Articles by Joseph Romm

Watch CBS this Saturday for breaking electric-car news

I was just interviewed by CBS for a possible story on plug-in hybrids on Monday. You should tune in to CBS evening news Saturday for the first coverage of what I believe is a major advance in plug-ins -- a car I test drove a few weeks back and will be free to write about here Monday.

The New York Times will probably be doing a print story on the car Sunday, which I'll link to. Then CBS may do another story, which is where I would come in. This hybrid technology will be rolled out in a retrofitted car at the Detroit auto show.

I think this is a big deal. Basically the company figured out how to design a practical, affordable plug-in hybrid without a breakthrough in battery technology!! Stay tuned.

Energy stocks are looking attractive

The following essay is a guest post by Kari Manlove, fellows assistant at the Center for American Progress.

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CNNmoney.com just released a summary outlook on the solar, wind, biofuel (mainly ethanol), and efficiency industry financial sectors. The two looking most optimistic are wind and efficiency, and thus both sectors are overflowing with opportunity.

According to one investment portfolio manager, efficiency investments are reliable and essentially fundamental. In his words, investing in efficiency is like putting your money on the arms dealer in a war or conflict -- no matter which side wins (or which sector), the arms dealer simply can't lose.

True costs of fossil fuels make renewables seem cheap in comparison

This post is by ClimateProgress guest blogger Bill Becker, executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project.

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In November 2006, California voters rejected Proposition 87, a ballot initiative to raise the oil industry's taxes by $4 billion for research into renewable energy.

Four months before the ballot, a survey (PDF) by the Public Policy Institute of California found that 61 percent of likely voters favored the idea, including 51 percent of Republicans.

What changed between the survey and the vote? The oil industry pumped more than $60 million into a campaign to defeat the measure. Proposition 87 contained a specific provision that would have forbidden oil companies from passing the tax along to consumers. Nevertheless, a central part of the industry's message was that Proposition 87 would raise the price of gasoline.

On the Hill and in the voting booth, the specter of higher costs and taxes is the big weapon in the fossil-fuel industry's arsenal against climate action. The question is, what's the defense?

It is important to acknowledge and to anticipate that putting a price on carbon will raise energy prices. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released an estimate (PDF) last November that carbon pricing to achieve a modest 15 percent reduction in emissions would cost the poorest fifth of the population between $750 and $950 a year on average. That's big money to a family living on $13,000 -- and fossil-energy costs presumably would grow as carbon caps get stricter.

But we can mitigate those costs:

Spending on adaptation and mitigation now is an investment, spending later is a waste

This post is by ClimateProgress guest blogger Bill Becker, executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project.

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A dirty little secret of climate change is that somebody wants us to pay much higher taxes and higher energy bills. But it's not the advocates of climate action. It's the other guys.

Make no mistake: The costs of switching to clean energy and an energy-efficient economy are far less than the costs of doing nothing.

A study released by the University of Maryland last October helps bring the cost issue into clearer focus. It concludes that the economic costs of unabated climate change in the United States will be major and nationwide.

Climate change will damage or stress essential municipal infrastructure such as water treatment and supply; increase the size and intensity of forest fires; increase the frequency and severity of flooding and drought; cause billions of dollars in damages to crops and property; lead to higher insurance rates; and even increase shipping costs in the Great Lakes-St Lawrence seaway because of lower water levels. And that's just a sampling.

"Climate change will affect every American economically in significant, dramatic ways, and the longer it takes to respond, the greater the damage and the higher the costs," lead researcher Matthias Ruth told ScienceDaily.

How big are those costs?