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Environmentalism today is generating more interest in the world than at any time since the 1970′s, but environmentalism today is very different from the modern movement that began on Earth Day nearly 36 years ago.

When comparing the environmental movement today to environmentalism back then, two things are evident: First, important goals have been accomplished in the last thirty years. Our air and water are cleaner, wilderness and wildlife have been preserved in great abundance, land development has become a far more thoughtful process, pollution from all sources is drastically reduced, and impressive gains in energy conservation and energy efficiency have occurred. Overall, environmentalism has been a huge success.

The second thing to recognize about environmentalism now as compared to then is that today environmentalism is an institution. It is taught in our schools, it is a given in political campaigns, it is a value that pervades every public bureaucracy, and the fledgling environmental nonprofit groups of thirty years ago are now powerful organizations. Their budgets, collectively, amount to hundreds of millions per year, and their influence within our public institutions amounts to power over public opinion and policy that is immense and defies valuation.

This is where we find ourselves in 2007 – environmentalism has become a powerful force with a legacy of improvements to our quality of life, our health, our planet. But what direction should environmentalism take today – with energy independence becoming an important priority for all nations, new concerns about global warming, ongoing challenges to preserve wilderness, and unfinished business with respect to air and water pollution?

At a time like this, where the momentum to do anything to achieve energy independence dovetails fitfully with the momentum to do anything to reduce CO2 emissions, policymakers pressured by environmentalists may enact sweeping legislation that could completely change our way of life. But there are two ways environmentalists can go to pursue their core values in the 21st century, and they represent very, very different choices. One of the most fundamental areas where these two choices diverge concerns energy and water policy.

A “supply side” environmentalist – for lack of a better term – would argue that the priority should be to achieve energy and water abundance. To do this, for example, they would advocate construction of nuclear powered desalinization plants, as well as pumping stations and aqueducts. They would advocate increased production of fresh water from seawater, and they would advocate distributing this water to restore every depleted aquifer on earth.

A “demand side” environmentalist, by contrast, would argue that conservation of energy and water is the only approach that could possibly make sense. They would argue that it isn’t possible to produce enough energy for everyone at current levels of consumption. They would fight for energy and water rationing, with punitive fines and even criminal penalties for overuse of these resources.

The supply side environmentalist, in rebuttal, would argue that anyone overusing water and energy could simply pay a small but fair premium for their excess consumption, causing more revenues to accrue to the water and energy companies, who could then use those surpluses to invest in additional energy and water production facilities. A supply side environmentalist would argue there is abundant energy and always will be, because the market sets the price, and as soon as one energy source becomes scarce, the price of all energy rises somewhat, stimulating more investment in these energy alternatives.

Another critical choice for environmentalists is what sort of land use to advocate. A demand side environmentalist would say we don’t have enough land for new homes, so everyone must live in high-rises, or if they’re lucky, “cluster homes.” A demand side environmentalist would say we don’t have enough land for freeways, or enough energy for personal transportation devices (cars), so road construction must be curtailed in order to force people to choose mass transit.

A supply side environmentalist would say we have plenty of land, and the problem with suburban sprawl is it doesn’t sprawl enough – if homes on the outskirts of cities were “ranchettes” with very large lots, then wildlife could pass through these neighborhoods, and big trees could grow, and the roads would be uncongested, and sprawl would be beautiful instead of ugly. A supply side environmentalist would say there are now cars that emit virtually no pollution and are incredibly energy efficient, and eventually cars will use energy from cheap photovoltaics mounted on everyone’s roof, so build more cars, and double the mileage of roads to encourage car travel.

A demand side environmentalist would say that we need to ration energy and water and land because there are too many people on earth, and that we’ve outgrown our planet’s “carrying capacity.” A supply side environmentalist would say it is rationing that perpetuates poverty, and poverty delays female emancipation, and prosperity accelerates female emancipation, which always results in dramatic lowering of birthrates.

Obviously both approaches – managing demand while also increasing supplies of clean water and energy – is the solution to environmental challenges today. But it is vital to maintain this balance, and not dismiss the perspective nor the projects coming from the supply side.

There is a network of tree nurseries and over-sustainable forestry operations that are reforesting vast swaths of Central America. It is a huge success story. One example of this profitable process is Finca Leola, with reforesting operations in the northern highlands of Costa Rica.

The tropical highlands of Costa Rica

Finca Leola’s principle of business is simple and powerful in its regenerative impact – that by underharvesting a newly planted forest of cash timber, the overall forest mass increases faster, allowing larger underharvests. Perpetual and growing profit.

Such an alternative economic model is all the more important in this day of allowing anything – including rampant tropical deforestation – in the name of growing biofuel to reduce CO2 emissions. We need to reforest the tropics at least as much as curtail anthropogenic CO2.

What if global warming were the result of changes in land use, and increased CO2 is a result of a hotter earth? Over 20% of the earth’s surface, in agricultural basins and plateaus from California’s Central Valley to Africa’s Sahel, has now seen its water table lower dramatically, often by an order of magnitude or more, due to mechanized pumps and deep wells. Ten million square miles of overheated earth due to depleted water tables could be countered by massive infrastructure projects to desalinate seawater and pump it via pipeline back into these aquafirs.

What if global warming and climate change is because over 10% of the earth’s surface, nearly two-thirds of our original tropical rainforests, no longer exist? For over 100 years, tropical forests have been decimated via logging, more recently they are being finished off thanks to lucrative biofuel prices, with perhaps no end in sight. Without forest transpiration, especially near the coasts, the regular monsoon circulation is collapsed, causing more droughts and extreme storms, and these deforested lands are now – equatorial with formerly perennial transpiration – heat islands on a continental scale.

Someday the earth might warm too much, and wouldn’t it be a huge missed opportunity, if we didn’t put forested mountain bike trails atop good-sized urban highrise condominiums, to mitigate the land-based heat island effect, when such measures, not CO2 hysteria, would keep earth cool?

If the Tesla Roadster is being powered with 6,831 laptop batteries, the Chevy “Volt” may end up running on Black & Decker power tool batteries. That’s not quite accurate, but in both cases, a lithium ion battery with a proven track record in other consumer applications is finding its way into the next generation of electric cars.

Ed Benarcik VP Pack & Systems Business A123 Systems

Only a couple of months ago, on January 5th, 2007, two days before General Motor’s historic announcement that they intend to produce a series hybrid (or “E-Flex”) electric car, GM announced their choices for suppliers for the advanced battery systems these cars would use. One of their choices was A123 Systems, who had already cornered the market in powertool batteries. For three years now A123 has been supplying market-leader Black & Decker with 36 volt, 3000 watt lithium ion batteries that provide more power than you can get from a standard wall socket.

When I asked Ed Bednarcik, A123′s general manager of battery systems, about the company’s current products, he provided an interesting example of just how much energy is packed into these new lithium ion batteries. “Black & Decker’s old batteries had been designed to act as a counterweight to the motor on most of their power tools, but when we built our batteries, even at much greater capacity than the ones they had been using, they had to redesign the tools because our batteries didn’t weigh enough.”

Underweight battery-packs isn’t likely to become a problem in battery-powered automobiles, no matter how advanced these batteries get. But the new lithium ion batteries being developed by A123 Systems hold over triple the energy per unit of weight than lead acid batteries, and nearly double the energy per weight of the newer nickel metal hydride batteries. With this leap forward, a battery powered car, or a car that can run exclusively on batteries for most of its duty cycles before relying on a conventional gasoline or diesel engine, is finally possible.

Lithium ion batteries also hold great promise because they are now being designed – unlike many of the older laptop versions – so they won’t overheat, won’t release toxic gas or fluids in a crash, are heat and cold tolerant, and can last up to 100,000 cycles of charge and discharge. Also very important, lithium ion batteries are able to discharge at a wide range of rates, allowing the battery to provide surge power for acceleration as well as a sustained discharge at lower levels for normal driving. Lithium ion batteries, once manufacturing is scaled up, also will cost significantly less than the nickel metal hydride batteries in use on hybrids today.

“Today there are many lithium ion chemistries,” said Bednarcik, “eventually the industry will downselect to a few core materials.” In the meantime, competing with A123 to supply the automotive industry are Johnson Controls, Altair Nanotechnologies, Valence Technologies, Sanyo, Sony, Hitachi, and many others.

Whether or not the auto industry selects A123′s specific chemistry as these pioneering lithium ion batteries eventually become a commodity is anybody’s guess, but with a well-established market already established in power tools and the recent partnership with General Motors, they are certainly in the running.

A123 Systems currently has revenue of about $35 million per year, mostly through sales of lithium ion batteries for power tools, and they expect to be profitable in the second half of 2007. They are privately held, based in Watertown, Massachusetts, and they have 250 employees in the US, China, Taiwan and South Korea. They have raised just over $102 million in investment funding to-date.

India at night from outer space - already glowing with energy and light

To ensure India will have adequate energy and water supplies in the future…

The first step is to predict where India’s population will level off. Assume India’s population is going to peak at around 1.3 billion people. This may be somewhat underestimating reality, but everything that follows can be proportionately increased based on higher population projections.

Next, determine how many units of energy (expressed in millions of BTUs per year), and how many cubic meters of water per year, on average, are required to sustain the lifestyle for a citizen of a fully industrialized nation. Currently, on average, each Indian citizen consumes 25 million BTUs of energy per year and consumes not quite 500 cubic meters of water. In the European Union, which provides a useful comparison, the average energy consumption is well over 150 million BTUs per citizen per year, and just over 500 cubic meters of water.

It is safe to assume India will employ more energy efficient “leapfrog” technologies as she industrializes, meaning that it will not be necessary to achieve increases in per capita energy consumption all the way to the levels of the Europeans. This is also a safe assumption because much of Europe’s energy consumption is required for heating during their much colder winters.

…assume that India’s per capita energy production will need to get to at least 50% of that currently enjoyed by Europeans. Taking into account projected population increases, this means India’s total national energy production per year will need to quadruple from 25 quadrillion BTUs per year to 100 quadrillion BTUs per year.

India’s water production per person would not have to increase, but overall supply will still need to keep pace with population growth, meaning India will eventually need to divert 667 cubic kilometers of water per year, up from 500 cubic kilometers per year today. Bear in mind that abundant energy leads to abundant water, since a cubic meter of seawater can be desalinated for a mere two kilowatt-hours (ref. “Photovoltaic Desalinization”).

DELIVERING ABUNDANT FRESH WATER

TO EVERY CORNER OF INDIA

With India’s future water challenges, the problem isn’t so much one of supply, it’s more a problem of uneven distribution. The north and east of India enjoy abundant supplies of water, but the south and west of India are relatively arid. It is important to note that if the proposed aquaducts, reservoirs and pumping stations were built, India’s major river interlinking projects, through a system of reservoirs and aquaducts, (ref. India’s Water Future) could then move water in cubic kilometer volumes relatively cost effectively. Once the costs of the interlinking system are borne, the biggest ongoing cost is the energy required for the pumps. But to pump a cubic kilometer of water up a 250 meter lift, which is what it would take to get water from the Ganges basin to the Deccan Plateau, would only require 100 megawatt-years of power. To pump 50 cubic kilometers of water per year from the Ganges basin upwards 250 meters into aquaducts flowing south and west, which is more than the most ambitious of India’s current interlinking projects, would only require about 5 gigawatt-years of electricity. This amount of electricity represents only about one-half of one percent of India’s current total yearly energy production (all sources).

HOW MUCH ELECTRICITY WOULD BE REQUIRED TO PUMP WATER FROM THE GANGES TO THE KRISHNA BASIN?

As the table indicates, it would take 3.8 gigawatts of electricity (representing about 2.7% of India’s estimated 2005 electrical generating capacity of about 140 gigawatts), running constantly, to pump water 250 meters uphill at a volume of 38 cubic kilometers per year. Put another way, a 250 meter lift will require about 100 megawatt-years for each cubic kilometer pumped.

Water supply in India, regardless of whether or not there are a few interlinking projects on a national scale, will be managed, overwhelmingly, using decentralized solutions. Both innovation and traditional methods can combine and evolve, proliferating via an information enlightenment nurtured by internet communications, to produce thousands of water management projects: cisterns in buildings, contour berms to collect and percolate runoff, refilling underground aquifers with runoff, and smaller but numerous new reservoirs (ref. “Harvesting Water”).

It is important to emphasize that as India generates more energy, more uses for water will be required. India is challenged not only to redistribute water on a national scale, but also to use water much more efficiently.

…plant biofuel crops in the desert…

Strip mining the lands for biofuel is driving a new round of global deforestation – especially in the tropics – of catastrophic proportions.

When forests are regrown, more tigers and other wildlife may survive. Equally important however is the role forests play in increasing water supplies.

One often overlooked but decisive contribution to water supply and storage is through reforestation. India has lost about 90% of her forest cover. Watersheds need to be reforested everywhere, and when they are, the springs will flow again, and the water tables will rise. Forests moderate heat, they increase cloud formation and rainfall, they protect topsoil, and they nourish aquafirs. Do you want more fresh water? Then reforest India.
(ref. “Profitable Reforesting,” and “Reforesting Brings Rain”).

Not only on the land, but just offshore, reforesting needs to be a priority for India. The best way to protect India’s coast from tidal surges is to replant the mangrove forests (ref. “Mangroves Stop Tsunami”). Mangrove deforestation has occurred on a massive scale worldwide, and can be reversed simply by planting more mangroves.

Most projections of India’s future energy supplies are almost completely reliant on increasing conventional energy production, and they are also far too low. An interesting side note is that India’s most ambitious plans for nuclear power don’t amount to more than about 3% of India’s projected energy production (ref. “India’s Nuclear Power”). India cannot plan to simply double energy production, they must quadruple it. To do this, conventional sources (including nuclear power) are not sufficient. A breakthrough is required, and that breakthrough is almost here.

SOLAR ELECTRICITY IS THE

MOST PROMISING RENEWABLE

There is only one source of renewable energy that can quickly get built and installed and can produce 50 quadrillion BTUs or more per year, and that is solar energy, photovoltaic energy in particular (ref. “Power the World With Photovoltaics,” “Photovoltaic Powered Cars,” and “The Photovoltaic Revolution). India needs a photovoltaic array on every rooftop. Today photovoltaic cells, in the whole world, produce at most 10 gigawatt-years of electric power per year, which at 3,416 BTUs per kilowatt-hour, equates to only .3 quadrillion BTUs. Given worldwide energy production is over 400 quadrillion BTUs, photovoltaic power today is a drop in the bucket. But that is about to change.

CHINA, INDIA, USA, EUROPE – KEY VARIABLES 2005

India’s terribly inefficient energy intensity (BTU’s per unit of GNP) is reason for hope – through more energy efficiency, quantum increases in energy output may not be necessary for India to achieve first world per capita economic status

Photovoltaic manufacturing relies on supplies of polysilicon, which have never been reliable. But there are new designs that require far less silicon, or no silicon at all. These next generation photovoltaic cells are called “thin skin,” a catch-all term describing several technologies which all use a far thinner coating of photo-electric material. There are companies claiming to have this technology all over the world, including India. (ref. “Thin Film Photovoltaics,” “Crystaline Photovoltaics,” and “fuels/the-photovoltaic-boom.html). It is vital that photovoltaic technology be the top priority of India’s alternative energy research and development community, as well as for investment in manufacturing. There is no other plausible way to produce, within a decade, a quantity of energy sufficient to lift the Indian economy to sustainable prosperity. Even if the thin film breakthroughs don’t occur, India should invest in polysilicon manufacturing for the production of conventional crystaline photovoltaics. Even at current costs, conventional photovoltaics make long-term economic sense, and the greatest cost to their manufacture is energy, which can be produced by photovoltaics themselves. Conventional photovoltaics now have an energy payback of 20+ to one.

India can have a green and prosperous future

Other than photovoltaics, solar electricity via solar-thermal arrays is surprisingly cost-competitive and space-efficient (ref. “Solar Thermal Power,” and “Saharan Solar Power”) The space-efficiency of solar energy collection units (electric and thermal) enables decentralized energy development. Alternative technologies in general support the design of each home or building being adapted to collect and store solar, wind, or even geothermal energy. In a modern green structure, thermal energy from any source can be stored on-site and converted back into electricity, as well as used for space heating and water heating. Thermal energy can even by used as an energy source for refrigeration. Clearly the design of buildings to acquire and store energy is another area where technology, tradition, and innovation can significantly address India’s future energy challenges.

Just as the potential for nuclear power to address India’s energy needs may be overstated – as well as the risks therein, the potential for biofuel is overstated as well, and the risks of biofuel are decidedly understated (ref. “IPCC Report & Deforestation,” and “Biofueled Global Warming”). Biofuel can provide an important supplemental fuel, but even at 2,500 barrels of oil per square kilometer per year – which would be an excellent yield – there is not enough land in India to begin to rely on biofuel to replace conventional fuels, let alone provide the fuel necessary to quadruple India’s energy output. As it is, biofuel crops are beginning to crowd out food crops, pushing up the price of food. Biofuel crops also can provide the reason for further deforestation. Biofuel crops make sense as a supplemental fuel, not as a comprehensive energy solution. Biofuel crops make sense in arid regions where any crop is a welcome bulwark against desertification, and biofuel will eventually be extracted from virtually all municipal waste, but under no circumstances should a forest be cut down just to grow biofuel.

India’s green and prosperous future will require education, infrastructure, innovation, pluralism, and enlightened, adaptable environmentalism.

Addressing India’s energy and water needs requires servicing five interrelated industrial sectors; agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, buildings and shelter, and waste management (ref. “The Electric Car Revolution,” “Clean the Ganges,” “Organic Farming in India,” and “India’s Energy Future”"). In all these areas, green technology and high technology, working together, can provide answers. Often solutions will embrace traditional practices as much as adopt scientific breakthroughs, and working synergistically within all these dimensions is necessary to quicken progress. It should be a source of inspiration that India can complete the process of industrialization today, meaning she can leapfrog obsolete legacy technologies that often hamper innovation in the west.

To produce so much more energy, to collect and distribute so much water, India’s challenges are daunting but achievable. The key is to balance large scale projects that are often costly and difficult to manage ecologically, with smaller projects that can be adopted at the scale of individual homes or communities. And at both scales, the solutions will be easier if there is a faith and reliance on India’s world-class intellectual and scientific community to provide assistance through high technology.

About the Author: Ed “Redwood” Ring is the Editor of EcoWorld, reporting on clean technology and the status of species and ecosystems. This story was originally published in the January-March 2007 issue of “TerraGreen” Magazine, published by the Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi, India (www.teriin.org). In his spare time, Mr. Ring grows and gives away trees, especially his beloved Redwoods.

Calling an e-flex vehicle a “series hybrid” is not accurate, according to Larry Burns, Vice President of Research and Development for General Motors, and he’s right.

Larry Burns GM’s VP R&D and Planning Photo: General Motors

In order to see why GM’s revolutionary new Chevy “Volt” automobile design is different from typical hybrids, the “series” designation is helpful, but that’s all. Hybrids to-date, by this reckoning, are parallel hybrids, since the gasoline and the electric motors are both connected to the drive train. In the Volt, the gasoline engine only powers an onboard electric generator, and only a powerful electric motor actually turns the wheels.

At a breakfast that Rob Peterson at General Motors set up for me and a handful of other bloggers (including Sam Abuelsamid from AutoblogGreen and David Houle from EvolutionShift) earlier this week with Burns, at GM’s Technical Center in Warren, Michigan, the top R&D VP stressed that GM’s “E-Flex” concept is broader – it allows “the same powertrain to use different types of energy.”

Different types indeed. The Chevy Volt, a brilliant and long, long overdue automotive innovation, can run on either gasoline or electricity stored from the power grid. Currently planned to have a battery pack storing 16 kilowatt-hours and weighing under 400 pounds, the GM Volt will have a range of 40+ miles using plug-in electricity from home. The car will also be able to operate independently of the battery, running purely on generator supplied onboard electricity, getting 50 miles per gallon and having a range of 600 miles. This is the car we’ve been waiting for.

When I asked Burns why someone hadn’t made a car that had an onboard generator and an all-electric drivetrain sooner, he had some interesting answers. Much automotive R&D is influenced by government mandates, of course, and in the early 1990′s policies emphasized developing a zero emission vehicle – even though the Volt in a normal commute cycle would almost never use its onboard gasoline generator, it didn’t qualify as a ZEV. At the same time, for the coming hybrid cars, policy goals fixated on an 80 mile per gallon mileage standard- the Volt, when running just on gasoline, only gets about 50 mpg.

Not mentioned by Burns, but undoubtedly true, was the passion for hydrogen fuel cells felt by environmental activists which translated into relentless and very successful lobbying for policies favoring the fuel cell option.

Here is where e-flex technology gets really interesting: General Motor’s Volt isn’t just a long overdue innovation some might call a series hybrid. With an all electric drivetrain, it is a platform that can accept any source of electric power; an onboard generator running on hydrogen, diesel fuel, or gasoline; a fuel cell; batteries. No matter what technology is best suited to the fuel resources of wherever an e-flex vehicle is operated, the basic design and drivetrain stays the same when the power systems vary.

Returning to the Volt, what makes the series hybrid version of an e-flex car extremely exciting is not just the freedom of a vehicle with a 600 mile range that can operate most of the time on plug-in electricity – it is the utter simplicity of the vehicle. As Larry Burns put it, “you can see some big components dropping off the car” when you move to an all electric drivetrain. The most dramatic example of this is the transmission, which in a conventional hybrid is an amazingly complex mess of gearboxes. In an all electric vehicle, a two-speed transmission linking one electric engine to the drivetrain is all you need. These Volts are going to last forever.

Along with E-Flex platforms, eventually automobiles will have in-wheel motors, collision avoidance systems, ultra-safe interiors, increasingly capable modes of autopilot, and power sources we can only imagine. As Burns explained these and other features that constitute the imminent and first-ever “new automotive DNA,” his optimism was evident. And optimism is warranted. Today is the dawn of the automotive industry’s electric age, the biggest revolution since the horsedrawn carriage gave way to the gas powered car. Right now, today, the Chevy Volt is the biggest step forward into that age yet seen. Bring ‘em on.

Here are questions regarding the notion of anthropogenic CO2 causing runaway global warming that all who opine might find worth personally investigating:

Aerosol forcing in motion

• Atmospheric CO2 molecules boil off the upper atmosphere and are self limiting
• The impact of increasing atmospheric CO2 is non-linear, we’ve already seen most of the warming effect
• Global warming is caused more by sunspot and cosmic ray activity, as well as earth’s many orbital cycles (ex: when earth’s orbit is more circular, the planet is hotter)
• Recent measured temperature change just below the “CO2 belt” in the upper stratosphere is down, not up, contradicting fundamental runaway CO2 threat theories
• Anthropogenic CO2 is only 3-5% of CO2 emitted, the rest is natural
• Yearly fluctuations in natural CO2 emissions are an order of magnitude greater than all yearly anthropogenic CO2 emissions
• There is evidence that historically (over the past several million years) rising CO2 levels were the effect of global warming, not the cause
• The southern icecap is actually increasing in mass (Ref. Antarctic Ice)
• Greenland’s icecap is not melting at a significant rate (Ref. Greenland’s Ice Melting Slowly)
• Sea level rise is insignificant – much flooding is due to land subsidance
• Storm fury is more visible today because of overbuilding into marginal areas
• The western arctic is warming but the eastern arctic is actually cooling
• Warming in the northern hemisphere over the past 20-30 years could be due to the interdecadal oscilation between the northern and southern Atlantic ocean temperatures
• The most recent IPCC summary acknowledges there is no evidence to suggest the gulf stream that warms Europe may be disrupted
• Global temperature measurements are weighted towards areas that are increasingly urbanized, and urban areas absorb more heat
• There are now over a million square miles of urbanized land, and this urban heat island effect could cause some warming on a global scale
• Transpiration from watered, forested land, especially in the tropics, is the forcing mechanism to maintain global monsoon circulation and prevent drought – in turn – deforestation causes drought, creating hotter land and additional heat island effect
• The tropical forests have declined from over 7 million square miles to less than 3 million, and tropical forests release more moisture and are cooler than open land
• Using mechanized pumps, in the last 100 years we have depleted aquafirs in all the agricultural lands of the world, lowering water tables from, say, 10 meters deep to over 500 meters deep. The resulting agricultural land heat island comprises perhaps 10% of all land surface on earth
• Even taking into account the possible errors in measurement, the recorded warming over the past 150 years is about .5 degrees centigrade, not a significant amount
• The claims that the last 10 years include several of the “warmest on record” is disputed, just as the claims the landbased icecaps are rapidly melting (net loss) is completely false
• CO2 forcing theories and the computer models associated with them do not sufficiently take into account natural balancing processes in the earth’s climate regulatory system

the computer models that predict global warming due to CO2 rely on huge assumptions that are impossible to verify – the role of water vapor, land status, and solar cycles on global warming are gigantic wild cards in these computer models, which, depending on the assumptions made, completely change the predictions of these models

These are a few questions that anyone who is listening to the debate about global warming should wish to hear answered. There is much, much more. Global warming alarmists and the things they’re trying to do are extreme. If you pause to consider the laws being proposed based on blind acceptance of global warming alarm, you may find many of them do more harm than good. In the name of reducing CO2 emissions, there is reduced attention to other pollutants, and massive new rounds of deforestation to grow biofuel.

Where are the clean aerosols?

In March of 2006, I wrote an article for EcoWorld “Global Warming – Is it Real, Are Humans the Cause, and Can Anything be Done?” which emphasized that there really IS a scientific debate going on over whether anthropogenic (human induced) CO2 generation from burning of fossil fuels is responsible for global warming (GW). If you haven’t read it yet, go to the link now. There will be a quiz. However, the mass media have concluded that there is no doubt whatsoever (such as in Time magazine’s cover story, “be worried, be VERY worried”) that GW is caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions, and that civilization as we know it is doomed unless we stop using fossil fuels. I, on the other hand, concluded that CO2 doesn’t have much at all to do with GM in general, and even if it were a major factor, strict following of the Kyoto protocols wouldn’t fix anything.

Dr. Richard Lindzen Professor of Meteorology, MIT A skeptic who is respected by his foes. Ref. Lindzen “Is There a Basis for Global Warming Alarm?” also by Lindzen “Some Relevant Figures for Current Behavior of Global Surface Temperatures”

Since then, additional feature articles have been published on this web site which also express a skeptical view of the CO2 induced GW dogma in different ways. Since my first article, some very important new scientific findings have been published that raise strong doubt that the anthropogenic generated CO2 GW theory is true. However, the mass media and the climate scientist establishment have ignored any evidence that calls into question the CO2 dogma. So please, read what follows with an open mind, something hard to find in people when considering “hot” issues (pun intended) like GW these days. Consider also that just because your mind is open, your brains won’t necessarily fall out.

Before getting into the heart of this matter, let me state very clearly that, probably like most of you reading this, I am TOTALLY in favor of developing and using alternative sources of energy; including solar, wind, tidal, hydrogen fuel cells, nuclear (whoops, some of you won’t like that one) and sex. With the exception of sexual energy, which generates LOTS of CO2, none of the others mentioned above generate anything other than water and heat. We absolutely need to stop financing terrorists and polluting the air by our profligate use of mostly foreign oil. This is one of the rare times that I think we need the Federal Government to take over and do something. This is very difficult for me to say because I am a libertarian type, but the government should tax gasoline so that it always costs at least $4.00 a gallon. Americans will never stop guzzling gas unless it really costs them. Europeans have managed to survive even higher gas prices for decades. Also, give big tax breaks to companies doing research on alternative energy sources.

Having said that, I still find it puzzling that it has become common to call CO2 a “pollutant”, one needing EPA regulation just like Nitrogen oxide emissions from automobiles and soot and sulfur oxides from coal fired power plants. Many of you readers, not to mention virtually every reporter for the mass media in the country, may not be too familiar with biochemistry (and in the case of most of those reporters, no familiarity whatsoever). So I will state the simple facts of what keeps life on Earth going: Every living animal on this planet breathes. We animals (assuming none of you readers are plants) take in oxygen and use it for energy production to keep us alive. The next step of breathing is that we exhale CO2. This happens every moment of our lives. Meanwhile, every green plant on the planet is waiting with baited breath, ha ha, to inhale that CO2 that we animals exhale to use for their energy needs. They exhale oxygen, which us animals need. What a great system! God is great! It is also true that whenever we humans burn wood, coal, oil, natural gas (a clean fuel), CO2 and water are released. Is this then a big new cause of elevated CO2 levels in the atmosphere? Probably yes, but is this fossil fuel burning causing GW? Probably not!

Thus, even though I agree with environmentalists about the ABSOLUTE need for developing and using all those alternative energy sources, I am still called an enemy of humanity (Gelbspan book), akin to holocaust deniers, and could just as well believe in a flat earth (Al Gore). There is no doubt among sentient people that the Earth is not flat and that there was indeed a holocaust, but there is no proof that GW is caused by the well documented increase in atmospheric CO2 over the last 100 years! It’s a theory. I believe Mr. Gore and other true believers have it backward. They may just as well believe that the earth is the center of the universe, as did the Catholic Church in the middle ages. In 1633, Galileo was forced to recant his assertion that the Earth moved around the sun, not the other way around. The Inquisitors would have put him to death for heresy had he not recanted. Are we getting there yet? Should I be worried for my safety? It seems to me that Mr. Gore’s best selling book “Inconvenient Truth” should have been titled, “Convenient Truthiness” (look it up in Wikipedia). The word’s about people believing what they want to believe, and don’t confuse them with facts. GW is just the latest in mankind’s long tradition of infatuation with disaster scenarios; right up there with pesticides causing 100% incidence of cancer by 1970 (Silent Spring), mass starvation by the mid 1980″ (Paul Ehrlich), everybody (especially people who like to sunbathe in Antarctica) getting skin cancer because of ozone layer shrinkage, Y2K destroying the world’s financial system at a minute after midnight 2000, African bees destroying U.S. agriculture in the 70′s, and the world pandemic of killer flu due to mutated bird flu virus that we are all still waiting for. I personally worry a lot more about the earth colliding with an asteroid.

Dr. Michael Oppenheimer Professor of Geosciences, Princeton Principal contributor to IPCC studies. Ref. “IPCC 4th Assessment Summary” February 2007

Now for the real science that has turned me into a heretic, an infidel in the climate change arena. In my previous GW article, I stated that,

“the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a U.N. sponsored group of more than 2,000 scientists from over 100 countries, has concluded that human activity is a major factor in elevated atmospheric CO2 levels, and this will result in rising temperatures and sea levels that could prove catastrophic for multi-millions of coastal dwelling folk all over the world.”

It is the IPCC’s conclusions upon which Mr. Gore and most Climate scientists base their beliefs in Global Warming due to greenhouse gas CO2 dogma. The problem is that the IPCC essentially based their conclusions on only ONE scientific study, one authored by Michael Mann, an American scientist, published in the prestigious journal “Nature” in 1998. The alarmist IPCC report cited above (U.N. sponsored and therefore driven by politics) based its assessment of climate change almost solely on Mann’s study. In essence, he said all the historical temperature data was wrong. He claimed his data showed that there has been only a gradual global temperature change over the last millennium, but that there has been a very sharp rise in the last 100 years, i.e., his temperature graph looked like a hockey stick. Because atmospheric CO2 has doubled in that time, the sharp increase in temperature must be caused by that increase in greenhouse CO2. Gosh, only enemies of humanity could dispute that conclusion, right?

The big problem is that Mann’s research is either fraudulent or simply the work of an incompetent or very bias scientist who wishes to get the results he desires, as in truthiness. In June 2005, the U.S. House of Representatives committee on energy and commerce asked Dr. Edward Wegman, chairman of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics, to form an independent committee to assess Mann’s data. To you blogers who insist that all the infidel scientists like me are funded stooges of the big oil industry, Wegman’s group did it all pro bono, and that means FREE! In short, the committee concluded that Mann misused statistical methods, and that the hockey stick model is false. After their report, a separate committee was formed by the NAS to review Wigman’s report Mann’s work. I assume most of the scientists on the committee were true believers because they started their report saying something like, WE BELIEVE THAT THE LAST DECADE HAD THE HIGHEST TEMPERATURES EVER RECORDED, but the rest of his work is wrong and the hockey stick model is bogus (my words). They didn’t even mention CO2. Why, you might ask, have you probably not read about this in the mass media? Because the mass media is composed mostly of true believers who don’t want to be confused with facts that go against their faith, so they don’t report what they don’t like. Truthiness is rampant in elitist environmentalist circles. Pointing out the facts only hurts the “cause” many of them say. I must point out that I am an environmentalist, but not an elitist one, and I am ashamed of the extremism and deliberate disregard of real science that has taken over some environmental organizations (you know who you are).

So what are the believers left with as far as scientific evidence for anthropomorphic CO2 induced global warming? There is nothing but a statistical correlation between increasing atmospheric CO2 levels and rising global temperatures over the last century. Statistical correlations never prove anything. Over the last fifty years, the incidence of lung cancer in women has about doubled, as has the level of atmospheric CO2. Lung cancer rates in men, however, over the same time period have not increased at all. So should we conclude that CO2 causes cancer in women, but not in men? Perhaps we should look further and note that women, very few of whom smoked before 1960, started smoking profusely in the 60′s, while men leveled out in their smoking habits. When grass is tall and green, 1000 times more people drown than when grass is short and brown. Therefore, green grass causes drowning, right? Well, consider that when grass is green and tall, it’s summertime, just when people are likely to go swimming. My favorite, however, is the well known fact that the more time a person spends driving his car on the highway, the more likely he/she is to get in an auto accident, possibly fatal. Knowing this, one can limit the risk of an accident by driving as fast as possible, damn the speed limit. Obviously you will spend less time driving the faster you go, thus you reduce your risk of having a fatal auto accident, right? Reduce CO2 emissions and the earth will stop warming, right?

“A team at the Danish National Space Center has discovered how cosmic rays from exploding stars can help to make clouds in the atmosphere. The results support the theory that cosmic rays influence Earth’s climate.”

That news, like anything that might go counter to the GW dogma, was not widely reported in the mass media.

Here’s another excerpt:

“It is known that low-altitude clouds (my insert: high altitude clouds are greenhousers) have an overall cooling effect on the Earth’s surface. Hence, variations in cloud cover caused by cosmic rays can change the surface temperature. The existence of such a cosmic connection to Earth’s climate might thus help to explain past and present variations in Earth’s climate.”

It goes on:

“during the 20th Century, the Sun’s magnetic field, which shields Earth from cosmic rays more than doubled, thereby reducing the average influx of cosmic rays. The resulting reduction in cloudiness, especially of low-altitude clouds, may be a significant factor in the global warming Earth has undergone during the last century. However, until now, there has been no experimental evidence of how the causal mechanism linking cosmic rays and cloud formation may work.”

Perhaps while we are spending lots of money trying to limit CO2 emissions, we should also have politicians pass laws limiting how many stars in the galaxy should be allowed to explode!

Finally, economist Bjorn Lomborg, author of the book “Skeptical Environmentalist” is a GW believer. He buys the CO2 theory. However, he strongly disputes the wild disaster scenarios put forth by folks such as Al Gore and the recent report on climate change by Nicholas Stern and the U.K. government.

Referring to them, he states in the November 2006 issue of the Wall St. Journal:

“Faced with such alarmist suggestions, spending just 1% of gross domestic product (GDP) or $450 billion each year to cut carbon emissions seems on the surface like a sound investment. In fact, it is one of the least attractive options. Spending just a fraction of this figure 75 billion the U.N. estimates that we could solve all the world’s major basic problems. We could give everyone clean drinking water, sanitation, basic health care and education right now. Is that not better?”

Do you still believe, after reading this far, that global warming is totally due to anthropogenic CO2 emissions?

It is an article of faith among environmentalists that recycling is superior to landfills as a way to process municipal waste. But reality does not always conform to articles of faith, especially when it comes to environmentalism. We’ve reported on this before, read “Recycling Myths.”

First of all, contrary to popular belief, there is plenty of available landfill inventory. The US is pouring about 270 million tons per year into landfills, compared to approximately 70 million tons of waste that is being recycled each year. And right now, if every landfill operator in the USA did nothing to increase their landfill capacity, there is enough landfill space to absorb all of America’s garbage for the next 40 years. Many landfill operators have over 200 years of available landfill inventory.

Secondly, landfills are ultra safe. In the 1989 “Resource Conservation and Recovery Act,” standards were set by the Federal Government that virtually preclude contaminants from landfills infiltrating aquifers or otherwise causing pollution. Landfills today have liners of two to four feet of recompacted clay – nearly the density of concrete, on the bottom. Above that they have a 60-100 millimeter geosynthetic liner, a hard and impermeable rubber. Above that there is a one to two foot “drainage layer” which is comprised of pebbles and buried pipes, so any liquid that seeps downwards is immediately collected by the pipes and removed for safe processing. Landfills are no longer sited anywhere near known seismic areas, and in any case are being constantly drained so seepage is impossible.

Here is the clincher – we are on the verge of developing technologies that will process all municipal waste before it needs to go to a landfill, or a recycling company. This is extremely disruptive technology, since it is going to pull the rug out from what has become a multi-billion dollar, taxpayer-funded recycling industry. An example of a company that has already established a pilot plant to extract virtually all valuable materials from unsorted municipal waste is “World Waste Technologies,” based in San Diego, California. There are many other companies hot on the trail.

There are technologies coming soon that will use automated mechanical sorting along with thermal conversion and chemical conversion processes, and they not only will cost-effectively reduce unsorted municipal waste feedstock to valuable fuels, fertilizers, building materials and metal ingots, but these processors will run on the energy extracted from the garbage itself. And unlike today’s conventional (and very expensive) recycling operations, these new technologies emit virtually zero pollution.

So forget about recycling, pour garbage into the far more cost-effective landfills, and give the savings back to the taxpayers. As these new garbage processing technologies come on stream, if we like, we can then mine the garbage feedstocks previously accumulated in the landfills themselves, recycling everything stored in them en-masse.

It should come as no surprise that India, a nation of over a billion people with one of the most advanced high technology sectors on earth, would be jumping big-time into the photovoltaic game. After all, photovoltaic energy, right now, is probably the most viable clean renewable energy technology candidate in the world to replace conventional energy sources.

In the coming electric age, where our cars run on electricity, and electricity provides power for abundant fresh water via desalinization – where electricity powers the pumps that move water north from the Ubangi River to refill Lake Chad, or south from the Ob-Irtysh River to refill the Aral Sea, photovoltaics may well become the skin of every rooftop in the world.

Just last Monday, March 5th, one of the largest companies in India, Moser Baer, announced a partnership with one of the blue chip giants of California’s Silicon Valley, Applied Materials, to build the “world’s largest thin film fab.” The only thing we take issue with is the claim that it will be the largest – who is to say how long that claim will hold, when everywhere these days, from South Africa to Silicon Valley to Europe to China, thin film technologies of various vintages are sprouting, unstoppable, like the new grasses of spring.

To read more about the details of this partnership, refer to the recent press release from Moser Baer. As India’s Union Minister for Science & technology Mr. Kapil Sibal said, “Providing affordable renewable sources of energy is paramount in this century. In a high energy demand country like India with abundant sunlight, affordable photovoltaic generation will be key to sustaining our growth.”

You can say that again. For India to attain a per capita standard of living equivalent to that of the fully industrialized nations of Europe, even with twice the energy intensity of the Europeans today (“energy intensity” refers to units of energy per unit of GNP, and ongoing improvements in energy efficiency ought to allow India to achieve this goal of 2x what Europeans have achieved to-date), India will need to quadruple their energy production.

Quadrupling India’s energy production will only occur with technologies such as thin film photovoltaics, which require minimal raw material input, and where the primary variable cost to manufacture is only one thing – you guessed it – electricity, which they will themselves produce.