Fifty years ago this week, one out of every 10 Americans, 20 million in all, came together for a series of rallies, teach-ins, and speeches, to tell their leaders they were no longer willing to put up with choking air and poisoned water. The fiftieth anniversary of Earth Day is an occasion to celebrate the environmental movement’s vast success cleaning up America’s skies and waterways, but also a moment to take stock of lessons learned – for how to address the existential environmental issue of our time: climate change.
To celebrate this historic milestone, the Columbia Energy Exchange will have a special double episode this week with two conversations with two champions of the environmental movement for many years. Both are former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrators, one Republican and one Democrat, William Reilly and Gina McCarthy.
In this edition of Columbia Energy Exchange, host Jason Bordoff is joined by William Reilly, who has a remarkable career in the environmental movement. On the first Earth Day in 1970, Bill was at the time one of the first employees at the brand new Council on Environmental Quality that had just been created in the White House. He went on to serve as the President of the World Wildlife Fund, and as Administrator of the EPA during the Administration of President George H. W. Bush, leading efforts to pass the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, and to bring President Bush to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. He was also appointed by President Obama to co-chair the National Commission on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, among many other prominent positions in his long and distinguished career. He served in the army to the rank of Captain from 1966-1968, and he graduated from Harvard Law School, and earned his master’s degree from Columbia University in urban planning.
Keep an eye out for host Jason Bordoff’s conversation with Gina McCarthy, coming out on Wednesday.
In a 2022 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that devastating floods and storms have triggered the displacement of 20 million people per year since 2008....
Demand for the critical minerals needed for batteries, solar panels, and other forms of clean energy will grow rapidly under the International Energy Agency's “net zero by 2050”...
Recent elections in the European Union shook up the continent’s climate politics. Far-right parties performed well in both the EU’s parliament and national governments, and the Greens lost...
In the next few months, heat waves, droughts, thunderstorms, and hurricanes will wreak havoc on regions around the world. Climate scientists say these events are becoming more extreme...
Following recent European Parliamentary elections, the next five years for European energy and climate policies are going to have a different political framework than the previous 5-year period....
Millions of US households struggle to meet their energy needs due to low wages, rising living costs, and other historical and structural drivers of poverty.