GlobalWarmingisReal contributor Anders Hellum-Alexander wraps-up the climate and environmental news headlines for the past week:
- Increasing energy efficiency tends to increase overall energy consumption (think hybrid cars making living in suburbia more affordable) . This may seem like a reason to just stop trying to solve global energy challenge, but maybe one day we will break the cycle. Also, remember that alleviating poverty in this age means increasing energy usage; poverty and environmentalism are seamlessly stitched together.
- The editor of the science journal Remote Sensing resigned after publishing a climate science denial paper that did not hold up to scientific review.
- Obama has bent to the will of Republicans and the idea that environmentalism kills the economy. This is a terrible mistake going into the 2012 elections. It’s like Obama is doing all he can to gain the support of people that will never support him while he ignores environmentalists because he knows that they have no one else to vote for.
- Inequality in America is shocking and its effects have gone ignored by mainstream media. When people are poor they can not afford to make environmental decisions in the market place. Poverty forces people to buy products that externalize the negative affects of creating that product. We are literally trading the good health of our children for cheap products. Here is one example of trading human health for cheap food products.
- The overuse of agro-petro-chemicals has created new types of chemical-resistant weeds, now, thanks to Monsanto, we are creating new “Superinsects” that are also resistant to our poisoning of the land.
- As the drought in Texas stalls normal life the gas extraction industry continues unobstructed.
- Solar power in Europe could be as any other energy source by 2020.
- Greece turns to Solar to jump start their economy.
- Technology Review makes the argument that energy will be the next great achievement of modern technology, after personal computers.
- Our new electronic gadgets and improved industrial widgets are increasing the demand for things like Cobalt. The US hasn’t mined for Cobalt in 3o years, but starting next year we will back in the ground blowing toxic sediment into nearby rivers and creaks.
