EcocentricPolitics
Chances are you’ve heard about—if not read—Al Gore’s 7,000-word essay in Rolling Stone on America’s ongoing failure to act on the climate crisis. (If the whole piece is a bit too much for your Wednesday lunch hour, Mother Jones has a nice summary.) The media, unsurprisingly, has focused Gore’s criticism of President Obama’s inaction …
EcocentricOil
After rising and rising in recent months, oil prices have taken a sudden fall over the past couple of days, sliding beneath $100 a barrel. What happened? Representative Michael Burgess, a Republican from Texas, has an idea:
“What happened yesterday? Oh, the House passed a bill,” Burgess said.
“Here we are in the Senate
…
EcocentricUncategorized
Speaking at George Washington University today on the nation’s finances, President Obama drew a line in the sand, promising to protect Medicare and Medicaid from Republican budget cuts. But at the same time, Obama didn’t play down the severity of the country’s debt woes, pledging to cut a combined $4 trillion from the U.S. budget …
EcocentricUncategorized
There was good news of a sort for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Congress on Wednesday. The Senate voted down several bills that would have blocked the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. That collection included one bill—co-sponsored by Republican Senators James Inhofe and Mitch …
EcocentricPolitics
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson—who has emerged as the Republicans’ favorite target as the party looks to dismantle environmental protections—sat down with us for a 10 Questions in this week’s issue. That interview was condensed to fit one page—click below for the full transcript:
EcocentricPolitics
Last March, President Barack Obama gave a speech on energy security at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington. In it, Obama offered what might be called a “grand compromise” on energy—in exchange for expanded offshore drilling, including in previously untouched areas like north Alaska and the Atlantic, he called for support of …
EcocentricPolitics
For my weekly Going Green column on the Time.com mainpage, I have a piece examining why belief in climate science—especially among conservatives—has waned so much in America lately. Tuesday’s climate science hearings in the House of Representatives—which featured significantly more politics than science—seemed to show that facts …
EcocentricEcocentric
Right now the Energy and Power Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee is holding hearings into climate science. You can watch them here, if you’re really masochistic, or you can follow expert live blogging from Science magazine’s Eli Kintisch and others over here. I’m at a hydraulic fracturing expert panel for the …
EcocentricPolitics
I’m always cautious about overpraising China. That reluctance is partially due to the experience of having lived in Hong Kong for five years in the last decade. I saw up close the amazing and inspiring story of that country’s economic growth, which has led to hundreds of millions rising out of poverty. I also saw the negatives: air …
EcocentricPolitics
My weekly Going Green column is up on the Time.com mainpage. It’s an interview with Jim Rogers, the CEO of Charlotte-based Duke Energy, soon to be the most powerful utility chief in the U.S. Rogers formed key corporate support for cap-and-trade, but with the political chances of that looking slim, he’s favoring an R&D, innovation-focused …
