Concentration of CO2 in the Atmosphere

The True Importance of COP28: It’s In Our Hands Now

TAKING THE INITIATIVE: Carl Pope’s Blog December 17th, 2023 San Francisco, CA

Common sense prevailed at the last COP28 moment, with the symbolic agreement to commit the world to moving beyond fossil fuels (as it had been doing rather steadily during the conference). One importance of the agreement is that future COP’s can start out […]

COP 28: ON THE VERGE OF MAJOR PROGRESS, BUT HEADED FOR THE ROCKS

TAKING THE INITIATIVE: Carl Pope’s Blog

December 11, 2023 San Francisco, CA

As we head into its final week, COP28 risks running aground, distracted by disagreements – if important ones – over strategy in the 2040’s. Are we aiming to phase out fossil fuels or emissions from those fuels instead. What does the climate end […]

The “Lower Energy Costs Act” is a Fossil-Fuel Scam

Carl Pope

“This article earlier published in Salon”

Kevin McCarthy’s first legislative farce: The “Lower Energy Costs Act” is a fossil-fuel scam.

The first new legislation of Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s Republican Congress — HR1, the Lower Energy Costs Act — is an exorbitantly mislabeled bill. It allows utilities and pipeline companies to build […]

Gas price records mean OPEC has to be cut down to size

Carl Pope

by Carl Pope

U.S. gas prices have reached a record high. My local gas station has been over $6 for some time. Congress can, and should, fix this.

A global oil exporting cartel led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, known as OPEC, has driven the world economy to the verge of […]

The surprisingly hopeful moral of the UN climate summit

Carl Pope

From my perspective, last month’s UN Climate Summit in Glasgow (perhaps better known as COP26) was not an operating room, something designed to treat and cure a dying world; it was more like a clinic, affording a chance for the patient to find out just how bad the prognosis is. Reading between the […]

Why did Ida cause so much less damage than Katrina? Because government did its job

Carl Pope

“A version of this article appeared in Salon“

The most significant images from Hurricane Ida’s devastating landfall on the Gulf Coast are the ones we are not seeing: no refugees huddled in the Superdome, no shots of block after block of New Orleans under water, no miles of overtopped and crumbling […]

Climate Change Is Making the U.S. Poorer Than It Realizes

Carl Pope

“A version of this article appeared in Bloomberg”

The trillion-dollar spending package that the Senate has passed along to the House is being described as a once-in-a-generation fix for America’s deteriorating infrastructure. It should be viewed as only the first in a long series of such big investments, because […]

Climate tipping point?

ExxonMobil’s shareholder revolt and the end of the line for fossil fuels

Carl Pope

From Carl Pope’s blog:

A version of this article appeared in Salon.

Few days spell out the future as clearly as this Wednesday did in terms of energy and climate action. The dikes of denial behind which Big Carbon […]

Why Texas froze (and California fried): This disaster was 90 years in the making

TAKING THE INITIATIVE: Carl Pope’s Blog, Feb 23, 2021

The catastrophe that swept Texas last week was 90 years in the making. Its roots lie in a decision during the 1930s to escape federal regulation of power rates under the terms of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal by forcing all Texas utilities to avoid importing […]

Nothing Can Stop America’s Clean Energy Revolution

TAKING THE INITIATIVE: Carl Pope’s Blog

Senate Gridlock Can’t Stop America’s Clean Energy Revolution

In naming former Secretary of State John Kerry to become America’s global climate czar, President-elect Joe Biden is wasting no time making emissions reduction a top White House priority. Political observers are already gaming how […]