Uncategorized

The Trump nightmare is over, and it’s difficult to adjust to good news coming from DC. On Earth Day Biden announced his plan for US climate leadership. It’s a giant and overdue step in the right direction, but there’s still a huge lift ahead of us. Here are excerpts from […]

The election of Democrat Jon Ossoff to the U.S. Senate from Georgia conjures a scenario absent from the U.S. for more than a decade: Senate control by a party motivated to enact climate policy. From Bloomberg Green, Jan.11, 2021: President-elect Joe Biden campaigned aggressively on climate change and racial justice. In mid-July he […]

Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia pledged to slash greenhouse gas emissions. In a decade full of big talk and epic battles, they all failed. See Grist, Jan. 11, 2021 With dozens of people killed by wildfires in the western U.S., millions of acres scorched, and choking smoke spreading far into […]

EVs sales up 40% in 2020; Europe more than doubles The IEA reports that new EV sales increased 40% in 2020 over 2019. There are over 10 million EVs on the road. If car sales continue to increase by 40% annually, then essentially all light vehicle sales will be EVs […]

New research shows that most fossil fuel plants will have reached the end of their expected lives by 2035, making it easier to envision Joe Biden’s climate plan. From Inside Climate News, Dec. 10, 2020: What if President-elect Joe Biden’s plan to get to 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2035 […]

Call your legislator and have them try this very simple spreadsheet that illustrates the big actions necessary to cut emissions at the IPCC rate. State legislators, agencies, and NGOs continue to offer incremental policy measures to decarbonize Oregon and Washington. More often than not, the sum total of these increments […]

We have a problem. We don’t know what we want. We complain to anyone about how things are going wrong, but we can’t seem to share a vision of what it is we really want. We haven’t learned to envision the world that could be. On the contrary, we are […]

The UK will cut greenhouse gas emissions further and faster than any other major economy in the next decade, according to a new carbon target set out by the prime minister. There will be a reduction of 68% in annual carbon emissions by 2030, compared with 1990 levels, a significant […]

Joe Biden often calls climate change an “emergency.” Soon he will have to decide whether to officially declare it one when he takes office. Some environmentalists are pushing the president-elect to proclaim global warming a national emergency, giving him more power to take executive actions to tackle it.  “The reason […]

Both the San Jose City Council and Oakland City Council on Tuesday approved measures to prohibit natural gas infrastructure in newly constructed buildings, adding to the growing list of more than 40 California cities to pass such ordinances. More about Bay Area cities banning new gas hookups here. See recent […]

A rule of thumb in election years is that presidential candidates woo their political base with bold policies in primaries, then take the partisan edge off to court undecided voters in the fall.  From Bloomberg Green newsletter Oct. 26, 2020: So why did Democratic candidate Joe Biden wait until general election season to introduce […]

Wind, solar, batteries, and now green hydrogen are disrupting incumbent grid technologies, especially coal, nuclear, and gas for electricity generation. Such technology disruptions became common since the 1980s, when personal computers started replacing mainframe computers, then cell phones obsoleted wireline phones, then the internet disrupted numerous industries, and smart phones–first […]

As we experience compounding effects of a warmer atmosphere, warmer and more acidic oceans, political sabotage of mitigation efforts, and generally disturbing news reports, we also need to be aware of the positive forces and progress being made on the financial and technology fronts. It’s debilitating to feel powerless, but […]

We already have all the tools we need to fix climate change. We just need to use them. This broad, authoritative, and positive podcast with MacArthur fellow Saul Griffith is about decarbonizing our energy and why that future will be better. It’s 1.5 hours and well worth the time, recorded […]

Can countries transform the global energy system using a mechanism fundamentally at odds with expert views on how systems actually change? At the international climate change negotiations in Madrid, we’re giving it a shot. Trading carbon is widely said to make emissions cuts cheaper. But for whom? And why is it dominating climate […]

The December Strid Energy Report investigates what it takes for the US to decarbonize light vehicles fast enough to meet the physical requirement. Spoiler alert: it’s a giant bargain. Maybe this is how the Carbon Bubble bursts. Download the pdf here.

Another article about how much we subsidize fossil fuels to destroy our ecosystems, this one in a magazine catering to ultra-rich, Forbes: In November, I wrote that fossil fuel subsidies worth $700 billion are stalling the energy transition. Many readers emailed me asking for specific examples of these subsidies. Others pointed out […]

Scientists have a moral obligation to clearly warn humanity of any catastrophic threat and to “tell it like it is.” On the basis of this obligation more than 11,000 scientist signatories from around the world, clearly and unequivocally display data showing that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency. Do you […]

The Strid Energy Report for November 2019 addresses EV policy design. Electric vehicles (EVs) are approaching cost tipping points that will trigger rapid adoptions. Mainstream EVs will reach purchase-price parity in the 2020’s. The co-benefits of vehicle decarbonization include huge cost savings on fuels, healthcare, and maintenance; plus benefits to […]

On October 15, members of the Columbia Gorge Climate Action Network and the Hood River High School Earth Club proposed that the City of Hood River adopt a Declaration of Climate Emergency. Background: The goal of the Climate Emergency Campaign of The Climate Mobilization is to compel governments to adopt […]

Exxon and Oil Sands Go on Trial in New York Climate Fraud Case by Nicholas Kusnetz, Inside Climate News The New York attorney general says Exxon used two sets of books and misled investors by downplaying the potential costs of carbon emissions. NEW YORK, New York — In late 2013, […]

This article from the North Coast Journal details what went right and wrong during a PSPS blackout on Oct. 8-9. It’s a wake-up call that Gorge communities should learn from. It was 5:22 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 8, when Dorie Lanni’s cell phone rang. It had already been a hectic […]

Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and other big banks are getting an earful from environmental groups over what’s set to be the biggest initial public offering in history. The reason? The firm planning to go public is the largest oil company in the world. If you have investments with any of […]

A common misconception around electric vehicles is that they’re too expensive for average Americans. Here, we compare the true costs of driving an EV compared to gas cars. Sticker price According to Kelley Blue Book, the average price of a new car in the United States in September 2019 was $37,590. […]