Pricing Carbon Emissions

Guest Opinion: Global Warming Twenty Years Later | Worldwatch Institute: "

Moving from fossil fuels to clean energy is challenging, yet it is also transformative in ways that will be welcomed. Cheap, subsidized fossil fuels engendered bad habits. We import food from halfway around the world, for example, even with healthier products available from nearby fields. Local produce would be competitive were it not for fossil fuel subsidies and the fact that climate change damages and costs, due to fossil fuels, are also borne by the public."

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Solar and Wind Will Drive Natural Gas Up - Seeking Alpha

This article demonstrates how the pervasive carbon economy thinking prevents thinking about a future without it,i.e layered beneath this article is the idea that the only way to have a viable future is to rely on overconsumption as an economic driver.

Solar and Wind Will Drive Natural Gas Up - Seeking Alpha

Devil in the Details: Three Profoundly Disturbing Carbon Scenarios

• The general outlook of the scenarios has been termed “profoundly disturbing” by one participant, climate researcher and author Mark Lynas.

• All three of the report’s scenarios define “success” as a greater than 90% chance of less than 2ºC (3.6ºF) warming above pre-industrial levels, which is the most commonly accepted scientific threshold for successful mitigation of adverse effects of climate change,

• In the words of the authors, “the horse has bolted, but there is still scope to contain the greatest extent of damage [from climate change] through innovative and efficient policy.”

excerpts from Green Car Congress: Devil in the Details: Three Profoundly Disturbing Carbon Scenarios

The Real Story Behind the Midwest Floods? Climate Change | Environment | AlterNet

One of the candidates to replace Bush has a solution. When I asked Ralph Nader about global warming this week, he said: "We've got to have a national mission of converting our economy, and the example for the world is solar energy, 4 billion years of supply. It is environmentally benign, decentralized, makes us energy-independent and replaces the ExxonMobil/Peabody Coal/uranium complex. That is why we have got to go for economic, political, health and safety reasons."


The Real Story Behind the Midwest Floods? Climate Change | Environment | AlterNet

Decline and Fall of America's Energy Empire | OurFuture.org

he current debate over offshore oil leases has put America's gargantuan energy appetite back on the discussion table this week. I've tried to stay out of it so far for two reasons.

For the bigger context on what's happening, we need to think in centuries, not just decades. There's a lot to this view — this article admittedly oversimplifies a lot, and bypasses a few important issues entirely — but that just means there's plenty more to discuss in future posts. For now, some basics.


Read the rest of this thoughtful commentary at Decline and Fall of America's Energy Empire | OurFuture.org

Why Fair Trade May Be Our Only Hope | Environment | AlterNet

...the issue of whether or not the world will be fed is partly a function of ownership. This reflects an unexpected discovery. It was first made in 1962 by the Nobel economist Amartya Sen, and has since been confirmed by dozens of further studies. There is an inverse relationship between the size of farms and the amount of crops they produce per hectare. The smaller they are, the greater the yield.

Why Fair Trade May Be Our Only Hope | Environment | AlterNet

OPINION: China’s Wind Power Development Exceeds Expectations | Worldwatch Institute

A recent boom in Chinese wind power development has surpassed the government's original target and forced policymakers to set a new goal that might still be too modest.

In 2007, cumulative wind installations in China exceeded 5 gigawatts (GW), the goal originally set for 2010 by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China's top economic planner. The Commission had set the target in its 2006 mid- and long-term development plan for renewable energy. The plan's target for 2020 was 30 GW, a level that is now projected to be reached by 2012, eight years ahead of schedule.

OPINION: China’s Wind Power Development Exceeds Expectations | Worldwatch Institute

What is wrong with overconsumption?

Think Progress � Kmart promotes abstinence pants.

It looks like a good way to promote the purchase of another unneeded piece of clothing so that misguided parents can feel good about themselves when their teenagers beg for one more new pair of sweatpants.

This is just another example of how ludicrous the overconsumption economic model the contemporary world is hooked on really is. The use of young women's bodies to sell products is ever present, this example just happens to be a case where the pornographers are caught with their pants up. At least when mommy and daddy are looking.

If we are lucky, maybe it will inform some young people of the hypocrisy although any product with a product name or a slogan falls in the same category in my opinion, the difference only lies in what offends the beholder.

On the other hand, maybe the "outraged" should have been looking on the other side of the street to see this announcement Carbon neutral underpants | Cleantech.com if they really understood how stupid this whole thing is and wanted to make constructive comments on the whole fashion industry.

One more disturbing piece of evidence from AlterNet, Too Much Stuff! America's New Love Affair With Self-Storage: Overconsumption is overconsumption pure and simple and it is part of an economic model that spells doom for the planet. I don't know whether to laugh or cry wolf.

Well maybe it would be better to go here and watch the video from "Worker of world, RELAX" explaining the danger of a work ethic that fill garages with junk and why efficiency never works.

Siemens to open Colo. wind turbine R&D center | Planetary Gear: a CNET blog on mechanical engineering technology - CNET News.com

The energy sector of the German company made the announcement on Tuesday in Houston, Texas, at Windpower 2008, the American Wind Energy Association's annual conference.

Siemens to open Colo. wind turbine R&D center | Planetary Gear: a CNET blog on mechanical engineering technology - CNET News.com

As part of the plan, Siemens Energy will collaborate with the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) to install a Siemens 2.3-megawatt (MW) wind turbine at the National Wind Technology Center located just outside of Boulder.

With the announcement timed for just before the last of the presidential primaries, this marks a significant development for wind energy in the US. Germany is the global leader in wind energy development, in my opinion, the location at NREL signals a new era of international cooperation in alternative technologies and a pull back in mindless dedication to industrial era energy production technologies that has been the norm for the current administration.

Under the "you never know" or is is "wishful thinking" department, because of the misguided policies that have lead to a deterioration of USD value against the Euro it will be more profitable to build the wind turbines in the US to meet the demand in Europe. The added market thus enhancing the pace of change in the US.

Get used to high food costs, water shortages

There are times when a cool head and calm talk are just what the doctor ordered. For example, when financial turmoil strikes financial markets the last thing those trying to fix things need is to panic the public and cause a run on banks. But this is different. This time panic is exactly what's needed to break through all the denial, wishful thinking, inertia, special interest spin and political cowardliness, Public panic is precisely what it's going to take to shake things loose and get those who need to get off the dime to do just that -- and fast -- and furiously -- and and with white knuckles on the controls -- as if their lives -- and yours -- depended on it.

News For Real: Forget oil, the new global crisis is food

Push for sustainable energy from householders - Telegraph

Small-scale energy units would include solar panels, wind turbines, combined heat and power boilers, and ground and air source pumps.

It says take-up could be boosted by so called feed-in tariffs - allowing householders to sell any electricity they do not need in their own home to the big energy companies at a fixed price.

These kinds of measures would work in any advanced nation. The Center for American Progress says fund it with Cap-and-Trade Auction Revenue



Read the full article from Telegraph here, Push for sustainable energy from householders

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