 |
 |
 |
|
|
        |
| |
|
|
|
Global Warming ArchivesXenophobia Goes Global
An additional challenge for clean energy development is to avoid reinforcing the new wave of xenophobic tendencies.
In a previous post, Michael examines how appealing to xenophobic tendencies has become a fundamental strategy for attacking any issues intended to address the health and welfare needs of the poor. By extension, this piece suggests how xenophobic appeal could extend to attacks on environmental efforts on the diplomatic front. Michael's connection is an important one because we know from history environmental concerns, particularly during times of economic hardship, are easily overwhelmed by the politics of insecurity. The Sixties Were the (Population) Bomb
Ah, the politics of the sixties. Openness to other cultures. Harmony with nature and -- hysterical overpopulation screeds?...
Ah, the politics of the sixties. Openness to other cultures. Harmony with nature and -- hysterical overpopulation screeds? Apres Earth Day, Le Coal
The New York Times today reports that Europe, which will meet its Kyoto obligations by purchasing pollution credits from other countries, is turning back to coal. Europe will construct 50 new coal plants over the next few years (that's about...
The New York Times today reports that Europe, which will meet its Kyoto obligations by purchasing pollution credits from other countries, is turning back to coal. Europe will construct 50 new coal plants over the next few years (that's about what China constructs in six months). This is more evidence that global warming's Gordian Knot, and the technology gap, exert a powerful influence even on the wealthiest countries in the world. Can a Coal Power Plant Ever be Good?
Insofar as a coal-fired power plant replaces forms of power generation that are far dirtier, like diesel generators, and make electricity available to people without electricity, a relatively efficient coal-fired power plant should be seen as a good thing
Recently, plans for a new "Ultra Mega" 4,000MW coal fired power plant in India has come in for much criticism from environmentalists. Writing on Grist.org, environmentalist Nathan Wyeth has called this a "monument to a failed approach". According to him, Investing in coal generation and plugging it into an unreliable grid (rather than building renewables close to consumers or fixing the grid) has the effect of - get ready for this - spurring the construction of small-scale fossil fuel generation on the other end, which is ... incredibly dirty. The Coming Bursting of the Green Bubble
If engaging in ecologically-aware micro-practices reinforces the widespread view that the Chinese can't have what we have, then they are the dark side of the Green Bubble that can't burst fast enough.
In 2018 we will almost certainly look back on Earth Day 2008 as the high point of the Green Bubble. We will cast our eyes over our abandoned backyard gardens and chuckle softly to ourselves about how we once thought they were the solution to skyrocketing emissions in China. We will wonder why we were more worried about future droughts caused by climate change than we were by the worst global food shortages in 30 years, which were triggering food riots at the same time that we were flipping through our special Earth Day issue of the New York Times Magazine. And we will remember how, just months later, the Green Bubble burst and images of food riots abroad and economic hardship at home finally replaced images of melting glaciers, stranded polar bears, and the lists of the 1,001 Things You Can Do to Prevent Eco-Apocalypse. Continue reading "The Coming Bursting of the Green Bubble" » Tuesday Interview: Vice Magazine: "Breakthrough Institute Wrests Environmentalism Away From the Dumbs"
In their Earth Day issue, Vice Magazine profiles Breakthrough Institute. At long last, Breakthrough finds a magazine interviewer who uses more profanity than its two co-founders. Little wonder it's the best Break Through book interview yet.
In their Earth Day issue, Vice Magazine profiles Breakthrough Institute. At long last, Breakthrough finds a magazine interviewer who uses more profanity than its two co-founders. Little wonder it's the best Break Through book interview yet. Adaptation and Public Investment: The Expert View
Is there an expert consensus behind major public investments in global warming adaptation and government investment in clean energy? Breakthrough says there is. What does the Center for American Progress' Joe Romm say?...
Is there an expert consensus behind major public investments in global warming adaptation and government investment in clean energy? Breakthrough says there is. What does the Center for American Progress' Joe Romm say? Continue reading "Adaptation and Public Investment: The Expert View" » Maybe Horses Will Fly - Developing Countries and Global Warming
The satisfaction of the material needs of food and water and shelter is not an obstacle to but rather the precondition for the modern appreciation of the nonhuman world
Last week, the New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin blogged about the World Bank's decision to finance a major new coal fired power plant in India. Revkin ended his blog with a question: "Is all of this bad? If you're one of many climate scientists foreseeing calamity, yes. If you're a village kid in rural India looking for a light to read by, no." Continue reading "Maybe Horses Will Fly - Developing Countries and Global Warming " » Adapting to a Changing Earth:
Why isn't adaptation to global warming part of the climate change political agenda? The Los Angeles Times weighs in.
What are we doing to adapt? Department of Energy grants $14 million dollars to Solar
In other words, It finds some change in the couch...
On Thursday, March 13 2008, the Department of Energy announced 11 grants totaling $14 million dollars to various research projects aimed at driving down the high-cost of solar energy equipment. In their words: The[se] solar projects have the potential to significantly reduce the cost of electricity produced by PV products from current levels of $0.18-$0.23 per Kilowatt hour (kWh) to $0.05 - $0.10 per kWh by 2015 - a price that is competitive in markets nationwide. [We think it'll take more like $50 billion, by the way] Continue reading "Department of Energy grants $14 million dollars to Solar" » Sugar and Oil: Learning the Right Lessons from Brazil
"Leaving a technology on the shelf, unlike a fine wine, will not make it better."
by Andrew Jager Part two of a two-part series MIXING WATER AND OIL Though Brazil has become self-sufficient in energy terms, sugarcane-based ethanol has not been the only factor. Petrobras, state-sponsored oil giant, has also increased oil production rather dramatically. As recently as 1991, Brazil produced an average of 670,000 barrels of oil per day . By 2006, that number had jumped to nearly 1.8 million barrels per day Significantly, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva has stated that Brazil would not "pull back even more millimeter" from its biofuel programs despite recent discoveries of massive offshore crude oil reserves . This is, of course, good news for supporters of biofuels. However, it must be noted that at the same time Lula said that "Brazil would obviously participate in OPEC ." Clearly, Brazil intends to become a petroleum exporter. However the story does not end there. One must keep in mind that Brazil's demand for energy has been steadily increasing, and is likely to do so for many years. Add to this Brazil's reliance on hydroelectric power generation, and the fact that electricity has occasionally been scarce in recent years, and it seems likely that Brazil will not only export oil, but consume more domestically as well. Continue reading "Sugar and Oil: Learning the Right Lessons from Brazil " » Sugar and Oil: Learning the Right Lessons from Brazil
"Leaving a technology on the shelf, unlike a fine wine, will not make it better."
by Andrew Jager Part one of a two-part series At times it seems I'm surrounded by things Brazilian: Bossa Nova is pumped out of speakers at clothing stores; caipirinhas are on the menu at the local bar, and there's a Brazilian film playing at the cinema up the street. Even environmental writers and energy pundits talk about Brazil's success in substituting ethanol - a biofuel derived from sugarcane in Brazil and corn in the United States - for gasoline and freeing the country from its previous dependence on imported oil. But the odds are that in a few short years cars in the U.S. will be more likely to fill up on Brazilian gasoline than ethanol. If environmentalists are serious about embracing biofuels as an alternative to gasoline, they must be equally serious about building policy that emulates Brazil's successes, as well as efficiently addresses the problematic elements of ethanol as fuel. Continue reading "Sugar and Oil: Learning the Right Lessons from Brazil" » The "Serious Business" of Kyoto
EU to "overshoot" its emissions reductions targets? Read between the lines.
It has become an article of faith among environmental leaders -- most especially the architects of present efforts in the U.S. Congress to pass domestic cap and trade legislation -- that the European Union has set the standard among wealthy nations for Kyoto compliance. When it comes to taking action to reduce carbon emissions, the E.U., and particularly the emissions trading system that it established in 2005, is held up as a model that the U.S. and other developed nations ought to emulate. E.U. leaders have done nothing to deter this impression. Indeed, a recent report released late last year by the European Environment Agency boasted that the fifteen advanced developed economies in the European Union, known as the EU-15, will meet - and perhaps even over-shoot! -- its 2012 Kyoto target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to eight percent below 1990 levels. Now, "the serious business of Kyoto begins for real," proclaimed EEA Executive Director Jacqueline McGlade. Gas Prices Soar, Threatening Global Warming Legislation
Rising gas prices threaten legislation centrally focused on raising energy prices
A headline on the front page of today's New York Times announces "Gas Prices Soar, Posing a Threat to Family Budget," and the details offers a grim outlook on the near and long term energy front. If the prognosticators are correct, the increases in energy prices and the impact of those energy costs on family budgets will make a tough political playing field emissions caps even tougher. Continue reading "Gas Prices Soar, Threatening Global Warming Legislation" » High Energy Fashion
Will 'energy scavenging' fabric turn you on?
A recent report describes how researchers in the US have invented a yarn that can generate electricity simply by being bent or twisted. Clothes made from the fabric could generate enough electricity to power a mobile phone or iPod, the scientists say. When Diplomats Boo: How Global Climate Talks Reached a New Nadir
But having diplomats boo each other would seem to indicate a new nadir, not a new peak, in climate negotiations.
The Bali global warming talks ended in nothing, but that didn't stop European leaders from pointing to the bright side: the U.S. was booed. Here's Wash Post: "As we saw in the room today, the political price for blocking things has come up in recent months," said Connie Hedegaard, the Danish climate and energy minister, whose government will host the 2009 treaty talks. Continue reading "When Diplomats Boo: How Global Climate Talks Reached a New Nadir" » Connecting the Dots
If you believe it is time to reduce coal and oil consumption, then it is time to connect the dots - recognize human intervention has become the meaning of the earth and embrace invention as the key to eco-triumph.
Two articles in today's Science Times reinforce major Breakthrough themes - human have become the meaning of the earth and it is time to imagine eco-triumph through that most core human value, invention. Global Warming After Gore
It is time for global warming activists to leave behind their focus on the "planetary crisis" and the regulatory-centered agenda and embrace an energetic and inspiring vision that captures people's minds, hearts and votes.
Global Warming After Gore Al Gore's Nobel Prize was a momentous event we should all applaud. Now it is time to move on and get smart about the climate movement's next steps. First, we should deal with some of our own inconvenient truths: global warming continues to rank extremely low among voter priorities, and Congress is going nowhere fast. The question we should ask ourselves is, how can the climate movement retool its politics for the post-Gore era? It is high time for global warming activists to leave behind their focus on the "planetary crisis" and the regulatory-centered agenda, and embrace an energetic and inspiring vision that captures people's minds, hearts and votes. Despite last year's "tipping point" in public attitudes toward climate change, Pew polls find that it still ranks dead last among voter concerns. It is of little surprise, then, that the Washington Post ran a front-page article on recently titled "Climate Is a Risky Issue for Democrats." Nor is it surprising that the best provisions of today's congressional energy bill would still allow U.S. carbon dioxide emissions to grow 22 percent by 2030, effectively making the recommendations of the world's leading scientists unattainable. Prins and Rayner in Nature
In this week's Nature magazine, Gwyn Prins of the London School of Economics and Steve Rayner of Oxford University make a strong case that climate policy decidedly does not need more of the same approach that has not been working....
In this week's Nature magazine, Gwyn Prins of the London School of Economics and Steve Rayner of Oxford University make a strong case that climate policy decidedly does not need more of the same approach that has not been working. They write: We stare at stark divergences of trends. On the one hand, the International Energy Agency predicts a doubling of global energy demand from present levels in the next 25 years. On the other, since 1980 there has been a worldwide reduction of 40% in government budgets for energy R&D. Without huge investment in R&D, the technologies upon which a viable emissions reduction strategy depends will not be available in time to disrupt a new cycle of carbon-intensive infrastructure. Read the whole thing free here. John Marburger on the BBC
President Bush's science adviser, John Marburger, was interviewed today on the BBC (audio). Here is the quote that will get the most attention, undoubtedly (my own transcription): The climate is in fact sensitive to CO2 emissions. As they increase, the...
President Bush's science adviser, John Marburger, was interviewed today on the BBC (audio). Here is the quote that will get the most attention, undoubtedly (my own transcription): The climate is in fact sensitive to CO2 emissions. As they increase, the anthropogenic contribution to global warming and climate change will simply progress. The CO2 just accumulates in the atmosphere, there is no end point. It just gets hotter and hotter. At some point the planet becomes unlivable. His comments that followed had much nuance and focused on the imprecision of targets and timetables and how science cannot tell us how much time to act or what endpoint to choose. He concludes with a call for technological innovation. His comments prior to the quote above emphasized acceptance of the IPCC consensus, which is interesting because the IPCC doesn't say anything that I am aware of about making the Earth unlivable. The fallout from this comment will no doubt be interesting. What Lomborg Gets Right
Haven't had to a chance to pick up Bjorn Lomborg's new book but have recently seen two interesting reviews. Over at Salon, our friend Eban Goodstein attacks Lomborg for "cherry picking" both the science and the economics to bolster his...
Haven't had to a chance to pick up Bjorn Lomborg's new book but have recently seen two interesting reviews. Risking it All
A disproportionate emphasis on risk perpetuates a "technology as threat" culture at a time when we need to innovate ourselves out of a set of destructive technologies that are at the center of the ecological crisis we face.
In June of this year, Environmental Defense and DuPont introduced the NANO Risk Framework to "evaluate and address the potential risks of nanoscale materials." Nanotechnology refers to applied science and technology whose unifying theme isthe control of materials on the molecular level and the fabrication of devices within that range. What is striking about the framework and an earlier editorial published in the Wall Street Journal by Fred Krupp is the reliance on the eco-tragedy meta-narrative combined with the risk assessment sub-plot. |
 |
|
|
|||
Privacy : Contact : Site Map |
|||||||||
