Smart Car arrives in Bahs-ton

It's 104 inches long and 20,000 people have put deposits on one. An interesting wrinkle in the evolution of the automobile and the changing tastes of the buying public...

Ticking Time Bomb Beneath Arctic Ice

This L.A. Times article, The Crisis Under the Ice, illuminates the risks from "a ticking time bomb", the release of methane from below arctic permafrost. Russians seeking undiscovered oil in Arctic regions have planted a flag made of titanium on the seabed, but a number of scientists are concerned about a more pressing danger than diminishing oil supplies:

But there is an even more dangerous aspect to the unfolding drama in the Arctic. While governments and oil giants are hoping the melting ice will allow them access to the world's last treasure trove of oil and gas, climatologists are deeply worried about something else buried under the ice that, if unearthed, could wreak havoc on the biosphere, with dire consequences for human life.

Much of the Siberian sub-Arctic region, an area the size of France and Germany combined, is a vast, frozen peat bog. Before the most recent Ice Age, the area was mostly grassland, teeming with wildlife. The coming of the glaciers entombed the organic matter below the permafrost, where it has remained ever since. Although the surface of Siberia is largely barren, there is as much organic matter buried underneath the permafrost as there is in all of the world's tropical rain forests.

Now the permafrost is thawing on land and along the seabeds. If it occurs in the presence of oxygen on land, the decomposing of organic matter leads to the production of CO2. If the permafrost thaws along lake shelves, in the absence of oxygen, the decomposing matter releases methane. Methane is the most potent of the greenhouse gases, with a greenhouse effect 23 times that of CO2.

Oil and global warming are inextricably linked in what can only be considered a dance of death as our industrial society inches closer and closer to the tipping point where warming processes can't possibly be reversed.

Eat Less Oil

The amount of oil involved in our globalized agriculture is staggering, as dramatized in this animation.



The solution: eat more local food.

From Oil Kings to Uranium Kings

Whether you have an energy economy geared to oil or hooked on uranium, as in France, as the commodity becomes scarce, the prices rise and fights often break out among those who want the remaining stores. This Le Monde editorial talks about the dynamics involved as France negotiates with Niger to ensure an ongoing supply of "yellow cake" to fuel its reactors.

Mr. Tandja has observed the price takeoff. A pound has gone from ten dollars three years ago to close to one hundred and fifty dollars on the international market (not counting long-term revisable contracts). And the increase should continue as needs grow and tensions over supplies appear. A windfall for Niger, which sees Chinese, Canadians, and Australians flooding in. World reserves are abundant, but exploration only resumed recently after twenty years of under-investment linked to attractive oil prices up to 2003 and to the rejection of nuclear power after the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe. Demand from big American, German, French, Japanese, Chinese, and Russian electricity companies will grow as they build new reactors. With the exhaustion of military (especially Russian) stocks, recycled as fuel since the end of the Cold War to compensate for mining under-production, rationing looms.

Wind, solar, and geothermal are looking better all the time.

Wind Power Alternative from NStar

For a price (about $7.50 to $15.00 a month) customers of the Boston utility NStar can buy electricity from a wind farm in upstate New York. The program still needs approval from state utility officials in Massachusetts, but the prospects look encouraging.

As this article in the Boston Globe indicates, the program has some unique advantages over earlier programs of a similar nature.

The two major differences with NStar's plan is that it will have the direct marketing power of the $3 billion utility behind it, and customers will be paying for electricity from the 195-turbine Maple Ridge wind project near Camp Drum in upstate New York and from a 44-tower wind project now under development at Kibby Mountain in Maine expected to open by 2009.

"We have something real and tangible, and we can take you up there and show you the source of where your power is coming from,'' NStar chief executive Thomas J. May said. NStar is signing 10-year contracts to buy a total of 30 megawatts of power from each installation, in total equal to the electric demand of about 45,000 average homes or small businesses. That's about 2 percent of the utility's average total demand, and May said, "We hope the program is oversubscribed and we have to go back and buy more.''

Alan Nogee of the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, one of several environmental groups that advised NStar on developing the plan, said, "We are very excited by NStar's long-term commitment to wind energy and their green power program. They're helping customers say yes to choosing a responsible energy future and a more stable climate.''

The viability of shaping our energy future around wind and solar becomes more clear with each program like this that is launched.

David Suzuki Talks About Climate Change

This Real News piece dates back a few weeks, but it's worthwhile in that David Suzuki speaks with conviction and passion about climate change and the difficulties in getting the message across to the public.

Benefitting Energy Consumers with RPS

Amidst the schemes and proposals and attempts to resurrect dead technologies (witness the nuclear power boosters practicing their arcane arts), some progress may be near at hand in the form of the renewable energy portfolio (RPS). A standard requiring that utilities produce 20 percent of their energy from renewable sources is in the works, as reported by blogger David Roberts.
A brief excerpt from a reference extract he highlights:

So for those of you who don't want to read the long post that follows, here are some key takeaway points:

Right now there is a patchwork of over 20 state RPSs. Each has slightly different and sometimes incompatible standards and rules, which prevent interstate trading of energy credits. This inhibits the development of renewable energy and presents a "free rider" problem, with power producers in non-RPS states benefiting unjustly. A national RPS is far preferable to today's patchwork of state RPSs.

Electricity consumers in every region of the country would save money under a national RPS -- up to $49 billion nationwide.

A national RPS would create 80% more jobs than comparable investment in fossil fuels -- the greatest number of jobs in the states that have been hardest hit by the loss of manufacturing.

All states have renewable resources that can be developed.

A national RPS would save billions of gallons of water, reduce air pollution, reduce total land occupied by power generation, and lower CO2 emissions.

Solutions are out there if we recognize them and take action.

When Electric Cars Ruled the Road

Imagine driving down a boulevard in New York City in a clean, quiet electric car. You park in front of your favorite department store and plug in your vehicle to the charging station right at the curb. The air smells sweet, without the oily smell of exhaust, and the thrumming of internal combustion engines is replaced by the gentle whir of electric motors and the swoosh of vehicles gliding by like a soft breeze.

The scene isn't from New York City in 2025, but sometime around 1914, when electric cars shared the roadways with their noisy, stinky, gasoline-powered cousins. In this article from the New York Times (registration required), Back to the Future in a 98-Year Old Elecrric Car, it's clear that the proof of concept for electric vehicles was resolved almost a century ago.

At the turn of the 20th century, quiet, smooth, pollution-free electric cars were a common sight on the streets of major American cities. Women especially favored them over steam- and gasoline-powered cars.

In an era in which gasoline-powered automobiles were noisy, smelly, greasy and problematic to start, electric cars, like Jay Leno’s restored 1909 Baker Electric Coupe, represented a form of women’s liberation. Well-dressed society women could simply drive to lunch, to shop, or to visit friends without fear of soiling their gloves, mussing their hair or setting their highly combustible crinoline dresses on fire.

“These were women’s shopping cars,” said Mr. Leno, who is a serious hands-on collector of autos and motorcycles dating from the 1800s to the present. “There was no gas or oil, no fire, no explosions — you just sort of got in and you went. There were thousands of these in New York, from about 1905 to 1915. There were charging stations all over town, so ladies could recharge their cars while they were in the stores.”

Baker Electrics, Detroit Electrics, Rausch & Langs and other similar electric cars were comparatively reliable and easy to drive. Even the wives of legendary car company owners drove electrics.

Clara Ford, Henry’s wife, drove a 1914 Detroit Electric Brougham until the 1930s, using it to visit friends and make her rounds on the family’s Michigan estate. Helen Joy, wife of Henry Joy, president of the Packard Motor Car Company, drove a 1915 Detroit Electric.

Mr. Leno’s Baker stands — and stands is the correct word — more than 7 feet tall. “It looks like a giant phone booth,” he said. Twelve 6-volt batteries are under the front and rear covers, six under each, to power the car’s 72-volt motor.

Even much of the battery technology was worked out in those early days.

The Edison batteries were the result of a research program the inventor conducted at the turn of the century to create lighter, more powerful batteries that would extend the range and speed of electric cars, just as inventors are trying to do today.

Instead of the lead plates and sulfuric acid used in batteries from the mid-19th century on, the Edison batteries used iron and nickelic oxide electrodes, and an alkaline electrolyte of potassium hydroxide. Early tests were promising, but the first production batteries were prone to leaking and electrode failure. Edison closed the factory in 1905 and reworked the batteries, finally resuming production four years later. The effort was obviously effective.

“I have modern lead-acid batteries in the car now, but I can still run the original Edison batteries,” Mr. Leno said. “You can just rinse them out, replace the electrolyte, and they’re ready to go. They still work fine, after almost a hundred years.”

The car’s electric motor, about the size of a watermelon, is visible under the car, driving the rear wheels via an enclosed-chain reduction system and a now-conventional driveshaft and differential.

Are we going backwards or forwards? Something to consider as electric cars struggle to gain a foothold in an industry dominated by petroleum-powered thinking.

When the Oil is Gone, There is Still Vivoleum

I've read this article about three times now and I still wind up shaking my head in wonderment. It highlights in a nutshell everything that is wrong about our energy policy, as well as our culture, and as the author, Eric Francis Coppolino, points out, while our societal values are being turned inside out, "Hardly anyone is paying attention."

On June 14 of this year in Calgary, Canada, a roomful of oil industry listened with rapt attention to a conference presentation about a promising, sustainable replacement for petroleum: Vivoleum.

The concept was very straightforward:

They proposed that the bodies of climate change victims, who they said now number about 150,000 a year, could be rendered into a burnable product, particularly as combustion of fossil fuels sped up ecological disasters. To demonstrate the efficacy of this, they distributed candles throughout the audience, which were allegedly made of the stuff. The candles were lit, and the oil execs passed the flame from one to another.

The presenters claimed to be top executives from ExxonMobil and the National Petroleum Council. In reality, they were a couple of high-octane hoaxsters, the Yes Men, engaged in a culture-jamming practice they call "identity correction."

The business leaders watched attentively as animations showed how the human flesh would be rendered into fuel. The logic was compelling:

“Vivoleum works in perfect synergy with the continued expansion of fossil fuel production,” said “Florian Osenberg,” claiming to be an ExxonMobil representative. “With more fossil fuels comes a greater chance of disaster, but that means more feedstock for Vivoleum. Fuel will continue to flow for those of us left.”

The presentation continued to unfold smoothly until the level of absurdity finally reached a breaking point:

The two then showed a video tribute to an ExxonMobil janitor, “Reginald Spanglehart Watts,” who had purportedly died of toxic exposure after a chemical incident at a company facility. Before passing away, the kindhearted worker had donated his body to be made into one of the candles, so that he could do some good and be useful to others after he died. “Osenberg” lit the candle made of Watts’s flesh and held it up.
The tear-jerking tribute to “Reggie Watts” (with “You Light Up My Life” sung out of tune by Reggie as its theme song, as he mopped and swept) finally pushed the presenters’ credulity a shade too far. At that point, realizing the presentation was a hoax, Simon Mellor, commercial and business development director for the company putting on the event, walked up and physically forced the two imposters from the podium. The police were called, but the pair could only be charged with trespassing.

Many of the other identity readjustments staged by this group are equal parts funny and disturbing. The worldwide BBC broadcast where one the Yes Men, appearing as a Dow employee, explained how the victims of the Bhopal disaster were finally going to compensated is a genuine eye-opener (as was the response from Dow).

This is journalism at its best, as published by Chronogram. More power to them...

So, we had best not stake our energy futures in Vivoleum. The “o” in the Vivoleum logo was a drop of blood.

Nuke Plants Unable to Compete in the Free Market

Unable to gain financing on their own, power companies pushing nuclear power plants want the government (AKA you and me, unwitting taxpayers) to provide full loan guarantees, as discussed in this N.Y. Times article.

Power companies have tentative plans to put the 28 new reactors at 19 sites around the country. Industry executives insist that banks and Wall Street will not provide the money needed to build new reactors unless the loans are guaranteed in their entirety by the federal government.

Grossly overexpensive, short-lived, unreliable nuclear power plants have no place in the mix of energy options we need to combat global warming. And the safety issue is pretty well summed up by insurance companies, world's greatest assessors of risk, that refuse to insure plants beyond a limited liability cap--the rest of the tab, as might be expected, is dropped in the lap of none other than John Q. Public, thanks to the Price-Anderson Act.

A Look at Some Clean Cars

Roland Hwang, Vehicle Policy Director for NRDC, talks about emerging clean car technologies that are being designed, all of which share one trait in common: no tailpipes.

World's Third Largest Solar Plant Online

A utility-scale power plant based on concentrating solar power technology is up and running near Boulder City, Nevada. Generating 64 megawatts of power, the Nevada Solar One plant is the largest one built internationally in the last 14 years and the third largest on the planet. Environmental News Service has a good description here and the landmark has also earned an entry in Wikipedia.

Green TV Productions offers the following on-site coverage of Nevada Solar One:

Changing How People Design Things

More on the Rocky Mountain Institute in this revealing (though slightly smarmy) video clip from a CNN piece...

On Micropower and Other Musings of Amory Lovins

Amory Lovins and the well-respected organization he founded decades ago, the Rocky Mountain Institute, bring clarity and scientific precision to discussions on the pros and cons of alternative energy paths. Lovins favors the soft path, as made clear in this interview with Grist.
Micropower, as pointed out in the following quote, is not a trivial pursuit, but a major part of the energy mix in many forward-looking industrial countries.

We see this now in the electricity business. A fifth of the world's electricity and a quarter of the world's new electricity comes from micropower -- that is, combined heat and power (also called cogeneration) and distributed renewables. Micropower provides anywhere from a sixth to over half of all electricity in most of the industrial countries. This is not a minor activity anymore; it's well over $100 billion a year in assets. And it's essentially all private risk capital.

So in 2005, micropower added 11 times as much capacity and four times as much output as nuclear worldwide, and not a single new nuclear project on the planet is funded by private risk capital. What does this tell you? I think it tells you that nuclear, and indeed other central power stations, have associated costs and financial risks that make them unattractive to private investors. Even when our government approved new subsidies on top of the old ones in August 2005 -- roughly equal to the entire capital costs of the next-gen nuclear plants -- Standard & Poor's reaction in two reports was that it wouldn't materially improve the builders' credit ratings, because the risks private capital markets are concerned about are still there.

So I think even such a massive intervention will give you about the same effect as defibrillating a corpse -- it will jump but it will not revive.

Lovins has the facts, figures, and statistics to back up his claims, and a substantial library of information on the Rocky Mountain Institute site guiding interested truth seekers to the soft energy path.

Democratic Candidates Debate Energy Options

If you were counting on the next U.S. President (who we suspect may come from the Democratic party, if current trends continue) to make the right moves to reverse global warming, the following video from the recent CNN debate may be discouraging. The strongest responses came from Dennis Kucinich, who talked of sweeping new policies throughout America, to emphasize energy efficiency and deploy solar, wind, and geothermal power installations as fast as we can build them. He also rightfully ascribed our current inclination to warmaking, proceeding unabated in Iraq as warships maneuver off the coast of Iran, as one more sign of the perpetuation of the oil economy. Would we be fighting in the region if the major exports were breadfruit and kumquats?

The Kucinich segment starts about one minute into the video (with the question from the snowman).

The Joys of Uranium Mining

If you start at the beginning of the nuclear power fuel cycle--uranium mining--the shining attributes of clean, safe nuclear power become abundantly clear, as starkly illustrated in this Mother Jones article, Crazy for Yellowcake in Paradox, Colorado.
Petra Bartosiewicz paints a vivid picture of the past and potential future damage of mining operations amidst the clouds of radioactive dust:

George Gore, 59, a retired uranium miner and mill worker, grew up in Uravan, where his father worked for 24 years in the Union Carbide mill; he now lives in Grand Junction, Colorado. Gore, whose big white beard makes him look like a weather-beaten Santa, spent 18 years in the mining industry, several of them digging for uranium in the Lazy L Mine outside Uravan. By age 30, he had developed severe lung problems. "In 1977, I was told by a doctor that I'd be dead in two years if I didn't get out of uranium mining," he says. (Government records show that radiation levels at the Lazy L in the 1970s were so high, a worker would hit the maximum exposure to radiation considered safe over a lifetime—or 30 years of work—in just 4 years.) I met Gore when he returned to Nucla with his sister, Gladys, last winter. The siblings visited the local cemetery, its rows of headstones adorned with pickaxes, mining jacks, shovels. They listed off the dead as they walked: their father, from cancer; three brothers, from cancer, one at the age of 24; their uncle, who drove uranium trucks, from emphysema ("Never smoked a day in his life," said Gore); their aunt, from lung cancer; several cousins, from cancer; dozens of schoolmates, from cancer. "Almost all the people I grew up with—all of 'em dead," said Gore. "It's one of the tragedies of the Cold War. And now we want to try it again."

As one of the commenters to this piece noted, the harrowing description doesn't even go into the damage wrought on the Navajo nation in Arizona and New Mexico, where sickness and death followed the frenzy to exploit the considerable volumes of uranium ore located on reservation lands.

No Future for Nuclear Power

Love him or hate him, Ralph Nader doesn't mince words when it comes to derailing the train of corporate bullshit that dominates the mainstream media outlets. In a CommonDreams post, No Future for Nuclear Power, Nader examines the efforts of the nuclear power industry to foist the costs of building, operating, decommisioning, and cleaning up after accidents on the public. If there was ever an industry that was the antithesis of the so-called free market theory of enterprise, nuclear power is it. It only exists when vast subsidies prop it up and the public bears the burden of serious accidents.

In this hard-hitting article, Nader says:

Do you know any other industry producing electricity that has to have specific evacuation plans for miles around it, is inherently a national security risk, cannot be privately insured without Congress mandating severe limited liability in case of massive casualties and requires massive taxpayer subsidies?

A most concise, authoritative case against the electric atom was recently released titled “Why a Future for the Nuclear Industry is Risky” by a group of environmental health and social investment groups. (See wwww.cleanenergy.org)

In the introduction to the report, the case against nuclear energy was summarized this way: “Wind power and other renewable technologies, combined with energy efficiency, conservation and cogeneration can be much more cost effective and can be deployed much sooner than new nuclear power plants.”

Yes indeed, efficiency or conservation, with a national mission, can cut in half the waste of energy, using currently available technology and know-how, before the first privately capitalized nuclear plant opens. One scientist once described the primary output of electric generating plants as “heating the heavens.”

In spite of the utter folly of nuclear power, the disinformation mills churn on, spewing out their own form of radioactive tritium, countless particles of blatant falsehoods.

Between the Fault Lines

As has been the case with virtually every nuclear power plant incident in the last 50 years, the operators at the Tokyo Electric Plant admitted after the fact that damage to the reactor was worse than initially reported last week and, in a small, barely reported side note stated that the earthquake force had exceeded the design limits of the reactors at the site. In a CommonDreams.org article, Harvey Wasserman surveyed some of the other catastrophes waiting to happen, plants located on or near fault lines, where a severe temblor could contaminate a region the size of a state. In the article summary, Harvey says:

To this list we must now add additional tangible evidence that reactors allegedly built to withstand “worst case” earthquakes in fact cannot. And when they go down, the investment is lost, and power shortages arise (as is now happening in Japan) that are filled by the burning of fossil fuels.

It costs up to ten times as much to produce energy from a nuke as to save it with efficiency. Advances in wind, solar and other green “Solartopian” technologies mean atomic energy simply cannot compete without massive subsidies, loan guarantees and government insurance to protect it from catastrophes to come.

This latest “impossible” earthquake has not merely shattered the alleged safeguards of Japan’s reactor fleet. It has blown apart—yet again—any possible argument for building more reactors anywhere on this beleaguered Earth.

Earthquakes and nuclear reactors are a volatile combination and one we definitely don't need if we want to balance safety and energy efficiency.

Japan Nuclear Plant Shutdown

Reliability has never been a strong suit of nuclear power plant operations, with safety problems, forced shutdowns, and similar difficulties plaguing the technology since its introduction. A recent quake in Japan, as reported by Reuters, put their largest plant out of commission.
And anyone who remembers the 2003 heat wave in Europe that took 35,000 lives might also remember that many of the nuclear power reactors in France went offline during much of that period because of cooling problems (sometimes produced by the rise in temperature of the water sourced for cooling intake). Similar problems occurred in Europe during July 2006.

Is it smart to invest in a technology that relies on absolute precision in controlling operational temperatures during a time when global warming is making that increasingly difficult? As the French reactor operators discovered, the approach doesn't work all that well.

A Nuclear Reactor Outside Fresno?

Like those third-rate horror movie monsters that get killed three or four times and still keep coming back, the nuclear power promoters are working overtime in California to try to get a new reactor constructed just outside Fresno.

To do it, and open the pathway for a business cartel hoping to fund the enterprise, they will first have to overturn a law passed in 1976 that requires an appropriate solution to nuclear waste storage before any new plants are built. Republican state assemblyman Chuck DeVore wants to put the issue to a statewide vote.

In a CommonDreams.org article, California's New Nukes War, Harvey Wasserman says,

The irony is that we stand at the brink of the greatest technological revolution in human history. But we’re being dragged away from it by Big Money’s push for a technology with fifty years of proven ecological disaster and financial failure.

Green energy is poised to remake our world.

Wind power is the cheapest form of new generation now available. There are sufficient wind resources between the Mississippi and the Rockies to generate, with available technology, 300% of the electricity we use. There’s enough in North Dakota, Kansas and Texas alone to do 100%.

Solar technologies ranging from green architectural design to desert power towers to photovoltaic cells that go on every rooftop are booming toward a multi-billion-dollar mainstay of our electric supply. Bio-fuels based on sustainable, organic practices can transform our transportation sector. Tidal, wave, geothermal, ocean thermal and a wide range of other green production processes stand at the brink of epic profitability.

Meanwhile, increased efficiency and revived mass transit are the cheapest, cleanest ways to salvage the energy we waste. In concert, these revolutionary green technologies are poised to bring us to Solartopia, a post-pollution planet powered totally by energy harvested in harmony with our Mother Earth. They promise an abundance of efficient supply with the power to boom our economies and save our ability to survive on this planet.

But here’s the hitch: renewable energy has the “flaw” of tending toward community control. In the long run, a true Solartopian revolution must involve re-shaping our corporate culture into one based on sustainability, accountability and grassroots democracy. Though some astute corporations are cashing in, in the long run green technologies are the door to decentralization…and economic democracy. A green-powered Solartopia will own its energy supply at the grassroots. Wind, solar, bio-fuels—they hold the keys to community control.

Against all that, new nukes are the ultimate weapon of mass distraction. There have been numerous rationales put forth for building more reactors. Except to an entrenched corporate power elite, none of them make any sense.

The struggle goes on and at times it seems as though the voices for sanity and common sense are winning. But, as soon as the lights go out, that made-up movie beast is at the window, scratching and clawing, looking for some innocent flesh to devour.

George Monbiot's View of the World

"What will the world look like in 2050?" the interviewer from The Real News asks George Monbiot, author of Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning, and the interview gains steam from there. Part 1 of this 4-part series is a pithy, insightful view of the perils of global warming and a glimpse of the kind of information that our mainstream media should be providing to us.

Skewed Logic: Nuclear Power is the Solution

In an excellent piece in Orion Magazine, Reasons Not to Glow, Rebecca Solnit skewers the nuclear power cheerleaders who defy logic, reason, and common sense with their claims their nuclear power is the way to reverse climate change.
Nuclear power is clean, if you ignore uranium tailings and fuel processing and depleted uranium distributed with abandon in weaponry. Nuclear power is cheap, if you ignore the costs of decommisioning reactors after their 30- to 40-year lifespan and guarding the ruins for the next few centuries, as well as the accrued costs of the inevitable accidents. Nuclear power is the only way out of our situation, if you pretend that we can build them fast enough and that the remaining supplies of high-grade uranium ore won't run out in a couple of decades.
With a pen as sharp as a laser-tooled sword, Rebecca says:

If you’re not, at this point, chasing your poor formerly pronuclear companion down the hallway, mention that every stage of the nuclear fuel cycle is murderously filthy, imparting long-lasting contamination on an epic scale; that a certain degree of radioactive pollution is standard at each of these stages, but the accidents are now so many in number that they have to be factored in as part of the environmental cost; that the plants themselves generate lots of radioactive waste, which we still don’t know what to do with—because the stuff is deadly . . . anywhere . . . and almost forever. And no, tell them, this nuclear colonialism is not an acceptable sacrifice, since it is not one the power consumers themselves are making. It’s a sacrifice they’re imposing on people far away and others not yet born, a debt they’re racking up at the expense of people they will never meet.

Sure, you can say nuclear power is somewhat less carbon-intensive than burning fossil fuels for energy; beating your children to death with a club will prevent them from getting hit by a car. Ravaging the Earth by one irreparable means is not a sensible way to prevent it from being destroyed by another. There are alternatives. We should choose them and use them.

Enjoy the full article here.

Ethanol and Debt Slavery

With every move that inches toward escape from the petroleum-based economy that has gained a death grip on modern society, the dark side in man, like a character in a Cormac McCarthy novel, rises up to squelch optimism. Debt slavery, enjoying a resurgence in Brazil as the the growing popularity of ethanol blurs the focus on labor conditions, reveals the ugly underbelly of a potentially promising offshoot of the energy industry.
In this article in The Independent, Daniel Howden states:

More than 1,000 "enslaved" workers have been released from a sugar cane plantation in the Amazon following a raid that has highlighted the dark side of the current ethanol boom.

Brazilian authorities said that the workers in the northern state of Para were being forced to work 14-hour days in horrendous conditions cutting cane for ethanol production.

Police said the raid was Brazil's biggest to date against debt slavery, a practice reminiscent of indentured labour where poor workers are lured to remote rural areas, then pushed into debt to plantation owners who charge exorbitant prices for everything from food to transportation.

Not that much different than John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath in another time and place.

Up with Pedal Power

As personal income levels rise in Asian countries, so does the increasing reliance on automobiles to move about. The World Health Organization sees bicycle riding and other lifestyle changes as vital to dealing with global climate issues, as well as pollution that is endangering Asia's overall health. Climate change is already having a devastating impact in Asian countries.

Climate change contributes directly or indirectly to about 77,000 deaths per year in the region, according to WHO estimates.

"So far the impact is on the health of the people. If the trend continues, it may have an impact on the economy," said Shigeru Omi, WHO's regional director for the Western Pacific.

"Of course the threat is there. We should not wait for that to happen," he told reporters at the start of a four-day conference on the impact of climate change and health in Southeast and East Asian countries.

Omi said urgent action was needed because Asia's share of the world's greenhouse gas emissions are expected to grow larger with the rapid economic expansion of China and India.

For more details, read the full article, UN calls for pedal power to reduce environmental damage.

The Dark Side of Nuclear Power

As a growing army of nuclear power shills keep popping up in the media, like demented marionettes escaped from a dark carnival, it's worth taking a close look at downsides of this dead-end technology. Note that whenever these boosters talk about the technology, they typically preface the term: it's "clean, safe" nuclear power, as if just repeating those magic words over and over will somehow overcome the dirty, unsafe connotations earned over the last half century.

The following short video interview with David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists takes a hard look at the dark side of nuclear power: the dangers of terrorist attacks, the cost of cleanup, the close calls near major population centers, the incredible problems of transporting hundreds of tons of contaminating materials when decommissioning plants, and on and on...

The People versus the Oil Companies

Part Four of an interview with George Monbiot (author of Heat: How to Sop the Planet from Burning) hosted by TheRealNews, lays out some thought-provoking ideas about energy efficiency, hydrogen-fueled vehicles, and the difficulty of overcoming the infrastructure welded in place by the oil companies. Good stuff...

I found this part of the interview especially relevant, but I'd also recommend returning to Part One and watching all the segments.

A Grassroots Approach

When dealing with a monumental issue, such as global warming, people have a tendency to throw up their hands and say, "Let the government deal with it!" In our current situation, however, where the U.S. government leadership is more interested in maintaining the status quo and finding inventive ways to pretend that global warming is a delusional myth, lasting change originates from the grassroots. The top-down approach isn't working. All the more reason to embrace the bottom-up approach.

This article from the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, People look for ways to cut their carbon footprint, highlights the ways in which people concerned with the global warming problem confront it in highly personal ways.

A brief excerpt from this excellent article by Meg McConahey:

"We're not activists. Just two Santa Rosa parents raising two kids. We didn't ever march in anything," said Lisa Ormond, 44, who also was inspired to go on a low-carbon diet after winning tickets to "An Inconvenient Truth" from a local radio station.

Small steps add up

She began bicycling at least two days a week from her subdivision in Bennett Valley to her marketing job at Santa Rosa Junior College. She car pools with girlfriends to soccer games. Husband Randal, an electrical engineer at Alcatel-Lucent, now incorporates most family errands into his commute home from Petaluma rather than making separate trips. She and her son biked together to an after-school class - all dramatic lifestyle changes made in a single year.

"It started a whole avalanche of alternative thinking about some of these issues," Ormond said, from weighing the economic feasibility of getting solar panels to swapping their Honda for an electric car. "These are little ways I know I'm not putting carbon in the air."

In March, the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy called the shift in public opinion a "sea change." It found 83 percent of Americans now believe global warming is a serious problem, and 75 percent of them believe their own behavior can have an impact on climate change. And about 81 percent said it's their responsibility to alter their energy-wasting behavior.

As the article emphasizes: small steps add up...

The Race to the Bottom

In the spirited race to become number one in carbon emissions, China has surpassed the United States. As reported by the Environment News Service, the widespread adoption of coal-fired power plants and expanded cement production facilities have driven China from two percent lower in CO2 emissions to eight percent higher than the United States.

Other figures, based on a study by a Netherlands agency, the Environmental Assessment Agency, include:

In 2006, the total of China’s CO2 emissions from fossil fuels increased by nine percent.

In the USA in that same year, 2006, emissions decreased by 1.4 percent, compared to 2005.

In the original 15 European Union countries, in that same year, CO2 emissions from fossil fuels remained more or less constant.

In 2005 there was a decrease by 0.8 percent, according to a recent report by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency compiling data from the EU member states.

Globally, in 2006, CO2 emissions from fossil fuel use increased by about 2.6 percent, which is less than the 3.3 percent increase in 2005.

China's unprecedented industrial growth poses multiple challenges as pressure to use dirty fuel sources, further boosting carbon emissions, grows.

A New Class of Refugees

The byproducts of global warming--including floods, rising sea levels, desertification, and deforestation--are expected to create massive populations of refugees, as much as one billion by 2050, according to a Reuters article, Global Warming to Multiply the World's Refugee Burden.

"All around the world, predictable patterns are going to result in very long-term and very immediate changes in the ability of people to earn their livelihoods," said Michele Klein Solomon of the International Organisation of Migration (IOM).

"It's pretty overwhelming to see what we might be facing in the next 50 years," she said. "And it's starting now."

People forced to move by climate change, salination, rising sea levels, deforestation or desertification do not fit the classic definition of refugees -- those who leave their homeland to escape persecution or conflict and who need protection.

But the world's welcome even for these people is wearing thin, just as United Nations figures show that an exodus from Iraq has reversed a five-year decline in overall refugee numbers.

One more angle to consider in a problem that is already extremely complex...

The Solar-Powered Google

With the click of a switch on Sunday, June 17th, Google launched the largest solar installation on a corporate campus in the U.S.--with nearly 9,000 solar panels producing 7,795 kilowatt hours of electricity. The company is also working hard to help commercialize fully electric cars.

"One of Google.org's core missions is to address climate change, said Dan Reicher, director of Climate and Energy Initiatives with Google.org.

Read more at the Environment News Service.

Vanishing Glaciers, Receding Rivers

Global warming is quickly shifting from something that people can pretend isn't happening to something that intrudes dramatically on everyday life. The Himalayan glaciers that are the source of the Ganges River may disappear by 2030, turning the Ganges into a seasonal river.

As reported by Emily Wax in The Washington Post, and reposted at Truthout.org, short-term economic interests are taking precedence over long-term environmental concerns.

"There has never been a greater threat for the Ganges," said Mahesh Mehta, an environmental lawyer who has been filing lawsuits against corporations dumping toxins in the Ganges. He is now redirecting his energies toward the melting glaciers. "If humans don't change their interference, our very religion, our livelihoods are under threat."

Mehta and other environmentalists want to see the Indian government here enforce strict reductions of greenhouse gas emissions, the primary cause of climate change.

But during this month's Group of Eight conference of the major industrialized nations, both India and China, eager to protect their market growth, joined the United States in refusing to support mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions. President Bush has instead pushed a plan for nonbinding goals to reduce emissions.

"It is a fact that more and not less development is the best way for developing countries to address themselves to the issues of preserving the environment," Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a public statement before leaving for the G-8 summit in Germany.

While India is one of the world's top producers of greenhouse gas emissions - along with the United States, China, Russia and Japan - it argues that the United States and other developed countries should reduce their own emissions before expecting developing nations to follow suit.

Short-sighted politicians and unimaginative government officials still don't seem to understand that market growth will be a distant memory if global warming continues to transform the world in powerful ways.

The Greatest Gas Guzzler of All

When it comes to burning oil in volumes that stagger the imagination, the United States Pentagon garners top honors, giving new meanings to terms like waste and inefficiency. As reported in Tomdispatch.com, putting a wrapper around the words of Michael Klare, future wars may be fought just to fuel the machines that fight them. A quick excerpt:

Sixteen gallons of oil. That's how much the average American soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan consumes on a daily basis -- either directly, through the use of Humvees, tanks, trucks, and helicopters, or indirectly, by calling in air strikes. Multiply this figure by 162,000 soldiers in Iraq, 24,000 in Afghanistan, and 30,000 in the surrounding region (including sailors aboard U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf) and you arrive at approximately 3.5 million gallons of oil: the daily petroleum tab for U.S. combat operations in the Middle East war zone.

Multiply that daily tab by 365 and you get 1.3 billion gallons: the estimated annual oil expenditure for U.S. combat operations in Southwest Asia. That's greater than the total annual oil usage of Bangladesh, population 150 million -- and yet it's a gross underestimate of the Pentagon's wartime consumption.

It's hard not to grind your molars to dust at the absurdity of this equation.

Nuclear Misinformation

The best insights about the future of nuclear power usually come from those in the thick of the debate. John Abbotts, a research scientist and member of the Hanford Task Force of Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility, offered these thoughts in an opinion piece published in the Seattle Times.

As their supporters have noted, atomic energy plants do not directly produce greenhouse gases during their operation. But they do produce prodigious amounts of radioactive waste, along with material that can be fashioned into atomic bombs.

Keeping the radioactive materials under control requires a complicated regulatory infrastructure; thus, it would be at least 10 years before new reactors could be designed, licensed, constructed and begin operation. By then, their capacity and energy demands could be a mismatch.

Not only would reactor plants take too long to have a significant impact on global warming, but they are expensive, multibillion-dollar facilities. It is faster and much more economical to save energy through efficiency improvements than to generate it through new power plants.

It's well worth reading the full column for the additional perspective.

Are You a Solartopian?

If you've spent any time at all cruising the Internet investigating alternative energy options, you've no doubt run across the writings of Harvey Wasserman, one of the most articulate and outspoken advocates of a drastic shift in our energy priorities. See if you agree with his four basic pillars underlying the question, "Are You a Solartopian?"

The essence of the argument is as follows:

In the global campaign to save the Earth, a shared vision is vital.

“Solartopia” foresees a democratic, green-powered 21st Century civilization. Our economic and ecological survival depend on it.

Technologically, the vision rests on four simple pillars:

1. Total renunciation of all fossil and nuclear fuels. In a sustainable, survivable future, they are a 20th Century pox, neither green nor clean.

2. All-out conversion to renewable energy, led by the “Solartopian Trinity” of wind, solar and bio-fuels. Mother Earth gives us the natural power we need.

3. Complete commitment to maximum efficiency, including revived and solarized mass transit and passenger rail systems. Our automotive “love affair” is a hoax.

4. Zero tolerance for production of anything that cannot be re-used or recycled, including chemical-based food. Solartopia is an organic, post-pollution world.

The Merits of Carbon Offsets

Are carbon offsets a pointless attempt to justify bad behavior or a legitimate means of neutralizing those bad behaviors that are contributing to the demise of the planet?
In a Mother Jones article, Practical Values: Paying for My Hot Air, Kimberly Lasagor explores the topic and comes to some interesting conclusions.

Still, there's a bigger issue here. The whole idea of atonement by credit card seems counterintuitive. It's as if we're saying polluting is okay, as long as you can afford to pay. But Strasdas says we should think of it as a last resort. Yes, we should all strive to emit less carbon, but some emissions are harder to avoid ("You cannot have planes that are flying on renewable energy, at least not in the foreseeable future," he points out). That's where offsets can help. "This is not the way out. This is a temporary relief of pressure on the earth's atmosphere," Strasdas says. "For the time being I think it's a very good way to bridge the gap."

The full article is worth a read. It brings out a number of points that you've probably thought about yourself.

How to Stop the Planet from Burning

The title itself is enough to stop most people in their tracks. George Monbiot's book, HEAT: How to Stop the Planet from Burning, published by South End Press, outlines a course from contemplation to direct action to deal with the problem.

From the publisher:

Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning marks an important moment in our civilization’s thinking about global warming. The question is no longer Is climate change actually happening? but What do we do about it? George Monbiot offers an ambitious and far-reaching program to cut our carbon dioxide emissions to the point where the environmental scales start tipping back—away from catastrophe.


Though writing with a "spirit of optimism," Monbiot does not pretend it will be easy. The only way to avoid further devastation, he argues, is a 90% cut in CO2 emissions in the rich nations of the world by 2030. In other words, our response will have to be immediate, and it will have to be decisive.

A Growth Industry: Greenhouse Gases

Without some kind of incentives or regulation, we can count on greenhouse gas emissions in the United States rising substantially by 2020, according to a climate report issued by the Bush administration.

As reported by the Environmental News Service:

The latest projections from pre-2004 EU Member States (EU-15) show that greenhouse gas emissions could be brought down to eight percent below 1990 levels by 2010. An October report by the European Environment Agency, EEA, shows that "if all existing and planned domestic policy measures are implemented and Kyoto mechanisms as well as carbon sinks are used, the EU-15 will reach its Kyoto Protocol target."

The next 10 new EU member states also are on track to achieve their individual Kyoto targets, despite rising emissions, largely due to economic restructuring in the 1990s, says the EEA. The two most recent EU member states were not part of the block last October when the report was produced.

President Bush has said that abiding by the Kyoto Protocol would hurt the U.S. economy. He has argued that voluntary emissions reductions and better technology such as clean coal, nuclear power, and energy efficiency would do the job of limiting global warming.

U.S. scientists, businesses and environmental groups say that if irreversible global warming is to be avoided, binding targets even more stringent than those of the Kyoto Protocol should be set.

What will it take to gain enough political momentum to put the brakes on global warming?

The Unsung Risks of Maritime Emissions

The news changes so quickly that sometimes it's difficult to figure out what you should be most worried about. Most of us are aware of the threat that commercial aviation poses to global climate change, pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at levels that represent about 2 percent of the global total.

But, when was the last time you heard anyone express concern emissions from the maritime shipping industry, which burns about 200-million tons of fuel a year, representing around 4 percent of the global total.

As discussed in this Guardian Unlimited story, the threat is real and growing.

Carbon dioxide emissions from ships do not come under the Kyoto agreement or any proposed European legislation and few studies have been made of them, even though they are set to increase.

Sometimes it's the things you're not worried about that get you.

350 Miles on a Single Charge

The barriers that have stood between electric cars and the public are coming down--one after another. Range has always been an issue, with the typical 50- to 120-mile range per charge scaring off all but the most devoted enthusiasts.

How about an electric vehicle with a range of 350 miles that can be fully charged in 10 minutes?

As reported by CNET News, new battery technologies and a design collaboration between Zap, based in Santa Rosa, CA, and Lotus, the legendary British marquee, will result in the APX, a spirited SUV with performance figures right up there with Porsche and other leading sports cars.

The cost may be a bit of a sticking point with many buyers, however:

The Zap-X will cost only $60,000, said Zap CEO Steve Schneider. The Tesla Roadster sells for $92,000, while the WrightSpeed X1 will go for around $120,000. The Zap-X won't be as fast, but it won't putter either. It will go from zero to 60 miles per hour in 4.8 seconds; the Tesla Roadster does that in 4 seconds, while the X1 can do that in 3 seconds. Just as importantly, the Zap-X will have room for five adults, instead of the two seats in the other cars.
"We are appealing to the SUV buyer who feels sort of guilty about buying an SUV," Schneider said.

The next step is a realistically priced electric car with that same 350-mile range and a price tag about $40,000 lower. I'll settle for zero to 60 miles per hour in 10 seconds if the price is right.

Nuclear Shills and Vainglorious Lies

We live in an age rife with disinformation and the loudest shills are often the ones with the biggest bag of lies. At the top of this liar's club is nuclear power flack, Patrick Moore, who refers to himself as a "founder" of Greenpeace and uses those credentials to hawk the virtues of nuclear power as the clean and safe antitode to global warming. Harvey Wasserman, an articulate and knowledgeable opponent of nuclear power, systematically deconstructs Moore's phony autobiography, bogus arguments, and unsupported statements in The Sham of Nuke Power and Patrick Moore. This piece is particularly important to me as Moore is speaking in my home state of Vermont, funded by his keepers in the nuclear industry, spreading rhetorical effluent in favor of the ongoing operation of the Vermont Yankee plant.

In this article, Harvey says:

In a world beset by terror, there is no more vulnerable target than an aged reactor like Vermont Yankee. Its core is laden with built-up radiation accumulated over the decades. Its environs are burdened with supremely radioactive spent fuel. Its elderly core and containment are among the most fragile that exist.

Despite industry claims, VY's high-level nuke waste is going nowhere. Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Edward McGaffigan has told the New York Times he believes the Yucca Mountain waste repository cannot open for at least another 17-20 years, if ever. At current production levels, it will by then require yet another repository at least that size to handle the spent fuel that will by then be stacked at reactors like VY. In short: the dry casks stacked at Vermont Yankee could comprise what amounts to a permanent high level nuke dump, on the shores of the Connecticut River.

Veront Yankee is the only nuclear power plant operating in Vermont and, if wisdom prevails, its operating permits will not be renewed.

Greenhouse Gas Alliance of Western States

Given the reluctance of the U.S. Federal Government to tackle the problem of global warming, five Western states have taken action on their own to institute regional measures for lowering greenhouse gas emissions. As reported in this San Francisco Chronicle article, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the governors of Arizona, Washington, New Mexico, and Oregon forged an agreement to lower emissions and set up the framework for buying and selling carbon emission credits. California leads in nationwide efforts to enact legislation to drive down emissions, but the cooperation of other Western states will hopefully lead to progressive measures and similar legislation being passed in their locales. Some of the states have a long way to go:

While Schwarzenegger last year signed legislation banning the state's electric utilities from acquiring new megawatts from power plants that burn coal to produce electricity, both Arizona and New Mexico generate much of their power from coal, which is a heavy greenhouse gas contributor. One power plant in Arizona landed last year on a nonpartisan environmental group's list of the 50 worst carbon dioxide emitters in the country.

Both Arizona and New Mexico are considering proposals for new coal-fired power plants.

Tesla Electric Car Manufacturing Ramps Up

As tangible proof that electric cars don't have to be dowdy, under-powered under-achievers, Tesla Motors prototyped a sleek, fast sports car last year and quickly found 300 trusting individuals willing to plunk down a deposit. With a price tag that rivals a Porsche, but performance that also matches the legendary German prowess (the Tesla accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in around 4 seconds), the company is targeting its next model for a broader market. Tesla is ramping up to manufacture a line of four-door sedans, having reached terms with the State of New Mexico to construct a manufacturing facility that would be partially funded by the state. New Mexico apparently offered more compelling incentives than California (Tesla had also considered locating the plant in Pittsburg, CA).

Vibrio Food Poisoning and Global Warming

Global warming nudged the temperature in Alaska's oyster beds just high enough to give the bacterium Vibrio parahaemoolyticus the warmth to flourish. As reported in the L.A. Times, seafood in Alaska was typically too cold for the nasty microbe, but by the summer of 2004, the critical 59-degree mark was surpassed in the local waters. Cruise ship passengers fed on local oysters became seriously ill.

"This was probably the best example to date of how global climate change is changing the importation of infectious diseases," said Dr. Joe McLaughlin, acting chief of epidemiology at the Alaska Division of Public Health, who published a study on the outbreak.The spread of human disease has become one of the most worrisome subplots in the story of global warming. Incremental temperature changes have begun to redraw the distribution of bacteria, insects and plants, exposing new populations to diseases that they have never seen before.

Food for thought on the significance of a few degrees of change impacting a region...

Green Limos Make Statement at Oscars

In a sign of the times, many of the celebrities appearing at the 2007 Oscars have opted to appear in hybrid vehicles provided by Global Green USA. As described in this Reuter's article:

The environmental group began the green limousine campaign five years ago at the Oscars to raise awareness among the tens of millions of viewers worldwide about alternative fuel cars, energy independence and solutions to global warming

Ostentatious displays are finally giving way to more environmentally friendly rides...

Crocodiles Off of Greenland

Without swift and dramatic changes, a spokesperson for the American Association for the Advancement of Science said, we are heading for world conditions similar to the Epocene epoch, when massive numbers of species became extinct. At the annual 2007 AAAS meeting, president Dr. John Holdren said:

"Climate change is not a problem for our children and our grandchildren - it is a problem for us. It's already causing harm," said Holdren, who serves as director of the Woods Hole Research Center, and is the Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy at Harvard University.

One colleaque that Holdren quoted envisioned "crocodiles off of Greenland and palm trees in Wyoming."

This Environmental News Service release states the case and offers suggestions on what we need to do next.

Cheap Solar Power Soon

One obstacle to the widespread adoption of solar power has been the capital cost difference between typical carbon-based energy sources and solar power. In the 1970's, solar power cost around $100 per watt. Today, it varies between $3 and $4 per watt. According to Anil Sethi of the Swiss firm Flisom, as reported in this article published in the Telegraph in Britain, the cost of solar power will be around $.80 a watt within 5 years. This will bring the cost below the comparable carbon-based fuel costs, which currently stand near $1 per watt.

The key is a a semiconductor compound (CuInGaSe2) embedded in a thin, lightweight polymer substrate that can be manufactured in rolls, unlike today's glass-based solar panels. Quoted in the article, Sethi said:

"It'll even work on a cold, grey, cloudy day in England, which still produces 25pc to 30pc of the optimal light level. That is enough, if you cover half the roof," he said.

"We don't need subsidies, we just need governments to get out of the way and do no harm. They've spent $170bn subsidising nuclear power over the last thirty years," he said.

His ultra-light technology, based on a copper indium compound, can power mobile phones and laptop computers with a sliver of foil.

A number of other solar technologies using other materials are also showing promise of breaking the $1 per watt barrier within a decade and, in a couple of cases, within two or three years. The solar power industry is poised to obviate our long-term reliance on centralized fossil-based power plants and expensive, dangerous nuclear power.

Future Be Damned, Oil Consumption Rises

If the master forecasters behind the largest energy firms in the U.S. have their projections right, consumption of fossil fuels--the major cause of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere--isn't going to be cut back any time soon. In fact, it's going to be increased. The Department of Energy predicts that the combined consumption of oil, coal, and gas will rise 35 percent by 2030.

In this article posted to Alternet.org, Michael Klare showcases the trends taking place:

Because Americans show no inclination to reduce their consumption of fossil fuels -- but rather are using more and more of them all the time -- one can foresee no future reduction in U.S. emissions of GHGs. According to the DoE, the United States is projected to consume 35 percent more oil, coal, and gas combined in 2030 than in 2004; not surprisingly, the nation's emissions of carbon dioxide are expected to rise by approximately the same percentage over this period. If these projections prove accurate, total U.S. carbon dioxide emissions in 2030 will reach a staggering 8.1 billion metric tons, of which 42 percent will be generated through the consumption of oil (most of it in automobiles, vans, trucks, and buses), 40 percent by the burning of coal (principally to produce electricity), and the remainder by the combustion of natural gas (mainly for home heating and electricity generation). No other activity in the United States will come even close in terms of generating GHG emissions.

The rock-headed stubbornness of our business and political leadership in the U.S. defies belief. Faced with a potential planetary catastrophe of monumental proportions, many continue yammering about short-term economic concerns of the energy market. It's a bit like pontificating on beachfront property values while a gargantuan tsunami is minutes away from demolishing every building on the beach.

A quote from the article nicely sums up this attitude:

Typical of this approach is a talk given by Rex W. Tillerson, the CEO of Exxon Mobil, at a conference organized by Cambridge Energy Research Associates on February 13. As head of the world's largest publicly traded energy firm, Tillerson receives special attention when he talks. That his predecessor Lee Raymond often disparaged the science of global warming lent his comments particular significance. Yes, Tillerson admitted, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were increasing, and this contributed to the planet's gradual warming. But then, in language characteristic of the industry, he added, "The scale advantages of oil and natural gas across a broad array applications provide economic value unmatched by any alternative." It would therefore be a terrible mistake, he added, to rush into the development of energy alternatives when the consequences of global warming are still not fully understood.

The logic of this mode of thinking is inescapable. The continued production of fossil fuels to sustain our existing economic system is too important to allow the health of the planet to stand in its way. Buy into this mode of thought, and you can say goodbye to any hope of slowing -- let alone reversing -- the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Dramatic action on our energy consumption is needed--not tepid half measures--if we want to maintain a habitable world.

Tricky Tradeoffs

Here's a tough issue to consider. Harvesting energy from wind turbines has proven successful and this technology is one of the fastest growing approaches to alternative energy. But, as the popularity grows, local objections to the aesthetics of wind turbines on ridgelines and even the noise generated by the turbines in some spots has prompted negative responses from residents. As reported in this Boston Globe article, people who have moved to small towns to escape the noise and constant thrumming of industry in cities sometimes object to even the relatively quiet swoosh of turbine blades cutting through air.

Residents say that town officials and company representatives repeatedly assured them that the wind farm would be silent. Instead, they say, the windmills have disrupted their mountainside idyll. On days with low cloud cover, when the pulsing, rushing noise is loudest, wind farm neighbors say it can disrupt their sleep and drown out the rushing brook that was once the only sound here.

"It changes your whole feeling about being in the woods," said Tammie Fletcher, whose mountainside house boasts floor-to-ceiling views of the ridge where the windmills now stand.

We're clearly at a crossroads where dramatic action is needed to curtail the gases that precipitate global warming. Do individual concerns over solitude and silence take precedence? After all, building a 28-turbine wind farm in a rural area probably doesn't feel that much different to the residents than routing a four-lane freeway directly past their homes and businesses. Is it conscionable to steamroll the rights of the individual in favor of a collective initiative that theoretically could affect the lives of every living creature on the planet? It's certainly closer in magnitude to an annoyance when compared to the potentially catastrophic risk of living next to a nuclear power plant, which contains enough fissile material to contaminate an entire state in the event of a meltdown.

Even benign technology, however, when forced upon an individual or upon a community bears serious consideration. This crossroads will be the apex of many debates as we (the collective "we" of humankind) grapple with the monumental transitions that will be necessary to ensure survival in coming years.

Small Temperature Changes, Big Impact

A few degrees of temperature change don't matter very much, right? Why the big concern over global warming? This Boston Globe article illustrates some of the subtle and not-so-subtle effects of temperature variations across New England.

Techno-Fixes Don't Work

The announcement by Richard Branson that he would award a $25-millon prize to the inventor of an effective carbon-sequestration technology solution to combat global warming looks--at first glance--like a terrific way to inspire innovation and tackle the climate change issue head on. At second glance, as Kelpie Wilson describes it in a Truthout article, Virgin, the Dynamo, and the Prize, it's just one more way to circumvent the root causes of the problem, as well as another example of a misguided reliance on technology to get us out of difficult jams.

From this article:

The truth is that we already have all the technology that we need to save ourselves. Most of the world does not drive cars, use air conditioning or fly in airplanes, let alone spaceships. Provide an African village with a few solar panels and they can have lights at night, and a refrigerator to store medicines. Add a satellite dish and a computer, and they have the world's knowledge and culture at their fingertips. If the environment around them is healthy, it can provide everything else they need for a good life - water, food, clothing, shelter, musical instruments and the enjoyment of nature.

The new, post-carbon civilization will require that we be open to radically new ways of living. At the same time that the industrialized world helps African villagers upgrade their lifestyles to include electric lights and computers, it needs to downgrade its own lifestyles to eliminate wasteful consumption and feel the Earth again.

But what will motivate the rich populations of the industrial world to do this? Conventional wisdom says that they will never give up their wasteful luxuries. They will embrace every techno-fix imaginable before making even the smallest sacrifices, because they feel that they have already won the prize. The prize, in fact, is their monopoly over fossil fuels and the concern is that someone - greens, Arabs, Venezuelans or Russians - will take it away. It's no accident that Daniel Yergin's definitive history of the oil industry is called The Prize.

The techno-fix solution has appeal, because it deludes us into thinking we are clever enough to control the mechanisms that make life on earth possible. A more humble approach would admit that we break more things on earth than we fix and arrogance is at the heart of our most threatening problems.

Changing the Patterns of Energy Use

Representative Bart Gordon, chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, is convinced that government must play a role in changing the way that energy is produced and consumed. Accordingly, he is re-introducing a measure, H.R. 364, to create a research agency to move beyond traditional energy sources and develop technologies to address 21st century challenges.

In Energy Research for All, Alec Dubro of TomPaine.com wrote:

Many of today’s IT chiefs, as well as probably most consumers, choose to believe that the modern computer industry was created by the genius of the marketplace. At this point, much of the development is private sector, but the entire information industry rests on a network of publicly financed and directed research.

And so it must be with energy development. The private sector by definition pays for research with a direct, and ideally rapid, return on investment. Moreover, such research is proprietary, hidden from public view. Then, there is the question about the seriousness of research conducted by the energy companies. If the management of Exxon-Mobil has a choice between pursuing a known technology that brought them $40 billion in profits last year and unknown technologies that may never pay off, it’s not too hard to see where their sympathies and attentions lie.

Taxpayer-funded research, on the other hand, can be broader and less focused, looking well beyond the next quarterlies. ARPA-E, if it materializes, would benefit existing and startup industries, as well as continuing research. And it can meet public standards rather than profit-motivated goals.

Will our energy development proceed in an entirely profit-motivated direction or in a way that meets the goals and standards of the public? This bill could help in the creation of technologies that address public concerns.

5,000 Years Ago

Every now and then a story comes along that effectively illuminates the long, uncertain history of humankind. Here's such a story, triggered by retreating glaciers, that hints at climate catastrophes thousands of years ago and the fate of one man unexpectedly trapped in ice in the prime of his life.

Do Something

Instead of sitting back passively, reading blogs and news items about the perils of global warming, consider taking positive and immediate climate action and participating in Step It Up 2007! It's now 63 days until April 14, 2007, the official National Day of Climate Action, and Step It Up Now! hopes to expand the 599 events planned in 46 states across the country even further.

What are they trying to accomplish? From their Web site:

This is our organizing hub for a National Day of Climate Action--April 14th, 2007. On this one spring day, there will be hundreds and hundreds of rallies all across the country. We hope to have gatherings in every state, and in many of America's most iconic places: on the levees in New Orleans, on top of the melting glaciers on Mt. Rainier, even underwater on the endangered coral reefs off Key West.

One of the supporters of this initiative, noted environmental author Bill McKibben sums up the sentiments behind the action in this way:

Every group will be saying the same thing: Step it up, Congress! Enact immediate cuts in carbon emissions, and pledge an 80% reduction by 2050. No half measures, no easy compromises-the time has come to take the real actions that can stabilize our climate.

As people gather, we'll link pictures of the protests together electronically via the web-before the weekend is out, we'll have the largest protest the country has ever seen, not in numbers but in extent. From every corner of the nation we'll start to shake things up.

We can sit back and wait for the predictions to come true. Or, we can turn back the forces that drive global warming through concentrated, committed, grassroots action. Which side of the equation would you like to be on?

Tags: global warming, climate change, Step It Up Now!, grassroots

The Greening of Garbage Trucks

Those big, belching trucks that collect your garbage while getting around 4 mpg may soon be replaced by hybrids that produce energy while braking, gain extra energy from stored hydraulic power while creeping around city streets, and shut off automatically when stopped. This same technology, being prototyped and tested in several cities, also makes sense for delivery vans, shuttle buses, and postal vehicles.

As reported by Frank Greve in a McClatchy Newspapers article, Hybrids could turn big U.S. truck fleets green, hybrid hydraulic vehicles capture up to 75 percent of braking energy, compared to the 25 percent that is typical of hybrid electric vehicles.

Right now, however, the purchase incentives are stalled by a crucial component that must be provided by the EPA:

Hybrid trucks seemed to get a major boost from Washington under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which offers tax credits of up to $12,000 per hybrid truck to compensate for their higher price. The incentive was to start in January 2006, but hybrid makers and potential customers still can't count on it.

That's because the size of the tax credit, which the Internal Revenue Service oversees, depends on how much fuel a hybrid truck saves, and the EPA hasn't come out with a system to measure the fuel savings.

Fuel savings could be enormous once this hurdle is overcome.

Glimmerings of Hope for U.S. Climate Change Action

Serious action to contend with climate change has been seriously lacking in the U.S. for the last six years, squelched by the jackbooted dominance of the Bush administration and a compliant, Republican majority Congress. The first stirrings of action are appearing in the Congressional chambers, as David Roberts describes in this TomPaine.com article,
Going for Broke on Climate Change, but the pace and magnitude of this movement may not be as dramatic as befits the planetary challenge.

As Roberts says:

All the buzz has, for the first time in decades, awakened greens to the possibility of fundamental change. But they should remember that the interests of the planet and the interests of the new congressional leadership are not entirely in alignment. Right now, the overriding political objective for Pelosi and Reid is to position the party favorably for the 2008 elections. That means Getting Things Done, passing a bill to show that they, unlike their Republican predecessors, take global warming seriously.

But a climate-change bill that can pass through today's Congress—much less avoid a Bush veto—will inevitably be feeble. Worse, it could lock the U.S. into a slow, bureaucratic response and dampen public pressure to act.

The most promising bill, the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, introduced by Vermont's redoubtable Senator, Bernie Sanders, also has the most teeth. This bill proposes measures to reduce global warming pollutants by 80 percent by 2050.

Tags: global warming, climate change , Bernie Sanders, pollution

Tackling Global Climate Change

The American Solar Energy Society has issued a new report, Tackling Global Climate Change in the U.S.: Potential U.S. Carbon Emissions Reductions from Renewable Energy and Energy Efficency by 2030, that provides a comprehensive picture of the current energy problems and prospective solutions. Good light reading for a winter evening...

Tags: climate change, energy, global warming

Biofuels or Food Crops: Chile Decides

As a reminder that alternative energy solutions don't always present clear-cut scenarios, the government of Chile is struggling to decide whether or not to boost biofuels production nationally, a path that some environmentalists say would divert croplands better devoted to providing food to the nation. In this Inter Press Service News Agency article, Home-Grown Biofuels - Big Time?, Daniel Estrada lays out the issues, pro and con, and in the process frames many of the crucial issues surrounding the biofuels debate.

Tags: biofuels, energy

Worst Polluters Eschew Warming Pact

A rallying cry from French President Jacques Chirac to create a new organization for dealing with global warming threats drew 45 nations across the planet, as detailed in this Boston Globe article. Unfortunately, the worst polluters (the United States, China, and India) refused to sign on.

The call from Chirac comes in the face of the depressingly negative threat scenarios contained in the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. As discussed in the article:

The world's scientists and other international leaders also said now that the science is so well documented, action is clearly the next step.

"It is time now to hear from the world's policy makers," Tim Wirth, president of the United Nations Foundation, said Friday. "The so-called and long-overstated 'debate' about global warming is now over."

Once more for emphasis: action is clearly the next step.

Tags: global warming, climate change, IPCC report

Disinformation for Dollars

In a move that clearly indicates the utter desperation of the global warming deniers, the American Enterprise Institute (a thinktank financed largely by ExxonMobil) is offering $10,000 a shot to scientists and economists who write articles that cast doubt on the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The most recent report from this organization detailed harsher consequences if global warming is not reversed.

Science correspondent Ian Sample in a Guardian Unlimited article described the situation in these terms:

The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees.

The letters, sent to scientists in Britain, the US and elsewhere, attack the UN's panel as "resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work" and ask for essays that "thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs".

When all else fails, the oil industry knows the value of deep pockets and how to use them.

Tags: global warming, lobbying, climate change, IPCC report

A Vision of Hell

Mark Lyman, author of the upcoming Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, paints a grim picture of life on earth at the end of the century if we don't curb greenhouse gas emissions. In a commentary in The Independent, Lyman's tone is less than cheery as he describes hell on earth:

An eco-alarmist fantasy? Unfortunately not - having spent the past three years combing the scientific literature for clues to how life will change as the planet heats up, I know that life on a 6C-warmer globe would be almost unimaginably hellish. A clue to just how unpleasant things can get is contained within a narrow layer of strata recently exposed at a rock quarry in China, dating from the end of the Permian period, 251 million years ago. For reasons that are still not properly understood, temperatures rose by 6C over just a few thousand years, dramatically changing the climate and wiping out up to 95 per cent of species alive at the time. The end-Permian mass extinction was the worst ever: the closest that this planet has ever come to becoming just another lifeless rock orbiting the sun. Only one large land animal survived the bottleneck: the pig-like Lystrosaurus, which for millions of years after the disaster had the globe pretty much to itself.

Clues as to how the world looks in a long-term extreme greenhouse state also come from the Cretaceous period, 144 to 65 million years ago, when there was no ice on either pole and much of Europe and North America was flooded by the higher seas. Tropical crocodiles swam in the Canadian high Arctic, whilst breadfruit trees grew in Greenland. The oceans were incredibly hot: in the tropical Atlantic they may have reached 42C, whilst at the North Pole itself, the oceans were as warm as the Mediterranean is today. The tropics and sub-tropics were so hot that no forests grew, and desert belts probably extended into the heart of modern-day Europe.

Why does he base this scenario on six degrees?

In the latest report from the IPCC, if greenhouse gas emissions continue unchecked till the end of the century, global warming will raise the average temperature of the planet an additional 6.4 degrees C. It doesn't sound like much until you take a sober look back in time at past temperature indicators.

Related tags: global warming

Human Behavior and Global Warming

As the planet warming forecasts escalate and the developed nations start paying attention, the depth of the problem is evident, but the necessary solutions are still unpalatable to the governments, industries, and those who support unfettered capitalism as the economic system of choice.

As Jean-Marcel Bouguereau, Editor in Chief of Nouvel Observateur, points out (in an opinion piece reposted at Truthout.org):

Suddenly, people are sounding the alarm everywhere. Not without some hypocrisy. Even George Bush mentions, thanks to new technologies, a "post-Kyoto strategy" - while he's refused to sign that protocol. And in Davos, the heads of companies have just salved their collective conscience by increasing the numbers of debates and roundtables on climate change. But only 20 percent of them consider protection of the environment to be a priority. These company bosses know that the break with growth that the Rome Club advocated as far back as 1972 is a death sentence for a capitalism that can't allow itself a drastic reduction in production and material consumption. It's a whole different economy that must be put into effect, based on other values.

Three big obstacles to curbing global warming that typically play bit parts to the energy use issue need to be faced if we're going to make serious progress:

1. An economic system built around the notion of unlimited growth (the creed of the cancer cell)

2. Growing population pressures around the world and the resulting implications on resources and energy use

3. The increasing appetite for meat consumption across the world (this piece, Hard to Swallow, touches on the impacts)

Energy use is important, but it's not the whole story, and I'll explore some of the related issues in future entries.

In Love with the Lusty Wind

Kelpie Wilson is one of my favorite environmental writers, always in the thick of the issues, deeply informed, and not afraid to mix it up a little or confront the opposition directly to get a point across. Her interview style is equally illuminating. In this Truthout interview with wind energy expert Randall Tinkerman, the conversation meanders naturally from the differences in European and American wind power approaches to the viability of some of the latest technologies. Tinkerman has strong opinions on futuristic technologies:

Globally, we need to fill the existing areas of strong resources with the technology that is available or on the drawing boards today. That still requires a large commitment to be accomplished. When we have windpower meeting 20 percent of global use, we can begin to explore some of the more exotic technologies at the fringes of our expertise.

As an example, many people support micro-turbines on buildings as part of our energy future. From an architectural standpoint, that may be cool, and from a showcasing of renewables standpoint, that may be effective. However, given that the cost of energy from the turbines is so much higher, (people like to build where the winds are weakest, not strongest) why not just have city-dwellers invest in the cost-effective modern rural turbines, and ship the power back home?

Lots of good information packed into this interview, providing a revealing snapshot of wind power today.

California 100 Years Hence

Having lived in California for a number of years (before moving to Vermont), this article struck home with unusual forcefulness. It's one thing to speculate on the perils of global warming in the abstract or through effects-laden spectacles like The Day After Tomorrow. It something else entirely to hear sober planners and scientists describing San Francisco and Oakland International airports completely under water, flood surges that would place major highways under several feet of water, and beaches and wetlands disappearing as sea walls go up to try to keep the rising waters away.

At the Golden Gate Bridge, the Pacific Ocean crept seven inches higher during the past century, as global warming melted glaciers and expanded ocean waters.

According to the article, rising waters are proceeding at a pace equal to the worst-case scenarios predicted by scientist, which translates to a three-foot rise within a century.

This is disturbing news for anyone who lives near a coastal area, which includes a growing percentage of the world's population.

The number of people living within 60 miles of coastlines will increase by about 35 percent compared to 1995, the mapmakers say.

This type of migration will expose 2.75 billion people to coastal threats from global warming such as sea level rise and stronger hurricanes in addition to other natural disasters like tsunamis. A reminder of the risks of seaside living came this week in the form of a tsunami that killed at least 350 people and devastated many on Indonesia's Java Island.

One more indication of how inexplicable human behavior can be...

Grass May Surpass Corn as Ideal Biofuel

Soya and corn are the crops usually mentioned in discussions about biofuels, but a group of Minnesta researchers found that grasses, such as wild lupine and goldenrod, offer a carbon-negative alternative. In a special report in New Scientist, Humble grasses may be the best source of biofuel, the research team focused on mixed-species agriculture plots left fallow. The more grass species present, the higher the potential energy yield.

How to Save Trillions of Dollars

While the few remaining global warming skeptics always cite costs as the reason for not immediately imposing measures to reduce global warming gases, a recent study by Tufts University indicates that the savings of taking action now could be enormous when weighed against the costs of catastrophic effects of climate change. Reuters summarized the potential savings indicated by Tufts in this piece, Climate Change Inaction Will Cost Trillions: Study.