A round-up of the top climate and energy news. Please post other links below.
Oklahoma oil billionaire Harold Hamm didn’t wait long to make a nearly $1 million donation to a group supporting Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney after he became one of Romney’s top energy advisers in March. [Washington Post]
Heartland’s seventh climate conference, which runs until Wednesday, was a much diminished event, compared to earlier lavish gatherings which spilled out over several floors of a hotel in New York’s Time Square, and attracted up to 800 followers. [Guardian]
The farm bill, that cyclical flashpoint, is up for reauthorization in Congress this year, and reforms are needed to help small and organic farms obtain crop insurance, the Union of Concerned Scientists argues in a new report. [New York Times]
A European envoy held out a possible compromise in a fight with China over carbon emissions charges on airlines, saying Wednesday that Europe might alter its system if Beijing helps negotiate global regulations. [Washington Post]
The biggest reforms to the UK energy sector in two decades were set out on Tuesday, prompting warnings from consumer groups and green campaigners that they would raise bills and penalise renewable energy while boosting nuclear power. [Guardian]
An Israeli solar company says it has raised more than $200 million to build eight solar energy fields in the country’s southern desert. [Washington Post]
Outgoing Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) said Tuesday that the Keystone XL pipeline approval mandate that is currently being debated by a conference committee on a proposed multi-year surface transportation bill will lead to higher prices if it becomes law. [The Hill]
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An additional clean energy and climate news roundup is posted at http://www.marcaccicomms.com/news/energy-and-environment-news-roundup-5-23-12/
What a waste of money.
Anyway:
Germany Returns to Coal
Coal use will rise an estimated 13.5 percent in Germany this year, resulting in at least 14 million metric tons of additional carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, even as the nation continues to idle two-fifths of its nuclear power fleet. ( http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/2012/05/germany_returns_to_coal.shtml )
They never actually left it. Germany used “clean” gains from unification and industrial outsourcing to tout reductions in emissions that were basically automatic.
The green community brainwashed by the bad science of anti nuclear movement embraced shuttering nuclear over combating climate change.
Another victory for the UK’s ‘greenest ever Government’. The politics of the Big, Big, Big Lie go from strength to strength.