By Ross Koningstein & David Fork 18 November 2014 (IEEE Spectrum) – Google cofounder Larry Page is fond of saying that if you choose a harder problem to tackle, you’ll have less competition. This business philosophy has clearly worked out well for the company and led to some remarkably successful “moon shot” projects: a translation […]
13 November 2014 (Planet Experts) – To prevent potentially catastrophic climate change, the world’s largest economies agreed to phase out their subsidies for carbon-emitting fossil fuels in 2009. That anthropogenic (man-made) greenhouse gas emissions are influencing the global climate is now almost without dispute. The latest report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate […]
By Rune Likvern 10 October 2014 (Fractional Flow) – […] The Race between Fossil Fuels and Renewables By putting the growth between fossil fuels and renewables into a perspective, it demonstrates how dependent our economies, our wealth and well beings are upon fossil fuels. Looking at the growth in total fossil fuels versus renewables consumption […]
By Brad Plumer6 November 2014 (Vox) – Back in 2011, Australia’s Labor Party enacted a national carbon tax as a way of tackling global warming. The tax took effect in 2012, and emissions promptly fell over the next two years. But the policy was also highly unpopular with voters. So, in July 2014, a newly […]
By Jeff Jenkins 13 November 2014 CHARLESTON, West Virginia (Metro News) – The 43-page, four-count federal indictment of former Massey Energy president and CEO Don Blankenship portrays an operator obsessive about upping production at the cheapest cost. Federal prosecutors allege it was an attitude that led to the deadly explosion at the Upper Big Branch […]
3 November 2014 (BBC News) – Australia is a drag on international efforts to tackle climate change, says leading economist and former government adviser Professor Ross Garnaut. Prof Garnaut said the country had failed to make its “fair share” of greenhouse gas cuts. Earlier, Prime Minister Tony Abbott reiterated his position that coal was the […]
By Evan Halper and Ralph Vartabedian 25 October 2014 (Los Angeles Times) – California’s pioneering climate-change law has a long reach, but that doesn’t mean all its mandates will help stave off global warming. To meet the requirement that it cut carbon emissions, for example, Southern California Edison recently sold its stake in one of […]
By Richard Martin16 October 2014 (The Atlantic) – Scotty Lucas is the former mayor of a town that no longer exists. This double obsolescence seems to faze him little, which is not all that surprising considering that he has outlived his wife, one of his children, and the town he spent most of his 81 […]
By David Fogarty20 October 2014 (mongabay.com) – Global miner BHP Billiton and Indonesian partner PT Adaro are developing what could become the single largest mine in Indonesia in terms of land area, with BHP owning 75 percent. The IndoMet mine complex in Central and East Kalimantan provinces on Borneo comprises seven coal concessions, which cover […]
By Keith M. Parsons15 October 2014 (Huffington Post) – I grew up in the heroic age of American science and engineering. In my lifetime, the space program put men on the moon, the interstate highway system connected the continent, Salk and Sabin conquered polio, and computers went from room-sized behemoths to hand-held wonders. In my […]
