Posts by: adam

Recipe: brussel sprouts with mint and apples

Either it's a brutally slow week for news, or I'm in some sort of post-holiday slump. In either case, I'm going to close out this week's entries with some low-carbon cooking. If you don't like brussel sprouts, stop reading. If, like all right-thinking people, you understand that brussel sprouts are awesome, but want to move beyond the "sautee in buckets… read more →

Looking back, looking forward: 2009

In last year's retrospective, I wrote of the lags and leaps that characterize progress on climate change. It's perhaps indicative of the knife's edge precariousness of the current political situation that I'm not really sure whether 2009 counts as a lag or a leap. On the leap side: the U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill capping carbon emissions… read more →

Wind dome simulates violent weather

This is an old-ish story, but Christmas is a slow news week, and anyway it's kind of cool: Tyler Hamilton reports that the University of Western Ontario is building a first-of-its-kind hexagonal wind tunnel capable of simulating real-world wind conditions such as tornadoes, storm downbursts, low-level jets, and gusts. The system will have many uses, chief among them improving the… read more →

The Copenhagen Wheel

I hold the possibly idiosyncratic view that hybrid electric bicycles could be a significant mode of transportation in the future. Hybrid electric bicycles add a battery pack and a motor to a standard bike frame, providing a boost to riders as they pedal up hills, haul loads, or just cruise around town. Although bicycle purists look down on them, hybrids… read more →

Toyota to sell plug-ins, but mass adoption still a long way off

Responding to competitive pressures, Toyota has is now planning to sell a plug-in Prius in 2011: > Toyota, the world’s largest automaker, dominates the current generation of gas-electric hybrid vehicles, but it has refrained from rushing lower-emission cars like the plug-in hybrid to market. Instead, Toyota has focused on plans to introduce regular hybrid technology to all its models by… read more →

From the mouth of James Hansen

I went to a talk last night by NASA scientists James Hansen. Sure was depressing.* You probably know Hansen as an outspoken climate scientist, developer of one of the earliest accurate climate models, and one of the first experts to testify before the U.S. Congress -- in 1988 -- about the dangers of CO2 emissions. You may also know Hansen… read more →

Meet the Wall Street climate change lobby

This is timely. The Center for Public Integrity -- the group behind the lobbying figures I recently summarized -- has sponsored a series of "meet the lobbyists" investigative pieces, and they just ran one on the emissions trading industry. A couple of passages jumped out at me: > The traders are still an emerging force. "It's a bit premature to… read more →

The conspiracy behind the climate change bill — revealed!

Among the odder aspects of Annie Leonard's conspiracy theory about the influence of Wall Street over climate legislation is the fact that we already know perfectly well who is exerting influence over climate change legislation. There's no mystery, no surprise. What's the phrase that conveys the opposite of a conspiracy? Because that's what we have here: the usual suspects, operating… read more →

Why does Annie Leonard hate the environment?

Annie Leonard, creator of the anti-consumerist video The Story of Stuff, has now offered up The Story of Cap and Trade, a video purporting to debunk legislation representing the best hope we have of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The video has already provoked some excellent commentary elsewhere, so I'll try to limit myself to a few big-picture thoughts in response… read more →
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