When I was a regular reader of print newspapers back in the last century, I used to enjoy the pre-Murdock Wall Street Journal's editorial page. They would propose sometimes audacious, outrageous things. They would take crazy "conservative" positions. Sometimes I felt as if my blood would boil.
The New York Times editorials ... not so much.
A typical NY Times editorial would expound that education is good; crime is bad; that we all should volunteer more to help our communities. The NY Times editorial board would endorse proven, mainstream political candidates. Yawn.
So when an April 4, 2016 New York Times editorial announces that we are entering a "renewable energy boom", citing a written-by-committee consensus UN report , you know that renewables are no longer a "fringe" source of energy.
Indeed, as the editorial notes, a majority of the generation added last year GLOBALLY was in renewables, more than half of total new renewables investment last year occurred in China, India and Brazil -- the big developing markets that will make or break efforts to control greenhouse gas emissions -- and renewables, including hydro, share of global electricity production has doubled from 2007 to 2015, while costs are dropping like a rock. By 2020, solar PV will be cheaper in India than new coal-fired generation.
(In such an environment what investor in his or her right mind would commit to a new coal-fired plant?)
These facts are now commonplace. Governments and companies: ignore them at your peril.
P.S. If the UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) is a bit suspect for the typical somewhat conservative U.S. senator or, say, Wall Street banker, how about Bloomberg?
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