Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The idea of the energy transition (“energiewende” in German) originated in the 1980s and gained legislative support in Germany in 2010. The idea is good and also technically feasible. But it requires sacrifices and, at present, sacrifices are politically unthinkable since most people don’t realize how critical the situation really is. What we are doing for the transition seems to be is too little and too late.
Amid all the unavoidable uncertainty in modeling warming and the effects of our actions, what do we really know about how much warming we might see in the future? If it turned out that our carbon budget is larger than we used to think it was, would that change our policy direction? And which policy paths should we advocate?
If you’re like me, you’ve probably been ignoring the bitcoin phenomenon for years — because it seemed too complex, far-fetched, or maybe even too libertarian. But if you have any interest in a future where the world moves beyond fossil fuels, you and I should both start paying attention now.
The gradual climb in oil prices in recent weeks has revived hopes that US shale oil producers will return to profitability, while also renewing fevered dreams of the US becoming a fossil fuel superpower once again. Helen Thompson looks at the same shale oil revolution and draws strikingly different conclusions, both about the future of the oil economy and about the effects on US relations with OPEC, Saudi Arabia, and Russia.
Over the past three years, global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels have remained relatively flat. However, early estimates from the Global Carbon Project (GCP) using preliminary data suggest that this is likely to change in 2017 with global emissions set to grow by around 2%, albeit with some uncertainties.
Yet even amid the companies’ growing use of scare tactics and secret maneuvers, citizens are ramping up direct action. People have braved the elements and matched the energy giants with their own brand of force, as residents nationwide turn to a mix of creative and traditional tactics to halt as many projects as they can.
When B.C.’s Oil and Gas Commission identified significant methane leaks from hundreds of gas wells in 2013, the energy regulator withheld that information from BC Liberal politicians. Members of the former Christy Clark government wrongly claimed that B.C. wells didn’t leak and that the province’s shale gas industry was “clean.”
I evaluate global climate models to see if they have the right large-scale weather patterns in them to accurately and correctly simulate things like drought, heavy rainfall events, cold or hot events, at the local scale. Depending on what region of the world you’re looking at and depending on what question you’re asking, sometimes the answer is yes and sometimes the answer is no.
Efforts by the White House and Congress to enact tax reforms are posing clear and present dangers to existing renewable energy tax credits. The House and Senate versions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 differ in their impacts. Should the final legislation more closely resemble the House version of the legislation, the negative impacts will be especially felt by the wind and electric vehicle industries.
This was my third COP, and despite a challenging schedule of events, I leave Bonn-Fiji more jaded than when I returned from its Parisian predecessor. I was certainly uneasy with the euphoria surrounding the Paris Agreement, but I could also see its potential for catalysing a transformation in global responses to climate change. Two years on and Bonn-Fiji signals just how entrenched, powerful and resilient our status quo is and how compliant the ‘established’ climate change community has become.
Today a Nebraska commission handed TransCanada the final permit it needed to build its long-contested Keystone XL pipeline, a decision which did not consider the company’s previous safety violations. The decision to approve the international pipeline comes despite a major oil spill just a few days earlier from the company’s Keystone l line in South Dakota.
A leak along the existing leg of TransCanada’s Keystone pipeline has spilled at least 200,000 gallons of oil in South Dakota as of Friday, prompting the company to shut down much of the system. It is officially the largest spill in the pipeline’s history, surpassing a leak last year that sent 16,800 gallons of oil spilling onto South Dakota grasslands.
