Renewable energy growth falters as carbon dioxide hits record levels

Offshore wind farmThe past couple of weeks have seen the convergence of two troubling trends. Perhaps most troubling, the Scripps Institute of Oceanography released data last week from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that concentrations of carbon in the atmosphere have reached record levels unseen not just in human history, but in the scientific...

UN global climate report restores hope, lays out roadmap

Smokestacks [CREDIT: Global Climate Budget 2018]A new UN report on global climate change isn't quite as dire as one it issued last October. That special report on warming of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) showed that the effects of climate change could become catastrophic by 2040, at least 10 years earlier than scientists had predicted. Another report in December by private energy...

Most Americans plan action to alleviate climate change

Hurricane Florence approaches U.S. East Coast Sept. 12, 2018There's nothing like hitting people where they live to goad them into action. After a year of record fires in California and floods in Texas and on the East Coast, more Americans are taking climate change seriously—and significant portions are willing to take financial steps to combat it. The first poll, from the University of Chicago Energy...

Pruitt’s EPA emission rollback reasoning may well fail in court

EPA administrator Scott Pruitt  [photo from 2014]Despite the sturm und drang around the announcement by embattled EPA chief Scott Pruitt that he will relax emission limits for 2022 through 2025 vehicles, not much will happen immediately. His determination last week that the Obama administration was "incorrect" and that the limits on those vehicles weren't needed kicks off a lengthy process of...