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National Energy Education Act recommended in Mother Jones
Mother Jones ran a piece in its November/December 2008 Issue that recommended a National Energy Education Act.
Mother Jones ran a great piece by Chris Mooney in its November/December 2008 Issue, "How to Rescue the Economy and Save the Planet," that recommended a National Energy Education Act: THE GEEK SHORTAGE: According to the National Science Foundation, American universities graduated a record number of science and engineering PhDs in 2006--almost 30,000 of them. So we should have plenty of scientists to set to work on the energy challenge; yet, as a recent study from the Urban Institute explains, "each year there are more than three times as many S&E four-year college graduates as S&E job openings." What gives? Turns out a lot of those graduates are in the biological sciences--which, coincidentally, saw a massive boost in federal funding a few years ago. Continue reading "National Energy Education Act recommended in Mother Jones" » Setting a 2012 Milestone for the Detroit Three
A pre-condition for each company receiving additional federal funds be its commitment to have produced and offered for sale 60,000 new plug-in vehicles by the end of 2011.
Developments in Washington have become "fast and furious." From day to day, it appears Congress (especially but not only Republicans) may be insufficiently receptive to steps to keep the Detroit Three alive. Many are focusing more on blame for past mis-steps than on a responsible appreciation of the consequences for communities and for our green automotive future if these companies go under. We hope that this turns out to be brinkmanship and that Congress will in fact act next week. (If they ignore the crisis, attitudes reflected in aphorisms like, "they made their own bed" or "let them stew in their own juices" -- or "what, me worry?" will prove to be short-sighted.) The California Cars Initiative (CalCars.org) developed what follows as a contribution to an effort by a number of organizations to provide Washington lawmakers with specific conditions for additional federal aid to automakers. We're not suggesting this is the only criterion -- and we hope that the issue actually does come before Congress. Next week the U.S. auto industry will fight for its life in the chambers and hallways of Congress. No one who recognizes the industry's central position -- and the lives and livelihoods that depend on its continuation -- wants to see any of the Detroit Three fail. They need immediate life support -- and a medium- and long-term way to return to growth and prosperity. Continue reading "Setting a 2012 Milestone for the Detroit Three" » What is Health Insurance?
To understand issues surrounding health care reform in America, it is important to understand the difference between health care and health insurance.
One of the leading causes of confusion when it comes to health care reform is the misuse and conflation of the terms "health insurance" and "health care." This sort of confusion manifests itself throughout the debate. Insurance is the pooling of risk. The members of an insurance plan pay a premium that is used to help those members who face an adverse event. In the case of auto insurance this could the cost to repair a rear-end collision, in the case of health insurance this might be the cost to repair broken bone. Insurance as it exists is marked by two pillars: IEA Report Confirms Clean and Cheap Energy Needed to Power Global Development
Without clean, affordable and massively scalable energy sources, the world will be stuck in the Development Trap: we'll be forced to either sacrifice our climate and ecological security in the name of global development or condemn billions of global citizens to poverty in the name of climate protection.
The stark tone of the International Energy Agency's World Energy Outlook 2008 is a dramatic departure from their normally staid and frequently rosy projections about the world's energy future (I presented highlights from the piece in this proceeding post). The report's opening statement that current world energy trends are "patently unsustainable" will no doubt receive the most attention in headlines across the blogosphere and mainstream news. But in this post, I want to delve deeper into the key statement that follows it: "It is not an exaggeration to claim that the future of human prosperity depends on how successfully we tackle the two central energy challenges facing us today: securing the supply of reliable and affordable energy; and effecting a rapid transformation to low-carbon, efficient and environmentally benign system of energy supply." While the environmental community focuses primarily on the latter of those two concerns, the IEA appropriately recognizes that the future of human prosperity depends on our ability to tackle both challenges: decarbonizing the energy supply and providing ample and affordable energy supplies to power global development. In short, the IEA confirms what is perhaps the central challenge of the 21st century: developing clean and affordable energy sources to power the globe. Continue reading "IEA Report Confirms Clean and Cheap Energy Needed to Power Global Development" » Seeing Our Future In The American Car
A new framework to transform and revitalize America's auto industry.
By Jeffrey Feldman Up to this point in our history, when Americans imagined 'the future,' they thought about cars that could fly, a cognitive frame inherited from old time TV shows like Flash Gordon and The Jetsons. Instead of that cartoon image, we would be wise to start seeing our future in terms of three far-reaching goals for the American auto industry: sustainable engines, sustainable factories, and sustainable communities. World's Energy Watchdog Warns Current Energy Trends are "Patently Unsustainable"
Highlights from the International Energy Agency's World Energy Outlook 2008
The world's energy watchdog, the International Energy Agency, released their annual World Energy Outlook report today, and it starts out with a bang. The first paragraph of the IEA report reads: "The world's energy system is at a crossroads. Current global trends in energy supply and consumption are patently unsustainable - environmentally, economically, socially. But that can - and must - be altered; there's still time to change the road we're on. It is not an exaggeration to claim that the future of human prosperity depends on how successfully we tackle the two central energy challenges facing us today: securing the supply of reliable and affordable energy; and effecting a rapid transformation to low-carbon, efficient and environmentally benign system of energy supply. What is needed is nothing short of an energy revolution." IEA World Energy Outlook: Understating the Mitigation Challenge
Breakthrough Senior Fellow and Climate Science Expert Roger Pielke, jr., published an article in Nature explaining how the Nobel Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change consistently and significantly underestimate greenhouse gas emission predictions. Here he explains how the same inaccuracies show up in the International Energy Agency's World Energy Outlook, released yesterday.
Cross posted by Prometheus Last spring along with Tom Wigley and Chris Green we published an article in Nature (PDF) arguing that the IPCC had underestimated the magnitude of the mitigation challenge. Today I'd like to illustrate how the IEA's World Energy Outlook, published yesterday, also dramatically underestimates the magnitude of the mitigation challenge. The figure below is taken from the IEA's publicly-available packet of key graphs (here in PDF). I have annotated it as follows to illustrate how the IEA has significantly underestimated the mitigation challenge. Continue reading "IEA World Energy Outlook: Understating the Mitigation Challenge" » IEA World Energy Outlook: Focus on Climate Stabilization
Cross posted from Prometheus
Today the IEA released its World Energy Outlook 2008. Here are some interesting excerpts from the Executive Summary here in PDF: First, the IEA comes down clearly on the debate over whether stabilization at 450 ppm can be achieved with existing technologies. They say no way: Continue reading "IEA World Energy Outlook: Focus on Climate Stabilization" » Japan's Record Emissions
Cross posted from Prometheus
Japan's emissions hit a record high: Japan's carbon dioxide emissions hit a record high of 1.37 billion tons in the year to March 2008, well above the target set by the Kyoto Protocol, the environment ministry said Wednesday. Quote of the Day, November 13th, 2008
"Current energy trends are patently unsustainable --socially, environmentally, economically." --From the International Energy Agency's most recent World Energy Outlook report (pdf), published yesterday, November 12th, 2008. | |
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