Time scale presents one of the big challenges when discussing the science around climate change. Climate change can take place in the short time frame, say decades; in the medium time frame, say hundreds or thousands of years, and in the very long time frame, say tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or even millions of years. Read the rest of this entry »

Suppliers Partnership for the Environment (SP) joins automobile OEMs, their suppliers and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to improve the environment while providing value throughout the automobile supply chain. SP provides a forum for small, mid-sized and large automotive suppliers to work together, learn from each other and share environmental best practices. Read the rest of this entry »

The hardcore man-made global warming devotees, the last-ditch warmenistas, bullets whistling around their ears as they huddle in their trench, have staked out far too public and belligerent a position to back down with any grace at all. Read the rest of this entry »

Greenpeace has released the 5th edition of its Cool IT Leaderboard, which evaluates IT companies on their leadership in three key areas — clean energy leadership, willingness to embrace clean energy solutions, and potential to influence energy decisions — and Google has landed on top. Read the rest of this entry »

“It is clear that continuing to rely on fossil fuels will have catastrophic results, because of the dramatic warming effect of carbon dioxide. But alternative power sources will affect the climate too. For now, the climatic effects of “clean energy” sources are trivial compared with those that spew out greenhouse gases, but if we keep on using ever more power over the coming centuries, they will become ever more significant.

“While this kind of work is still at an early stage, some startling conclusions are already beginning to emerge. Nuclear power – including fusion – is not the long-term answer to our energy problems. Even renewable energies such as wind power will have to be used with caution, because large-scale extraction could have both local and global effects. These effects are not necessarily a bad thing, though. We might be able to exploit them to geoengineer the climate and combat global warming.”

–New Scientist, in an article titled Power paradox: Clean might not be green forever (via WSJ) Read the rest of this entry »

For the past four years, the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) has been trying to draw attention to problems in the Southeastern United States.
Call them “endangered places.” We often hear about endangered species when it comes to animals, but rarely do some of our most beautiful natural places in America get talked about as “endangered.” Read the rest of this entry »

In his latest State of the Union address, President Obama praised America’s declining dependence on foreign oil, but stressed the need to focus the country’s resources on relying more on sustainable energy. What did people think of the president’s points? Read the rest of this entry »

Coal-fired power plant in Arizona. Credit: Flickr/Alan Stark, CC BY-SA 2.0

Over the past two months, I’ve written a series of articles on “The Damage Done” by various energy sources used for the generation of electric power. Each week, I’ve examined one of the primary energy sources, whether “green” or conventional, trying to understand the environmental effects of each method of generating power — pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, health effects, or other externalities. Having written nine articles in the series, I’m now ready to do a comparison and try to answer the question, “Is green energy really any better for the environment than conventional power generation from such sources as coal, natural gas, and nuclear?” Read the rest of this entry »

If you were to ask the average person what the number one killer of mankind has been throughout history, they might throw out some ideas. Famine? Heart disease? War? Good guesses, but they’d be wrong. That dubious honor can be laid at the feet (figuratively speaking) of a very, very tiny killer: a virus. Read the rest of this entry »

The Green Grid, a global consortium comprised of end users, policymakers, technology providers, facility architects and utility companies, is on a mission to address the resource issues facing today’s data centers. The growing need for information technology, and the business demands required of IT equipment, strains resources such as power, cooling and space. The Green Grid Forum 2012, being held on March 6 and 7 at the DoubleTree Hotel in San Jose, CA, will address critical technology, business and sustainability-related issues facing today’s business computing ecosystems. Read the rest of this entry »