Andy Lipkis: There's a Hole in the Bucket, Dear Liza

While we may ultimately have to build some expensive and environmentally risky mega-projects such as dams and desalination plants, it makes sense to first cork the bucket. We can plug this leak with two steps: 1. Significantly increase the amount of rainwater captured locally, thus decr...

Don Tapscott: Stephen Harper Defends the Status Quo

Yes the G8 and G20 meetings will be important and they may even make some progress on issues such as climate change. But today there are collaborations involving millions of people, along with governments, private companies and civil society organizations that are actually doing somet...

Chris Weigant: Friday Talking Points [109] -- Obama Enters Lions' Den, Bells Cat

I wrote about this yesterday, in my thoughts on Obama's State Of The Union. Obama is totally reframing the "clean energy" debate in a masterful way -- it's not about arguing about global warming, it's about America leading the world. If we don't lead, we are destined to follow. Are you going to...

Amy Davidsen: The Answer is Clean Energy Jobs. (No, really)

A recent study by McKinsey found that the US could save $1.2 trillion by 2020, by investing $520 billion in energy efficiency improvements, like 'sealing leaky ducts and replacing inefficient household appliances.' And a recent study by the Universities of Berkeley, Illinois and Yale e...

Obama Sets Emissions Target For Greenhouse Gases

President Obama announced Friday morning a pledge to reduce the federal government's greenhouse gas emissions by 28% by 2020. According to Whitehouse.gov: [This] will ensure... President Obama announced Friday morning a pledge to reduce the federal government's greenhouse gas emissio...

Linda R. Monk, J.D.: Did Al Qaeda Trigger the Wall Street Panic? Bin Laden's Latest Threat Makes It Possible

Bin Laden's guise of protecting the environment through jihad on the U.S. economy could indicate what's coming next. Under our current unregulated system, all he has to do is make a threat for the house of cards to tumble. So now Osama Bin Laden is threatening to crash the U.S. economy to prevent g...

David R. Jones: Davos: Focusing on What Really Matters

Davos is a key opportunity to make progress on this issue and it can and should be seized. So, as Davos day one comes to an end and we start to focus on day two, I personally am hoping that we will see the focus shift from the albeit important issue of financial regulation to the bigger issues of Cl...

Gabriel London: 2010: Facts are Debatable, but Jobs are still Jobs

KEYWORDS: Climate Change, China, Renewable Energy, Clean Energy, Wind Energy, State of the Union, Jobs, Glenn Beck, State of the Union I'm over it. We... KEYWORDS: Climate Change, China, Renewable Energy, Clean Energy, Wind Energy, State of the Union, Jobs, Glenn Beck, State of the Union

Javier Sierra: Money Talks

The Obama administration, obeying a Supreme Court decision and following the recommendations of its scientists, determined in December that greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, constitute a threat to the public health and must be regulated. More on Climate Change

Sarah van Gelder: Can We Still Believe in That Change Obama Ran On?

The window of time we have to confront our climate crisis is closing, and the impacts on our economy, security, biodiversity, agriculture, access to water, and the habitability of our coastlines is just starting to be felt. Desperately needed action is being stalled by special interest...

Jessy Tolkan: Dirty Talk in SOTU: Why My Generation's Jobs Must Be Clean

The way we handle the clean energy economy and the fight to stop climate change will define our generation. At the start of a new decade - our decade - we are done reacting to the partisan politics and policies that have held our nation back on these issues. It's time for those of us who will bear t...

SEC: Public Companies Should Warn Investors Of The Effect Of Climate Change On Business

Although the agency has long required companies to reveal possible financial or legal impacts from a variety of environmental challenges, it has never specifically cited climate change as bringing potentially significant business risks or rewards.

Frances Beinecke: DiCaprio & Others Engage Online Community with Clear Message: This Is Our Moment for Clean Energy Action

This is our moment to put clean energy and climate solutions in place. That is what Leonardo DiCaprio, Edward Norton, Justin Long, Emmy Rossum, Forest... This is our moment to put clean energy and climate solutions in place. That is what Leonardo DiCaprio, Edward Norton, Justin Long, Emmy Ros...

Obama Emphasizes Bipartisanship: Dems And GOP Unite In Displeasure

Obama did take some shots at the other side of the aisle, at one time scolding Republicans for skirting their "responsibility to govern." But the thrust of his address was that the parties should find common ground, albeit on his turf. This included both health care -- "if anyone from either...

Opinion: James Hoggan: New Poll Results Reveal The Impact of Decades-Long Climate Confusion Campaign

According to the study, only 47 percent of Americans think global warming is caused mostly by human activities, a 10 point drop.  Only 50 percent of Americans now say they are "somewhat" or "very worried" about global warming, a 13-point decrease. More on Climate Change

Kevin Grandia: The Commonwealth Foundation's Favorite Strawman

On the issue of climate change, you can see this technique in action with the right-wing Commonwealth Foundation trying to discredit the work of a single climate expert, Dr. Michael Mann, as a means of discrediting the entire body of climate change science. More on Climate Change

Anis Shivani: The Real State of the Union

In short, we need to think like 21st century people who have put the barbaric past behind us, rather than washed-up hollow men and women, sorrowful, victimized, greedy, nostalgic, blind, egotistic, selfish. Nothing less will get us out of the mess.

Nina Hachigian: What Obama Won't Brag About

Of course, China and Russia, not to mention India and Brazil and others, need to do more to help solve global challenges. We will continue to have differences with these pivotal powers, some very heated, particularly in the areas of human rights and democracy. But there is no quid pro quo. Was...

Jeff Biggers: The Historic Cost of the State of the Union: Mr. President, Welcome to the Saudi Arabia of Coal

While I admire the President's commitment to tackling climate change legislation, and while I will applaud the President's indisputable support for clean energy investment in his address tonight--wind power surged 39% last year, thanks largely to stimulus spending--one lingerin...

Craig Barnes: The Record So Far

He has vigorously engaged the US in the climate change negotiations, urging action at Copenhagen instead of opposing it, forcing Brazil, China and India to come to the table as well. His EPA has faced up to the science and declared carbon dioxide emissions a threat to public health. For the f...

Donnie Fowler: The Republican Zenith is Now

As a good friend of mine likes to say, with President Obama we are debating health care and climate change and with President McCain we would be debating more tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and when to invade Iran. Change has indeed come a knockin'.

Heather Taylor-Miesle: POTUS Speak Up

Is the President likely to say all of this? Maybe not. But if he even gets half way there, I think we will be able to repeat that great Twain quote when it comes to a climate change bill: "Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated."

Veronique Pittman: NYC Public School Students Participate in the Green Cup Challenge

This is a big deal for the environment and a bold step for New York -- the first major city in which the entire public school system (that's 1,500 NYC public schools; 1.1 million students) has committed to measuring and reducing their energy consumption and carbon footprint.

Simon Rosenberg: Keeping the Focus on the Struggle of Everyday People: 2010 Edition

Is it any surprise, then, that the president and the Democrats have seen their poll numbers drop and taken electoral defeats when they devoted the lion's share of their time talking about issues of lesser concern to people while the economy has gotten worse? The president and the Democra...

Richard N. Haass: Anticipating Obama's First State of the Union

Let me say one or two other things. One issue that has clearly receded in attention in this country is climate change. It's the result of the poor economy; also the failure at Copenhagen, continuing debate over science, and new important debates over this or that policy prescription. That's...

Republicans Head To Hawaii For Strategy Session

Others may propose resolutions that would bar party contributions to Republicans who don't meet a conservative litmus test on a number of hot-button issues, including abortion, health care reform, climate change and illegal immigration.

Steven Cohen: The Real Politics of Climate Policy 2010

There are several new factors in play that will help define the political center of climate policy. The first is that the EPA is in the process of issuing old-fashioned command and control regulations for global warming gases. The Supreme Court has already ruled that carbon dioxide can be r...

Bharati Chaturvedi: Carbon on My Conscience

The second is climate change. True, Indians emit only 5% of global carbon dioxide and have a low per capital emission. Still, middle class Indians are over-consuming, or at least, aspiring to over-consume. Even as well-paid jobs continue to seduce fresh management graduates, the pressur...

Anis Shivani: The Corporatist Explanation for Obama's "Failed" Presidency

Julia Moulden: Facing Global Threats: Here's Some Good News

Our first grants. Ploughshares Fund, which is working to combat nuclear proliferation gets $1 million to engage those who make public policy and expand public awareness and support. J Street, a new organization promoting more active American engagement in pushing for a negotiated solu...

Riki Ott: The U.S. Supreme Court Sells Out: A Government of, for, and by the Corporations

Our ExxonMobil-funded officials will tell us climate change is good for us as they open America for coal and oil leasing. Our Big Pharma- and Big Insurance-backed congressional delegates will tell us you-don't-really-want-a-public-option in health care reform. Our Monsanto-owned o...

Marwan Bishara: Obama Holding the Fort, for Now

The same goes for his warnings against global warming but not doing all it takes to ensure a climate change treaty in Copenhagen.

Paula Crossfield: Reclaiming Value: An Interview with Raj Patel

RP: That's criminally stupid. The reason that it is stupid is that no one who is a climatologist seriously believes that climate change is any one thing. Climate change is precisely change, it means variability in climate patterns and consequent variability in the kinds of pests, the time...

Kevin Grandia: New study shoots down another climate denier myth

A recent peer-reviewed paper [pdf] in the Journal of Geophysical Research looked at data from 114 weather stations from across the US over the last twenty years and compared measurements from locations that were well sited and those that weren't. The IPCC found that:

Joseph B. Treaster: The Texas Drought, The Florida Chill -- Climate Change?

Widespread confusion over short-term fluctuations in temperature and long-term trends is causing concern among the majority of scientists who are convinced that climate change is happening. MIAMI-- The drought that just ended in Texas was not an example or a reflection of climate cha...

James Boyce: Better Business

The stance taken by the US Chamber of Commerce on climate change is damaging the confidence Americans have in business' ability to respond to current... The stance taken by the US Chamber of Commerce on climate change is damaging the confidence Americans have in business' ability to respon...

Opinion: Paula Crossfield: The Farm Bureau: Denying Climate Change, Undermining Labor and Losing Relevancy in 2010

The president of the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), Bob Stallman, threw down the gauntlet on Sunday in his annual speech to his industrial cronies.... The president of the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), Bob Stallman, threw down the gauntlet on Sunday in his annual speech...

Levi Novey: Peruvian Rock Star Releases Climate Change Themed Song and Video

I'm going to talk about the pollution That's made the climate Enter into confusion The pollution The pollution is a poison The atmosphere is altered And the valleys are drying up And now the heat Via the Greenhouse Effect The water is evaporating More on Climate Change

Opinion: Jeff Schweitzer: Confusing Weather and Climate: The False Debate About Global Warming

The distinction between weather and climate becomes critical in understanding global warming. Let's look at what is happening right now. A persistent high pressure over the Arctic is acting like a big boulder in a fast moving river, causing the jet stream to flow south deep into the United...

A. Siegel: "Boy, its cold outside" and the nature of climate change / Global Warming

We find it hard, in part, to comprehend something as large (and, by human terms, gradual) as climate change for, among other reasons, Thus, "record-setting cold" in the US has a subtext, for many Americans, "Global Warming is likely BS". More on Climate Change

Opinion: Sam Black: Copenhagen: A Theater of the Absurd

Now that the Copenhagen climate change conference is over, the post-mortems are flooding print and online media outlets. The consensus among those who didn't participate... Now that the Copenhagen climate change conference is over, the post-mortems are flooding print and online media o...

The Media Consortium: The Mulch: Tepid Accord Reached in Copenhagen

After two weeks of negotiations for the United Nations Climate Change Conference (Cop15), global leaders produced a limited, non-binding agreement that was noted, but not adopted. President Barack Obama presented the Copenhagen Accord to the summit on Friday night, calling it an "im...

Steven Cohen: Climate Policy and Sustainable Management

Climate change is among the first of the problems of planetary health that we have been able to identify. Measures of temperature, CO2 concentrations, melting of polar ice and sea level rise have all been used to define the dimensions of this problem. We know there is too much carbon dioxide...

Andrew Sniderman: Scenes from Copenhagen's street protests (Part I)

December 16th, COPENHAGEN-- The plan was to storm the UN climate talks, six thousand police officers notwithstanding, and set up a "people's assembly" to discuss... December 16th, COPENHAGEN-- The plan was to storm the UN climate talks, six thousand police officers notwithstanding, an...

Sarah van Gelder: Climate Deal Flop Reveals Leadership Crisis

The deal sets no definite target for greenhouse gas reductions. A goal of reducing global carbon dioxide emissions by 80 percent by 2050, present in earlier drafts, was removed. All references to keeping temperature increases below 1.5 degrees Celsius--a key demand of vulnerable countr...

Xiu Min Li: Climate Change: China can Make a Real Difference on the Issue

The necessary financing for developing countries to address climate change Fully subsidized transfer of all necessary technology Every country agreeing to equitable AND concrete emission reduction target that will actually bring us back to 350ppm The urgency to come up with soluti...

May Jeong: Copenhagen Climate Change Marathon: Leaders and Lawmakers Negotiate in the Final Hours

She went on to add that climate change must be considered a national security issue, and punctuated the speech with a thoughtful remark on the interconnectedness of climate change to health, poverty, and how women play a strong role in addressing these concerns.

Roz Naylor & George Leonard: Ensuring a Sustainable Future for U.S. Ocean Fish Farming

Americans' appetite for fish continues to grow and is increasingly met by a year-round supply of fresh fish. Yet few Americans know where their fish comes from or how it was produced. With all eyes on the climate deliberations in Copenhagen, it is more important than ever to find innovative...

Whit Jones: LIVE BLOG: Youth activists sit-in, refuse to leave until negotiators listen to 11 million voices calling for a fair, ambitious, and binding deal.

10:03 About 20 yards from the sit-in, fossil fuel hack is interviewed by Fox news - people riled up by sit-in respond with "boos" and laughter. He's laughed off the camera. 5:51 After 51 minutes, security finally moves in, asks them to sit on side. Young people refuse to leave, holding strong. U....

James Boyce: What's Up With The Rainforest: Carbon Price of $10/ton Could Save Forests

As world leaders, climate experts, advocacy groups, and tons of concerned citizens converged on Copenhagen in the past weeks the Rainforest Newsladder took notice. The... As world leaders, climate experts, advocacy groups, and tons of concerned citizens converged on Copenhagen in the p...

William Bradley: Copenhagen Blues: Obama's Weak Hand on Climate, and the California Option

He doesn't have binding, verifiable agreements with rising powers China and India to cut greenhouse gas emissions. And most experts say that the barely passed House bill is clearly insufficient to meet the challenge of climate change.

Opinion: Lee Myung-Bak: Copenhagen Needs 'Me First' Gumption

In fact, the international effort to create an enhanced framework to address climate change is a valuable process. Each exchange of views and ideas is worthwhile. But the lack of a formal agreement is no excuse for the current inertia.

Richard Graves: BREAKING: Young leaders stage sit-in at Copenhagen Climate Talks, read names of 11 million petition signers.

Read it live: Young people are staging a sit-in inside the Bella Center at the Copenhagen climate talks, just feet from where a summit of... Read it live: Young people are staging a sit-in inside the Bella Center at the Copenhagen climate talks, just feet from where a summit of 115 world leader...

Steven Solomon: Obama, Palin, Copenhagen: The End Of Drinkable Water?

Those committed to doing the planet's serious business should stay focused on one, often overlooked but trackable key factor of climate change--the pivotal role of water. With America's national debate on global warming going bipolar between President Obama's grand entrance at Cope...

Louis Klarevas: Securing American Primacy While Tackling Climate Change: Toward a National Strategy of Greengemony

Second, converting fossil fuels like oil to run national economies is producing irreversible harm in the form of carbon dioxide emissions. So long as the global economy remains oil-dependent, greenhouse gases will continue to rise. Experts are predicting as much as a 60% increase in car...

John DeCock: Copenhagen -- You Can't Talk Climate Without Talking Water

The effects of climate change are all about water. When greenhouse gasses cause our atmosphere to heat up, it is water vapor that is being heated. When climate change alters the patterns of weather, it is the lack of water and the overabundance of water in various places that creates the dama...

Sanjay Khanna: Politicians Can Count on Popular Despair After Copenhagen

On Saturday, after the first week of the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen, Connie Hedegaard, president and chairwoman of COP 15 (and Denmark's minister of climate and energy), and Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC...

Opinion: Andrew Guzman: The True Costs of Climate Change

The Stern Report, the best known and most thorough economic report on climate change, estimates that the total worldwide cost of avoiding the harmful impacts of climate change is about four percent of U.S. GDP - much less than the cost the United States will face.

Opinion: Lori Pottinger: Climate Change and Water: Will a River Still Run Through It?

“The scarcity of water is becoming a nightmare. Rivers are drying up, and the way temperatures are changing we are likely to get into more problems. Climate change is here,” said Professor Richard Odingo, the Kenyan vice-chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Opinion: Raymond J. Learsy: Climate Change/Nuclear Energy. America's Missed Opportunity and The Tens of Thousands of Jobs It Would Create

At this moment with emissaries from all over the world gathering in Copenhagen, and on the heels of the Environmental Protection Agency's dire ruling that greenhouse gases posed a danger to human health and the environment, given the ominous issues of energy, both strategic and enviro...

Opinion: Brendan Smith: What the CBO Isn't Telling Congress: Climate Change Threatens Million of Jobs

The CBO testimony ignores the June 16, 2009 government report Global Climate Change Impacts in the U.S. issued by the U.S. Global Change Research Program which described economically devastating results of global warming already under way: More on Climate Change

Opinion: GOP Boycotts Senate Climate Change Hearing (VIDEO)

Barbara Boxer is out in front on climate change in the Senate. As a result, she spent much of Tuesday sitting by herself. From the... Barbara Boxer is out in front on climate change in the Senate. As a result, she spent much of Tuesday sitting by herself.

Opinion: Lori Pottinger: The Right Climate for Green Energy in Africa

The world's richest, highest-carbon-emitting nations also owe it to Africa to help it develop its clean energy resources -- projects that will help in climate-change adaptation efforts, rather than hinder them. Healthy rivers are priceless. Let's not let Africa learn that the hard way.

Opinion: James Hoggan: Chamber of Commerce: A Long History of Killing Clean Energy Policy

That campaign is a central -- unavoidable -- theme in Climate Cover-up, the book that I have recently written with Richard Littlemore. It details four years of research on climate change misinformation and especially on the work of a powerful alliance of lobbyists and industry front gro...

Opinion: Lori Pottinger: The Wrong Climate for Big Dams in Africa

Diversifying Africa's energy sector would help its climate-adaptation efforts in key ways: it would de-emphasize reliance on erratic rainfall for electricity, reduce conflict over water resources, and protect river-based ecosystems. Africa is the least electrified place in the w...

Opinion: Robert Stavins: What Role for U.S. Carbon Sequestration?

With the development of climate legislation proceeding in the U.S. Senate, a key question is whether the United States can cost-effectively reduce a significant share... With the development of climate legislation proceeding in the U.S. Senate, a key question is whether the United States ca...

Opinion: Russ Walker: Palin Eschews Facts and Economics in Blasting Cap-and-Trade Bill

Palin's thesis comes loaded with plenty of rhetoric, zero facts and fails to even take note of the underlying issue--catastrophic climate change. The cap-and-trade climate and energy bill passed by the House last month is not a perfect piece of legislation. Critics on the right and left h...

Opinion: David Roberts: Why We Overestimate the Costs of Tackling Climate Change

Recent days have seen a flurry of blogospheric back-and-forth about the new CBO and EPA reports, and more generally about the costs and benefits of climate change legislation. As someone who believes the costs are overestimated and the benefits underrated, I thought I'd weigh in.

Opinion: Joseph Romm: Must-Read Study: "The Media's Decision to Play the Stenographer Helped Opponents of Climate Action Stifle Progress"

One of the country's leading journalists has written a searing critique of the media's coverage of global warming, especially climate economics. One of the country's leading journalists has written a searing critique of the media's coverage of global warming, especially climate eco...

Opinion: Brian Keane: College Students Heed Warning on Climate Change, Engage in 'America's Greenest Campus' Competition

America's Greenest Campus now gives the campus communities, the tools and knowledge to reduce their energy use, save money and reverse climate change, all in a way that's easy, fun and effective. Through AGC, the power of social networking, the spirit of competition, and education on ho...

Opinion: Sanjay Khanna: "Pessimists Die Quickly" (Gulp)

In times of real trouble like today." Scientists and economists are prone to conservatism. According to the March emergency summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, 2,500 climate experts agreed that climate change might surpass the worst-case scenarios outlined in the 2007 report issued by the...

Opinion: Peter Dykstra: Why to Deny on Climate Change

A dozen reasons why climate change deniers are the way they are No, there aren't only a dozen reasons, but some are bigger than others.... A dozen reasons why climate change deniers are the way they are So there's a dozen reasons for denying climate change, and I didn't even mention Creationist...

Opinion: Anthony Giddens: Recession, Climate Change and the Return to Planning

The period of Thatcherite deregulation is over. The state is back. We will need active industrial policy and planning, in respect to economic institutions but for climate change and energy policy as well. LONDON -- Climate change and how to respond to it are everywhere in the news at the mome...

Opinion: John Kerry: Facts Are Stubborn Things

Don't get me wrong. I'm happy to see Will embracing the idea of recycling, but I'm very troubled that he is recycling errors of fact to challenge the science on global warming. Lets be very clear: Stephen Chu does not make predictions to further an agenda. He does so to inform the public. He is no C...

Opinion: Richard Stuebi: Weather Does Not Equal Climate

By the way, many believers of climate change are often guilty of snidely commenting about a brutally hot summer day by saying something like "Enjoying the climate change?" while wearing a knowing grin. These are cheap shots that I wish would cease, because they too are inappropriate extr...

Opinion: Harold Ambler: Mr. Gore: Apology Accepted

Indeed, it is Mr. Gore and his brethren who are flat-Earthers. Mr. Gore states, ad nauseum, that carbon dioxide rules climate in frightening and unpredictable, and new, ways. When he shows the hockey stick graph of temperature and plots it against reconstructed C02 levels in An Inconvenien...

Opinion: Megan Shank: The Dirt on Ecosystem Stewardship

Filmmaker John D. Liu believes we have a solution to climate change, but it's not as simple as reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Here are excerpts from my recent telephone interview with him. Originally published at meganshank.com.

Opinion: David Sassoon: Florida Releases State Climate Plan: Huge Economic Gains Redefine National Discussion

Although the plan's focus is on Florida, its release is timely and important to the national dialogue on the fate of climate change solutions during these economically troubled times. The authors state in no uncertain terms that they believe climate action is not a costly policy package...

Opinion: Ron Dembo: Kyoto as Cliche

The Stern Review provides some figures to fortify this argument. Sir Nicholas argues that we need to be spending 1 percent of GDP to tackle climate change. In other words, many billions. A lot of money. But here's why we need to spend it: because if we don't, global warming is going to cost us 5 per...