Fossil Energy
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U.S. Carbon Emissions Plummeting
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Obama Administration Moves to Slash Industrial Emissions
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Gov't Fossil Fuel Subsidies More Than Twice Those to Clean Energy
Pope: Global Warming Will Not Starve the World
Published November 20, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
Monday, on the opening day of the World Summit on Food Security, Pope Benedict XVI tried to put the panic about global-warming-induced food crises to rest.
According to the UK's Times Online, the Pope said that the Earth can produce enough for everyone despite the ravages climate change might inflict. It is greed, he said, that has driven up prices and increased hunger in the world.
His remarks emphasized that food should not be treated like any other commodity, especially because "there is no cause and effect relationship between population growth and hunger." Nobel Prize-winning economic Amartya Sen has long commented that hunger is not a problem of production but one of access.
Why Climate Change Will Hit Women Hardest
Published November 11, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
I wrote the other day over on Change.org's sustainable food blog about the fact that women produce the lion’s share of the world’s food but own only 2 percent of the Earth’s tillable land. Considering that climate change is going to present special challenges to farmers, who depend on abundant resources and stable weather patterns, women are, as they say, in for it. And I haven't even mentioned disease or disappearing drinking water yet.
A new “Gender and Climate Change Manual” from the Global Gender and Climate Alliance rightly states that “the poor, the majority of whom are women living in developing countries, will be disproportionately affected. Yet most of the debate on climate so far has been gender-blind.”
This topic is remarkably important and almost entirely ignored. The issue pops up infrequently and peripherally, as when the 52nd session of the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women last year took “gender perspectives on climate change” as its “emerging issue.” It's only "emerging" now because no one was paying attention before, but this should have been part of the debate since the beginning.
Global Warming? The Writing's on the Seawall
Published November 06, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
It's getting harder and harder to ignore climate change. Now our favorite ocean creatures are confirming what we already know. As the water gets warmer, the fish are moving away, faaar away, to find cooler habitats.
Researchers at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have published a new study that reveals that half of 36 fish stocks in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean have shifted their ranges to the north over the last forty years, reports Science Daily. Some of the stocks, many of which are commerically fished, have all but vanished from U.S. waters.
Their research, which appears in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series, illustrates how changing coastal and ocean temperatures are altering the behavior of fish species that range from North Carolina to the Canadian border. The species in question include Atlantic cod, haddock, yellowtail, winter flounder, spiny dogfish, Atlantic herring and more obscure species like blackbelly rosefish.
Pig Poo into Clean Fuel
Published October 28, 2009 @ 02:54PM PT
What if we could turn our nastiest waste products into clean energy?
Considering that we have so many millions of animals penned up in concentrated animal feeding (or should I say “fattening”?) operations, their waste is a resource we possess in spades. We’ve long known it’s possible to capitalize on this mess but weren’t sure of the best way to do it.
New research is giving us a clue, reports New Scientist. If you’re ever stuck with a big lagoon of pig poo and you’d rather have electricity instead, your best bet, according to a team from Denmark’s Aalborg University, is anaerobic digestion. The anaerobic digestion process, by which the manure is broken down by bacteria in an oxygen-free environment to release methane that can power gas turbines, gives the best bang-for-your-poo.
Jatropha Will Not Save Us
Published October 13, 2009 @ 01:00PM PT
People still want more and more biofuels, despite the fact that these crops often commandeer land used for food production, which pushes food crops into rainforests, and we know how that turns out.
Just a year ago, reports SciDevNet, a Central American shrub called jatropha curcus was being heralded as the Earth's saving grace. The seeds of the plant produce a diesel-like oil that many predicted would power planes and basically save the world at the same time as pulling millions in the developing world out of poverty.
Some speculated that the booming new industry would spark investments of up to $1 billion a year. The plant was for obvious reasons widely known as the "wonder weed."
One of the main advantages of jatropha is that it can grow in very dry conditions. At least that's what everybody said. However, according to the Green Inc. blog at the New York Times, a June study in the American Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that jatropha was one of the least water-efficient biofuels, comparing only to rapeseed in its thirst. How was that little detail overlooked?
As if that stumbling block weren't enough, according to Green Inc., a report by an environmental and human rights NGO Envirocare, leaked to The East African newspaper last week, tells how the trade in this plant is causing upheaval in Tanzania. Farmers and food crops are being displaced by biofuel production, and water is being consumed at an alarming rate.
Biofuels investors have galloped ahead of the plant science and the community-based planning needed to productively make such sweeping agricultural changes. The journal Nature concludes that we need to go back to the drawing board with some basic research on the wonder weed before this little shrub is going to save anybody at all.
Photo courtesy of treesftf on flickr
Solar Power Goes Thin and Flexible
Published October 06, 2009 @ 06:42AM PT
Solar power has long been a mainstay of alternative energy, but in recent years the field has suffered from a certain lethargy. The innovative company Google, dismayed over the stagnation, decided to get into the field itself by designing solar thermal mirrors and solar-powered gas turbines. Google hasn’t unveiled its inventions yet, but in the meantime, it turns out we have some interesting new solar technologies to admire.
According to ICIS, Dow Chemical just announced a new product, the DOW POWERHOUSE Solar Shingle, a crafty device that can turn your entire house into a little power plant. The shingles, which can be interspersed with regular asphalt shingles on a roof, are an average of 10 percent less expensive than regular roof-top solar panels. The system will set a homeowner back about $27,000.
Dow Chemical anticipates that their green innovation will pull in another kind fo green. The company estimates banking $5 billion by 2015 and as much as $11 billion by 2020 with these little beauties.
ICIS quotes Jane Palmieri, managing director of Dow Solar Solutions, stating that these are the next big thing in solar: “Solar panels have many restrictions and are just not affordable to be used in any meaningful way, but we believe our product will change that paradigm.”
But what about this other new solar invention, Power Plastic, a solar panel that looks like a big spool of photographic film? Fortune reports that the product is light, cheap and so flexible it can be put anywhere.
The film’s creator, solar-power upstart Konarka, already sells pieces of Power Plastic big enough to recharge a cellphone or an iPod, to be used on beach umbrellas and tote bags. Ultimately, though, a translucent version will allow the windows of a skyscraper to power the whole building or the pockets of solar-powered clothing to charge electronics.
The future of solar, it seems, is as thin and flexible as our society’s willingness to confront the inconvenient truth. Here’s hoping the former helps with the latter.
Photo courtesy of LanceCheungImages on flickr
Obama Establishes Enviro, Energy Targets for Federal Government
Published October 05, 2009 @ 05:48PM PT
The Obama administration today ordered federal agencies to aim for aggressive targets to reduce energy use, and incorporate environmental sustainability in federal government operations.
The executive order "Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance," signed today by President Obama, builds off an executive order signed by President Bush in 2007, as well as momentum created by clean energy and energy-efficiency measures funded by the stimulus act.
Under this new mandate, federal agencies must set 10-year energy reduction and environmental sustainability goals within the next 90 days. Clearly identified targets in the order include:
- 30% reduction in vehicle fleet petroleum use by 2020;
- 26% improvement in water efficiency by 2020;
- 50% recycling and waste diversion by 2015;
- 95% of all applicable contracts will meet sustainability requirements;
- Implementation of the 2030 net-zero-energy building requirement;
- Implementation of the stormwater provisions of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, section 438; and
- Development of guidance for sustainable Federal building locations in alignment with the Livability Principles put forward by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Transportation, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
