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October 25, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
We need a system of cooperative public-private infrastructure financing, a national infrastructure bank. But we also need to use that fabric of cooperative investment and output to foster specific areas of major improvement to our national economy. The model could be replicated across the world, but the US is uniquely positioned to deploy this solution [...]
August 27, 2011 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Across the eastern seaboard of the United States, from South Carolina to Maine, there is an intense and well-ordered preparation underway to brace against and limit the fallout from Hurricane Irene. In North Carolina, 300,000 people have been ordered to evacuate the Outer Banks and low-lying coastal areas. The mayor of New York City, Michael [...]
August 20, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Futurismo Verde :: Desde el comienzo de la civilización humana, el proceso de montar sociedades organizadas, formular historias compartidas y diseñar visiones del futuro humano, el ser humano ha buscado maneras de profetizar y de pronosticar. La ciencia moderna ha descubierto indicios fiables que ayudan a describir el mundo, pero para saber qué vendrá después [...]
August 19, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
En una reunión de científicos europeos, en Estocolmo, el hombre que inventó el término ‘antropoceno’ para describir una nueva época geológica—en la que la influencia humana domina los proceso naturales—ha anunciado que el término ahora se está aplicando desde múltiples campos de estudio. La importancia real del término es que la información ecológica es cada vez más imprescindible para poder llevar a cabo las ambiciones humanas de una forma responsable y sostenible.
August 9, 2011 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
As early as one day after the March 11 tsunami sparked the (still ongoing) nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, Japan’s government had advanced radiation fallout and atmospheric modeling showing the area most likely to be hit by fallout from the explosions and the ongoing seepage. The government allegedly concealed this information, to prevent [...]
August 7, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
To build a future of vibrant open democracy and robust and sustainable economic prosperity, it is necessary to privilege creative activities and constructive solutions to the challenges we face. Addressing major challenges in constructive, innovative ways, is the single most significant driver, historically, of sustained economic booms. In short, we need to move deliberately and swiftly toward a creative prosperity agenda.
August 1, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Yemen may be where the Arab spring, this sweeping current of democratic upheaval in the Arabic-speaking world, takes a turn definitively toward violence or toward civic solutions. The regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh, a tribal dictatorship using feudal power tactics, based in the capital Sanaa, is now waging one war against extremist Islamists and another against non-violent pro-democracy protesters.
July 5, 2011 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
The rupture of a pipeline in Montana has caused at least several tens of thousands of barrels of oil to spill into the pristine Yellowstone River, raising concerns about the tar sands pipeline planned to pass through the most important fossil aquifer in North America. The spill is precisely the kind of irreversible and unnecessary environmental disaster conservationists, farmers, energy reformers and local activists across the Great Plains seek to prevent.
June 26, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Citizens Climate Lobby is an international non-partisan, non-profit volunteer organization, working to build political will for a livable world. To do that, they aim to find an ideologically neutral, democratically viable, market-focused way to reduce the amount of carbon trapped in Earth’s atmosphere and speed the transition to clean, renewable fuels. I am proud to be a member of the organization, and one who is inspired by the passion of its volunteers and fortunate to count so many good friends among its partners.
April 28, 2011 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
In his weekly address, President Obama laid out his plans to address rising gas prices over the short and the long term. While there is no silver bullet to bring down prices right away, there are a few things we can do. This week, the Attorney General launched a task force dedicated to rooting out fraud or manipulations in the oil markets. The President called for finally ending the $4 billion in taxpayer money that the oil and gas companies receive annually. And, we need to continue safe, responsible production of oil at home. But in the long term, we need to invest in clean, renewable energy. That is why the President strongly disagrees with a proposal in Congress that cuts our investments in clean energy by 70 percent.
April 12, 2011 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
After what now looks like significant foot-dragging, for fully one month, Japanese authorities have finally admitted the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is undergoing a level 7 nuclear emergency, the worst possible. There is still an effort to slow-walk this news, with repeated claims the radiation release has not been as significant as Chernobyl, also a level 7, but the Fukushima disaster involves 6 reactors, with at least 4 considered to be at ongoing risk of meltdown.
March 27, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Reports from Tokyo today have authorities telling residents water is now safe for infant consumption, even as reports from Fukushima show radiation levels may have surged to 10 million times the normal level. Readings taken 30 miles out to sea have found radiation levels in seawater at 1,850 times the normal level. More nations around the Pacific Ocean are expressing concern about the handling of the disaster.
March 16, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
A report from the American Medical Association finds the US is not prepared to deal with the public health crisis that would ensue from a major nuclear accident. There is also evidence suggesting that aging nuclear plants are less stable and less secure than the public is led to believe. Indeed, radiation releases are surprisingly and disturbingly common.
March 15, 2011 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
As the four troubled nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex continue to deteriorate, the news is breaking this evening that workers at Reactor #4 are being forced to abandon the site, due to the risk of extreme radiation contamination. The evacuation means that at least one of the failing reactors will not have any one in place to manage it; at this hour, it is not clear whether the entire Fukushima complex is being evacuated.
March 15, 2011 :: The Editors :: No Comment Yet
Nuclear power plants, like the one at Fukushima Daiichi, contain 1,000 times more radioactivity to leak than the Hiroshima bomb. Nuclear scientists estimate 1,000,000 people would be killed or injured in a major accident, were one to occur at the San Onofre plant in southern California. But Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) on Monday compared the [...]
March 15, 2011 :: staff :: 2 Comments
A fourth reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has now reportedly lost its cooling system and is on fire, while a third of the troubled reactors has suffered an explosion. The exclusion zone has been expanded to 19 miles, and international monitors now say the Fukushima nuclear emergency is officially the second worst [...]
March 13, 2011 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Japanese authorities are reporting, just after 3:00 am EDT, that two of the reactor cores at the Fukushima nuclear plant may have begun meltdown. At least nine people are reported to have been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. A 20km exclusion zone is being established, and authorities say they are evacuating an estimated 200,000 [...]
March 12, 2011 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
The Fukushima nuclear plant contains 5 nuclear reactors, which combine to produce the world’s largest concentrated power generation. At least one of the reactors is reported to have radiation levels 1,000 times normal inside one of its control rooms. Today, RussiaToday is reporting that white smoke seen rising from the plant may be due to an explosion. Authorities have warned that some radioactive material may have seeped out into the environment already. There is an ongoing concern that the plant may be vulnerable to meltdown, as plant operators have not been able to resume cooling of nuclear fuel.
March 12, 2011 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Google yesterday launched a “person finder” for Japan, to help people looking for relatives and loved ones who may be lost in a communications outage or in physical danger, due to the earthquake and tsunami. Facebook also has a disaster relief service at facebook.com/DisasterRelief. There is also a surge in information on Twitter at hash-tags like #tsunami or #sendai or Fukushima.
March 11, 2011 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Two nuclear reactors in Fukushima, Japan, are now reported to be unable to cool the nuclear fuel in their cores, and radioactive materials may have seeped into the environment. The reactors reportedly suffered service interruption after the worst earthquake in Japanese history. The magnitude 8.9 quake unleashed a massive tsunami the pushed far inland at Sendai, northeast of Tokyo.
March 3, 2011 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Every wave on the ocean that has ever risen up and refused to lay back down has been dashed on the shore, but it is the very purpose of a wave to rise up, because once it rises up above the horizon it finally has the perspective to see that it’s not just a wave, that it’s a part of a mighty ocean. And the sharpest rock on the wildest shore can never break that ocean apart, they can never wear that ocean down, because it’s the ocean that shapes the shore.
February 17, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Oil as a combustible fuel is a 19th-century improvement on the 18th-century paradigm of burning coal to produce steam to run industrial machinery. The efficiency and portability of carbon-based fuels, in terms of the built-in energy they can store and which is released when they are burnt, has long been the driving factor in their popularity as an energy source. But new technologies are now making it possible to produce large amounts of portable energy sustainably, with none of the atmospheric damage resulting from the burning of carbon-based fuels.
February 13, 2011 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
There is nothing ideological about the issue of renewable energy resources. Proponents tend to care about the health of the natural environment, which motivates their wish to see renewables replace high-polluting fuel sources like oil and coal, but the technologies, the fact of their economic viability and their usefulness for society at large, are not in any way a matter of ideology.
December 27, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: 8 Comments
Climate change means “global warming”, so how can severe winter storms and excessively cold breezes be evidence of a warming climate? The key is in the word “global”: the warming of the overall global average temperature need not manifest in all places at all times as warmer weather. Throughout the history of human civilization, the Earth’s climate has remained relatively stable, due to optimal global average temperatures; as global average temperatures slip outside that optimal range, the warmer air makes the interaction between climate systems more inconsistent and more severe.
October 5, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
In Brazil’s hotly contested presidential election, to decide the successor to the hugely popular Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, founder and leader of the Workers Party of Brazil (PT), the failure of any candidate to win more than 50% of the vote has set up a second round between the two leading candidates. But for many, the big news is that the Green Party (PV) candidate, Marina Silva, won nearly 20% of the vote, which means neither of the two leading candidates has a lot of freedom to govern without her support. Silva will now clearly demand that whichever candidate she backs for the runoff agree to enact much of the Green Party’s sustainability platform.
September 26, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Former Pres. Bill Clinton told CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo, in an interview before a live audience this week at the Clinton Global Initiative, in New York City, that a commitment to clean energy is required to drive job growth, cut unemployment and boost the economy. He noted that the four countries who are projected to beat their clean energy targets under the Kyoto Protocol —Denmark, Germany, Sweden and the U.K.— all have lower unemployment, and less economic inequality than the U.S., due to the green tech boom.
July 17, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Buckminster Fuller was one of the 20th century’s most visionary architects, whose philosophy of socially responsible planning and design has influenced cutting-edge technology research and public policy the world over, through the UN’s development programs and pioneering entrepreneurship aimed at lifting billions out of poverty. His vision was, in his own words, “To make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone.”
July 16, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
Well integrity test on new cap for Deepwater Horizon well shows no oil escaping. At 3:25 pm EDT, BP announced there was no more oil leaking from the well. But as BP, local politicians and Pres. Obama all noted, this is just the beginning of the test. They were able to successfully close the well [...]
July 12, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Scientists in Mississippi say they have discovered microscopic globules of hydrocarbons, i.e. petroleum, inside the outer shells of blue crab living along the Gulf coast. This discovery appears to show that oil has now entered the food chain. This process cannot be reversed, though measures may be taken to limit the spread of the oil deeper into the local and regional ecosystem.
July 5, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Sustainable security is a paradigm shift in foreign policy, economic and defense planning: it entails considering that not only diplomatic relations and military preparedness or alliances, but the full spectrum of connections between our society and the world abroad, determine the degree to which our future security and prosperity can be reasonably guaranteed.
July 3, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) this week called for a move toward building consensus for a scaled back version of the climate legislation pending in the United States Senate. Two possible models, given the nature of the Kerry-Lieberman proposal, as written, would be to either establish at the federal level the kind of cooperative emissions reduction strategy already adopted by a coalition of states across the northeast or a limit on total carbon emissions from power plants only.
July 3, 2010 :: Eva Scherson :: Comments Off
Sen. Olympia Snowe, Republican of Maine, is known for being a moderate, a pragmatist, and often the key to determining what gets done in a hotly divided partisan environment. She has consistently sought to take responsible positions on environmental policy, but has supported her party in many key votes. Now, she is pledging to push for a broader coalition of support for a scaled-back climate bill. Her approach is being called “utility-only”, focusing carbon emissions capping on power generation utilities, something supporters say will make the pending legislation more viable economically and administratively.
June 29, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Between June 21 and 25, Citizens Climate Lobby took its message to Capitol Hill, meeting with 52 different members of Congress, or their energy and climate staff, in both the House and the Senate. The first CCL national conference was fortuitously timed, as the ongoing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has brought into stark relief the nature of the carbon-fuel problem and the urgent need for action to achieve a civilization-wide overhaul of energy infrastructure, and the climate bill pending in the Senate may not have the votes to override a filibuster.
June 16, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
There is nothing ideological about the issue of renewable energy resources. Proponents tend to care about the health of the natural environment, which motivates their wish to see renewables replace high-polluting resources like oil and coal, but the technologies, the fact of their economic viability and their usefulness for society at large, are not in any way a matter of ideology.
June 16, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
In a meeting with Pres. Barack Obama, BP’s directors have agreed to open a dedicated escrow fund, to be operated by a third party, through which billions of dollars will flow to compensate victims of the environmental and economic fallout of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, across the Gulf of Mexico. As of 12:15 EDT, with the news breaking across US media, the specifics of how much will be paid, how quickly and to whom, have not yet been released.
June 16, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
There is mounting concern the ongoing flow of oil from the damaged BP Deepwater Horizon well in the Macondo field may be the result of one or more serious structural breaches in the cement well casing below the sea bed. Statements made on 7 June by Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, to MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, suggest the well casing has ruptured, there are multiple points of seepage across the surrounding sea bed, and the well can likely only be closed from below, if or when the two relief wells connect with the damaged well.
June 16, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Pres. Obama addressed the nation last night from the Oval Office, on the tragedy unfolding across the Gulf of Mexico, and issued an impassioned call for the entire nation to rally to the cause of breaking its “addiction to fossil fuels”. The president’s vision goes beyond the question of “energy independence”, which tends to favor expanded offshore drilling, to a push for a comprehensive transition to clean, renewable sources of energy and the phasing out of carbon-based fuels.
June 16, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
Because there has never been a leak this size at this depth, stopping it has tested the limits of human technology. That’s why just after the rig sank, I assembled a team of our nation’s best scientists and engineers to tackle this challenge — a team led by Dr. Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and our nation’s Secretary of Energy. Scientists at our national labs and experts from academia and other oil companies have also provided ideas and advice. As a result of these efforts, we’ve directed BP to mobilize additional equipment and technology. And in the coming weeks and days, these efforts should capture up to 90 percent of the oil leaking out of the well. This is until the company finishes drilling a relief well later in the summer that’s expected to stop the leak completely.
June 13, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Small-government conservatives across the country are up in arms demanding an overwhelming show of government power in the Gulf of Mexico. They demand that the president of the United States establish “command and control” over the activities of private industry and “get this clean up now”. They are shouting from the rooftops and massing in the streets, or so they would like us to believe, at the outrage that government is not able to establish absolute control of the worst ecological disaster in US history.
June 11, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
BP has reportedly been reporting a far lower number for the amount of oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico. The newly revised numbers suggest there may be as much as 40,000 barrels of oil per day, which would be roughly 1.68 million gallons per day. This upwardly revised figure is still not as high as some expert observers estimate, with the higher end near 2 million gallons per day. Media reports suggest the real figure may still be far worse, as BP has not done a direct sample of density and pressure to determine exactly how much oil is flowing from the well.
June 10, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The blow-out (explosion and collapse) of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and the well 5,000 feet below has brought into high contrast a serious problem inherent in the way we produce energy: we have long refused to calculate the real costs of extracting fossil fuels. Ecological economics is founded on this point: we should calculate the value of the natural ecosystem services disrupted by the after-effects of carbon emissions.
June 10, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) is today trying to push through the United States Senate an amendment to proposed legislation which would limit the power of the EPA to regulate carbon emissions. Murkowski claims the constraint on EPA authority is necessary to protect future economic growth and job creation, though it is in fact an effort to deliver huge amounts of public funding to the oil industry and an attempt to establish federal government policy ignoring the Supreme Court.
June 9, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The Gulf of Mexico coastline of the southeastern United States has been hard hit by the ongoing BP oil disaster, with catastrophic environmental damage, the collapse of the local fishing and shrimping industry, and tourism bottoming out in some places near zero, just as summer gets going. There is a moratorium on deepwater exploration and drilling, which is putting a strain on the job market across several states. A serious investment in renewable energy resources would build a more vibrant, more reliable jobs market into the regional economy and help prevent the environmental fallout of offshore drilling.
June 5, 2010 :: Carmen Visna :: 3 Comments
The environmental catastrophe resulting from BP’s blown-out deepwater oil well in the Gulf of Mexico is the worst seen in the US, but Ecuador’s ongoing battle with pervasive, persistent toxic contamination relating to Texaco’s operations in the remote Amazon is the worst oil-related environmental disaster the world has ever seen. In a once-pristine corner of the Ecuadoran Amazon rainforest, Texaco dumped billions of gallons of petroleum waste byproduct, contaminating groundwater and ruining the local environment irreparably.
June 4, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
It’s not just the intense vibration, noise pollution and toxic contaminants associated with trucking that we need to address, but the broader environmental fallout from depending so heavily on a petroleum-based combustion-centric mode of transport. Heavy overland transport vehicles demand a massive amount of power to move them from place to place; advanced battery technologies may soon allow us to power them using electricity, but we need to build the infrastructure to produce, store and transport all that green energy.
June 2, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Reports from around the Gulf of Mexico region of the southern US suggest the spreading oil slick from the ruptured Deepwater Horizon well is now washing ashore not only in Louisiana, but also in neighboring states. CNN reports sporadic accounts of oil washing ashore on the “sandy beaches”, popular with tourists, in western Florida. The well has now been gushing oil uncontrolled for 44 days, and BP has lost 1/3 of its total share value since the drilling rig explosion on 20 April.
May 31, 2010 :: Carmen Visna :: Comments Off
Tropical Storm Agatha has become one of the top ten deadliest tropical storm systems on record, behind 6 full-force hurricanes, dropping nearly two feet of rain on central America in two days, flooding multiple nations’ low-lying areas and creating havoc across the region. At least 142 people have been killed, mostly in flooding and landslides, and coffee growers and farmers are preparing for potential long-term impact on agriculture across the region.
May 31, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
The spreading environmental fallout from the gushing Deepwater Horizon BP oil well is likely to continue throughout the summer, barring the discovery of a bold new idea for how to cap a runaway oil well. It appears that BP lied when it allegedly told regulators over a year ago that it had the technology to deal with a rupture resulting in a leak of 300,000 gallons per day. Clearly, none of BP’s standard responses are working.
May 30, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The Deepwater Horizon undersea oil well is now the source of the worst oil spill on record. The spreading slick continues to threaten coastal communities throughout the Gulf of Mexico region, and could destroy delicate wetland ecosystems. Rep. Melancon (D-LA) was choking back tears yesterday as he explained the grave long-term harm he fears will be done to Louisiana’s coastal wetlands, saying “everything I know and love is at risk”. BP, it appears, has not been able to determine whether or not its “top kill” operation has succeeded in stopping the flow of oil.
April 30, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The massive oil spill, which observers now say may turn out to be bigger and more catastrophic than the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, has reportedly made landfall in Louisiana. The smell of crude oil is reported to have filled New Orleans and reached as far inland as Baton Rouge, according to reporting by NPR. It is now estimated that as much as 5,000 barrels or 200,000 gallons per day are spewing from the damaged drill site, five times what was estimated just a few days ago.
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