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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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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Question: At what rate are we losing the world’s rainforests?

Answer: Can be found at http://2greenenergy.com/cool-guess-answers/8732.

Relevance: According to rain-tree.com:

If nothing is done to curb this trend, the entire Amazon could well be gone within fifty years.  Massive deforestation brings with it many ugly consequences-air and water pollution, soil erosion, malaria epidemics, the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the eviction and decimation of indigenous Indian tribes, and the loss of biodiversity through extinction of plants and animals. Fewer rainforests mean less rain, less oxygen for us to breathe, and an increased threat from global warming.

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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.”

Steve: Though I’m glad to hear that you’re optimistic, you may wish to consider handling the matter the way I have come to: just change the subject. I’m through with arguing about climate change. I know there are people who are “manipulatively misguided” on the subject (to use your words), but I’ve lost my patience with debating them. Tragically, there are half a dozen other outright catastrophes we’re causing with our continued reliance on fossil fuels: lung disease, ocean acidification, empowering oppressive regimes, choking off the economy, etc. I simply urge climate change deniers to pick another issue.  I know lots of people who aren’t paying close attention to what’s going on, and lots of people who don’t believe in climate change, but I don’t know anyone who doesn’t believe in cancer or terrorism.

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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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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, the Keystone XL, right through the middle of the continent, one that may be unnecessary and that even some oil companies think is overpriced.

At the same time, we don’t have an iota of horsepower in Congress examining the big ideas.  If I (or you) were there, we’d be saying:

Here’s a list of major reasons (I’ve left out the minor ones) to phase out fossil fuels aggressively:

• National security / terrorism
• Health / lung disease
• Global climate change, ocean acidification and other ecological disasters
• Skyrocketing / crippling debt
• War which we can’t afford, and leave countless dead and wounded
• Peak oil, coupled with burgeoning urban/consumer populations globally

You can argue about the relative importance of each of these, but for my money, we’ve spent enough time arguing about this garbage already. Now the time has come for action, and we’re going to take it, regardless of what the oil companies say. We have a responsibility at this time and place in history, and by God, we’re going to live up to it.

Gullible guy that I am, I still believe that someone in a position of power will ask me to draft a plan that phases fossil fuels out forcibly over the next 25 years, and eliminates them completely by 2050.  As always, I’ll be happy to serve. 

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At the rate of a few times a week I’m asked about global climate change, and I provide a brief summary, including the concept:

This is complicated. No one knows exactly how changes in the constitution of our atmosphere will affect global temperatures and weather conditions. I can tell you a couple of things for certain, though: 1) Special interests are working overtime to paint this picture in their favor. 2) The vast majority of climate scientists warn us that this is a very large and serious threat. 3) If there is a problem, as these people almost uniformly tell us, it’s going to be a runaway train, i.e., something that will be much harder to fix later than it would be now. 4) Prudent people buy insurance to protect themselves against devastating events — even if those events are of low probability; they don’t need to be certain they will have a house fire to buy fire insurance. The analogy here is very strong.  

As of today, however, I tell them one other thing: Take 12 minutes out of your life and watch the late climatologist and Stanford professor Stephen Schneider’s video on YouTube.  I wish there were a way to get everyone on Earth to check this out.   

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Here, 2GreenEnergy Video Report host George Alger interviews me on the hydrogen economy: what it means, its validity, and its ramifications.

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In this episode of the 2GreenEnergy Video Report, host George Alger interviews me on the phenomenon known as “peak oil,” i.e., that the world has peaked in terms of its oil production capacity. I discuss my take on this, as well as its many social, financial, and political ramifications.

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Here’s another episode of the 2GreenEnergy Report, in which I’m interviewed on the subject of peak oil. I manage to squeeze in references to related subjects as well: the consequences of our addiction to foreign oil, the externalities associated with fossil fuels, long-term environmental damage, the associated costs of healthcare, ocean acidification, and global climate change.

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