Good. Good that this position is being created; good that it’s going to John Kerry (a former Secretary of State, former US Senator, and 2004 Democratic nominee for president). Kerry has been involved in the high-level climate scene since at least the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
More from BBC News online; and from the New York Times, in a story about potential nominees for DHS and Climate tzardom, here. (Also from the NY Times Biden Plans to Move Fast With a ‘Climate Administration.’ Here’s How.)
Update: It’s almost too much to keep up with today: GM just dropped out of the T**** Administration’s lawsuit against California’s fuel economy standards (perhaps after MI certified the election results?). This was always a stupid legal action from any strategic point of view — PR, business development, growth abroad, etc. (A diesel overland vehicle is still my dream car, but the car of my most fevered dreams combines the range and remote fixability of an internal combustion engine with the insane torque and reliability of electric drive.) Although I am skeptical that we will have the capacity to transform transportation utterly to EVs in the next few decades (limited rare Earth minerals for batteries, slipping back into using coal and gas to satiate sudden bursts of demand for electricity, failure to bring EV costs down), demand for autos was on the down-slide through this year, led mainly in the developed world (where manufacturers can charge a premium). Does GM want to be in a similar position 5 or 10 years from now that it found itself in the 80s, displaced by less expensive, superior products from Japan and Europe, because no one wanted big-block V8s bolted onto a rattly, rust-prone chassis?
Marcus James Thomson, Ph.D. 