News & Comment
Blogs and Opinion
Top Ten True costs of BP Gulf Oil Spill by Juan Cole, juancole.com | November 16, 2012
BP yesterday agreed to pay a fine of some $4.5 billion dollars from the US Department of Justice for malfeasance in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the largest fine paid in US history. BP also was forced by President Obama to pay out $20 billion for damage claims, though it has dragged its feet in actually making the payments. It faces further lawsuits and private payouts. The company’s profits in 2011 were were $40 billion. The fine was so slight that BP stock rose slightly on the news. Meanwhile the actual damage that the oil spill did to the environment was almost certainly man tens of billions more than any payouts BP has been forced to engage in.Here are some of the real costs of the oil spill, which typically won’t be mentioned in the media, and which dwarf in their cost a mere $4.5 billion fine. read more »Climate Crisis: Do The Math by Bill McKibben, inthesetimes.com | November 16, 2012
Even with Barack Obama safely returned, we can expect only incremental progress—nothing at all on the scale necessary to cope with a world spinning out of control. After all, in the warmest year in U.S. history, amidst a remarkable drought, with the Arctic melting and superstorm Sandy slamming into the coast, global warming came up at only one major campaign event—when Mitt Romney mocked the idea at the GOP’s convention. Though we need to make progress in D.C., that seems unlikely to happen if we simply keep appealing to the same politicians. At this point it’s clear that Congress acts as the customer service arm of the fossil fuel industry—you call them up and they put you on hold. It’s time we hang up and go try to put some pressure on the guys who own the store: the Exxons of the world. read more »What Hurricane Sandy Should Teach Us About Climate Justice by Imara Jones, colorlines.com | November 15, 2012
President Obama’s trip to New York City today underscores the fact that it’s time for people who care about racial and economic justice to take center stage in the climate change debate. For years climatologists and economists have warned that the consequences of a changing climate would fall first, hardest and fastest on those already staggering under the weight of racial and economic disparities. This “climate gap”—given its name in a 2009 University of California report—was brought into sharp relief by Sandy. Though the storm’s destructive capacity was spread across 200 miles, the consequences of the damage were uneven. In fact, Sandy revealed that economic inequality has life and death consequences. Nowhere highlights the point more than New York City’s aftermath in the storm’s wake. read more »How You Can Help Clean Energy Eat Big Oil's Lunch by Asher Miller, grist.org | November 15, 2012
Bill McKibben and the folks at 350.org have decided to target the pernicious financial influence of the fossil fuel industry and its front groups. On the day following the election, they kicked off a 21-city “Do the Math” tourto “mount an unprecedented campaign to cut off the industry’s financial and political support by divesting our schools, churches and government from fossil fuels.” Divestment is a fine strategy, but we all know that it won’t starve Big Oil, Coal, and Gas of needed capital. The goals of the divestment campaign are to make a statement and to get people to engage in the fight. We also need to invest our capital (both financial and sweat) in community-owned, distributed, and small-scale renewable energy. Why? Because we must fundamentally remake the energy economy as if nature, people, and the future actually mattered. read more »8 Environmental Rules That Were Too Controversial To Enact Pre-Election by Kate Sheppard, Mother Jones | November 14, 2012
Now that the election is over and Barack Obama will be staying in the White House for another four years, environmental groups are hoping that some long-awaited new rules will break loose from the regulatory log-jam. It's no surprise that a lot of the rules that seemed to do a disappearing act are the ones that the fossil-fuel industry and Republicans in Congress have opposed. While some rules were delayed this year because of election-season strategizing, others have been backlogged for years. The sticking place for many of them is the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget, a White House outpost that is supposed to review draft regulations within 90 days. Many advocates for tougher environmental and public health rules blamed OIRA for being too timid in Obama's first term, weakening or delaying any rule that could be contentious. Here are eight environmental problems that the Obama administration could soon get around to regulating. read more »Oil: The Bad News in the Good News by Robert Kuttner, prospect.org | November 13, 2012
On Monday, the International Energy Agency (IEA) came out with a stunner of a projection. The United States will replace Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest producer of oil by 2020, thanks to the unlocking of massive shale oil reserves. With hydro-fracking technology, the U.S. is riding a boom in natural gas as well. Oil production will increase from its current level of about 6 million barrels a day per year to 11 million barrels by 2020. Within a few years, the U.S. will be a net exporter. Pardon me if I don’t rejoice. This good news all but guarantees that the United States government, Democrat or Republican, will turn away from efforts to replace carbon fuels with clean, renewable energy. It guarantees another generation of relatively cheap gasoline for motorists—and an increase in the U.S. contribution to global climate change. read more »Climate Change Made Sandy Worse. Period. by Chris Mooney, grist.org | November 9, 2012
Superstorm Sandy — and its revival of the issue of climate change, most prominently through Michael Bloomberg’s sudden endorsement — probably aided Obama’s reelection victory last night. But at the same time, there has been a vast debate about the true nature of the storm’s connections to global warming (as well as plenty of denialism regarding those connections). In fact, there has even been the suggestion, by cognitive linguist George Lakoff, that if we all stopped thinking about causation as something direct (I pushed him, he fell) and rather as something systemic (indirect, probabilistic), then we really could say with full accuracy that global warming caused Sandy. Systemically. read more »Climate Change, Not The National Debt, Is The Legacy We Should Care About by Dean Baker, The Guardian | November 9, 2012
Imagine if in response to Japan attacking Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, our political leaders had debated the best way to deal with the deficits from war spending projected for 1960. This is pretty much the way in which Washington works these days. The political leadership, including the Washington press corps and punditry, were already intently ignoring the economic downturn that is still wreaking havoc on the lives of tens of millions of people across the country. Now, in the wake of the destruction from Hurricane Sandy, they will intensify their efforts to ignore global warming. After all, they want the country to focus on the debt – an issue that no one other than the elites views as a problem. read more »How Obama Can Seal His Climate Change Legacy by Peter Aldhouse, | November 7, 2012
U.S. voters have delivered their verdict, handing Barack Obama four more years as president. But how will history judge his performance on climate change – which barely got a look-in during the campaign, but may later come to be seen as the defining issue of our era? Passing new laws to cut greenhouse gas emissions remains unlikely, with the House of Representatives still controlled by a Republican majority dominated by climate change sceptics. But Obama has a few key policy levers at his disposal via existing laws – and in his second, and final, term may be less wary of using them. read more »Keeping The Next Storm At Bay by Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post | November 6, 2012
Let me propose an initiative for the next administration, starting with Day One: Get the nation started on the surge barriers, flood walls and other big infrastructure projects that can protect our coastal cities from being ravaged by the next Hurricane Sandy. We can sit around and wait for it to happen. Or we can begin to protect our cities, using strategies that are already being employed around the world. It seems foolish not to protect our major cities and their harbors. In the final analysis, we’ll be saving not just money but lives. Great infrastructure projects that are in the national interest, such as the interstate highway system, have been able to garner broad public support — and have helped boost the economy. Here, then, is a project for the young century: Meet the challenge of a rising sea. read more »
The Latest
Putting America Back to Work with Green Jobs, thedailygreen.com | July 12, 2010
The phrase "building a green economy" means different things to different people, but in general it refers to encouraging economic development that prioritizes sustainability--that is, working with nature and not against it in the quest to meet peoples' needs and wants--instead of disregarding environmental concerns in the process of growing the economy. read more »
Historic Oil Spill Fails to Produce Gains for U.S. Environmentalists, The Washington Post | July 12, 2010
Traditionally, American environmentalism wins its biggest victories after some important piece of American environment is poisoned, exterminated or set on fire. An oil spill and a burning river in 1969 led to new anti-pollution laws in the 1970s. The Exxon Valdez disaster helped create an Earth Day revival in 1990 and sparked a landmark clean-air law. read more »
Reid Faces Balancing Act Crafting Energy and Climate Legislation, thehill.com | July 12, 2010
It is officially crunch time for Democrats who are struggling to craft a far-reaching energy and climate change bill slated for debate on the Senate floor this month.
After weeks of public and private political sales pitches, senators pushing bills that respond to the BP oil spill and boost "clean" energy find their fate in the hands of Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
Hot Weather in a Warming Climate, dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com | July 9, 2010
The headline above is a play on the headline from a March 2008 post, “ Cold Weather in a Warming Climate,” written when climate stasists were crowing about snow falling in Johannesburg and Baghdad. read more »
Obama Wants Billions More in Energy Tax Credits, The Washington Post | July 9, 2010
President Obama will call Friday morning for Congress to pass $5 billion in energy manufacturing tax credits, according to a White House official. read more »
For BP, Multimillion-Dollar Fines Amount to a Day’s Worth of Profit, propublica.org | July 9, 2010
A reader wrote in to point out that too often, the fines that BP has faced for safety and environmental violations over the years are rarely put into proper context: in proportion with profits. read more »
Holder: Spill Probe Not Confined to BP, Politico | July 9, 2010
Attorney General Eric Holder signaled here that the Justice Department may be conducting a sweeping criminal investigation into the Gulf Coast oil spill, saying that its suspected targets may cover more than just BP. read more »
Bush MMS Director Defends Tenure: ‘When I Was There It Seemed To Work Well’ , wonkroom.thinkprogress.org | July 9, 2010
Johnnie Burton, the director of Bush’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) from 2002 to 2007, has no regrets about her tenure, saying in an interview that she found no problems within the agency, now disbanded in disgrace. Burton — at 70 now a case worker for Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) — defended her record to the Caspar, WY, Star-Tribune. read more »
Appeals Court Says No to Obama Drilling Moratorium, Los Angeles Times | July 9, 2010
A federal appeals court Thursday rejected the Obama administration's request to keep a six-month moratorium on deep-water oil drilling in place while it mounts a legal defense of the ban. read more »
Owner of Exploded Rig Is Known for Testing Rules, The New York Times | July 8, 2010
Transocean is the world’s largest offshore drilling company, but until its Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in April, few Americans outside the energy business had heard of it. It is well known, however, in a number of other countries — for testing local laws and regulations. read more »
