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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Branding – What We Hold In High Regard -- and WhyI heard a wonderful radio show this afternoon that discussed the human perception of value.  Is a $200 bottle of wine really better than a $20 bottle?  We certainly think and behave as if this were true.

Not only do we say, if asked, that the wine coming from a bottle that we believe costs $200 is better, but we physiologically react that way.  In fact, this is proven in numerous studies in which wine-tasters were hooked up to electronics, enabling researchers to see actual stimulation of pleasure-related parts of our brain.  (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Proud to Write for the Financial Prognosticator "The Hedge Connection"My fourth book, Bullish on Renewable Energy, is now up on Amazon.

As the subtitle suggests, I present:

• Fourteen reasons that I believe renewable energy is rapidly becoming the deal of the century,

• The way in which the forces of pure market economics are rapidly conspiring to make fossil fuels comparatively unattractive, and

• Evidence that all this is happening far faster than most people understand.

Yes, (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Photovoltaics

Vermont’s High Concentration of Enlightened and “Authentic” People

I was surprised and delighted when a cousin I hadn’t seen in 35 years called me out of the blue from her home in Northern Vermont over the weekend. No surprise here: her town has a fairly decent sized (1 MW) solar array, pictured here.

Apparently, the photo here is the front of a postcard. Typical Vermont. They could have shown off their maple syrup or their fabulous autumn leaves or any of hundreds of bucolic old churches that dot the stunning landscape. Of what are they proudest? Their commitment to a sustainable energy future (though they did manage to throw in a few sheep).

I wrote to my cousin later thanking her for reaching out, and suggesting: You can tell your fellow Vermonters for me that I appreciate their self-styled approach to life, and to American energy politics in particular.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

"Discontinuous" Climate ChangeHere’s a “Ted Talk” that outlines the worst-case climate change scenario.  The presenter is correct in that the IPCC’s projections are very likely on the conservative side, insofar as they need to be accepted by many hundreds of scientists before they’re released. When I interviewed IPCC chairman Dr. Rajendra Pachauri as part of my second book (“Is Renewable Really Doable?”), he told me that publishing one of these reports is an extremely demanding and rigorous process.  I don’t doubt it for a second.

Having said that, the notion of  “discontinuities” doesn’t make much sense.  Yes, we face melting permafrost, decreasing albedo, the increase of insolation due to the sunspot cycle, etc.  But the Earth’s climate is a sufficiently large network of systems that abrupt changes in anything are not at all likely.

The problem isn’t that Italy is going to turn into a desert in twenty years; it’s that slow and horribly damaging change is inevitable if we do nothing to avert it.

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Warring Over Natural Resources May Be With Us for a WhileHere’s a video featuring two people, both, in my opinion, among the world’s ten most talented people.

Most of it is about religious wars, but is made relevant to our environmental theme by this suggestion as to what comes after we cease to battle one another because of insults we’ve received to our faiths.  At that point, we’ll be able to get back to fighting about what really matters:  natural resources and arbitrary lines on maps.

I howled with laughter, and I hope you will too.

 

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

The Evolution of SustainabilityHere’s an infographic on the subject of sustainability that a reader sent me.  I hope readers will appreciate it, even though I’m glad I’m not the one who has to tell the world’s indigenous people, John Muir, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Donella Meadows, Rachel Carson, and the rest that “sustainability” began in 1970: (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

Averting Climate Disaster Will Require Courage and IntelligenceFrom today’s New York Times – and two replies from a team of scientists that has added me to their distribution list:

• Only if each of us chooses to be a coward.

• More likely if we are stupid. So far Stupid is winning hands down.

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Want Help Taking Your CleanTech Company To Market?When you get a chance, please check out the revisions to the 2GreenEnergy website, where we’ve sharpened our focus on cleantech business strategy.

This is echoed in a few different places around the site, but it’s spelled out on the home page: (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

What It Takes To Succeed in Writing – Spoiler Alert: I Don’t Know I just wrote to a friend whose stepson is a fabulously talented writer, but sadly, remains virtually unknown in the literary world today. My friend remarks that this is a “hard road,” to which I respond:

Yes, I’m quite certain it’s a hard road. I’m reminded of my life as an undergraduate during which I told my advisor that I aspired to be an author of philosophic novels. To my surprise, he actively discouraged me, on the basis of how difficult a field this is to enter. He explained that he had been a roommate of John Updike at Harvard, and thus had a privileged position from which to observe how this whole thing goes. He told me, “Once you achieve that status, you can barf on a page and it will be received with great ovation, but only a handful of people each generation actually gets there.”

The issue, of course, is meritocracy, i.e., that there isn’t one there, or anywhere else. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

Reject the Keystone XLI just signed The Center for Biological Diversity’s petition calling for POTUS Obama to “Reject the Keystone XL Once and for All.”

Will rejecting the project materially change our country’s devotion to oil?  No.

Will doing so suggest to Americans and the rest of the world that perhaps we’re not owned by our oil companies and that we may be headed in the direction of a sane and responsible energy policy?  Absolutely.

 

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