I discovered two great articles I wanted to share with you, both on the subject of sustainable energy. The first article was published earlier this month in Scientific American and gives a comprehensive overview of the key eight technologies that are being considered as alternatives to the high carbon emitting energy sources which are currently contributing so much to global warming. The second article is a review by Cory Doctorow of a book about the "Freakonomics of conservation, climate and energy" by Cambridge Physics professor, David JC MacKay. You can even get a free PDF of this book - see link below.

For all of us trying to get a grasp of what is involved in campaigning for a global scheme for renewable and sustainable energy, this will certainly give you a good and realistic grounding in what and what isn't achievable, both from a scientific and an economic perspective.

Here is an overview and links to the two articles:

Plan B for Energy: 8 Revolutionary Energy Sources
If efficiency improvements and incremental advances in today's technologies fail to halt global warming, could revolutionary new carbon-free energy sources save the day? Don't count on it—but don't count it out, either
By W. Wayt Gibbs

1. Nuclear Fusion
2. High-Altitude Wind
3. Sci-Fi Solutions
Futuristic visions make for great entertainment. Too bad about the physics
3-A: Cold Fusion and Bubble Fusion
3-B: Matter-Antimatter Reactors
4. Space-Based Solar
5. Nanotech Solar Cells
6. A Global Supergrid
7. Waves and Tides
8. Designer Microbes

Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air: the Freakonomics of conservation, climate and energy by David JC MacKay

"This is to energy and climate what Freakonomics is to economics: an accessible, meaty, by-the-numbers look at the physics and practicalities of energy.

Not only that, but the entire book is available as a free 10MB PDF download so you can start reading immediately! Enjoy!

Labels: articles, battery technology, economics, renewable energy, sustainable energy

Link to the forum discussion where the image above was originally posted.

Well, I guess it was too much to expect that the leaders of the G20 Summit held in London last week would do anything as radical as creating a sustainable economy or putting the environment as a top priority.

The G20 leaders “have missed an historic opportunity to launch a global recovery plan that will benefit poor people and tackle the climate crisis”, commented the World Development Movement, (WDM) the UK-based anti-poverty group, John Madeley from peopleandplanet.net reported.

Although there was recognition for the need for more regulation of the world's financial institutions, and a need to close the tax haven loopholes, and despite a nod to creating a 'fair and sustainable world economy' there were no measures to implement such a plan. Many people are worried about the choice of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to oversee the program. It has a history of imposing spending freezes on recipient countries, as we in Britain know all too well. Such policies are an anathema to Obama's stimulus policies and will certainly do nothing but hurt the poor of the countries involved. The World Bank has warned that "A wave of social and political unrest could sweep through the world's poorest countries if G20 leaders fail to come to their aid", the Guardian reports.

Unfortunately, there are a still a lot of powerful people who would like the world to look like the cartoon above. That view must not be allowed to prevail.

I commend you to read Madeley's article as it is a good and well detailed view of the G20 results. It is only one meeting, but one can't help feeling a great sense of disappointment that the opportunity to re-write the way we view our economic priorities was so thoroughly avoided. I am hopeful that this is just the beginning of the debate rather than the end, but we'll see how the conversation progresses.

Labels: G20 Summit, IMF, Obama

Photo: telegraph.co.uk

The political leaders of the world are coming to London this week for an economic summit and climate change is high on the list of topics to be discussed. Protest groups have been organising and preparing a huge show of strength to make politicians understand the importance of the cause.

Many have expressed concerns of the lack of visible attention to the environment and climate change issues in the British Prime Minister, Gordon Browns plans for the G20 Summit.
Others recognize the need to thoroughly overhaul the world's financial system. Even French leader Nicolas Sarkozy has threatened to walk out of the summit if concrete action is not taken to regulate the international financial institutions, according to a Bloomberg story today.

“The crisis is too serious to have a summit for nothing,” Sarkozy told reporters today in Chatellerault, western France. The French president urged the G-20 to begin a reform of “global capitalism” and said the forces resisting his push for international regulation are “very strong.”

Many are seeing the current economic crisis as an opportunity to fundamentally change from a growth-based economic system to something more fair and sustainable. All this week there were will be demonstrations by a range of groups, from the church and unions to anarchists. On Saturday the Put People First coalition held a massive protest with 35,000 people. It's an alliance of more than 160 unions, development, faith and environmental groups. In a Guardian story, the Put People First organization argues that "jobs and stimulus packages agreed at the G20 summit should be linked to more investment in a green economy to halt climate change and other environmental problems".

There is no doubt that more attention will be paid to this summit than previous ones. The Americans voted for change in November - it looks like the rest of the world is rallying to that message.

Labels: Climate protests, G20 Summit, Gordon Brown, Put People First, Sarkozy

Well, I guess this is what counts as progress here in the United States, but when I read Felicity Barringer's story in the International Herald Tribune about how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) "has moved to declare that greenhouse gases are pollutants that pose a danger to the public's health and welfare", my incredulity nearly reached its boiling point! How long has the world been talking about this? It wouldn't surprise me if Europe hadn't reached this point somewhere back in the 1990s! Though there had been an order by the Supreme Court as much as two years ago to get the EPA to make that determination the Bush administration, needless to say, ignored it.

What the ruling means is that, finally, it would allow federal regulation not only on car emissions, but also on other pollutants by industrial uses such as factories, power plants and oil refineries. No doubt there will be much squealing from the Republicans and their corporate masters but, here again, like the justice department scandals, is yet another example of an agency supposedly looking after the interests of the american people but which has been totally undermined by the political machinations of the Bush administration, as Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (what a great name for a Senator!), eloquently makes clear in the video above. Most of you probably remember the scandal over the EPA in California over the 'who killed the electric car' incident. Let us hope that, like the justice department, the EPA is restored to its true purpose - looking after the interests of the American people.

Labels: Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, greenhouse gas

Remember back in the 80s when there was all the hullabaloo over Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) destroying the ozone layer? Well, at least they caught that one and did something about it in time. I mean, at least when they make some new chemical they are going to make sure it is not going to add to the climate change problem, right? Wrong! In a story in treehugger.com it turns out that the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE), a NASA funded body of scientists tasked to monitor the atmosphere for potentially dangerous new gases, have discovered a new greenhouse gas that is worse in it's effects than CO2! The gas is given off by a chemical called Sulfuryl Fluoride which was introduced as a replacement for another chemical identified as being potentially harmful.

At least it appears that this problem has been highlighted at an early stage and that the levels in the atmosphere of this harmful substance are still too small to do any significant damage. Also, unlike CFCs, it is not a widely used chemical - it is used to control insects on certain crops and is only made by three manufacturers. It seems that they have caught the problem early enough and that the manufacturers of this chemical can work on a replacement before any significant build up of the gas can occur. I'm glad someone is monitoring these things. What I want to know is, given the problems caused by CFCs, something that wasn't known when it was first made, why are there not regulations in place that tests these chemicals for such residual effects before they go on the market . . . or is this just another AIG but for the chemical industry?

Labels: AGAGE, atmosphere, CFCs, greenhouse gas

The British newspaper, The Guardian, ran a story last week about the protests outside the White House over their coal-powered energy plant. The protest was described as "the biggest protest against environmental damage ever seen in the US". While certainly not wishing to discourage the act of protesting in the streets one does wonder, in the global scheme of things, given the numbers involved (about 2000 people), one can't help but wonder whether activism is all but dead in the United states.

When you think back to the glory days of protesting - the civil rights marches and the Vietnam War protests, 2000 people isn't a whole lot really, especially when you think of the importance of what they are there to protest about - the survival of the planet! I have only lived in the US for a couple of years but, coming from Europe, I have been surprised at the lack of street protest here, especially over the last couple of years. It seems that the government can take away people's constitutional rights, spy on them, steal their money, give their national parks to the oil companies, and not peep! But half the country will turn out and camp for days to be the first to get a new iPhone. What happened to you America - do you just not care anymore?

Labels: activism, climate change, Protests, Washington

Do we need to take some time out here? Should we breath deeply and count to ten on the subject of global warming before we go down what is an expensive path? Are we being led by "doom-sayers" into a hugely expensive global scheme to combat something that is not the problem everyone is saying it is - like a larger version of the Millennium Bug in the late 90s?
Before you all raise your howls of protest you might like to read an article in today's Jakarta Post by Christopher Lingle, Research Scholar at the Centre for Civil Society in New Delhi and Visiting Professor of Economics at Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala.

The article - 'Climate change superstitions put human well being at risk' - highlights worries that the evidence may well not be living up to the hype, and that temperature trends may be indicating a downward rather than upward trend. "Despite higher atmospheric CO2 levels, average global temperatures stopped rising in 1998 and the planetary average in 2008 was the lowest for a decade", says Professor Linge. However, if you look at the data from NASA it tells a different story. 2008 may have seen a drop in temperature but it was still the 7th hottest year on record! If you look at the NASA graph you can see a steady rise in temperature from 1910 onwards - but it only amounts to just over half a degree Celcius in that time . . .

Now, I am certainly no global-warming-denier, and I am certainly not advocating a carbon free-for-all. But Professor Lingle raises some valid questions. Human beings, historically have been notoriously easy to manipulate. The question is who is the manipulator here? Is this just another 'Millennium Bug' writ large? In the end you have to make up your own mind - let the facts, not your herd mentality, make it for you!

Labels: global warming, NASA, Prof. Christopher Linge