Re: [Biofuel] The Earth is Full ( Thomas L. Friedman NY times)
environment have become bottlenecks and grave impediments to the nation's economic and social development. What China's minister is telling us, says Gilding, is that the Earth is full. We are now using so many resources and putting out so much waste into the Earth that we have reached some kind of limit, given current technologies. The economy is going to have to get smaller in terms of physical impact. We will not change systems, though, without a crisis. But don't worry, we're getting there. We're currently caught in two loops: One is that more population growth and more global warming together are pushing up food prices; rising food prices cause political instability in the Middle East, which leads to higher oil prices, which leads to higher food prices, which leads to more instability. At the same time, improved productivity means fewer people are needed in every factory to produce more stuff. So if we want to have more jobs, we need more factories. More factories making more stuff make more global warming, and that is where the two loops meet. But Gilding is actually an eco-optimist. As the impact of the imminent Great Disruption hits us, he says, our response will be proportionally dramatic, mobilizing as we do in war. We will change at a scale and speed we can barely imagine today, completely transforming our economy, including our energy and transport industries, in just a few short decades. We will realize, he predicts, that the consumer-driven growth model is broken and we have to move to a more happiness-driven growth model, based on people working less and owning less. How many people, Gilding asks, lie on their death bed and say, 'I wish I had worked harder or built more shareholder value,' and how many say, 'I wish I had gone to more ballgames, read more books to my kids, taken more walks?' To do that, you need a growth model based on giving people more time to enjoy life, but with less stuff. Sounds utopian? Gilding insists he is a realist. We are heading for a crisis-driven choice, he says. We either allow collapse to overtake us or develop a new sustainable economic model. We will choose the latter. We may be slow, but we're not stupid. A version of this op-ed appeared in print on June 8, 2011, on page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: The Earth Is Full. ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20110612/e194d6f7/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Call for Tax on Financial Deals to Fight Global Warming
Solution: Tax of 1 basis point on all bond, foreign exchange and commodity transactions in the primary (from the issuing entity) and secondary (transacted through a broker) markets. Anything more than 1 basis point would be more altruistic. Cheers, Christian On Jun 11, 2011, at 11:13 AM, Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/06/08-1 Published on Wednesday, June 8, 2011 by The Irish Times Call for Tax on Financial Deals to Fight Global Warming by Frank MacDonald A tax on international financial transactions could generate real funds immediately to help developing countries protect tropical rain forests and fight global warming, the latest round of climate talks in Bonn heard yesterday. Bolivian ambassador Pablo Solon, who called on all countries to adopt such a tax, complained that most of the $30 billion in fast-start finance pledged by developed nations at the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009 had not come through. Instead of countries re-branding aid as climate finance, he said, a tax on international financial transactions would be a mechanism that can generate real funds . . . to act immediately to address the protection of forests and fight climate change. Mr Solon also called for the Kyoto Protocol to be renewed at the Durban climate summit in December, on the basis that there was no time to negotiate new legally binding treaty aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions in developed countries. We cannot come out of South Africa with the targets we have now, as the UN Environment Programme has shown they will lead us to 4 degrees Celsius of global warming. We must have targets that limit temperature rise to between 1C and 1.5C to preserve life. More than 3,000 participants from 183 countries are attending the two-week session in Bonn, which is meant to lay the groundwork for Durban. But few believe that progress will be made on crunch issues such as a renewal of Kyoto, which expires next year. Last week carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached the highest level ever recorded, at nearly 390 parts per million, and the International Energy Agency said emissions from energy generation in 2010 were also the highest ever - despite the recession. With carbon emissions at record highs, it's clear that policymakers are out of step with the speed of climate change in the real world, said Greenpeace's climate policy co-ordinator Tove Maria Ryding. [They] need to start delivering proven solutions. UN climate chief Christiana Figueres said at the opening session that governments have an unavoidable responsibility to make clear progress towards the 2011 climate objectives which they had agreed in at the Cancún climate conference last December. Governments lit a beacon in Cancún towards a low-emission world which is resilient to climate change. They committed themselves to a maximum global average temperature rise of 2 degrees Celsius, with further consideration of a 1.5 degree maximum. Now, more than ever, it is critical that all efforts are mobilised towards living up to this commitment, Ms Figueres said, adding that negotiators were working hard to provide clarity on the architecture of the future international climate regime to reduce emissions. Separately, 18 Greenpeace activists who scaled an Arctic oil rig off the coast of Greenland have been arrested. They were demanding that operators Cairn Energy reveal its plans to deal with potential oil spills. Cairn Energy had sought an injunction against Greenpeace protesting against its operations in the Arctic region. But when the matter came before a court in Amsterdam on Monday, the judge also asked the company to make its oil spill response plan public. A final ruling on the injunction application is due tomorrow. © 2011 The Irish Times ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): biofuel@sustainablelists.org/'http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20110611/47b593b3/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] The Green Revolution Backfires: Sweden's Lesson for Real Sustainability
Something is rotten in the state of Sweden. Or not. But I do smell a dead rat in here somewhere. We have studies from the U.S. that switching from petro-fuel to electricity for transportation reduces emissions, including greenhouse gases, even when the electricity comes entirely from coal-fired plants. However, in Sweden, the primary energy sources are hydro and nuclear (over 90% of the generation from those two sources). Fossil sources produce considerably less than 10% of the electricity mix. (This document is a bit dated, but presents the information nicely in a graph on page 2. http://ec.europa.eu/energy/energy_policy/doc/factsheets/mix/mix_se_en.pdf) So, Sweden is switching from conventional gasoline and diesel vehicles to electric and plug-in hybrids, charging from a grid that is over 90% supplied from essentially zero-GHG sources, but the emissions are going up? And, the actual market penetration is still trivially small - I'm guessing well below 1% of the total road-going fleet in the country. Doesn't pass the smell test. Unfortunately, the article doesn't bother to cite the evidence used to support it's conclusion. My suspicion: the Swedish 'transportation sector' includes something other than private cars that might be driving the numbers up (e.g., ships burning bunker C crude). Actually, after a very limited Web search, I could not find anything credible that looked like the 'evidence' for the article - just lots of copy-cat items that also did not provide citations for the desired data. I did find this, dated January 2011: http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/change-in-total-ghg-emissions, which shows Sweden's transportation GHG emissions going up 9% from 1990 to 2008. The catch is that Sweden did not get serious about EV incentives until about 2008-2009, a time period not covered by the data for this report. Here's someone else's response (found while searching for the 'evidence'). http://dagblog.com/link/what-if-green-products-make-us-pollute-more-10581 (check the comments by quinn) Darryl On 11/06/2011 1:10 PM, Keith Addison wrote: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/10-3 Published on Friday, June 10, 2011 by CommonDreams.org The Green Revolution Backfires: Sweden's Lesson for Real Sustainability by Firmin DeBrabander What if electric cars made pollution worse, not better? What if they increased greenhouse gas emissions instead of decreasing them? Preposterous you say? Well, consider what's happened in Sweden. Through generous subsidies, Sweden aggressively pushed its citizens to trade in their cars for energy efficient replacements (hybrids, clean diesel vehicles, cars that run on ethanol). Sweden has been so successful in this initiative that it leads the world in per capita sales of 'green cars.' To everyone's surprise, however, greenhouse gas emissions from Sweden's transportation sector are up. Or perhaps we should not be so surprised after all. What do you expect when you put people in cars they feel good about driving (or at least less guilty), which are also cheap to buy and run? Naturally, they drive them more. So much more, in fact, that they obliterate energy gains made by increased fuel efficiency. We need to pay attention to this as GM and Nissan roll out their new green cars to great fanfare. The Chevy Volt, a hybrid with a lithium-ion battery, can go 35 miles on electric power alone (after charging over night, for example), and GM brags on its website that if you limit your daily driving to that distance, you can commute gas-free for an average of $1.50 a day. The Volt's price is listed at a very reasonable $33K (if you qualify for the maximum $7500 in tax credits). The fully electric Nissan Leaf is advertized for an even more reasonable $26K (with qualifying tax credits, naturally). What a deal-and it's good for you, too, the carmakers want you to know. As GM helpfully points out on its website, Electricity is a cleaner source of power. Sweden is a model of sustainability innovation, while the US is the most voracious consumer on the planet. Based on Sweden's experience with green cars, it's daunting to imagine their possible impact here. Who can doubt that they'll likely inspire Americans to make longer commutes to work, live even further out in the exurbs, bringing development, blacktop and increased emissions with them? In its current state, the green revolution is largely devoted to the effort to provide consumers with the products they have always loved, but now in affordable energy efficient versions. The thinking seems to be that through this gradual exchange, we can reduce our collective carbon footprint. Clearly, however, this approach is doomed if we don't reform our absurd consumption habits, which are so out-of-whack that they risk undoing any environmental gains we might make. Indeed, we are such ardent, addicted consumers that we take efficiency gains
Re: [Biofuel] The Green Revolution Backfires: Sweden's Lesson for Real Sustainability
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Re: [Biofuel] The Green Revolution Backfires: Sweden's Lesson for Real Sustainability
Hello all, sincerely Swedish I have never heard of this article. Neither have I heard any of the conclusions in the article. The truth is that people driving flexible fuel cars fill with gasoline if the gasoline is cheaper than the E85 (15% gasoline, 85% ethanol). It is also true that the diesel car sector has been growing rapidly during the past years. But that was from a very low level, seen from European standards. How that can increase the CO2 is a riddle. The big CO2 cut is however in heat production. The heat power plants producing hot water for houses and flats are nowadays almost exclusively burring CO2 neutral fuels, such as waste vegetable oils. I do not think that the article has been published in Sweden, even though there are, even here, strong forces aiming to turn the energy consumption back to only fossil fuels and - in worst case- nuclear power. I suppose they are fighting that battle in other countries too. Jan W - Original Message - From: Darryl McMahon [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org Sent: Sunday, June 12, 2011 3:20 PM Subject: Re: [Biofuel] The Green Revolution Backfires: Sweden's Lesson for Real Sustainability Something is rotten in the state of Sweden. Or not. But I do smell a dead rat in here somewhere. We have studies from the U.S. that switching from petro-fuel to electricity for transportation reduces emissions, including greenhouse gases, even when the electricity comes entirely from coal-fired plants. However, in Sweden, the primary energy sources are hydro and nuclear (over 90% of the generation from those two sources). Fossil sources produce considerably less than 10% of the electricity mix. (This document is a bit dated, but presents the information nicely in a graph on page 2. http://ec.europa.eu/energy/energy_policy/doc/factsheets/mix/mix_se_en.pdf) So, Sweden is switching from conventional gasoline and diesel vehicles to electric and plug-in hybrids, charging from a grid that is over 90% supplied from essentially zero-GHG sources, but the emissions are going up? And, the actual market penetration is still trivially small - I'm guessing well below 1% of the total road-going fleet in the country. Doesn't pass the smell test. Unfortunately, the article doesn't bother to cite the evidence used to support it's conclusion. My suspicion: the Swedish 'transportation sector' includes something other than private cars that might be driving the numbers up (e.g., ships burning bunker C crude). Actually, after a very limited Web search, I could not find anything credible that looked like the 'evidence' for the article - just lots of copy-cat items that also did not provide citations for the desired data. I did find this, dated January 2011: http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/change-in-total-ghg-emissions, which shows Sweden's transportation GHG emissions going up 9% from 1990 to 2008. The catch is that Sweden did not get serious about EV incentives until about 2008-2009, a time period not covered by the data for this report. Here's someone else's response (found while searching for the 'evidence'). http://dagblog.com/link/what-if-green-products-make-us-pollute-more-10581 (check the comments by quinn) Darryl On 11/06/2011 1:10 PM, Keith Addison wrote: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/10-3 Published on Friday, June 10, 2011 by CommonDreams.org The Green Revolution Backfires: Sweden's Lesson for Real Sustainability by Firmin DeBrabander What if electric cars made pollution worse, not better? What if they increased greenhouse gas emissions instead of decreasing them? Preposterous you say? Well, consider what's happened in Sweden. Through generous subsidies, Sweden aggressively pushed its citizens to trade in their cars for energy efficient replacements (hybrids, clean diesel vehicles, cars that run on ethanol). Sweden has been so successful in this initiative that it leads the world in per capita sales of 'green cars.' To everyone's surprise, however, greenhouse gas emissions from Sweden's transportation sector are up. Or perhaps we should not be so surprised after all. What do you expect when you put people in cars they feel good about driving (or at least less guilty), which are also cheap to buy and run? Naturally, they drive them more. So much more, in fact, that they obliterate energy gains made by increased fuel efficiency. We need to pay attention to this as GM and Nissan roll out their new green cars to great fanfare. The Chevy Volt, a hybrid with a lithium-ion battery, can go 35 miles on electric power alone (after charging over night, for example), and GM brags on its website that if you limit your daily driving to that distance, you can commute gas-free for an average of $1.50 a day. The Volt's price is listed at a very reasonable $33K (if you qualify for the maximum $7500 in tax credits). The fully electric Nissan
