I’m just back from attending the 5th annual Oregon Citizens Utility Board energy conference here in Portland, Utility 2025: Building the Northwest’s Energy Future. Because of how the Northwest’s energy system is structured, the meeting was more of a regional conference than a purely state-level Oregon conference, with a good draw from the energy community […]
Climate Risk Dispatches From the Future
New Houston, Oregon, December 20, 2044 New Houston News Editorial Board: Pacific Northwest Global Warming Mystery Solved, and We’re Sorry It’s hard to imagine today that just a few short years ago the concept of human-caused global warming was a fiercely partisan issue in the United States. Conservative politicians, pundits, and even newspapers actively sought […]
Risky Business Project Memo to Oregon: “Don’t Worry, Be Happy?”
The Bloomberg-Paulson-Steyer Risky Business Project released its long-awaited report a little over a week ago. Risky Business: The Economic Risks of Climate Change in the United States and associated support documents add significantly to the climate risk literature, and have gotten a great deal of well-deserved press and social media attention. The stated goal of […]
Oregon Needs a Better Climate Change Vision
Oregon’s target of a 75 percent reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050 (from 1990 levels) is ambitious, but in isolation it’s only symbolic. It’s a target that Oregon can’t realistically achieve on its own, and even if it could it would have little, if any, impact on climate change. While reducing the state’s […]
