Measure, Peel, Stick, Solar Power
Lumeta has developed this sweet solar sticker panel. I have installed solar panels before, and this my friends looks to be an excellent option for flat roof installations. I wonder how it would work on a residential roof.
This has got to be one of the easiest installations I have ever seen. Of course they are not telling you the whole time (you would still need to wire them into the electrical box, have an inverter installed etc), but you could easily do that whole roof in a couple days with this system. Hey big box stores, guess what should be on your roof right now…(hint, solar panels).
Honda Goes Blue, Green, Whatever
A golden rule I have on The Unsuitablog is, regardless of the target of an item, I will not shy away from saying what I think — and I will also ensure this is backed up by facts on the ground, in the air, water, wherever.
When a company, authority, charity etc. tries to pull the wool over my eyes, I will make sure I find out the truth, and not pull any punches with my opinions. If a company etc. is honest with me (after 25 years of buying and selling stuff, It’s easy to tell) I will just lay down the facts, and go easy on the opinion.
So, in this case, my only comment is: “Who are they trying to kid?”
On Saturday I received an e-mail from Kristin, representing a group of Honda dealers in California:
Hi Keith,
I am interested in speaking with you about the editorial content of your blog. We are the PR/Marketing agency representing the So Cal Honda Dealers Association, who has launched a new initiative for the Honda Helpful campaign, Honda Blue Goes Green. This new initiative goes hand in hand with this month’s environmental theme and would be a great fit with your website!Please find attached the press release on the initiative. This new eco-friendly initiative is one of the many ways the So Cal Honda Dealers are unexpectedly helping the local residents, whether they’re handing out waters, hand wipes, helping people with their purchases or walking people to their cars with umbrellas on a rainy day. The community has responded really well to the Helpful teams and is always pleasantly surprised by their unexpected helpfulness. Again, we think this initiative is a perfect fit with your website!
I’d love to speak with you further about this great new initiative helping local residents become more eco-friendly! Please let me know if you have any questions or need any additional information. Feel free to email me or call!
Best,
Kristin Baker
I responded:
Dear Kristen
This is greenwash of the highest order. All of the examples you mention are encouraging people to drive more: exactly how is this ”eco-friendly”?!I’m sure your Tote Bag hasn’t got a Honda advert on it, has it?[Read the rest at The Unsuitablog…]
Solar Power Surges: Up 51% in 2007
Global production of solar photovoltaic (PV) cells increased 51 percent in 2007, to 3,733 megawatts, according to the latest Vital Signs Update from the Worldwatch Institute, produced in collaboration with the Prometheus Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
More than 2,935 megawatts (MW) of solar modules were installed in 2007, according to early estimates, bringing cumulative global installations of PVs since 1996 to more than 9,740 MW—enough to meet the annual electricity demand of more than 3 million homes in Europe.
“Thanks to strong, smart policies in countries like Germany and Spain, the PV industry is making great strides in efficiency and cost, bringing solar power closer to price parity with fossil fuels,” says Janet Sawin, Worldwatch Senior Researcher and author of the update.
Over the past year, Europe—led by Germany—surpassed Japan to lead the world in solar cell manufacturing, producing an estimated 1,063 MW in 2007. Thanks to government policies that guarantee high payments for solar power fed into the electric grid, Germany remains the world leader in solar PV installations, accounting for almost half the world total in 2007. About 40,000 people are now employed in the PV industry in Germany.
Spain ranked second after Germany for total installations in 2007, but accounts for only an estimated 3 percent of global production. As in Germany, the Spanish market is being driven by a strong guaranteed price for PV electricity.
Despite a dramatic increase in solar cell production in the United States, up 48 percent to 266 MW, the nation’s share of global production and installations continued to fall in 2007.
In contrast, China raced past the United States for PV cell manufacturing in 2006 to place third globally, and it now ranks second only to Japan for national production. Over the past two years, China’s PV production has increased more than sixfold, to 820 MW in 2007. Despite these impressive numbers, the domestic market remains small and most PV cells made in China are exported to Europe.
“With billions of dollars invested in the solar energy technologies in the last 12 months, the PV sector is primed for accelerating its impact in both centralized and distributed generation at increasingly competitive costs,” says Travis Bradford, President of the Prometheus Institute. “As it reaches widespread cost parity in the next few years, demand will flourish in many places around the world simultaneously.”
Solar PV prices declined slightly in 2007, with even greater reductions held back by the hot pace of demand and a continued shortage of polysilicon, an essential ingredient for conventional solar cells. Analysts expect much more dramatic price drops—perhaps as much as 50 percent in the next two years—as more polysilicon becomes available, production and installation are further scaled up, manufacturing efficiencies increase, and more advanced technologies are introduced. As a result, solar electricity could soon be a competitive alternative to conventional retail power in many regions, including California and southern Europe.
According to Sawin, “PV and other renewables offer significant potential to meet global energy needs while addressing climate change, enhancing energy security, and creating jobs. Scaling up renewables is primarily a matter of political will and enacting strong, consistent policies that create demand.”
Normal People And Climate Change: One Womans Journey
I got a really interesting email from Sheila Hayman who has just written an interesting book about how a “normal” person is dealing with the challenges of global warming. I asked her to write a bit more about herself and her book and here is what she sent me.
—-
What do you do if you find yourself, over the course of a decade, more and more convinced of the need to make principled changes, sacrifice your petty comforts, and crusade to make others do the same –
- but meanwhile discover you’re still married to the same person you always were, and he thinks everything is just fine the way it is?
You have two options; get divorced, or see the funny side. I knew many years ago that my husband and I were different; the choice was whether to decide this meant ‘fundamentally incompatible’, or ‘two halves of a perfect Platonic whole’ - and by the way, try lightening up. The second option sounded cheaper, and easier on the children.
My husband was horribly confused by it all. He expected to share his declining years with the woman who drove a 1968 Pontiac Firebird ragtop, and thought nothing of flying the Atlantic for a wedding. Suddenly he finds himself shackled to a gloomy Cassandra who mainlines ‘Permaculture Monthly’ and goes round shouting at the children to turn off the lights. But somehow he survived, and responded to it all with English pragmatism. I decided we had to compost; he built me a compost bin. I moaned every time he switched on the dryer; he put up a clothes line (and hung the clothes on it).
Meanwhile, I began writing it as a comic novel, a relatively harmless vent for my frustrations. It ended up taking years, as novels will, and meanwhile I’d acquired a mass of fascinating information (80% of the world’s buttons are made in one city in China; scientists have identified a cow that gives naturally low-fat milk, and called her Marge…) and a slew of bizarre enthusiasms and magazine subscriptions that I felt an inexplicable compulsion to share.
So the book needed a web site as well. And the book became Mrs Normal Saves the World, and the web site is called MrsNormal.com. It’s just that; stuff to add a few jokes along the path to virtue, sort out the confusions of ordinary people trying to tramp it, and catalyze them into doing something. Because we can all do something, even if it’s not something huge.
In the book, the marriage almost implodes, and her children are almost terminally alienated, but in the end, Mrs Normal is revealed to be heroic, albeit not in the way she expects (it’s a comedy, after all). And they all love her more than ever, and everything is as peachy as it can be.
Well, I wrote it. I had a right to make it end like that. History has yet to reveal what will happen to the real Mrs Normal. Log on and find out…
—-
It sounds like a really interesting read, and I might serve as a good guide for other “normal” people ready to make the switch to a more sustainable way of living. Check out her website here MrsNormal.com.
Greenpeace Update
I am on Greenpeace’s mailing list, and sometimes they send me these big update emails…this one stood out from the others (Greenpeace does some silly things sometimes, but overall they try really hard and I like them). It is also pretty cool that the campaign we did our part in to stop the rainforest destruction in order to produce palm oil seems to be having some good outcomes. I will wait and see what Unilever does but it’s good that they at least appear to be acting.
Email below.
—-
Polar bears have had it rough in recent years, and global warming is only making the situation worse. That’s why we joined the Center for Biological Diversity and NRDC to sue the Bush Administration and seek Endangered Species status for the polar bear. Well, after months of delaying an announcement, just long enough to sell off oil leases in polar bear habitat, the Bush Administration has finally been ordered by a judge to make a final decision by May 15th.
Polar bears are in real danger of becoming the first mammal to become extinct as a direct result of global warming. Last year, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) predicted that the world’s polar bear population was likely to diminish by as much as two-thirds by 2050 - including every single polar bear within the United States. In fact, scientists predict that the Arctic could be completely ice-free in the summers as early as 2012. Listing the polar bear under the ESA would require that polar bears be protected. The only way to do that is to protect their Arctic ice habitat, which means reducing the pollution that causes global warming.
This ruling is great news for the polar bear and an important step toward protecting the entire Arctic ecosystem from the impacts of global warming.
I’ll be sure to keep you posted once the decision is official.
I’ll be in touch with you soon,
Melanie Duchin
Global Warming Campaigner, Alaska
p.s. Get the full scoop on Bush’s delays to protect the polar bear on our web site.
Just five days after Greenpeace launched a new campaign against Unilever, which makes Dove beauty products, the company announced plans to support Greenpeace’s call for a moratorium on rainforest destruction in Indonesia. This is fantastic news for the highly endangered orangutan, whose forest home has been destroyed at an alarming rate, in large part due to the production of palm oil (a key ingredient in many of Unilever food and cosmetic products).
We launched the campaign with a series of actions across Europe, issuing a report documenting Unilever’s harmful practices and sending Greenpeace activists dressed as orangutans to Unilever’s headquarters to hang a banner and draw attention to the company’s “monkey business.”
Why Unilever? Unilever is one of the largest users of palm oil in the world. This means Unilever has a huge influence on the way palm oil is made.
In addition to the serious threat to orangutans, Sumatran tigers, and Javan rhinoceroses, destruction of the Indonesian rainforest is also a major contributor to global warming. As the carbon from trees and several feet of underlying peatland is released into the atmosphere, huge volumes of greenhouse gases are accelerating climate change. Indonesia is the third largest emitter of these gases in the world, due to the destruction of its forests at the hands of the palm oil industry.
Unilever’s announcement could lead to a win-win for orangutans and the climate. A moratorium would buy time for Greenpeace to push for long-term protections for Indonesia’s threatened rainforests.
Sincerely,
Scott Paul
Forest Campaigner
We all know that global warming is a serious problem, but we don’t all agree on the solutions. Some solutions are proven - like wind and solar energy. Others are more like pipe dreams or schemes that can actually increase global warming. That’s the case with an idea called carbon capture and storage, which theoretically would capture carbon dioxide emitted from coal power plants and store it underground.
Carbon capture and storage is unproven, unlike renewable energy alternatives. In fact, the coal industry has latched onto the idea as an excuse to continue polluting and building new power plants that will add to, rather than solve, the global warming crisis. The industry is working hard on Capitol Hill to secure billions of dollars in subsidies for this dangerous technology. Instead, lawmakers should support technologies like wind and solar that can begin to reduce global warming pollution today, not on false hopes that may never deliver.
TAKE ACTION — Tell Congress: Pull the plug on false solutions and invest in real alternatives now.
The truth behind carbon capture and storage is that even if it worked, the technology wouldn’t be available until 2030 - despite calls from scientists worldwide that global warming must be addressed within the next 10 years if we hope to minimize its impacts.
That’s why Greenpeace activists showed up today at a government -sponsored conference on Carbon Capture and Sequestration Technology in Pennsylvania with 1,200 black balloons carrying the message, “Coal is Dirty.” We also released a new report called “False Hope: Why Carbon Capture and Storage Won’t Save the Climate,” calling on the government to invest in proven technologies like wind and solar and efficiency that will begin to reduce global warming pollution today.
The time to act is now, and the technologies to stop global warming already exist. The coal industry should go the way of the dinosaur - the era of renewable energy has arrived.
Sincerely,
Kate Smolski
Global Warming Campaigner
p.s. Want to know more about this? Get the full story online and read the report.
Living In The Rainforest Without Destroying The Rainforest
There was a time, not too long ago when many people from many places lived in relative harmony with their surroundings. Before modern agriculture came around people often had very different ways of getting food. Ways that didn’t involve cutting everything down, plowing everything under, and planting a oil based fertilizer depended mono-culture of grain.
(Via)
Peace Coffee: Bicycles Make Everything Better
Just remember anything you do, can be made better by adding in bicycles.
More info here.
Global Warming Hurting More Than Polar Bears
Polar bearsfighting for survival in the face of a rapid decline of polar ice have made the Arctic a poster child for the negative effects of climate change. But new research shows that species living in the tropics likely face the greatest peril in a warmer world.
A team led by University of Washington scientists has found that while temperature changes will be much more extreme at high latitudes, tropical species have a far greater risk of extinction with warming of just a degree or two. That is because they are used to living within a much smaller temperature range to begin with, and once temperatures get beyond that range many species might not be able to cope.
“There’s a strong relationship between your physiology and the climate you live in,” said Joshua Tewksbury, a UW assistant professor of biology. “In the tropics many species appear to be living at or near their thermal optimum, a temperature that lets them thrive. But once temperature gets above the thermal optimum, fitness levels most likely decline quickly and there may not be much they can do about it.”
Arctic species, by contrast, might experience temperatures ranging from subzero to a comparatively balmy 60 degrees Fahrenheit. They typically live at temperatures well below their thermal limit, and most will continue to do so even with climate change.
“Many tropical species can only tolerate a narrow range of temperatures because the climate they experience is pretty constant throughout the year,” said Curtis Deutsch, an assistant professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Our calculations show that they will be harmed by rising temperatures more than would species in cold climates.
“Unfortunately, the tropics also hold the large majority of species on the planet,” he said.
Tewksbury and Deutsch are lead authors of a paper detailing the research, published in the May 6 print edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The work took place while Deutsch was a UW postdoctoral researcher in oceanography.
The scientists used daily and monthly global temperature records from 1950 through 2000, and added climate model projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for warming in the first years of the 21st century. They compared that information with data describing the relationship between temperatures and fitness for a variety of temperate and tropical insect species, as well as frogs, lizards and turtles. Fitness levels were measured by examining population growth rates in combination with physical performance.
“The direct effects of climate change on the organisms we studied appear to depend a lot more on the organisms’ flexibility than on the amount of warming predicted for where they live,” Tewksbury said. “The tropical species in our data were mostly thermal specialists, meaning that their current climate is nearly ideal and any temperature increases will spell trouble for them.”
As temperatures fluctuate, organisms do what they can to adapt. Polar bears, for example, develop thick coats to protect them during harsh winters. Tropical species might protect themselves by staying out of direct sunlight in the heat of the day, or by burrowing into the soil.
However, since they already live so close to their critical high temperature, just a slight increase in air temperature can make staying out of the sun a futile exercise, and the warming might come too fast for creatures to adapt their physiologies to it, Tewksbury said.
Other authors of the paper are Raymond Huey, Kimberly Sheldon, David Haak and Paul Martin of the University of Washington and Cameron Ghalambor of Colorado State University. The research was funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the UW Program on Climate Change.
The work has indirect implications for agriculture in the tropics, where the bulk of the world’s human population lives. The scientists plan further research to examine the effects of climate change, particularly hotter temperatures, on tropical crops and the people who depend on them.
“Our research focused only on the impact of changes in temperature, but warming also will alter rainfall patterns,” Deutsch said. “These effects could be more important for many tropical organisms, such as plants, but they are harder to predict because hydrological cycle changes are not as well understood.”
Brake, And The Children Might Live
There was a news article about clouds last night: it said that there were ongoing discussions about whether climate change would lead to an increase in low level clouds or high level clouds, and that far more work was required to calculate what the impact would be in causing further heating, or perhaps some cooling.
There was a news article about clouds last night: it said that there were ongoing discussions about whether climate change…am I repeating myself here? Did you notice where I stopped?
The climate is changing. Why are we getting so hung up on details? The more emissions are reduced, the better. The less forest we cut down, the better. The less land we cultivate, the better. Three pillars of climate change prevention — simple. But governments, and especially the corporations behind them, love all this fiddling about while the planet burns, because it buys them more time to make money, to attain power, to enjoy the superficial joy that the ownership of stuff provides. Mere life…overrated.
Except I love life — it’s everything to me.
Do you have children, or do you know any children you really care about? Suppose one of those children was crossing the road, and a car turned the corner. The vehicle is approaching quickly; out of the corner of his eye, the driver has just seen the child. The driver starts to make calculations — how fast is he travelling; how much distance is there between his vehicle and the child; how long will it take him to stop; how much damage will…
The child is thrown across the road by the impact of the vehicle.
Her heart stopped beating in the ambulance. Her parents never understood why the driver didn’t stop?
There are some situations where you don’t have time to work out the details — you just do what is right. You slam on the brakes because the sooner you do it, the better the chance that you will avoid hitting the child in front of you. You stop producing greenhouse gases and destroying the fabric of nature because the sooner you do it, the better the chance that the Earth will be able to recover from the changes that are taking place.
You don’t think about the details: you act immediately.
Omnivores Dilemma Author Michael Pollen Talks At Google
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