Posts Tagged by global warming
Energy Policy and the Skyrocketing Rates of Certain Childhood Diseases
| March 14, 2012 | Posted by Craig Shields under Fossil Fuels |
Over the years, I’ve learned that the most productive way to deal with climate change deniers is to point out that global warming is only one of half-a-dozen reasons to knock off our dependence on coal and oil. “Just pick your favorite,” I smile.
How about the obvious and growing damage to human health? It would seem to me that this would be a fact that even the most fanatical of the anti-government types couldn’t argue. Don’t we need some empowered body to protect our health from those who are indifferent?
One of the very clearest – and saddest – indications that we’re on the wrong road with respect to environmental regulation is our skyrocketing rate of respiratory disease, e.g., asthma, in children. Read More
Dan Sturges — Changing the Paradigm in Transportation
| March 9, 2012 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
I’m very proud of 2GreenEnergy’s dozen or so “associates,” who perform a huge variety of tasks for our clients – everything from raising capital, to performing engineering reviews, to marketing and public relations, social media, project management to IP protection. My aim is simple: When someone asks if we can do something for their clean energy business, I want the answer to always be a resounding Yes.
One of the associations we recently formed is one with Dan Sturges, in which we deliver cutting-edge thinking in transportation for city planners who may be looking for a better way of moving people and goods around a local area. For a century, we operated off a central paradigm in transportation:
Virtually everyone 16 years or older has his own car, a huge piece of steel that weighs Read More
What Climate Scientists Tell Us About Global Warming — And Why
| February 18, 2012 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Science |
The Cato Institute’s Jerry Taylor, whom I interviewed last week, writes in to offer a correction to my piece the other day on The Impetus for Renewable Energy that includes: “(Taylor) believes that the push for a migration from cheap and abundant fossil fuels to more expensive renewable energy that can only come about with government support is driven by a Marxist, anti-capitalist, anti-prosperity agenda.”
I said that many people in “my world” (that is, the right-of-center world, broadly defined) believe this. I didn’t say that I believed it. In fact, I do not (well, I’m sure it’s true for some, but I’m also sure it’s not true for others and I have no idea what the accurate percentage counts might be).
The point I was trying to make is Read More
Stephen Lacey – Climate Progress
| February 13, 2012 | Posted by Craig Shields under Sustainability |
It will be with great pleasure that I’ll walk into the office of my friend Stephen Lacey tomorrow afternoon, a young man who has already contributed so greatly to the cause of replacing fossil fuels and nuclear with renewables. In the position he held for years at Renewable Energy World (which, if I’m not mistaken, was his first job out of college where he had majored in journalism) he developed a comprehensive understanding of the energy industry with astonishing speed, and went on to conduct interviews and write articles that shed a great deal of light on the promise and challenge of clean energy.
Here, just a few years later, he’s in our nation’s capital, researching and writing for ClimateProgress.org, wrapping his wits around man’s impact on his environment, and advocating for strategies that mitigate that impact.
I’m always impressed with young people who have their heads on straight, and who endeavor to use their talents to make a difference in the world around them. It will be a great joy to see him again and find out more about what he’s been working on since the last time I ran into him.
What If Scientists Are Wrong About Climate Change?
| February 12, 2012 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Science |
A climate change denier I happen to have known personally for a long time writes me:
The idea that Man alone (specifically, according to leftist mythology, US industrial corporations, which, in the left’s rubric, are the focus of all evil on this planet) is responsible for the change in climate on this planet is utterly laughable, insistence to the contrary of politically-motivated university denizens notwithstanding. After all, “scientists” have been wrong before, and they’ll be wrong again.
I reply:
Thanks for this. Yes, it’s possible that the scientists are wrong here, that we have nothing to fear. And I know there are people who think that this possibility justifies inaction. Personally, I’m not one of them, but hey, that’s cool.
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.
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.
Take a COOL Guess – the Fun Quiz on Clean Energy. Today’s Topic: Rainforest Destruction
| January 26, 2012 | Posted by Craig Shields under Sustainability |
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.
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
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.
