According to this article in Forbes, the satellites that monitor the disappearance of Arctic ice are in the process of dying, and, predictably, the funds required to keep this system running effectively are blocked in the U.S. Congress.
My colleague Gary Tulie notes: (more…)
Frequent commenter MarcoPolo writes: I can’t help wondering if your passionate crusade against “big oil” isn’t counter-productive….The average person doesn’t want an existing crusade, filled with revolutionary risk and perils.
Indignation at injustice is and has always been a key driver in change. You’re a historian; this can’t be a new concept for you.
And I’m not sure what the average person wants, but whatever it is, it may change dramatically as our cities begin to sink into the sea.
According to the Writer’s Almanac: It’s the birthday of novelist Joseph Heller (books by this author), born in Brooklyn (1923) and best known for the novel Catch-22 (1961), about an American bombardier named John Yossarian. During World War II, Yossarian attempts to get out of the Army by faking a liver ailment, sabotaging his plane, and trying to get himself declared insane. It became an international best-seller, with the title entering the lexicon to refer to an absurd, no-win situation. (more…)
Here’s something I wish every person on Earth could understand, i.e., how very, very close we are to a total migration from fossil fuels into renewable energy. This guy, in particular, speaks about the continuing free-fall of solar PV prices given technologies that are improving every day. Of course, this is the basic theme of my most recent book: Bullish on Renewable Energy – 14 Reasons that Clean Energy Investors Can’t Lose.
The problem here really is disinformation, i.e., propaganda from Big Energy to the effect that renewables are tinker toys, that cleantech is a job-killer, etc. It’s all completely incorrect, but it’s constantly being shoved down the throats of all Americans.
Perhaps this, in turn, takes us back to our broken educational system.
Wow, did this guy nail it or what?
And here’s another piece on our broken educational system and some related issues.
We all know that our world is becoming increasingly capable of migrating away from fossil fuels, and the plummeting costs of renewable energy are the chief driver. But what factors lie behind this declining cost structure? Actually, there are several.
In the world of solar PV, one of the key issues is scale, i.e., the benefits that accrue to mass production. But, arguably, advancements in materials science, at least in the long-run, will be of even greater value. (more…)
As you read this post, the crew aboard the Greenpeace ship “Esperanza” (or “hope”) is busily destroying fishing lines that catch tuna for Walmart in a most barbaric fashion, killing obscene numbers of other aquatic animals. Is what Greenpeace is doing legal? Hardly. Is it right? By my wits, absolutely.
We’re fortunate enough to live in a world where civil disobedience is flourishing; it’s an important and well established tool in dismantling injustice.
If you would like to sign the petition demanding that Walmart cease these horribly abusive fishing practices, just click the link above.
I’m rooting hard for my friends at hydrokinetic start-up Littoral Power Solutions to develop their product quickly and get into the game while there is still time. There is never a good time for dawdling in the renewable energy industry, and that’s especially true given the progress that GE has made recently in this space, with its new turbine engineered for low-head run-of-river hydro.
While it’s far from a pure-play renewable energy concern, GE, with its recent purchase of Alstom Power, moved another step in that direction. What’s more, it’s obviously investing considerable resources in this arena. That’s really good to see, as it re-enforces the notion that we see all around us, the rapid migration to clean energy resources.
Environmental engineering primarily touches two sub-fields, civil engineering and biology. But each of these, in turn, is very broad. The field applies to everything from our global environment on down to the local level and interacts with other disciplines as diverse as space science, climatology, architecture, and geology. We notice it most at the local level, where we live.
The Local Environment (more…)
Here’s a video I put on my Facebook page, with introduction: Those seeking to know why things in our country are so screwed up need look no further than this.
My old friend Steve Vachss writes: This woman makes some good points. Nevertheless, she misses one fundamental reality. The media are not there to serve the public good or to provide fair coverage. I agree with her that TV “news” has been unwatchable for the past year, due to the political nonsense she fairly describes. (more…)
