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Energy & Environmental Policy

Targeting the Truly Vulnerable

  When we think of the places that are threatened by climate change, we think of tiny islands on the edge of pulling an Atlantis, coastlines where homes fall into the ocean when the shore erodes or the water levels rise, or the Sahara encroaching on land never meant to be part of a desert. […]

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Energy & Environmental Policy

Climate Change … or Not?

  In recent articles, I’ve been arguing that America has a teenager’s worst attitude about climate change: We need to stop slouching to our rooms and slamming doors shut, and start engaging developing countries on the issues that matter to them, like adapting to climate change within those countries’ borders and mitigating it within our […]

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Energy & Environmental Policy

Attitudes at the Knife’s Edge

  For the last week and a half, I have been in Ethiopia, conducting research on climate change and adaptation. Rambling around Addis Ababa and the Central Rift Valley has been an exercise in patience and flexibility, but also enormously informative and enjoyable. Ethiopia is a country that has been particularly hard-hit by climate-related disasters, […]

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Energy & Environmental Policy

Repackaging the Climate Change Debate

  If Americans are confused about anything lately, it seems that climate change and global warming are probably somewhere at the top of that list. While Republicans are set up as the enemies of climate regulation and Democrats as the defenders of the environment, survey data shows that many Americans are skeptical about climate change, especially the […]

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Energy & Environmental Policy

Getting Back to the BASICs of Climate Change

  Members of both chambers of the U.S. Congress are pushing bills that will dramatically slash what little funding the U.S. spends on climate change research and action. This includes major funding cuts for the EPA and other environmental initiatives across the States, as discussed in last week’s Baines Report. To this I say… So […]

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Energy & Environmental Policy

Oh, Those Onerous Environmental Programs

  In this, the age of budget deficits, no political party wants to be caught being the one without any budget cuts to advocate. President Obama handed down a budget that promised to cut troubled programs or programs that had not been able to deliver results, to achieve what one administration official told the Associated […]

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Energy & Environmental Policy

Ethiopia’s Got Big Ambitions

  In July 2010, Ethiopia’s Environment Protection Authority declared it would have a carbon-neutral economy by 2025. What? An entire country? Carbon neutral? While I know that developing countries emit considerably less carbon than countries like the United States do, this is a hard claim to swallow, especially in such a short timeframe.  Indeed, it […]

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Energy & Environmental Policy

Explaining NAPAs and Climate Change Adaptation

  Developed countries’ aid programs in Africa often center on responding to the challenges created by climate change, such as desertification, coastal erosion, flooding, and myriad other problems affecting food supply, availability of water, and livelihoods of the impoverished. Through the use of National Adaptation Programs of Action, developed according to guidelines agreed upon internationally, […]

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Energy & Environmental Policy

Thirsty Texas

Mark Twain allegedly once said, “Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over.” While Mark Twain was a Missourian, his words also ring true for Texans. And boy, do we fight over water. Water makes frequent appearances in Texas Supreme Court trials about rights to pump groundwater and flooding due to construction and the […]

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