The apocalypse seems inevitable when you’re stuck in summer traffic. Sitting in a long line of idling cars, shimmering in waves of heat rising off the pavement, you think about how every year it gets hotter, and the traffic gets worse and pumps tons more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. You pull yourself up by the steering wheel to see ahead. Your thighs stick with sweat to the driver’s seat. You are beyond frustration and feel an existential loathing closer to panic. You are part of the global warming problem. And now you’re going to be late for work.

Three years ago, I opted out. Since then I’ve been commuting four miles to my Washington, D.C., office by bicycle just about every day, rain or shine, in an effort to help save the environment and myself along with it. Of course, there are obvious limitations to a bicycle. What about when you need to pick up groceries for a family of four? And unless your kid is Peter Pan, he can’t just fly over traffic to get to school. Wouldn’t it be great to commute and run those entire errands by bike?

Read the rest of this great article here.

These bikes (and a whole host of others in a similar vein) have been around for a long time. People in Europe have been using them for years. I don’t even have a special bike and have been grocery shopping on bicycle for years now. The secret is to have a good backpack, and buy a little bit each day (then you don’t end up taking home 200 pounds of stuff at once). Of course if you have one of these awesome cargo bikes, you can load as much as you can pedal into the back.

I find that using my bicycle as my main form of transport leads has saved me hundreds if not thousands of dollars, and not to brag but my calves have never looked better. If you are interested in getting started using a bicycle as your main mode of motion now is a great time. See here for some tips. Good luck, and happy cycling!

Sweet! Now we just need to get them to implement the “by bike” button and the world would rejoice!

(via treehugger.com)

“We’re going to look at this barren, Arctic desert where I’m hoping to see some wildlife,” Boehner told reporters before the trip. “But I understand there’s none there. But I’m still going to look for it. If I find any, I’ll let you know.”

Does he seriously expect us to believe that he is going to find out anything other than “no wolves up here, drill away” when he makes statements like that before he even leaves?

I’m sure he was looking real hard. At the floor, his lap, or wherever else he could avert his eyes to keep from seeing the thousands of polar bears, caribou, birds, musk ox, wolves and brown bears that call the Arctic Refuge home.

This trip amounts to a free publicity stunt for big oil. Boehner and his delegation flew all the way up to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, just so they could pretend like they didn’t see anything.

That way, they can start the drilling and guarantee that in a few years there really won’t be anything left to see. Not to mention the fact that even if they pumped out all the oil in the world it wouldn’t be enough to supply growing demand. Drilling for more oil is a dead end exercise in futility. If we want to solve our energy problems, and our climate problems there is only one solution….STOP USING OIL, at least for energy. You want to solve America’s energy problems, and create a whole bunch of new jobs, try some renewable energy.

I am sure that Boehner and his ilk don’t have a long record of voting for whatever the oil/coal/gas puppet masters tell them to…I am sure if you look up their congressional record you wouldn’t find that they almost always vote exactly how big oil wants them too….no I am sure thats not it.

If you live in the areas these people “represent” why not call them up and tell them that you support NOT drilling in a wildlife refuge, and that you would rather have some jobs move into your district, and maybe they could think about offering some tax breaks to a wind turbine manufacturer or something…just a suggestion.

The results of the vegetable trials are in, and they are looking good. As documented on The Earth Blog I have been growing a few different things in a small raised bed, just to see if I could: we still have a continuous crop of spinach; the lettuce is just going to seed but has served us well; the tomatoes are plumping up nicely and the French beans (or do I still have to call them “Freedom Beans”?) are providing a small, if tasty accompaniment to meals. The pak choi, on the other hand, was riddled with some very specific mite — leaving it looking like a drawer full of doilies — so I won’t be trying that again.

Slugs and snails were a problem, until I realised that the best disposal method was to collect them at night and deposit them in the wild area at the bottom of our street the next morning. Three nights of this and they are gone — all but the tiny ones, which the resident frog (who lives under a pot) seem to be dealing with brilliantly.

So now the experiment has been deemed a success, I am turning over a much larger part of the garden to growing: just over half of the small meadow, which will be replanted where there is more sun. So, bye bye to the bizarrely angled arbor, the rose bushes which caught many a bedsheet in their thorns, and the pear tree which only ever bore two pears a year; hello to two new raised beds which, after some judicious pruning of the ever-fecund plum tree, will have plenty of light to thrive in.

I can’t do it yet, though. First I have to cover the ground for at least six months to kill off the grasses, and then build the raised beds, after which I will need to fertilise the ground. This is where the poo comes in.

At the bottom of my street, and a little further on is a country park, which contains a bridleway. It isn’t that busy, but enough horses use it to make collecting the manure worthwhile — and that’s what I did this morning. As I passed a dog walker, pushing my wheelbarrow and spade, he said, “On a manure run are you?” I didn’t feel so odd after that, although scooping up great dollops of poo while runners went past attached to their iPods did feel a little strange — but in a way I felt a lot more normal than them.

I came home with a barrow full of manure and nowhere to put it, as it needs to rot down for a few months; so knocked up (surely a loaded expression) a little container from scrap wood and leftover bricks, which you see above. This I put the poo in. A few more “manure runs” and it’ll be full: a pile of rich, vegetable growing, promise.

Simple things make me very happy.

It would seem that McCain thinks that it’s the politicians that have been in Washington over the last 30 years who are to blame for our current energy problems…not in fact Barack Obama. Good to know.

(in case you can’t figure it out the above ad is not the one McCain originally released)

What to do about high oil prices, drill offshore bitches!

(note: I love how they sorta use the like “chanting for Hitler” crowd noise, and imply that Obama is single handedly responsible for high oil prices)

However if you are not a moron, you would know that wont work.

So honestly it has nothing to do with how much we drill, the real answer is to STOP USING OIL! I suggest renewable energy…duh.

As you can see America has some amazing wind resources. Most of the east coast, the great lakes, and the entire middle of the country are EXCELLENT wind resources. Many places in the west and even some places in the south west are commercially feasible sources. The upper mid-west has been called the Saudi Arabia of wind. There is enough wind going through there on a daily basis to power much of this country (if not all of it on some days). The real problem however is not space (anyone who has been there knows there is space), and it is not NIMBY land owners (the ranchers and farmers would love to get extra revenue from their lands) the problem is transmission.

There are few major cities in that area, and even fewer heavy duty low loss transmission lines. To tap this excellent resource the government would have to invest in transmission lines, or make it easy for private companies to do so. We have the technology, we have the turbines, we even have the market forces to make it happen. What we don’t have is a policy that encourages it. American could certainly use the jobs however…

America also has a superb solar resource. Almost every single square inch of this country is suitable for home scale solar. Only the darkest parts of Alaska are unsuitable for home scale solar (even then some solar thermal would work). However if we are talking major solar projects, utility scale in the 100’s of megawatts, then we are most likely talking concentrated PV, and concentrated solar thermal. That means the south west.

Several entire states rate as very plentiful solar areas. Again the problem is not space, or Not In My Back Yard activists (the desert is largely federal land, and empty), it is transmission, and lack of effective policy. Again we have the technology, this would not need a large research push, we have everything we need. We know how to build the collectors, we know how to build the transmission lines, we simply need to do it. A policy that mandates renewable energy sources would mean that the billions of dollars we currently ship off to the middle east, and other politically unstable areas, would instead be going to create jobs here in the united states.

Geothermal is the forgotten player in the renewable energy game. But as you can see almost every single square inch of this country is suitable for home scale geothermal heat extraction. That means that if you wanted (and could afford to do so) you could almost certainly heat your home fuel free from the ground. However if you are really interested in large scale geothermal you would head west, and some places in the upper east, and even a patch or two in Texas/Louisiana. What is not shown on this map is that Hawaii could be the hydrogen production capital of the world if it simply used its ample geothermal energy (cough most active volcano on earth cough) to make hydrogen from sea water. It could also use the geothermal energy is has under it to power itself, making it the only energy self sufficient state (not to mention Hawaii has excellent solar and wind resources as well). Geothermal may be a little lacking in technology, but with the right encouragement from the government it could become an excellent base load generator, again it would need investment in transmission.

Most people when they think of renewable energy do not think of biomass. Biomass, to put it simply, is anything that grows that you can burn. This includes things like left over farm waste, switch grass, wood chips from logging, sugar cane waste and things like municipal yard wastes. It also includes things like pig shit, cow shit, and maybe even human shit. When you get a lot of poo together you can digest it using bacteria and then burn the resulting methane gas. Biomass is great because you can store it up and burn it when you need it.

As you can see there are plenty of places all over this nation that produce a lot of biomass, and this map does not include the potential for human/pig/cow/chicken waste gas creation. With a little rail transport, and a couple of storage areas we would be all set. Biomass is one of the easiest to implement technology because when it comes right down to it, its just burning stuff.

Say it’s ten years from now and we have followed Al Gores excellent suggestion and most of our country is powered by wind and solar with geothermal base load backup in areas that can sustain it. This works well because whenever it’s not windy in one place it is windy some place else, and our high tech transmission system (that we built) can route the power around. However what if it’s a calm day in a lot of places, and maybe the sun is only shinning in a couple places, and we need a little boost, well thats when we fire up the quick start biomass plants and burn a couple hundred tonnes of old corn waste and pig shit gas. Tada! Renewable energy powered country, screw you oil barons.

But wait you say, isn’t burning stuff dirty and going to cause more global warming? Well lucky for us biomass is carbon neutral. All the carbon put into the air by burning the plant waste, is the same carbon the plants sucked up, so you are just recycling the carbon already in the air. Some people even claim that biomass, if done right, can be carbon negative, that is you suck a little carbon out of the air in each grow/harvest/burn cycle. But this has yet to be conclusively proven (at least in my opinion).

As far as air pollution goes, there are several biomass plants in Europe that are sparkling clean, and use a particulate trap to make sure the only things that enter the air meet strict regulations. Here is a video of how some German scientists are using a similar approach to prove that wind/solar/biomass can provide all of their countries power power.

So there you have it, with a couple hundred billion dollars, the creation of a couple hundred thousand American jobs, and a little rethinking of how we run this nations energy grid we could be 100% carbon neutral using only 4 simple technologies. Of course this would be EVEN easier if we had mandates for more efficient electric cars, more efficient construction standards, and more efficient rules for energy use of commercial products, but hey when has America ever done thing the easy way.

Easy or hard, this solution will work. It will work with technology we have on the shelves today. We do not need to wait 50 years for the hydrogen economy to get here, we don’t need to do more studies, we don’t need to wait for anything. What we need is strong government policies, and a large investment in American prosperity in the form of jobs and domestic spending. I

The latest article on The Earth Blog takes a look at the “education” system run by Industrial Civilization, and how it is merely a means of training children to be integrated into the industrial machine. It also questions the very work that almost all of us do on a daily basis — do you really need to do the job you are doing?

At what age do you think your working future is planned out for you? If you are conscious of the impact civilization has on our lives, you shouldn’t be surprised to hear that the answer is: “from birth”.

I could be writing this article about both the education system and the workplace, but there would be little point separating the two – real education has nothing to do with the education system we were taken through in our early years, and the children and teenagers of today are being taken through now. Neither is education anything to do with on the job learning or career paths; after all, what people have been brought up to do in Industrial Civilization is to do work, and not just any old work.

The population explosion of the last 200 years can be almost completely accounted for by the Industrial Revolution. The growing population of Earth, from the traditional industrial hubs of Europe, into North America and Japan, and then across a huge swath of southern and south-east Asia largely consists of a mass of willing slaves brought up in the cities to be components of the industrial machine. To create wealth you need product; to create product you need people.

There were a few who saw what was going on and realised that some of the most brutal aspects of physical work needed changing: the great philanthropists of the West - Titus Salt, Lord Leverhulme, Joseph Rowntree - bear the passing of time, mellowed into a whimsical tale of pure goodness; ignoring the fact that the philanthropists were largely ensuring that their workforces remained loyal and hard-working. To be blunt, working during the Industrial Revolution in the West was hell; working in the new Industrial Revolution in the sweatshops, mines and factories of China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam: different sets of eyes, but the same vision of hell. Time may have passed, but all that has really changed is the location.

Yet, incredibly, the participants see such conditions as a necessary evil. Unionisation, a living wage and the promise that the company will do its best not to shorten your life is the best that can be hoped for. Such “victories” make life tolerable for those people working to make the shoes you wear, the food you eat and the televisions you watch, but they do not change the fact that we are all part of the machine. The education system is where it starts…

The whole article can be read on The Earth Blog.

And it’s a damn good idea too. He Says it much better than I could, his words below.

——

Ladies and gentlemen:

There are times in the history of our nation when our very way of life depends upon dispelling illusions and awakening to the challenge of a present danger. In such moments, we are called upon to move quickly and boldly to shake off complacency, throw aside old habits and rise, clear-eyed and alert, to the necessity of big changes. Those who, for whatever reason, refuse to do their part must either be persuaded to join the effort or asked to step aside. This is such a moment. The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk. And even more – if more should be required – the future of human civilization is at stake.

I don’t remember a time in our country when so many things seemed to be going so wrong simultaneously. Our economy is in terrible shape and getting worse, gasoline prices are increasing dramatically, and so are electricity rates. Jobs are being outsourced. Home mortgages are in trouble. Banks, automobile companies and other institutions we depend upon are under growing pressure. Distinguished senior business leaders are telling us that this is just the beginning unless we find the courage to make some major changes quickly.

The climate crisis, in particular, is getting a lot worse – much more quickly than predicted. Scientists with access to data from Navy submarines traversing underneath the North polar ice cap have warned that there is now a 75 percent chance that within five years the entire ice cap will completely disappear during the summer months. This will further increase the melting pressure on Greenland. According to experts, the Jakobshavn glacier, one of Greenland’s largest, is moving at a faster rate than ever before, losing 20 million tons of ice every day, equivalent to the amount of water used every year by the residents of New York City.

Two major studies from military intelligence experts have warned our leaders about the dangerous national security implications of the climate crisis, including the possibility of hundreds of millions of climate refugees destabilizing nations around the world.

Just two days ago, 27 senior statesmen and retired military leaders warned of the national security threat from an “energy tsunami” that would be triggered by a loss of our access to foreign oil. Meanwhile, the war in Iraq continues, and now the war in Afghanistan appears to be getting worse.

And by the way, our weather sure is getting strange, isn’t it? There seem to be more tornadoes than in living memory, longer droughts, bigger downpours and record floods. Unprecedented fires are burning in California and elsewhere in the American West. Higher temperatures lead to drier vegetation that makes kindling for mega-fires of the kind that have been raging in Canada, Greece, Russia, China, South America, Australia and Africa. Scientists in the Department of Geophysics and Planetary Science at Tel Aviv University tell us that for every one degree increase in temperature, lightning strikes will go up another 10 percent. And it is lightning, after all, that is principally responsible for igniting the conflagration in California today.

Like a lot of people, it seems to me that all these problems are bigger than any of the solutions that have thus far been proposed for them, and that’s been worrying me.

I’m convinced that one reason we’ve seemed paralyzed in the face of these crises is our tendency to offer old solutions to each crisis separately – without taking the others into account. And these outdated proposals have not only been ineffective – they almost always make the other crises even worse.

Yet when we look at all three of these seemingly intractable challenges at the same time, we can see the common thread running through them, deeply ironic in its simplicity: our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all three of these challenges – the economic, environmental and national security crises.

We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that’s got to change.

But if we grab hold of that common thread and pull it hard, all of these complex problems begin to unravel and we will find that we’re holding the answer to all of them right in our hand.

The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels.

In my search for genuinely effective answers to the climate crisis, I have held a series of “solutions summits” with engineers, scientists, and CEOs. In those discussions, one thing has become abundantly clear: when you connect the dots, it turns out that the real solutions to the climate crisis are the very same measures needed to renew our economy and escape the trap of ever-rising energy prices. Moreover, they are also the very same solutions we need to guarantee our national security without having to go to war in the Persian Gulf.

What if we could use fuels that are not expensive, don’t cause pollution and are abundantly available right here at home?

We have such fuels. Scientists have confirmed that enough solar energy falls on the surface of the earth every 40 minutes to meet 100 percent of the entire world’s energy needs for a full year. Tapping just a small portion of this solar energy could provide all of the electricity America uses.

And enough wind power blows through the Midwest corridor every day to also meet 100 percent of US electricity demand. Geothermal energy, similarly, is capable of providing enormous supplies of electricity for America.

The quickest, cheapest and best way to start using all this renewable energy is in the production of electricity. In fact, we can start right now using solar power, wind power and geothermal power to make electricity for our homes and businesses.

But to make this exciting potential a reality, and truly solve our nation’s problems, we need a new start.

That’s why I’m proposing today a strategic initiative designed to free us from the crises that are holding us down and to regain control of our own destiny. It’s not the only thing we need to do. But this strategic challenge is the lynchpin of a bold new strategy needed to re-power America.

Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.

This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative. It represents a challenge to all Americans – in every walk of life: to our political leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, engineers, and to every citizen.

A few years ago, it would not have been possible to issue such a challenge. But here’s what’s changed: the sharp cost reductions now beginning to take place in solar, wind, and geothermal power – coupled with the recent dramatic price increases for oil and coal – have radically changed the economics of energy.

When I first went to Congress 32 years ago, I listened to experts testify that if oil ever got to $35 a barrel, then renewable sources of energy would become competitive. Well, today, the price of oil is over $135 per barrel. And sure enough, billions of dollars of new investment are flowing into the development of concentrated solar thermal, photovoltaics, windmills, geothermal plants, and a variety of ingenious new ways to improve our efficiency and conserve presently wasted energy.

And as the demand for renewable energy grows, the costs will continue to fall. Let me give you one revealing example: the price of the specialized silicon used to make solar cells was recently as high as $300 per kilogram. But the newest contracts have prices as low as $50 a kilogram.

You know, the same thing happened with computer chips – also made out of silicon. The price paid for the same performance came down by 50 percent every 18 months – year after year, and that’s what’s happened for 40 years in a row.

To those who argue that we do not yet have the technology to accomplish these results with renewable energy: I ask them to come with me to meet the entrepreneurs who will drive this revolution. I’ve seen what they are doing and I have no doubt that we can meet this challenge.

To those who say the costs are still too high: I ask them to consider whether the costs of oil and coal will ever stop increasing if we keep relying on quickly depleting energy sources to feed a rapidly growing demand all around the world. When demand for oil and coal increases, their price goes up. When demand for solar cells increases, the price often comes down.

When we send money to foreign countries to buy nearly 70 percent of the oil we use every day, they build new skyscrapers and we lose jobs. When we spend that money building solar arrays and windmills, we build competitive industries and gain jobs here at home.

Of course there are those who will tell us this can’t be done. Some of the voices we hear are the defenders of the status quo – the ones with a vested interest in perpetuating the current system, no matter how high a price the rest of us will have to pay. But even those who reap the profits of the carbon age have to recognize the inevitability of its demise. As one OPEC oil minister observed, “The Stone Age didn’t end because of a shortage of stones.”

To those who say 10 years is not enough time, I respectfully ask them to consider what the world’s scientists are telling us about the risks we face if we don’t act in 10 years. The leading experts predict that we have less than 10 years to make dramatic changes in our global warming pollution lest we lose our ability to ever recover from this environmental crisis. When the use of oil and coal goes up, pollution goes up. When the use of solar, wind and geothermal increases, pollution comes down.

To those who say the challenge is not politically viable: I suggest they go before the American people and try to defend the status quo. Then bear witness to the people’s appetite for change.

I for one do not believe our country can withstand 10 more years of the status quo. Our families cannot stand 10 more years of gas price increases. Our workers cannot stand 10 more years of job losses and outsourcing of factories. Our economy cannot stand 10 more years of sending $2 billion every 24 hours to foreign countries for oil. And our soldiers and their families cannot take another 10 years of repeated troop deployments to dangerous regions that just happen to have large oil supplies.

What could we do instead for the next 10 years? What should we do during the next 10 years? Some of our greatest accomplishments as a nation have resulted from commitments to reach a goal that fell well beyond the next election: the Marshall Plan, Social Security, the interstate highway system. But a political promise to do something 40 years from now is universally ignored because everyone knows that it’s meaningless. Ten years is about the maximum time that we as a nation can hold a steady aim and hit our target.

When President John F. Kennedy challenged our nation to land a man on the moon and bring him back safely in 10 years, many people doubted we could accomplish that goal. But 8 years and 2 months later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the surface of the moon.

To be sure, reaching the goal of 100 percent renewable and truly clean electricity within 10 years will require us to overcome many obstacles. At present, for example, we do not have a unified national grid that is sufficiently advanced to link the areas where the sun shines and the wind blows to the cities in the East and the West that need the electricity. Our national electric grid is critical infrastructure, as vital to the health and security of our economy as our highways and telecommunication networks. Today, our grids are antiquated, fragile, and vulnerable to cascading failure. Power outages and defects in the current grid system cost US businesses more than $120 billion dollars a year. It has to be upgraded anyway.

We could further increase the value and efficiency of a Unified National Grid by helping our struggling auto giants switch to the manufacture of plug-in electric cars. An electric vehicle fleet would sharply reduce the cost of driving a car, reduce pollution, and increase the flexibility of our electricity grid.

At the same time, of course, we need to greatly improve our commitment to efficiency and conservation. That’s the best investment we can make.

America’s transition to renewable energy sources must also include adequate provisions to assist those Americans who would unfairly face hardship. For example, we must recognize those who have toiled in dangerous conditions to bring us our present energy supply. We should guarantee good jobs in the fresh air and sunshine for any coal miner displaced by impacts on the coal industry. Every single one of them.

Of course, we could and should speed up this transition by insisting that the price of carbon-based energy include the costs of the environmental damage it causes. I have long supported a sharp reduction in payroll taxes with the difference made up in CO2 taxes. We should tax what we burn, not what we earn. This is the single most important policy change we can make.

In order to foster international cooperation, it is also essential that the United States rejoin the global community and lead efforts to secure an international treaty at Copenhagen in December of next year that includes a cap on CO2 emissions and a global partnership that recognizes the necessity of addressing the threats of extreme poverty and disease as part of the world’s agenda for solving the climate crisis.

Of course the greatest obstacle to meeting the challenge of 100 percent renewable electricity in 10 years may be the deep dysfunction of our politics and our self-governing system as it exists today. In recent years, our politics has tended toward incremental proposals made up of small policies designed to avoid offending special interests, alternating with occasional baby steps in the right direction. Our democracy has become sclerotic at a time when these crises require boldness.

It is only a truly dysfunctional system that would buy into the perverse logic that the short-term answer to high gasoline prices is drilling for more oil ten years from now.

Am I the only one who finds it strange that our government so often adopts a so-called solution that has absolutely nothing to do with the problem it is supposed to address? When people rightly complain about higher gasoline prices, we propose to give more money to the oil companies and pretend that they’re going to bring gasoline prices down. It will do nothing of the sort, and everyone knows it. If we keep going back to the same policies that have never ever worked in the past and have served only to produce the highest gasoline prices in history alongside the greatest oil company profits in history, nobody should be surprised if we get the same result over and over again. But the Congress may be poised to move in that direction anyway because some of them are being stampeded by lobbyists for special interests that know how to make the system work for them instead of the American people.

If you want to know the truth about gasoline prices, here it is: the exploding demand for oil, especially in places like China, is overwhelming the rate of new discoveries by so much that oil prices are almost certain to continue upward over time no matter what the oil companies promise. And politicians cannot bring gasoline prices down in the short term.

However, there actually is one extremely effective way to bring the costs of driving a car way down within a few short years. The way to bring gas prices down is to end our dependence on oil and use the renewable sources that can give us the equivalent of $1 per gallon gasoline.

Many Americans have begun to wonder whether or not we’ve simply lost our appetite for bold policy solutions. And folks who claim to know how our system works these days have told us we might as well forget about our political system doing anything bold, especially if it is contrary to the wishes of special interests. And I’ve got to admit, that sure seems to be the way things have been going. But I’ve begun to hear different voices in this country from people who are not only tired of baby steps and special interest politics, but are hungry for a new, different and bold approach.

We are on the eve of a presidential election. We are in the midst of an international climate treaty process that will conclude its work before the end of the first year of the new president’s term. It is a great error to say that the United States must wait for others to join us in this matter. In fact, we must move first, because that is the key to getting others to follow; and because moving first is in our own national interest.

So I ask you to join with me to call on every candidate, at every level, to accept this challenge – for America to be running on 100 percent zero-carbon electricity in 10 years. It’s time for us to move beyond empty rhetoric. We need to act now.

This is a generational moment. A moment when we decide our own path and our collective fate. I’m asking you – each of you – to join me and build this future. Please join the WE campaign at wecansolveit.org. We need you. And we need you now. We’re committed to changing not just light bulbs, but laws. And laws will only change with leadership.

On July 16, 1969, the United States of America was finally ready to meet President Kennedy’s challenge of landing Americans on the moon. I will never forget standing beside my father a few miles from the launch site, waiting for the giant Saturn 5 rocket to lift Apollo 11 into the sky. I was a young man, 21 years old, who had graduated from college a month before and was enlisting in the United States Army three weeks later.

I will never forget the inspiration of those minutes. The power and the vibration of the giant rocket’s engines shook my entire body. As I watched the rocket rise, slowly at first and then with great speed, the sound was deafening. We craned our necks to follow its path until we were looking straight up into the air. And then four days later, I watched along with hundreds of millions of others around the world as Neil Armstrong took one small step to the surface of the moon and changed the history of the human race.

We must now lift our nation to reach another goal that will change history. Our entire civilization depends upon us now embarking on a new journey of exploration and discovery. Our success depends on our willingness as a people to undertake this journey and to complete it within 10 years. Once again, we have an opportunity to take a giant leap for humankind.

• Fact: 1.1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water.
• Fact: Countless women and children walk on average 4 miles just to fetch a jug of water that is not guaranteed to be safe to drink.
• Fact: 30 dollars provides one person with a lifetime supply of safe drinking water!

Clear Clutter for Clean Water turns old stuff into a life-saving tool!

Organize a neighborhood yard sale (the bigger, the better, the more fun). Create a blue box to collect any money earned from selling items that are… you got it, BLUE. Voila – instant hero material! Put facts on the outside of the box (use facts from above) and let people know they are helping you save lives! Take photos, tell us your story and we will make you a hero on our website! Send to Sabrina@blueplanetrun.org.

Tax deductibles donation can be mailed to: Blue Planet Run Foundation. 500 Sansome Street, Suite 205, San Francisco, CA 94111

I threatened to do it, and I always carry through with my threats (being a good parent, ecologist and all round pain in the backside) so, with great fanfare I would like to induct John Reed into the EcoSpam Hall Of Fame.

John Reed is Creative Director of Elevator Communications, a mainstream and not at all different (despite the claims) PR company. He started sending me spam a few weeks ago, and didn’t stop, regardless of my appeals. As a former IT Security bod, I know it’s risky responding to spam, but this guy has his picture on the website, and doesn’t hide any communication details — not your ordinary spam merchant, or so you would think.

He sends out spam pertaining to be ecologically sound. Here is a sample:

INTERVIEW: Lewis Buchner, CEO of EcoTimber, Inc. (San Rafael, California) is available to talk or meet with you.
NEWS: a new, patented, woven bamboo flooring product has just been introduced by EcoTimber. This new flooring product is significantly harder and more stable than most tropical hardwoods and can be used in residential and commercial applications.

California’s Solar Pioneer and his “Green Business”, Berkeley-style Story Notes:
Interview: Gary Gerber, Founder and President of Sun Light and Power is available to talk with you. As 2008 President of CALSEIA - the California Solar Energy Association - he can talk about the growth of the solar energy industry over the past 32 years, pending legislation, potential roadblocks to the growth of solar and the future of this industry in an age of $137 a barrel oil.

Publicly traded Carbon Sciences, Inc (Santa Barbara, CA) the developer of a breakthrough technology to transform harmful carbon
NEWS AND STORY IDEA, SUMMARY:
Publicly traded Carbon Sciences, Inc (Santa Barbara, CA) the developer of a breakthrough technology to transform harmful carbon dioxide (CO2) into high value, earth-friendly products, Monday announced that it has signed a joint research agreement with Abo University, Finland. This new technology converts CO2, a greenhouse gas, into commercially useful products and providing a technological alternative to the unknown consequences of sequestering (burying) CO2 under the land or oceans. Due to the unique geology of Finland, underground sequestration of CO2 is not an economically viable option.

And so on. The usual eco-bollocks of the highest order. When you look into the kinds of people this guy represents, then you realise that his motivation is rather suspect…

[Read the rest at The Unsuitablog]

High gas prices are forcing people to drive less, leading to a drop in vehicle fatalities. Four dollar a gallon gas will lead to about 1000 fewer deaths. It makes a lot of sense, higher gas prices force people to walk, ride bicycles, or take public transportation more. Or simply drive less, this translates into less fatalities in car crashes. People are also driving slower to save gas, leading to a further reduction in fatalities.

Almost 40,000 people were killed in car crashes last year, to put that into perspective only about 60,000 people American’s (thanks Chris) were killed in the Vietnam war.

So on top of all the ecological benefits of not driving your car, on top of all the money you would save, you have a far less chance of getting killed! Driving is dangerous in every way you can think, ecologically, physically, and economically. Stay safe people, drive less, drive slower, RIDE A BICYCLE!

“It is remarkable to think that a percent change in gas prices can equal lives saved, which is what our data show,” Morrisey said in a statement. “For every 10 percent rise in gas prices, fatalities are reduced by 2.3 percent. The effects are even more dramatic for teen drivers.”

The research included death rates and gas price changes from 1985 through 2006, and the calculated percent reduction in fatalities can be extrapolated to 2008 and beyond, Morrisey said.

In 2006, there were 42,642 total U.S. traffic deaths from 38,588 fatal crashes. the Fatality Analysis Reporting System reported.(via)

For all the little eco-kids coming up. Man I wish I would have had some sweet ass lego wind turbines to play with as a kid. Sure beats giving kids toy guns…

Mines well get kids used to the future now. Some day I want to hear old people say “in my day, wind turbines only produced 5 mega watts…you kids and your 50 mega watt wind turbines, got it too easy if you ask me! Hell I remember my old Lego wind turbines, now those were nice turbines….”

(via)

Grace Jones, always interesting, thought this song has some interesting themes, and heck it is a cool video to boot.

My inbox has been overflowing with love and best wishes to the planet from all sorts of people recently — one of them is no less than Tony Blair, that great peacekeeper¹, climate saviour² and lover of human rights³ is pushing his big plan (yes, another one) to return the planet to its former health. It’s called “Breaking The Climate Deadlock” and you can read the latest report here⁴.

The e-mail from Tony (well, there were three kisses at the bottom, so it must be personal) said:

TOKYO - Tony Blair today (Friday) published the first report from the ‘Breaking the Climate Deadlock’ initiative which will set out the framework for a new global deal for a low carbon future.

Mr Blair presented Prime Minister Fukuda with a copy of the report in his role as host of the G8 summit this year. The report has been drawn together with a group of recognised climate change experts, under the direction of the former British Prime Minister. It answers a series of practical questions about how the world can move to a low carbon economy.

It identifies the actions and questions that need to be resolved by political and business leaders over the next 18 months to achieve a successful outcome to the UN climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in December 2009. The report contains a warning for the world to get on this path now or face irreversible damage and much more cost later. But the report also contains a message of optimism that success is possible and the technologies, the capabilities, the resources, and the ingenuity and entrepreneurship of people around the world exists to create a new low-carbon future.

Tony Blair said this report is all about trying to unite the scientists and experts with the political leaders and decision-makers.

Interesting. Uniting who with who? Didn’t mention “businesses” did he?

So who is running Mr Blair’s show at the moment?

Tony Blair came under heavy fire today for accepting a lucrative job with a Wall Street bank.

Mr Blair, who quit as prime minister in July, is to become a part-time adviser to JPMorgan on a salary rumoured to be at least £500,000 a year. It puts him on course to become the richest former premier in recent history.

He also revealed he expected to take a “small handful” of similar jobs with other companies in the near future.

So, between his various jobs providing expert advice about how to dodge and weave your way around the political system and negotiate great deals with foreign nations, former Prime Minister Blair is intent on saving the world. So long as it’s on his terms: like ensuring he goes everywhere by private jet…

“those wishing to book him on the international lecture circuit are routinely told that providing Mr Blair with his own airliner is a non-negotiable requirement.”

Clearly a man not prepared to budge his principles, nor one who is prepared to see others budge on theirs, considering he famously stated that he didn’t think it “realistic” that people should stop flying on holiday. A dose of realism — like perhaps the Arctic ice caps being free of ice this year; or increasing regional food shortages caused by extreme weather; or the sudden drop in the ability of tropical soils to absorb carbon dioxide — seems to be in order here. But we are talking about a man that fervantly refused to ever place the UK business lobby into an uncomfortable position, preferring instead to demonstrate the power of the free market in regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

And what a dismal failure that has been. It was bound to be — he did it because Blair is a corporate man, through-and-through. Read the report I mentioned earlier, and for which the e-mail was so lovingly sent to me, and you will see the truth:

Just as there is a large body of evidence on the risks of climate change, there is also a large body of evidence on what we can do about it. There is a growing consensus that emissions can be reduced without damaging prosperity in either the developed or developing world. Reducing emissions will require a transformation of our economies, but not giving up on growth.

And there’s the rub: protecting the planet, but not at the expense of economic growth. Continued growth, which keeps the corporations happy, so they keep offering Tony his lucrative jobs; increased “prosperity” which makes people believe they are going to get a better life, despite the definition of “prosperity” having little to do with the Declaration of Human Rights, and everything to do with the acquisition of material goods. Let’s make it clear — economic growth is NOT SUSTAINABLE. It never has been, and never will be. In order to grow an economy, you need to use resources at an increasing rate.

But let’s just duck that small issue, while there is still money to be made. Just remember, Mr Blair, your cash will be of no use to you at all when you have to scrape a living from the remnants of the planet you pretended to care about. Fancy changing your mind about economic growth?

No, thought not. Moron.

1) Need I mention Iraq? Thought not.
2) Oversaw the UK actually increasing its carbon emissions despite the rhetoric of global leadership.
3) Opposed the setting up of Collective Tribal Rights under the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights
4) From The Climate Group; more about their sponsors later.

[From The Unsuitablog]

According to a new technical market research report, Carbon Capture & Storage Technologies from BCC Research, the global market for carbon capture technologies was worth $88.7 billion in 2007. This is expected to increase to over $236.3 billion by 2012, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.8%.

I wonder just how viable carbon capture and storage will be in a world with ever increasing coal/oil/gas prices, and a world in which carbon emissions are quickly devouring the planet. This report also goes against the findings of a similar UN report that show that renewable energy is really where the money is. Assuming however that the entire world isn’t going to suddenly stop burning fossil fuels, carbon capture and storage is going to be an important technology.

So where is all these billions going to come from? The market is broken down into applications of precombustion, combustion and postcombustion. Of these, postcombustion has the largest share of the market. Valued at nearly $51.5 billion in 2007, this segment is expected to be worth $107.0 billion by 2012, a CAGR of 15.7%. Post-combustion, which involves chemical stripping of carbon dioxide (CO2) from various gases by bubbling the gases through liquid chemicals, is the most mature and so far the technology to beat in price and reliability.

The second largest segment, precombustion, was worth an estimated $34.6 billion in 2007 and will reach $124.9 billion by 2012. Precombustion involves gasifying coal to extract a synthetic natural gas that is then burned in an Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle plant, a process that emits much less CO2 than a traditional coal plant and can be configured to be a near zero emission plant with the addition of post-combustion technologies. Demand for clean as well as cheap energy sources such as coal is driving this market, even though the price of coal has been shooting up along side the price of oil and gas.

Combustion is currently a $500 million sector that will be worth $2.0 billion in 2012, for a CAGR of 32%.

By 2025 more than 10 billion metric tons of CO2 will need to be captured each year and CO2 emissions will still continue to grow (if we continue on our current course). A global infrastructure that will ultimately cost more than $15 trillion may need to be installed over the next century to accomplish that ever increasing annual task.

I assume most people will realize the folly of spending 15 trillion dollars on carbon capture, when we could create a world wide infrastructure of wind/solar/biomass/etc energy production, most likely for less. I see carbon capture and storage technology being used mainly for legacy infrastructure.

There are fundamental problems with continuing to increase the rate at which we burn fossil fuels, security, global warming, supply, pollution, etc. Wind, solar, and biomass technologies will provide the bulk of future demand, with a few legacy coal/oil/gas plants. These plants will need to have all of the carbon emissions captures and stored if we are to return the atmosphere to a state in which run-away global heating is not a concern. Lets hope the promise of future capture markets will spur this technology to achieve high efficiency and reliability, I shudder to think what would happen if the stored co2 suddenly escaped en-mass. Carbon capture is going to play an important role in our future, but a minimal one.

I’m not talking about the individuals managing their part of the business (although I might be), and I’m not talking about the department heads overseeing the operation of their part of the organization (although I might be) — I’m talking about the relative rights of Employers and Employees and, more specifically, the question of why employers have any rights at all.

This story is very interesting in many ways, but the most interesting part is not the headline maker, it’s the assumption that when you take a job, you automatically lose some of your individual rights:

A Christian registrar who was harassed and discriminated against after she refused to carry out same-sex civil partnership ceremonies has won a key legal battle. Lillian Ladele, 47, said that she was treated like a pariah by colleagues at Islington council in North London after she said that she could not carry out the ceremonies as a matter of religious conscience.

An employment tribunal found that the council showed no respect for Ms Ladele’s rights “by virtue of her orthodox Christian beliefs”.

Employment lawyers said that while the case set no binding legal precedent, it would make councils much more likely to give weight to the religious views of employees. The decision outraged gay rights campaigners, who said that it “sanctions the right of religious people to discriminate”.

Suspend, for a moment, your views of gay partnerships and religious belief, and consider what this story is actually saying: essentially, when this person took on her job she was expected to shed some of her rights in order to sustain her employment. It wasn’t such a problem for her at first, but conflict was bound to emerge when conducting civil partnerships became part of her role. She was asked to carry out what the council considered to be part of her normal duties, despite her moral objections.

Suppose you are working for a bank, and that bank decides to sell a new type of investment concentrating on clear-felled timber; or perhaps tar sands; or maybe arms companies that sell their wares to repressive regimes. You ask for the right not to sell these offerings because you feel morally opposed to them. You are sacked for not carrying out your normal job.

See, it’s not a gay or religious rights issue at all.

The rights of an employee should always trump the rights of the employer unless there are very special circumstances — for instance, if an airline pilot suddenly decides he or she doesn’t want to fly for environmental reasons, then it would be impossible for them to continue being an airline pilot (way to go, former airline pilot!) — but these circumstances are few and far between. I guess we have all, in our working lives (those of us who have worked for someone) been asked to carry out a task that we felt uncomfortable with and didn’t seem to fit within our job description; it probably came under that magic phrase, “and anything else your manager requires you to do.”

The crunch really comes, though, when the rights of an employee threaten the financial situation of a company, or an authority, or a nation. An employer, regardless of who it purports to represent, is not an individual. However, Corporations, through the laws of incorporation, have the same rights as individuals but, through something called “limited liability”, they are not subject to the same restriction on activity as individuals – the liability is spread amongst every single shareholder and so the pain is diluted.

You can stop an individual with a single bullet. A corporation has thousands, millions of hearts, yet no soul.

The acts of incorporation is designed to support economic growth above the rights of the billions of people who will ultimately suffer because of the failed economic experiment that is starting to go into meltdown. Authorities and public services, are increasingly motivated by money and are going the way of the corporation – laws exist to protect the “rights” of the “public” body over any attempt to thwart its commercial activities. The case of the Christian registrar probably went her way because she was not actually an economic threat to the system: had an employer objected to the way that authorities operate in order to maximise commercial gain, they would not have had a leg to stand on. This is the way it is in civilization: this is the way it has to be.

You have “rights” for sure. All the rights in the world…unless you threaten the great commercial machine we all work for.

After more than 49,000 people demanded better fuel economy standards for vehicles, the Sierra Club’s Lightbulbs to Leadership campaign is now gearing up for the final phase of the Lightbulbs to Leadership campaign–a night of action on green job development.

Today, Sierra Club also released the third and final animated video of the campaign, entitled the “Greening of America” at on the Lightbulbs to Leadership site.

Using lightbulb jokes, examples of green technologies, and creative juxtaposition, this third video in the series aims to shows that fighting global warming can save the planet and boost the economy. We can create jobs and business opportunities –and leave our children a safer healthier, future — but only if we demand real leadership now.

On July 17th, the campaign will culminate with more than 110 Lightbulbs to Leadership House Parties across the U.S., where people will listen in on a national conference call featuring Green For All President Van Jones, Washington State Gov. Christine Gregoire, and Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope. Attendees will then write letters to their governors encouraging green job development. House parties planned in your area can be found by clicking on the “Find a House Party” button and entering your local zip code from the Lightbulbs to Leadership site.

The Lightbulbs to Leadership campaign is reminding Americans that it takes more than changing lightbulbs to fix global warming it takes policymakers changing direction on global warming and catching up with the people.

In June, using videos and email outreach, the campaign gathered more than 49,000 signatures for a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) telling the agency to speed it up when it comes to issuing better fuel economy standards. The signatures were delivered before the July 1st NHTSA comments deadline, reminding the agency that the biggest single step the U.S. can take to curb global warming and conserve oil is to require automakers to produce more efficient vehicles. The first two videos were viral hits, with more than 100,000 views on YouTube.

“This campaign is demonstrating that taking action on global warming is a priority for Americans,” said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club. “Americans want clean energy solutions and we believe the U.S. should take the lead in combating global warming. Global warming is real and we need to demand real leadership. See the previous two videos below.

The Senate gave final approval on Wednesday to a major expansion of the government’s surveillance powers, handing President Bush one more victory in a series of hard-fought clashes with Democrats over national security issues.

The measure, approved by a vote of 69 to 28, is the biggest revamping of federal surveillance law in 30 years. It includes a divisive element that Mr. Bush had deemed essential: legal immunity for the phone companies that cooperated in the National Security Agency wiretapping program he approved after the Sept. 11 attacks.

…

But in the end Mr. Bush won out, as administration officials helped forge a deal between Republican and Democratic leaders that included almost all the major elements the White House wanted. The measure gives the executive branch broader latitude in eavesdropping on people abroad and at home who it believes are tied to terrorism, and it reduces the role of a secret intelligence court in overseeing some operations.

…

The issue put Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, in a particularly precarious spot. He had long opposed giving legal immunity to the phone companies that took part in the N.S.A.’s wiretapping program, even threatening a filibuster during his run for the nomination. But on Wednesday, he ended up voting for what he called “an improved but imperfect bill” after backing a failed attempt earlier in the day to strip the immunity provision from the bill through an amendment. (via)

Can you say a bunch of crap about being a new kind of candidate, yes you can. Can you say a whole bunch of stuff about freedom and democracy, and changing Washington, yes you can. Can you make great speeches that lift up people and are great to listen to, yes you can. Can you then turn around and vote against the freedoms the American people hold most dear, while at the same time going against everything you seem to have stood for before, yes you can.

Fuck Obama, and every other politician that voted for this bill, Fuck George W Bush and his silly war on terror, fuck Dick Cheney and his evil corporate puppet masters. What the hell America, seriously, time to impeach every one of these idiots and start over.

In the 80’s 90’s and now in the 00’s American industry has for the most part been content to let these new jobs go to others. We stubbornly plod along thinking that we can keep doing things “our” way while Europe and Asia retool for the next century. The next industry up for gutting is the coal industry. Luckily a transition to renewable energy sources promises significant global job gains at a time when the coal industry has been hemorrhaging jobs for years, according to the latest Vital Signs Update released by the Worldwatch Institute.

The coal, oil, and natural gas industries require steadily fewer jobs as high-cost production equipment takes the place of human capital. Why pay ten guys with pick axes to go into a mine when you can pay one with a fancy coal robot? Many hundreds of thousands of coal mining jobs have been shed in China, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and South Africa during the last two decades, sometimes in the face of expanding production. In the United States alone, coal industry employment has fallen by half in the last 20 years, despite a one-third increase in production. These jobs are often lost in areas that have been in brutal poverty for years. It seems that even when coal companies provided jobs, they provided low paying dangerous ones. Now that they are leaving, the poverty only gets worse, and the people are left with a mined out waste land to be poor in. Coal has rapped these communities for everything they are worth and then moved on.

“Renewables are poised to tackle our energy crisis and create millions of new jobs worldwide,” according to Worldwatch Senior Researcher Michael Renner. “Meanwhile, fossil fuel jobs are increasingly becoming fossils themselves, as coal mining communities and others worry about their livelihoods.”

Strong government support has allowed Germany, Spain, and Denmark to emerge as leaders in renewable energy development—and green jobs. The German government reports that the country was home to an estimated 259,000 direct and indirect jobs in the renewables sector in 2006. This figure is expected to reach 400,000–500,000 by 2020, and 710,000 by 2030. In the United States, the renewables sector employed close to 200,000 people directly and 246,000 indirectly in 2006, due mostly to leadership at the state level, rather than strong leadership at a federal level. China is rapidly catching up in manufacturing of solar photovoltaics (PV) and wind turbines and is already the dominant global force in solar hot water development.

An estimated 2.3 million people worldwide currently work either directly in renewables or indirectly in supplier industries. The solar thermal industry employs at least 624,000 people, the wind power industry 300,000, and the solar PV industry 170,000. More than 1 million people work in the biomass and biofuels sector, while small-scale hydropower employs 39,000 individuals and geothermal employs 25,000.

These figures are expected to swell substantially as private investment and government support for alternative energy sources grow. The most optimistic analyses project that global wind power employment will increase to as much as 2.1 million in 2030 and 2.8 million in 2050. Similar projections estimate that worldwide solar PV production alone could create as many as 6.3 million jobs by 2030.

“Government officials now have yet another reason to put the full weight of their support behind renewables,” said Renner. “In addition to protecting our planet and phasing out an increasingly limited resource, policies that support renewable energy also support job creation.”

The real question here is how many of those 9.1 million potential jobs will be in the US? My feeling is that because we are so far behind it would take a significant increase in government (federal, state and local) support as well as a shift in culture to grab a majority of these jobs. But the demand is there, and America does has a lot going for it. We have a well educated work force with good transportation infrastructure. We have high tech science and one of the worlds best university system for R & D. And we have all the money. These jobs could be just the thing that gets us out of our troubled economic problems. Lets hope the next industrial revolution in this country will be a green one.

If you are looking for a job in renewable energy be sure to check out our renewable energy job search box (below or on the right over there), as well as checking out The Sietch’s guide to renewable energy jobs here.