October 2008
58 posts
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Want to REALLY scare yourself this Halloween? →
Watch “Heat,” a PBS Frontline documentary that delves deep into climate change. It’s one of the best things I’ve seen on the subject and the whole program is online.
Some of the most disturbing things I learned:
Nearly half the world’s population depends on the Himalayan icebergs for fresh water. They’re melting now, and many of the rivers will dry up. (Ch....
WatchMaddow questions Obama about our frail electrical grid. “
Simple fact: we can’t ramp up renewable resources, especially solar, until we make a major investment in infrastructure changes and build a smart grid.
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“[The] economic crisis is the perfect time to make the investments that are...”
– Al Gore
I run an internship program at CUNY, placing students in positions working to make NYC real estate more energy efficient. I’ve been pitching a version of Gore’s argument to potential employers, who are understandably hesitant to hire anyone right now. But now is the best time...
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“…Senator Barack Obama has come out in the past week saying that this clean...”
– Van Jones (via azspot)
As Josh Dorfman said, “Van is the man.”
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Facing New European CO2 Rules, Airlines Promise... →
The EU is planning to cap greenhouse gas emissions from planes.
By early next decade most of the jets that take off or land from busy airports in cities like London, Paris and Frankfurt will have to comply with European rules on greenhouse gases. The system will include non-European carriers like American Airlines and Singapore Airlines.
A decade from now, a jet thar runs on biofuels may be...
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3Qs with Alma Hecht of Second Nature Design
An urban garden cracks the concrete shell and gives the earth space to breath. “We’ve created so much hard space,” Alma Hecht, a sustainable landscape designer and owner of Second Nature Design, said. “Urban gardens are opportunities to open up the earth and allow it to rejuvenate.” In the last two years, Alma’s San Francisco-based firm has won a half-dozen...
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McCain On Obama, Nuclear Power Safeguards: "Blah,... →
It boggles the mind.
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Sign the petition: Jobs, baby, jobs! →
You know how I feel about green jobs (a green collar economy can put America’s working and middle classes to work and help to wean the nation from dirty oil and coal). And you know I feel about increased off-shore drilling (it’s “like stopping at the crack house on the way to the rehab center”). So if you’re with me on this, please sign Apollo Alliance’s...
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“I was just reading an article in The New York Times by Michael Pollen about food...”
– Barack Obama, speaking to Time’s Joe Klein (for some reason it’s been taken down from Time’s site). He’s referring to this article. Via The Vine.
Bradford Plumer writes:
Major kudos for explaining how all of these issues—food, energy, health care—are interlinked....
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“We will drill baby drill and mine baby mine!”
– Sarah Palin in a rally in North Carolina, via Laura McGann.
… and nuke baby nuke, burn baby burn, and watch our grandkids drown baby drown?
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Over 20-percent of mammals at risk of extinction →
I remember the Endangered Species List was a much bigger deal when I was a kid in the ’90s. The climate crisis, with its crazy weather patterns, expensive gas, and dubious foreign wars, has taken precedence over environmental concerns like pollution and loss of habitat. But of course it’s all connected. This is worrisome…
A quarter of the globe’s 5,487 mammals are...
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What would you ask Al Gore? →
This Wednesday, We Can Solve It is streaming a free “Power Vote” webcast on “the connections between the economic and climate crises, and the importance of the upcoming election.” The keynote speaker is Al Gore. On the registration form, you’re invited to suggest a question for the world’s most famous environmentalist.
So … what would you ask?
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Highlights from the Solar Conferenc
dihard writes:
Last week I attended the Solar Conference in San Diego. Here are some of the highlights:
Solar & Wind Powered Street Lights
These are street lamps that employ solar and wind power for electricity. The sun and wind charge a battery that is later used to light the streets. At the expo, I saw ones designed by Everlast.
Utility-Scale Photovoltaic Systems
These are...
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Palin In 2012: The Argument →
Marc Ambinder reports on suspicions that Palin is gunning for 2012 — and possibly even sabotaging McCain’s prospects. “She will easily benefit from the low expectations threshhold” and will have plenty of time to make over her mastery of domestic and international policy (there’s some stuff you can’t buy at Neiman Marcus). Hell, maybe she’ll write a book:...
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Appalachian Coal to Power India? →
Andrew Revkin writes:
In an email dispatch to our Green Inc. blog, Somini Sengupta confirmed some reports that top Indian government and industry figures, with some $4 billion to spend, were shopping in Appalachia and elsewhere not just for American coal (exports of coal from the United States have growing for awhile), but coal mines.
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“Now that Wall Street fell, let’s see if business as usual goes on after this...”
– Rigoberta Menchú, winner of the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize for her work on behalf of the rights of indigenous people and resistance to military oppression in Guatemala.
She spoke recently about the disproportionate effects of global warming on the people of developing countries. She fears that when...
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On the Issues: Climate Change →
Obama’s and McCain’s respective positions, side by side.
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Regulation, Not Economy, Delaying Carbon Projects →
My boss and I run a Stakeholder Consortium for the sustainable commercial real estate sector in NYC, including property owners, managers, engineers, architects, construction managers, financiers, labor representatives, academics, utilities, and government.
Every meeting, it’s the same plaintive cry from almost everyone but the representatives of government: We need regulation. ...
WatchSomeone who pays more attention to these things than I do let me know my Climate Matters video wasn’t disqualified (as I thought it was) — and it actually got an honorable mention.
Thanks again to everyone who helped!
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Boone Pickens Caught in Several More Lies on... →
T. Boone Pickens, the former oil tycoon turned wind capitalist, fascinates me. Check out HuffPo’s fact-checking of his appearance on “Heat,” a Frontline report on the politics of global warming and the role big business will play in combating it. (I haven’t gotten to watch it yet. The full episode is online.)
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Alternative Energy Suddenly Faces Headwinds →
For all the support that the presidential candidates are expressing for renewable energy, alternative energies like wind and solar are facing big new challenges because of the credit freeze and the plunge in oil and natural gas prices.
Shares of alternative energy companies have fallen even more sharply than the rest of the stock market in recent months. The struggles of financial institutions...
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WatchThe winning Climate Matters video. Shot in Glacier National Park, the one-minute piece is cinematic and lush — and has that irresistible element: a wise child.*
Filmmaker Steve Dempsey told the NYT’s Andrew Revkin:
It’s so easy to become complacent about the wonders of nature so, instead of showing the problem, I wanted to show people what we have to lose instead. It’s based on the...
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First polar bear to swim to Iceland in 15 years is... →
They just can’t get a break:
Animal welfare groups are enraged over the decision of Icelandic police to kill the beast, instead of loading guns with tranquiliser darts that were less than an hour away.
The bear was spotted nonchalantly strolling along a road near the town of Skagafjördur yesterday morning around 9.30am by a farmer.
Experts say it had arrived on an ice floe and local laws...
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Check out the Climate Matters video contest... →
Unfortunately, my entry, “Let’s Send a Message to the World: Climate Matters!”, was disqualified because I forgot to read the rules (d’oh!):
Entries will be disqualified if they directly or indirectly refer to any presidential candidate or political party.
Oh well, it was great fun to make. And the finalists are excellent, so do give ‘em a look.
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Rethinking the American Dream.
Last night in the debate, Obama admitted that his support for so-called “clean” coal makes him unpopular with some environmentalists. Michael Silberman noted: “at least somewhere deep down Obama seems to realize he’s wrong on the oxymoron that is clean coal.”
The truth is, neither candidate offers the leadership and values we need to push this country into the...
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WatchCheck out this robot assembling a photo voltaic panel at the Solar Power International convention, captured by Earth2Tech.
The good thing is that there’s no robot that can install the panels on homes and buildings.
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Which Candidate Thinks Like You? →
A quiz to figure out how closely your priorities and beliefs regarding the environment and energy resources matches those of the candidates.
It’s a bit biased — not surprising, coming as it does from The Daily Green. For example, one of the possible answers to who you would choose as your closest advisor is someone who “conspires with the oil industry and ignores...
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Earth 2100 →
ABC is creating a show that imagines the Earth in 2015, 2050, and 2100. It will air next year.
If you feel like scarin’ the bejeezus out of yourself today, check out the Earth 2050 interactive map, where you can click on a region and watch a clip explaining what we have to look forward to, including declining infrastructure, world wars, increased terrorism, and famine.
They’re...
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3Qs with Peter Mandelstam, BlueWater Wind
Prominent supporters of renewable energy make strange bedfellows. What other cause could unite a former Texas oil tycoon, an Oakland-based community activist, and the billionaire mayor of New York?
Each is driven by a unique hierarchy of goals, including weaning the U.S. from dependence on foreign oil, reigniting the country’s manufacturing sector, creating fair-wage jobs, reducing...
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“With the right market drivers and an open-access marketplace, we can completely...”
– Stephan Dolezalek, a managing director of VantagePoint Venture Partners, one of the world’s largest green-tech venture-capital firms. In The Green Collar Economy.
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