Mindy Lubber, head of Ceres, is writing for Worldchanging from Davos:: “What’s needed now is a clear market signal from Washington that sets the parameters of the regulatory environment in which companies in the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions will operate. ‘You have to have government set the goal, set the timetable,’ Yale professor Daniel Esty told a group of businessmen and government officials here. Then it will be off to the races in the low-carbon, clean technology gold rush.
I love WorldChanging, but unfortunately I often read it through an RSS reader when I’m on planes. Then I get a paragraph or two, but can’t finish the post.
Please put start putting the whole post in your RSS feed!
(A short break from my CO2 offset series, back to that later this week)
There’s three interesting energy pieces in the WSJ today. If you get a chance to pick one up (I can’t link to it), its worthwhile.
The cover story titled “In Climate Controversy, Industry Cedes Ground” talks about how companies and industries are coming to the conclusion that green house gas policy of some kind is coming, so might as well accept that and get into the conversation.
This is Part 3 of an ongoing look at CO2 offsets. Here are parts 1 and 2. If you’re just joining the discussion, I’d suggest reading those first.
In this post we’re going to look at the effect of “time-shifting” of carbon offsets using Dell’s Plant a Tree for Me program as an example.
Time shifting means that we are going to emit CO2 over one period of time, and offset those emissions with savings or sequestration over a different period of time.
Paul K reports that “Foreclosures were up 35% year-over-year in the U.S. in December”. Massachusetts is #3 on the list, NH is below #40.
(Via Paul Kedrosky’s Infectious Greed.)
This is Part 2 of an ongoing look at CO2 offsets. Part 1 is available here.
In order to make this conversation concrete, I’m going to use the new Dell “Plant a Tree for Me” program as an example.
Before I get into it, let me explain why I’m using a competitor’s program. First, at Sun we’ve looked a number of times at doing a similar program, so its something I’m familiar with.
Doc Searls wants an oPhone: _“Backlash by the customersphere, the journalsphere and the developersphere to news that the iPhone is closed is a huge gift to the iPhone’s many new competitors. The market points to a clear and wide opening both for product differentiation and for giving customers what they want.
“Which is an open phone."_
That’s exactly what I want. And I want an oCar while you’re at it (I’ve been calling it the Gnumobile for awhile, but whatever).
Weather Financial Factoid du Jour: “Here is my favorite weather-related financial factoid in some time: Hurricane-caused financial damages rise with the eighth power of maximum wind speed.
“Fascinating.”
(Via Paul Kedrosky’s Infectious Greed.)
OK, I’m going to come right out and admit it: carbon accounting and offsets hurt my brain. There’s too many parts that feel like apples to oranges, and I keep thinking myself into corners.
Before we get into my personal issues, let me describe what I’m talking about. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of the most prevalent green house gasses. As it is a common byproduct of extracting energy from fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, coal), most of our everyday activities generate CO2 as a direct or indirect effect.
Brian Oberkirch talks about What the Wii Can Teach Us About Making Great Web Apps. I think he’s right, but with one caveat: the Wii is much better on a big screen.
We took ours on vacation over the holidays, and the difference between playing at home on a big HDTV and playing on a 20” TV is huge. You have to get closer to see, the gestures are far more sensitive when dealing with things on the screen, and the whole experience is lessened.