Tag:

carbon

Eyeing the Difficult Path To a Sustainable Future

Environmentalist David Orr says the easy part of helping the United States live within its ecological limits may be passing laws, such as one that puts a price on carbon. The hard part, he maintains in an interview with Yale Environment 360, is changing a culture of consumption that causes extensive environmental damage — and unhappiness.

Long before buzzwords like “carbon footprint” entered the general lexicon, David W. Orr was working on ways to help humanity lighten its impact on the natural world. A professor of environmental studies at Oberlin College and the author of six books, including Ecological Literacy, Orr has focused on how to best educate students about using the Earth’s resources prudently. He also has been a leading proponent of sustainable design on the country’s college campuses, and was the driving force behind building Oberlin’s $7 million Environmental Studies Center, considered a model of green architecture in the U.S.

05/26/2010 1 comment

Renewable Energy

Christiana Figueres of Costa Rica Selected as New U.N. Climate Chief

written by Walter Wang

United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, appointed Costa Rican expert on climate change, Christiana Figueres, as the new U.N. climate chief on May 17th. She will replace Yvo de Boer as executive secretary of the United National Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) on July 1st.

De Boer, of the Netherlands, announced his resignation last February after the Copenhagen climate summit where 120 world leaders failed to come to a binding agreement on global warming.

Figueres, 53, is the first person in this U.N. position to come from a developing country. She has been a member of Costa Rica’s negotiating team on climate change since 1995. She represented the Caribbean and Latin American on the Executive Board of the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism in 2007, and from 2008 to 2009, Figueres served as vice president of the Bureau of the Convention.

05/24/2010 0 comment

Clean Transportation Energy Efficiency

Ships to Embrace Energy Efficiency Not Bunker Fuel

written by Environmental News Network

Ships are responsible for 2.7% of world carbon dioxide emissions. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) estimates that these emissions could increase by 150-250% by the year 2050 in line with the expected continued growth in international seaborne trade. So how does one reduce such emissions since ships are international in nature and there are over a hundred different nations with different rules. How can one be fair and be green?

04/07/2010 1 comment

Renewable Energy

A Hard Look at the Perils and Potential of Geoengineering

written by Yale Environment 360

The Asilomar conference on geoengineering had been touted as a potentially historic event. What emerged, however, were some unexpected lessons about the possibilities and pitfalls of manipulating the Earth’s climate to offset global warming.

In the beginning, I had my doubts. The Asilomar International Conference on Climate Intervention Technologies, held last week at the Asilomar conference grounds near Monterey, Calif., was touted as an “unprecedented” gathering of 175 scientists, environmental groups, philosophers, and public policy wonks to discuss the governance of geoengineering — that is, large-scale, intentional manipulation of the Earth’s climate to offset rising temperatures.

The meeting was obviously set up to channel the spirit of the first Asilomar conference in 1975, during which biologists drew up voluntary guidelines to help reassure the public that genetically modified organisms would not be released into the world. Asilomar 1.0 is remembered as a landmark event in the evolution of scientific ethics and a turning point in the public acceptance of biotechnology.

Asilomar 2.0 seemed to pale in comparison. For one thing, geoengineering may be a scary idea, but the dangers were nowhere near as immediate as the unintentional release of genetically modified organisms.

04/01/2010 0 comment

Renewable Energy

U.S. Creates Office to Handle Climate Change Data

written by Yale Environment 360

The Obama administration is creating an office to coordinate and report the latest climate change data, a unit analogous to the National Weather Service that officials hope will help planners, businesses, and the public better understand and prepare for the effects of global warming.

The office, which will be part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, will assemble about 550 scientists already working on climate issues under one roof. All data will be accessible on a website, www.climate.gov.

02/09/2010 0 comment

Renewable Energy

Will the U.S. Climate Bill Make it Through the Senate?

written by Yale Environment 360

Faced with a faltering economy, fatigue over the health care fight, and the prospect of congressional elections this November, proponents of a carbon cap-and-trade bill in the U.S. Senate face high hurdles when Congress returns from its winter recess next week.

The Obama administration and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the lead author on the climate bill, insist that they are proceeding with plans to pass climate and energy legislation this year.

01/13/2010 0 comment

Energy Efficiency

Data Center Virtualization: Cloud Computing – Ease Up on Security to Keep Carbon Under Check?

written by Dilip Tinnelvelly

The AFCOM association recently revealed the results of a survey of 436 data center sites that showed the following trends: Cyber terrorism is an increasing concern, mainframe deployment is declining, storage deployment is increasing, and “green” technologies are definitely happening.

AFCOM found that there is a shift in data centers away from mainframe computers and toward other types of servers. That makes total sense as virtualization is the mantra of the day for those companies that are interested in optimizing their power by having several operating systems function within just one server. Data processing and storage is done within one server as opposed to a traditional system where the network is distributed in an elaborate design comprising of several servers and workstations all attached to their own separate hardware components. Similar to a virtual environment, all the physical resources such as additional servers, PCs, storage, hard drives, processors, and mother boards are totally eliminated. That way, not only are we saving big time in hardware investment (good for the planet!), we are also avoiding excess maintenance costs. That’s a big thumbs up!

01/13/2010 4 comments

Renewable Energy

Copenhagen and Health Care Dim Chances for Passage of U.S. Climate Bill

written by Yale Environment 360

The bitter battle over health care legislation, fears that global warming legislation could harm the weak U.S. economy, and the failure of the Copenhagen climate summit to set binding CO2 emissions reductions targets will make U.S. Senate passage of a carbon cap-and-trade bill difficult in 2010, according to senators from both parties.

Politico reports that the partisan struggle over health care reform — in which 60 Democratic senators are poised to pass a bill with no Republican support — has alienated moderate Republicans whose votes are crucial to passage of climate legislation.

12/22/2009 1 comment

Renewable Energy

Waxman-Markey Opposition Threatens US Leadership

written by Matt Macko

HR 2454 or the Waxman-Markey bill, named after its two major supporters Henry A. Waxman and Edward J. Markey of the Energy and Commerce Committee, was passed in the US House of Representatives on June 27. Its major mandate is a cap and trade system though it does have other green practices scattered throughout. There has been a lot of talk recently, because of this bill, of the viability of a cap and trade system in the US. To evaluate the government’s ability to implement this new system we have to first understand it.

The basics of a cap and trade are fairly simple. It is a way to limit emissions through a credit system. Every business acquires a certain amount of credits; depending on the type of system these credits are either auctioned off or given away by the government. These credits represent the amount of carbon that businesses can emit. If the business cannot adhere to the limit of emissions their credits allow, they must buy credits from companies who are below their cap. Thus the companies who are responsible and limit their emissions are rewarded and those who are not as environmentally friendly are punished.

07/28/2009 9 comments

Renewable Energy

Americans Want Government to Regulate Greenhouse Gas Emissions

written by Ceylan Thomson

Three-quarters of Americans believe that the government should regulate greenhouse gas emissions, with a majority supporting restrictions on carbon even if they raise the price of goods and lead to higher utility bills, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The poll, released on the eve of a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on a carbon cap-and-trade bill, showed that a slim majority — 52 percent — supports that specific legislation. Sixty-two percent of those surveyed said they would support carbon regulation even if it means higher prices for goods, 56 percent expressed support if CO2 regulation leads to a $10 increase in monthly utility bills, and 44 percent said they would back a cap-and-trade program even if it means paying $25 more per month for electricity. Roughly 60 percent said the U.S. should reduce carbon emissions even if other countries do little to confront global warming.

06/30/2009 1 comment

Renewable Energy

Cap-and-Trade or Trade War: Obama Wants Tariff Out of Climate Bill

written by Joe Walsh

Like many of you, I am counting down the days to Copenhagen, even making my own sort of clean energy geek’s version of an Advent calendar and putting up an LED-bedecked tree (sustainably-harvested, of course).

But, I’m beginning to worry that we won’t get there before a trade war erupts over the last-minute amendment inserted into Waxman-Markey before Friday’s 219-212 passage of the bill. According to several sources, President Obama is worried too.

06/30/2009 1 comment

Renewable Energy

Climate Change – Is NIMBY to Blame?

written by Joe Walsh

In my continuing effort to launch the CleanTechies community to the forefront of the clean energy debate – and perhaps, in some small part, because I am an insatiable gadfly – I dashed off the following letter to the New York Times yesterday.

It is tough to give much nuance to the argument in less than 200 words, but to me, there are clear connections and contradictions between the the two energy/environment Op-Eds they ran yesterday, one by Gregg Easterbrook, the other by Paul Krugman. The letter follows:

06/30/2009 1 comment

Renewable Energy

Investment in Clean Energy Exceeded Fossil Fuel Investment in 2008

written by Ceylan Thomson

In a sign of the growing importance of renewable sources of energy, global investment in wind power, solar power, and other alternative forms of energy last year exceeded investments in coal, oil, and carbon-based energy for the first time.

06/03/2009 1 comment

Renewable Energy

Corn-based ethanol takes a hit

written by Jeff Kart

There’s a kernel of good to this story, if you care about climate change and high food prices.

Sure, ethanol has been a great example of how America can begin to overcome its dependency on foreign fossil fuels. But using a staple like corn to make the biofuel has driven up food prices and displaced other food crops.

Now comes the Obama administration, which has proposed new rules for renewable fuels, aimed at cutting carbon dioxide emissions. At the same time, he’s vowed to help prop up the corn ethanol industry with stimulus dollars, and commit stimulus funds to biofuel research.

05/08/2009 2 comments

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