NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly is about as good as it gets in the news radio biz, but she conducted a very weird interview the other day with reporter David Ferris of E&E News, an online news site that covers energy and environmental issues. A few observations: (more…)
A reader notes: We are safe here in (Los Angeles suburb) Granada Hills. Heroic fire fighters kept the blaze about two miles away. Other neighborhoods around us have not been so fortunate. (more…)
All the innovations in transportation are good, but we still haven’t shattered the basic paradigm of carting around 4000 pounds of steel to get us to work and back.
The issue, of course, is profit. Selling steel and oil makes money, and building trains doesn’t. This, of course, is another example of externalities, i.e., costs that are not captured in the transaction of buying and selling cars and gasoline. When we start paying the costs of cleaning up the long-term environmental damage of all this, mass transit will look like a bargain in one hell of a hurry.
These strange days appear to be coming to an end. (more…)
A reader sent me this blurb on the left. Sorry for the profanity, but I thought I’d publish it and make this comment.
It’s kind of amusing to see that some conservatives take issue with Greta Thunberg.
It’s hard to imagine how anyone can object to a young person’s demanding that her generation be given an opportunity for a life on a planet that isn’t pervaded by human suffering brought on by the collapse of the environment. I have to think that her detractors are simply embarrassed that a 16-year-old girl has shone a light on how poorly they are behaving.
Readers may recall discussion of an investment opportunity in the form of a project deploying wind energy integrated with compressed air energy storage (CAES); we’ve been working on it for some time now. Good news: a large investor group has offered $40 million in development funding to get it going—and to supply the $1 billion needed for project construction. (more…)
To be honest, I’ve never believed that the world is a fair place. Bad things happen to good people, and vice versa. I try to be a good person, but outside a clear conscience, I don’t expect other benefits to accrue. (more…)
This (larger version below) looks good until you understand that “all other fuels” will be rising all through this period. Now, of course, to the extent to which this includes nuclear, that’s fine in terms of carbon, but if we’re burning more fossil fuels than we are now, this planet will be well on its way to an average temperature at which the level of human suffering will be unprecedented. (more…)
Whether we’re talking about more frequent and intense wildfires, droughts, floods or windstorms, most Americans are already experiencing the results of climate change. But, since the arctic is warming at a far more rapid pace than the rest of the globe, Alaskans are getting hit hardest of all. (more…)
