Welcome ! As a young French Marketing professional with a Master's in International Management I have been selecting since January 2007 the latest headlines and best researches on sustainable development, climate change, cleantech and the world energy sector. Sounds great ? Don't hesitate to subscribe now !
If you aren’t familiar with US environmental politics, you might not have heard about Big Oil’s latest craze : building a 1.700 mile (2,736 km) long pipeline to bring tar sands oil extracted from Canada to the US Gulf coast.
After many twists and turns, President Barack Obama – the green Prez that should have been – seem to have finally decided to reject this huge and polluting project, and this albeit the important political pressure.
Is this the first step toward a more sustainable America ? Let’s hope Mr. Obama will fight on green issues. Not only will this help him get reelected, it would also help us all…
American high speed rail supporters, rejoice ! To Ecogeek : ” Vice President Joe Biden announced that the Obama administration is investing $53 billion in high speed rail development over the next six years.”
Yes, you read it right : President Obama is really willing to invest nearly 40 billion euros in high speed rail to enable 80 percent of Americans to have access to this great alternative to both private cars and planes.
As a long time supporter of public transportation, I am absolutely thrilled by this announcement. This should enable the country to start catching up with European countries, Japan and China… Continue »
The State of the Union speech given yesterday by President Barack Obama might well stay in the History books like John Fitzgerald Kennedy moon shot speech that sent Americans on the moon in less than a decade.
Indeed President Obama asked for 80% of America’s electricity from ‘clean energy’ by 2035 (including clean coal and natural gas, nobody’s perfect) and for more than one million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.
Even more, he called for the suppression of the billions worth of subsidies to Big Oil companies. Let’s hope Congress will give him the means to do all this. Continue »
Last week US President Barack Obama announced he will put back solar panels on the White House next year. The first solar panels were installed by President Carter in the 1970s and removed by Reagan in 1986.
This made me wonder when l’Elysée, the residence of French Presidents will install solar panels as well. While discussing with a friend he told me that the Elysée isn’t the White House and that there were aesthetic concerns.
This is to me not a problem. Aesthetics don’t matter any more when there is massive unemployment, climate change and peak oil. Continue »
To the Huffington Post quoting Associated Press : “ President Barack Obama says it’s time to roll back “billions of dollars in tax breaks” for oil companies and use the money for clean energy research and development. “
We have seen it here in numerous occasions : fossil fuel companies are receiving each years billions to keep dirty energy cheap. This was nice in the 20th century when energy was expensive and as there were no alternatives.
But nowadays low carbon solutions like solar and wind exist. Their expansion would be strongly accelerated if the tax breaks where shifted to this sector. Continue »
I wrote as early as september 2008 that offshore drilling is not a sustainable solution as the added oil reserves won’t enable us to go much further and will keep feeding our global addiction for oil.
To rally Republicans to his climate bill, President Obama decided to embrace this solution last month. This was a major shock and sparckled many reactions at Inhabitat, Treehugger and many other green websites.
I believe this isn’t a good idea. The days of cheap oil are numbered and drilling more won’t change this. Putting these efforts and money in renewables would have been much better. Continue »
Things are slowly but irresistibly changing in the United States. Wind power added ten gigawatts of capacity to the grids last year alone and coal is less and less used to generate electricity.
Meanwhile, a nuclear renaissance may be under way in America as last month President Obama announced a $8.3 billion (6 billion euros) loan to build in Georgia the first reactors in 30 years.
I dream of America being powered with 40 percent nuclear, 40 percent renewables and only 20 percent thermal. There is a long way to go but could this become a reality ? Continue »
Last week two different news about how the two countries responsible for more than 40 percent of the global greenhouse gases emissions could sign an agreement in November and work together on greentech.
To the New York Times a deal on climate change could be signed in November when President Obama will visit China. No doubt that such an agreement – with the right targets – would be a huge boost to discussions in Copenhagen.
Concerning cleantech, TreeHugger reports that the Chinese government launched an initiative to pair American technologies and Chinese manufacturing. Continue »
Since President Obama is at the White House, I am finding it hard to keep up with all his projects of sustainability. From transport to energy or tackling climate change, there are many initiatives.
TreeHugger mentioned seven large topics showing that I was right when stating that the new US President is a new hope for a planet in peril as he helps his country to become more environmentally friendly.
There are still many other things to be done but I am confident that Barack Obama’s mandate(s) will be remembered for decades for the actions on energy. Continue »
Yesterday, I couldn’t follow the inauguration speech by the new US President Barack Obama, a man I refer now to as a new hope for a planet in peril. This title couldn’t be more appropriate.
This post is the occasion for me to propose you a selection of the various articles published by the United Nations Environment Program on the new occupant of the White House and his views on environmental issues.
What we needed to mitigate climate change and restore our environment has arrived. President Obama’s actions on these topics can act as a global catalyst. Continue »
