10 Downing Street has talked a big game on fracking in recent months, but local opposition has stymied efforts to explore Britain’s estimated 1.3 trillion cubic feet of shale gas. As heating bills spiral ever upward, British politicians are flailing about trying to find ways to bring energy costs down. On Thursday, in his Autumn Statement, Chancellor Osborne outlined tax incentives meant to jump-start the country’s shale gas production.

The technologies undergirding zero carbon energy sources like solar, wind, and nuclear are advancing, and as efficiencies go up, the costs associated with green energy production are coming down. But despite the best wishes of environmentalists, the world isn’t yet ready for a wholesale replacement of fossil fuels.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will release a draft summary early tomorrow morning that aims to encapsulate our current understanding of climate and our relationship with it. Greens, policymakers, and green policymakers all over the world will be paying close attention to this summary, because it represents the clearest communication from the scientific […]