Tagged: climate change

Kentucky Congressman Ed Whitfield was on Platts Energy Week this weekend, responding to the energy and climate change issues President Obama mentioned in his State of the Union address. Whitfield, a Republican, is the chairman of the House Energy and Power subcommittee, and the interview can be summed up like this:

• Congressional action on climate change and greenhouse gas emissions is preferable than EPA action;
• ...but it will be hard to pass any sort of market-based approach through Congress.
• And really, is it necessary to regulate greenhouse gases?
  

Senators Barbara Boxer (D-California) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) are expected to unveil their version of a carbon tax today.

But the legislation won't be like anything that's been considered before.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Called "fee and dividend," the legislation is an unusual variant on a carbon tax. It would impose a fee on carbon emissions at their source, such as coal mines, raising the price of fossil fuel energy.

A year ago, President Obama rejected a proposed pipeline to transport oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. The Keystone XL pipeline is touted by oil companies as a way to expand the amount of oil that’s produced from the tar sands in Alberta, but its construction raises concerns about the environmental effects and climate change.

A new study says the heat that’s released from buildings and transportation in major urban areas can affect the temperature in cities far away.

The study was published Sunday in Nature Climate Change, and is the first to look at the effects of waste heat on temperature changes. The researchers found that the heat that’s released from buildings and cars in urban areas in the northern hemisphere can raise the temperature by about one degree Celsius.