Articles by Gar Lipow
Gar Lipow, a long-time environmental activist and journalist with a strong technical background, has spent years immersed in the subject of efficiency and renewable energy. His new book Solving the Climate Crisis will be published by Praeger Press in Spring 2012. Check out his online reference book compiling information on technology available today.
All Articles
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Emissions trading: A mixed record, with plenty of failures
In arguments over carbon trading, both sides often assume that past emission trading schemes have been notably successful. But in practice, trading schemes have lowered emissions more slowly than rule-based […]
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Less grift, more grist?
Charles Komanoff's refutation of Bill Chameides's tirade against carbon taxes does not require repetition by me. However, there is one point I can add detail to -- that a carbon tax is more transparent than emissions trading.
This is not just an abstract point. Consider in the Kyoto carbon trading scheme how most carbon credits were given at no cost to major polluters. That is not a necessary part of emissions trading. You could auction off 100 percent of the credits. For that matter, you could rebate carbon taxes to major polluters if you want. The difference lies in how obvious it is -- how transparent such schemes are.
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If you are fooling around on your spouse, offset your cheating with CheatNeutral!
New spoof site: Cheat Neutral
Q) What is "Cheat Offsetting"?
When you cheat on your partner you add to the heartbreak, pain and jealousy in the atmosphere.
Cheatneutral offsets your cheating by funding someone else to be faithful and not cheat. This neutralises the pain and unhappy emotion and leaves you with a clear conscience.
Q) Can I offset all my cheating?
First you should look at ways of reducing your cheating. Once you've done this you can use Cheatneutral to offset the remaining, unavoidable cheating.
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It’s good
Originally (paid link) published in Z Magazine, February, 2007 Volume 20 #2. Reposted with permission.
Review: Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning
Doubleday Canada, 2006, 304 pp.
By George Monbiot
George Monbiot's Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning is a brilliant, flawed, and deeply important look at what it will take to slow global warming below a catastrophic level.
Monbiot, one of the clearest and wittiest writers about politically difficult subjects today, tackles the problem of phasing out fossil fuels without illusions. Books on global warming normally expend most of their words to show how dangerous the problem is. Then, at the last, they point to a few partial solutions and say "more like that, please." Or they simply give up on a comfortable life for everyone and turn to a kind of gloating Puritanism and say "You will have to suffer, but it will be good for you in the end." In contrast, Monbiot takes a step-by-step look at how different sectors of our economy could run on drastically less carbon.
