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Monthly Archives: July 2009
Kevin Rudd to offer $1.5bn to big carbon emitters to protect jobs threatened by ETS
This is the kind of thing which an ETS can make happen in a volatile political environment. A tax on the other hand can be better handled.
THE Rudd government is considering doubling compensation to the coal industry to $1.5 billion to protect mining jobs under a carbon emissions trading scheme as public opinion shifts definitively against Australia committing to carbon cuts before the rest of the world.
via Kevin Rudd to offer $1.5bn to big carbon emitters to protect jobs threatened by ETS | The Australian.
Update: Jon Stewart (best newsman in the world) explains what happened to the capntrade bill in the US. Same thing is expected here.
Wall Street Journal – Welcome to 2003
A great new resource on Rural India from some big guns.
The original incarnation of my website was when I worked in Deeshaa and it was focussed on Rural India and Business.
From 2003, we have come a long way around when the Wall Street Journal launches a special focus resource on this subject. They are a bit late but there is so much potential.
The Wall Street Journal and India Knowledge@Wharton present a unique mix of reporting, analysis, interviews and video on life and business in rural India. This reader resource combines specially-commissioned material with recent articles.
The Great Indian Clearance Sale
A new site on environment in India called the Great Indian Clearance Sale. A negative look at the environmental issues facing India.
The authors are doing a great job of providing their viewpoint through a graphic in every post.
A blog to follow.
The Great Indian Clearance Sale: An open letter to our environment minister..
NCAR: Solar cycle linked to global climate
We are seeing more and more evidence of solar cycle linkages to the climate.
Establishing a key link between the solar cycle and global climate, research led by scientists at the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., shows that maximum solar activity and its aftermath have impacts on Earth that resemble La Niña and El Niño events in the tropical Pacific Ocean.
The research may pave the way toward predictions of temperature and precipitation patterns at certain times during the approximately 11-year solar cycle.
“These results are striking in that they point to a scientifically feasible series of events that link the 11-year solar cycle with ENSO, the tropical Pacific phenomenon that so strongly influences climate variability around the world,” says Jay Fein, program director in NSF’s Division of Atmospheric Sciences. “The next step is to confirm or dispute these intriguing model results with observational data analyses and targeted new observations.”
The total energy reaching Earth from the sun varies by only 0.1 percent across the solar cycle. Scientists have sought for decades to link these ups and downs to natural weather and climate variations and distinguish their subtle effects from the larger pattern of human-caused global warming.
via NCAR: Solar cycle linked to global climate « Watts Up With That?.
Walmart Sustainability Index
What you measure gets managed. That is what Wal-Mart is doing with their plan. Check out the 15 questions (PDF) it is asking suppliers.
As the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores is on a mission to determine the social and environmental impact of every item it puts on its shelves. And it has recruited scholars, suppliers, and environmental groups to help it create an electronic indexing system to do that.
The idea is to create a universal rating system that scores products based on how environmentally and socially sustainable they are over the course of their lives. Consider it the green equivalent to nutrition labels.
Rather than a retailer or a product supplier’s focusing on only a few sustainability goals — lower emissions or water conservation or waste reduction — the index would help them take a broader view of sustainability by scrutinizing and rating all sorts of environmental and social implications.
Did this T-shirt come from a cotton crop that was sprayed with pesticide? Was excessive packaging used to ship these diapers?
Wal-Mart’s goal is to have other retailers eventually adopt the indexing system, which will be created over the next five years.
via At Wal-Mart, Labels to Reflect Green Intent – NYTimes.com.
More here:
GreenBiz.com stories – 1, 2
Sustainability Consortium
prAna – Our Story
prAna – Born From the Experience
16 years ago, what began as simple love of the outdoors has moved with us through all of our adventures over the years. It has brought a breath and vitality that continues to energize our thinking and designs.
Nature has guided prAna since the very start, with its abundance of color, materials and energy along with endless inspiration to make products that can be well worn and, more importantly, well lived in. Whether in our sports, our travels or in our yoga practice, the adventure has never failed to make us many wonderful friends and memories. For these incredible generosities, we are grateful and hope to give back something in return.
We’re always looking for new ways to fold sustainable materials and practices into our collection, working to reduce the impact on soils, water supplies and other natural resources.
PrAna’s commitment to the environment begins here at home and extends outward to our retailers and the homes of our employees. As part of our Natural Power Initiative (NPI), prAna works with our partner 3Degrees to support new US based wind energy projects through the purchase of renewable energy certificates (REC’s). In 2009 the impact of the NPI program will prevent over 12,000 tons of carbon dioxide from entering the earth’s atmosphere. Simply by supporting renewable energy for our prAna Headquarters, all of our employee’s homes, our two prAna retail locations and 250 of our US retailers, the NPI program will create an environmental benefit equivalent to removing over 1,677 average cars from the road annually.
We support a number of organizations who share our values. As a member of the Organic Trade Association and the Organic Exchange, prAna is continually increasing the use of organic cotton, as well as sourcing other natural fibers and innovative recycled/upcycled materials. The Access Fund helps to keep Climbing areas open while the Conservation Alliance protects wild and natural areas. HERA supports local ovarian cancer groups and the Outdoor Foundation helps to get kids active in the outdoors.
via prAna – Our Story.
Key to Apple’s Success – Doing something better
During the hour-long chat, Ive touched on many themes and topics. The main takeaway for executives looking to try and copy Apple’s success? Don’t. Instead, Ive said forcefully and repeatedly, companies need to define their own clear, high-minded raison d’être. That should drive the actions and decisions of every employee, from the C-suite down.
For Apple, he outlined, the end game isn’t commercial success. “Apple’s goal isn’t to make money. Our goal is to design and develop and bring to market good products,” he explained. “We trust as a consequence of that, people will like them, and as another consequence we’ll make some money. But we’re really clear about what our goals are.” This focus, he continued, has driven Apple to produce only a small number of high quality products. “We try not to bring out another product that’s just different,” he said. “‘Different’ and ‘new’ is relatively easy. Doing something that’s genuinely better is very hard.”
via Sachin Agarwal’s Posterous – Sachin’s posterous thoughts and photos.
Holy Desertec: $555B Solar Saharan Project Finds a Dozen Backers
The Desertec project is a great idea. Solar Thermal has shown to provide the most efficient way to harness the power of the sun and to support sun-starved Europe from Africa makes sense.
Now to the business plan.
The technology behind Desertec.
Ever since the news came out about Desertec, a $555 billion project to build solar thermal plants in Northern Africa’s Sahara desert to funnel solar power to Europe, we’ve been scratching our heads about what to make of it. The sheer size (supposedly large enough to supply up to 15 percent of Europe’s electricity needs), cost and timeline (over 40 years) is so utterly massive and ambitious, the project will no doubt look very different when — and if — it ever makes it to light. But despite the “fantasy” nature of the plan, a dozen serious and respected companies have signed a memorandum of understanding today to investigate how to build the project.
Participants include German engineering company Siemens, German insurer Munich Re, Deutsche Bank, German utilities RWE and EON, Spain’s power company Abengoa, Zurich’s electricity grid builder ABB, Algerian firm Cevital, European bank HSH Nordbank, engineering company M+W Zander, and solar firms Schott Solar and Solar Millennium.
The group now has the overwhelming goal of writing up a business plan for a project that will involve hundreds of solar thermal plants and massive underseas high-voltage transmission cables spanning countries. The blueprint of the plan itself will take three years just to develop and incorporate under German law. Some of the German firms already did some feasibility studies to the tune of $1.4 million, says Bloomberg, but of course those initial funds are just a grain of sand in the entire Desertec.
via Holy Desertec: $555B Solar Saharan Project Finds a Dozen Backers | Reuters.
Interview with CEO of Siemens.
Löscher: We will be covering the whole chain of energy conversion, from efficient and environmentally friendly power generation via transport and distribution right up to end uses of electric power. Desertec is not just about solar and wind energy, it is also about energy superhighways for the low-loss transmission of power over thousands of kilometers and the management of such complex systems.
SPIEGEL: Some experts have said they think it’s not economical to transport solar power to Europe through huge distribution grids under the Mediterranean Sea.
Löscher: Energy superhighways can be both technologically efficient and economical. A few years ago we connected Tasmania with the Australian continent. And from 2011 there will be a 250-kilometer undersea cable supplying Majorca with electricity from the Spanish mainland. For us, this kind of thing is now part of our core business.
Developing and Developed Powers Differ on Emission Cut
That is the right thing to do for the poor nations.
The world’s biggest developing nations, led by China and India, refused Wednesday to commit to specific goals for slashing heat-trapping gases by 2050, undercutting the drive to build a global consensus by the end of this year to reverse the threat of climate change.
via Developing and Developed Powers Differ on Emission Cut – NYTimes.com.
And this is not possible.
But negotiators embraced a goal of preventing temperatures from rising more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, and developing nations agreed to make “meaningful” if unspecified reductions in emissions.
The intention is right but climate and temperature is too complex to control the exact rise of temperature. The best we can do is agree on some aspects of policy, action and inputs into the process.
