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An eco-friendly Valentine’s Day guide for the bitter and alone

If the only thing you’re more tired of than Valentine’s Day is all those tips for how to green your Valentine’s Day, take heart. You can hate on Hallmark and smug couples while still showing your mad hot love for the Earth. Here’s our guide to celebrating Singles Awareness Day in eco-style. 1. Get back […]

Kudos and fingers as IM dialogue

GristEditor: So what's the deal with climate kudos/finger this week? Got any ideas?

Reporter@Grist: Stop bugging me. Watching cat videos.

GristEditor: seriously, we gotta publish this on fri. need your ideas.

Reporter@Grist: argh. ... ok. hold on.

GristEditor: I was thinking Hillary Clinton for planning to jump on the climate/China issue

Reporter@Grist: Boooooooring

Reporter@Grist: Barbara Boxer should definitely get finger for that screwed up roads package she's cosponsoring with Inhofe.

GristEditor: That's so inside baseball. Plus, Boxer outlined her climate principles this week -- deserves a kudo for that.

Reporter@Grist: Not really. Boxer's "principles" very vague.

Reporter@Grist: how 'bout the Senate for passing that dumbass amendment to give money to people to buy cars?

GristEditor: But that might be good if $ spent to buy hybrids or electric vehics.

Reporter@Grist: Sigh. Hey, you want to avoid inside baseball? How about Molson? Bad beer, good climate record.

GristEditor: Salazar for reversing the Utah oil leases?

GristEditor: Lugar for writing an op-ed arguing for increasing the gas tax?

GristEditor: Finger to the Czech PM for perpetuating skeptic line?

Reporter@Grist: Yeah, maybe.

GristEditor: geez. maybe we just blow it off this week ...

Reporter@Grist: :-)

GristEditor: not funny.

Chevy Volt could cut costs by using batteries more efficiently and paying less for them

In a excellent piece this week, Joe Romm reiterated why battery changing stations don't make sense for electric cars. But he also argued that plug-in electric ranges of more than 20 miles do not make sense because cost gets too high for too little benefit. This seems a reasonable deduction from high (and rising) costs for the Chevy Volt. But this is a case where the efficiency could be cheaper than conservation.

Consuming 0.4 kWh per mile electricity usage, the Volt currently uses a $10,000 16 kWh battery capacity for a 40-mile range. But lots of electric cars get better mileage than that. For example, the Triac only consumes about 0.23 kWh per mile. Admitting this is fairly extreme, there is no reason a car that needs less than half the battery range (and thus does not need to carry as much battery weight) can't keep its power consumption around 0.27 kWh per mile, which would make battery capacity 11 kWh rather than 16 kWh.

Universities hold national teach-in on climate change

Across the country yesterday, college campuses opened up a dialogue on climate change as part of a National Teach-In. And for many schools, this meant opening up lecture halls as well.

At Seattle University, a 400-level engineering class (normally reserved for dedicated students in that major) spent the hour discussing effective energy solutions; lit majors, history professors, and everyone in between were invited to join. Later that afternoon, students in ECON 468 welcomed visitors for a lecture on the economics of carbon reduction and cap and trade. Elsewhere on the SU campus, students discussed the role of business in sustainability and the importance of "low-carbon" eating habits.

"Our primary mode of reaching a diverse set of students [was] to have the teach-in themes 'embedded' in regular classrooms," said Jennifer Sorensen, the university's science director and organizer for the event. Faculty members from varied disciplines were asked to devote part of their class time (whether that class be Intro to Geology or Federal Income Tax I) to discussing climate change as it relates to their field.

Students were a driving force behind the success of SU's teach-in, Sorensen says. "The faculty are more responsive to student requests to discuss these themes in their classroom than they are to my collegial invitation to participate!"

Obama taps marine scientist to lead key climate agency

Jane Lubchenco. Photo: oregonstate.edu If and when marine biologist Jane Lubchenco is confirmed as the next administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), she’ll find herself leading an organization with a huge jurisdiction — the oceans and atmosphere — but with limited power to take action. NOAA’s influence has always been limited by […]

Sylvia Earle, oceanographer and author, wins 2009 TED prize

Noted oceanographer Sylvia Earle is one of the three 2009 TED prize winners. The three winners are awarded the opportunity to share "one wish to change the world," along with $100,000 each to fund the pursuit of that wish.

Here is Earle's wish:

I wish you would use all means at your disposal -- the films, the expeditions, the web! -- to ignite public support for a global network of marine protected areas, hope spots large enough to save and restore the ocean, the blue heart of the planet.

Earle said she did not know how much of the oceans need to be protected, but that she said it's certainly more than the less-than-1-percent of the oceans currently under some governmental protection. She noted the technological advances that have been made to solve the energy crisis before adding, "but nothing will matter if we fail to protect the oceans. Our fate and the ocean's are one."

See the full list of 2009 TED speakers.

Rising sea salinates India's Ganges

We are facing catastrophic sea-level rise this century on our current greenhouse gas emissions path.

The direct impact of such sea-level rise is so enormous -- and so easy to show visually -- that other serious ramifications hardly get mentioned at all. So kudos to Reuters for reporting:

KOLKATA, India: Rising sea levels are causing salt water to flow into India's biggest river, threatening its ecosystem and turning vast farmlands barren in the country's east, a climate change expert warned Monday.

Much of the world's cropland -- especially in the developing world -- is close to sea level and near the shore. I haven't seen a global quantification of the impact of salt water infiltration. I did find a 2008 discussion of "Global Warming and Salt Water Intrusion: Bangladesh Perspective," [PDF] which concludes:

'Clean coal' non-debate produces fake rift among lefties!

Wow, this is one craptastic piece of journalism. It's about "the clean coal debate," but you can get all the way through it without stumbling across a single fact about the purported subject. Al Gore and environmentalists "portray" "clean coal" as a mirage. Is it? Are there clean coal power plants somewhere? The reader never knows.

Dumber than that is the whole frame of the article, which pits Al Gore against Barack Obama, despite the fact that they recommend identical approaches to "clean coal" -- research it, but don't rely on it, and don't build dirty coal plants while waiting for it.

The fact is, the average citizen trying to find out more about "clean coal" by consuming U.S. media is likely to emerge from that effort knowing and understanding less. Nice job, media.

Memo outlines history and success of 'clean coal' propaganda campaign

Ever wondered about the inner workings of the "clean coal" propaganda campaign? Wondered how the rancid sausage was made?

Lucky for you, the Hawthorn Group -- the PR firm hired by ACCCE to mount and run the campaign -- recently published a memo "to friends and family" merrily laying out the details.

Even in a communication-saturated environment we achieved, even exceeded, our wildest expectations (and we believe those of our client!). Not only did we raise the awareness of the issue, but we got the major candidates on both sides of the aisle talking about the issue in the debates, at campaign rallies and in interviews. We did this by finding creative ways to increase the visibility of the issue and by demonstrating strong voter support. We successfully integrated traditional communication and grassroots tactics with online strategies and tools.

The presidential campaign concluded with both candidates, their running mates and surrogates talking about and supporting clean coal technology. The issue was mentioned in all four general election debates. This was a 180-degree turn from earlier in the campaign when none of the candidates were focused on this issue.

The program also had an impact on the perception of coal among public opinion leaders. In September 2007, on the key measurement question -- Do you support/oppose the use of coal to generate electricity? -- we found 46 percent support and 50 percent oppose. In a 2008 year-end survey that result had shifted to 72 percent support and 22 percent oppose. Not only did we see significantly increased support, opposition was cut by more than half.

Wheee!

Chinese envoy urges U.S. help on climate change

WASHINGTON — The United States has a profitable self-interest in assisting Chinese efforts to combat climate change, China’s ambassador here said Thursday as global talks loom. Zhou Wenzhong said China must focus on industrial growth to lift millions of its citizens out of poverty but was not stinting in the global warming fight, outlining a […]