Happy Birthday Confucius–Sure Wish You Were Here
Check out this entry in the Writer’s Almanac:
It’s the day Confucius‘ birthday is celebrated in Taiwan. The holiday is called Teacher’s Day. (more…)
PBS Promotes Energy Efficiency, But Ignores the #1 Reason
I like to watch the PBS show “Ask This Old House” on Saturday mornings. I’m so impressed with the incredible level of professionalism and the cleverness of the solutions these folks come up with.
Whenever it’s possible to mention energy efficiency or solar energy, the plumbing and heating guy, Richard Trethewey (pictured on left), normally dives right in. (more…)
Shell Oil’s Attempt to Clean up Its Image Is Backfiring
The Internet has empowered many key social phenomena of our day, including shining a light on shameful behavior—on the part of both individual people as well as corporations. This can have enormous impact, as huge numbers of people decide to “vote with their wallets,” severely punishing bad actors.
Here, for instance, we have Shell Oil’s attempt to use Lego as a tool to clean up the horrible image it created for itself with its exploitation of the arctic. As this video goes viral, Lego is under increasing pressure to disassociate itself from Shell, a move I predict they’ll make quite soon.
Check Out What New York City Is Doing To Deal with Climate Disruption
New York City is amazing in so many ways–principally that most things one encounters there are good. From the Julliard, to the Met, to a tunafish sandwich from any of hundreds of delis around town, it just doesn’t get any better. So is it any surprise that New York is leading the way in energy efficient buildings as a tool to mitigate climate disruption?
What Happens When Everybody and His Dog Goes to Renewable Energy?
Here’s an article on the ever-accelerating progress that solar PV is making, as costs continue to plummet. It certainly makes one wonder about the so-called “utility death spiral,” in which traditional power companies become unable to function, by virtue of customer defection in favor of PV (or methane fuel cells, or whatever else).
Pundits aren’t too worried about this, on the basis that we have plenty of time to figure out a solution. I’m not at all sure that’s true. And that’s the essential theme of my current book project (Bullish on Renewable Energy – Eleven Reasons Why Clean Energy Investors Can’t Lose), i.e., that pure market economics will soon hit a tipping point, at which time everybody and his dog will go to renewable energy.
From Guest Blogger Sophia Mann: Six Stylish and Eco-Friendly Decor Ideas for Your Home
For those of us who are mindful of the extent to which we are harming the environment, these are great times, since we have so many options to help us on our noble mission of living in harmony with our environment.
But if that means that you have to curb your enthusiasm for decorating your home in a stylish and contemporary way, think again. There are numerous ideas out there, though I wish there were more. Here are only six ideas that will help you decorate your home in a fun, stylish, and green manner. (more…)
From Guest Blogger Mary Ann Keel: Transforming Your Home To Be More Energy Efficient
If you want to see a more energy-efficient world that does more to protect and conserve our resources without being wasteful, that starts at home! The following article is a collection of tips and tricks to help you transform your home to be much more energy efficient, by taking a series of small, simple and manageable steps towards a greener future. Some of these changes will save you money right away from the onset, whereas others may take more time to pay for themselves, but going green almost always saves you money in the long run even though it’s not all about money, it’s about leaving a better world for our children. (more…)
Powerful Video on Screen for World Leaders Attending U.N. Climate Convention
Those who liked the uplifting video on climate disruption I posted yesterday featuring the Morgan Freeman voice-over will love this one–an expansion on the same theme. It’s very action-oriented, i.e., “we have every reason to act–today.” Apparently, it was shown to the 120 world leaders yesterday at the U.N. climate convention; I hope they found it as inspiring as I did.
From the video: “We will either be remembered as the generation that destroyed its home, or the one that finally learned to respect it.” That’s great writing, and it’s so true.
Google’s Driverless Car
Every day or so I get an email from a friend celebrating the wonderful innovation of Google’s driverless car. I just responded to one:
Sorry to be a wet blanket, but this does very little to take us in the direction of sustainable transportation. Looking at this from 50,000 feet, we still have what we did 75 years ago: a 4,000-pound hunk of steel that burns a fossil fuel that’s growing ever-scarcer and more environmentally unfriendly by the day–with an average of 15% efficiency. This hunk of steel is parked an average of 23 hours a day, and carries an average of 0.25 passengers during the one hour it’s used daily.
And we’re to believe that the most important innovation, during this time when humankind is just now realizing that consuming fossil fuels is devastating our planet is…..getting rid of the driver??? How about getting rid of the gasoline? Or the car? The driverless car is good news for the oil companies and the auto OEMs (imagine that…), but it’s certainly not for the remaining seven billion of us.
Magicians Misdirect Their Audiences—So Do Energy Advocates
I wrote a post yesterday poking fun at French investment bank Kepler Chevreux for their analysis that they claim has dramatic implications for the global oil industry. They estimate: “$100 billion invested in either wind energy or solar energy – and deployed as energy for light and commercial vehicles – will produce significantly more energy than that same $100 billion invested in oil” and go on to posit: “the implications, needless to say, are dramatic. It (sic) would signal the end of Big Oil, and the demise of an industry that has dominated the global economy and geo-politics, for the last few decades. And the need for it to reshape its business model around renewables.” (more…)
