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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

I’m delighted to see real progress being made in the public discourse surrounding sustainability.  While most people still have the idea that continuing with “business as usual” with respect to our environment is an acceptable strategy, more of us are questioning this concept with each passing month. Here’s an example: a PBS special called The Journey to Planet Earth, featuring one of my personal heroes, Lester R. Brown, environmental visionary and author of “Plan B.”

It also features Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman (oops – Mom’s not going to like this one), Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, and former Governor and Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt.

I caught the first part of this incredible series last night; it’s beautifully done.

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

This afternoon I plan to take my daughter and a few of her friends down to the magnificent celebration of Earth Day that the city of Santa Barbara puts together each year. The show grows in scope each year; last year’s boasted many hundred exhibitors displaying concepts in energy efficiency, clean transportation, renewables, and cleantech more generally.

Wherever you are today, I hope you’ll take a few seconds and contemplate what “reduce, re-use, and recycle” can mean to you, your family, and your community.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Just in time for Earth Day, this morning I finished up Beyond the Limits by Donella Meadows et al. Gosh, I wish there were a way I could get everyone to read this critically important work with its incredibly wide-ranging implications about our future here on this tiny, beleaguered planet.

Gro Harlem Brundtland, Chairman of the World Commission on Environment and Development writes, “This book is essential reading for everybody who is concerned with the central issue of our times: how to achieve a transition to a sustainable global future.”

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Solar Thermal

I’ve often written about how astonishingly little of the Earth’s surface needs to be covered in a solar collecting technology, e.g., solar thermal, in order to provide 100% of the world’s energy needs. Linked above is a wonderful graphic that makes this clear.

Don’t get me wrong: the task of deploying that much solar thermal is not something that we can do overnight, but it sure provides something to think about. We receive 6000 times more energy from the sun every day than we need to supply all our energy needs. It sure seems a shame that we can’t come up with a way of making this happen, and that, as a consequence, we keep depleting our ever-shrinking supply of fossil fuels, while destroying our natural environment.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Tired of the big money in politics? Tired of corporations running the country? If so, you’re not alone – and, according to the “Move to Amend Coalition,” a grassroots national organization spearheading resolution efforts across the country, people of all political persuasions feel exactly like you do. And if it’s true of people generally, it’s true of Vermonters in spades, who just made their state the first to call for an amendment to abolish the doctrine known as “Corporate Personhood” which gives corporations constitutional rights meant to protect people.

 


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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Just a quick note to let you know that our project to assemble audio/visual learning aids aimed at renewable energy is complete (for now, at least), and ready for distribution to any young people or newcomers in the subject you feel may benefit. It’s a compilation of a few short videos, in which I lay out each of the five major “flavors” of clean energy (solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, and hydro), and briefly discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each. Also included are “infographics” that further explore these technologies and the issues that surround them.

My aim, of course, is to introduce this subject to as many people as possible, in the hopes that we can drive up the number of informed discussions, so necessary to the success of the democratic process.

Please feel free to send this link to anyone in your life who you feel may benefit. Thanks.

Here’s the link:  http://2greenenergy.com/renewable-energy-basic-concepts/

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

At yesterday’s Plug-In Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Conference I had a wonderful conversation with a senior player at Enterprise Holdings, the parent company of Enterprise Rent-A-Car. I began by validating him for coming to a show like this; to me it shows, at a minimum, a kind of progressive, forward-thinking approach to the business.

When I asked him about the pros and cons of adding electric vehicles to the line-up, I got some very interesting and thought-provoking answers that I thought I’d share: (more…)

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I’m on the board of advisors for the Clean Business Investment Summit (CBIS), held each year in August, linking the very best business plans with the hungriest investors. I just got back from a meeting in which we discussed keynote speakers, and, of course, the names of the top people at Patagonia came up. Fortunately, some of them are “friends of friends,” and so I think there is a reasonable chance that this will work.

If you happen not to be familiar with the incredible leadership that these folks have shown in sustainable manufacturing, I hope you’ll check out the video I linked here.

 

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

Scientists tell us that the threat of climate change (not to mention the other issues associated with the depletion of natural resources in the face of population growth) is the most important event facing mankind in the entire history of humanity. That’s quite a thought, when you reflect on it. After 10,000 years of our living in organized society, we’ve come to the point at which our ability to limit the damage we’re doing to our environment over the next few decades will mean the difference between our success and failure as a species. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Photovoltaics

A reader from Savannah, GA and I spoke on the phone the other day and became fast friends. In response to my piece on subsidies for solar, he writes:

I keep going back and forth on this very difficult issue. On balance, I’m against photo-opp seeking politicians and their bureaucrats (pol-crats) picking winners and losers.

Still, the last decade’s big gush of subsidy bucks (grants, credits, feed-in-tariffs) may be cited as birthing a gold-rush style ramp-up of solar PV production that maybe would not have otherwise happened. (more…)

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