CleanTechnica

A new industry poll published in E&P, the world’s leading publication for oil and gas professionals, reveals that worldwide concern about climate and economic risks from fossil fuels is very high.

These are quite different results  from a Gallup poll on a reduction in climate concerns widely publicized yesterday, showing that conservatives’ belief that climate change is occurring has dropped a full 20 points in the last year to just 30%, obscuring a relatively minor rise of 2% as liberals concern levels rose to 74%.

The threat to the climate is a great concern globally at 83%, with 76% of respondents worrying about future fossil energy shortages. The rising cost of fossil fuels is the biggest worry overall with 90% of the 9,000 respondents in 22 countries.

A large majority of the respondents support more government intervention to build more renewable energy to solve climate change and reduce the cost of extracted energy. Read the rest of this entry »

“It’s not too late; we can minimize the alteration, or we can just plow on as usual … and if we plow on as usual … it could be very, very bad.” So says Nobel Prizewinner for Physics, Steven Chu, who is now Energy Secretary of the Obama administration Department of Energy – at Stanford University this week.

“Speaking to the choir” (peer reviewed scientists and the educated already understand the problem) but really addressing the Senate Republicans who need to pass climate legislation, Chu stressed the danger and risks of inaction.

Much of the outcome will depend on the Earth’s response to an anticipated temperature increase of five or six degrees centigrade, an effect that won’t take hold for another 100 to 150 years, he said.

That’s when the oceans, a vast storage sink for carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, are expected to reach capacity and begin expelling gases back into the air.

There are great uncertainties as to the outcome awaiting us if we continue business as usual by relying on a fossil-fuel-guzzling energy infrastructure to meet everyday needs, said Chu.
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Sea level rise creates new business opportunity and “green jobs” that we’ll see more of, borne from the effects of climate change, as sea levels rise. The first floating island has just been commissioned this week by the sinking island nation of the Maldives, from Dutch Docklands, whose past work includes part of  the artificial islands comprising The World off the coast of Dubai.

Humanity is faced with possibly its worst problem in all of its history, in climate change. It takes political imagination to make the changes needed to turn around the disaster bearing down on us. Half of us have an IQ under 100, so making this change and convincing all of us that we can do it (by switching to renewable energy sources) will be very much harder than just inventing fire was (perhaps our last comparable climate change challenge).

Perhaps we can’t save ourselves, and adaptation may be our only chance. Dutch Docklands is predicated on solving one result of this failure; rising sea levels – by inventing and engineering floating islands. Like inventing imitation glaciers, it’s an example of the kind of lateral thinking that we’ll need more of.

The company specializes in solutions for places where sea levels are rising, land is sinking or where sand shortages make traditional erosion control reclamation prohibitively expensive. Read the rest of this entry »

Republicans are supposed to be more of the “let the market take care of things” people. However, when it comes to an issue they don’t want to address at all, some of them are apparently even willing to make an attack on the financial market.

A key to a well-functioning market is the availability and sharing of information. It is one of the most basic and important assumptions behind market-driven policies.

Due to the impending (and already beginning) effects of climate change on our world, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently decided that companies “must consider the effects of global warming and efforts to curb climate change when disclosing business risks to investors.”

However, at least one Republican in Congress is going out of his way (..well, has written a two-sentence bill) to try to stop this from happening.

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This is about the most moving ad for tough climate legislation that I’ve seen.

Our kids in the military are on the front lines of our needless, pointless, stupid addiction to fossil energy. They don’t need to be in foreign countries risking their lives so we can scrounge up the last few drops of a dirty energy that will keep killing our troops through the 21st century – and then keep raising our sea levels for five centuries after that.

How can we allow this to go on? What are we? Stupid? Watch it.

Then pick up the phone and join the rest of us calling today and tomorrow via 72 Hours for Clean American Power to say that we want clean, safe, renewable, climate-friendly, renewable, troop-friendly, home-made, permanent, renewable, cheap, infinite, endlessly renewable energy.

Not finite fossil energy. Read the rest of this entry »

China has just completed its first ever study of environmental pollution. Not surprisingly, the news is terrible. But the optimistic and frank tone is encouraging. And strangely reminiscent…

“Although the news is bad, we should not lose confidence in our ability to bring pollution under control” says Ma Jun, the Director of Public and Environmental Affairs. “Facing the problem lays the foundation for solving it and we need an accurate picture of the situation if we are to produce a realistic and practical pollution strategy.” Read the rest of this entry »

If you are gardening, you have to pay attention to the plants you want to grow, but you also have to pay some attention to the weeds. We seem to be at the beginning of a true clean energy revolution, but even as we admire the nutritious, delicious-looking clean energy crops sprouting up, we have to spend a little time keeping an eye on the weeds.

Climate change and the breakthrough of clean energy technologies are linked, since climate change is a major factor spurring clean energy development and growth.

And one of the leading ways dirty energy titans of the past (and present) who do not want to lose their business or their income try to keep clean energy from growing is through continual attempts to undermine the scientific findings of some of the world’s greatest scientists.

Well, it is no surprise to find out that one of the climate skeptics’ leading scientists — probably the “independent” scientist most often used by the media to present the climate change deniers’ arguments — makes quite a bit of money working for dirty energy companies. But it took a little investigative research (not by me, I have to admit) to uncover this carefully guarded information.

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Climate change or global weirding is the number one environmental issue guiding clean tech these days. Although we generally write on clean tech itself, rather than climate change, from time to time (due to the continual efforts of climate change deniers or disinformers to sway the media and the public) we occasionally put something on here regarding climate change itself.

One issue that keeps arising lately is if scientists outside of a small, conspiring group of money-driven climate scientists really trust the science of climate change. Of course, this is a bit of a ridiculous concern. The overarching National Academy of Sciences has already validated key climate change research and findings after thorough, independent analysis. The Union of Concerned Scientists, which consists of about 250,000 members, has been coming out very strongly saying that we need to get serious and address this true, proven issue of climate change. And, very recently, a panel of truly world-leading, eminent scientists from the US and Europe have confirmed “the widespread scientific consensus that the Earth’s climate is warming due to human activities.”

Nonetheless, I just ran across a couple of polls (Gallup and Pew) that include the different views of scientists, climate scientists and the general public regarding climate change and it seemed like something worth writing about. It is clear that the public are fairly torn on the most critical climate change topics these days (i.e. if climate change is occurring, if it is man-made, if it is a serious concern), despite the fact that the experts are quite convinced of these things and they are, well,… the experts.

I read about climate change on a variety of sites everyday. With all the issues there are to address, it is a real shame that we still have to fight this part of the battle. The bottom line, shown below, is that those trained in scientific analysis and research, and especially those trained in scientific analysis and research of the climate, are much more concerned about climate change than the general public and much more adamant that we need to do something about it now.

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NASA is putting its two cents into the global warming conversation with a new website that details the climate change phenomenon from soup to nuts, including videos, articles and a huge archive of images.

Those of you who still believe that NASA faked the moon landing with outtakes from director Stanley Kubrik’s classic sci fi romp 2001: A Space Odyssey will probably want to take a pass on this and go straight to the Shutter Island website for the inside scoop on conspiracy theories, but if you are interested in what’s actually going on out there the link to NASA’s Global Climate Change website is http://climate.nasa.gov/warmingworld.

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Nearly two years ago, I wrote that transportation was “the leading contiributor to greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the country, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and… the fastest growing contributor.”

Now, in other terms and looking at additional factors, NASA has determined that automobiles are the largest net contributor to climate change pollution.

In other words, when you take into account the climate change (or global warming) gases automobiles emit as well as gases they emit that have a cooling effect, automobiles are the largest contributor to climate change, followed by 2) burning of household biofuels (i.e. wood and animal dung) and 3) raising livestock.

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