In a new report released today, the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program details the unique role that the U.S. Mountain West can play in driving innovation to make clean energy cheap and ubiquitous. New collaborative, public-private clean energy research and commercialization paradigms are needed to overcome major market hurdles for the successful introduction and rapid innovation of emerging clean energy technologies. The Mountain West, with its world-leading energy research facilities, leading science and technology universities, and abundant clean energy resources, can lead the way.
The United States Mountain West has long been a hotbed of experimentation and innovation, due in no small part to a decades-long partnership between government, universities, and private enterprise. Throughout the 20th century, the federal government invested in dams, transportation infrastructure, and military installations that facilitated economic expansion and the emergence of new private industries.
And according to a new report released today by the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program, the Mountain West has a pivotal role to play in securing our nation's clean energy future.
He has been lambasted by liberals and Greens for being too centrist and failing to show leadership on climate change -- yet while the Left remains busy polishing its critical blogs and columns, Obama's Recovery Act is quietly beginning to transform America's economic paradigm.
Barack Obama is not stupid. It was probably clear to him from the very start that taking a radically centrist approach would alienate his liberal friends without necessarily bringing him any closer to his conservative opponents. Yet on a range of issues, from health care to climate change, Obama stoically -- or stubbornly, according to some -- continued down his Middle Path.
Granted, his seemingly tepid approach may not be earning him friends. But it is allowing his administration to lay low while it unleashes the most radical transformation of the American economy since World War II. As Michael Grunwald reported in this fascinating article in TIME Magazine yesterday, Obama's Recovery Act is quietly beginning to revolutionize the U.S. energy sector -- the very backbone of the nation's flailing economy -- tearing down an entire economic paradigm in his wake.
Last week's The Economistleader and cover story, "Picking winners, saving losers", painted an insidious picture of governments' increasing intervention in market economies, arguing that the hideous Leviathan of the state was gobbling up one sector after another and warning that "picking industrial winners nearly always fails." Now, put aside the fact that the government was forced into some sectors--such as automobiles and financial services--only after mammoth market failures and pleas for rescues from capitalism's chieftains. The more important fact is that the article feeds a Socialism-is-coming hysteria and ignores how picking winners--within limits--has worked in the past for the United States (and Japan, South Korea, etc.) and is needed more than ever to bolster our long-term competitiveness.
Of course, the debate about the appropriate role between the state and the private sector in market economies has raged for centuries. The debate is marred in part by vague terminology, and The Economist perpetuates this problem by throwing around a slew of terms--"picking winners", "industrial policy", "innovation policy"--without adequately distinguishing between them but while uniformly indicting them as inappropriate manifestations of government economic intervention.
It would be more constructive to envision a continuum of government-market engagement, increasing from left to right in four steps from a "laissez faire, leave it to the market" approach to "supporting factor conditions for innovation (such as education)" (which The Economist endorses, as, certainly, does ITIF) to going further by "supporting key technologies/industries" to at the most extreme "picking specific national champion companies", that is, "picking winners." And while it is generally inadvisable for governments to intervene in markets to support specific national champion companies, ITIF believes there is an appropriate role for government in placing strategic bets to support potentially breakthrough nascent technologies and industries.
Instead of raising the price of fossil fuels, Gates argues that the time has come to shift our attention to raising the revenues necessary to fuel innovation and make clean energy cheap.
In a new interview with Technology Review, Bill Gates nails the global energy and climate challenge and discusses the need for dramatic increases in energy innovation funding to make clean energy cheap.
In a climate discourse dominated by emissions targets and carbon caps, Gates has provided a refreshing and clear-eyed look at the first-order importance of direct public investment to develop clean, affordable technologies to replace fossil fuels on a global scale.
In this new interview, Gates discusses why dismissing the difficulty of the challenge is counter-productive, and argues that carbon pricing can never drive the dramatic innovation required to transform the global energy system. Instead of raising the price of fossil fuels, Gates argues that the time has come to shift our attention to raising the revenues necessary to fuel innovation and make clean energy cheap.
Below the fold, you can find excerpts from Gates' interview, which can be read in full here.
For more, the NYTimesAndy Revkin and TIME magazine's Bryan Walsh each spotlight the interview here and here, respectively.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has funded breakthrough innovation and new growth industries that are driving down the cost of clean energy and building the foundation for competitive 21st century U.S. industries, according to a new White House reportreleased today on the impacts of the U.S. stimulus bill.
Yet while the White House report highlights the considerable clean energy momentum established by the Recovery Act, it also inadvertently raises the specter of an impending clean tech funding cliff which risks sending U.S. clean energy industries into deep freeze as stimulus funds begin to expire over the coming months.
Cap and trade is not the same as a proactive clean economy strategy, and it won't drive the level of private investment in clean energy we are seeing in other countries. Private investment is moving to countries like China as a result of their major public investments in clean energy R&D, manufacturing, and deployment. It's time to recognize that cap and trade would not have kept the U.S. competitive.
In a new article at the Washington Independent, Andrew Restuccia falls into the trap of equating the failed cap and trade bill with a proactive clean economy strategy that would drive considerable private investment in clean energy.
We warned about this last Friday, when we argued that cap and trade advocates would use recent news that Deutsche Bank is moving clean energy investment overseas as evidence that cap and trade would have kept investment in the United States.
According to Restuccia:
"It turns out that an economy-wide cap on carbon emissions really is necessary to spur investment in what President Obama likes to call the "clean energy economy." At least for Deutsche Bank."
Actually, according to Deutsche Bank's own reports, a carbon cap would have done little:
"While emissions targets express an intention and carbon markets might deliver a price signal in the long-term, governments must strengthen underlying mandates and incentives immediately if capital is to be deployed to cover the gap, creating more investment and jobs."
New legislation introduced by Republican Representative Devin Nunes (CA) and backed by several GOP House members would invest billions into renewable energy deployment, signaling an opportunity for bipartisan support for clean energy technology policies.
Over at CNBC, reporter Trevor Curwin has been one of the first to note the significance of the Republican bill, which Nunes' says could "potentially provide hundreds of billions in financing" for renewable energy over the next several decades.
There's been some change over at WhiteHouse.gov's energy and environment page, but probably not the kind we had in mind when we heard President Obama's oft-repeated campaign slogan, "Change You Can Believe In."
A number of (as yet unfulfilled) energy and environmental policy pledges have been removed from the WhiteHouse.gov page in recent weeks.
Chief among them: President Obama's pledge to "invest $150 billion over ten years in energy research and development to transition to a clean energy economy," once a central plank in Obama's energy and environment platform, and a feature of his first national budget proposal (in FY2009).
Utilities across the country are building dozens of old-style coal plants that will cement the industry's standing as the largest industrial source of climate-changing gases for years to come.
The AP describes the continuing presence of coal power in the United States:
Utilities across the country are building dozens of old-style coal plants that will cement the industry's standing as the largest industrial source of climate-changing gases for years to come.
An Associated Press examination of U.S. Department of Energy records and information provided by utilities and trade groups shows that more than 30 traditional coal plants have been built since 2008 or are under construction.
The construction wave stretches from Arizona to Illinois and South Carolina to Washington, and comes despite growing public wariness over the high environmental and social costs of fossil fuels, demonstrated by tragic mine disasters in West Virginia, the Gulf oil spill and wars in the Middle East.
But like everything related to the energy and climate, it is useful to have a sense of proportion. So have a look at the figure above, which comes from a US DOE presentation earlier this year (PDF). The figure shows the coal power build rate - actual and planned -- for the US and China.
The red parts of the bars for 2008 and 2009 (and perhaps part of the yellow for 2010) are what the AP article is describing. The broader context are the blues and greens.
This study re-evaluates the history of building damage and loss of life due to bushfire (wildfire) in Australia since 1925 in light of the 2009 Black Saturday fires in Victoria...
I am a co-author on a new paper on Australian bushfires, just accepted for publication in the journal Weather, Climate and Society of the AMS. Here is the abstract and citation:
ABSTRACT
This study re-evaluates the history of building damage and loss of life due to bushfire (wildfire) in Australia since 1925 in light of the 2009 Black Saturday fires in Victoria in which 173 people lost their lives and 2,298 homes were destroyed along with many other structures. Historical records are normalised in order to estimate building damage and fatalities had events occurred under the societal conditions of 2008/09. There are relationships between normalised building damage and the El Niño-Southern Oscillation and Indian Ocean Dipole phenomena, but there is no discernable evidence that the normalised data is being influenced by climate change due to the emission of greenhouse gases. The 2009 Black Saturday fires rank second in terms of normalised fatalities and fourth in terms of normalised building damage. The public safety concern is that of the 10 years with the highest normalised building damage the 2008/09 bushfire season ranks third, to the 1925/26 and 1938/39 seasons, in terms of the ratio of normalised fatalities to building damage. A feature of the building damage in the 2009 Black Saturday fires in some of the most affected towns - Marysville and Kinglake - is the large proportion of buildings destroyed either within bushland or at very small distances from it (<10 m). Land use planning policies in bushfire-prone parts of this country that allow such development increase the risk that bushfires pose to the public and the built environment.
Crompton, R. P., K. J. McAneney, K. Chen, R. A. Pielke Jr., and K. Haynes, 2010 (in press): Influence of Location, Population and Climate on Building Damage and Fatalities due to Australian Bushfire: 1925-2009. Weather, Climate, and Society.
While it is certainly interesting that we do not find any signal of long-term climate change in the loss record, that finding certainly is not entirely unexpected given the growing body of research in this area. The more significant findings of this paper have to do with issues of land-use planning and the relationship of bushfire damage to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation and Indian Ocean Dipole phenomena.
In due course I'll post up a pre-publication version of the paper.
Amazon.com has the first two chapters of Breakthrough Sr. Fellow, Roger Pielke Jr.'s new book, The Climate Fix (50 pages plus!), available for a free preview.
The first two chapters of Breakthrough Senior Fellow, Roger Pielke Jr.'s, new book, "The Climate Fix: What Scientists and Politicians Won't Tell You About Global Warming" is now available for free online. Details are below.
Amazon.com via its "Click to LOOK INSIDE" has the first two chapters of The Climate Fix (50 pages plus!) available for a free preview here. Have a look and let me know what you think!
With support from short-term federal stimulus funds, state and local governments aren't waiting for the academic and political debate over whether the U.S. should pursue an industrial policy to spur a clean energy economy. Instead, they are implementing targeted investments, tax breaks, and loans to help expand home grown clean tech companies and entice foreign firms to expand U.S. operations.
A vigorous debate about whether the U.S. government should invest in and help manage clean energy industries to spur economic growth is unfolding among academics, policy makers and business leaders. Curiously, a handful of federal, state, and local government officials are forging ahead in spite of the national discussion and formulating targeted industrial policies to create vibrant clean energy innovation ecosystems that include manufacturing, material suppliers, customers, and R&D. Cases like Rioglass Solar, a Spanish glass manufacturer expanding operations in Arizona, as well as the considerable growth of the wind industry across the US show how the public and private sector can collaborate and, more importantly, how effective industrial policy can create well-paying, long-term jobs.
This past week Rioglass Solar, which provides curved glass sheets used in solar panels, decided to build a $50 million headquarters and a 130,000 square foot manufacturing plant in Surprise, Arizona. The project will create 100 new jobs at the headquarters alone and many more in the manufacturing plant - a welcome economic boost for the town.
The chief incentive for the American operations expansion? Local, state, and federal officials provided almost $12 million in tax credits and fee reductions to (successfully) lure Rioglass to the area.
As Washington's continued policy failure casts a pall of uncertainty over U.S. clean energy markets, the United States risks becoming a global backwater for clean energy investment. What is really the key to turning things around?
The failure of the U.S. Senate to pass clean energy and climate legislation has caused investment giant Deutsche Bank to take its clean energy dollars elsewhere, according to Kevin Parker, Global Head of Asset Management for the firm.
"They're asleep at the wheel on climate change, asleep at the wheel on job growth, asleep at the wheel on this industrial revolution taking place in the energy industry," said Parker.
Deutsche Bank manages over $700 billion in funds with $6 to $7 billion invested in clean energy markets worldwide.
These blunt comments from the global investment firm have cap and trade advocates renewing the argument that a price on carbon would have made the United States a world leader in clean energy technology.
Yet according to Deutsche Bank's own reports, cap and trade and carbon pricing would have done little to change the investment outlook in the United States relative to its competitors.
Those on both sides of the industrial policy debate can point to strong examples to bolster their case. But the many examples of spectacular industrial successes spawned from targeted government policy should put to rest the idea that industrial policy is necessarily bad. As the debate over industrial policy heats up, the Breakthrough Institute weighs in on the need for a new industrial policy with a focus on the emerging clean energy technology sector.
In the midst of a fragile global economic recovery, governments around the world are taking a new interest in managing their economies and strategically targeting particular industries they hope will form a new foundation for growth.
A vigorous debate is being waged among policymakers, business leaders, and intellectuals about the utility of industrial policy and it's place in the 21st century global economy.
This week's Economist magazine has a set of stories about what it terms "Leviathan Inc."--a new era of government involvement in business and the economy. The Economist takes a decidedly negative tone toward government investment in emerging sectors like clean energy, arguing that this new round of industrial policy will likely produce "some modest successes and a crop of whopping failures."
But the history of industrial policy is much more nuanced, and those on both sides of the argument can point to examples that bolster their case. In a fairly clear-cut example of corporate welfare, the Economist cites the case of Meccano, a French toy manufacturer that was bailed out by the French government after a year of poor sales during the financial crisis. Better to do what we can to "keep the beast at bay" and cut down on bureaucracy than for the state to "pick winners," according to the magazine.
On the other side of the coin, there is a long and rich history of strategic government investment fostering increases in productivity and the creation of whole new industries, which the Economist readily admits.
In the 1950s and 60s, the U.S. government helped create the modern microchip industry by buying virtually every microchip that firms could produce. NASA bought so many purpose-built microchips for its Apollo Project, the price of an Apollo microchip fell from $1000 per unit to $30 per unit in the span of a couple years.
Federal investment of one kind or another was also instrumental for the successful development of countless other technologies that went on to spawn new industries and generate trillions of dollars of wealth, including jet engines, personal computers, and the Internet. Breakthrough has written about these and other "industrial policy" successes in "Case Studies in American Innovation."
With many examples of both "whopping failures" and spectacular successes, it is no longer enough to simply argue against all forms of industrial policy. Rather, the debate must shift to a much-needed conversation about how to structure industrial policy to help boost innovation and productivity in high-value sectors of the economy.
With that debate in mind, the Breakthrough Institute has released two new articles about the need for a new industrial policy for clean energy technology, a position gaining support from many different corners of the business and policy world. The first article, "In Defense of Bill Gates," argues that despite attacks from both the left and the right, Bill Gates was right to call for massive government investments in energy breakthroughs to make clean energy cheap enough to be deployed at scale. The second article, "In Defense of Andy Grove: Towards and More Effective Industrial Policy," defends former Intel Chairman Andy Grove's recent call for industrial policy targeting high-tech manufacturing, and argues that manufacturing must be seen as a core part of the nation's innovation ecosystem.
Stay tuned at the Breakthrough Institute Blog as the debate over a new 21st century industrial policy heats up.
Andy Grove was right to call for industrial policy to grow manufacturing in the United States. In high-tech sectors from microchips to clean energy, manufacturing continues to move abroad, and technology development activities are starting to follow. Debates about industrial policy must move from whether it should exist to how to make it most effective. If we wish to remain competitive in emerging industries like clean energy, the U.S. must implement a coordinated set of new policies and investments to strengthen its innovation ecosystem.
By Matt Stepp and Sara Mansur, Breakthrough Generation Fellows
The economy lost 125,000 jobs in the month of June--largely due to layoffs of temporary Census workers--and while unemployment declined to 9.5%, more Americans exited the labor force and are no longer looking for work. A new analysis by the Brookings Institution shows that the "job gap"--the number of jobs it would take to return to pre-recession employment levels--has increased to 11.3 million, and is estimated to take more than 11 years to fill.
Debates about how the government can promote growth and boost job creation have thus taken on renewed urgency and great scrutiny. High-tech industry titan and co-founder of Intel Corp., Andy Grove, dove head first into that debate recently with an impassioned call for a U.S. industrial policy targeting high-tech manufacturing industries, which have been gravitating abroad in recent years. Grove highlighted the difficulty that companies have scaling their operations in the United States, and the importance of high-tech manufacturing to the overall innovation "ecosystem." He also suggested that the U.S. should tax the product of offshore labor--even if it causes a "trade war"--to protect American manufacturing jobs.
The reaction was swift. Vivek Wadwha, a prominent scholar on globalization and competitiveness, noted, "American companies will be the first casualties in such a war, and American jobs will be lost." Former Clinton-era Labor Secretary Robert Reich similarly argued that Grove's suggestion "would almost certainly lead to retaliatory tariffs against American exports."
While Grove's suggestion of a "trade war" is ill advised from both a political and a practical standpoint, such criticisms miss some very important insights of Grove's article--insights that business leaders and policymakers will have to wrestle with as they search for ways to advance a new era of economic prosperity in America.
"What determines success in industrial policy is not the ability to pick winners but the capacity to let the losers go." - Dani Rodrik, as quoted in a Businessweek article evaluating the future of industrial policy and clean energy...
"What determines success in industrial policy is not the ability to pick winners but the capacity to let the losers go."
- Dani Rodrik, as quoted in a Businessweek article evaluating the future of industrial policy and clean energy technology in the United States. Really, a useful lesson to keep in mind when it comes to policy design.
Economist and business leader Tapan Munroe writes that manufacturing is a critical part of the U.S. innovation ecosystem, and continuing declines in U.S. manufacturing threatens America's overall leadership in innovation. If the U.S. is to make good on the promise of a new clean energy economy, clean tech manufacturing, as well as major investments in energy R&D, should be a priority.
In a new column at the San Jose Mercury News, economist and business leader Tapan Munroe writes that the United States is unlikely to maintain its edge in innovation if manufacturing continues to move offshore en masse.
Manufacturing, writes Munroe, is an integral part of the national "innovation ecosystem":
... manufacturing is not just a stage where ideas are transformed into products. It is an essential element of the innovation ecosystem.
There's more to it than that. An abundance of entrepreneurs, access to investment capital and a well-trained workforce also contribute to a successful innovation ecosystem. The presence of manufacturing enhances the level and the quality of innovation and therefore should not be separated from research and development (R&D).
Munroe highlights the work of Breakthrough Senior Fellow Greg Nemet and Peter Kaomoe of the Copenhagen Business School, who have shown that performance improvements in technologies occur not just through R&D but also during scale-up in manufacturing. Kaomoe's work shows that Denmark has helped build a globally competitive wind industry through facilitating a very close interaction between R&D and manufacturing.
Munroe also cites "Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant," a joint Breakthrough Institute/Information Technology and Innovation Foundation report that documents the United States' declining competitiveness in global clean tech industries:
Another recent Breakthrough Institute report entitled "Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant," concludes that off-shoring tech production, particularly cleantech manufacturing to China, has resulted in adverse impacts on America's domestic job creation as well as our country's capacity to innovate. This translates into the loss of American competitiveness in one of the most strategic and job-rich industries of the 21st century.
Innovation, as Munroe writes, "does not occur in a vacuum." A robust domestic manufacturing sector is a key component of a successful clean energy competitiveness strategy.
Perhaps there are some signs that a technology-centered approach to decarbonization is gaining momentum. First, from the international negotiations:
U.S. companies are lobbying at UN climate talks in Bonn for incentives to spur technologies that could slow the pace of carbon emissions, abandoning a push to encourage a cap on gas emissions, a business lobby group said.
The U.S. Council for International Business, whose members include General Electric Co. and Coca-Cola Co., said rules to cap CO2 emissions are unlikely soon, Norine Kennedy, vice president of energy and environmental affairs, said in an interview today. Instead, they want incentives encouraging technologies they're promoting.
"The center of the action is technology," she said at the United Nations climate talks. "There's broad agreement that we won't get to the mitigation targets without technology."
Seemingly inspired by the death of cap and trade, over at the Daily Dish Andrew Sullivan has tied together two interesting threads of conversation -- "Waiting on Innovation" and "Why Not?" -- that deal with the issues of energy innovation and energy taxes.
Highlighted in "Why Not?" the Economist's Ryan Avent is on to something when he suggests a $5 per barrel petroleum tax since it could generate about $40 billion in revenue annually. But to suggest, as Avent does, that the tax should rise by $5 each year with the objective of forcing consumers to drive less or purchase more fuel-efficient cars is a strategy that risks falling into the same political trap that ultimately ensnared cap and trade.
Bill Gates is right. We need energy breakthroughs on a massive scale to make clean energy cheap if we want to solve our energy and climate challenges. The partisan and misguided reaction to Gates' bold call for federal investment in energy innovation shows why so little progress has been made on energy and climate issues over the past three decades.
If you want to understand why we haven't made any measurable progress on energy and climate change for the last 30 years, there's no better place to look than the visceral partisan reaction to Bill Gates' recent call for major federal investment in energy innovation.
Gates has been speaking out publicly over the last few months--first in a blog post on his website, then in a talk at the TED conference, and now as part of the American Energy Innovation Council--for radical energy innovation to drive carbon emissions to zero. In a climate discourse dominated by targets and carbon caps, Gates has provided a refreshing and clear-eyed look at the first-order importance of direct public investment to develop clean, affordable technologies to replace fossil fuels on a global scale.
But proving once again that no good deed goes unpunished by both the right and the left, Gates was roundly criticized by partisans on both sides for speaking truthfully about the enormous climate and energy challenge.
On the left, environmental advocates attacked Gates for daring to suggest that innovation will be critical to dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions, recycling the tired mythology--repeated ad nauseum by Al Gore--that "we have all the technologies we need" and "all we lack is political will."
On the right, libertarians and conservatives, while not hypnotized by the myth that clean energy is an affordable alternative to fossil fuels today, attacked Gates for proposing a substantial role for government in innovation, conveniently ignoring the long and successful history of government investment in developing nearly all the high-tech products we take for granted today.
Both the left and the right are wrong and Gates is right. The intense reaction from both sides to Gates' message shows why so little progress has been made on shifting away from fossil fuel energy over the last 30 years.
Cap and trade has died. Last week, Democrats pulled the plug on an ill-fated climate and energy bill. The climate policy paradigm that reigned supreme for over a decade has finally collapsed under its own weight. And - believe it or not - that is a good thing for us all.
Cap and trade was structurally flawed from the outset. From Kyoto to Copenhagen, it left a trail of failed climate conferences, false promises and stillborn bills in its wake. It is time to move on and embrace a bold new approach in our fight against climate change - one revolving around epic government investment aimed at unleashing a clean energy revolution. Rather than trying in vain to make fossil fuels more expensive, we should focus our efforts on making clean energy cheap.
An insider describes Sen. Barbara Boxer's efforts to lobby Senator Arlen Specter to support cap and trade:
"She should have said, 'Arlen, the Mine Workers are not going to be with us,'" recalled someone who squirmed through the meeting. "That would have introduced a dose of reality. Instead, she lectured, and he listened. She tried to create a reality by describing things as she would like them to be, and she seemed to think that if nobody contradicted, they must agree. But people weren't agreeing. They were just waiting patiently and hoping the meeting ended as soon as possible."
There is new hope that by the time the gusher from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico is capped, so will carbon emissions from the burning of oil and coal.
Postmodernism killed Rom Com, from Maureen Dowd's interview with Sam Wasson:
Every time I see Jennifer Aniston's or Jennifer Garner's face I wince. Basically, every time I see someone named Jennifer. They say the problem is teenage boys and girls, that they drive the marketplace. But I say they only drive the marketplace because there's nothing out there for grown-ups to see. Apropos, I can't remember the last time I saw two people really falling in love in a movie. Now all we get is the meet cute, a montage, a kiss, then acoustic song into fade out. Nothing experiential, only movies manufactured from movies.
Al Gore at U.N. Copenhagen meeting, December 15, 2009:
We also know that between now and then the U.S. Senate will vote on legislation to cut the emissions of global warming pollution. I can tell you having worked with the members of the United States Senate that they are very close to having sufficient votes to pass this legislation.
I had heard that Colorado had one of the lowest obesity rates in the country. Turns out that Washington, D.C. and Colorado both have obesity rates under 20 percent, compared to the (new) national average of 26.7 percent.
Researchers are not sure why. Dr. William Dietz, director of the nutrition, physical activity and obesity division, said that Colorado had spent money from a state lottery on biking and walking trails and that many people were using them. The state seems to have "a culture of physical activity," he said.
Dr. Dietz said the relatively low prevalence of obesity in Washington was harder to explain, particularly because the area has a large black population.
He said one explanation may be that many residents ride the subway; studies have shown that compared with people who drive, those who use public transportation tend to be thinner because it involves more walking. In addition, Dr. Dietz said, there is evidence of above-average fruit and vegetable consumption, and higher rates of breast-feeding, both of which are linked to lower rates of obesity.
Add mass transit as another health benefit of urban density. To use it we have to walk more. It's an easy bet that residents of Manhattan also have lower obesity rates.
Still no evidence that the key to combating obesity is teaching kids to farm in edible school yards.
For over a decade, the primary goal of U.S. climate and clean energy advocates has been to establish a strong carbon pollution cap. This agenda is dead for the foreseeable future, and precious time has been wasted. The U.S. must quickly pivot from pollution regulation to an aggressive clean energy competitiveness and innovation agenda, and we can begin with new leadership in the next Congress.
U.S. economic leadership is at a crossroads. Recent outlooks suggest we may experience long-term stagnation and unemployment comparable to Japan's lost decade. Yet while we have suffered an economic crisis produced by our own financial sector - losing millions of jobs, trillions in economic output, and further damaging our industrial base - China has largely shrugged off the global recession with high levels of growth and self-financed stimulus, all while purchasing billions of Treasury bills to finance our own deficit.
India recently released the first guidelines for the rapidly-developing nation's ambitious National Solar Mission that outline how the program plans to successfully deploy 20,000 MW of grid-tied solar power within the next 12 years. That goal, which would see the equivalent of 13% of the India's entire current electricity generation come from solar panels by 2022, presents a formidable challenge, one that India seeks to address with proactive public policy.
"The objective of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) under the brand 'Solar India' is to establish India as a global leader in solar energy, by creating the policy conditions for its diffusion across the country as quickly as possible. The Mission has set a target of 20,000MW and stipulates implementation and achievement of the target in 3 phases (first phase upto 2012-13, second phase from 2013 to 2017 and the third phase from 2017 to 2022) for various components, including grid connected solar power.
The successful implementation of the JNNSM requires the identification of resources to overcome the financial, investment, technology, institutional and other related barriers which confront solar power development in India. The penetration of solar power, therefore, requires substantial support. The policy framework of the Mission will facilitate the process of achieving grid parity by 2022.
In order to facilitate grid connected solar power generation in the first phase, a mechanism of "bundling" relatively expensive solar power with power from the unallocated quota of the Government of India (Ministry of Power) generated at NTPC coal based stations, which is relatively cheaper, has been proposed by the Mission. This "bundled power" would be sold to the Distribution Utilities at the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) determined prices."
Julia Gillard's announcement last Friday marked a new low point for Australian climate change policy. If reelected, a Labor government will fill the void created by its decision to defer the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) a collection of low-impact policy measures: miniscule investments in renewable energy; an ill-conceived "cash for clunkers" program; and the much criticised plan for a "citizens' assembly" to establish "community consensus" on climate change. Such measures do not reflect the urgency and scale of the climate change challenge.
In the wake of Gillard's announcement, several climateadvocates made the case that community consensus on climate change already exists. Be that as it may, community consensus doesn't tell us whether climate change is a priority issue for Australians. Polling released last week revealed a disturbing truth for Australia's climate change advocates. Contrary to the rhetoric of many, addressing climate change ranks well down the list of the most important issues for voters in the 2010 federal election.
