Archive for the 'global warming' Category

Science Debate 2008 - Closer to Reality

by
Clifford
on February 11, 2008
in energy, energy policy, environment, global warming, politics, science, science and society, science education and science in the media
. 4 Comments

So Chris and Sheril have announced the next step in the journey to a real debate about science issues of note that intersect with the current political sphere. And they’ve come a long way in a short time! Here’s some of what they said in a recent post:

ScienceDebate2008 is now co-sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academies, and the Council on Competitiveness. We were looking at venues, and finally settled on an offer from the Philadelphia-based Franklin Institute–named, of course, after one of this country’s first and greatest scientists. We can’t think of a more appropriate venue.

And guess what?! They’ve actually invited the candidates: Hillary Clinton, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, and Barack Obama.

So the next step is to get the event (they suggest April 18, 2008) taken seriously by Continue reading ‘Science Debate 2008 - Closer to Reality’

Political Science

by
Clifford
on December 10, 2007
in energy policy, environment, global warming, politics, science, science and society and science in the media
. 7 Comments

Ok, a sidestep into politics for a short, but important moment.

With all that’s going on with all the presidential debates and press conferences and other appearances, has anything struck you as a major topic (or class of topics) that is simply missing from the national discussion? A topic that affects our lives in so many ways, and helps shape our futures in a most profound manner?

I’m thinking of science. I’m thinking of it in all the forms in which it intersects with politics - where decisions made by the president involve policy directly related to science (climate change and stem cell research are two of the most obvious), scientific research (both basic and applied), safety and security issues (consider the EPA, Katrina and other natural disasters), resources (the ongoing and coming battles about water sources, for example, pollution and air quality go here too, as well as under other headings), and energy (well, take your pick of example issues there). There’s also science education, on which there ought to be coherent effort for many reasons Continue reading ‘Political Science’

Fourth IPCC Report

by
Clifford
on November 17, 2007
in energy, energy policy, environment, global warming, politics, science and science and society
. 0 Comments

Don’t forget to look at the latest IPCC report released today! Full details including helpful digests and summaries can be found here.

News reports and discussions can be found all over the place. (Update: there’s an NPR report, with audio, here.) A report on the BBC by Richard Black begins:

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has challenged governments to act on the findings of a major new report on climate change.

Launching the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, he said real and affordable ways to deal with the problem existed.

The IPCC states that climate change is “unequivocal” and may bring “abrupt and irreversible” impacts.

Mr Ban urged politicians to respond at a UN climate change conference in Bali.

“Today the world’s scientists have spoken clearly and with one voice,” he said. “In Bali I expect the world’s policymakers to do the same.”

Continue reading ‘Fourth IPCC Report’

Climate Matters

by
Clifford
on November 15, 2007
in correlations, environment, global warming and science and society
. 1 Comment

There’s been some really excellent material over on Correlations. I recommend having a look. Among that, there’s been some very interesting posts about climate. The most urgent one is by Sheril, in which she reminds us about the behemoth, Cyclone Sidr, which is bearing down on Bangladesh right now, with potential human cost well beyond that of Katrina. One to watch.

The other posts I wanted to point to is the growing series of posts by Michael about climate science. People largely think of climate science in terms of the global warming arguments, but there’s a lot more to it than that. Michael’s trying to build an informative Continue reading ‘Climate Matters’

Weather Vs Climate

by
Clifford
on October 23, 2007
in correlations, environment, global warming and science
. 5 Comments

[Post reconstructed after 25.10.07 hack]:

My Correlations colleague Michael Tobis has a nice, simple post about the difference between weather and climate that’s worth a look. He starts out:

We climate scientists often hear the case made “If you can’t predict the weather next week, how could you predict the climate in a hundred years?” The answer to the question is hidden in the question. The weather and the climate are not exactly the same thing, and so what you can say about the one and what you can say about the other are also different.

Enjoy!

-cvj

More Encounters On the Road Less Travelled

by
Clifford
on October 1, 2007
in Los Angeles, architecture, cycling, design, environment, gadgets and global warming
. 11 Comments

Julia Russell - eco homesHey, guess who I saw today! Recall, that I passed a woman on a tricycle a while back? Well, at exactly the same spot, I passed her again today. She’s called Julia, as you may recall from her comment on the blog sometime later, (as I’d met her subsequently and said hello properly). I briefly said “hello and how are you” this time as our bike and trike passed each other, but I apologized for having to rush off, and rushed off. I was trying to catch the next bus in order to get to my classroom by 9:55am. The class’ first midterm was at 10:00am today and I wanted to make sure to be on time. So I dashed off to the stop…

…Only to be accompanied five minutes later by Julia, calmly arriving on her tricycle. She was also catching the same bus, it turned out, and I’d landed in the gap between buses and needed to wait anyway. After checking with me that this was indeed the stop she needed, she chained her splendid red machine to a tree. I contemplated taking a picture of us and the two extraordinary conveyances together to show you. However, while I dithered over this, the bus came. So I’ll cheat and re-use the old picture (right).

Anyway, we chatted quite a while about things (including the frustration of trying to Continue reading ‘More Encounters On the Road Less Travelled’

The Man of Tomorrow?

by
Clifford
on July 20, 2007
in energy, energy policy, environment, gardening, global warming, personal, politics, science and society, science education and science in the media
. 7 Comments

[Updated with a bit of video!]

Earlier this week I went for a walk with Nick Halmagyi to chat about physics, and since he had not been down to the meadows and gardens over by the neighbouring Aspen Institute, we wandered down that way. It was just after lunchtime, and a very hot day, and as we got near the Institute, we diverted away from physics so that I could tell him briefly what the significance of the Aspen Institute is. I explained that it was an important “think tank”, host to thinkers in the humanities, sciences, and diplomats, presidents, ex-presidents, and other dignitaries, who come and think great thoughts about the problems of the world. Well, let me use their own words from their website:

The Aspen Institute, founded in 1950, is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering enlightened leadership and open-minded dialogue.

As an example, I explained, it is probably the sort of place that Al Gore might have come to in order to think deeply about the environmental issues he champions. It is nice that the Aspen Institute is right next to the Aspen Center for Physics, and the two organizations, while now independent (but the Center actually grew out of the Institute, see here) sometimes work together on various matters including public outreach. The public lecture I gave here last year as part of the Heinz Pagels Memorial Lecture series (see e.g. here and here), for example, was actually over in the Paepke auditorium, one of their buildings.

We approached the main grounds of the Institute, near their residence buildings, and were greeted by a most frustrating -and ironic- sight. Their sprinkler system was fully on, spraying water unnecessarily into the air and onto the asphalted walks, with some making it onto their lawns, where even there it would mostly evaporate (in addition to aiding the hot sun in scorching the grass somewhat). For once, I did not have my camera and so cannot share this horrible sight with you. For a moment it was as though I was back in LA, but this was Aspen, where everyone talks about the environment. Then I remembered - everyone talks about the environment. At the same time, there are more and more SUVs every time I come here (rental companies even try to force SUVs on you when you try to rent a regular compact car - did you read my story of that last year?), more and more land seems to be cleared to build ever-larger houses, and so forth. On the other hand, bicycle use is very high here, there’s an excellent free bus system, an enforced reduction of individual car access to the Maroon Bells wilderness area, and I imagine several other worthy environmental efforts that I have not seen are being made. So it is a tale of two communities and mind sets. It’s complicated, as with any populate. But you’d have thought the Aspen Institute would be “fostering enlightened leadership” by not watering their lawns and (sidewalks) with vast amounts of water at the maximally worst time of day to do so in terms of effectiveness. (Frankly, given the environmental disaster most lawns are, one could go further and hope that in the spirit of leadership, they’d turn more of their expanse of lawns into other use, perhaps expanding the excellent wildflower garden they have in one corner, or letting more of the surrounding meadows repopulate the grounds. It could be rather beautiful.)

wild flower gardens at aspen institute

Anyway, we shook our heads at the irony of the sight and we wandered off toward the river, continuing our chat about matters in other dimensions (no, really). The next day I came back at that same time to check the sprinklers again (with camera), since such systems are often on timers, but had it rained very heavily the previous night and so -happily- it did not seem that the sprinklers had been used.

On Wednesday I returned once more. The sun was overhead and strong again (not as much as Monday) and the main system was not on. But once again I noticed signs of watering, and saw a smaller component of the lawn being watered by a hose-driven system. I now think that it might be that they were sprinkling (well, gushing) on Monday (and partly on Wednesday) in the mistaken belief that pouring water (and into the air, where it rapidly evaporates) on the lawn while the sun is baking it will somehow help, and they did it on an ad hoc basis, but I can’t be sure. Either way, it is a terrible waste of water resource by an organization that is committed to leadership in matters of importance, such as the environment.

Then I noticed that many people wearing name badges were heading from the Institute toward the direction of the auditorium and the Aspen Music tent. This fit with the next deliciously ironic thing: Al Gore was going to be talking! He’d been at the Aspen Institute (I’d no idea of his presence or the event until a radio announcement on Wednesday morning), and the sprinkler matter, this was remarkable. Convenient, one might say.

It turned out that it was not taking place in the Paepke auditorium, as I thought it Continue reading ‘The Man of Tomorrow?’

Griffin Apologizes

by
Clifford
on June 6, 2007
in environment, global warming and science
. 31 Comments

Interestingly, NASA’s chief administrator, Michael Griffin, apologized for his somewhat bizarre remarks of last week. What remarks? The ones that (among other things) essentially sidelined a huge amount of the work people in his own organization are busy with. See here for a reminder. He made his apology at JPL on Monday:

Continue reading ‘Griffin Apologizes’

NASA’s Wrong Stuff?

by
Clifford
on May 31, 2007
in environment, global warming and science
. 2 Comments

Have a listen to Greg Easterbrook (of Wired) in conversation with NPR’s Steve Inskeep on Morning Edition. The issue is whether NASA’s focus on setting up a manned base on the moon, and then heading for Mars, is really the right focus for a huge (multiple billions of dollars) expenditure, given other scientific priorities. The link is here. See also his Wired piece here, entitled “How NASA Screwed Up (And Four Ways to Fix It)”.

That was yesterday. Today, also on NPR’s Morning Edition, I heard NASA’s chief administrator Michael Griffin attempts to defend the policy. There’s a link to audio here, and be sure to listen to the audio (the transcript offered there is only partial, for a start). I find it revealing. He seemed to have a great deal of difficulty answering certain key questions, such as “Do you think it is the best use of money or not?”. “Are there priorities that you have had to cut…?” His answers on climate change and global Continue reading ‘NASA’s Wrong Stuff?’

The Future is Orange

by
Clifford
on May 3, 2007
in energy, energy policy, environment and global warming
. 11 Comments

I don’t know if you’ve already heard about it, but the first commercial solar energy plant, (located near Seville, Spain) was inaugurated a while ago (30th March). It is an 11 Megawatt plant, called PS10 and:

solar tower…the project produces electricity with 624 large movable mirrors called heliostats.

Each of the mirrors has a surface measuring 120 square meters (1,290 square feet) that concentrates the Sun’s rays to the top of a 115 meter (377 foot) high tower where a solar receiver and a steam turbine are located. The turbine drives a generator, producing electricity.

I got that quote from an excellent article here. You can read a lot more there about some of the future plans of the EU for solar power there. Go directly to the website of the company that built it, Solucar, for more information and images of the plant.

solar mirrors

The 625 mirrors with the central tower, all glowing from the reflected sunlight, is quite Continue reading ‘The Future is Orange’

Carbon

by
Clifford
on May 2, 2007
in energy, energy policy, environment, global warming and science
. 1 Comment

carbonNPR’s Robert Krulwich does it again. As part of a long special series that NPR has begun about carbon and climate change, he starts out with a really really good piece (with his usual level of humour and sound effects - and graphics on their website) on carbon. What is it with carbon that makes it such a special element to us, our biology, our planet? What is it about carbon that makes it so happy to stably bond into chains (storing energy), and so stably that we get huge reserves of energy stored underground in the form of fossil fuels (oil, etc).

Continue reading ‘Carbon’

Light Seen Down Under?

by
Clifford
on February 21, 2007
in energy, energy policy, environment and global warming
. 31 Comments

compact fluorescent bulbincandescent bulbI’ve been meaning to post about this for a few days*. It has since made it to rather high visibility in the news, I’m pleased to see, generating a lot of interesting discussion. The Australians (another nation not part of the original Kyoto agreement, notably) have pushed ahead on the issue of trying to legislatively encourage (shall we say) the use of compact fluorescent light bulbs over the more wasteful traditional incandescent bulbs.

You’ll recall my posting about this idea not long ago, in the context of proposed California legislation (so yes, I used the same images in the same way). Now, I’ll admit that I was thinking of that as a test case, and when things are ironed out into a workable legislation there one would imagine the model being rolled out to the rest of the world to adopt in their own fashion. I did not expect an entire country to adopt it so soon and at such a rate (they propose to stop sales of incandescents by 2010!).

We had a lot of discussion in that earlier thread about the pros and cons of this. Commenter IrrationalPoint (IP), for example, seems convinced that this represents a serious access problem for people who respond less favourably to the new lights. Such legislation is therefore discriminatory. My response to that was in several parts. The first is that I was not convinced that the cited flicker problems were really problems that referred to the new bulbs. They don’t work like the old nasty fluorescents we remember from years back, or that are still to be found in a lot of public spaces. Their flicker rate is up at tens of KHz, not the 60 Hz of old. IP (and one or two others) then suggested that the issues were with the spectrum. My response there was that the spectrum is quite a bit different from a lot fo the old lights, and where some discomfort might arise with the new ones, this is possibly only a problem for some if direct lighting from the light bulb is used. (I personally find direct light from incandescents pretty disturbing in a lot of cases too.) Why not use the bulbs in conjunction with a simple filter or other decorative fixture that can modify the light to your tastes?

But I am keeping an open mind on this. Perhaps I’m just wrong, and the whole idea of banning incandescents is unworkable and insensitive, but I am not convinced that work cannot be done to make sure that it works well for all concerned.

One of the biggest problems with the discussion is that nobody could point to good Continue reading ‘Light Seen Down Under?’

Fresh Air From Gore

by
Clifford
on February 9, 2007
in energy, energy policy, environment, global warming, science and science and society
. 5 Comments

al gore by eric leeAs you may know, Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” has been nominated for an Oscar. If you want to hear more from the man himself (see also his remarks in the previous post), here’s an interview with him on NPR’s Fresh Air. It first aired last year, but it is very current. It’s so good to hear a politician speak so intelligently on these matters

You know, the last few weeks Continue reading ‘Fresh Air From Gore’

Branson Adds Pickle

by
Clifford
on February 9, 2007
in environment, global warming, science and science and society
. 17 Comments

AP photo of Branson and GoreCalling all scientists and engineers. You’ll get a $25 million prize from Virgin’s Richard Branson1 if you find a way to extract greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Get to work!

Continuing his admirable campaign to do more useful things with his money instead of engaging in the (let’s face it) mostly silly stunts that used to characterize news stories about him, Richard Branson announced his new prize today in London (in the company of Al Gore) People are indeed working on this sort of thing, in case you’re wondering (see a post I did earlier, for example).

No, this is not a replacement for increasing our efforts to change our habits so as to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we are dumping in the atmosphere. It’s an effort that is in parallel with those other efforts, and given where we are now (with the amount already in the atmosphere, the rate we are adding to it2, and the many huge populations around the world poised to develop further intense emissions activity, it is considerably secondary to the main concern of curtailing emissions. Nevertheless, it is certainly worth research effort.

There’s a BBC story on the press conference here. Al Gore’s comments in the news conference are a pleasure to listen to. Among the things he says:
Continue reading ‘Branson Adds Pickle’

How Many Legislators Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb?

by
Clifford
on February 5, 2007
in energy, energy policy, environment and global warming
. 56 Comments

compact fluorescent bulbincandescent bulbThis is a joke (the title) that works rather well, while being a serious issue as well. It’s all about trying to reduce our energy waste here in California, and contribute to the commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The idea is to change from the garden variety incandescent bulbs (see left) to the compact fluorescent ones (see right). It’s striking that more people don’t already use them. Ordinary bulbs (apparently 2 billion of them sold every year in the USA) convert only about 5 percent of the energy that they consume into light. The rest is just wasted heat.

For the same amount of light output, compact fluorescents use much less energy: A 25 Watt compact fluorescent gives about the same amount of light as a 75 Watt incandescent… and it lasts over 10 times longer. The technology has improved quite Continue reading ‘How Many Legislators Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb?’

Fusion In Our Future?

by
Clifford
on November 22, 2006
in energy, energy policy, environment, global warming and science
. 18 Comments

ITERTuesday saw the official agreement between a consortium of countries to construct a fully functional fusion reactor, at a cost of 12.8 billion dollars, or thereabouts. The project is called the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, ITER. It is indeed a huge undertaking, and we could end up with nothing to show for it, but on the other hand it would be a miniscule price to pay if we were to get the scheme off the ground. The promise of an abundant source of energy that is (supposedly) less polluting and safer to run than fission and does not add to our upcoming woes caused by climate change is too tantalizing not to pursue.

In case you’re wondering, the image to the right (click for larger) is a schematic representation of the 500MW reactor. It is of the classic “Tokamak” type, in which there is a torus (doughnut) shaped region where the plasma will be magnetically contained, at a temperature of 100 million K. To learn more about fusion, you can go to the article from the UKAEA here, and the article on ITER here at their website. From the latter, you can learn about the specific scientific objectives of ITER:
Continue reading ‘Fusion In Our Future?’

Out of Step, Out of Arguments and Out of Time

by
Clifford
on November 15, 2006
in energy, energy policy, environment and global warming
. 11 Comments

Those are the words of Kofi Annan at the UN conference on Climate Change earlier today (see AP story by Charles Hanley). His speech emphasized the “frightening lack of leadership” in forming strategies for how to tackle the huge task that lies ahead for our planet with regards emissions. Getting the job done here of course means us realigning our entire global culture’s priorities, taking our eyes off short term gain and looking to prospects for the future. The typical stance of the current US government that strong emissions controls (and treaties to enforce them, such as the Kyoto protocol) will hurt economies is one example of the short-sightedness that we are up against. Their delegates at the conference continue to reject arguments such as Continue reading ‘Out of Step, Out of Arguments and Out of Time’

Government Gets Stern

by
Clifford
on October 30, 2006
in energy, energy policy, environment, global warming, science, science and society and science in the media
. 22 Comments

Well, as you can tell by looking in the “environment” category here, I’m likely to be pleased to hear about the Stern report, released yesterday (Guardian article and links to report here) and also pleased to hear that the UK government is taking the report seriously…. more or less.

I’d have a lot more to say, but I’ve said so much about this already, and I’m not really up to a long post on this right now. But I could not let this excellent (and hopefully landmark) event go unmarked. The point, as has been said before:- Nobody is going to get going on this because it is “the right thing to do”, since it is difficult for individuals and businesses to act in a way that makes things less than convenient for yourself for a cause that seems so abstract. Pure market forces will not do it either. We need actual leadership from the scientists -which has more or less happened for a while now (see my earlier reports on the UCS here and here for example)- and action and structure put in place by the people who will really get things going: economists and then governments (because they follow the money).

Well, Stern is a major figure in the “economists” group, and so this is good news. I must admit though that it really did make me cringe every time I heard the announcers on BBC Radio 4, while trying to emphasise how significant the report’s findings were, saying things like “this is not a report from an environmentalist, it is a Continue reading ‘Government Gets Stern’

Ballooning Costs

by
Clifford
on October 26, 2006
in energy policy, environment, global warming and humour
. 3 Comments

virgin balloonI’m still excited about the news that Branson has joined the fight to put money aside to lead the way in fighting global warming issues.

I blogged about it here a month ago, you’ll recall.

Well, of course the Onion has a take on this. It’s mean, but it is funny:

Analysts are predicting that the $3 billion Sir Richard Branson has pledged for developing energy sources to combat global warming could come close to matching the amount the entrepreneur, adventurer, and Virgin CEO has already spent on elaborate balloon-based excursions.

That’s the main joke, but to me, even funnier is the ending line of the artice:

Branson also reportedly plans to invest billions more on a time machine that would enable him to prevent the creation of Virgin Airways, reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by some four percent worldwide.

-cvj

The War Continues

by
Clifford
on September 27, 2006
in environment, global warming, politics, science and science and society
. 6 Comments

hurricane katrinaThis is the Bush Administration’s war on science, I mean. There’s lots we don’t hear about, I’m sure, but there has been a new discussion ignited by an article in Nature yesterday. I found this article on Associated Press by Randolph E. Schmidt. Seems that there was a report being prepared at NOAA (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration) about hurricanes:

In the new case, Nature said weather experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — part of the
Commerce Department — in February set up a seven-member panel to prepare a consensus report on the views of agency scientists about global warming and hurricanes.

According to Nature, a draft of the statement said that warming may be having an effect.

In May, when the report was expected to be released, panel chair Ants Leetmaa received an e-mail from a Commerce official saying the report needed to be made less technical and was not to be released, Nature reported.

The point is that (and yes, that is a picture of hurricane Katrina, above right):

A series of studies over the past year or so have shown an increase in the power of hurricanes in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, a strengthening that many storm experts say is tied to rising sea-surface temperatures.

and this connects -it is believed- to our activities in this way:

Just two weeks ago, researchers said that most of the increase in ocean temperature that feeds more intense hurricanes is a result of human-induced global warming, a study one researcher said “closes the loop” between climate change and powerful storms like Katrina.

However, the official word from the Agency on this new apparent tinkering is as follows: Continue reading ‘The War Continues’

Branson’s On Board!

by
Clifford
on September 21, 2006
in energy policy, environment and global warming
. 6 Comments

In more news from the battle to get action on Global Warming, from Reuters a short while ago:

Billionaire Virgin Group Chairman Richard Branson on Thursday committed an estimated $3 billion over the next 10 years, or all of the profits from his airline and rail businesses, to combating global warming.

“We are very pleased today to be making a commitment to invest 100 percent of all future proceeds to the Virgin Group from our transportation interest, both our trains and airline businesses, into tackling global warming,” Branson told a news conference at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York.

Excellent news….

“We must not be the generation responsible for irreversibly damaging the environment. We must hand it over to our children in as near pristine condition as we were lent it from our parents,” Branson said.

Hmmm. It is already too late for that, my friend. We are that generation. However, we do need to stop ourselves from further sliding into the hole we’ve dug for ourselves. Your money will help. Please tell your friends. Start a new and useful trend amongst the super-wealthy, please.

-cvj

Well, That’s a Novel Approach

by
Clifford
on September 21, 2006
in energy policy, environment and global warming
. 1 Comment

When the President of the Union of Concerned Scientists, Kevin Nobloch, spoke to an audience at the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies earlier this Summer (more here) on the subject of Global Warming, he very much emphasized the initiative of individual states as a means by which progress can be made while the Federal Government spins its tires, and does all that it does to suppress supporting scientific information. He did a very good job of talking about the spectrum of effects that global warming has on individual states, and the spectrum of activities that individual states can be engaged in, in order to take part in the effort to do something positive to help themselves. For example (bearing in mind the large number of ski-industry-related people in the audience), he spoke of the 3 degrees (F) average increase in temperature in places like Aspen over the last 25 years (1 degree for coastal regions, on average), and the resulting 20 snow days that have been lost over that time. He pointed out that this rate would give Aspen a climate approaching that of Amarillo, Texas, by the end of the century.

In talking about efforts that we can make, with regards to where we get our energy, and how we use our energy, he talked about several things. The USA is about twice as wasteful as Europe in this regard, and about half as efficient. So there are clearly lots of obviously attainable goals with existing technology. But he talked about the need to go further and focus on research into alternatives, reduction of emissions, and greater energy efficiencies. This is one of several ways in which states can make individual strides ahead, not waiting for the leadership of the Federal Government to arrive. 20 states already passed significant amount of legislature concerning renewable energy. 9 North East states already have regional cap and trade schemes on greenhouse gas emissons. Numerous city mayors have committed their municipalities to meet the Kyoto targets. 9 state governers joined California in more strict tailpipe emissions standards, etc. He talked about the need to do research and invest in the new industries that should arise around the technology of alternative energy, efficiency, etc. Why is the US not leading the way in hybrid car technology? Why is it so far behind? This is one of many areas to which states can be looking to invest, from the purely pragmatic perspective of attracting new industry, new jobs, new investment.

Well, we all know that California is leading the way in many areas. Not long ago we discussed the recent news of California’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by the year 2020. But, I have to admit, I did not anticipate a lawsuit as the next salvo in the battle! From the BBC (for example), in a report yesterday: Continue reading ‘Well, That’s a Novel Approach’

Converting The Enemy

by
Clifford
on September 17, 2006
in environment, global warming and science
. 6 Comments

An interesting development in the world of chemistry caught my eye just now. Imagine taking that carbon dioxide that is in so many of our emissions, and that is one of the principal agents in the processes contributing to global warming, and using solar energy, converting it into fuel. Now that would really be an interesting possibility, wouldn’t it?

Well, it is possible. Whether it will ever be a viable scheme that makes any practical sense is another matter, but you’ve got to start somewhere. A team of chemists represented by Gabriele Centi of the University of Messina (Italy) presented new results on this process to the American Chemical Society meeting in San Francisco. From New Scientist:

The researchers chemically reduced CO2 to produce eight and nine-carbon hydrocarbons using a catalyst of particles of platinum and palladium confined in carbon nanotubes. These hydrocarbons can be made into petrol and diesel.

To begin with, the researchers used sunlight plus a thin film of titanium dioxide to act as a photocatalyst to split water into oxygen gas plus protons and electrons. These are then carried off separately, via a proton membrane and wire respectively, before being combined with CO2 plus the nano-catalyst to produce the hydrocarbons.

Here’s the actual abstract of the talk:

Continue reading ‘Converting The Enemy’

California Steps Forward, Again

by
Clifford
on August 31, 2006
in energy policy, environment and global warming
. 17 Comments

You’ve probably heard the news wherever on the planet you are. California’s legislature is commiting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels (so, by 25%) by the year 2020. I’ve got a class to prepare, and so can’t spend a huge amount of time writing a long cheerleader-type post about this, but I am so delighted. (Stories in the BBC, LA Times and New York Times, for example.)

This is so important for so many reasons. Besides the obvious one of us just getting on with the task of doing this sort of thing, there is the symbolism. This flies in the face of the Bush administration’s lack of leadership on the whole issue, and will help nullify that lack of leadership, since the other states will be able to look to California’s lead on this as a powerful example. The world takes notice too, since California is -as an economic force in its own right- the number 8 economy in the world. None of this will happen if the economics are not done correctly.

The point is that it can make economic sense (despite fears that possible resulting Continue reading ‘California Steps Forward, Again’

International Cooperation Can Work

by
Clifford
on August 23, 2006
in energy, energy policy, environment, global warming and ozone layer
. 5 Comments

nasa ozone hole pictureApparently the hole in the ozone layer above Antartica is stabilizing. Some of you will remember the late 80s, when the hole was discussed a lot in the popular press. It was a huge problem. The hole we made meant that we were losing our protection from the sun’s ultraviolet rays. We identified that chloroflourocarbons -CFCs- which at the time were used everywhere (such as propellants in aerosol cans, refrigerator coolants) were the chief ozone-depleting substances that we produced.

What did we do? We sat down in Montreal and decided -as a global society- to change our behaviour. International agreements were arrived at to stop producing CFCs (and a range of other related molecules), to serve the greater good.

It seems to have worked. See the article I spotted on the BBC’s news site. Quoting:

Continue reading ‘International Cooperation Can Work’

Why I’m Sometimes Sure We’re Doomed

by
Clifford
on August 23, 2006
in energy, energy policy, environment and global warming
. 7 Comments

Some days I’m optimistic, and I think we’ll change our behaviour in time. We’ll be able to stop destroying our environment quite so recklessly. We’ll stop our dependence on oil and other fossil fuels. We’ll stop fighting ridiculous wars over such fuels…. etc.

Other days, stuff like this happens, and I think “We’re Doomed”.

The scene: Two Fridays ago at Aspen airport. I was there to pick up a rental car that I had ordered over the web. It was needed for a trip I will tell you about. Of course, I had booked for a compact car, and was hoping to get one.

So I filled in the paperwork as usual, checking the boxes, declining the insurance (since I have my own), etc. The usual drill. Then the agent gave me one other form to sign which was weird. It is an agreement to accept a financial penalty if I brought back the car within two hours of renting it. I asked about this and he mumbled something about breach of contract, etc, etc. After giving him a hard stare, I thought nothing more of it.

Transactions with paper done with, the agent smiled at me and handed me the keys. Now remembering what just took place (see end of previous paragraph), observe what he said:

“Well, we don’t have any cars left sir, so we’re giving you a free upgrade to a Chevy Humongous. It is an SUV”.

“But I don’t want an SUV, Chevy Humongous or otherwise”.

He looked at me like I’m nuts.

Continue reading ‘Why I’m Sometimes Sure We’re Doomed’