Merchants of Doubt

Climate-gate took the world by storm in the aftermath of Copenhagen. Offering one side of the story about how scientific doubt on issues like climate change (and tobacco smoke) gains traction is the book "Merchants of Doubt" due out this May. Read a review from grist.org here.

I for one do not need to be convinced of the science, but that's besides the point. Environmentalists lost the world on this one with their own version of scare tactics and misnomers like "global warming" early on. The tragedy is that environmental problems related to our changing climate are very real and happening now, and not just in far away places like Sudan or Bangaladesh. The increase in wildfires in the West is attributable to the altered state of our climate, as is the rampant pine beetle problem throughout the Rocky Mountains. Drought is no longer only the concern of African nations or even the desert Southwest - Atlanta came within a week or so of running out of water a year ago. Labeling everything "climate change", though, is clearly not working because no one seems to care.

But what about framing this differently? What if we explore the very real possibility that responding to our changing climate - whether its changing because of stuff humans are doing or not - provides us with an economic get-out-of-jail free card? If we take the environment seriously for once, we can innovate out of our current economic malaise, create jobs in the process, and generally clean up our act. I am talking new sources of energy that are clean and don't come from parts of the world where people hate us. I am talking cars that people want to buy. I am talking development patterns that are oriented around forms of transportation other than cars (which includes walking, fatsos). Anyone with me?

About Damn Time

Absent a price on carbon, the development of alternative energy sources on a commercial scale - i.e., wind farms and solar installations to feed the grid - no longer makes sense. In fact, from a purely economic point of view I am not sure it ever did. Coal is too cheap. Demand for renewable energy is only created by renewable portfolio standards, which are voluntary in many states. Government subsidies don't quite cut it. And natural gas is the likely next bridge fuel anyway because of the proximity of shale-gas formations to major demand centers, immediate job creation possibilities as a result of the extraction process, and because natty gas doesn't suffer from the problems of intermittent delivery that plague solar and wind.

But I am loving residential applications of renewable energy sources. I know a guy in Palm Springs, Ca who gets PAID BY HIS UTILITY COMPANY 9 months out of the year because he generates more electricity than he uses, and then sells his excess back to the grid to help his utility company meet peak demand in the land of excess golf courses and air conditioners.

Check out the newest in residential renewable energy technology from Dow, called Powerhouse.



Powerhouse is not without its problems, though. As this article points out, these solar shingles are too expensive for the relatively small amount of electricity they produce ($10 a square foot for 3.5 kilowatts of power). However, as this sort of solar technology becomes more popular and thus more competitive, hopefully more exciting and less expensive products will come out of this market.

Now, the true skeptic would ask whether or not the life cycle of this product - from the mining of whatever crazy crap goes into these things, to the manufacturing and installation process, to their ultimate disposal - actually results in more carbon emissions than the delivery of electricity via fossil fuel. My guess is that skeptic would be wrong, but maybe not by much. Either way, that's a dangerous road to go down, so we won't.

All I have to say is that I would LOVE to be getting paid by United Illuminating Company instead of forking over ample burrito cart fundz to Davo to cover our electric bill each month.

Global Energy Consumption...this might make you vomit

As Client 9 is currently in his bunker writing a dissertation that's likely too depraved to print - even on The Coughing Dog - or playing Mario Kart on his iPhone (not sure which but I know he's busy), he passed this gem on to me to post in his absence. Below is a screenshot of a phenomenal interactive graphic from CNN today. Follow this link, watch the circles expand and pray for our future. Or, if you're anything like me, just become increasingly angry with the policy makers. Pretty amazing to compare Africa's statistics to those of North America or Asia.

http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2009/environment/energy/