Here are five recommended reads for today (3/24/15).
- Joe Romm of Climate Progress argues: "The Smithsonian risks damaging its reputation by having a polluter-funded science denier on the payroll and a wildly misleading Koch-funded exhibit that downplays the risks posed by human-caused climate change. It’s time for the world’s self-proclaimed “largest museum and research complex,” to live up to its mission — and its own climate statement — and cut ties with the anti-science, pro-pollution crowd."
- Greentech Media writes: "Solar panels, smart meters, energy storage, electric vehicles and microgrids are transforming the distribution grid and spurring debates around a model for “utility 2.0.” But while technology is stimulating change, policy drove the conversation at a meeting of electricity industry leaders last week, hosted by the Edison Foundation's Institute for Electric Innovation."
- Tina Casey writes at CleanTechnica: "As if the fossil fuel industry needed more bad news, the US Energy Department has just put out the call for new, longer wind turbine blade technology that will unlock an additional one million square miles of land for wind energy development. The new funding opportunity is relatively small at $1.8 million...but this is truly a case of a little going a long way."
- According to the NRDC Switchboard blog: "The reason governors are not rushing to McConnell's bandwagon is that the Clean Power Plan puts states in the driver's seat, and they want to stay there. As my colleague David Doniger points out here, for 45 years, the Clean Air Act has empowered states to shape their own pollution reduction plans. EPA steps in only if the states fail to act. McConnell is suggesting that states refuse to take control to tailor their own plans."
- Bloomberg reports, "Beijing, where pollution averaged more than twice China’s national standard last year, will close the last of its four major coal-fired power plants next year."