Posts Tagged by global climate change
Bill McKibben on Global Warming
| February 7, 2012 | Posted by Craig Shields under Sustainability |
I try to write a short piece on global warming every week or two, but I find it difficult, given that so many people cover this subject so well. Linked here is a short Bill McKibben article that I urge everyone to read.
That we’ve taken this matter out of the hands of science and reduced it to the basest level of politics is one of the most nauseating aspects of our current-day culture.
I have to give my immediate family credit here. Even though they generally don’t follow this stuff too closely, they are enjoying the heck out of McKibben’s masterpiece “Eaarth.” I hope you’ll pick up a copy and share it with friends.
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Doing the Right Thing About Climate Change – Regardless of Our Religious Beliefs
| February 6, 2012 | Posted by Craig Shields under Sustainability |
A recent comment:
If I were an atheist I would not care about the state of the world after I’m gone so I would rather pollute more so as to maximize my pleasure while I am here – so it follows I should be a Republican climate change denier…
I’m always surprised when people say things like this. Though I have my own point of view on religion, I avoid discussing it here. But whether I’m going to disappear upon my death, or sit at the right hand of God, I feel it’s my duty to do the right thing during this blink-of-an-eye in geologic time that I’m here on Earth. Fortunately, I think most people agree.
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It’s Fashionable To Hate Government, But…
| January 31, 2012 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
Here’s a good article for those interested in global climate change and the role of government in our lives. Journalist Christian Parenti points out that private sector interests alone will do very poorly in dealing with the enormity of the challenge facing us all in the form of extreme weather events created by global warming.
He notes, for instance, that 2011 was the driest year in the recording history of Texas, resulting in wildfires that consumed more than four million acres. He points out that the cost of repairing the damage to the thousands of homes and buildings, and rebuilding the agriculture businesses lost in the fires, is an estimated $5.2 billion—not something that the private sector can easily absorb. And of course, the Texas drought was just one of many individual extreme weather events whose frequency is expected to increase over time.
For my money, Parenti does an excellent job in putting this issue in perspective: it’s fashionable to hate government, but without some teeth in the public sector, our planet will soon lie in ruins.
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Energy Consumption, Economics, and Environmentalism
| January 28, 2012 | Posted by Craig Shields under Sustainability |
To simplify where we are as a civilization and where we’re going with respect to energy consumption, economics, and environmentalism, it’s useful to postulate three broad “plans”:
Plan A: We continue on our current course. We ignore the fact that our population will soon be growing from 7 billion to 10 billion, and that an ever-growing percentage of that population is joining the ranks of consumers. Our leaders know that we’re in the process of driving off a cliff; they may lack basic decency, but they’re long on intelligence, and they exploit voter ignorance of this core truth as long as they possibly can. During this time, they and the extraordinarily powerful forces that elected them desperately look for new ways of extracting fossil fuels, while obfuscating the effects on global climate, ocean acidification, social chaos, war, respiratory disease, etc. The elite remain in power until the planet is in ruins.
Plan B: We aggressively adopt what Jeremy Rifkin and others refer to as “The Third Industrial Revolution,” which contemplates continued economic growth by focusing on renewable energy and the many other components of sustainability. Read More
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Global Climate Change and Heightened Incidence of Extreme Weather Events Mean More Disasters
| January 19, 2012 | Posted by Craig Shields under Sustainability |
One of our Facebook fans, Elaine Carter, writes precisely two words: “Absolutely relevant” about LifeCube, a business that we support. It’s hard to disagree with you, Elaine. Here’s cutting-edge R&D of on-demand emergency shelter for disaster response. In less than five minutes after arriving on the scene, a two-man first-responder team can assemble a sturdy, solid-floored space with food, water, medical supplies, communications, electricity and propane in which they can treat the wounded and conduct their operations.
I applaud Elaine’s brevity, and I think the attribute “absolutely relevant” is quite apt here. I know there is some level of controversy about global climate change and the heightened incidence of extreme weather events, at least here in the U.S. But is anyone projecting fewer disasters in the future? I’m having trouble finding them, if they exist.
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U.S. Response to Climate Change Divided Across Party Lines
| January 9, 2012 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
Steve Cohen, Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer of Columbia University’s Earth Institute sees the climate change issue in much the same way we tend to here at 2GreenEnergy: shamefully divided across party lines – yet not hopeless. On his blog at the Huffington Post, Cohen points out that Republicans really have changed their minds on the legitimacy of climate change. He comes away, however, on an upbeat: “Young people understand the challenges of global sustainability and I am convinced that the situation is far from hopeless.” Read More
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Jeremy Rifkin — Advising on Climate Change Since 1981
| January 1, 2012 | Posted by Craig Shields under Sustainability |
I’ve finally gotten around to reading Jeremy Rifkin’s fabulous The Third Industrial Revolution, which includes the following:
In 1981, The Congressional Clearinghouse on the Future, a legislative service organization made up of more than one hundred congressmen and senators, invited me to present two informal, off-the-record lectures for congress on the thermodynamic consequences of industrially induced CO2 emissions.
I’m not sure how to react to the idea that our leaders have known about the issue since 1981, and now, 31 years later, as the evidence for all this has steadily mounted, are running for president on the platform of cutting regulations and denying the existence of global climate change.
It’s true that we live in a democracy of sorts, that our leaders do what they’re commanded by voters, and that many voters have been swayed by the propaganda of the oil and coal companies in this arena. But shouldn’t leaders lead, rather than follow?
I hate to start off the new year with a message of anger, but I can’t think of another response.
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Electric Vehicles and CO2 Emission Abatement
| December 22, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
Frequent commenter Glenn Doty writes:
What would really be nice is an infographic comparing the cost of mitigating CO2 with various alternatives… just to put the different alternatives into proper perspective.
For instance, how much more does it cost to abate CO2 emissions by setting up a rooftop solar panel in NJ as compared to installing additional insulation in an office building in Texas or setting up a wind farm in the Dakotas?
This would be extremely instructional to your readers in terms of what policies would make more sense… and it would be fun to look at how you graph the negative CO2 abatement value of EV’s.
I respond:
Ha! I was reading along here, wondering when you were going to make your point about EVs, and lo! (a good word for the season), there it was.
Seriously, please send me a high-level treatment of your reasoning.
At a minimum, there are two things I don’t get. Read More
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Climate Control — If It’s Going to Be, It’s up to Me
| December 22, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Sustainability |
When I spoke with top-notch author Peter Kusterer at Raleigh, NC-based Nvestntech a few weeks ago, I knew from the conversation that he’d come up with something cool as a summary of our talk.
I just received this:
My sincere apology for taking so long to get this out: Climate Control — If It’s Going to Be, It’s up to Me
Best,
Peter
I respond:
NP. And wow! That was certainly worth the wait. Thanks. Please call anytime. Let’s promise one another to stay in touch.
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The U.S. Has a Responsibility At This Point In History
| December 20, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Fossil Fuels |
Bill Moore, editor of EVWorld.com has written a splendid article on the failure of certain of the early electric vehicle companies, in which he points out:
Breaking into the automotive business can be relatively easy; making a success of it is pretty damned near impossible, regardless of what type of propulsion system you favor: ICE-age or otherwise; and it’s especially tough if you decide to go electric. Beyond this, the reasons for individual failures are myriad and multiple: right product, wrong time, wrong product; wrong time, etc. Management missteps, unrealistic investor expectations and impatience, government responsiveness, inept marketing, unanticipated technical setbacks, product shortcomings, public resistance to change: the list is long.
I don’t dispute any of this, but let’s look at the subject from a “big picture” perspective. As a country, we’re still married to fossil fuels, and we’re doing essentially nothing about it In particular, we have no energy policy. Hell, we’re about to build an oil pipeline Read More
