Perpetual Innovation

Category: CO2

  • NASA, NOAA Find 2014 Warmest Year in Modern Record | NASA

    NASA, NOAA Find 2014 Warmest Year in Modern Record | NASA

    This is a good recap of the tie in to record warming with human activity.

    It also give links the the raw data and the detailed methodology.

    Anybody want to play with the raw, unadulterated data, you will find a LOT of it; and no matter which way you look at it trend line appears. And the trend line is very depressing.

    BUT…

    This blog is devoted to easy, affordable solutions that can be implemented right now, in a business friendly way. In fact, the first things that can be done, energy efficiency and telecommuting, offer huge savings to everyone concerned (and a nice boost in the direction of sustainability).

    Why not start by picking the low-lying fruit now, and then address the heavy lifting as the next step.

    Orrrr, we all can wait and wait until governments to get into the mix to help us all with the problems.:-(

    We like the business now solution.

  • Can jaw-dropping visuals on CO2. BIG smokes vs. BIG OIL | GreenBiz.com

    Can jaw-dropping visuals change the climate conversation? | GreenBiz.com:

    This week in the news we wave the merger of BIG tobacco. Lorillard Brands if getting bought out by Reynolds; that is, the Newport brands are getting married to a camel. This will make a formidable competitor to Altria’s Marlboro man. (I still love the genius of changing your name from  Philip Morris USA to “Altria”, it makes the company sound so Alteristic!:-)

    So these are products, when used as directed will either kill you, or cause you to die younger… i.e., kill you.

    The big difference between pollution into the atmosphere is that it is generally not the smoker (and their family it seems with 2nd hand-me-downs) that dies, it is everyone in the vicinity, down wind, and down stream.

    The problems with burning fossil fuels, in addition to any other pollution that pollute in the traditional science, they create vast amounts more Carbon Dioxide (CO2) for the atmosphere than what the earth systems have become accustomed to dealing with. If 60% goes into the oceans, that causes increased acidification; what remains in the atmosphere, hangs around for about 100 years — a deadly experiment that we are just beginning to see the effects of.

    At least with tobacco, people enter into the deadly agreement under their own free will. The externalities of the well documented costs in life, income and economic product is largely offset by massive taxes. And it is really other countries that have fast increases in smoking while we in the USA have a rapidly dwindling market. (You could say that the market is dying off, if you wanted to add pun to death and sickness.) Although, electronic cigs are growing rapidly.

    But, the BIG producers of fossil fuels, have it rather sweet. They tap a natural resource, like an oil reservoir, pump it dry, sell into energy markets and have no responsibility as to the costs of the use of their products. The jaw dropping visuals from the main article here, show the billions (with a B) of tonnes of CO2 created from/by the BIGgest oil producing companies.

    The oil company pays some taxes to the country where it permanently depleted a natural resource. That seems only fair. The health costs of burning coal, direct pollution, are huge but generally not covered by the companies the produce and use it. Countries have taxes on transport fuel, to offset some of the costs of the vehicles. But nobody really pays the costs of the CO2 externalities. Or at least very little is done in that directly.

    So the two, or three, questions for government: Should government shut down BIG tobacco? Or tax it more? Or allow it to move closer to a duopoly where they can keep raising prices to consumers and have them pay through the nose?

    And the questions for government: Should government shut down BIG tobacco? Or tax it more? Or move to cap-n-trade? Or subsidize renewables?

    The one that seems to work best, and economists all like best, is a direct tax. The tax increases need to gradually escalate, at least at the rate of inflation. This, of course is political suicide. So the tax is out, and no addressable solution is in.

    This is a supply and demand world. In fossil fuels you have the BIG consumers, namely China and the USA, and the BIG producer companies. Both are to blame if what they sell/buy kills people. Right?

    The sinful problems associated with the dirty companies go on.. and they keep getting BIGger.

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  • Our planet is at a point of crisis – Leonard Pitts – Newsday

    Our planet is at a point of crisis – Leonard Pitts – Newsday:

    Leonard Pitts is going to get some hate mail out of this article. But, sadly, its all true.

    The only are that could be clarified a bit is the 97% of scientist agree. I think the agreement is that there is global warming, it drops way off to 80% or so of those scientists who believe that humans are primarily the cause.

    The controversy is well discussed in Wikipedia’s Global Warming Controversy.

    The idea that taking action now is not even thinkable because it would destroy the economy, jobs, etc., etc., is not a sound one. That was the argument against doing anything related to auto emissions and mileage standards.

    Fortunately coal is a good place for government intervention. The costs of coal in health and safety are massively higher than the $.04 per KWH from the past. Although we do a better job of cleaning coal, that doesn’t help if we ship it all off to China and India where they burn it without the same scrubbers that we use. Also, there’s the dirty little secret of coal: coal ash!. See our discussion here on: Pain in the ash!

    As well, coal produces huge amounts of CO2 emissions: twice the pollution and emission of oil or nat gas.

    Hey, here’s an idea. We are flaring about 50% of the nat gas produced in the USA, why not pipe it to power plants and use the fuel for “free”. Or, why not build small power plants near the frank wells and run the power lines to the grid… and have power for “free”.

    We, at SBP, like projects that save emissions and save money and save the environment. Things like Energy Efficiency (EE) and telecommuting… Projects that will save trillions of dollars every 3 years, en perpetuity. Projects that are — I hate to say it — “no brainer” decisions. Projects that require no government “help”.

    Sadly, these projects are hard areas to gain traction.
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  • Invest Yourself – Roaches, Never Just One

    Free Investment Newsletter | Invest Yourself:

    I really like what they (Robert B. Rinear) say on the currency. That all seems very very
    true.  The currencies in the world are
    all crap. The best may be Japan and they can’t keep the Yen low enough to be a     competitive exporter so it is wreaking havoc on their economy…
    The Yankee Dollar is a piece of crap. But we are less crappy then the
    Yuan or the Euro.  We are the best house
    in a slum-blighted neighborhood. 
    You can only have all the currencies in the world artificially low for
    so long. Especially if all the effects are compounding, year over year. I
    really do think that real assets, like land and gold, will slingshot into the
    stratosphere sometime rather soon, say 1 to 3 years.
    But the same thing that they complain about, the talking heads at CNN,
    they did themselves. Go look at any of the databases, since recorded history,
    on any of the measures you chose, and you will see that the global warming is
    very real, and accelerating. It also     coincides well with populations explosion and industrialization.  And it is a compounding effect. Panicking certainly doesn’t make
    sense, but ignoring facts and data supporting global warming means the “hoax”
    is on you.
    Give a look at: https://www.skepticalscience.com/
    (Real science and no crap, discussing the real facts and actual data about
    Climate Change & Global Warming. It is very real by every measure that is
    measurable.)
    Want to know about Sustainability, look at my book (www.TinyURL.com/SustainYBook/) created
    from live Wikipedia links on Sustainability. The Intro is by Elmer Hall and created the
    dynamic links to carefully selected Wikipedia articles (pages). The pages in
    this book represent the best, most current and most accurate single source of
    information related to sustainability and climate change in the world.

    Sustainability. The world currencies are not!… 
    Ever growing greenhouse gas emissions,  sustainable we are not.

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  • Skeptical Science on a Skeptical Scientist: Patrick Moore on climate change

    Is there really a debate as to whether humans are contributing to Global Warming?

    This will take you some time, so if you are looking for a couple quick sound-bites, skip this entire post, and absolutely, skip the videos.

    Dr. Patrick Moore was recently pointed out to me as a qualified scientist and a active skeptic of Global Warming. Read about Moore on Wikipedia. He was an active founder of Greenpeace, but left the greenie organization when they become too radical. He thinks that Greenpeace has moved toward more social and anti-capitalistic agendas, not so much the protection of the environment that Greenpeace was founded on.

    Now he is very skeptical of many things, especially the man-made contribution to global warming.

    Moore has become a PR guy for some of the most criticized companies and industries by environmental groups. Working, and consulting for ‘the enemy’ is not at all a bad thing. Being in the economic engine side of energy production, metals, etc., can give people detailed insight into complete solutions to major issues. But this does not seem to be how Moore functions; his interviews and books seem to actually be an extension of his job as a PR guy. See the criticism at the end of his Wikipedia page.

    (Wiki note: The Wikipedia entry seem mature, with about 700 edits, 21 over the last 30 days and the most recent edit today. No editorial complaints. Note that there are no articles outside links to this page, so Moore does not seem to be the indisputable expert he might lead us to believe.)

    There are many interviews of Moore that seem rational and reasonable enough on the surface: Hannity Feb 2014, and Fox Business Network with Stuart Varney pushing his book, Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout. But, don’t watch these videos unless you are willing to go look that the scientific breakdown of what Moore has to say. Point by point, issue by issue.

    This is a blog by John Mason (2012, Aug 25).
    Unpicking a Gish-Gallop: former Greenpeace figure Patrick Moore on climate change:

    Mason takes on the details of an interview in which Moore lavishes on facts, figures, assumptions and conclusions. And Mason breaks it down point-by-point with the best facts that exist today. Mason gives some of the best, and most factual, address of the issues associated with “Global Warming” and those who would say their “ain’t no such thing”. And he did it all without “sensationalist scare tactics”.

    When you are done, ask yourself: Who was the most shrill and panic? Who presented the facts with the most facts? Who’s probabilities are most probable, give the facts?

    This SustainZine blog does not devote much time to the debate over “Global Warming”. Life’s too short. There is global warming. Moore and Mason agree on this. Humans contribute to global warming. Moore says only a little; Mason (and the IPCC scientists) say humans contribute a lot to global warming. One of the last skeptical climate scientist Richard Muller, said that there was global warming and that humans are a major cause. Blogs here. Muller’s research was funded by the Koch brothers.

    This blog, however, focuses on Sustainability. Sustainability is good. Activities and business models that are non-sustainable are broken models. (Hah, you thought I was going to say “Bad”.). A steady move toward 100% sustainability is not only a good plan, it is a sane plan. (Hah, you thought I was going to use the words “insane not to do so…”.)

    So let’s get past this foolish debate and have real people and real companies start making real progress toward sustainability. If businesses and communities and individuals take long enough to get started on serious efforts to become sustainable, then governments will (start to) take charge.

    What probably scares people more than Global Warming itself, actually, is that Governments far and wide will jump into the mix to “fix” things.

    We especially like efforts that will save money, save time, save resources and reduce our impact on the environment. Usually, we “don’t need no government” for that. (Actually that, not entirely true, but subject of another story.)

    Responsible vs. Irresponsible.
    You choose?

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