Climate Change – Out of Sight, Out of Mind?
In an earlier post today I wrote on nuclear energy, I mentioned the average American’s lack of awareness of and interest in climate change. And while there are a number of reasons for this, most of them political, one could be geographical. Thus far, the principal effects of global warming have been at the extreme latitudes and in extreme altitudes.
Here’s a report from the New York Times on the melting of the Quelccaya ice cap in the Peruvian Andes – a formation that developed over a period of 1600 years, only to be melted away in the last 25.
A reader asked me to comment on this:
It looks like Europe continues to embrace electric transportation. According to my colleague Fritz Maffry, the 
Most of us who pay attention to the key environmental issues of the day have some opinion on the legitimacy of the Keystone XL pipeline. At the risk of oversimplifying:
Frequent commenter and 2GreenEnergy supporter Tim Kingston sent me this for comment: an 
I normally don’t bet against my own longevity, but it seems extremely unlikely that I’ll still be on this planet when the case against Chevron in Ecuador is finalized and the damages are paid. Here’s an 
Ontario, Canada is well known as a leader in the adoption of clean energy technology. Their fabled feed-in-tariffs have provided incentive for developers all over the globe to site renewable energy projects in the province. And certainly their adoption of smart grid is the envy of the Western Hemisphere, starting with the 7.4 million smart meters, encouraging consumers and businesses to conserve and shift their electricity use to off-peak periods. Now, 
From coast to coast, the cost of heating and cooling homes and providing energy to keep everything from computers to lights to hot water heaters up and running is rising. Meanwhile, we continue to burn fuels such as coal and oil that might be harmful to the environment and, somewhere down the line, may no longer be available.
Becoming an engineer is one of the best ways to ensure you will actually make a difference when it comes to solving the problems facing future generations. If the population continues to grow at the current rate, there could be 20 billion more people on earth by the end of the century. (But that won’t happen; the Earth’s population will crest mid-century at 9 – 10 billion. – ed.) Where to house these extra billions of people and how they will move about is the realm of engineers and one of the most important building materials will be metals. 
Occasionally I hear that the Chinese government is very concerned about keeping its huge population content – or at least sufficiently calm that the people don’t riot in the streets. I don’t really understand this, as the government hasn’t been particularly afraid of rounding up protesters and putting bullets through their heads.
