First Name
Last Name
Email**
Zip

**Required

Which free subscription would you like?
Weekday Weekend Comprehensive

Weekend Short Edition

Weekday Subscription (M, W, F)=Review of top stories throughout the week
Weekend Comprehensive (Sundays)=Review of top stories and new stories
Weekend Short Edition (Sundays)=Review of top stories from weekdays only
Check all three boxes to receive all editions

hide details

Richardson Withdraws as Commerce Secretary-Designee. By Michael D. Shear, WashPost, January 4, 2009. "New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has withdrawn his name from consideration as commerce secretary for President-elect Barack Obama, citing an ongoing investigation about business dealings in his state. Richardson, 61, who competed unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination, was secretary of energy and U.N. ambassador during Bill Clinton's presidency, and also the first high-profile Latino named to Obama's Cabinet. But a grand jury in New Mexico is currently looking into charges of 'pay-to-play' in the awarding of a state contract to a company that contributed to Richardson. The importance of the inquiry was apparently dismissed when Richardson was first nominated. But it may have taken on more weight in light of the 'pay-to-play' allegations involving Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. 'It is with deep regret that I accept Governor Bill Richardson's decision to withdraw his name for nomination as the next Secretary of Commerce,' the president-elect said in a statement released early this afternoon. 'Governor Richardson is an outstanding public servant and would have brought to the job of Commerce Secretary and our economic team great insights accumulated through an extraordinary career in federal and state office.'" Bill Richardson: First Green Secretary or Commerce. By Joseph Romm, ClimateProgress.org, December 3, 2008. "Barack Obama has chosen cleantech and climate superstar Bill Richardson to be his Secretary of Commerce. That means 'the voice of business in government' will be, for the first time in U.S. history, someone who is a champion of clean energy." 

Obama's Climate 'Dream Team' Named as Top Event in 2008 to Avert Catastrophic Warming. By Joseph Romm, Grist, January 4, 2009. "What events, actions, and findings had the most positive or negative impact on the likelihood that the nation and the world will act in time to avoid catastrophic warming? Since the No. 1 story is way too obvious to generate any drama, I will start there... 1) Team without rivals. A year ago, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Rajendra Pachauri, desperately warned, 'If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.' That means the next president and his cabinet, more than any other group, will determine my future and your future and our children's future, and perhaps the future of the next 50 generations to walk the earth. Fortunately, the American people rejected the old greenwasher and new denier nominated by the Drill, baby, Drill crowd -- and now we will be led by the greenest, most scientifically informed, radical pragmatists in the history of the Republic..." 

Obama Has a Unique Opportunity to Help Heal Violent Rifts with Muslim World. By Fr. Paul Mayer, Huffington Post, December 28, 2008. "The new openness of the Muslim world to the election of America's first Black president with the middle name of Hussein [presents a] unique opportunity [for peaceful resolutions]... Ultimately, [the wars in Iran and Afghanistan] are inextricably connected to the central source of violence in the Middle East -- the four-decade long Israeli-Palestinian conflict... A more effective way of addressing violent jihad might be the pouring of the healing balm of nonviolent, intelligent reconstruction on these war torn and desperate societies. A set of policies based on principles of social and economic justice might help to create a moral context from which religious extremism and violence in Islam and in other faith traditions would be condemned... The victims [of these wars and] of Mumbai and 9/11 now summon Mr. Obama to the difficult but imperative tasks of withdrawal from Iraq and eventually Afghanistan and the principled support of a just Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Even initiating these courageous steps would send a powerful message to the world of Islam." Father Paul Mayer is a cofounder of CCC. 

hide details

In Obama's Team, Two Camps on Climate. By John M. Broder, NYTimes, January 2, 2009. "As Mr. Obama seeks to find the right balance between his environmental goals and his plans to revive the economy, he may have to resolve conflicting views among some of his top advisers... Lawrence Summers and Peter Orszag, [who will head the National Economic Council and the White House budget office, respectively]... have both argued that a tax on carbon emissions from burning gasoline, coal and other fuels might be a more economically efficient means of regulating pollutants than a cap-and-trade system, under which an absolute ceiling on emissions is set and polluters are allowed to buy and sell permits to meet it... Carol Browner [who will be the White House coordinator of energy and climate policy] has been a forceful advocate for strict carbon limits for years and has said that a comprehensive cap-and-trade system is the best way to achieve swift and certain reductions in emissions... At least for the present... the idea of a carbon tax has been shelved, and Mr. Obama's economic and environmental advisers are working, along with Congress, to devise a cap-and-trade system." 

James Hanson Makes Personal Appeal to Obama for Carbon Tax. By James Randerson, Guardian (UK), January 4, 2009. "One of the world's top climate scientists has written a personal new year appeal to Barack and Michelle Obama, warning of the 'profound disconnect' between public policy on climate change and the magnitude of the problem... Professor James Hansen, who heads Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies... lambasts the current international approach of setting targets through 'cap and trade' schemes as not up to the task. 'This approach is ineffectual and not commensurate with the climate threat. It could waste another decade, locking in disastrous consequences for our planet and humanity,' the letter from Hansen and his wife, Anniek, reads... Hansen advocates a three-pronged attack on the climate problem. First, he wants a phasing out of coal-fired power stations -- which he calls 'factories of death' -- that do not incorporate carbon capture... Second, he proposes a 'carbon tax and 100% dividend'... The idea is to tax carbon at source, then redistribute the revenue equally among taxpayers, so that high carbon users are penalised while low carbon users are rewarded. Finally, he urges a renewed research effort into so-called fourth generation nuclear plants, which can use nuclear waste as fuel." 

Will Carbon Cap-and-Trade be the Next Ponzi Scheme? By Charles Komanoff, Grist, December 28, 2008. "Even as the tsunami of Bernard Madoff's busted Ponzi scheme was submerging hapless rentiers around the world, another esoteric financial enterprise quietly took a step forward [in December]... The new venture is a national carbon cap-and-trade system, and for its Phase I the traders have crafted a ten-state Northeast compact dubbed the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. 'RGGI,' which applies to CO2 emissions from electricity production, has been... long in the making... [On December 17 RGGI held its second auction for carbon credits generating '$106.5 million for investment in energy efficiency, clean and renewable energy technologies.'] Funding energy efficiency and renewable energy is all to the good, of course, and we should tip our hats to the environmental advocates who demanded, and won, that the permits are auctioned rather than given away to the fossil-fuel generators. But there are several back stories that cast RGGI in a potentially Madoff-like light: One is that the program allocations are being made through an insider-driven process over which major green players like the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Defense Fund wield considerable power. This may be why NRDC and EDF remain wedded to an arcane financial apparatus like cap-and-trade, and highly critical of the quicker, simpler and more transparent carbon-pricing alternative, revenue-neutral carbon taxing. The green groups get to run the action. And while the action may be noble, it could have this profoundly damaging side-effect: as the revenue pie grows -- which it must, exponentially, if the goal is to cause ever-deeper cuts in emissions -- the proceeds allocated to investments, green or otherwise, will come right out of the pocket of families whom the rising energy prices will push further into the red."
 

hide details

America Closes 2008 as World's Largest Wind Power Producer. By Stacey Feldman, SolveClimate.com, December 30, 2008. "It was a bad year for US carmakers, corn ethanol and EPA rollbacks. But not for wind. For the nation's most promising clean energy source, it was another record-breaking 12 months, says the American Wind Energy Association, in its take on the industry's 2008 accomplishments. America surged past the 20,000-megawatt installed capacity milestone in the summer months. It struck the 21,000 megawatt-mark by September's end. And it closed the year with a sprint to the finish, beating out Germany to become the largest generator of wind energy in the world." 

Chinese Announce Plans for World's Largest PV Power Plant. By Nichola Groom, Reuters, January 2, 2009. "Two Chinese companies on Friday announced plans to build a solar power plant in northwestern China that could one day be the largest photovoltaic solar project in the world. The news helped spur a rally in shares of solar power companies that was also underpinned by higher oil prices and a strong rise the broader market. China Technology Development Group Corp and privately held Qinghai New Energy Group will begin building a 30 megawatt solar power station in China's Qaidam Basin this year with an initial investment of $150 million, they said in a joint statement. The project, which will combine thin-film and traditional silicon-based technologies that turn the sun's rays into electricity, ultimately will produce 1 gigawatt of power, the companies said, without giving a timeframe. According to Raymond James analyst Pavel Molchanov, the largest photovoltaic solar project announced to date is the 550 MW deal between closely held thin-film company OptiSolar and California utility PG&E Corp." 

World's Largest Thermal Solar Plant Advances in Spain. By Alok Jhar, Guardian (UK), January 4, 2009. "In the desert of southern Spain, 20 miles outside Seville, more than 1,000 mirrors are being carefully positioned. Each is about half the size of a tennis court, so the adjustments will take time. But when they are complete in a few weeks, it will mark a major moment in the quest for renewable energy. The mirrors are part of the world's biggest solar tower plant, a technology that reflects sunlight to superheat water at a central tower. Once this €80m plant is inaugurated in January, it will generate 20MW of electricity, enough to power 11,000 Spanish homes. Concentrated solar power (CSP) technology, as it is known, is seen by many as a simpler, cheaper and more efficient way to harness the sun's energy than other methods such as photovoltaic (PV) panels. But CSP only works in places with clear skies and strong sunshine. The Andalucian deserts are an ideal location, and Spain hopes the PS20 plant will enable it to take advantage of its huge solar resource and lead the field in CSP technology… Spanish firms are charging ahead with CSP: more than 50 solar projects around Spain have been approved for construction by the government and, by 2015, the country will generate more than 2GW of power from CSP, comfortably exceeding current national targets. The companies are also exporting their technology to Morocco, Algeria and the US." 

hide details

U.S. Forest Policy is Set to Change, Aiding Nation's Largest Landowner Develop Scenic Mountain Tracks. By Karl Vick, WashPost, January 4, 2009. "The Bush administration appears poised to push through a change in U.S. Forest Service agreements that would make it far easier for mountain forests to be converted to housing subdivisions. Mark E. Rey, the former timber lobbyist who heads the Forest Service, last week signaled his intent to formalize the controversial change before the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama. As a candidate, Obama campaigned against the measure in Montana, where local governments have complained of being blindsided by Rey's negotiating the policy shift behind closed doors with the nation's largest private landowner. The shift is technical but has large implications. It would allow Plum Creek Timber to pave roads through Forest Service land. For decades, such roads were little more than trails used by logging trucks to reach timber stands. But as Plum Creek has moved into the real estate business, paving those roads became a necessary prelude to opening vast tracts of the company's 8 million acres to the vacation homes that are transforming landscapes across the West. Scenic western Montana, where Plum Creek owns 1.2 million acres, would be most affected, placing fresh burdens on county governments to provide services and undoing efforts to cluster housing near towns." 

Utah Student Who Foiled BLM Oil and Gas Lease Auction Announces New Plan. By Patty Henetz, SaltLakeTrib, January 4, 2009. "The University of Utah student who foiled a federal oil and gas lease auction the Friday before Christmas hopes he can buy time for Utah's scenic redrock desert -- and himself -- until the Bush administration is out the door. DeChristopher announced Wednesday afternoon that he would pay the U.S. Bureau of Land Management $45,000 to hold the 13 lease parcels he won in a Dec. 19 sale. His aim is to fend off drilling at least until President-elect Barack Obama takes office and new officials are in charge of the federal Interior Department and Bureau of Land Management… The 27-year-old economics major faces possible federal felony charges after winning bids totaling about $1.8 million on 13 lease parcels that he admitted he had neither the intention nor the money to pay for. But since committing what he called an act of civil disobedience, DeChristopher has heard from hundreds of individuals around the country willing to chip in to keep drill rigs off the land and DeChristopher out of prison… DeChristopher, his lawyers and other advisers reckoned that if there were a specific reason for the fundraising, rather than just an ill-defined defense fund, enough money would roll in to allow him to write a $45,000 check to the BLM within the next couple of weeks. 'If I follow through on purchasing the leases, it makes it simply a question of my intent in opposing what I thought was a fraudulent auction,' DeChristopher said. The amount is based on a percentage of the $1.8 million; the agency requires such payments of all bidders to hold their parcels. Three Web sites have been set up to take pledges: wateradvocacy.org, oneutah.org, bidder70.org." 

hide details

Massachusetts Launches Effort to Protect Communities from Rising Sea Levels. By Beth Daley, BostGlobe, January 3, 2009. "Massachusetts is kicking off an innovative pilot program to defend the state's 78 coastal communities against rising sea levels and fiercer storms brought on by global warming. The state's Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs announced yesterday that seven communities have been selected to learn how best to adapt to climate change, by doing such things as elevating buildings in flood-prone areas, developing disaster plans for more frequent storms, and prohibiting construction in vulnerable areas. By getting the nod, Boston, Falmouth, Hull, Oak Bluffs, Duxbury, Kingston, and Plymouth will be able to tap into state technical expertise to figure out how to slow erosion, for example, or use laws or education strategies to reduce damage from sea level rise and more frequent storms. The move is part of a growing international effort to accommodate - not just prevent - higher temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, sea level rise, and longer growing seasons from the release of heat-trapping gases from power plants, factories, and cars. New England winters have warmed more than 4 degrees in the last 30 years, bringing with them a host of changes from shifting distribution patterns of tree pests to economic troubles for ice fishing businesses." 

Oregon Looks at Taxing Mileage Instead of Gasoline. By Ryan Kost, AP, January 3, 2009. "Oregon is among a growing number of states exploring ways to tax drivers based on the number of miles they drive instead of how much gas they use, even going so far as to install GPS monitoring devices in 300 vehicles. The idea first emerged nearly 10 years ago as Oregon lawmakers worried that fuel-efficient cars such as gas-electric hybrids could pose a threat to road upkeep, which is paid for largely with gasoline taxes... The proposal is not without critics, including drivers who are concerned about privacy and others who fear the tax could eliminate the financial incentive for buying efficient vehicles." 

hide details

Green Bible Stirs Up Controversy. By Ginger G. Richardson, Gannett, January 4, 2009. "The recently published Green Bible that is causing a stir in the religious community. Supporters of the book, which highlights verses related to what believers call 'God's creation' and God's desire for humans to protect it, say they hope it will encourage more Christians, particularly evangelicals, to embrace environmentalism. 'In every book of the Bible, there are references to the world and how we should take care of it,' said Rusty Pritchard, editor of Creation Care Magazine, an eco-friendly publication for evangelicals... But others fear the new Bible, which has been endorsed by secular groups such as the Sierra Club and the Humane Society, will mislead Christians. 'I am concerned that many who call themselves Christians, or intend to speak for Christianity, don't interpret the Bible literally,' said James Taylor, a founding elder and Sunday school teacher at Living Water Christian Fellowship in Palmetto, Fla. 'These groups don't have a religious focus; they have a desire to spread their environmental message.' Taylor, who is also a senior fellow of environmental policy at the Heartland Institute, a conservative Chicago-based think tank, said there is a healthy amount of skepticism among mainstream evangelicals toward the new Bible." 

Tips for Green Investing in 2009. By David Pierson and Edward Silver, LATimes, January 4, 2009. "In these dismal times, is it financially smart to do the environmentally right thing?... The green wave has been volatile, returning profits over prolonged rallies during boom times but falling particularly hard in recent months. In the second half of 2008, renewable-energy shares tanked. The WilderHill Clean Energy Index, a collection of 51 green companies, ended the year down 70%, compared with a 34% drop in the Dow Jones industrial average. The often undercapitalized start-ups became especially vulnerable after the stock market meltdown because there was no longer cash available to fund the hefty upfront costs for wind and solar projects. On top of that, the price of fossil fuels plunged, restoring conventional energy's status as the low-cost alternative -- costing investors lots of money. The Standard & Poor's energy index lost 35.9% last year… Plenty of provocative but unproven ideas are out there [for green investments], which means that potential shareholders should be extremely careful… One way to find funds that invest in green companies is to contact socially responsible investing organizations. The Social Investment Forum (www.socialinvest.org), a financial industry association with an emphasis on ethical investments, puts out regular reports on the state of the industry. As of 2007, there were 260 mutual funds that marketed themselves as having been screened as socially or environmentally responsible investments. But experts urge caution even when dealing with such professionals. A 2007 Consumer Reports survey showed that most socially responsible mutual funds had lower returns and higher expenses than their mainstream counterparts."

Global Tourism and a Chilled Beach in Dubai. By James Kanter, NYTimes, January 4, 2009. "The idea of constructing an artificially cooled beach may sound a bit like an anachronistic excess in a world that is struggling to be more energy efficient. But a luxury hotel and condominium complex being constructed in Dubai by Gianni Versace, the Italian fashion house, will include a beach allowing guests to frolic on the sands - without becoming uncomfortably hot. The hotel, Palazzo Versace, to be completed in 2010, is aimed at the ultra-rich who live in or visit the desert emirate, where summer temperatures can go above 120 degrees. While some accounts of the plans for the beach say it will be cooled by air conditioning or even by refrigeration laid beneath the sand, other reports suggest the goal could be accomplished through clever landscaping and shading. Speaking to The Times of London two weeks ago, Soheil Abedian, the founder and president of Palazzo Versace, said a refrigerated beach could also be sustainable. 'We will suck the heat out of the sand to keep it cool enough to lie on,' Mr. Abedian told The Times. 'This is the kind of luxury that top people want.'"