Tag archives for obama
Posted by Aziz Abu Sarah grew up throwing stones at Israelis. Then he took a class with them.
What Is the True Social Cost of Carbon?
Posted by Tim Profeta of Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University on September 20, 2012 A new study in the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences contends that the U.S. government significantly underestimated the social cost of carbon in 2010 in its effort to establish a unified cost of carbon for various agencies to use when formulating policy. The government arrived at a cost at $21 per ton of carbon, but the new study argues the…
Obama Calls for “All of the Above” Energy Strategy for America
Posted by Mason Inman on January 26, 2012 In President Obama’s third State of the Union address, he devoted more time than before to covering energy issues, calling for an “all-out, all-of-the-above” approach to boosting production of every kind of domestic energy, fossil as well as renewable. Obama also asked the country to imagine “a future where we’re in control of our own…
Oil, Gasoline Prices Hit All-Time Highs in 2011—and May Continue Rising
Posted by Mason Inman on January 12, 2012 Average prices of oil and gasoline at the pump reached an all-time high in 2011, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data. Brent crude oil, the global benchmark, averaged $111 a barrel—the first time it broke $100 for a whole year. In some ways, these records snuck up on Americans, since there was no extreme…
Fight Over Tar Sands Pipeline May Lead to Cancellation, “Huge” Consequences
Posted by Mason Inman on January 5, 2012 In November, the Obama administration decided to delay a decision on whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline to bring tar sands from Canada to the United States. But in December, Republicans attached a provision to a tax bill, which President Obama signed, that urges the administration to decide on the pipeline within 60 days,…
After Tar Sands Pipeline Decision Delayed, Other Routes Sought
Posted by Mason Inman on November 17, 2011 The Obama administration delayed deciding whether to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which has been proposed to carry tar sands from Canada to Texas’s Gulf Coast. The administration said it should consider alternate routes and wait until early 2013 to decide. Industry officials in Canada thought the delay may derail the pipeline, and threaten the country’s…
Big Businesses’ Call for Climate Action: Strong Treaty, More Aid
Posted by Mason Inman on October 20, 2011 A group of 285 large investors, representing more than $20 trillion in assets, urged world governments to forge a binding treaty at upcoming climate negotiations in Durban, South Africa, and said global spending has not been nearly enough to keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius. The call came from a coalition of four green investment groups—representing the…
Beleaguered EPA Must Take Charge of Greenhouse Gases, Supreme Court Rules
Posted by Mason Inman on June 23, 2011 In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court shot down a global warming lawsuit several states and environmental groups had brought against five of America’s biggest utilities, responsible for about one-tenth of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. The case was aimed at getting the court to rule greenhouse gas emissions a public nuisance and order the defendants…
Posted by On Monday U.S. President Barack Obama officially released his policy for the nation’s space program, a 14-pager that backs up what many media outlets have been covering as the likely direction for NASA and beyond. The highlights: cooperate with other governments on Earth- and sun-monitoring satellites that feed us vital data on climate change and…
Capping off weeks of rumor and speculation, U.S. President Barack Obama formally unveiled his proposed plan for NASA yesterday, an interesting mix of caution and ambition that makes some significant tweaks to his predecessor’s push for a human return to the moon. Among the main points, Obama is saying we should skip the moon and…
Making Waves in Washington
Posted by Ford Cochran on June 22, 2009 President Obama is grabbing the bull by the horns (and the fisheries by their quotas) and taking action on the ocean. The President swiftly responded to a request by the Joint Oceans Commission (JOC) to revise United States ocean policy. I’m pleased to see signs that the Obama administration is making the ocean a priority,…
Posted by Satellite image courtesy of GeoEye This is what the National Mall in Washington, D.C., looked like some 40 minutes before Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States two days ago. GeoEye-1, the world’s highest resolution commercial Earth-imaging satellite, collected the image over the United States Capitol from 423 miles…
On November 20, 1998, a bus-size hunk of electronics poetically named Zarya, Russian for “dawn,” blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The module was the first piece of the International Space Station, which after ten years and 29 construction deliveries is the largest spacecraft ever built, comparable in size to a five-bedroom house—albeit…
