Natural Gas Revisited (Again)

I haven’t taken an extended look at the many ins and outs of natural gas for a good long while.  It’s a bloody big topic.  But let me preface this by first quoting Amory Lovins, the maestro of the “soft energy path.”  I heard him speak at an event over ten years ago.  What he said then still reverberates in my psyche:  “The ‘renewables revolution’ has been won.  Sorry if you missed it.”  There is no doubt, at this late date, that solar and wind and the array of other modern renewables, along with energy efficiency, sustainable mobility, and other clean tech are well and truly burgeoning.  The numbers don’t lie. Continue reading


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The Great Transition

The Great Transition is the title of the preeminent sustainability theorist and activist Lester Brown’s last book.  The Energiewende – energy transition – is what the Germans call their brilliant initiative to reshape the energy economy.  Call it a transition, revolution, mobilization or transformation, or what you will.  Call it clean tech, green tech, the green economy, sustainable development, or even the Low Carbon and Environmental Goods and Services Sector (LCEGSS).  Whatever you want to call it and however you slice it, we are in the midst of a series of remarkable breakthroughs. Continue reading


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Climate Mobilization or Transformation?

There are a lot of ideas out there to save the world from our global environmental crisis.  Lester Brown’s Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Project Drawdown, and the Green New Deal among them.  A friend of mine pointed out a new essay in the New York Times this morning, “Climate Change Is Not World War.”  The writer, a professor of English, purports that “We are underestimating both the deep national trauma of World War II and our present challenge.”  Here’s my reaction. Continue reading


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