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 !
Do you remember Annie Leonard’s great documentaries The Story of Stuff and the Story of Cosmetics ? Well, she did a few other more, including the latest : The Story of Broke.
In this eight-minute animated clip, she tackles the huge problem of subsidies of all kinds that are given to what she calls ” the Dinosaur Economy “. (Big Ag, Big Food and of course Big Oil…)
Stating that we are not broke but that our economy is broken, she urges us to take back the power and start fighting those subsidies to get a healthier economy and a more enjoyable environment. Continue »
Cleantechies published last week a tremendous article on solar thermal and why it is “is about to see explosive growth”. I am not entirely surprised of that as I have been a strong advocate of this solution for more than five years.
Presenting the industry, the article goes on and gives no less than seven reasons why solar thermal could soon take off in the USA. Many of these reasons could apply elsewhere as it is more efficient and cheaper than solar PV.
Just as 2011 saw an increase of interest in energy efficiency, I hope 2012 will see an increased interest in solar thermal. Continue »
While reading Climate Progress I came across a must-see speech from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, from Rhode Island. As the description on Youtube notes :
” There are some laws that Congress can change. The laws of nature aren’t among them. While lobbyists continue to call for more and more “second” opinions, Sheldon points out to his colleagues that the scientific community is solidly behind the fact that climate change is a real threat. “
This speech clearly contrasts with the environmental bashing of most Republicans and most Democrats keeping quiet on those very issues. Please watch this video, please share it ! Continue »
To ABC News : ” It’s time to clean up Irene. The hurricane’s destructive path through 10 East Coast states left an estimated $7 billion to $13 billion of damage in its wake — without even accounting for economic losses.”
Estimates could climb to $20 billion (14 billion euros) if economic lost were taken into account… And this was by all standards a small hurricane. It wasn’t even one, but just a tropical storm when it reached most of the United States.
Climate change is making these phenomena worse. (cf. below) What are we waiting for slashing our emissions and thus, the risk of increased hurricanes and floods ? Continue »
According to the ACEEE * : ” Changes in fossil fuel markets and updates to environmental regulations may result in the retirement of existing coal-fired plants, putting on the order of 40 GW of generation at risk of retirement.”
” The investments required for replacing or upgrading these plants would raise electricity rates for all customers. Customer-side investments in energy efficiency and combined heat and power can replace this capacity at a lower cost. “
This is by no mean really new as we have already discussed about such topics many times over. This just brings further evidence, which is always useful. Continue »
As GreenTech Media notes : ” President Obama and leaders from major automakers today heralded an agreement to raise the average fuel economy for light trucks and cars to 54.5 miles per gallon.” (Today they are at 28.3 MPG.)
-$1.7 trillion. (around 1,200 billion euros) That’s the estimated amount of money that Americans will save from 2011 through 2025 on gas because of the new rules, the White House estimates. “
I believe this is a good thing but I am still not satisfied. Indeed, American cars consume to date much more than their European and Japanese counterparts. Continue »
According to Environment America, a federation of US organizations, the country could reduce its oil dependence by 79 billion gallons per year—more than all of their imports from OPEC nations.
For those who are not familiar with gallons and other non-metric – I almost wrote exotic – measures, this represents 299 047 530 936 liters of oil, or 1.88 billion oil barrels. These would save the United States 5 million barrels of oil per day !
These are huge savings, perhaps not as much as the US could and should do but by any means, this would represent an excellent beginning. Would this be enough in the face of peak oil ? Continue »
Al Gore certainly contributed to my involvement in cleantech and climate change mitigation. So when he is launching a new campaign – called The Climate Reality Project - I believe this deserves some mention here.
Furthermore, I am amazed on how little attention this got. There were only 1,520 people who watched the video on their website so far. This should get at least a thousand times more! Come on, let’s spread the word!
Launched on Tuesday, the project was the occasion for the Nobel-Prize winner behind An Inconvenient Truth to be interviewed in one of my favorite climate blog, Climate Progress. Continue »
To the Independent : ” Climate researchers from Britain, the US (…) have formed a new alliance that aims to investigate exceptional weather events to see whether they can be attributable to global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions. ”
” They intend to assess each unusual event in terms of the probability that it has been exacerbated or even caused by the global temperature increase seen over the past century. “ We can wish them luck in this endeavor.
I am no climate scientist, but when I gather the facts about the many extreme weather events of the past two years, I don’t think it’s a coincidence… Our atmosphere is warming, and weirding…
To the Huffington Post : ” Heavy rains, deep snowfalls, monster floods and killing droughts are signs of a “new normal” of extreme U.S. weather events fueled by climate change, scientists and government planners said on Wednesday.
“It’s a new normal and I really do think that global weirding is the best way to describe what we’re seeing, climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University told reporters. ”
Meanwhile, the GOP – the Republicans – is still opposing action on climate change… It’s high time this changes as the country is behind more than a fifth of global greenhouse gases emissions…
