Oliphant and Washington Post ignorantly smear GM and plug-in hybrids

I think this is worthy of an email campaign — this time to the Post (see below). There’s nothing wrong...

Sierra Club leader discusses plans for his new role as chairman

Last Friday, long-time Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope announced that he is stepping down and moving to a new role as chairman of the group.

The move comes after 17 years at the helm, and just days after a more environment-minded president took office, prompting some to wonder what Pope has up his sleeve. In his new role, he'll be focusing primarily on climate change work, so we dropped him a line to get more details.

Grist: What prompted the change in position now, right after a new president was sworn in who seems likely to be much more sympathetic to green issues?

Carl Pope: The new administration and Congress offer so many opportunities to move our agenda that I wanted to focus more energy on the outside role, and less on management.

Grist: How will your role at the organization change? What will be the relationship between you and the new executive director?

Pope: After the transition, I'll be doing strategy, political, and fund-raising work -- and the new ED will be leading the organization and managing the staff. We'll both report to the board.

Grist: In the new role, you're going to be focusing primarily on climate policy. What are your plans in that area? What do you hope that the new focus will allow you to do?

Pope: We've launched an ambitious Climate Recovery Partnership, with three key goals: cut greenhouse pollution to the level scientists tell us the atmosphere can handle, leverage natural ecosystems to help protect landscapes and human communities during the coming period of unstable climate, and then eventually restore the climate by allowing enhanced forests, soils, grasslands, and oceans to gradually sequester the excess CO2 emitted over the last century. It's the most ambitious, broad-scale program I know of -- and I want to help make very bit of it hum.

The European wind industry continues its march to dominance

The European energy market has been driven for years by restrictions on CO2 and taxpayer support for renewable energy. As...

Umbra on e-books

Dear Umbra, I have noticed that digital book readers have started to enter the market and wonder if they are...

To make the most of this recession, we will need an economic expansion that restores our climate

Cross-posted at the NDN Blog.

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As the economic recovery and investment package backed by the administration works its way through Congress, and more evidence about the nature of this recession surfaces, an interesting exercise is to think about how we want to emerge once it is over. In the midst of current economic turmoil, it may seem difficult to imagine the post-recovery world, let alone accurately predict it. Nonetheless, starting with an outcome and working backwards to a policy prescription is far preferable to policy based purely on the passions of the moment. Following are my thoughts on the world I would like to see in 2012 and the resulting implications for current policy.

The infrastructure tightrope Obama will have to walk

As I noted the other day, there’s something of a tension between the infrastructure investments that can be circulated into...

Two studies point to ecosystem damage from factory-style farming

How does chemical-intensive, concentrated agriculture affect surrounding ecosystems — and ones that lie downstream from large operations? Seems like a...

L.A. Times: ‘Hydrogen fuel-cell technology won’t work in cars’

"Honda's striking, amazing hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle may be the most expensive, advanced and impractical car ever built."

So writes Dan Neil, the L. A. Times car guy in "Honda FCX Clarity: Beauty for beauty's sake" (see here, vehicle details here).

You will never buy a hydrogen car. And I say that mostly because I know that in the unlikely event a major car company actually ever tries to sell you one, you are just way too smart to bite or even nibble. And I say that not because you read ClimateProgress, but because you are breathing at all. Hydrogen cars are simply too impractical.

It is time for President Obama and Energy Secretary Chu to drastically scale back the federal hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle program, to a small basic research program focused on long-term breakthroughs in hydrogen storage, fuel cells, and renewable hydrogen. This could free up some $1 billion in Obama's first term alone for more important R&D and more urgent deployment efforts (see here).

The hydrogen emperor has no clothes. This isn't news overseas (see here). Nor is it news that the Honda FCX is a lemon, tangible proof of the futility of pursuing the commercialization of hydrogen cars (see here).

But it is a big deal to see the car guy of the L.A. Times -- in the home state of many of the last remaining hydrogen diehards, the state that had until recently seriously entertained building a "hydrogen highway" -- dismantle the vehicle in his review, so I'll reprint it below:

Carbon pricing needs to supplement, not undermine, other means of cutting emissions

In solving the climate crisis we need to avoid creating the type of large secondary emissions trading market Kyoto did. Large secondary emission markets constitute a whole new sector with strong incentives that conflict with a really large drop in emissions. Maybe carbon traders are so noble and dedicated to saving the planet that financial self-interest won't influence them. But, if your view of human nature is that incentives matter, then a strong secondary market creates a group of people with the wrong ones. If incentives matter, then a secondary carbon market runs a real risk of becoming the new sub-prime.

For example, it has been noted that the European Emission Trading Scheme and other emission markets tend to be subject to high volatility, something that undercuts long term success. Large price variations for emissions permits discourage long term investment in savings, because it is hard to predict the value of the savings. Volatility can also lead to crashes, where emission prices temporarily drop near zero, which further reduces investment in reductions. The problem is traders tend to profit in the short term from volatility, because prices that vary encourage a larger number of transactions; more transactions produce more profit. While there are regulatory approaches that can discourage such volatility, such as high mandatory minimum emissions prices, financial industries in general tend to resist this type of regulation.