The ol’ browser’s getting a little clogged up. Time to stop thinkin’ and start linkin’! Yee-haw.
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A couple of crack economists at Environmental Defense Fund synthesized the results of several different economic models projecting the impact of cap-and-trade legislation. Their conclusion?
A business-as-usual approach, continuing with today’s policies, puts the U.S. economy on a path to reach $26 trillion in January 2030. With a cap on the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, the economy will reach the same level two to seven months later.
Newt Gingrich’s “nine acts of real change that could restore the GOP brand” are pretty comical, including such surefire electoral home runs as “overhaul the census and cut its budget radically” and “implement a space-based, GPS-style air traffic control system.” He also wants the GOP to introduce a “more energy at lower cost with less environmental damage and greater national security bill” in place of Lieberman-Warner. Man, the GOP is in deep doodoo.
ISLR has a good report out contending that federal subsidies should not favor large commercial solar installations (mostly CSP) over small, community-owned PV installation, since the latter has benefits that are “off the balance sheet.”
Here Kevin Drum echoes the conventional wisdom that a carbon tax is the gold standard in climate policy. More and more, I just don’t think that’s so. I should probably write something on the subject.
Did I ever call out Mother Jones‘ great series on “the future of energy“? If not, I should have.
An insightful observation from Jamais Cascio about how we tend to overestimate how jarring or shocking historical changes are from the perspective of those living through them:
… we don’t jump into the future — what we think of now as the Future is just an incipient present, very soon to become the past. We have the time to cope and adapt. If you go from 2008 to 2028 by living every minute, the changes around you would not be jarring; instead, they’d largely be incremental, and the occasional surprises would quickly blend into the flow of inevitability.
Pasteurized milk: threat or menace?
Big Labor hitching a ride with Big Green.
If you’re the wonky type, don’t miss this report from Smart Growth America: “Growing Cooler: The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change.” Turns out dense, walkable communities with public transit can help abate climate change. Who knew?
Gus Speth turned me on to Corporation 20/20:
What would a corporation look like that was designed to seamlessly integrate both social and financial purpose? Corporation 20/20 is a new multi-stakeholder initiative that seeks to answer this question. Its goal is to develop and disseminate corporate designs where social purpose moves from the periphery.
This short essay from Clay Shirky isn’t about green stuff, but it kind of is, and it’s amazingly brilliant. You must read it.
