Category: The Transition

Fuel Subsidies

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Here’s a unique idea that can have a fast and enormous positive impact on sustainability – and on reversing climate change problems. If you haven’t done much overseas travel, you may not know that many nations do not provide subsidies for fossil fuels, so gas, for example, runs around $10 a gallon.  That’s why they have so many small and extremely fuel-efficient cars, and why over half of all new car sales are electric.

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Just 10% of fossil fuel subsidy cash ‘could pay for green transition’

 

Redirecting small portion of subsidies would

unleash clean energy revolution, says report

 

Damian Carrington Environment editor

The Guardian

Thu 1 Aug 2019

 

Switching just some of the huge subsidies supporting fossil fuels to renewables would unleash a runaway clean energy revolution, according to a new report, significantly cutting the carbon emissions that are driving the climate crisis.… Keep reading

Future Visions

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Here’s a change-of-pace blog that explores many likely changes that appear to be in store for us. We’re usually so preoccupied with our daily responsibilities that we don’t often sit back and ask where we’re heading … not in a year or two but in ten or twenty or fifty years.  I’m including this item as a sustainability blog purely to stretch our vision … and within which to prompt each of us to think about what we might do in response.… Keep reading

A Tale of Two Cities

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Here’s an intriguing report about an avenue that’s evidently being taken to achieve greater sustainability within the U.S. – the federal government of which has been taking actions in the exact opposite direction. Some states, such as California, have made state-wide efforts.  But the larger the organization the more the effort required to cause change of any kind.

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A Tale of Two Cities:

How San Francisco and Burlington

Are Shaping America’s

Low-Carbon Future

 

Kyra Appleby, Director of Cities

CDP

 

President Trump’s commitment to pull out of the Paris agreement signaled what appeared to be the worst of times for a transition to a low-carbon future in the United States.… Keep reading

Global Warming Projections

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The theoretical global warming projections are now being compared to reality measurements, which really can’t be readily contested. Here’s a summary, followed by some suggestions about what each of us can actually do to improve the situation.

 

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 Global Warming’s Worst-Case

Projections Look Increasingly Likely

A new study based on satellite observations

finds that temperatures could rise nearly

5 °C by the end of the century.

 

by James Temple

MIT Technology Review

December 6, 2017

 

Global warming’s worst-case projections look increasingly likely, according to a new study that tested the predictive power of climate models against observations of how the atmosphere is actually behaving.… Keep reading

Quest for Purpose

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Here’s one of the healthiest questions we can ask.  From experience, I know we can create elegant environments that are also totally sustainable.  And I know that “sustainability” is more than “survival.”  As we see new strides being achieved in robotics and artificial intelligence, at some point we need to ask the question that we should have been asking all along:

What is our purpose?

Here’s an article that explores the question. Much of it may feel uncomfortable to you, and is, at the very least, controversial. … Keep reading