Get Energy Smart! NOW!

There are a myriad of ways in which the U.S. home mortgage system is weak to even broken. The extent of the housing bubble to the shoddy paperwork (and, in too many cases, outright fraud) in foreclosures are just two minor little examples of the problems we face.
One contributing factor — to the housing bubble, [...]

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Today is time to take a moment to make a plug for a specific charity as I am about to write a check and you might want to as well. A bit of background first.
Micro-finance programs are, imo, one of the most empowering developments around the world over the past several decades. Providing sensible [...]

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The day before the 40th Earth Day, VP Joe Biden kicked off a series of White House actions and announcements with an excellent initiative:
selection of 25 communities for up to $452 million in Recovery Act funding to “ramp-up” energy efficiency building retrofits. Under the Department of Energy’s Retrofit Ramp-Up initiative, communities, governments, private sector [...]

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“The Social Cost of Carbon may be the most important number you’ve never heard of” according to Frank Ackerman and Elizabeth Stanton in a recent publication from the Economics for Equity and the Environment Network.
The Social Cost of Carbon (pdf) analyzes the efforts within the U.S. government to develop a value of the economic impact [...]

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Occasionally, it seems worthwhile to resurrect earlier discussions, to try to bring attention to elements that should be part of our national dialogue but which, sadly, seem not ingrained in people’s thinking. No Regrets strategic thinking looks to satisficing — how would this pan out across multiple scenarios. Considering what a No Regrets Strategy would [...]

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The incisive Natasha Chart of Campaign for America’s Future has a must read discussion of the standard economist’s failures when considering large scale, complex social and environmental issues like climate change.
It’s remarkable how often economists ignore physical reality. Whether they’re suggesting that economies can act as perpetual motion machines or suggesting that resource availability is [...]

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In the last week, several studies (okay, one lobbyist press release packaged as a “study” and the other a real study) have made a splash.
The first, the Price Waterhouse “study” for America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) on implications of moving toward a public option and universal coverage.
The other, the month’s old Congressional Budget Office (CBO) [...]

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Electrification of rail is one of the most effective currently available technology paths for reducing carbon emissions.
It should be on the top of the policy agenda.
It is, basically, nowhere to be found.
Here is a guest post by the very thoughtful BruceMcF, looking at this gap and providing a path forward for addressing it.
Transport For America [...]

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Earlier today, House Ways and Means Committee passed “H.R. 598 by a party-line vote of 24 to 13. The legislation will now be combined with other components of the recovery package from other House Committees into H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for consideration by the full House of Representatives next week.”
“This [...]

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President Obama and Congress must act to stimulate the US economy with a package of win-win-win-win (W4) elements that will:

Create and protect jobs throughout the nation
Foster economic activity that will help, through tax revenue, pay for the stimulus
Strengthen the nation’s economic prospects for the long-term, and
Help address other critical challenges: notably energy security and climate [...]

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