Environmental

Less Than “Do Nothing” Congress?

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Less Than “Do Nothing” Congress?

Recently Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross interviewed New York Times congressional correspondent Jonathan Weisman about Congress’ coming summer recess and its inaction in the last term.  

Here is a description of the interview: 

Friday is the last day before the 113th Congress scatters for their summer recess. And what has it accomplished so far? Almost nothing, says New York Times congressional correspondent Jonathan Weisman. As he points out in a recent article:

“None of Congress’s 12 annual spending bills have reached Mr. Obama’s desk, and with the House and the Senate far apart on total spending levels, a government shutdown is possible on Oct. 1, when the current spending law expires.

“Once Congress returns on Sept. 9, lawmakers will have just nine legislative days until the current fiscal year ends and large swaths of the government would be forced to close.”

Weisman joins Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross to discuss why this Congress has passed so few laws, and explain some of the conflicts between Republican lawmakers and President Obama.

Morality of Environmentalism

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Morality of Environmentalism

Recently, the Philosophy Bites podcast discussed “Green Virtues” with NYU Law and Philosophy Professor Dale Jamieson. Here is description of the interview: 

How should we live? This is a basic philosophical question, but at at time when human beings’ actions are devastating the environment, we need to cultivate specific virtues, green virtues. Dale Jamieson outlines some of these virtues in this episode of thePhilosophy Bites podcast.

Economist Approach to Climate Change

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Economist Approach to Climate Change

Recently, NPR’s Planet Money team discussed the economics of climate change legislation.  

Here is a description of the story: 

 

Climate change seems like this complicated, intractable problem. But maybe it doesn’t have to be.

 

On today’s show, we talk to a couple economists about a very simple idea that could solve the climate-change problem: Tax carbon emissions.

 

A carbon tax could be paired with cuts in the income tax. And it would drive down emissions without picking winners or losers, and without creating complicated regulations.

 

Agriculture in the Age of Climate Change

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Agriculture in the Age of Climate Change

Recently, NPR’s Talk of the Nation discusses how agriculture has been affected by climate change with David Nielsen (Research Agronomist, Central Great Plains Research Station, Agricultural Research Service), David Wolfe (Climate Change Leader, Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, Professor of Horticulture, Cornell University), and Sally Mackenzie (Professor of Plant Science at the Center for Plant Science Innovation, University of Nebraska, Lincoln).

Here is a description of the segment: 

Scientists say climate change could increase pests and weeds, lengthen growing seasons and turn dry soil to dust. Farmers are already on the offensive, adopting no-till cropping methods to conserve water and experimenting with different seeds. And scientists are using a technique called gene silencing to develop new crops—without tinkering with the plants’ DNA.

Fracking: The Key to a Combating Climate Change?

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Fracking: The Key to a Combating Climate Change?

Fareed Zakaria recently disgusted how increase access to natural gas has led tode decreased CO2 admissions.  Zakaria posits further gains may be made by sharing our hydrofracturing technology with China.  Here is a description of the story: 

We have been thinking about an idea in the opinion pages of the New York Times to tackle one of the great challenges of our times: cutting carbon emissions to slow down climate change. It would result in the single largest reduction of CO2 emissions globally of any feasible idea out there. But there are a couple of hitches. Let’s explain.

Here’s the idea: it’s time to help China master fracking safely.

By now it’s clear that fracking (the process of extracting shale gas) has dramatically lowered America’s CO2 emissions. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in 2006, a fifth of our electricity came from natural gas, while almost 50 percent came from coal. By 2012, natural gas had increased its share to 30 percent of our electricity. Coal’s share dropped to 37 percent. The change was because of fracking: over that same period, shale gas production grew 800 percent.