Get Energy Smart! NOW!

Sadly, one of the refrains that we hear (ad nauseum) is that regulation is somehow harmful for the economy, that government action (on any front) would strangle business activity.  In the public debate, the accurate and truthful case is not made frequently enough about how government regulation actually strengthens our economy and boosts our economic […]

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Senator Lisa Murkowski has been conniving with fossil-fuel lobbyists for a long time, seeking out paths to strip the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions under the Clean Air Act (CAA). Alaska has been called the poster state for global warming. Winter temperatures have already risen 6 degrees. Sea ice that […]

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The world is at 390 parts per million (ppm) of CO2 and 430+ CO2 equivalent. The IPCC has concluded, in what might actually be an optimistic assessment, that we can limit temperature growth to 2 degrees if we cap CO2 levels at 450 ppm. That is, limiting to 450 ppm would give us a 50% […]

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The news in France: a 14 Euro (about $19.90 at current exchange rates) tax per ton of carbon to go into effect in 2010. While discussion of a carbon tax has been an item of debate within French society, Prime Minister Fillon’s announcement of the actual amount and the parameters of the coming have created […]

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A guest post from mwmwm … Want to talk about “clean coal“? The USGS released a recently released an underreported report  that is quite stunning in its implications. The major findings from USGS Mercury in Stream Ecosystem studies of 291 stream systems across the US are that methymercury (the form easiest for aquatic life to […]

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The Waxman-Markety American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) targets for renewable energy and climate emissions reductions are, to put it simply, far from what they should be. And, let’s put aside “should be”, they are far weaker than they could be. Let’s stick with 2020 targets for a moment. The bill, as passed by the […]

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Last Friday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) release their financial “scoring” of the draft Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act (note: pdf). CBO’s analysis projects, through its first decade, that the Federal Government will bring in $845.6 billion in revenue with $821.2 billion in additional expenditures, meaning that the US Treasury would see […]

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Kathleen Sebelius’ swearing in as Secretary for Health and Human Services represented a bitter sweet moment. She has been a strong public servant. A dedicated, principled, thoughtful, and courageous leader who won respect and admiration from Kansans. The nation — and the tough challenges of American health care — merits having someone of her qualities […]

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To many in the climate ‘blogosphere’, myself not excepted, the siren’s call of tackling global warming denial, of deceitful astroturf “studies” distorting the situation, and of shoddy ‘faux and balanced’ reporting in the nation’s newspapers of record can eat up too much of our attention. We must pay attention to what is actually going on […]

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Humanity engages in many outrages, against each other, against ourselves, against the hability of our planet. Genocide … hunting species to extinction … CO2 emissions and global warming/ocean acidificiation … And, sadly, there seems to be a tendency toward ‘out of sight, out of mind’ for many of these, for many of us. We have […]

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