Fracking Discussion on Blogging Heads TV

Andrew Revkin and Abrahm Lustgarten discuss fracking (27 minutes). This discussion is going to become more and more intense as fracking itself becomes more intense. Fracking makes more natural gas available than before, but at what cost? Do we even know how to estimate the costs? What about the physician’s oath: Do no harm?

4 minute video summarizing Fukushima disaster to date

Nature has uploaded the video:

For more comprehensive and detailed information, see their news special.

Business with a Conscience: The B Corp

Many small corporations with a conscience, a so-called triple bottom line (profits, people and planet) get stripped of their conscience when bought out by a Big Corporation that’s only interested in short-term share-holder payout, and can be legally held to that goal. Writing in the NYTimes, Tina Rosenberg outlines a new type of corporate organization that can keep its conscience: the B Corp:

To become a certified B Corp, or benefit corporation, a business must pass an examination of how it treats its employees, the environment and the community. A non-profit organization called B Lab sets out the requirements and certifies businesses that meet the standard. The idea is that while any company can claim to be a good corporate citizen, a B Corp can prove it — something valuable for consumers and investors.

B Corps must also procure shareholders’ agreement for a revision of the bylaws to allow business decisions to consider the impact not only on shareholders, but also the workforce, community and the environment. Shareholders are allowed to sue if they feel the directors aren’t doing enough to take social responsibility into account.

The B Corp is backed in four states: Vermont, Maryland, New Jersey, and Virginia. Philadelphia gives tax breaks to B Corps. Currently there are 400 certified B Corps, but none that a publicly traded.

Collaborative Consumption

Arnold Grenberg’s told me about this TED video by Rachel Botsman. It’s about ‘collaborative consumption.’ Zipcar is an example of collaborative consumption. This is from the intro to the collaborative consumption website:

Collaborative Consumption describes the rapid explosion in swapping, sharing, bartering, trading and renting being reinvented through the latest technologies and peer-to-peer marketplaces in ways and on a scale never possible before.

Sharing, barter, swapping, writ large. Here’s the video.

http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf

Ten reasons why new nuclear was a mistake

Plus One (1) makes Eleven (11)! Count ’em!

Alexis Rowell tell us why in this post at Transition Culture. Here’s the list:

1. Nuclear power is too expensive
2. New nuclear power stations won’t be ready in time
3. Nuclear does not and will not safeguard our energy security
4. Nuclear power is not green
5. Nuclear power will do little to reduce our carbon emissions
6. Nuclear power stations are inefficient
7. Plane crashes are a risk to nuclear power stations
8. Nuclear power kills
9. It’s a myth that renewables cannot provide baseload
10. Global expansion could lead to new nuclear security risks
11. And we still have no idea what to do with nuclear waste

Here’s what we need to do:

1. Energy efficiency
2. Renewables (and possibly Combined Heat & Power in urban areas if we can find enough non-fossil fuels to run it)
3. Tradable Energy Quotas (TEQs)

Read the full post to find out more.

Thanks for your attention, your most precious resource . . . and ours.

Shazaam! Ontario, the Jolly Green Giant

Writing from Buffalo, Bill Nowak informs TPUSA that Ontario’s become the Jolly Green Giant of North American energy.

Check it out – Ontario has started taking over the North American market for renewable energy because they have followed Germany’s example and set fair, fixed prices for solar and wind through their “feed-in tariff”. The renewable revolution is now accessible to all in Ontario. Individuals, communities, co-ops, Indian tribes and businesses can all generate green energy profitably. They are setting themselves up for a secure future.

In the last year, over $9 billion in private sector investment has been committed to clean energy projects, creating an estimated 20,000 new jobs in Ontario.

In 2003, Ontario had 19 dirty, polluting coal units and just ten wind turbines. Today, the province has over 700 new wind turbines and by 2014 they plan to be finished with coal generators and the greenhouse gases they produce.

Check out the latest news from Ontario’s Ministry of Energy.

Workin’ on the Transition

All that pretty green is algae feeding on phosphates from detergent run-off. The old tire, of course, is a petroleum product, in more ways than one. As for the turtle, he’s just hanging out, getting some sun, and keeping a wary eye out.

An Ecological Declaration of Interdependance

219 years ago our originators “brought forth upon this continent a new nation: conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Today we have less liberty. Inequality has reached obscene proportions as millions die of preventable diseases and starvation each year, and over a billion children suffer sociogenic brain damage worldwide, as the rich get ever richer. We have been engaged for many years in stalemated, unwinnable wars that waste Nature and bankrupt us spiritually, morally, economically and politically. If, seven generations from now, we are to celebrate freedom and the proposition that all humans and all lifeforms are part of the Great Order Of Diversity, the Great Equality Aspiration, we must renounce fear and war, victimization and alienation, to participate fully in Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness following faithfully “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” that guided our founders.

We, as a united people, mindful of our consumption and numbers, must dedicate ourselves to consecrating Earth, hallowing this planet and all its creatures great and small, so that future generations may live in peace, ecological balance and liberty. This Declaration of Interdependance introduces a Great Transition that places joy, well being, and sustainable economics first.

In this spirit we resolve that this nation, under “the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” shall have a new birth of freedom . . . and that government of the people . . . by the people . . . for the people . . . shall not perish from the Earth.”

The American Economy is Grinding to a Halt

Richard Heinberg is posting drafts from his new book in progress, The End of Growth (New Society Publishers). “The Sound of Air Escaping” explains why the American economy is grinding to a halt, with little chance of continuing forward on its present path. He observes:

During the 1930s, industrialized countries were in the early stages of their shift from an agrarian coal-based rural economy to an electrified, oil-based, urban economy—a shift that required enormous infrastructure investments (in new highways, airports, dams, and power lines) that would ultimately pay off handsomely for a nation on the verge of realizing a consumer utopia. All that was needed to initiate the building of that infrastructure was credit—grease for the wheels of commerce. Government got those wheels rolling by taking on debt, with private companies increasingly taking up the lead after World War II. The expansion that occurred from the 1950s through 2000, as that infrastructure was built out and put to use, easily justified the government pump-priming that initiated the process. Interest payments on the government debt could be paid through growth of the tax base.

Now is different. … both the U.S. and the world as a whole have passed a fundamental crossroads characterized by increasing scarcity of energy and crucial minerals. Because of this, strategies of growth that worked spectacularly well in the mid-to-late 20th century—via various forms of business and technological development—have reached a point of diminishing returns.

He concludes:

If the Keynesian remedy doesn’t cure the ailment but merely extends the suffering (while increasing government debt to truly toxic levels), the medicine of austerity may have such severe side effects that it could kill the patient outright. Both sides—left and right, the socialists and free-marketers—assume and hope to the point of desperation that their prescription will result in a rapid return to continuous economic growth and low unemployment. … that hope is futile.

There is no “silver bullet,” no magic solution that will turn back the clock to an era of abundant resources and easy growth. For now, all that governments can do is buy time through further deficit spending—ideally, using that time to build infrastructure that will continue to function in the coming era of reduced flows of energy and resources. Meanwhile, we must all find ways to come out from under a burden of debt that will otherwise crush us. The inherent contradiction within this prescription is obvious but unavoidable.

The entire chapter is online as MuseLetter #224; you can also download a PDF (214 KB).