stabilization at 450 ppm can be achieved with existing technologies. They say no way:

Continue reading "IEA World Energy Outlook: Focus on Climate Stabilization" »

Japan's emissions hit a record high:

Japan's carbon dioxide emissions hit a record high of 1.37 billion tons in the year to March 2008, well above the target set by the Kyoto Protocol, the environment ministry said Wednesday.

The figure, which marked a 2.3 percent rise from the previous fiscal year, was mainly the result of more polluting energy production following the closure of the world's biggest nuclear power plant after it was damaged in an earthquake that struck northern Japan.

Continue reading "Japan's Record Emissions" »

"Current energy trends are patently unsustainable --socially, environmentally, economically."

--From the International Energy Agency's most recent World Energy Outlook report (pdf), published yesterday, November 12th, 2008.

As the parties to the United Nation's Kyoto Protocol on global warming prepare to meet in Poznan, Poland next month, India's Minister of Science and Technology weighed in today to voice little interest in a global action plan on climate change.

In a statement that strongly favored initiatives tailored to suit local needs, Minister Kapil Sibal told attendees at a climate change conference, "You cannot have a global action plan on climate change. You can only have a global commitment."

Minister Sibal, who been representing India at international climate negotiations, said the issue of climate change has to be addressed at national, regional and local levels as each part has different sets of problems.

Continue reading "Indian Official Rules Out Global Action Plan on Climate Change" »

With a new bailout for Detroit on the table, there's a lot of talk about getting some "grand bargain" with automakers out of the deal: automakers will agree to some terms, like producing more efficient vehicles, in exchange for the loans.

In fact, the direct loans approved by the 2007 Energy Bill require auto companies to use the funds to retool factories that produce vehicles that get 25% better fuel economy than the average vehicle in it's class. That's a start.

But the real grand bargain, in my opinion, is to bust out of this incremental improvements mentality for fuel economy. We don't need incremental improvements, we need exponential improvements in fuel economy. Here's how it could work...

Continue reading "A Real Grand Bargain: Radically Re-invent the American Automobile" »

In 2005, with GM and Ford teetering perilously close to bankruptcy, the Breakthrough Institute created the Healthcare for Hybrids proposal with Senator Barack Obama, Representative Jay Inslee, and the Center for American Progress, a plan which would have linked fuel-economy increases to relieving health care costs for U.S. automakers. Today, with the industry again on the brink of collapse, we invite you to join us is exploring a new question for the new era:

What will it take to reinvent the American auto industry?

We will publish the best responses on our home page, www.thebreakthrough.org. Please submit your op-eds to oped@thebreakthrough.org and paste or type your content into the body of the message; please do not send attachments.

Continue reading "Can America Reinvent the Auto Industry?" »

From Greenwire yesterday (subscription):

On the campaign trail, Obama pledged to reduce U.S. emissions down to 1990 levels by 2020, with a midcentury 80 percent cut. Yet Obama has not stated a timetable for actually moving global warming legislation to implement those goals, and congressional leaders are likely to hold off in pushing the issue until all of the complex details have been worked out.

"It's not a first 100 days priority," Drew Hammill, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), said today of cap-and-trade legislation. "It'll take longer to come together."

Continue reading "Cap and Trade, Not in the First 100 Days" »

The good news: an elite consensus is crystallizing around the need for massive economic stimulus funded by deficit spending. Hundreds of economists are calling for stimulus on the scale of 2-3 percent of GDP -- or $300-500 billion per year, equivalent to the expected decline in U.S. consumption as a result of the housing market collapse -- to confront the recession head-on.

The bad news: this growing consensus may only support short-term stimulus investments - such as aid to state and local governments, extended unemployment benefits, and rebate checks - without any long-term economic strategy. Infrastructure spending is gaining support, but mostly for proposals that have already been planned and scheduled. Given the increasingly dim prospects for long-term U.S. competitiveness, it's critical that we think smart and act quickly to secure our economic future. As Harvard Business School guru Michael Porter put it in last week's BusinessWeek cover story:

Continue reading "America Needs a New Growth Strategy" »

As Barack Obama takes his place in the oval office, he will be working with the political mandate of an electoral landslide to work towards implementing the pragmatic progressive agenda that he set forth in his campaign. His bold push to expand health care coverage will be among the most scrutinized projects he embarks upon. Throughout the campaign and in the debates he consistently touted his plan to create a public health insurance plan available to every American, creating a large insurance pool that would help keep prices low, in turn making it more appealing to uninsured Americans. He also claimed that the plan would pay for itself by reducing the need for inefficient emergency care.

But are his policy goals realistic? And perhaps more importantly, would America be healthier if more Americans had health insurance (or better access to health care)?

Continue reading "Barack Obama: Health Care Nation?" »

"My advice to the Obama people is to figure out how much help they think the economy needs, then add 50 percent."

-Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman

Cross-posted from WattHead - Energy News and Commentary

Reuters reports on several possible candidates for Barack Obama's Secretary of Energy. Whoever is selected will join Obama's candidate and will likely be the main point person tasked with acting on the President-elect's number one priority: igniting a new energy economy. According to Reuters, here are the likely candidates...

Continue reading "Who Will Get the Nation's Top Energy Job in Obama's Administration" »

This week, we've been writing about President-elect Barack Obama's powerful mandate to build a new, clean energy economy and revitalize our nation's ailing economy. A new post-election poll from Zogby Interactive confirms that Americans overwhelmingly view new investments in clean energy as critical to revitalizing America's ailing economy.

The poll found that more than three out of four voters - 78% - support clean energy investments to revitalize the economy, with 50% saying they strongly agree that clean energy investment is vital to the nation's economic future.

Continue reading "Post-election Poll Confirms Bipartisan Support for Barack Obama's Clean Energy Plans" »

This is the second post in a continuing series delving into Barack Obama's opportunity to capture this political moment and provide a direction for energy policy and economic growth in the 21st century. Part 1 is here.

As Barack Obama assumes the mantle of President-elect of the United States of America, we are witnessing an historic realignment of the American political landscape. With the election of our nation's first African-American president, record voter turnout, and a dramatically redrawn electoral map, it seems that anything is possible now.

However, while Obama clearly has a new mandate to lead our nation, electoral mandates are fickle and even this one could fade in time. President-elect Obama has just 76 days to prepare for his inauguration. Then the real work of governing will begin, and what Obama decides to do in his first 100 days will either cement or erase the wave of popular support the President-elect rides today.

His job won't be easy. On January 20th, President-elect Obama will inherit the White House along with a plethora of pressing challenges all competing for his attention. There will be no time for baby steps, and President Obama must show bold and effective leadership right out of the gate. Furthermore, while the economic crisis will remain his top concern in the short-run, Obama cannot afford to ignore longer-term challenges and must develop synergistic solutions that can tackle multiple problems at once.

Thankfully, Barack Obama has stated that building a new energy economy will be his top priority upon assuming office. If he fully integrates this effort with his shorter-term economic stimulus plans, Obama could effectively tackle several priorities - economy recovery, energy security, and global warming - simultaneously. And getting this job done right could cement Obama's electoral mandate and pave the way for a truly transcendent presidency.

Continue reading "President-elect Barack Obama's New Energy Mandate, Part 2" »

Michael D. Mastrandrea and Stephen H. Schneider, both of Stanford and the IPCC, in an article titled "The Rising Tide" in the current issue of The Boston Review argue that adaptation now needs to be part of the discussion of climate change:

Continue reading "Adaptation is Now Cool Says IPCC Authors" »

Few moments in history feel this monumental. It's the feeling of renewed hope and immense possibility.

Barack Obama has once again tapped America's power of invention. It's the same power that led us to invent the first modern democracy. To invent the systems and technologies that continue to drive human progress. To constantly reinvent ourselves in the face of insurmountable hardship and division.

Invention is our greatest power -- the very heart of the American spirit. It's what can renew our promise once again and make this century the next American century.

Continue reading "Reinvent America" »

Energy policy has never featured more prominently in a presidential election.  Both candidates leaned strongly on their energy agendas during the campaign, frequently highlighting their plans to increase America's energy security, reduce energy prices and create jobs.

But while both candidates agreed that energy was a high priority and rhetorically supported an "all of the above" approach to new energy sources, the two candidates proposals actually differed sharply. 

Furthermore, Barack Obama enjoyed the most success when his energy proposals were linked to his plans for economic recovery and couched in the rhetoric of job creation.  That makes Obama's historic victory a clear endorsement of the President-elect's plans to invest in a new energy economy and argues for further integration of his energy plans into his economic recovery agenda. 

Continue reading "President-elect Barack Obama's New Energy Mandate, Part 1" »

Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) plans to challenge venerable Representative John Dingell (D-MI) for chairmanship of the influential House Energy and Commerce Committee, according to a report from Roll Call.

"The move marks a major showdown between two Democratic powerhouses, with implications for a host of major legislation next year from health care to global warming to renewable energy. Waxman currently chairs the Oversight and Government Reform panel."

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has jurisdiction over a wide range of critical issues, including energy policy, health care, interstate commerce issues and most likely global warming policy as well. The committee will no doubt be a critical player in the legislative implementation of President-elect Obama's policy agenda.

Continue reading "Waxman Challenges Dingell for Leadership of Influental House Committee" »

Barack Obama won 52 percent of the popular vote in his historic campaign for the White House. Just to put that into context:

• The last time a Democrat got as much as 52 percent in a Presidential election was 1964.
• The last time a non-incumbent got as much as 52 percent in a Presidential election was 1952.

"Urgent action is needed before the lights go out."

Germany, like the UK, is facing a future where demand for electricity looks to soon exceed supply, says the FT today. Here is an excerpt:

Continue reading "Keeping the Lights On in Germany" »

"And when we all wake up on Nov. 5, 2008, to find that we have made Barack Obama the president of the United States, the world is already going to feel, to all of us, a little different, a little truer to its, and our, better nature. It is part of the world's nature and of our own to break, ruin and destroy; but it is also our nature and the world's to find ways to mend what has been broken. We can do that. Come on. Don't be afraid."

-Pullitzer Prize Winner Michael Chabon, in his Washington Post op-ed, "Obama vs. the Phobocracy," February 4, 2008.

By Jesse Jenkins and Adam Zemel

The election of Barack Obama, an African American liberal with a Muslim middle name, will be remembered for generations as a historic moment in American history. Made possible by the financial crisis and economic recession, President-elect Obama will enter the White House in January of next year with a mandate to take bold action to revive the global economy and put American on the path to economic greatness.

It's hard to believe today, but back in early September, it looked like Barack Obama would lose. Senator John McCain was pulling away in national tracking polls as the chant, "Drill, Baby, Drill!" echoed across the nation. Record high gas prices were the top issue of the campaign, and as Republicans' united around a clear, powerful (yet disingenuous) call for expanded oil drilling, Democrats, including Obama, fumbled for a response.

Continue reading "The Obama Mandate and the 21st Century" »

Writing political and socioeconomic commentary for a legally non-partisan blog on the day of a presidential election is difficult. The election has been the bottom line for almost every political or socioeconomic story in the country for more than a few months. This is natural, as it is current events, along with our personal dispositions, political leanings and ideological commitments that inform how we will vote. But for the past few months, as it happens every four years, America has been looking at the world through an election-tinted lens.

But just as current events have shaped the course of the campaign for the White House and the 111th Congress, so has this election season shaped those events. Nowhere is that more apparent than the financial crisis, which, almost from the day Henry Paulson publicly announced his bailout plan, has been affected by the campaign almost as much as it has affected the campaign.

Continue reading "How did the Election Affect the Financial Crisis?" »

MIT's Technology Review has a very interesting article on the sequestration of carbon dioxide exploiting natural geologic processes as reported today in a paper paper from Columbia University, published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (full paper available here).

Technology Review writes of the paper:

The researchers have shown that rock formations called peridotite, which are found in Oman and several other places worldwide, including California and New Guinea, produce calcium carbonate and magnesium carbonate rock when they come into contact with carbon dioxide. The scientists found that such formations in Oman naturally sequester hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon dioxide a year. Based on those findings, the researchers, writing in the current early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, calculate that the carbon-sequestration rate in rock formations in Oman could be increased to billions of tons a year-more than the carbon emissions in the United States from coal-burning power plants, which come to 1.5 billion tons per year. . .

Continue reading "Air Capture of CO2 via Peridotite Carbonation" »

"The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."

-Abraham Lincoln, Annual message to Congress, December 1st, 1862

Cross posted from Prometheus

What happens when targets for carbon dioxide reduction run up against economic realities? A decision by the EU last week provides one answer:

EU member states are ready to grant automakers a three-year delay until 2015 to reduce the CO2 emissions of their new vehicles, in light of the global economic crisis, negotiators said Saturday.

Continue reading "Buying Time" »