Shortly after taking office in May, Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron said that he wanted his new administration to “be the greenest government ever.” He’s not off to a good start.
On Thursday, Cameron’s Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman announced that the government will stop funding the Sustainable Development Commission …
It has long been said of renewable energy sources that they cannot survive without subsides. But the dirty secret of fossil fuels is that they, too, receive tax payer support—even in environmentally friendly Europe.
On Wednesday, the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, announced that state subsidies for …
The numbers tell the story better than anything else could: after 85 days, 16 hours and 25 minutes, oil at last stopped flowing from BP’s busted well in the Gulf of Mexico. Since the evening of April 20, when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, between 93.5 million and 184.3 million gallons of crude have been spilled—blowing the …
It might take King Solomon to properly decide the hundreds of thousands of damage claims on the oil spill that will likely be filed before the crude is finally cleaned up. We don’t have King Solomon, but we might have the next best thing: Kenneth Feinberg, the Washington lawyer who ran the compensation fund for victims of 9/11. Feinberg …
London may be known for its rainy climate, but the city’s annual rainfall is actually around half that of Sydney, and less than Dallas’ or Istanbul’s yearly precipitation. Indeed, the British Environment Agency designates the capital as “seriously water-stressed” and at risk of summer water shortages.
But now Thames …
Nine countries that border the Nile failed to reach agreement on Sunday on a deal to share the river for irrigation and hydro power projects—a troubling indication that water rights will become increasingly difficult to manage in the face of climate change.
In May, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya signed a new agreement …
A troubling first sign that Europe’s fiscal crisis will hit the renewable energy sector emerged in Italy this week when the country’s austerity budget halted a practice whereby the government acted as a buyer of last resort for “green certificates” issued to support development of clean energy projects.
The Wall Street Journal …
Alarm bells have been sounding for a long time about the perilous state of the world’s fish supplies. Species are collapsing and once-fertile fishing areas are growing barren as global consumption—driven in part by the exploding popularity of sushi—is slowly strip-mining the seas. One answer is aquaculture. Farm-raised fish—like …
Republican Congressman Joe Barton of Texas has received $27,350 in campaign donations from BP—and today during the Congressional inquisition of BP CEO Tony Hayward, Barton was worth just about every penny. Barton’s odd apology in his opening statement to Hayward—Barton said he was “ashamed of what happened in the White House” …
The grand Congressional inquisition of BP CEO Tony Hayward has been adjourned until 2 PM—annoyingly, members of Congress are occasionally expected to vote for things—but so far the biggest revelation has come from Republican Representative Joe Barton. As Jay Newton-Small observed over in Swampland, Barton began his opening …
