Christine Todd Whitman talks about greening the GOP and running the EPA

If Christine Todd Whitman had waited four years to publish her political memoir, she might have had this winter’s timeliest...

Bad data analysis by University of Alabama scientists set old myth in motion

Denier talking points are harder to kill than vampires. They keep rising from the dead no matter how many times...

Renewable energy industries lobby for more flexible tax credits

Renewable energy advocates are enthused by Barack Obama's call to double the production of clean, domestic energy and create three million jobs in the sector, but they don't think he'll be able to pull it off unless he backs two changes to the tax code -- changes they say will help spur millions more jobs in the wind and solar industries.

Right now, the tax credits for solar and wind energy (yes, the much-beleaguered credits that were finally slipped into the October bailout of the financial markets) are not refundable -- that is to say, a producer only gets the money back if it makes a profit. Problem is, given the economic downturn, not many renewable energy companies are making money. That means the tax credits aren't helping them. The solar and wind industries would like the renewable tax credits to become refundable, which would offer rebates even to companies that aren't making money.

Obama has said his stimulus plan would create nearly half a million jobs through clean energy investments, but neither the investors nor the lenders who would normally provide the upfront funding for start-up renewable projects are feeling confident enough to do so right now. It also doesn't help that some major financial backers of renewable projects -- like Lehman Brothers -- have gone under in recent months.

"Lehman goes away, and many other banks have suffered major losses because of the sub-prime crisis, and because they're suffering these huge losses they don't have much tax liability," Chris O'Brien, head of market development and government relations for North America at the Swiss company Oerlikon Solar, told Grist. "They don't need more losses, so their appetite for investing in solar projects has gone way down at a point in time where the interest in and the need for tax equity has gone way up."

Another idea floating around the Hill is for the stimulus plan to put $10 billion into a "National Clean Energy Lending Authority" that could lend to renewable projects and help support homeowners who want to retrofit. Reps. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.) wrote a letter to Obama this week asking him to support something like this. "The current financial crisis has not only thrown us into recession, it has significantly derailed or killed off virtually every alternative energy project in the pipeline, making renewable energy yet another victim of the economic fallout," they wrote.

Why the No New Coal Plants movement should be awarded the Virgin Earth Challenge prize

Dear Mr. Branson:

On Feb. 9, 2007, you and Al Gore announced the Virgin Earth Challenge at a London press conference:

The Virgin Earth Challenge is a prize of $25 million for whoever can demonstrate to the judges' satisfaction a commercially viable design which results in the removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases so as to contribute materially to the stability of Earth's climate.

It was announced that the panel of judges would consist of Richard Branson, Al Gore, Crispin Tickell, James Hansen, James Lovelock, and Tim Flannery.

I'm sure that when you dreamed up the prize, you were probably thinking about how to motivate the proverbial garage inventor or moonlighting chemist to come up with a new planet-rescuing technology in the narrow sense of the term -- perhaps some sort of chemical reagent, gene-tweaked algae, or super-absorbent biochar that could suck carbon dioxide molecules out of the atmosphere.

But it's time to do some out-of-the-box thinking on climate change, starting with what sort of technological solutions we're willing to take seriously. Let's start with the idea of technology itself.

Wikipedia's definition is as good as any:

A strict definition is elusive; "technology" can refer to material objects of use to humanity, such as machines, hardware or utensils, but can also encompass broader themes, including systems, methods of organization, and techniques.

Let me propose a technology that I take very seriously, even if people like Rudolph Giuliani don't: grassroots community organizing.

The "community organizer" that Giuliani and Sarah Palin mocked at the Republican Convention in September is now about to be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. Indeed, even seasoned politicos admitted to being fairly dazzled by the ground game displayed by Obama in winning the election against far more experienced politicians.

That was community organizing on display. And yes, it really is a technology. In fact, in solving climate change, it may be the only technology that really matters.

Two years ago, at about the time you were announcing your Virgin Earth Challenge, a bureaucrat named Eric Schuster at the U.S. Department of Energy was releasing the latest of his "Tracking New Coal-Fired Power Plants" spreadsheets. The document showed 151 coal plants under development [PDF] across the country.

We should be wary of jumping on the ‘individual fishing quota’ bandwagon

I’m not sure what the marine equivalent of a bandwagon is (a love boat?), but there’s one headed our way....

Carbon tax is better on merits, cap-and-traders trade away political advantages

Standards-based regulations and public investment are superior to either carbon taxes or cap-and-trade. But we need some form of carbon pricing to reinforce public action, and a carbon tax is superior to carbon trading.

The main policy advantage cap-and-traders offer over a carbon tax is certainty. They claim that it is better to fix the ceiling on emissions and let the price vary than to fix the price and hope it produces the reduction you want. However, most cap-and-trade advocates favor an escape clause, a price ceiling which would trigger the issue of more permits, either because they see it as the price you have to pay to get a bill through, or because they honestly favor the policy. In either case, once you have an escape clause, you no longer have the certainty advocates tout so highly.

Umbra on greening the office

Dear Umbra, The Powers That Be at my job have decided to start a Green Initiative. The project got put...

What stops us from acting more boldly on economic and environmental policy

[Note: Since comments are turned off, if you have thoughts, email me at glipow AT gmail.com. ]

A lot of energy is expended on Grist showing that good environmental policy is good economic policy -- to show that green pays. But it is just as important to show the same thing from the other direction. Economic policy will only pay if includes strong environmental features. Let's look at the current responses to our economic crisis from that perspective. We'll start by comparing what we are doing as compared to what we should be doing, and then move on to explaining the difference.

Let's start with the economic stimulus package that was just passed. It is not nearly big enough. It was structured on fighting a smaller unemployment rate than we already face, let alone the rate at which unemployment will peak. Those radical leftists in the World Bank are noticing that the recession is worldwide, which would indicate a deeper recession than Obama's stimulus was intended to fight. Though you would not know it from the corporate media, quite a number of respected economists predicted from the beginning that this was too small a stimulus. Even intelligent conservatives are starting to say we need a second, bigger stimulus.

Where to put the money from a second stimulus? Keeping public transit going, which otherwise loses subsidy revenue during downturns, gives a double return in not only saving jobs and demand that would otherwise collapse, but also reducing oil use, greenhouse gas emissions, and traffic congestion. In general, making up for losses in state and local revenues reduces pro-cyclical job losses that otherwise make a recession worse.

But we have good reason to consider long-term investment in infrastructure as well. Much necessary infrastructure spending is "shovel-ready." For example, suppose we decide to put $450 billion into upgrading our freight rail system to move 85 percent of long-haul trucking miles to rail? We can invest immediately into the planning this will entail. And we can stockpile parts and materials we know this upgrade will require. And we can implement already proposed unfunded short-term projects that will be needed components of such an upgrade: new switch yards, new freight yards, and various other log-jam breaking proposals.

From 50 to Felony

Mo’ Bette-ah 50 Cent and the Divine Miss M teamed up to restore a community garden. Next, they collaborate on...