Conservation Archives
In the wake of serial disappointments, a new consensus is beginning to emerge that may guide climate and energy policy into a new and more constructive phase, with philanthropy poised to play a key role.
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From the Chronicle of Philanthropy, February 20, 2011
By Lance Lindblom and Peter Teague
In the wake of serial disappointments, a new consensus is beginning to emerge that may guide climate and energy policy into a new and more constructive phase, with philanthropy poised to play a key role.
Environmental groups--and the foundations that support them--spent the past decade pressing a single approach to global-warming policy.
The problem was defined narrowly--if accurately--as the emission of too much heat-trapping gas into the atmosphere from the burning of oil, coal, and gas.
The solution was to reduce those emissions by making conventional energy expensive enough to change how individuals and corporations consume energy and, most important, to drive massive levels of private investment into energy efficiency and clean-energy alternatives.
The events of the past two years, however, with the failure of the environmentalists' strategy in the U.S. Senate and the collapse of international climate talks in Copenhagen, made it clear that substantially raising the price of fossil fuels is not a viable option.
Recognizing the need to rethink the problem and to open the conversation to a larger set of solutions, philanthropy has begun to support the development of new approaches focused on making clean energy cheap in absolute terms.
Continue reading "More Donors Need to Support Innovative Climate Solutions" »
Starting in the 1970s green groups helped kill new nuclear plants by claiming greater energy efficiency would slash energy consumption. It didn't. Energy demand rose 40 percent more than Amory Lovins predicted. The result? A coal-plant building boom. Time to rethink the role of energy efficiency.
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By Michael Shellenberger, Ted Nordhaus, and Jesse Jenkins
If there's one thing everyone knows for certain, it's that energy efficiency reduces energy consumption. President Obama, Steven Chu, Fortune 500 chieftains, Silicon Valley VCs, the U.N. and McKinsey all say it.
Why, then, does ever-greater efficiency go hand-in-hand with ever-greater energy consumption? In this week's New Yorker, journalist David Owen explains this apparent paradox. The essay (excerpted below) is as fascinating as anything written by Malcolm Gladwell. And the implications for energy and climate policy are of great significance.
Continue reading "The Efficiency Illusion" »
In honor of Earth Day, two new posts by Breakthrough writers argue that it's time to move from nature protection to technology innovation.
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Two new posts for Earth Day argue that we need to move from nature protection to tech innovation. Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger are in Slate and Mother Jones arguing that the focus on technology transfer as part of a global climate agreement is a distraction: clean tech IP has already been rapidly transferred to China -- soon it will be transferred back here.
And Breakthrough's Director of Climate and Energy Policy, Jesse Jenkins, dings America's political 'elites', including cap and trade author Rep. Ed Markey, for frequently suggesting, in the face of all this, that "clean energy jobs cannot be exported." Like American IP, U.S. clean tech jobs in manufacturing and innovation are already flowing overseas -- or being created there in the first place.
Continue reading "Earth Day: From Conservation To Innovation" »
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Cross-posted from Roger Pielke, Jr's Blog
I have been having an interesting debate with a few economists in a previous thread about Paul Krugman's views of climate policy. I read his latest piece as emphasizing energy conservation and de-emphasizing technology. A few economists write in the comments that my reading is "absurd." This matters of course because anyone who thinks that we can stabilize carbon dioxide concentrations at a low level via conservation while de-emphasizing technology just doesn't have a good grasp of the problem.
So I Googled around a bit to see what Krugman has said in the past. And guess what? He advocates energy conservation and de-emphasizes technology! Here are some of his earlier statements that are unambiguous on these matters and consistent with how I interpret his latest piece.
Continue reading "Does Paul Krugman Advocate Energy Conservation and Deemphasize Technology? Yes" »
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by Breakthrough Fellow Leigh Ewbank
Cross posted at US climate and energy blog, WattHead. Originally posted at The Real Ewbank.
Of all the news and commentary I read about Earth Hour in Australia, not once did I see a mention of the billions of people that now live in energy poverty. Event organizers and commentators failed to discuss the fact that while millions of people around the world symbolically switched off their lights for one hour, billions are desperate to turn their lights on.
According to the Baker Institute at Rice University:
"...roughly 1.6 billion people, which is one quarter of the global population, still have no access to electricity and some 2.4 billion people rely on traditional biomass, including wood, agricultural residues and dung, for cooking and heating. More than 99 percent of people without electricity live in developing regions, and four out of five live in rural areas of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa."
For an event that professes to support climate change solutions, one would think that addressing energy poverty without wrecking our climate would feature prominently in Earth Hour campaigning. So why was energy poverty ignored? And what does this say about the environmental thinking that informed Earth Hour?
Continue reading "The Limits of Earth Hour" »
The Passing of Sierra Club Giant Edgar Wayburn is a reminder of how much has changed in ecological politics -- and that prosperity and conservation go hand in hand.
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By Michael and Ted
He helped saved America's last giant ancient redwoods, build the Sierra Club and hiked among grizzlies. It must have been great for his health, because Edgar Wayburn, medical doctor and a great conservationist, passed away yesterday at 103.
Given his long life, this famous quote of his rings true:
In destroying wilderness we deny ourselves the full extent of what it means to be alive.
Wayburn was still active when the two of us were working to save Headwaters Forest, which was truly the last great ancient redwood grove in private hands, in the late 1990s. He helped create some of the most important parks nationally like Redwood National and Alaska, as well as ones closer to home: Golden Gate, Mt. Tamalpais, and Pt. Reyes -- achievements that helped keep the Bay Area (and Marin in particular) one of the most ecologically pleasing urban environments in the world.
The passing of an environmentalist giant like Wayburn is a reminder of how much things have changed. In remembering Wayburn and his achievements we should not lapse into nostalgia. The two greatest ecological issues of today are the far more complicated problems of global warming and global habitat destruction, both of which involve not just us, wealthy Americans, but also the world's poorest needing more energy and food to live like we live.
What we should carry on from Wayburn was his fierce love of nature and of the Bay Area. And from that love for the Bay Area, one of the most economically vibrant areas in the world, we should learn a vital lesson for our politics: prosperity goes well with conservation.
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