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Why the World Bank Must Divest from Fossil Fuels by Daphne Wysham, The Nation | December 5, 2012
The World Bank’s latest report on climate change, “Turn Down the Heat,” warns that the planet is on track for a four-degree Celsius temperature rise by 2100. Like many scientists, the bank fears that such an increase would be incompatible with civilization as we know it. “This report is a stark reminder that climate change affects everything,” World Bank President Jim Yong Kim writes in the forward to the report, which was authored by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “The solutions lie in ensuring all our work, all our thinking, is designed with the threat of a 4°C degree world in mind. The World Bank Group will step up to the challenge.” So far, so good. But how exactly will the World Bank “step up?” The answer, shockingly, is nowhere to be found in this report, and a review of the Bank’s history on climate issues raises many red flags. read more »Katrina, All Over Again by Chris Hedges, truthdig.com | December 4, 2012
Hurricane Sandy, if you are poor, is the Katrina of the North. It has exposed the nation’s fragile, dilapidated and shoddy infrastructure, one that crumbles under minimal stress. It has highlighted the inability of utility companies, as well as state and federal agencies, to cope with the looming environmental disasters that because of the climate crisis will soon come in wave after wave. But, most important, it illustrates the depraved mentality of an oligarchic and corporate elite that, as conditions worsen, retreats into self-contained gated communities, guts basic services and abandons the wider population. read more »Is This The Planet We Want To Leave Behind? by Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post | November 30, 2012
You might not have noticed that another round of U.N. climate talks is under way, this time in Doha, Qatar. You also might not have noticed that we’re barreling toward a “world . . . of unprecedented heat waves, severe drought, and major floods in many regions.” Here in Washington, we’re too busy to pay attention to such trifles. We’re too busy arguing about who gets credit or blame for teeny-weeny changes in the tax code. Meanwhile, evidence mounts that the legacy we pass along to future generations will be a parboiled planet. read more »Negawatt Revolution: U.S. Is Finally Taking Energy Efficiency Seriously by Jeremy Stahl, slate.com | November 28, 2012
Despite the lack of attention paid to the issue during this year’s presidential campaign, Barack Obama’s first term was a bit of a quiet revolution for climate change policy in America. It’s true that within his first two years in the Oval Office, the president had abandoned any efforts at passing a cap-and-trade bill, which went from the policy of choice for both major-party candidates in 2008 to political poison in 2010. But that failure belied a massive shift in energy and climate change policy that Obama was able to accomplish with relatively little fanfare in just his first few months in office. This profound change came in the form of the stimulus bill. More than 13 percent of the $700 billion American Recovery Act went to energy spending, most of it green. This was the biggest such investment in the history of history. It may even have finally heralded the arrival of a “Negawatt Revolution” that noted environmentalist and Rocky Mountain Institute founder Amory Lovins described 23 years ago. read more »World Energy Report 2012 The Good, the Bad, and the Really, Truly Ugly by Michael T. Klare, tomdispatch.com | November 27, 2012
Rarely does the release of a data-driven report on energy trends trigger front-page headlines around the world. That, however, is exactly what happened on November 12th when the prestigious Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) released this year’s edition of its World Energy Outlook. In the process, just about everyone missed its real news, which should have set off alarm bells across the planet. Claiming that advances in drilling technology were producing an upsurge in North American energy output, World Energy Outlook predicted that the United States would overtake Saudi Arabia and Russia to become the planet’s leading oil producer by 2020. “North America is at the forefront of a sweeping transformation in oil and gas production that will affect all regions of the world,” declared IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven in a widely quoted statement. read more »Attempts To Kill Renewable Energy Just Got Dumber by Philip Bump, grist.org | November 26, 2012
Last month, ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization of state legislators who have sworn fealty to big business) began advocating for the “Electricity Freedom Act,” a bit of sample legislation aimed at crippling state renewable energy standards. The title of the bill is brazenly hypocritical — which by itself was probably enough to pique the interest of the right-wing, climate-change-denying Heartland Institute. And sure enough, it’s throwing in. read more »There Was No 'war On Coal,' But There Should Be. Just Not On The Backs Of Miners. by Meteor Blades, dailykos.com | November 26, 2012
Coal is a disaster for the climate and, although it provides good-paying jobs in areas where there often are no others, it also is a disaster for coal communities and miners themselves. For those reasons, with his last election campaign a success, President Obama should push hard to get regulations in place that work to force an end to most coal mining—a ban on mountain-top removal, regulations that control CO2 emissions of existing plants, more funding for enforcing health and safety regulations while coal is still mined, installing every obstacle the executive branch can come up in the path of soaring U.S. coal exports and negotiating a no-exports pact with the world's other leading exporters. He should also find various innovative means to support and invest in the future of coal miners and other coal-company employees who will lose their livelihood as coal production is cut back. read more »What Obama Can Do on Climate Change by Chris Mooney, Mother Jones | November 19, 2012
It was halting, and hardly eloquent. He seemed rusty talking about the issue, even saying "carbons" at one point instead of "carbon." But nonetheless, in a White House press conference last Wednesday, President Obama went the farthest he has gone yet in laying out a climate change agenda for his second term. There were few specifics of the sort that climate watchers wanted to hear, however—and they were justly incensed the next day, when White House press secretary Jay Carney dismissed both the notion of a carbon tax, and tying global warming to Superstorm Sandy. Nonetheless, Obama's halting words reflect a stark political reality: Thanks to Sandy, we're only now taking baby steps back towards the political traction that we had obtained four years ago, when cap-and-trade legislation really seemed achievable—before the Category 5 intensification of Tea Party science denial. Before the climate silence. read more »Frack Fight A Secret War of Activists -- With the World in the Balance by Ellen Cantarow, tomdispatch.com | November 19, 2012
There’s a war going on that you know nothing about between a coalition of great powers and a small insurgent movement. It’s a secret war being waged in the shadows while you go about your everyday life. In the end, this conflict may matter more than those in Iraq and Afghanistan ever did. And yet it’s taking place far from newspaper front pages and with hardly a notice on the nightly news. Nor is it being fought in Yemen or Pakistan or Somalia, but in small hamlets in upstate New York. There, a loose network of activists is waging a guerrilla campaign not with improvised explosive devices or rocket-propelled grenades, but with zoning ordinances and petitions. The weaponry may be humdrum, but the stakes couldn’t be higher. Ultimately, the fate of the planet may hang in the balance. read more »Why BP Isn’t a Criminal by Robert B. Reich, robertreich.org | November 16, 2012
Justice Department just entered into the largest criminal settlement in U.S. history with the giant oil company BP. BP plead guilty to 14 criminal counts, including manslaughter, and agreed to pay $4 billion over the next five years. This is loony. Mind you, I’m appalled by the carelessness and indifference of the BP executives responsible for the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico that killed eleven people on April 20, 2010, and unleashed the worst oil spill in American history. But it defies logic to make BP itself the criminal. Corporations aren’t people. They can’t know right from wrong. They’re incapable of criminal intent. They have no brains. They’re legal fictions. Can we please get a grip? The only sentient beings in a corporation are the people who run them or work for them. When it comes to criminality, they’re the ones who should be punished. read more »
The Latest
House Democrats Face Resistance From Their Own Caucus on Oil Spill Bill, thehill.com | July 30, 2010
House Democratic leaders are facing resistance from within their own ranks over a key provision of an oil spill response plan that will hit the floor Friday, on the eve of the August recess. read more »
Will Coal Bosses Band Together To Influence Elections?, abcnews.go.com | July 29, 2010
Top officials at the country's major coal companies, including Massey Energy, owner of the West Virginia mine where 29 died earlier this year, apparently want to take advantage of looser campaign finance laws and use corporate money to defeat political candidates they believe to be "anti-coal." read more »
Nelson Wants Finance Committee Probe of $10 Billion BP Tax Write-Off, thehill.com | July 29, 2010
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) is asking Finance Committee leaders to investigate BP’s intent to claim a $10 billion tax deduction for costs related to the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill. read more »
Yet Another Oil Disaster ... in Michigan, Mother Jones | July 29, 2010
The Gulf disaster is still far from over, even if members of the national press apparently need help finding the oil. But now there's another oil disaster to worry about. Calhoun County, Michigan is in the midst of what might be the worst oil spill ever in the Midwest. read more »
Oil Spill Reaches 100 Day Mark, and Here's What We Know, mcclatchydc.com | July 29, 2010
As the Gulf of Mexico oil spill hit the 100-day mark Wednesday, here are 10 big developments likely to influence future decisions on offshore exploration:
It doesn't all float: The massive slick has largely vanished — partly consumed by microbes and worked on by wind, waves and sun — but perhaps tens of millions of gallons may still be under water.
Majority of Spilled Oil in Gulf of Mexico Unaccounted for in Government Data, The Washington Post | July 29, 2010
Back in May, BP's chief executive told a British newspaper that "the Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean," and the vast amounts of oil and chemical dispersants dumped into it were small by comparison. After he said that, BP's well leaked for two more months. Hayward's upbeat assessment was cast as one of many gaffes committed on his way to resignation. read more »
Landrieu Pushes Oil Spill Liability Compromise, thehill.com | July 29, 2010
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) is urging Senate leaders to back a compromise that raises oil companies’ liability for offshore spills but scales back a Democratic leadership proposal that would allow unlimited payments for damages from the individual company responsible. read more »
Hydro-Fracking Fight Hijacks Spill Bill, Politico | July 29, 2010
The fight over the Senate offshore drilling “spill bill” shifted Wednesday from the Gulf of Mexico to the mountains of western Pennsylvania, as Republicans slammed the last-minute inclusion of language to regulate a controversial technique to extract onshore natural gas. read more »
Senate GOP Rips Dem Oil-Spill and Energy Bill, thehill.com | July 29, 2010
Top Senate Republicans came out swinging Wednesday against Democratic energy and oil-spill response legislation that Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) unveiled late Tuesday night.
At a press conference in the Capitol, senior Republicans attacked several specific provisions while calling the overall bill a hastily crafted product that Democrats want to speed through the Senate.
$1.2 Billion Secured for What Will Be the Largest US Wind Farm, inhabitat.com | July 27, 2010
After the last few years, in which it seems the US has been severely lagging behind our European counterparts in the wind power game, we’re finally bringing home the renewable energy projects — we’ve got the Lake Erie fresh water wind farm and a final “yes” on the Cape Cod wind farm. The addition to the Alta Wind Energy Center in California is a nice topper to this recent list of wins. read more »
