September 18, 2019 | By Cory Felder and Dan Cross-Call RMI This Spring, Colorado ascended to the top tier of state-led clean energy policy in the United States. In the final days of May, Governor Jared Polis signed 11 bills ushering in a wave of key policy changes to advance decarbonization and clean energy in the state. The legislature codified an electricity sector greenhouse gas (GHG) …
Climate Policy Foes Seize on New White House Rule to Challenge Endangerment Finding: it gave the fossil fuel industry new ways to oppose and delay science-based policy
The new rule, quietly issued as a Trump administration memo in April, gave the fossil fuel industry new ways to oppose and delay science-based policy. By Marianne Lavelle, The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the EPA had the authority to regulate greenhouse gases as pollutants if it found that they were a danger to human health and the …
How America’s food giants swallowed the family farms: Across the Midwest, the rise of factory farming is destroying rural communities
Across the midwest, the rise of factory farming is destroying rural communities. And the massive corporations behind this devastation are now eyeing a post-Brexit UK market by Chris McGreal, The Guardian, 9 Mar 2019 When the vast expanse of rural Iowa was carved up for settlers in the 19th century, it was often divided into 160-acre lots. Four farms made a …
3 key traits of good climate policy, tackling the problems we have and making a large, meaningful impact on carbon emissions and climate change
Good climate policy has 3 key traits: It has a large, meaningful impact on carbon emissions and climate change. It specifically tackles the problems that aren’t already being tackled by the market. It actually gets passed into law. All of that is compatible with a Green New Deal. In just the past decade, solar power has gone from being uneconomical anywhere on …