But today, one ecological problem outweighs all others: global warming. Restoring the Everglades, protecting the Headwaters redwoods, or saving the Illinois mud turtle won’t matter if climate change plunges the planet into chaos. It’s high time for greens to unite around the urgent need to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

Among the deliberately provocative ideas from the current issue of Wired; live in cities, not suburbs, accept genetic engineering, go nuclear, farm old growth forests, carbon trading doesn’t work - and more.

Do I agree with everything they say? No. But this is a welcome blast at an oft-doddering environmental movement that refuses to use technology and is agrarian at core. Living without electricity is not the solution. Providing clean, renewable energy and transportation to the planet is.

The Breakthrough Institute echoes the sentiment and indeed, is a fellow traveler.

The argument of Break Through is that climate change is creating new fault lines in the society and in politics, ones that no longer fall along the “environmentalist/ anti-environmentalist” dichotomy. Wired — whose whole special issue is motivated by the threat of climate change the failure of greens to deal with it — arrives at a similar place.

The solution is not to go backwards. The solution is not to tell India and China their population should not have cars and electricity (like they’d listen anyway to pious preaching from an energy-wasting First World.) Instead, the solution is to use the tools and technology we have now to create the world we want.

2 Comments »

Waste Management is creating electricity from rotting garbage at 100 of its landfills, and plans more such projects. This is a double win, as the methane gas produced by the garbage has a 21 times worse greenhouse gas effect than carbon dioxide. But now it can be captured to create energy rather than being emitted into the atmosphere.

You’d think enviros would applaud this, but no.

Nathanael Greene, director of renewable energy policy for the Natural Resources Defence Council, said touting the benefits of landfills was akin to putting “lipstick on a pig.” Instead, we should be trying harder to reduce waste.

Well of course we need to reduce waste. But criticizing the capture of noxious methane for good use is emblematic of the old-school environmentalism that insists we must cut back on everything and go live in yurts as penance for our environmental sins. They don’t get, or refuse to get, that technology and more than a few large corporations can and are providing solutions.

It won’t be those living in yurts that create a renewable energy economy. Rather, it will happen as a result of the efforts of large corporations and governments, because they are the only ones with the resources to do so. Enviros need to praise and encourage such entities when they do the right thing, not myopically attack them for not being pristinely perfect.

No Comments »

The House just passed a measure allowing the Justice Department to sue OPEC members for limiting oil supplies and setting prices.

Does their cluelessness exceed their arrogance or is it the other way around? Maybe someone should tell Congress that OPEC has been setting prices openly for decades and that banging the rattle on the high chair and demanding OPEC do our bidding is no solution at all.

Bush says he’ll veto it. Good.

Instead of having election-induced temper tantrums, Congress needs to focus on creating renewable energy here and moving towards an economy not so dependent on the internal combustion engine.

3 Comments »

The problem with today’s creaky electricity system is not a lack of power generation. The problem is traffic jams.

Optimal Technologies has released a product that monitors and analyzes the grid so a power utility can determine how best to manage their resources. Maybe someday, hopefully soon, the entire grid will use such products.

No Comments »

The money from the sale of our house in CT is now in our bank account. As seemingly happened with everything on this sale and escrow, the bank wire took longer than expected to occur. But occur it did, and now this really and truly is a done deal.

What with the negotiations for the sale, an escrow that closed 16 days late, packing the house and loading everything in a 16 ft. Ryder truck, driving across the country with it, finding an apartment and unloading in 2 days in South San Francisco, flying back for 6 days for my sister’s wedding, then returning with our two cats, well, we were living out of suitcases for three weeks, often under high stress (would the escrow close?)

Now we get to relax. And blogging here, which may have been a bit rushed and abbreviated at times, will get back to normal too.

No Comments »

Ecogeek has the details on this first ever megawatt-scale tidal turbine.

No Comments »