Legal experts say the SEC requires that companies disclose the risks of climate change to their business operations but that the agency has taken almost no action to enforce it. The moves by California and New York are seen as a step to fill that void. Exxon Mobil already has received a subpoena for documents dating from 1977 from the …
Plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) sales are exploding. Annual global sales are up tenfold in just five years
Plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) sales are exploding. Annual global sales are up tenfold in just five years — from a mere 45,000 in 2011 to a record 448,000 last year. The United States is probably the toughest market for EVs in the world since 1) we don’t have a significant gasoline tax and 2) we have a massive infrastructure of …
Staple crops suffer with extreme weather events – damages greater in developed countries – wheat, corn & Rise provide more than 50% of global calories
A new study, published Wednesday in Nature, argues that the American Midwest isn’t the only place to see staple crops like corn suffer in the face of extreme weather events. The paper, written by a team of geographers from the University of British Columbia, analyzed the effects that extreme temperatures, floods, and droughts have had on the last five decades …
Getting high level buy-in for sustainable system change – 6 top tips
1. Be realistic about how many stakeholders you can engage It can take serious effort to just schedule in a short meeting with a leader. And so whilst it is tempting to want all leaders to understand your plan, focusing on winning over the essential person, for your immediate initiative, can be most effective. For example, if reducing travel through …
Denmark well on its way to 40% of all energy from renewables by 2020 — in 2015 42% of electricity was from wind power
In 2015, Denmark produced almost half of its electricity from wind power, breaking a world record for the most wind production ever recorded — a world record set last year, by Denmark. The record 42 percent electricity generated from wind represents a three percent increase from the 39 percent it generated in 2014, which at the time broke the world …
In 2015 more than 10 million acres burned in the US, including more than 6300 wildfires in California and a 100 foot tall “firenado” in Idaho
According to most calculations, 2015 was a record-setting year for wildfires in the U.S. By the end, more than 10 million acres had burned across the country. Many of these were in the Western states, where hellish, otherworldly burns took over in normally temperate states like Washington and Alaska. In Boise, Idaho, a 100-foot-tall “firenado” sprouted from a blaze. California alone experienced more than 6,300 wildfires. The U.S. …
Increasing renewables to 36% of worldwide energy mix would get us only halfway to reductions needed for 2 C
What is needed to get securely on a path to keep warming below 1.5 C? This meeting did not address, but we know that increasing renewables to 36% would get us halfway to the reduction we need to stay below 2 C by 2030. The relative likelihood is not explained. Nearly 200 countries agreed to keep warming below 2C, and …
How beneficial are solar panels? Ultimately the goal is to get electricity providers to go 100% renewable and shut coal plants, a separate matter, but you can be part of the effort to move us away from fossil fuels
The biggest buyers of RECs (renewable energy credits) are power companies looking to satisfy state-mandated clean-energy requirements, known as renewable portfolio standards. In effect, the power company pays for the right to claim the climate benefits of the panels on your roof. It sounds like an esoteric distinction, but it matters: By selling the RECs instead of keeping them for …
Size and multi-faceted nature of protest and dissent are growing
The year 2011 is widely viewed as the peak of protest and dissent in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and the austerity agenda that followed it. It was the year of the Arab Spring, Occupy, UK Uncut, indignados, urban riots and anti-austerity and tuition fee protests – and in which Time magazine famously named “The Protester” as its …
Researchers uncover “remarkably strong” link between high wildfire risk in Amazon basin and devastating hurricanes in North Atlantic
Researchers from the University of California, Irvine and NASA have uncovered a remarkably strong link between high wildfire risk in the Amazon basin and the devastating hurricanes that ravage North Atlantic shorelines. The climate scientists’ findings are appearing in the journal Geophysical Research Letters near the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s calamitous August 2005 landfall at New Orleans and the …