writeaboutwarming

April 14, 2019 I'd never heard of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) before, but the 160 countries and regional intergovernmental agencies that comprise its membership have released a report entitled Global Energy Transformation: A Roadmap to 2050. I ran across a summary of the report at Think Progress, and I thought I'd share parts of it with you. This is an important report. The members of IRENA base their research on the premise that renewable energy sources, as the most accessible energy on earth, can accelerate conversion to electricity on a global scale while meeting agreed-upon climate objectives. (I should mention that member countries must also belong to the United Nations.) Their report maintains that because prices of key clean energy technologies are dropping, as much as 85% of the world's energy could come from renewable energy sources, primarily solar and wind. Keeping the global temperature increase below two degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees...

January 7, 2015 – I want to tell you about a book I just read, by Naomi Klein, called This Changes Everything .   Klein’s book is about climate change, and how very close we have now come to exchanging our world for a place that’s nearly unlivable. She begins with dogged conjecture regarding why we appear to want to change our world in such a manner.   We don’t, of course, so we engage in various degrees of climate change denial.   I’ll interject here that looking away and pretending everything will be just fine is essentially mandatory, at least from time to time, if we’re to continue living in this world without going mad.   Draconian measures are required, as all non-Republicans are now aware.   In the words of Angelica Navarro Llanos, “We need a Marshall Plan for the Earth.”   All good Republicans know what that means: the United States will get stuck with the bill.   And that terrifies them. Except that now, China has admitted that it mus...

March 31, 2014 - My husband and I used to waste more food than we do now.  I frequently overbought, partly because I liked to make believe that we were big vegetable and fruit eaters.  All in the valiant effort to turn us into what we've never been and probably never will be (big vegetable and fruit eaters).  Ok, so we've closed that chapter after having made only modest gains.  And I do like to experiment, both with recipes I've previously made successfully, and with recipes being tried for the first time.  Somehow sticking with the same old same old week after week just isn't satisfying.  Neither, however, is an inedible meal, of which I've made a few (ahem).  So we've thrown out food which was at its peak when it came through the door, not so much on its way out. But 40 percent??  You read that right: that's how much perfectly good food gets thrown out in the United States, week after month after year.  Can you guess how much money is be...

January 22, 2014 -   Business leaders are catching on, even in the United States.   Yesterday, a report authored, in part, by over 100   academics, energy experts, government officials, and business leaders called upon the President to address climate change by taking measures that do not require congressional approval. Spear-headed by the Center for the New Energy Economy (CNEE) at Colorado State University, the report grew out of a meeting convened last March, attended by the President and 14 corporate and private sector leaders.   They spoke for hundreds of like-minded individuals who want to reshape the country’s energy policy. The resulting 207-page report contains around 200 recommendations regarding the use of executive authority to enact the climate change action plan the President announced last June.   Former Colorado Governor Bill Ritter released the report, briefing cabinet officials and senior policy staff whose focus is ene...

December 2, 2013 – If such a thing is possible, I think countries have grown bored with their own inertia vis-à-vis slowing climate change.   The sense one gets, in reading about the lack of progress at yet another Cop Conference is that, unless the next meeting is held in a place and at a time when a Haiyan-sized typhoon will disrupt the proceedings, very little will get done any time soon.   Since climate change is generally perceived as a time-sensitive issue, I present this as further evidence of our world’s self-inflicted dysfunction. Can businesses do what nations cannot?   Peter Bakker, president of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), says that yes, businesses (plural) can and must come together to collaborate on a mutual agenda designed to slow climate change and, simultaneously, develop renewable energy.   The Council was much in evidence in Warsaw, sponsoring its own conference of member companies and organizational...

August 13, 2012 - Ceres is an organization made up of investors, companies, and public interest groups that work to accelerate and expand adoption of sustainable business practices.  They, along with collaborators M.J. Bradley & Assoc., the National Resources Defense Council, Entergy, Exelon, Tenaska, and Bank of America, issue a report every other year that assesses the environmental performance and progress of electric power companies.  This year's report is the eighth edition of Benchmarking Air Emissions, and it makes for enjoyable reading.  Lo and behold, the United States is in the midst of a clean energy transition.  At last!  Here are some of the long-awaited particulars: From 2008 to 2010, emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide from electric power plants fell by over 30 percent. During the same period, carbon dioxide emissions fell four percent.  Preliminary data show another five percent reduction took place in 2011. When la...

August 10, 2100 - Say what you like, I think this is exciting: in Orange County, California, human waste is being turned into hydrogen and electricity, and then the hydrogen is used to run cars. An experimental fuel cell makes this possible. Its usefulness will be tested during the next three years at the Fountain Valley Sewage Treatment Plant, where a filling station for the area's hundred or so hydrogen cars will operate. Should the fuel cell prove reliable and economically viable, Fountain Valley could become a major stop on California's incipient Hydrogen Highway (HH). As things stand right now, moving the HH in the direction of functionality is happening, albeit hesitantly. Without the cars, there's no need for filling stations. Without filling stations, the cars aren't going anywhere. The good news is that new stations are slated to open in two Orange County communities soon. The ultimate goal of having 12 to 14 stations up and running to serve Southern Califor...

July 11, 2011 - An amazing thing has happened while we weren't looking: progress is being made in the fight to mitigate climate change. Some of that progress has occurred in big steps, some in baby steps, but one thing is certain - all progress is important when it comes to saving our planet and providing future generations with a future. People the world over have become fed up, waiting for governments to take the lead, so they're steppin' out and steppin' up. Here's what I mean: Let's start here in the US. I could scarcely believe my eyes when I read this story! Americans, if you can believe it, now derive 12% of their energy from renewable sources. You read that right: 12 percent of our energy now comes from sources such as wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass. Renewables have far surpassed nuclear, which stands at a measly two percent. While I harbor a few doubts on the subject of burning biomass, I'll set those to the side for the moment and just enjoy ...

May 9, 2011 – A very important report was issued by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) today. The 2200 member scientists of the U.N.-sponsored organization have found renewable energy sources to hold the key to the future. (We might actually have one if we use them!) The report targets 450 ppm of greenhouse gases as the upper limit, beyond which life as we know it would not be sustainable. This level of GHG concentration exceeds the more ideal level of 350 ppm considerably, perhaps a tacit admission on the part of the report’s authors that they no longer think the lower concentration is achievable. The IPCC believes that 80% of the world’s energy needs can be met by renewable energy sources, and that the financial investment required would amount to only 1% of GDP, or approximately five trillion dollars over the next decade. The very plain implication of such numbers is that failure to make the small investment needed would be nothing short of criminal. The lack of fo...

May 4, 2011 – It used to be, if someone called you “brazen,” it was an insult. It meant you went ahead and did bad things without any regard to what others thought of you. Because it described what, at the time, was uncommon behavior, it was held up to children for illustrative purposes, the gist of which was “don’t ever let me catch you doing” whatever was being described as brazen. Lots of things have changed since those innocent days: it’s become more acceptable to “act out;” to share parts of our lives with relative strangers that used to remain strictly private; to bend the rules, then bend them a little more. When I lived in the South, I heard it said you ”shouldn’t never do nothin’ you wouldn’t want yer mommy ner yer daddy to know about.” It was a rule that made a lot of sense. I guess by now we all know that mommies and daddies have become a lot more permissive. At least the mommies and daddies of oil industry executives have. Otherwise, those executives wouldn’t have had the c...