Why Airline Bailouts are so Unpopular with Economists
Should governments bail airlines out? And if so, should any conditions be imposed, particularly in a world that requires rapid progress to net-zero emissions?
Energy featured
Climate Policy in a Post-Pandemic Economy
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. The thousand words of the lead image have to do with how differently Democrats and Republicans in Congress view the relationship of the current coronavirus contagion and the other great existential threat to the nation — climate change.
The Beginning of the End for Oil?
When it comes to energy, what was expected to take at least two decades in the IEA’s most optimistic scenario may now occur in just a few years. It turns out that the impact of Covid-19 is reshaping the world energy equation, along with so much else, in unexpected ways.
James Howard Kunstler: Living in the Long Emergency
In this fascinating and wide-ranging discussion, Chuck and Jim look at the impact of the crisis on the automotive and airline industries, our food systems, and more.
False Solutions to Climate Change: Buildings
Estimations for the percentage of greenhouse gases emitted by the buildings sector vary wildly. But any assessment should include both the embodied energy involved in constructing new buildings and the energy costs of heating, cooling and lighting buildings.
COVIDenial Executive Summary
By taking a close look at where those who advocate inaction on climate change erred or misled their audience about the pandemic, it’s possible to learn a great deal — and not only about who has provided reliable information about COVID-19 and who has misled.
So We’re All in This Together…Really? What About Big Oil?
So what are we make of the fact that the price of oil tanked to below zero per barrel on April 22, the greatest drop in history? The price has gone up slightly since then, hovering around $16 a barrel on April 25th, but it is still severely depressed. Who will suffer from this? And perhaps more importantly, who will gain?
False Solutions to Climate Change: Transportation
In the US, transportation is said to be the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. The most common solution put forth is a false one: “we’ll electrify all our cars, maybe our trucks too.” Planes and ships are usually not proposed for replacement by electric versions, but trains are. So what’s wrong with this idea?
False Solutions to Climate Change: Part 1, Electricity
There is no time left for barking up one wrong tree after another; no time to waste in false solutions. Hence this series pointing out the fallacies behind such proposals as electrifying everything, carbon trading, geoengineering or switching to “gas—the clean energy fuel!”
Approving New Fracking Projects in the Middle of a Pandemic? Bad Idea.
Amidst the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic, California’s Geologic Energy Management Division (CalGEM), whose stated mission is to “prioritize protecting public health, safety, and the environment in its oversight of the oil, natural gas, and geothermal industries” paradoxically issued 24 new fracking permits on April 3rd, authorizing the first new oil wells using hydraulic fracking in California since July of last year.
Unnecessary Travel? The Return of Breathable Air and Rethinking Transport in a Crisis
This shock to the transport system has come as a result of a global pandemic, despite consistent and increasingly urgent calls for change in the face of climate change. It took a more immediate public health threat to give governments the power to declare national emergencies and to restrict movement and other individual freedoms.
Negative Oil Prices – “They’ll Pay You to Take it Away”.
However, these are such strange, and uncertain times, that it is difficult to make accurate predictions, on any level. Nonetheless, the security of the current global economic system and its underlying fossil fuels base, is further called into doubt.
