A Green Degree Blog: New Angles On Sustainability

May 25th 2012

So Environmentalists Are Satanic, Earth-Worshipping Radicals Now?

A few stories have caught my eye of late, and both have not failed to make me laugh out loud and bring a swift hand to the forehead, striking it with such force as to try and knock what I’ve just read back out of my brain.

Unfortunately, they also haven’t failed to demonstrate the fundamentally ignorant and foolishly confident views of some big-mouthed American speakers on climate science and global change. No doubt you’ve heard of at least one of the offending characters, a certain Lord Monckton, but maybe not the other.

To start off with, I’m going to drive straight into the recent Heartland Institute stories, of which have made be both happy, and concerned for those who listened to such rubbish until now. In a recent Heartland convention, a ‘yearly’ event held by the foundation at which multiple infamous speakers comically attempt to derail climate science and laugh in the face of the literally millions who believe in it. I would love to attend one of these just to experience the inner bubble that these people cohabit, but alas they appear to be nearing their end.

This convention failed spectacularly at attracting the number of attendees as in past years, a combination of their poorly conceived and downright ludicrous billboard project, the dropping of over 35% of their annual funding and a crash in global public perception, all of which showed them for what they’re really worth. However, Lord Monckton, known as one of the most, if not the most outspoken climate denier in history, did not hesitate to rock up and joke about all things climate.

After opening with the a sentence along the lines of “it is hard for us people without any scientific qualifications to tackle these issues, but I thank you for trying”, addressing his loyal fans, before continuing to crack wise about Obama’s birth, and subsequently handing over to a speaker, who for all intents and purposes, stated that global warming is good for people; those old people who are killed by it, “are moribund anyway”. Classy stuff.

As I hope you are doing right now, both these quotes made me laugh aloud, but deeply worried at the same time. Their effective idol in Monckton had just applauded them for tackling something, so deeply rooted in scientific understanding and data, with no such science background whatsoever, it was as though they were the kings of a new age, and the crowd simply chuckled along, comfortable in their own little world. That is highly disturbing.

Posted at 10:31am and tagged with: earth, gaia, climate, science, global warming, lord monckton, james dobson, america, US, Environment, satan, religion, worship, god, extremist, radical, HEartland, Obama, birther,.

May 13th 2012

Hypersolar Believes It Can Make Natural Gas Practically Green

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Hypersolar is an interesting and thought-provoking solar company, whose main goal is to bring clean energy to the masses through the clever and sometimes ingenious use of science and technology. Though a relatively small name in the big world of solar energy (I hadn’t heard of them until now), they harbour some big ideas and have introduced some powerful technology into the mix.

They initially hit the industry running with their creation of a Hypersolar ‘layer’ for solar panels, which could halve the amount of individual solar cells needed, whilst upping their output by an impressive 400%. This layer would replace the traditional glass screen atop the cells, and would focus solar radiation onto rows of cells, therefore intensifying the light and producing extra juice. A neat invention to say the least, although I haven’t heard much else about the product.

This time round, they’ve decided to combine their solar expertise with an area of energy production which I, and no doubt many others, did really not expect. They hope that, with their new solar cell systems, they can imitate nature and the beautiful complexity of photosynthesis in order to create ‘clean’ and ‘renewable’ natural gas. Clean I hear you say, that ain’t right.

By mimicing plants, the team plans to split water into its component parts, hydrogen and oxygen. This hydrogen is then combined with carbon dioxide, presumably they hope from the atmosphere itself, to create methane, a prime constituent of natural gas. As this carbon is from the air around us, not only does it suck CO2 from our dirty atmosphere, it then uses this to produce more fuel for us to burn. As it only requires water alongside this, it can be labelled renewable by the company.

The team also highlight that they believe the natural gas future is a very real one, but that the environmental faults of extracting and creating it is both dirty and expensive. Therefore this technology kills two birds with one stone, making the environment happier whilst still allowing a less radical switch to a NG dominated economy.

Posted at 10:01am and tagged with: natural gas, Hypersolar, solar, energy, carbon, dioxide, methane, photosynthesis, nature, beautiful, apes, smart, technology, science, power, global warming,.

May 9th 2012

Carbon PPM Hits A New High, & Natural Gas Is Replacing Coal - This Seems Strange?

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Coal has always been the number one fossil fuel in our society’s list of burnable sunlight, which of course it simply is, which also begs the question why is solar taking so long to kick off? Sorry, going off on a tangent here, I think I’ll reserve that for another post. Back to the main subject.

Coal is by far the most worrisome and dirty of the fossil fuels, although its brother oil is not to be easily beaten in that respect, and has been utilised for centuries to provide electricity to our lights and heat our homes. Throughout this time, a frankly astounding amount of CO2 has been emitted into the surrounding environment and atmosphere, warming our planet and screwing with multiple climatic, biological and ocean-atmosphere interactions and feedbacks which we’re only just beginning to experience.

Only recently, the Mauna Loa carbon-detection research station in Hawaii, sitting high atop the largest volcano in the world, measured an atmospheric ppm value just shy of 400; that’s a massive figure. In fact this is the highest recorded atmospheric carbon content in the history of measurements, indicating that despite our best, and sometimes admirably successful attempts at culling emissions, it’s still doing its own thing.

This of course can be explained by a few important factors, most predominantly the rise of the BRIC nations, Brazil, Russia, India and China, who are pumping out carbon at a rate equivalent to the peak of our Western expansions, with many more countries joining them. Alongside this, the simple physical fact that carbon sticks around in the atmosphere for at least half a century, means that a good portion of the continued increase we are seeing is due to pollution spewed out within the past several years - even if we cut carbon emission to zero as of this moment globally, it would still keep going for up until past 2020.

So I find it strange that, in reading an article recommended via Grist today, and with the knowledge that natural gas, that lesser-of-two-evils fossil fuel (or perhaps not) is taking the energy world by storm, we still haven’t fully grasped this ‘green’ concept.

Natural gas has been becoming increasingly popular in many developed nations who are trying to curb their carbon emissions through the cutting back of coal and oil burning, as it is not only just as readily available, but technically, and I emphasise technically, emits less carbon than coal when burnt. This is the reason that countries are adopting a more natural gas-orientated energy mix in future policy, as they see it as a way of securing stable energy sources at a reduced cost to the environment and wallets.

Posted at 11:02am and tagged with: oil, natural gas, coal, fossil fuel, energy, US, NOAA, EPA, emissions, carbon, methane, science, burning, Environment, global warming, climate change, policy, BRIC, ppm,.

May 5th 2012

The Unfortunate Truth Of The Heartland Institute: It Knows How To Manipulate

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I frankly wasn’t surprised when I saw yesterday the latest plans in a long line of atrocious climate-deinal and truth-twisting projects carried out by the Heartland Institute of America. They’re well known by now for their incredibly biased and simply wrong (on many levels) views on man-made climate change, and have produced some fantastic propaganda on the subject for decades.

Only a few weeks ago, the Institute was found to be being funded heavily by some pretty big names in the oil/gas industries, manufacturing and health sectors, such as GSK and GM, a dirty secret which was revealed when a leaked document containing beneficiaries and funders was obtained, admittedly rather unscrupulously by a respected climate scientist, and let out into the wild of the media and public. In fact, this event comes into play in their defending of this new project later discussed.

This time however, it’s gone just a little too far in my books. Heartland, obviously feeling that a much more to-the-point and alarming approach was needed rather than simple climate-bashing and data skewing as it has been in the past. So they went for what you see above.

Billboards sprung up across Chicago portraying images of well-known mass murderers, madmen and tyrants, with some of the worst including Osama bin Laden and the Unabomber, with a simple message alongside (translated by me for the true meaning) - “these men believe(d) in climate change, so if you do too, you’re just as bad as them”.

So there you have it folks, if you’re a believer of the well-evidenced, globally backed, clear and present danger of climate change, be it man-made or natural, you’re just a psychopath worthy of company of these despicable men. Nice eh?

According to the Institute’s dubious press release, they are perfectly just in their actions, not only because the majority of those climate change believers are in the fringes of a radical society, but that the very climate scientist who ‘stole’ the funding documents from them recently and which I described above has broken the rules; therefore, it;s time for Heartland to break the rules a bit more. They were always such law-abiding people anyway weren’t they?