NewsTrust - Energy - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

Citizens left out in cold

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Indianapolis Star - Nov. 18 (Editorial) - State Rep. David Wolkins isn't shy about what he likes: golf, basketball and football. As ranking Republican member and former chairman of the Indiana House Environmental Affairs Committee, he's in a position to indulge his interests thanks to the very companies he's supposed to help regulate.

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With tax break, a big carbon footprint

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Boston Globe - By Edward L. Glaeser - Nov. 05 (Opinion) - ENVIRONMENTALISTS who are worried about global warming should pay attention to the congressional debate about extending the home buyers tax credit. Federal tax policies toward housing have long encouraged Americans to emit more carbon. President Obama could do the country, and the planet, a service by either refusing to sign the extension of the $8,000 credit or by insisting that it be accompanied by offsetting reductions in the home mortgage interest deduction.

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China leaving US behind in green energy

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Boston Globe - By Joan Fitzgerald - Oct. 22 (Opinion) - Though aspects of it may violate the WTO, China has a coherent industrial policy to capture global leadership, while US initiatives are fragmented. China recognized that the real economic development potential in renewable energy is in manufacturing, which comprises 70 -75 percent of the jobs in solar, and now has more than 100 solar companies that account for one-third of global solar component production.

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Clean-energy transition promises brighter economic prospects

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Times - By Dean Allen, Maud Daudon - Oct. 22 (Opinion) - WITH the introduction of the Clean Energy Jobs bill in September, the U.S. Senate began work on repowering America's economy with a comprehensive climate and energy policy. As Washington business leaders involved in building our local clean-energy economy, we're delighted to see the other Washington moving ahead to restore American leadership in the most dynamic sector of the new economy.

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Real-world problems turn climate-change debate pragmatic

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Times - Oct. 16 (Opinion) - As the health-care debate was transformed by the urgency of insurance reform, climate-change legislation is shaped by the business and financial consequences of global warming.

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Green Inc.: Apple Resigns From Chamber Over Climate

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Kate Galbraith - Oct. 06 (Opinion) - Apple became the latest company to resign from the United States Chamber of Commerce, citing climate issues.

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Errors of omission

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Oct. 05 (Opinion) - Bumblebees cannot fly—or so physical models are said to have shown. That the insects routinely become airborne demonstrates the shortcomings of some theoretical accounts of the world. But one of the strengths of the scientific method is that, when presented with evidence that discredits their theories, scientists are forced to concede that their models are wrong and endeavour to learn from the failure. In science, observation always trumps theory, no matter how elegant the theory might be. The same is true of theoretical models of climate change. Over the past decade there have been large variations in the projected increase in global temperatures and sea levels over the coming years. ...

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PG&E partnering on 'Smart Grid'

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By Chuck Reed,Chris Johns - Oct. 05 (Opinion) - many utilities are competing for these funds [the $4.5 billion in funding set aside for ...grid projects in the american recoery and reinvestment act] but only a few have a winning combination of strong technology, community partners and a project that pushes the frontiers of current practice.

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Save the Slums

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wired - By Stewart Brand - Sep. 22 (Interview) - People are trying desperately to get out of poverty, so there's a lot of creativity; they collaborate in ways that we've completely forgotten how to do in regular cities. And there's a transition: People come in from the countryside, enter the rickshaw economy, and work for almost nothing. But after a while, they move uptown, into the formal economy. The United Nations did extensive field research and flipped from seeing squatter cities as the world's great problem to realizing these slums are actually the world's great solution to poverty.

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No Leader on Climate Change as Nations Prepare to Meet

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By NEIL MacFARQUHAR - Sep. 19 - As nations gather next week for a major summit meeting on climate change, none want to take the lead in fighting for significant international targets.

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Some Bad Climate News and Some Good

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - Sep. 16 (Editorial) - Though a bill limiting greenhouse gas emissions has been put on the back burner, all is not lost. The E. P. A. is rolling out emissions rules for the automotive industry.

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Finally, investors are choosing green industry

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Jose Mercury News - Sep. 07 (Editorial) - Every report, study and prediction about Silicon Valley's economy in this downturn has mapped the path to recovery in green: clean tech, renewable energy and good middle-income jobs, like installing solar panels, that can't be outsourced.

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Washington state must lead on solutions to climate change

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Times - By Phil Rockefeller - Aug. 27 (Opinion) - Washington state must take leadership in finding solutions to climate change, writes state Sen. Phil Rockefeller, D-Kitsap County. The repercussions for the economy, the environment and state infrastructure require action sooner rather than later.

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Doing away with dams

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - Aug. 16 (Editorial) - Dams aren't the infrastructure darlings they once were. Since 1999, 430 dams have come down, according to the American Rivers environmental group. The reasons are largely economic: Maintenance is high as the concrete walls age. Also, power needs can be supplied by other sources. The decline of migrating salmon and steelhead are also a factor. These problems don't mean all dams are doomed or new ones will never be built. Dam defenders note that hydropower is produced without emissions. And flood control and growing water needs remain issues that are suited for the water-controlling structures.

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A Scrap of Decency

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Bharati Chaturvedi - Aug. 05 (Opinion) - From India to Brazil to the Philippines, recyclers are experiencing a precipitous drop in income. Trash pickers and scrap dealers in Minas Gerais State in Brazil, for example, saw a decline of as much as 80 percent in the price of old magazines and 81 percent for newspapers, and a 77 percent drop in the price of cardboard from October 2007 to last December.

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Raise the Gas Tax

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - Jul. 27 (Editorial) - It's taken a whopping budget deficit to prod D.C. officials into considering a step they should have taken years ago: increasing the gas tax. The proposal, still in a fledging stage, should be vigorously pursued. Not only would the District get a desperately needed windfall of as much as $4 million, but, more important, higher gasoline prices would encourage energy conservation.

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Islamists are losing, but their rivals aren't winning

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Thomas L. Friedman - Jul. 26 (Opinion) - JALOZAI CAMP, Pakistan — After spending a week traveling the front line of the "war on terrorism" — from the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan in the seas off Iran, to northern Iraq, to Afghanistan and into northwest Pakistan — I can comfortably report the following: The bad guys

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Climate Loopholes

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - Jul. 21 (Editorial) - In the last-minute wheeling and dealing of the Waxman-Markey climate change bill, the House bill acquired two ways to evade compliance that the Senate must fix.

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A fine green start, but Miliband must go further

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - Jul. 19 (Editorial) - There is much to be said in favour of the government?s plan, announced last week, for kickstarting a revolution in green energy generation in Britain. For the first time, ministers made it clear how Britain can expect to achieve their much-vaunted goal of making serious reductions in our carbon dioxide emissions over the next decade. The cabinet had already committed the nation to generating 15 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. Now, through the UK Carbon Transition Plan, published last Wednesday, it has made it clear exactly how this radical change will be brought about. It will be achieved by the nation making a major commitment to wind power, it transpires. New planning laws will make it easier to build onshore wind ...

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Swapping technologies fails to address the root causes of climate change

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - Jul. 15 (Editorial) - The environmental and social crisis that threatens us requires deeper solutions than new technology alone can provide . But only part. Techno-fixes like some of those in the simply cannot deliver the carbon cuts science demands of us without being accompanied by . That means radical economic and social transformation. Merely swapping technologies fails to address the root causes of climate change. We need to choose the solutions that are the cheapest, the swiftest, the most effective and least likely to incur dire side effects. On all counts, there?s a simple answer – stop burning the stuff in the first place. Consume less. There is a certain level of resources we need to survive, and beyond that there is a level we need in order to ...

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Sarah Palin Does Not Understand Cap and Trade

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Atlantic Monthly - By Conor Clarke - Jul. 14 (Opinion) - If you're wondering what Sarah Palin will do after leaving the Alaska governor's office, look no further than her op-ed in the this morning's Washington Post. She writes, "at risk of disappointing the chattering class, let me make clear what is foremost on my mind and where my focus will be: I am deeply concerned about President Obama's cap-and-trade energy plan, and I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy." As a card-carrying member of the chattering class, let me say that I am in indeed disappointed by this development. Not because Palin is showing a greater interest in policy, or because she'll be focusing on an issue that's near and dear to my heart. I'm disappointed because Palin's op-ed displays an ignorance for the subject so profound it's almost gutsy. Almost.

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The Seinfeld Hearings

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Randy Barnett: - Jul. 13 (Opinion) - If you suspect this week's Senate confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor will be, like "Seinfeld," a show about nothing, you are probably right. To understand why, we need to revisit an era that remade how lawyers and the public think about law, and especially the Constitution. In the 1930s, academics developed a philosophy they called "legal realism" to undercut judicial resistance to "progressive" statutes such as laws restricting the hours a baker or a woman could work. Legal realism elevated just results over the rule of law. It saw analysis of "the law" as an after-the-fact rationalization that allowed reactionary judges to conceal their empathy for the oppressed. Because legal realists believed judges inevitably made law when they ruled, they thought judges should decide cases with progressive ends in mind.

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Britain's green revolution will power economic recovery

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Gordon Brown - Jul. 12 (Opinion) - Two centuries ago, Britain was at the forefront of a new industrial age that transformed our small island into the workshop of the world and a global economic powerhouse. Now we must once more harness the expertise of our engineers and scientists - and the ambition of our entrepreneurs - to embrace a green revolution that will significantly change the way we all live and work. At a historic summit in Italy last week, G8 leaders agreed to limit global warming to 2C above pre-industrial levels and cut their emissions by 80% by 2050.

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Rebuilding Something Better

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Barack Obama - Jul. 12 (Opinion) - Nearly six months ago, my administration took office amid the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression. At the time, we were losing, on average, 700,000 jobs a month. And many feared that our financial system was on the verge of collapse. The swift and aggressive action we took in those first few months has helped pull our financial system and our economy back from the brink. We took steps to restart lending to families and businesses, stabilize our major financial institutions, and help homeowners stay in their homes and pay their mortgages. We also passed the most sweeping economic recovery plan in our nation's history.

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Misconceptions plague debate over gas line proposals

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Anchorage Daily News - Jul. 01 (Editorial) - Exxon's decision to join forces with TransCanada has spurred a new round of debate over the best way to make sure Alaska gets a North Slope gas line. In that debate, some misconceptions are floating around and should be corrected.

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