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Beyond Reasonable Debate

by Kristen Sheeran • November 29, 2012 @ 11:56 am

It appears that scare tactics, slander, and intimidation are no longer exclusively the domain of climate denialists seeking to discredit climate science research. According to the actions of Richard Tol, an economist at the University of Sussex, it would seem that these are now acceptable forms of academic debate in economics.

Tol has waged a campaign to damage the reputation of economist Frank Ackerman. Ackerman’s crime? He published a peer-reviewed technical article in a highly reputable journal (“Climate Damages in the FUND Model: A Disaggregated Analysis,” Ecological Economics, 2012.) that critiques Tol’s signature contribution to the climate economics literature – the FUND model. Since then, Tol has written to Ackerman’s employer and publishers accusing him of libel. (more…)

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Great New Series on Drought in America

by Kristen Sheeran • July 30, 2012 @ 2:03 pm

The United States is experiencing its worst drought in half a century, with serious and far-reaching implications for everything from food supplies to electricity production, biofuels to property values. In an effort to raise awareness of the connection between climate change and severe drought,  the Union of Concerned Scientists has started a series of blog posts that explore the science as well as the impacts on agriculture, economics, energy, and the strain on water resources.

The first three posts in the series, can be found here:

The Enormous Costs of the 2012 Drought to American Farmers and Taxpayers, Rachel Cleetus, senior climate economist

Drought Double Whammy:  As the World Warms, U.S. Droughts Likely to be Hotter, More Damaging, Brenda Ekwurzel, climate scientist and assistant director of climate research and analysis

2012 U.S. Drought and Heat Expose Electricity Supply Risks, Erika Spanger-Siegfried, senior analyst

There will be a total of about 10 posts over the next three weeks. You can subscribe to 2012 Drought in America blog feed to receive notification when the next post is published.

 

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From Top-Down to Bottom-Up: New Directions for Climate at Rio+20

by Kristen Sheeran • June 21, 2012 @ 1:04 pm

In 2009, I published a book with Graciela Chichilnisky, Saving Kyoto (New Holland 2009), that argued passionately for preserving the economic and political architecture of the only international treaty on climate change the world has known – the Kyoto Protocol. The book was timely: the countdown to compliance with Kyoto’s mandated emissions targets had begun; the international community was gathering that year in Copenhagen to negotiate the next round of climate commitments; and there was hope that the Obama administration could usher the U.S. back to the negotiating table in earnest. More importantly from my perspective, however, was the growing realization that the window of opportunity for stabilizing the earth’s climate system was rapidly coming to a close. The urgency of the crisis demanded immediate, extensive emissions reductions. And I firmly believed that a coordinated international effort that mandated reductions from world’s largest emitters was the fairest and most efficient way to stave off climate disaster.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the famous Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and the signing of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), the international governance framework that eventually gave rise to the Kyoto Protocol. As the global community convenes again this week in Rio to establish goals and strategies for sustainable development for the next 20 years, its failures to arrest climate change over the last 20 years will be hard to deny. But it will also be hard to ignore the real energy, innovation, and progress around climate change that is emerging from the ground up all over the world. The examples are many, including Germany’s aggressive use of feed-in tariffs that is helping to drive down the costs of solar technology worldwide; the commitments of cities across the globe to redesigning their infrastructure, planning, and policies to dramatically slash emissions; and the emergence of regional emissions reduction schemes, such as California’s AB32 and the Northeast’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Even private industry is taking positive leaps forward toward embracing energy savings and preparing for future uncertainties around climate change and global energy prices (more…)

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