Way too much credit to Darwin here, Keith. Biology is big, but I doubt
it will come close to the industries this planet must quickly act upon
to save itself. I believe that eliminating the carbon output is the
first priority--like by 2020, or the oceans will die. Biology will
contribute to that end, but the world just simply has to stop the emissions.
Your point is taken about why Islamic countries seem rather stuck, but
they are keen to hold on to their control of the energy markets, and are
seriously hoping to install renewables to 10% of total output by 2020,
and up to 80% by 2050 (-- unfortunately, not urgent enough). They know
that oil has seen its day. They have so much solar potential alone that
they envision energy exports to Europe and Africa in the near future.
Perhaps sustainables, if they can stay away from nuclear, will help them
out of the stagnation far sooner than what Western influences have in
mind for them.
Natalia
*BU DHABI, United Arab Emirates: Renewable sources such as solar and
wind could supply up to 80 per cent of the world's energy needs by 2050
and play a significant role in fighting global warming, a top climate
panel concluded Monday.*
But the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that to
achieve that level, governments would have to do more to introduce
policies that integrate renewables into existing power grids and promote
their benefits in terms of reducing air pollution and improving public
health.
Authors said the report concluded that the use of renewables is on the
rise, their prices are declining and that with the right policies, and
they will be an important tool both in tackling climate change and
helping poor countries use the likes of solar or wind to develop their
economies in a sustainable fashion.
"The report shows that it is not the availability of the resource but
the public policies that will either expand or constrain renewable
energy development over the coming decades," said Ramon Pichs, who
co-chaired the group tasked with producing the report.
"Developing countries have an important stake in this future -- this is
where 1.4 billion people without access to electricity live yet also
where some of the best conditions exist for renewable energy deployment."
Governments endorsed the renewable report Monday after a four-day
meeting. The nonbinding scientific policy document is to advise
governments as they draw up policies and to help guide the private
sector as it considers areas in which to invest.
Activists said Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two oil-rich states that don't
have an interest in alternatives, successfully watered down the report's
language on the cost benefits of renewables -- a charge the Saudis
denied, saying they only were arguing to stick with the science. Brazil,
a major ethanol producer, opposed language on the negative effects of
biofuels and hydro as well as the economic potential of other renewables.
The report reviewed bioenergy, solar energy, geothermal, hydropower,
ocean energy and wind. It did not consider nuclear, so Pachauri said the
recent nuclear accident in Japan was not discussed nor did it have any
impact on the report's conclusions.
The IPCC has said swift, deep reductions in use of non-renewables are
required to keep temperatures from rising more than 3.8 degrees
Fahrenheit (2 Celsius) above preindustrial levels, which could trigger
catastrophic climate impacts.
Stephan Singer, director for Global Energy Policy at WWF International,
welcomed the report but said the IPCC should have gone further. He said
its studies have found that the world could be fueled 100 per cent by
renewables by 2050.
"IPCC delivers a landmark report that shows the rapid growth, low-cost
potential for renewable energy -- but unfortunately does not endorse a
100 per cent renewable energy pathway until 2050," Singer said in a
statement.
"We need to be fast if we want to tackle pressing issues as varied as
energy security and efficiency and at the same time keep climate change
well below the danger threshold of 2 degrees."
http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/09/renewable-energy-key-in-climate-change-fight-un.html
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On 6/25/2011 12:34 AM, Keith Hudson wrote:
The basic reason why the populations of Islamic countries in the
Middle East have little hope of improving their way of life for many
decades to come is that their religious leaders are increasingly
opposing Western science as a whole (although supportive of military
technology). They've actually been doing this for two or three
centuries or more, but it is now becoming rampant. Even imams in
Western mosques dare not support Darwinism in their Friday sermons for
fear of being hounded out of office.
The fact is that Darwinian evolution is not, as it were, a quaint (and
slightly old-fashioned) sub-set in the history of science but the very
basis of the fastest-growing area of science today -- biology.
Continuing progress within the fields of medicine, neurophysiology,
agriculture, education and human behaviour has no chance at all
without evolutionary genetics as the explanatory key and the basis of
all experimentation and subsequent development. And it is in these
fields, rather than yet more of the consumer goods and mass
entertainments of the last 300 years, that economic growth in the
Western countries has a chance of resuming.
There are many Muslims -- even biologists -- in the Islamic world who
know this, but they're in a very small minority -- microscopic even --
within their countries. Goodness knows when they'll ever be allowed to
practise more freely and also to influence public opinion. If
politicians in the Western countries genuinely want to bring the
Islamic countries out of medievalism then they ought to be applying
themselves as to how to encourage science education in those countries
and not in fanning the flames of social protest, when they occur, with
abstract notions such as 'democracy' -- procedures which, even now,
are still pretty fragile in the West.
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/06/
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