Recent Articles

Interview with Photographer Edward Burtynsky

May 05, 2010 03:21

Edward Burtynsky is an internationally-reknowned photographer whose remarkable photographic depictions of global industrial landscapes – quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines and dams – are included in the collections of over fifty major museums around the world,...

Amory Lovins: What Can We Do to Fix the Climate Problem?

April 27, 2010 00:39

Amory B. Lovins contributed this Guest Article to EfficiencyLaw.com, which is especially relevant today, considering this weekend's announcement that U.S. climate legislation has suffered yet another setback in Congress. Mr. Lovins is a MacArthur Fellow and consultant physicist. He...

Amory Lovins: What Can We Do to Fix the Climate Problem?

April 27, 2010 00:39

Amory B. Lovins contributed this Guest Article to EfficiencyLaw.com, which is especially relevant today, considering this weekend's announcement that U.S. climate legislation has suffered yet another setback in Congress. Mr. Lovins is a MacArthur Fellow and consultant physicist. He...

Implications of Europe's 11% Drop in Carbon Emissions

April 01, 2010 15:31

The European Union announced today that carbon emissions under its Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) -- a mandatory private entity, market-based trading program through which EU member states reduce their carbon dioxide emissions while attempting to minimize adverse effects on economic...

Summary of Climate Legislation in the 111th Congress: Is Cap-and-Trade Dead?

March 12, 2010 02:01

In 2009, federal climate legislation stalled in the wake of economic downturn, health care reform, and the failure to reach an internationally binding agreement in Copenhagen. The unexpected loss of a Democratic Senate seat in January further weakened the prospects of enacting federal legislation...

Making Sense of EPA's Climate Regulations

February 11, 2010 01:09

Although the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Waxman-Markey climate bill (H.R. 2454) by a narrow margin over seven months ago, the U.S. Senate continues to consider its own version of the climate bill - a process which politicians from both sides of the aisle indicate might not happen...

Oil Drilling Not the Cause of Haiti Earthquake

February 07, 2010 02:29

In the 1920s, geologists in South Texas, an unlikely spot for earthquakes, noted faulting near the Goose Creek oil field.  Since then, University of Texas researchers showed that earthquakes in some parts of Texas may be induced by the pumping of fluids at oil and gas fields, or by the...

Oil Drilling Most Likely Not the Cause of Haiti Earthquake

February 07, 2010 02:29

In the 1920s, geologists in South Texas, an unlikely spot for earthquakes, noted faulting near the Goose Creek oil field.  Since then, University of Texas researchers showed that earthquakes in some parts of Texas may be induced by the pumping of fluids at oil and gas fields, or by the...

On Passing a Climate Bill on 59 Votes

January 27, 2010 20:38

In an article about healthcare earlier this month, Hendrik Hertzberg wrote in the New Yorker, On May 20, 1962, at Madison Square Garden, John F. Kennedy spoke to some twenty thousand people at a rally in support of a bill to provide hospital care for the aged [Medicare], one of forty-five such...

Budget Freeze Will Not Leave Fed's Energy Efficiency Goals Out in the Cold

January 27, 2010 03:46

On October 5, 2009, President Obama signed Executive Order 13514, which provided that "Federal agencies shall increase energy efficiency."  Although the Executive Order did not set a specific target for achieving this goal, in a speech earlier in the year, President Obama called...