Blog

Last month in Rio de Janeiro, I spoke at a conference of the non-profit Global Sustainable Electricity Partnership (GSEP), which may be the most disruptive and subversive organization you’ve probably never heard of.

For nearly half a century, homeowners and utilities have mounted solar panels on rooftops and in massive generation projects in the desert. 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) recently urged states to join those already “refusing to go along” with USEPA regulations that would cut air pollution from coal fired power plants.

I just spent a week at the 15th Annual Delhi Sustainable Development Summit in India, a four-day eco-extravaganza for hundreds of participants from government, business, academics, and community organizations. 

Think how quickly we evolved from landline phones, that took weeks to install, to cellphones that take a few minutes to buy and activate. 

China and the US announced a substantial policy down payment on tackling greenhouse gas emissions in Beijing this week. 

It was fitting that New York hosted the recent UN climate change summit for several reasons. Let’s start with the old joke about the guy who jumps off the Empire State Building and, as he passes the 50th floor on this way down, is heard to say “so far so good.” But the pavement, that is looming larger by the minute to our clueless friend, is about to smack all of us in the face.

Thank goodness the graduation season is finally over. I witnessed pomp and circumstance at prep schools from Orlando to the Napa Valley and at colleges from Los Angeles to the Ivy League. The surprising topic at all of these cap-and-gown fests? Endowments divesting their holdings in fossil fuel companies.

Any American civics lesson includes the “balance of powers” of our government among its three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial.