Here in North America, we are surrounded with rhetoric denouncing the feasibility of climate change mitigation. It’s not possible to reduce our emissions, people say. It’s not worth it. The situation in the U.S. Congress regarding this issue is becoming so bizarre that hopes for an international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have grown [...]
Archive for the ‘Mitigation and Policy’ Category
The Rest of the World
Posted in Mitigation and Policy, tagged australia, canada, carbon dioxide, climate change, copenhagen, environment, EU, global warming, greenhouse gases, japan, norway, politics, risk management, Stephen Harper, uk, united states on April 6, 2011 | 16 Comments »
Legislating Scientific Truth
Posted in Mitigation and Policy, tagged climate change, denial, global warming, greenhouse gases, Indiana, inhofe, Montana, pi, politics, Read, republican, science, united states, Upton on March 24, 2011 | 22 Comments »
Cross-posted from NextGen Journal Scientific statements rely on uncertainty and error bars. If our understanding changes, the scientific consensus changes accordingly, in a more or less implicit manner. There’s no official process that needs to be followed to update our knowledge. Laws passed by governments work in the opposite way. Official technicalities are paramount, and [...]
Nuclear Power in Context
Posted in Mitigation and Policy, tagged chernobyl, climate change, coal, environment, fossil fuels, fukushima daiichi, global warming, health, japan, meltdown, natural gas, nuclear energy, nuclear power, oil, risk management, thorium, tsumani, uranium on March 15, 2011 | 36 Comments »
Since its birth, nuclear power has been a target of environmental activism. To be fair, when nuclear power goes wrong, it goes wrong in a bad way. Take a look at what’s happening in Japan right now. Friday’s tsumani damaged the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, and several of its reactors have experienced partial meltdowns. Radiation [...]
The Pendulum
Posted in Mitigation and Policy, tagged al gore, an inconvenient truth, arctic, canada, carbon dioxide, climate change, climategate, copenhagen, debate, democrat, denial, environment, global warming, greenhouse effect, greenhouse gases, human rights, hurricane katrina, journalism, kyoto, media, obama, politics, republican, risk management, science, skeptic, Stephen Harper, sustainability, swifthack, united states on January 31, 2011 | 7 Comments »
Cross-posted from NextGen Journal A few years ago, climate change mitigation became a major political issue. Before 2005, governments certainly knew that human-caused climate change was a serious problem – but the public knew next to nothing about it, so there was no incentive to act. However, between 2005 and 2007, a perfect storm of [...]
Geoengineering the Climate
Posted in Mitigation and Policy, tagged carbon dioxide, climate change, environment, global warming, greenhouse effect, greenhouse gases, politics, risk management, science on November 12, 2010 | 3 Comments »
Cross-posted from NextGen Journal Climate change would be a whole lot easier to fix if we could immediately see the results of our actions. First of all, we would have recognized the reality of the problem long ago, before very much harm was done. And even if we initially stalled on fixing the problem, we could [...]
What If…?
Posted in Mitigation and Policy, tagged canada, carbon dioxide, climate change, climategate, copenhagen, denial, environment, global warming, greenhouse effect, greenhouse gases, inhofe, mccain, midterm election, obama, politics, republican, risk management, science, skeptic, swifthack, tea party, united states on November 1, 2010 | 17 Comments »
Cross-posted from NextGen Journal Let’s start with the obvious – the U.S. midterm elections are upon us, and it’s quite likely that the Republicans will win a majority. (My American friends tell me that this is possible even with Barack Obama remaining president. Please bear with my limited knowledge of the American political system. It [...]
What’s Your Idea?
Posted in Mitigation and Policy, tagged biomass, cap and trade, carbon dioxide, carbon tax, clean energy, climate change, cogen, environment, global warming, greenhouse gases, methane capture, renewable energy, risk management, science, solar power, sustainability, wind power on October 9, 2010 | 21 Comments »
If you ran the world…how would you fix climate change? What would be your plan to implement clean energy? What renewables would you focus on, and how would you put a price on carbon? Personally, I am more in favour of a carbon tax than cap-and-trade. It just seems simpler, more difficult for businesses to [...]
Party Line
Posted in Mitigation and Policy, News and Reports, tagged al gore, arctic, carbon dioxide, climate change, denial, environment, global warming, greenhouse effect, greenhouse gases, jim demint, john mccain, john raese, ken buck, marco rubio, pat toomey, politics, rand paul, republican, ron johnson, roy blunt, science, senate, sharron angle, skeptic, statements, united states on September 19, 2010 | 19 Comments »
Brad Johnson from The Wonk Room recently released a comprehensive list of what Republican contenders for the U.S. Senate understand about climate change, inferred from their public statements. The result? 47 of the 48 deny the existence of anthropogenic climate change and/or oppose mitigating action to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Take a look – many [...]
Too Much at Every Level
Posted in Mitigation and Policy, tagged canada, carbon dioxide, climate change, copenhagen, global warming, greenhouse gases, politics, Stephen Harper, united states, youth on July 31, 2010 | 22 Comments »
I think that action to mitigate climate change has been so slow (in many cases, nonexistent) partly because the problem is just so massive. At every single level – individual, politician, government, country – people think that they can’t possibly solve it on their own, so there’s no point in trying at all. It’s not [...]
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