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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Chairman and former CEO of the Nestlé Group, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, described “declaring water a public right” as an “opinion” and “an extreme solution” that “NGO’s” fostered. He stated that he believes the “better” “opinion” is that “water is a foodstuff like any other” and “should have a market value.” Peter Brabeck-Letmathe is also on the board of ExxonMobil.

Frank Popoff, former CEO of Dow Chemical said, “Air, water, and land are not the ‘free good’ our society once believed. They must be redefined as assets, so that they can be efficiently and appropriately allocated.” (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

If I’m guilty of under-representing any of the big ideas in energy, it’s probably my failure to make my position clear on fracking that has been my greatest journalistic sin of late.  Here at 2GreenEnergy.com we’re gaining on 3000 blog posts, most of them mine, and I don’t think I have more than half a dozen articles on the subject. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I took a nice jog on the beach this morning, and, to my delight, ran past a whole bus-load of school kids studying the critters that live in the tide pools.  I’m reminded of something Dr. Jason Scorse told me when I interviewed him for my second book (“Is Renewable Really Doable?” – 2012): Young people really get the importance of environmentalism.  An older generation is dying off, replaced by a huge population of people who think much differently than their elders did in terms of our responsibilities to one another and our duties to take care of our planet.

I have to think he’s right about this.  But exactly where that’s going to take us in the face of the fossil fuel giants and their stranglehold on our legislative process is hard to guess.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I promised the people of GE Power & Water that I’d let you know about a live webcast taking place tomorrow June 6th from 11-12:15 pm ET around big data as an opportunity and ensuring operations are running efficiently and that sustainability is top of mind.

Intelligent machines and real-time, actionable data are the new revolution that could take your business to the next level of productivity, efficiency and success. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainable Building

In the fight against environmental pollution, one lawn can make a difference. Any effort you make to plan, cultivate and grow an eco-friendly lawn reduces environmental pollution. Here are four tips to help you maintain a lush lawn that’s also environmentally friendly.

Conserve Water

Watering your lawn is a necessary chore that wastes resources. And if you don’t do it right, you could kill your lawn. With too much water, your grass becomes oversaturated and dies. With too little water, the grass’s roots don’t grow deep enough to suck water from deep ground reserves during dry periods. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

As described here, legendary environmentalist Bill McKibben’s suggestion that folks sell their holdings in fossil fuel companies has been accepted by a gathering wave of universities, churches and synagogues, city governments and pension funds.  According to the article, “In the last few months, fossil fuel divestment has turned into one of the fastest-growing protest campaigns in recent American history – and it’s already reached all the way to Australia, where portions of the Uniting Church have announced they’ll sell their fossil fuel stock as well.” (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

I’ve run across two different reports so far today suggesting that the surge in atmospheric CO2 is causing an increase in the amount of vegetation due to greater photosynthetic activity.  I have no doubt that this is true; in fact, it’s one of a few lucky consequences of our dependence on fossil fuels.

If you’re a Canadian farmer, you’re experiencing another happy accident: warmer and longer growing seasons.  The problem is that the bad effects greatly out number the good – even in the narrow scope of vegetation.  As climate change continues, vast regions of currently arable land will become deserts.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

Today is the 117th anniversary of Henry Ford’s first successful test drive of the automobile; his four-horsepower, 500-pound frame called the “quadricycle” (pictured here) ran on pure ethanol.  Electric vehicles came along shortly thereafter as well, and enjoyed impressive market share, due largely to the fact that they did not require the driver to start the car with a hand-crank, which was physically difficult and often quite dangerous.  This advantage disappeared in the 1920s with the invention of the electric starter, and so did electric vehicles. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

This article on fracking reminded me that I haven’t written too much on the subject.  For the record, my position is that fracking carries with it serious ecological consequences that we’re sweeping under the rug, and that natural gas does not, in any way, serve as a “transition fuel” to renewable energy.   On the contrary, cheap fossil fuel only acts to postpone the much-needed development of clean energy in all its many flavors:  solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, and hydrokinetics. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Wind Energy

Wind energy – maybe one thinks of old wooden windmills and tulips when they think of wind energy, but reality shows new state of the art wind turbines that have the capacity to power around 250 homes from a single megawatt of wind energy. These sleek, modern machines are becoming more and more visible throughout the world.

The United States ranks third in the world, only behind Germany and Spain, when it comes to wind energy development and installed wind energy, according to National Geographic.

The U.S. actually has the two largest wind farms, both based in Texas. Iowa is a runner up in production of wind megawatts from wind, followed by California, according to the American Wind Energy Association. (more…)

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