Articles by Paul
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The Energy 202: Democrats slammed Biden on climate change. But what would a ‘middle ground’ even look like?
Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote there is “no ‘middle ground’ when it comes to climate policy.” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) condemned politicians seeking “a middle-of-the-road approach to save our lives.” Both standard-bearers…
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Biden May Be The ‘Perfect Person’ to Enact A True Green Deal, But He Needs A Better Climate Plan
Rival Democratic Presidential candidates and climate activists continue to pounce days after the fact on the poor characterization of a “middle ground” on climate policy by an adviser to Joe Biden. The staying power of this…
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EVs will have to replace oil-burning engines
[Financial Times subscription required to read this article.] In the US, coal’s share of electricity production has dropped by half in the past two decades, with not a single new coal plant built in almost a decade. Remarkably…
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America Is Losing the World’s Biggest Manufacturing and Climate Race: Electric Vehicles
Suppose a Presidential candidate proposed a policy that would produce the following benefits: a resurgence of U.S. auto industry production and the creation of thousands of new, high-paying manufacturing jobs; cleaner air…
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Winning the Global Race on Electric Cars
On Donald Trump’s watch, America is losing what is probably the most important new manufacturing opportunity in the world–the global race to produce affordable electric vehicles that people want…
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Jam-packed primary poses a serious threat to Democrats in 2020
For tens of millions of Americans overridingly concerned with finding a presidential candidate who can beat Donald Trump in 2020, how the left-of-center and abnormally large Democratic primary field is shaping up is a topic…
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Hickenlooper’s Real Green Deal
In announcing his candidacy for president this week, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper emphasized “getting things done” by citing Colorado’s jump from 40th in job growth to the top 10, its provision of health care…
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Trump border emergency is fake and climate crisis is real. Guess which just got funded?
One emergency, the border wall, is fake, invented by a rogue president desperate for a political win no matter the price. Another, the climate crisis, is real, with tens of millions of citizen victims around the country. Guess which…
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Green New Deal Must Grow Up Fast To Influence Bills Congress is Already Writing
Little noticed in the media circus surrounding the mere introduction of a non-binding Congressional resolution on the Green New Deal was the deletion of much-criticized and plainly unachievable mandates contained in previous…
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Trump Suggests Raiding Money from Climate-Disaster Victims to Fund Border Wall
President Trump is considering raiding money from relief funds designated for victims of storms and wildfires exacerbated by climate change, in a last-ditch attempt to get money for his dubious border wall…
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As U.S. Emissions Spike Under Trump, Democrats Pursue Real Climate Policies, Not Green Wish Lists
Leading researchers today released a report finding that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions rose by more than 3.4% in 2018, the first increase since 2006 and the largest rise in 20 years. This news comes both as…
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Going Nowhere Fast on Climate, Year After Year
Thirty years ago, a NASA scientist, James Hansen, told lawmakers at a Senate hearing that “global warming is now large enough that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence…
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Takeaway from Poland: Climate success requires action by global leaders — including US president
The biggest takeaway from two weeks of climate negotiations in Poland is simple, if breathtaking: climate change is such a massive and existential issue that it can only be effectively dealt with…
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Climate studies say warming may cost US $500 billion a year — it will cost much more
Three stunningly dire climate change reports have emerged in the last month, including the UN “Emissions Gap” report released this week and the U.S. National Climate Assessment released last Friday…
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Wildfire and other climate costs are rising — fast
[Financial Times subscription required to read article.] If anything, your recent coverage of California’s wildfires (“The stark message from California raging fires”, editorial, and “Insurers grapple…
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House Democrats Must Be Strategic To Win On Energy And Climate Change
By all accounts, House Democrats return to Washington this week to begin planning their priorities for 2019 in an aggressive frame of mind. But on climate change and energy issues, rather than simply responding…
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Trump’s Blowhard Tactics on Climate Change and Storms Foreshadow A Political Blue Wave
In the last two years the U.S. has suffered from record hurricanes, rainfall, floods, wildfires and other disasters made worse by rising temperatures and sea levels…
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As Heat-Fueled Hurricane Threatens Washington, Global Climate Leaders Begin to Act in California
This week Hurricane Florence, a massive Category 4 storm made larger by warmer than normal ocean temperatures, is bearing down on the Mid-Atlantic coast, including the Washington, DC region, where President Trump…
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John McCain Knew Climate Protection Would Take Legislation, Not Just Regulation
It is a sad irony that John McCain died within just a few days of President Trump overturning Clean Power Plan regulations to limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. For McCain was the prominent…
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Lower-Emitting U.S. Natural Gas Can Gain Export Markets
President Trump’s efforts to expand European imports of American natural gas thus far have consisted of tweeting and jaw-boning, approaches notably ineffective with EU allies whom he has sometimes cast as “foes”…
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EU must reduce reliance on Russian gas supplies
Megan Greene’s op-ed (Opinion, December 16) is right that near-term US sanctions against Russia have very limited effectiveness. This is precisely why the EU must pursue longer-term strategies to reduce Russian sway, including cutting the EU’s costly reliance on Russian natural gas…
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Can America prevent a global warming cold war?
At the 11th hour of climate negotiations in Scotland last week, the U.S. and China released a “Joint Glasgow Declaration on Enhancing Climate Action in the 2020s” outlining increased cooperation on a wide range of climate and clean energy topics…
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How to Limit Temperature Increases in the Very Near Term
If the years of devastating droughts, floods, heat waves and wildfires since the Paris climate agreement was adopted have taught us anything, it’s that we have underestimated the pace of extreme, destabilizing climate change…
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America needs a climate plan compromise
President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda is making its way through Congress via a budget reconciliation bill — a once-in-a-generation opportunity for America to reassert its leadership in combating the climate crisis…
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All Democrats must compromise to pass economic plans, just like 1993
With the benefit — and the challenge — of very narrow Democratic majorities in Congress, a first-year president attempts to pass his major economic plan to reanimate the American middle-class…
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Congress must ensure electric vehicles are within reach for all American drivers
There is growing consensus in the auto industry, the Biden administration and among Democrats in Congress that electric vehicles are critical to both the future of American manufacturing and to cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions…
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We need Biden’s economic plan to rebuild the middle class
For more than 40 years, a central narrative of American politics, successfully pushed by the Republican Party, has been that government is ineffectual at best, and counterproductive more often than not. Or, as President Ronald Reagan, a former…
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Climate devastation is upon us. Congress must act.
Last week, on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Ida unleashed 150 mile-an-hour winds and slammed into New Orleans, super-fueled to huge size and rain-making power by the Gulf of Mexico whose temperatures are 3 to 5 degrees higher…
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Letter: Autocratic states are thwarting climate action
Leslie Hook’s insightful story on G20 climate action (July 26) noted that autocratic regimes in China, Russia and Saudi Arabia deliberately prevented a decision to end fossil fuel subsidies…
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VIDEO: Paul Bledsoe discusses extreme heat and climate change
California State Senator Melissa Hurtado and former Communications Director for the White House Climate Change Task Force Paul Bledsoe talk to Kendis Gibson and Lindsey Reiser about the dangerous new reality of extreme heat.
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