climate-change – Between Hell and High Water

Invest in Coal?

By Mike Koetting June 4, 2024

I wasn’t planning on writing another blog on environmental issues so soon, but my interest was severely piqued when I saw a recent article in the Chicago Tribune with the headline:

Communities Being Urged to
Double-Down on Coal

I assumed this was surely not what it appeared to be but was a clever hook for some different kind of story. I was curious enough to look.

Nope. The story was pretty much as advertised. A little more complicated, but the headline was straight. A number of communities around the state who are currently getting their electricity from coal-burning plants are being asked to extend their commitments to coal into the 2050s. To be fair, part of the argument is that by extending their commitment, they would finance the development of carbon-capture technology so that by 2050 it would be “net zero”.

Creating Clean Energy Is Not Enough

By Mike Koetting May 21, 2024

The struggle to adjust to changing environmental conditions is not a challenge that can be resolved by fragmented, individual policy decisions. It requires a network of mutually organized and supportive policies. None of the individual policies will be perfect—and can certainly be pecked to death if we let it happen. But we will thrive, perhaps just survive, only if we look at how the totality of responses work together to achieve an adequate outcome.

What’s going on with the nation’s electric supply puts very bright lights on this issue.

Posturing of Republican States a Planetary Threat

By Mike Koetting April 22,2024

My last post used property insurance to illustrate how climate change is already intruding on our day-to-day lives. When I started that post, I had the vague idea that this might be causing some softening of attitudes, even in Red states. Talk about misbegotten hopes!

Rather, the impact of these states pretending environmental threats are not man-made has a greater rippling effect than I anticipated.

Property Insurance: An Environmentally Endangered Species

By Mike Koetting April 9, 2024

I believe one of the reasons that people discount the threats to our environment is that they imagine them as some really catastrophic events resulting in the kind of dystopian science fiction scenario portrayed in a Mad Max movie. Since that is, literally, unthinkable, it gives license to lower the immediate threat level.

However, it is not likely it will happen like that. It is much, much more likely that things will come apart gradually, one problem after another, each compounding the previous. It has already started to happen, poking successive holes in the fabric of our life. Today’s conversations are no longer just about the future.

This post addresses one of these clear and present problems—the retreat of home owners’ insurance in the face of environmental threats.

WTO or WTI—World Trade Organization or What Then Instead?

By Mike Koetting March 26, 2024

My attention was piqued last week when I noticed two articles suggesting that the wheels were coming off the World Trade Organization (WTO), the 160-something nation member organization whose members have agreed to negotiate, implement and abide by common rules for international trade under the premise of free trade. I started to think about the implications of its collapse and whether that was good thing or a bad thing. Oh, and I suppose, whether or not it was close to death.

Let’s start with the last. My Peanut Gallery View of the facts suggest that the WTO is facing some major problems. The most recent of its biennial meetings ended with no major agreements despite some serious issues on the table. The dispute resolution mechanism has come to a standstill as the United State has blocked appointments to the resolution panel for seven years. The Global South, particularly South Africa and India, have used their ability to block many resolutions. Competition between the U.S. and China has spilled into a wide range of issues.