John Kerry is a climate hawk. I’ve been a fan since before 2004 when I helped out on his presidential campaign. (Heavy sigh.) Now that he’s the US Secretary of State, he’s in a unique, critical position to be able to significantly advance an agenda of moving us off the path of self-destruction we’ve been on and onto one in which everyone can enjoy abundant energy and clean air and clean water, not to mention a climate system that will be able to heal itself over time. Continue reading
This is an eye-catching graphic, wouldn’t you say? It’s for a talk that Amory Lovins gave at Yale exactly two years ago. (See also the companion interview from the superb online journal Yale Environment 360.)
I use Reinventing Fire from Lovins and the Rocky Mountain Institute as a textbook for my graduate and continuing ed classes on clean tech. There is no more comprehensive, Continue reading
Joe Romm had an article about concentrating solar power (CSP) going back six years now called “The technology that will save humanity.” He gave a great overview, including a history and an eminently lucid rationale for its deployment. About five years ago I was driving west of Seville and was knocked out by the sight of the CSP plant that Abengoa has built there. Continue reading
The Europeans are on the move. Building on the successes of their existing “20/20/20” plan, they are moving onward and upward. The old plan called for a 20% reduction of greenhouse gases economy-wide in the EU from 1990 levels by the year 2020. They are far advanced on this track. According to the EU here: “While EU GDP grew by 45% between 1990 and 2011, total greenhouse gas emissions from today’s 28 Member States – including emissions from international aviation, which are covered by the EU’s unilateral commitment – were 16.9% below the 1990 level in 2011 and an estimated 18% below 1990 in 2012. Member states’ latest projections show that total emissions in 2020, including international aviation, will be 21% below the 1990 level.” Continue reading
