An Australian Senate Committee has recommended the Senate take no immediate action to rollout a national renewable energy feed-in tariff to boost the investment and deployment of renewables. Pressure has been mounting in Australia for the federal government to take a more aggressive stance on developing renewable energy.
The Australian Greens are calling the move a stall-tactic that avoids a discussion about feed-in tariffs being the best way to supplement the country’s mandatory renewable energy targets.
The comprehensive study (PDF), published by researcher’s at UC Berkeley, also claims that $2.5 trillion of Californian real estate assets are at risk. The clear message, says co-author Prof. David Roland-Holst, is the strong economic case for timely action to slash carbon emissions and adapt to the already unavoidable effects of climate change.
“Our report makes clear the most expensive thing we can do about climate change is nothing,” he said. “As we learned in New Orleans, turning your back on the threat of natural disaster doesn’t make it go away.”
Instead of getting coal in their stockings, this year’s naughty (and even nice!) children may get lead. At least, that’s what may happen as parents look for cheaper toys this holiday season because of the nation’s economic woes.
Reports the Chicago Sun Times, the economic downturn can cause parents to turn to secondhand toys and discount Web sites to fill that space under the Christmas tree. And experts on Wednesday warned that those toys could be ones that got into the country before inspectors started seizing tainted toys in 2005. Read the rest of this entry »
T. Boone Pickens brought his one-man clean energy road show to New York City and the studios of The Daily Show on Wednesday for a rousing pep rally that got host Jon Stewart all fired up on clean energy and the Pickens Plan. Stewart got so wrapped up in the whole thing he said, “I and the rest of my audience are ready to follow you out of the building right now.”
Stewart asked Pickens how we get there and what exactly we should do as voters, constituents, activists, consumers to do it. Pickens said what we haven’t had in the past and what we need is strong leadership. And although he made no mention of the recent news that the credit squeeze had cramped the Pickens Plan, he seemed hopeful that the future of his plan was in good hands with the pending change in administration. Watch it:
Recently, the British government announced that it planned to buy a number of electric cars and vans for a new pilot scheme to see how such vehicles cope on Britain’s roads. The trials will take place in three cities, at a cost of £100m.
Poll suggest changes in voter attitudes towards clean energy and global warming
Throughout his campaign, though more fervently towards the end of it, Barack Obama made it clear that investing in renewable energy and focusing on building a new energy economy would be a centerpiece of his agenda should he have won. And now that he has, the results of a new Zogby poll suggest he’s got the public mandate to do it.
According to the post-election survey, 78% believe investing in clean energy is important to revitalizing America’s economy. Of those, 50% said they strongly agree clean energy investment is vital to the nation’s economic future. Read the rest of this entry »
Global warming could cause a lot of islands to be covered by the rising ocean. But what do you do if that island is your country and home? President Mohamed “Anni” Nasheed of the Maldives has an answer: move your country.
On Monday, Nasheed told The Guardian that he would start setting aside some cash to buy a new homeland if he loses his to global warming. The money would come from the country’s tourism industry, which brings in a billion dollars annually, and would go into a sovereign wealth fund, reports Australia’s Age.com.
Australia is on the shortlist of possible real estate. So is India and Sri Lanka because they are like the Maldives culturally.
While out there, this may be the only reasonable idea for the island country that doesn’t have the political backing to have much say in international global warming policy. The other option, according to the old Maldives president, is to build a wall around the island. But apparently that’s more expensive than relocating an entire country.
This is most definitely an adaptation strategy - the Maldives are looking beyond merely stopping carbon emissions. But small countries may not have any choice anymore.
Is it time for drastic action like this? Or will this drastic action put a stop to mitigation techniques because politicians will just look for the easy way out (if moving a homeland can be considered the easy way!)?
Mike Hilliard is no ordinary gardener. He’s the Managing Director of his own property development firm and an environmental architect. His banana plants are the variety musa japonica, and they’ve been living in the solar room which enriches the oxygen in the Hilliard family home, Tranquility, often described as the most energy-efficient house in the world. It has total energy costs of just £150 ($300) per year.
BP And Shell Dump Plans For Renewables In The UK Due To The U.S. Governments’ Tax Rebates And President-Elect Barack Obama
Delivering quite a blow to both Gordon Brown and Britain, BP has dumped its plans to build out wind farms and other renewable projects in Britain for projects in the United States. The US government incentives for clean energy projects provide convenient tax shelter for oil and gas revenues - something BP is looking for with an estimated $8 billion earmarked for the initiative.
Convenience is another factor. BP, which has a representative on the ruling board of the British Wind Energy Association, said difficulty in getting planning permission and lower economies of scale made the UK wind sector far less attractive than that of the US.
Britain’s eco-towns have a number of ‘firsts’ to encourage their creation: they will be the first new towns built for more than forty years, they will be the first designed for sustainability (low and zero carbon technologies, recycling waste and water, public transport) and they be the first to meet two targets: containing 30-50% social housing and consisting together of 3 million new homes to be built by 2020. Read the rest of this entry »
Red, Green and Blue brings together voices from across the political and ideological spectrums to discuss and debate critical environmental issues and current events.
