(Page 2 of 2)
For Chichilnisky, director of Columbia University's Consortium for Risk Management, a deal at Copenhagen is needed to further the carbon markets borne of Kyoto by providing carbon-reduction goals out to 2020. However, Chichilnisky has proposed rules changes for the markets to be considered at Copenhagen that could, if adopted, greatly expand the reach of carbon markets to the benefit of technology developers.
One such market extension is a system of "interlocking" options on the carbon markets. Under this system, the U.S. would buy options on carbon-emissions credits, giving it the right to reduce Chinese emissions, and the Chinese would buy options conveying the right to sell emissions credits to the U.S. for a minimum price. "The U.S. can force China to reduce its emissions, and the Chinese can say truthfully that it will be compensated if that happens," says Chichilnisky. Technology developers in both countries benefit by providing the equipment that delivers the real reductions behind the credits.
Chichilnisky says Copenhagen could also broaden the mechanism by which developing countries sell verified carbon reductions from energy or forestry projects to developed countries, which use such "offsets" to meet their greenhouse-gas-reduction obligations. European companies buying these offsets to meet their obligations under the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme helped finance the recent explosive growth of wind farms in China and India.
Her proposal would extend such financing to projects that capture more carbon dioxide than they produce, such as biomass-fired power plants that capture and sequester their emissions and air-capture devices that pull carbon dioxide out of ambient air. Chichilnisky is investing in the latter through New York-based air-capture startup Global Thermostat, which aims to use waste heat from coal-fired power plants to capture twice as much carbon dioxide as the plants emit.
A deal at Copenhagen and domestic legislation to implement it will, says Chichilnisky, provide "plenty of money and profits from building clean power plants and scrubbing the CO2 they emit."
Whether global warming is caused by burning fossil fuels or not is somewhat of a moot issue since there are strong economic, environmental and national security reasons to displace fossil fuels. If the reduction of CO2 emissions gives extra incentive to move away from fossil fuels, then that's great.
Just the ultimate savings in energy costs alone suggest that we move away from fossil fuels in an expeditious manner. Then the climate change clamor can be viewed in the same light as an unnecessarily divisive religious debate, such as "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?"
Exactly, whether or not climate change is man made is moot. We should still be good stewards of the only world we have.
However, using the threat of global warming to badger nations into doing what you think they should do is completely the wrong way to go about this.
In reality, completely stomping all scientific skepticism in relation to global warming was probably the worst thing that proponents of being "green" could do, and look like it will probably come back to bite them. But hey this is what happens when you get politics involved in science.
Politics = completely shutting your opponents down, ignoring their points, using other things to invalidate their points. (Peer Beat down)
Science = using hard evidence to prove your points, and using hard evidence to answer any questions that skeptics might have. (Peer Review)
However when it has come to climate change, the science has been treated more like politics, muddying the facts, ignoring pivotal questions, ect.
Hopefully we can all learn from this incident, and keep it from repeating in the future.
I believe your assertion is limited only to imported crude oil. If as you suggest fossil fuels do not cause global warming or their impact is minimal, then it makes good sense to take advantage of the 60 years of natural gas, 200 years of coal and domestic sources of oil in Alaska. As such, it is critical that we arrive at a valid conclusion regarding the use of fossil fuels. The information disclosed in the hacked emails shows that in fact much of the hype over global warming is just that - hype.
I think it is time to take the environmental movement back by focusing on real pollutants. I've been warning the Rocky Mountain Institute for years about this. I am now afraid that the resource (not just energy) efficiency revolution that they have done such great work on will be sacrificed at the alter of AWG. People will throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Given the CRU event and the damage it has done please consider the following.
1) Just plainly state that there should be an investigation into data manipulation and that all scientists should be forced to release all data and source code like REAL SCIENTISTS DO. Stop defending criminals by talking about peer review when they were reviewing each other's papers. You didn't rig data, collude to prevent others from being published, sabotage other scientists careers. You have to distance yourself immediately from the MBH et al ilk!
2) No longer talk about CO2. It's dead, proven to be rigged data and continuing to talk about it will only discredit the whole environmental movement.
3) Talk about mercury pollution. 40 tons a year from coal, 35 tons a year from garbage incineration and that is just from North America (and we are not that bad compared to Asia and Africa, scary but true!). Talk about the watershed destruction in coal mining.
4) Offer up a straight forward alternative. Shale gas for the short term renewables for short, medium and long term. The best thing for the environment in the last 50 years is the shale gas technology! Not pretty or renewable but it gives us 50 to 60 years if we decommission all coal & nuke plants and double that if we just phase them out.
So bring the shale gas online as fast as possible and convert/shutdown the coal plants first. With a lot less than 50 years of research and development renewables will be working and cost competitive.
If we allow stupid LIES and pseudo science like that practiced by the AWG crowd (MBH et al) to be used to tax us then yes we will all be a lot poorer. If we just push the resource efficiency like rmi.org then we will save money.
If we actually force scientists like Mann, Bradley, Hughes, Jones and the rest of the AWG crowd to make all the data and code publicly available LIKE REAL SCIENTISTS do then we will progress.
From: A real environmentalist!
Cheers
I wouldn't count nuclear out. It's one of the cleanest, most energy dense sources we have, and new technology can make it orders of magnitude more efficient and cleaner. There's enough uranium world wide to last 1000 years. So deploy it where it makes sense alongside other energy sources.
I agree that there are other pollutants out there to focus on, some of the double standards out there on hazardous waste are insane.
For instance, the nuclear has extremely strict guidelines on public radiation exposure. Coal (which contains all sorts of radioactive goodies) on the other hand does not. Did you know that more radioactive material has been released into the atmosphere through the burning of coal than the worlds entire nuclear industry? I'm not saying it is a bad thing that the nuclear industry has these guidelines, but that is the biggest factor that makes it uneconomical versus coal and natural gas.
When most people refer to "renewables" they seem to have a very limited view. In reality nothing is truly renewable, just some things have a longer sustainability than others, in the grand sceme of things the ones with the longest future are nuclear fusion and fission. When you factor in the land that wind and solar require to operate, then they are anything but renewable, as the earth has a finite surface area, and eventually you will run out of space trying to meet the worlds energy demand.
Fission using the resources found only on earth can last a long time, millions of years if done right. Even the waste from fission is a potential energy source. If you utilize the full decay chain the energy density of Uranium is insane, about 90,000,000 MJ/Kg vs Coal at about 56 MJ/Kg. Fusion is even higher at about 300,000,000 MJ/Kg.
The easiest solution to an environmentally friendly electrical system is a Nuclear fission base, with natural gas to offset peak loads. Use small scale solar heating solutions for home and business heating and hot water. Use geothermal to reduces building thermal management energy demand.
The most environmentally friendly solution: Nuclear fission base, with wind/solar with storage to offset peak loads. Use small scale solar heating solutions for home and business heating and hot water. Use geothermal to reduces building thermal management energy demand.
Once Fusion is commercially viable, fission plants nearing the end of their life can be replaced with fusion plants.
I always chuckle when I see articles like this that explain how the President can swoop in and sign off on a treaty pledging whatever from America. They always fail to report on the process of ratification in the US where the Senate most vote on such treaties in order to make them law. This is exactly what happened with Kyoto when the Clinton administration went along with it and the Senate then rejected it by a 95–0 vote in the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98). You can expect the same to occur with anything coming out of Copenhagen.
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
On Twitter
Become a Fan on Facebook
Subscribe to the Feed
mimarsinan
4 Comments
Hope.. Change.. Commitment
Hope.. Change.. Commitment !
C'mon guys, instead of throwing stones at each other concentrate on how we can do it better, more and faster than the other.
"The failure is not an option" but it depends of course what do you mean by failure. Failure to dictate protocols on already starving nations, or failure to get going all those taxes (on evil things of the past such as oil, gas, arms, you name it).
I want Obama (or ours Van Rompuy) declare to China, India, Brazil or others : "No problem, do whatever you think it's reasonable, just reduce it! I will do it better, I will do more!" And go tax the evil, abolish the dictatorship of oil, rally the wall street to go green, create green jobs, and green science/technology,…
By the way, we will all be surprised how fast that these things spread once it's unleashed (dare I to say virus-like) take for example, zero emission electric cars, with the right decisions/incentives taken, an ill fated auto industry can once again roar without the shame of destroying our planet. How? By commodifying the car 2.0 (standardizing charging/swapping of the batteries), by pouring clean electrons (solar, wind, or whatever). We will all be surprised what ingenious ways we will come up to produce energy without destroying the nature. That sounds CHANGE to me. A vision. Instead of trying to impose on others, just say "I will do better" and go do it! Needless to say who he has an edge on doing it, will also be selling it, instead of buying. And, by the way, one couldn't imagine a better place than Denmark to declare it! Test bed is concluding, now it's more than time to go deploy it!
S.Akay
Brussels
Reply