Editor's Note: The following post comes from ThinkProgress, a division of the liberal think tank the Center for American Progress Action Fund, based in Washington, DC. Joe Romm is a Fellow at American Progress and is the editor of Climate Progress. This post is reprinted with permission.
By Joe Romm, ThinkProgress
The public understands Obama isn’t to blame for high gasoline prices, as recent polls make clear. Even the Wall Street Journal and Cato Institute agree: “It’s not Obama’s fault that crude oil prices have increased.”
But as the New York Times pointed out Sunday [jn an op-ed], facts don’t stop the GOP:
The issue of gas prices has not only been misunderstood but thoroughly distorted by relentless ideological spin from industry and its political allies, mainly Republican. Hardly a day goes by that some industry cheerleader somewhere — be it Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana or Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma — does not flay President Obama for driving up oil prices by denying the industry access to oil and gas deposits and imposing ruinous environmental rules. Senator John Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican, said last week that Mr. Obama should be held “fully responsible for what the American public is paying for gasoline.”
The Times put together some great charts using EIA data. They make clear 1) oil prices are set on a global market and 2) the strategy of “Drill, Baby, Drill” adopted by the GOP and President Obama has succeeded at increasing production and decreasing dependency on foreign oil — but it has unsurprisingly failed at affecting global markets. FULL POST
Editor's Note: This is an edited version of an article from the ‘Oxford Analytica Daily Brief’. Oxford Analytica is a global analysis and advisory firm that draws on a worldwide network of experts to advise its clients on their strategy and performance.
A community of about 400 Inuit people living on a narrow, low-lying strip in north-westAlaskahas reopened its lawsuit against over 20 of the world's largest oil and gas companies, including ExxonMobil, BP and Shell. Kivalina villagers are seeking damages for property loss, which they say were caused by the companies' contributions to global warming. This case has again raised the potential for climate change liability in private and public law. FULL POST
Editor’s Note: Vincent Valk is online editor for Chemical Week magazine. This post is part of the Global Innovation Showcase created by the New America Foundation and the Global Public Square.
By Vincent Valk – Special to CNN
Let us suppose, for a moment, that it were somehow possible to remove the greenhouse gas emissions of 300 million automobiles around the world – without actually removing any automobiles.
How would we go about doing this? A massive cash-for-clunkers style program in which everyone gets hybrids? A vehicle-miles-traveled tax? Something involving solar and wind farms?
No – we can paint our roofs white.
Editor's Note: Michael A. Levi is the Director of the Program on Energy Security and Climate Change at the Council on Foreign Relations. This is his Expert Brief, reprinted with permission of the Council on Foreign Relations.
By Michael A. Levi, CFR.org
On Monday, November 28, diplomats convened in Durban, South Africa, for the seventeenth annual UN climate negotiations, known formally as the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Those talks, which will last two weeks, are aimed at advancing international efforts to mitigate and adapt to global climate change. The proceedings will involve a mix of technical negotiations aimed at fleshing out and implementing past agreements, and political negotiations focused on elaborating the legal obligations of countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
The talks will be much lower profile - and involve lower stakes - than the contentious gathering in Copenhagen, Denmark, two years ago. But several important issues are still on the table, and the consequences of decisions made in Durban could linger for many years.
Editor's Note: Heather Moore is a staff writer for the PETA Foundation. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) works to promote animal rights and mitigate cruelty against animals.
By Heather Moore – Special to CNN
There are currently about 7 billion people on this planet, and experts predict that there will be at least 9 billion by 2050. Global meat consumption is projected to double by then too. The Earth simply cannot sustain so many meat-eaters.
A recent report by the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet project shows that global meat production increased by 2.6 percent in 2010. Worldwide meat production has tripled over the last four decades and increased 20 percent in the past 10 years. Much of the meat is produced in industrialized countries. The average American eats twice as much meat as the average person worldwide. According to Worldwatch President Robert Engelman, the "world's supersized appetite for meat" is one of the main reasons why greenhouse-gas emissions are still increasing rapidly. FULL POST
Climate change may be one of the greatest perils of our time, contributing to droughts, floods, deadly heat waves and super-charged hurricanes.
But for the moment, France’s Champagne makers are raising their glasses to it.
They say the climatic shift has made their lives easier and their Champagne better, allowing producers to harvest earlier than before.
Back during the devastating tornadoes that hit America in late April, 2011, CNN's Amar Bakshi interviewed Bjorn Lomborg, adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School and author of The Skeptical Environmentalist and Cool it, about the relationship between what Tom Friedman calls "global weirding" and global warming.
Bjorn argued that there is no correlation between tornadoes and global warming. But more controversially, he contended that even if there was such a correlation, it would be much more cost-effective to invest more heavily in adaptation mechanisms to limit their damage rather than putting the preponderance of climate-change-related money into trying to curb global warming in the near term.
Check out an excerpt of Bjorn's remarks below and see if you agree.
Editor's Note: G. Truett Tate is Group Executive Director of, Lloyds Banking Group. For more from Tate, visit Project Syndicate and check it out on Facebook and Twitter.
LONDON – Some political problems can be solved overnight; others take years to tackle. But, in the distant future, when the financial crisis and the euro’s troubles are long forgotten, we will still be facing the consequences of climate change.
A challenge of this scale and depth demands an unprecedented level of cooperation – between countries, between political parties, and between government, business, and citizens. It is for this reason that some of Britain’s biggest businesses, including Lloyds Banking Group, came together in the Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change (CLG). FULL POST
Editor's Note: Michael A. Levi is the David M. Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment and Director of the Program on Energy Security and Climate Change at the Council on Foreign Relations where he blogs.
By Michael A. Levi, CFR.org
I’m just back from a trip to Europe where, among other things, I talked to people about international climate policy. At one point, I was asked about differences between the United States and Europe in the realm of climate diplomacy.
I observed that the biggest difference was that most Europeans remain focused on concluding a legally binding climate treaty, while most Americans advocates of serious action on climate change are far less attached to that particular outcome.
I noted that one can have strong action without a treaty, and weak action with one, and then offered three hypotheses for why many in Europe remains so treaty-focused: FULL POST
Fareed speaks with Nathan Myhrvold about his revolutionary idea to solve global warming.
Then a conversation with Vali Nasr.
Read the full transcript here.
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