Why buying cheap energy certificates worsens climate change 17 Posted 22 hours, 53 minutes ago
Do diesel-based farmers dream of electric tractors? 7 Posted 17 hours, 44 minutes ago
Copenhagen climate summit (part 1): the expectations 1 Posted 21 hours, 25 minutes ago
Notable quotable
"If we're going to survive as a party, we need to focus on the environment. There's a fundamental tone deafness with our party when it comes to the environment ... The last place we can be as a party is be viewed as the anti-science party. That's not a model for the future."
-- Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (R), discussing the future of the Republican party
Kate Sheppard is Grist’s political reporter.
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EU pushes China further after pledge to slow carbon intensity
Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success
Comments
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Bob Wallace Posted 10:45 am
22 Nov 2008
Wonder which direction the 'security' leg will choose?
Wonder if business + security can attract enough support the center-right to seize the Republican Party?
Interesting times in which we live. Hope they continue to stay interesting for a nice long time in regards to Republican disharmony.
We've got a lot of repair work to do....
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:59 pm
22 Nov 2008
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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amazingdrx Posted 12:41 am
23 Nov 2008
California is leading the green job wave, a fundamentally anti-fundamentalist technology revolution. Obama is going to lead the rest of US in that direction.
Where does that leave the faithbased drill, drill, baby drill faction? Preying for oil.
Preying on anyplace that is located over oil that doesn't have nuclear weapons. This drives proliferation. Countries know that the mighty preemptive bush doctrine will take control again in 4 or 8 years and the quest for oil will resume.
Perpetual oil war will return once the economy is built back up again. Unless green energy proves to be more successful than gas guzzling.
Did anyone else notice the dissappointment from the jihad over Obama's win? Getting off oil will revive our economy, that ruins all queda's plans.
No faithbased oily corporate krusade, no fuel for jihad. Peace and prosperity, not a popular scenario for armageddon fans.
If the auto industry can delay plugin hybrids for a few years by substituting ethanol guzzling, the oily krusading can resume in as short as 4 years. Has anyone heard a call to fire auto execs lately? Nope, that revolutionary talk went silent.
And that means the faithbased gas guzzlers are winning behind the scene. The focus of industry and government has swung around to union busting, away from oil replacement with renewable electric transportation.
Mass delusional media is swallowing the auto/oil industry spin and regurgitating it into the national mindset.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Bob Wallace Posted 3:05 am
23 Nov 2008
I see us at a choice point in which we have to choose between two not-so-great options.
A) we can eliminate many of the benefits that unions have won for their members, or
B) we can keep the benefits and allow the companies to go under. Which, obviously, means that both the basic salaries and benefits go away.
It seems that the unions have realized this problem and have agreed that future hires will not receive the same benefits that current workers receive. The manufacturers seemed to have a plan for continuing while these higher benefit workers either completed their years to retirement or accepted early retirement buyouts.
Long term, workers will probably need to unionize on a global level, but we're several years away from that being a possibility.
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Bob Wallace Posted 3:13 am
23 Nov 2008
Toyota seems to be readying a PHEV Prius. Apparently they are aiming for 2010.
BYD is planning on starting PHEV sales in China next month and bring them to the west in 2010 or 2011.
GM has announced that they are bringing the PHEV Volt to market by 2010.
When I look at all the Asian and European manufacturers who haven't announced PHEVs I get the feeling that US manufacturers are not fighting the idea. Just working along as is everyone else.
Remember that Ford has at least one hybrid model on the market and has stated that they are working toward making their entire fleet hybrids.
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Bob Wallace Posted 3:24 am
23 Nov 2008
We do not have batteries that will allow us to produce adequate range, affordable, quick-charging BEVs. They might appear any day now, they might appear in a few years, or we might never figure out how to make them.
Biofuels (preferably made from non-food sources and grown in ways that don't remove land from food cultivation) are a carbon-neutral option for transportation.
Let's speculate a world in which "adequate" batteries aren't developed. (Remember that converting your current Prius to plug-in would get you only a couple of electric miles with the batteries now included.) In that case biofuels burned in hybrid vehicles are not a terrible outcome.
The biofuels can be grown domestically which halts our shipment of wealth out of country and create many in-country jobs. Keeping production in-country also would mean a great increase in tax revenues as money sloshes around inside our boarders rather than beating a hasty retreat.
Until BEVs or affordable PHEVs can be proved it would seem to be best to pursue biofuels. We're going to need them for some forms of transportation.
Hard to establish recharging stations half-way across the Pacific at 30,000 feet....
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Jim DiPeso Posted 6:28 am
03 Dec 2008
But look for Huntsman and other younger, more pragmatic conservatives to have a strong go at dislodging a venerable tradition from their deadening grasp. Wish them luck.
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