Roughly two-thirds of the American people support President Obama taking significant action on climate change, according to two polls released the day after Obama’s State of the Union address.
A poll for the League of Conservation voters showed
Cleantech and renewable energy professionals now have a new legal resource at their disposal. Professionals looking for help on legal or policy issues can submit their environmental, clean tech, and renewable energy legal questions to CleanTechies’ Legal Q&A at http://law.cleantechies.com and get answers from cleantech law experts.
CleanTechies has joined forces with Cleantech Law Partners, a boutique law firm that caters to the unique legal needs of renewable energy and cleantech companies. The firm’s attorneys review the legal questions that are submitted on CleanTechies and provide their answers online.
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Davis, Calif., is joining other American cities in a race towards carbon neutrality. The city with a population over 65,000 was the first to introduce bike lanes and climate-specific energy efficiency ordinance.
Teaming up with David Gershon (Earth Run organizer and author of Social Change 2.0), Davis is striving to be carbon neutral by mid-century, using the State of California’s 20 percent reduction goal as its starting point. The short-term target is also ambitious: cut the community’s emissions by 50 percent by the year 2013.
Organizers hope that with the “Cool Davis” campaign, up to 75 percent of Davis residents will participate by going on Gershon’s “Low Carbon Diet,” a 30-day program designed to help households shed 5,000 pounds of carbon.
With so much volatility in the price of oil over the last decade, who can blame the airline industry for “going big” these past couple months and placing bets on emerging renewable jet fuel companies?
The list of deals is long: AltAir signing an MOU with 14 airlines to supply camelina-based fuel, BioJet and Great Plains working together to develop their own green fuel derived from camelina, Kingfisher Airlines working with three companies on R&D for renewable jet fuel, and Qatar Airways leading a consortium to investigate potential biofuels, just to name a few.
It’s that time of year again … no, not when turduckens appear on dinner tables nationwide and it becomes somehow acceptable to call the marshmallow a vegetable. It’s time for the 2009 edition of “Freeing the Grid,” an annual report card to states on their net metering and interconnection standards. Together, these two key policies empower energy customers (that’s you) to go solar and reduce your utility bills.
Although there is still plenty of room for improvement, this year’s report shows solid progress across most states—an indicator that these once-obscure policies are becoming accepted best practices. Oregon was this year’s star pupil. Meanwhile, there were still a number of states that didn’t even show up to class. Want to see if your state made the grade? Download 2009’s Freeing the Grid here from the report’s lead author, Network for New Energy Choices.
Long a ubiquitous part of modern life, plastics are now in everything from diapers to water bottles to cell phones. But given the proven health threats of some plastics — as well as the enormous environmental costs — the time has come for the U.S. to pass a comprehensive plastics control law.
creatingpowerfulhealth.com/blog
Plastic water bottles made with the carbonate plastic Bisphenol-A (BPA) on display at a California outdoor supply store.
Since 1950, plastics have quickly and quietly entered the lives and bodies of most people and ecosystems on the planet. In the United States alone, more than 100 billion pounds of resins are formed each year into food and beverage packaging, electronics, building products, furnishings, vehicles, toys, and medical devices. In 2007, the average American purchased more than 220 pounds of plastic, creating nearly $400 billion in sales.
It is now impossible to avoid exposure to plastics. They surround and pervade our homes, bodies, foods, and water supplies, from the plastic diapers and polyester pajamas worn by our children to the cars we drive and the frying pans in which we cook our food.
Did you know that America’s largest installed solar power plant is located on Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada? The 14-megawatt solar array (shown at left) went live in late 2007 and remains the largest solar power plant in the United States.
While First Solar’s recent announcement of two 250-megawatt solar power plants in California dwarfs the military’s solar array, the fact remains that for a considerable amount of time the military will have operated the largest solar array in the United States. Why would the military take this step? The answer is energy security.
The world stands to gain 6.9 million jobs by 2030 in the clean energy sector if a strong deal is reached in Copenhagen, according to a report released recently by Greenpeace International and the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC).
A switch from coal to renewable electricity generation will not just avoid 10 billion tons of CO2 emissions, but will create 2.7 million more jobs by 2030 than if we continue business as usual. Conversely, the global coal industry — which currently supports about 4.7 million employees worldwide — is likely to contract by more than 1.4 million jobs by 2030, due to rationalization measures in existing coal mines.
Article appearing courtesy of Yale Environment 360.
The European Union will unveil a proposal this week calling for $73 billion (50 billion euros) in research over the next decade into improving wind, solar, and nuclear power technologies, as well as the development of carbon capture and sequestration projects and energy-efficient “Smart Cities.”
The report, prepared by the European Union’s executive body, the European Commission, says the surge in investment is necessary if Europe hopes to meet its goal of slashing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050.
As media sponsor of the 5th Germany California Solar Day that took place in San Francisco last month, CleanTechies is pleased to announce another exciting green tech event organized by the German American Chamber of Commerce:
Mobility 2030: Transportation Technologies & Lifestyles of the Future
“A toast to the end of the Bush Era…” That was the first sentence of an amazing presentation held by Sir Nicholas Stern in São Paulo at the Federation of the Industries of the State of São Paulo (FIESP) on Tuesday this week. In less than an hour, Dr. Stern discoursed on his mighty report “The Stern Review”.
Released in 2006 on behalf of the United Kingdom, “The Stern Review” is a 700-page document that stands by the conversion of our economy into a new low-carbon one. In short, the report proposes that the climate changes under a “business-as-usual” scenario will consume about 20% of the worldwide Gross Domestic Product (GDP), with adaptation and mitigation initiatives costing about 1.5% in the same period.
In a very casual yet direct manner, Dr. Stern reaffirmed his opinion for the need of an economical transformation into a low-carbon system. According to him, a high-carbon economy, one based on petrol and non-sustainable processes, must be re-evaluated immediately. He talked about the “Bush Legacy” – high-carbon products without long-term responsibility – and how to replace this outdated model. One of the most controversial of Dr. Stern’s proposals is the pricing of carbon within the products and services. In other words, it would be similar to establishing a “carbon tax” on the system.