What? Greenhouse gasses, dangerous?

The Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) has recently determined that greenhouse gasses(GHG) pose a danger to public health and welfare. This weeks announcement by the EPA enables the agency to put the Clean Air Act into action. The act defines the responsibility of the EPA as protecting and improving the nations air quality.  There is a 60 day public comment period which will be documented in the federal registrar.   Once the public comment period closes, the EPA will be required to take some sort of action.

In addition, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, is being reviewed in the house and hopefully will gain the traction needed to pass as the nation’s first commitment to reduce its GHG emissions.  The bill calls for reducing greenhouse gas emissions 20% below 2005 levels by 2020, 42% by 2030, and 83% by 2050. If the EPA were to enact this legislation, it would most likely address emissions from automobiles, power plants, and major industrial sources.

factories

http://www.grist.org/article/2009-04-17-epa-moves-toward-regulating/

Interest in Global Warming Heats Up

When you visit the New York times website on Sunday evening, the list of most emailed articles is usually topped by either the big news story of the day, a particularly relevant Frank Rich article or some pithy commentary from Maureen Dowd. This past Sunday  it was a 4,000 word article on noted academic Freeman Dyson, who has been comfortably employed as a big brain for over 50 years at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, New Jersey.

29dyson1-500Why the sudden interest in a man now is his mid 80s?

Dyson has always been considered a contrarian. As one of his colleagues observed, “… when consensus is forming like ice hardening on a lake, Dyson will do his best to chip away at the ice.”

While Dysons’s latest idea is not quite as ‘out there’ as his contributions to the shuttered ‘Orion’ project (inter-galatic space travel powered by controlled nuclear bomb blasts) his latest opinion–that we might all be overreacting to global warming–has certainly captured the attention of the scientific community and the media.

Several years ago, Dyson attracted attention with his rather curious statement that global warming could be easily dealt with by developing ‘carbon eating’ trees. This idea was based on Dyson’s observation of carbon levels at various times of the year. In temperate climates–such as Cambridge, MA–the level of carbon particles  in the atmosphere are lowest in the fall. Assuming this coincides with the time of the year when trees and other vegetation are in full bloom and more equipped to extract carbon from the air, Dyson saw the possibility of geo-engineering a strain of trees that would perform this task more efficiently.

Recently, Dyson has been given to publicly wondering if global warming is all that bad and accusing Al Gore of being a ‘panic merchant’. The basis of his theory is our development from an agrarian economy to an post-industrial information-based society was powered by carbon-based energy, so how bad could it possibly be?

Warm Home Cool Planet finds it strange that a man of science is taking this position. Our progress as a civilization depends on our ability to develop and adapt new forms of technology that make our lives more convenient, more productive and safer. We discard old ways of doing things when something better comes along. How many people are sticking with a typewriter just because Hemingway wrote on one?

Carbon-based energy has been with us since the invention of the steam train. It is still relatively available and inexpensive–for now. We can already see a point where they will be neither. For the sake of our planet and future generations, it’s time our alternative sources of energy become our major sources of supply.

Stuff Happens

Bill NyeDo you remember Bill Nye the Science Guy? This summer cable nework Planet Green launched a new series called “Stuff Happens,” in which Mr. Nye investigates the environmental impact of common products and practices with his typical light-hearted flair. If you have Comcast, check it out on channel 233. Even if you don’t get Planet Green, it should be available via On Demand under News & World > Planet Green > Bill Nye.

Green energy companies still hiring in Massachusetts

dollar-sign“If you’re readying a resume, it might help to use recycled paper. The clean-tech and green industries in Massachusetts are hiring.”

That’s the takeaway from the article in today’s Boston Globe.

Amidst our economic woes and rising unemployment, the green energy sector continues to grow, thanks in part to the stimulus bill spending and an extension of tax credits for renewable energy generation.

Within the next two years, Stimulus Bill spending is expected to create or save 79,000 jobs in Massachusetts, and an estimated 3.5 million nationwide. In today’s economy, those are big numbers.

The year Green Marketing Broke Through

I think we can all agree 2008 was an historic and constantly surprising year:

The folks over at Marketing Profs  also noted 2008 was the year major companies and major brands saw that terms like carbon footprints, CO2 emissions, alternative energy and energy efficiency weren’t going away. OK, so Warm Home Cool Planet is now part of the mainstream. What does that mean and where can we expect ‘green’ marketing to go in 2009.

Here are the some of the trends worth noting:

Green campaigns are being created and awarded. On the other hand, organizations who engage in ‘greenwashing’ (i.e. making false claims about their environmental record or the carbon footprint of their products) will be found out and called out by the many watchdog and activist groups using the Internet to make life difficult for these companies.

The bottled water industry has taken a beating recently as people began to realize there was something wrong with drinking a bottle of water transported from thousands of miles away when there is perfectly good drinking water coming out of tap just a few feet away. This kind of information-the kind that changes consumer perceptions–and behavior–is now being shared on the web at lightning speed.

If the car industry in America is ever going to make a comeback it will have to be within the next four years. They are in position to be first to market with an entirely electric car, which if it gains widespread acceptance will help them meet tougher emissions standards. If a universal health care plan is passed, it will also allow Detroit to compete with car companies located in countries where employers do not have to add employee healthcare costs to the price of their products.

In other words, despite the grim economics news, there is enough financial incentive, consumer demand, technological innovation and government assistance to make green products and the marketing of those products grow even more prevalent in 2009.