Articles by Joseph Romm

Mag’s green issue exalts cap-and-trade

I now seem to be on some media distribution list to gin up early PR. Green publicists of the world, bring it on!

Here are links to key stories (plus some summaries, from Time):

This Week's Cover Features a Green Border -- Only the Second Issue in TIME's 85-Year History Without the Trademarked Red Border

(New York, April 17, 2008) -- In this week's issue, TIME managing editor Richard Stengel writes in his Letter to Readers, "This is our latest environment special issue but also a historic first: for this one issue, we've exchanged our trademarked Red Border for a green one. By doing so, we are sending a clear -- and colorful -- message to our readers about the importance of this subject, not just to Americans but to everyone around the world as well." The cover story -- "Green Is the New Red, White and Blue" -- written by TIME's Bryan Walsh, "is our call to arms to make this issue -- perhaps the most important one facing the planet -- a true national priority."

(Note: It's a pretty good story, as one expects from this magazine. That said, I take issue with one of the paragraphs in the cover story -- honorable mention to whoever figures out which paragraph it is. I'll post the answer tomorrow.)

Methane hydrates: What’s the worst — and best — that could happen?

Methane hydrates (or clathrates), "burning ice," are worth understanding because they could affect the climate for better or worse. You can get the basics here on ...

... a solid form of water that contains a large amount of methane within its crystal structure [that] occur both in deep sedimentary structures, and as outcrops on the ocean floor.

The worst that could happen is a climate catastrophe if they were released suddenly, as some people believed happened during "the Permian-Triassic extinction event, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum." The best that could happen is if they could be recovered at a large scale safely -- then they would be an enormous new source of natural gas, the lowest-carbon and most efficient-burning fossil fuel.

A recent workshop was held: "Vulnerability and Opportunity of Methane Hydrates," International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, March 13-14, 2008. You can find most of the presentations here. Science magazine recently ran a summary ($ub. req'd) of the meeting, which I will reprint below [unindented]:

National Journal on the EPA tailspin

The following post is by Earl Killian, guest blogger at Climate Progress.

-----

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been failing spectacularly to do what the law requires, as determined by numerous federal judges (including the Supreme Court). For a more in-depth look, consider a pair of articles by Margaret Kriz in the National Journal. "Vanishing Act" looks at many of the failures of the EPA. "The President's Man" presents an interview with EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson and gives insight into his twisted thinking. For example, when asked about issuing ozone standards weaker than the unanimous recommendation of the EPA's independent Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, Johnson replies:

The gasoline tax is regressive, but only for upper-income groups

After I argued against McCain's summer gas-tax freeze, I received an email, the basic thrust of which was, "but everybody knows a gasoline tax is regressive, so how can progressives endorse it?" Well, as we will see, everybody doesn't know a gasoline tax is regressive. In fact:

• The poor are more likely not to buy any gasoline (i.e., to not own a car at all),
• poor families own fewer cars (and much fewer of the fuel-inefficient SUVs and minivans), and
• the poor tend to walk and use mass transit more.

Maybe the best description [PDF] of the situation is from a Dec. 2003 study for the state of California: