MetaFilter posts tagged with energy and climatechange

Inconvenient Truths: Get Ready to Rethink What It Means to Be Green

nthdegx — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 07:09:06 -0800

Inconvenient Truths: Get Ready to Rethink What It Means to Be Green. Last month, Wired published what it called "10 green heresies" which makes the case for urban living, intensive forest management and, er, air conditioning, among other things.

Smoke and mirrors

MrMerlot — Tue, 27 May 2008 16:03:47 -0800

Meet Joules the climate change-sceptic robot. Joules is employed to teach 8-14 year-old school children in the UK about energy use. Joules says: "oil and gas could be in short supply in about 50 years time. The earth is believed to be getting warmer and sea levels apper to be rising. Energy Chest is funded in part by the world's biggest oil company: ExxonMobil. Energy Chest follows a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, entitled “Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air” [PDF] which demonstrated how the "oil giant has adopted the tobacco industry’s disinformation tactics", (as well as some of their personnel), to "cloud the scientific understanding of climate change and delay action on the issue". While in the UK, the Royal Society has complained about ExxonMobil campaign to fund groups that attempt to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change. Not that the kids are being told all that when they stumble across Joules or - worse - are being shown him by their teacher.

Biofuels worsen global warming

salvia — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 13:50:30 -0800

Biofuels worsen global warming, according to two studies published in Science last week. Current US biofuel policies would double carbon emissions over the gasoline alternative. More details: ScienceExpress fulltext pdf of study #1, powerpoint summary of study #1, abstract of study #2, summary of both, policy recommendations pdf (via: 1, 2). Here's some context I needed to understand the US study: annually, the US produces ~5 billion gallons of ethanol and uses ~140 billion gallons of gasoline = 145 billion gallons total (sour ces). US law now calls for 36 billion gallons of biofuel production by 2022. The projections are based on increasing biofuel production to 31 billion gallons by 2015 (or the equivalent of the entire US grain crop from 2004).

Renewable Energy Incentives

alms — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 11:21:08 -0800

Want to increase your energy efficiency and use more renewable energy? Want to install solar panels on your roof, buy a hybrid car, put in new storm windows, or make any number of other green improvements to your home or business? Want to save money doing it? DSIRE is a comprehensive source of information on state, local, utility, and federal incentives that promote renewable energy and energy efficiency. Just click on your state and take it from there.

Climate-safe home design - alternative building is ready to go mainstream.

Listener — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 14:13:22 -0800

Passivhaus/Passive house design that saves mucho energy, does not require air conditioning, does not require heating even when outdoors it's 10 below! Since, for example, more than 30% of energy consumed in the UK is for homes and 82 per cent of that is space and water heating, [Monbiot, "Heat,"chapter 5, "Our Leaky Homes,"] changing our standards of home design is important. Diagram shows that basic solar design concepts are well understood and technically easy to implement in new construction. [If only my house could be turned 45 degrees!] Possibly through ignorance, and partly through the desire to cut corners instead of doing things right, we do not make these wise concepts a priority. There are lots of cool alternative building techniques, many of which are traditional and being revived. This leading design standard saves 90% of energy used in the home. Here in Canada it's called the net zero energy home.

algae power

reklaw — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 17:10:15 -0800

Will algae defeat global warming? "Fed a generous helping of CO2-laden emissions, courtesy of the power plant's exhaust stack, the algae grow quickly... The cleansed exhaust bubbles skyward, but with 40 percent less CO2... The algae is harvested daily and a combustible vegetable oil is squeezed out: biodiesel".

Oily lollipops, carbonized brains

troutfishing — Tue, 05 Oct 2004 08:04:12 -0800

Pederasts of the mind: Of kids, lies and Oil. The American Petroleum Institute partners (in 2004) with The National Science Teacher's Association (NSTA) and Scholastic (see: Scholastic's creedo) to provide K-12 lesson plans, on energy and oil, which resemble the API's own "Teacher Lesson Plans" and snappy flash presentations such as Progress Through Petroleum! which are bundled with fun stuff and cool facts. The NSTA/API lessons teach all about energy and oil except the global environmental impacts. Didactic bonus from NSTA's oil-friendly curriculum : a surrealistic gallery of oil industry imagery for kids to download.

Recent glacial melt speedup in Greenland and Antarctica shocks researchers, while the Pentagon games scenarios of Abrupt Climate Change : Don't worry, says the DOE's Energy Ant - oil's good, like cows, m'kay ? . Extra credit : Play the Oil and natural Gas Crossword Puzzle, or the "Industry Lesson Plan Game" (that, and more, inside)

nprigoda — Tue, 24 Jul 2001 08:22:32 -0800

Alberta will face a disastrous competitive and economic disadvantage if Canada signs the Kyoto accord. Meanwhile, this year has been one of the worst for smog in Toronto. Some municipalities in Ontario are voluntarily looking towards alternate energy sources because they feel, in the long run the costs will be lower (lower health costs, avoiding higher fossil fuel costs, etc. - sorry, no link) What do you think? Is it possible to have economically viable alternative energy, and is the US setting a bad example for countries that feel they need to compete?