Dealing With Climate Change Is Up To Companies, Not Just Governments

If we lament that some governments are reluctant to take on binding greenhouse gas reduction targets, an impressive group of business leaders is already fully engaged,  many of them in them in countries like Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Meanwhile in the US, 3000 businesses are not waiting around any longer to see if climate and clean energy legislation will move along in Congress. They are pushing for it with full force.

Ethisphere in Forbes Magazine by Scott McAusland and Teresa Fogelberg, 

 And some of the companies leading the way are in the emerging world.

Four months after the United Nations Climate Change conference in Copenhagen, bitter disappointment has settled in among many around the world. Governments have spent months and years getting almost nowhere on climate negotiations. But it is companies that are the elephant in the room. They have become a silent force toward progress, and a significant one, too. Of the hundred largest economies in the world, 52 are multinational enterprises; only 47 are nation states.

You can’t grasp what has been accomplished in addressing climate change without looking at what companies have done, and are doing, to measure and reduce their carbon use. In recent years several systems have been developed to enable businesses to establish their baseline greenhouse gas emissions, develop reduction targets and track their emissions and potential for reduction. Obviously such accounting has to be performed in a transparent way, meaning that information needs to be shared among all stakeholders, including all the nations that are party to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol and any future agreements.

The Global Reporting Initiative provides the world’s most widely used sustainability reporting framework, with a core set of greenhouse gas yardsticks among its many wider environmental, social and governance disclosure principles and indicators. The Global Reporting Initiative was begun by Ceres, a Boston-based nonprofit, in 1997 and has grown into a network of thousands of experts in dozens of countries. More than a thousand companies worldwide now issue annual sustainability reports based on its standards, and many include the information in their annual reports. Those companies aren’t just in Europe and North America; Brazil ranks third in the number of countries involved, behind only the U.S. and Spain.

Some emerging economies appear to be leading the way in sustainability disclosure. A recent report by the Global Reporting Initiative and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants contains both bad and good news. The bad news is that fewer than half of the companies studied worldwide are producing and sharing specific information based on GRI indicators. The good news is that large businesses in South Africa, China, India and Brazil, most of them in metals and mining or oil and gas, are doing full reporting. They are disclosing their climate change strategies and governance policies, and also their perceived physical and regulatory risks. They have all set targets and are measuring them, though few seek out external confirmation of their findings. The study looked at 32 big companies in those four countries and Russia; the Russian companies lagged behind but still had some impressive accomplishments.

So even as we lament that some governments are reluctant to take on binding greenhouse gas reduction targets, an impressive group of business leaders is already fully engaged, a significant number of them in the so-called “BRICSA” nations–Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. They send an important message to government-level negotiators, to the business community and to the world at large.

Scott McAusland is the media communications manager, and Teresa Fogelberg is the deputy chief executive officer, of the Global Reporting Initiative

Source: www.forbes.com

3,000 Businesses Create New Ad for Climate Change Action

Written by Zachary Shahan in CleanTechnica.com (12 April 2010):

3,000 US businesses are not waiting around any longer to see if climate and clean energy legislation will move along in Congress. They are pushing for it with full force.

American Businesses for Clean Energy (ABCE), the US Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) andother businesses outside of these organizations have created a new national advertising campaign to push for swift action on this important legislation.

The 3,000 businesses working together on this include global leaders like Google, Nike, Ford, General Electric, General Motors, Gap, Johnson & Johnson, Michelin, Shell, Whirlpool and Timberland as well as smaller mom-&-pop businesses.

ABCE reports:

Appearing in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Ohio, South Carolina and Florida, the print ad, titled “A Question of American Leadership,” calls on Congress to enact bipartisan climate and energy legislation that “…increases our security and limits emissions, as it preserves and creates jobs.”

The ad unites a broad spectrum of American businesses, faith-based groups, national security organizations, labor unions and environmental NGOs who believe that strong action on climate and energy legislation can lead to an improved economy, job creation and energy security.

If 3,000 businesses doesn’t sound like a lot to you. Think of it this way: these businesses represent 11 million American jobs and the companies’ revenues combined equal $2.5 trillion.

Of course, a few oil and coal companies can boast a decent combined revenue stream themselves and have plenty of lobbyists in DC pushing the other way, but should the US Congress be listening to companies that are only looking out for their bottom line or this much wider assortment of US companies that seem to be looking out for the Earth’s bottom line (as well as their own)?

“This ad push brings together the best of American businesses large and small to send a clear message to our leaders in Washington: We need action on climate and clean energy starting today. The businesses that are part of ABCE represent a range of views and regions, and we stand united behind the need for comprehensive clean energy legislation that will create jobs, unleash innovation and make our nation more secure, while cutting greenhouse gas emissions,” Christopher Van Atten, a spokesperson for American Businesses for Clean Energy says.

The full ad and a list of some of the major companies involved in this national ad campaign are available at climatead.org.

It is something to see businesses come together like this to push for clean energy and climate change legislation — not something you see everyday. It seems that it is time for Congress to give them more attention.

Source: www.cleantechnica.com

Cause for Alarm: Glacier Loss & Damage in Peru & the US

Around 50 people have suffered injuries in Peru after part of a glacier broke off and burst the Hualcan River banks in a disaster the local governor attributed to climate change, destroying 20 nearby homes. While in the US, warmer temperatures have reduced the number of named glaciers from 37 to 25 in Glacier National Park. P. Elizabeth Anderson in the Examiner says “we are dangerously complacent about what climate change is doing. Tsunami-level warnings should be going off each time a change of the magnitude of losing a glacier is registered.”

AFP reports (12 April 2010):

Around 50 people have suffered injuries in Peru after part of a glacier broke off and burst the Hualcan River banks in a disaster the local governor attributed to climate change.

The mass of glacial ice and rock fell into the so-called “513 lake” in the northern Ancash region, causing a ripple effect down the Hualcan, destroying 20 nearby homes.

“Because of global warming the glaciers are going to detach and fall on these overflowing lakes. This is what happened today,” Ancash Governor Cesar Alvarez told reporters, linking climate change to the disappearance of a third of the glaciers in the Peruvian Andes over the past three decades.

A 2009 World Bank-published report warned Andean glaciers and the region’s permanently snow-covered peaks could disappear in 20 years if no measures are taken to tackle climate change.

According to the report, in the last 35 years Peru’s glaciers have shrunk by 22 per cent, leading to a 12 per cent loss in the amount of fresh water reaching the coast – home to most of the country’s citizens.

Source: www.news.smh.com.au

Animal Advocacy Examiner P. Elizabeth Anderson in the Denver, Colorado (9 April 2010):

Two days ago, Matthew Brown of The Associated Press filed a story about the loss of two more glaciers from Glacier National Park in Billings, Montana, but it was not picked up by many papers. The Washington Post ran the news as a brief of about three paragraphs. The New York Times devoted more space, but not much more prominence.

We are dangerously complacent about what climate change is doing. We stopped calling the phenomena global warming to make it more political correct, but still we ignore what is happening.

Tsunami-level warnings should be going off each time a change of the magnitude of losing a glacier is registered. Just like the imminent extinction of the polar bear, we will look up one day and the inevitable will have happened. We will have suffered irrecoverable losses of land and animals.

Warmer temperatures have reduced the number of named glaciers from 37 to 25 in Glacier National Park.

Dan Fagre, an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey warns that the remaining glaciers may be gone by the end of the decade. Can you pause for a moment and consider that all of the ice may have melted in less than 10 years. You probably hope to live that long. If not you, your children or grandchildren, perhaps. If you are over the age of 16, you know that 10 years go by in a flash.

Our legacy to future generations is destruction and annihilation. Glaciers have been part of the landscape for 7,000 years and could be gone in 10 years. That boggles my mind.

Many people do not believe in climate change. I was aghast to read that Don Blankenship—chief executive of Massey Energy, the parent company of the West Virginia coal mine where 25 miners died this week—spent millions of dollars on media campaigns to defeat politicians who agreed with environmentalists that he is a “symbol of damage caused by greenhouse gases and the destruction of mountaintops to reach buried coal.” I do not understand how people can ignore the science behind the truth of what is happening to the planet for their own gains. When more people are dead, more ice is melted, and more species are gone, it will be too late.

Most scientists associate the warming caused by climate change directly to higher concentrations of those greenhouse gases which Blankenship and others ignore. When are we going to see that everything is connected? Yes, the glaciers have been melting since the year 1850, but the melting has accelerated in recent decades as temperatures increased.

Fagre was quoted in the New York Times as saying that by the time they get home from measuring glacier margins, the glacier “is already smaller than what [was] measured.”

The latest two glaciers to fall below the 25-acre threshold for being named had shrunk by approximately 55 percent since the mid-1960s.

Locally, fewer glaciers means less water in streams for fish and a higher risk for forest fires. More death, more destruction. On a larger scale, the melting glaciers are a dramatic example of irrecoverable ecosystem changes. We cannot make more glaciers. We care more about who gets tossed from “Dancing with the Stars” or the latest texts from Tiger’s mistresses than we do about the environment.

“More than 90 percent of glaciers worldwide are in retreat, with major losses already seen across much of Alaska, the Alps, the Andes and numerous other ranges,” according to the AP report. When are we going to comprehend the reality of the effects of climate change.

Source: www.examiner.com

Radical Green is the New Black for Business in Europe

Under CEO Anders Eldrup, Dong – Denmark’s biggest utility –  has embarked on an ambitious project that it calls the 85/15 plan: to slash 85% of its carbon emissions within one generation by drastically moving away from fossil-fuel production and investing more in renewable energy. Time Magazine has the story on this and other innovative CleanTech projects in Europe.

By Stacy Perman in Copenhagen for Time Magazine (12 April 2010):

Towering 88 m above frigid waters, scarcely 5 m from the seawall south of the industrial area of Avedore Holme, near Copenhagen, stand two prototypes of the largest and latest generation of offshore wind turbines.

With blades stretching 59 m, nearly 10% longer than those of some of the biggest turbines now running, these two white giants have the capacity to generate 7.2 MW of electricity — equal to the annual power consumption of about 4,900 Danish homes.

Constructed and operated by Dong Energy A/S, Denmark’s biggest utility, the turbines are being tested for use in an offshore wind farm that the company plans to build in the Irish Sea.

Back on terra firma in Kalundborg, northwest of Copenhagen, stands Dong’s gleaming Inbicon demonstration plant. Built for the large-scale production and commercialization of second-generation bioethanol, Inbicon is Dong’s bid to prove that cleaner, renewable energy made from agricultural waste is viable for investors and consumers. Among the spate of fossil-fuel alternatives the plant produces: straw-based ethanol, biopellets (a coal substitute) and feed booster for biogas production made from C5 molasses.

More than just demonstration plants, these sites represent a dramatic shift in business strategy at Dong, which was founded in 1972 as a North Sea oil and gas concern and later expanded to include Denmark’s electric utilities. Under CEO Anders Eldrup, Dong has embarked on an ambitious project that it calls the 85/15 plan: to slash 85% of its carbon emissions within one generation by drastically moving away from fossil-fuel production and investing more in renewable energy. Oh, and to be profitable. Says Eldrup: “We are not doing this from a feel-good perspective. We see it as sensible business.”

So do a number of other European companies — many involved in some of the dirtiest industries — that are taking radical steps to develop and deploy green energy solutions. It hasn’t been completely voluntary. European governments and strong public sentiment have pressed industry to improve environmental standards through a combination of regulations, subsidies, incentives and publicly financed research. Rather than resist, some companies used the enviro-prodding to become more innovative and energy efficient, and they now find themselves with a global competitive advantage in the green tech so coveted by the U.S.

There’s no better example than Aurubis AG, the largest copper producer and processor in Europe, which as far back as the 1980s was facing some stringent environmental-protection laws. The company is headquartered in Hamburg, the industrial port city once ruefully nicknamed “the black hole of Europe,” which had put into effect some of the most severe climate-protection targets on the continent.

Aurubis, founded in 1866, had long contributed to that blackness and figured it had few options beyond outsourcing or shutting down — both of which were roundly rejected. According to Bernd Drouven, Aurubis’ CEO, the company took a different tack. It decided to go radical green and invested in and developed state-of-the-art energy-efficient plants and environmental technologies to drastically curb emissions. Says Drouven: “The pressure from regulations and society forced us to be creative in finding technological solutions and ideas in order to cope.” (See pictures of the world’s most polluted places.)

Today Aurubis considers sustainability a cornerstone of its strategy. Over the past 30 years, Aurubis has invested some $410 million in reducing emissions — a third of its total capital expenditure. Aurubis’ investment has led to technological solutions such as building thermal-power plants, using filters to reduce fugitive emissions and eliminating up to 95% of the copper, sulfur, arsenic and lead in the air and metal loads of wastewater at its production sites. Aurubis has seven production sites across Europe that manufacture some 1 million tons of copper cathodes and more than 1.2 million tons of other copper products annually. Incidentally, the European Commission designated Hamburg, “the black hole,” as its Green Capital for 2011.

Green innovation has made Aurubis a world leader in copper-recycling technology. The company recycles and processes more than 400,000 tons of raw materials in its proprietary facilities, which reduces energy consumption, saves natural resources and prevents the loss of valuable materials. Roughly 40% of Aurubis’ copper products come from the processing of copper scrap and other copper-bearing recycling materials.

It was the shock of the Middle East oil crisis in 1973 that compelled Denmark, dependent on imports for 90% of its oil supply, to become a pioneer in alternative energy. The government imposed a spate of regulations and taxes that transformed the nation’s energy production and consumption, launching an energy industry that generates billions of dollars and provides tens of thousands of jobs. Currently, wind power supplies 20% of the country’s electricity. Denmark’s energy technologies account for about 11% of its exports.

Lost in the raging debate over the implications of global warming is the fact that one way or another, all companies are going to have to get greener, but companies like Dong and Aurubis are quickly positioning themselves as market leaders. Under the plan Dong announced in September, it expects to increase its proportion of energy production from renewable sources from 15% now to 85% by 2040. At the time of the announcement, the company inaugurated Horns Rev 2, the world’s largest offshore wind farm. Some 30 km off the coast of mainland Denmark in the North Sea, 91 turbines generate 209 MW — enough electricity to power 200,000 Danish households.

Within 10 years, Dong plans to triple its production of renewable energy. In 2009 it invested $3.32 billion in development — nearly half of which was marked for renewables. Underscoring its commitment to a green transformation, Dong is in the process of shutting down 25% of its coal-fired power plants and switching to straw-based and other renewable fuels. “We’re taking the big steps now,” says Eldrup. “This is different from politicians who make big promises to do something in the future. We want to show that you must have a big vision and be ready to deliver.”

In February, Dong signed a licensing agreement with Japan’s Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding for Inbicon’s biomass-refinery technology to convert waste products from palm oil into ethanol. “In our view, being on the edge of new green technologies is a great opportunity,” says Eldrup. “It gives us an advantage in reducing CO[subscript 2], but it also gives us technological advantages as well as business opportunities. The U.S. has very high ambitions to increase its ethanol production, and we think this might be a great opportunity in years to come.”

Dong is leveraging its position as the front runner in wind power to put it ahead in another potentially lucrative market: electric cars. Partnering with Shai Agassi’s A Better Place, Dong is involved in a plan to store volatile wind power from turbines for electric-car batteries. Today the consumption and production of electricity from wind occur concurrently. Dong is working on a system in which batteries can be charged when cars are used least and when turbine generation is at its highest — at night.

Eldrup says Denmark makes a good test case for the large-scale production of electric cars. For starters, the country does not have an auto industry. Second, Danes pay a 180% tax for new-car registration, while there is no such fee imposed on electric autos, an attractive incentive for consumers. “If we are successful, that gives us a lot of learning and new development in new technology and businesses in Denmark,” says Eldrup. He adds, “It also gives us value in exporting.”

That’s a perspective shared by Aurubis. According to Drouven, his company’s recycling technology provides potentially lucrative opportunities, particularly in a market like the U.S. that has no such facility. But he notes the company has its eye on a bigger picture. “The climate issue is not only a question of CO[subscript 2] emissions but is one of resources, whether it is oil or energy or raw materials,” he says. “It is independent of the current status of the U.S. or Europe or China. I’m convinced that in the long run, society will not accept waste.” Drouven says people’s awareness about environmental protection will continue to increase as the energy crisis deepens. He adds, “When that happens, we are a company that has already invested in conservation of energy. We have a head start.”

The big-picture, long-term-payoff approach is what helps companies weather short-term vagaries. Dong recently reported a tumble in revenue from $11 billion in 2008 to $9.1 billion in 2009 — in large measure because of the global financial crisis and drop in energy prices. While the company said it expects higher sales in 2010, Eldrup looks beyond the quarterly reports. “This is the way the energy business is,” he says. “We are working on a long-term horizon.”

It is a sentiment echoed by Aurubis’ Drouven. His company also took a hit last year but reported first-quarter operating earnings were $64.6 million, up 50% from the whole previous fiscal year and 2½ times those of the first quarter of 2009. “Our investors want to receive good dividends,” he explains. “But our investors are more interested in long-term, stable, reliable returns than in the fast buck.”

This long-term approach to business and global warming will ultimately effect profits and climate change. Companies that act now will likely be the market leaders in the future. As Denmark’s Minister of Climate and Energy, Lykke Friis, explains, “Business, like climate change, is a global challenge and an opportunity. We are in an energy race that will determine international relations. On the one hand, there will be energy exporters, and on the other, those that rely on them.”

Source: www.time.com

Greenpeace Says Koch  is Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine

A little-known, privately-owned US oil and manufacturing giant that has made its owners the 19th richest men in the world, has outspent even ExxonMobil in funding the denial of the science of climate change in recent years, according to a Greenpeace recently report released. Koch Industries says the  report “mischaracterises these efforts and distorts the environmental record” of its companies,  saying they have “long supported science-based inquiry and dialogue about climate change and proposed responses to it”.

Greenpeace (30 March 2010):

WASHINGTON — A little-known, privately-owned US oil and manufacturing giant that has made its owners the 19th richest men in the world has outspent even ExxonMobil in funding the denial of the science of climate change in recent years, according to a Greenpeace report released today.

Entitled “Koch Industries: Secretly funding the climate denial machine” (1), the report details how Kansas-based Koch Industries, a multinational company with little public profile, is playing a quiet but dominant role in the US policy debate on climate change. It shows how Koch has become the financial kingpin in efforts to undermine confidence in climate science and to oppose clean energy in the US and internationally. Between 2005 and 2008, Koch foundations contributed $24.8 million to climate denial organizations – nearly 3 times as much as ExxonMobil in the same period.

“It is time Koch Industries came clean and dropped its dirty, behind-the-scenes campaign against action on climate change,” said Kert Davies, Research Director at Greenpeace US

Here’s the executive summary of the Greenpeace report:

Most Americans have never heard of Koch Industries, one of the largest private corporations in the country, because it has no Koch-branded consumer products, sells no shares on the stock market and has few of the disclosure requirements of a public company.

Although Koch intentionally stays out of the public eye, it is now playing a quiet but dominant role in a high-profile national policy debate on global warming. Koch Industries has become a financial kingpin of climate science denial and clean energy opposition.

This private, out-of-sight corporation is now a partner to ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute and other donors that support organizations and front-groups opposing progressive clean energy and climate policy. In fact, Koch has out-spent ExxonMobil in funding these groups in recent years.

From 2005 to 2008, ExxonMobil spent $8.9 million while the Koch Industries controlled foundations contributed $24.9 million in funding to organizations of the ‘climate denial machine’.

The company’s tight knit network of lobbyists, former executives and organizations has created a forceful stream of misinformation that Koch-funded entities produce and disseminate. This campaign propaganda is then replicated, repackaged and echoed many times throughout the Koch-funded web of political front groups and think tanks.

On repeated occasions documented below, organizations funded by Koch foundations have led the assault on climate science and scientists, “green jobs,” renewable energy and climate policy progress.

This report focuses on activities by Koch Industries and its affiliates, as well as the family—and company—controlled foundations which fund organizations that spread inaccurate and misleading information about climate science and clean energy policies. Included is research on the company and the Koch brothers, two of the top ten richest people in the United States. The Koch brothers own the corporation and control its political spending. Also included are newly compiled funding connections from Koch foundations to a vast array of conservative and libertarian organizations and front groups.

The report documents the Koch-funded funded groups’ actions and the Koch legacy of climate denial and obstruction of environmental policy. Case studies contained in this report include:

• ClimateGate Echo Chamber—At least twenty Koch-funded organizations have repeatedly rebroadcast, referenced and appeared as media spokespeople in the story, dubbed “ClimateGate,” of supposed malfeasance by climate scientists gleaned from a cache of stolen emails from the University of East Anglia in November 2009. These organizations claim the emails prove a “conspiracy” of scientists and casts doubt on the scientific consensus regarding climate change.

• Polar Bear Junk Science—In a 2007 published ‘junk science’ article on polar bears and Arctic climate impacts, the author acknowledged receiving research funding from ExxonMobil, American Petroleum Institute and the Charles G. Koch foundation. The paper, which appeared in the journal Ecological Complexity, was published as a “Viewpoint” piece, rather than new scientific research. It was not peer reviewed and was criticized by leading polar bear and Arctic ice scientists for containing “no new research” and drawing unfounded conclusions. Regardless, multiple Koch and Exxon-funded groups rebroadcast the article’s conclusions that polar bears were not endangered by climate change, through their websites and other media outlets. Additional Koch-funded groups and industry groups threatened to sue the Federal government for listing the polar bear.

For years, both openly and behind the scenes, ExxonMobil dominated the voice of climate science denial in the national global warming dialogue. However, after a decade of reputation-damaging public disclosures, as well as pressure from scientific organizations, shareholders and senators, ExxonMobil implemented a new public relations strategy under a new CEO, and has begun to moderate its public statements on climate change. ExxonMobil’s website declares:

1 “We have discontinued contributions to several public policy research groups whose position on climate change diverted attention from the important discussion on how the world will secure the energy required for economic growth in an environmentally responsible manner.”

In spite of publishing this statement and reducing funding to a number of prominent climate denial organizations over the past few years, ExxonMobil continues to support dozens of organizations who are part of the climate denial movement with millions of dollars in annual funding.

2 ExxonMobil has responded to public scrutiny by slightly reducing their support of climate denial, and Koch Industries is outpacing ExxonMobil’s funding activities while drawing very little public attention.

As ExxonMobil’s silent partner in funding the climate-denial machine, Koch Industries often uses similar and sometimes more aggressive tactics. Kansas-based Koch Industries is a conglomerate dominated by petroleum and chemical interests with approximately $100 billion in annual sales, operations in nearly 60 countries and 70,000 employees.

Most of Koch’s operations are invisible to the public, with the exception of a handful of retail brands such as Brawny® paper towels and Dixie® cups, produced by its subsidiary Georgia-Pacific Corporation. Koch Industries has been ranked as the first- or second-largest privately-held company in the United States in recent years, currently ranked second behind Cargill corporation.

Two brothers, Charles and David Koch, each own 42 percent of the company. Part of Koch Industries’ influence is channelled through three foundations, also controlled by the two brothers. This report documents roughly 40 climate denial and opposition organizations receiving Koch foundation grants in recent years, including:

• More than $5 million to Americans for Prosperity Foundation (AFP) for its nationwide “Hot Air Tour”3 campaign to spreading misinformation about climate science and opposing clean energy and climate legislation.

• More than $1 million to the Heritage Foundation, a mainstay of misinformation on climate and environmental policy issues.

• Over $1 million to the Cato Institute, which disputes the scientific evidence behind global warming, questions the rationale for taking climate action, and has been heavily involved in spinning the recent ClimateGate story.

• $800,000 to the Manhattan Institute, which has hosted Bjorn Lomborg twice in the last two years. Lomborg is a prominent media spokesperson who challenges and attacks policy measures to address climate change.

• $365,000 to Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment (FREE) which advocates against taking action on climate change because warming is “inevitable” and expensive to address.

• $360,000 to Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy (PRIPP) which supported and funded An Inconvenient Truth…or Convenient Fiction,4 a film attacking the science of global warming and intended as a rebuttal to former Vice-President Al Gore’s documentary. PRIPP also threatened to sue the US Government for listing the polar bear as an endangered species.

• $325,000 to the Tax Foundation, which issued a misleading study on the costs of proposed climate legislation.

This is only part of the picture, because the full scope of direct contributions to organizations is not disclosed by individual Koch family members, executives, or from the company itself.

Contributions through Koch’s political action committee (PAC) are a matter of public record. Since the beginning of the 2006 election cycle, Koch’s PAC spent more on contributions to federal candidates5 than any other oil-and-gas sector PAC. For that period, Koch Industries and its executives spent $2.51 million compared to next three biggest contributors: Exxon ($1.71 million), Valero ($1.68 million), and Chevron ($1.22 million).

Koch executives and their families wield political influence in other ways too, including direct federal lobbying and campaign contributions. Over the last few years, Koch Industries, Koch employees, and Koch family members:

• Spent $37.9 million from 2006 to 2009 for direct lobbying on oil and energy issues, outspent only by ExxonMobil ($87.8 million) and Chevron Corporation ($50 million).

• Spent $5.74 million in PAC money for candidates, committees, and campaign expenditures since the 2006 election cycle.

• Contributed at least $270,800 to federal political party committees since the 2006 election cycle.

The combination of foundation-funded front-groups, big lobbying budgets, PAC donations, and direct campaign contributions makes Koch Industries and the Koch brothers among the most formidable obstacles to advancing clean energy and climate policy in the US.

For the full report go to Greenpeace.

Source: www.greenpeace.org

Statement from Koch regarding Greenpeace Report, March 2010:

In a consistent, principled effort for more than 50 years – long before climate change was a key policy issue – Koch companies and Koch foundations have worked to advance economic freedom and market-based policy solutions to challenges faced by society. These efforts are about creating more opportunity and prosperity for all, as it’s a historical fact that economic freedom best fosters innovation, environmental protection and improved quality of life in a society.

We believe the political response to climate issues should be based on sound science. Both a free society and the scientific method require an open and honest airing of all sides, not demonizing and silencing those with whom you disagree. We’ve strived to encourage an intellectually honest debate on the scientific basis for claims of harm from greenhouse gases. We have tried to help bring out the facts of the potential effectiveness and costs of policies proposed to deal with climate, as it’s crucial to understand whether proposed initiatives to reduce greenhouse gases will achieve desired environmental goals and what effects they would likely have on the global economy.

Source: www.kochind.com

Springtime Snow Melt & Warming Faster in Eurasia than North America

Generated by human activity, dust storms, and forest fires, Asia produces high levels of both types of aerosols, which blow across the Eurasian land mass and affect the surface and nearby atmosphere in a variety of ways, some reflect incoming solar energy, potentially cooling underlying surfaces, but black carbon tends to warm surfaces by absorbing incoming solar energy.

By Rachel Hauser, National Center for Atmospheric Research (9 April 2010):

Aerosols are tiny particles, such as soot or dust, suspended in Earth’s atmosphere. In addition to their air-quality impacts, aerosols can interfere with sunlight reaching the planet’s surface.

Scientists often talk about aerosols in terms of their optical depth, which indicates how much incoming sunlight aerosols prevent from reaching the Earth’s surface.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) flying on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites can detect aerosols, and this image shows the annual mean aerosol optical depth for 2006, based on daily measurements made by MODIS.

White represents little or no aerosol interference with sunlight, and dark orange indicates considerable interference. Areas where data could not be collected appear in gray.

This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation.

Over the past 30 years, springtime snow melt and warming appear to be proceeding at a faster rate in Eurasia than in North America.

Climate scientist Mark Flanner, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan and a recent Advanced Study Program graduate at the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Atmospheric Research, led a study that investigated these changes, ultimately finding that warming rates and snow cover decline in Eurasia may be twice what they are in North America.

In the same study, Flanner and his colleagues also pointed out that only one of the climate scenarios generated by general circulation models in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report reflected this trend.

In fact, most IPCC model scenarios show the regions having similar spring-time temperatures and snow-melt rates. Flanner and his collaborators suspect aerosols — particularly black carbon and organic matter such as dust — might be responsible for the difference in modeled versus observed climate.

Generated by human activity, dust storms, and forest fires, Asia produces high levels of both types of aerosols, which blow across the Eurasian land mass and affect the surface and nearby atmosphere in a variety of ways.

Some aerosols reflect incoming solar energy, potentially cooling underlying surfaces, but black carbon tends to warm surfaces by absorbing incoming solar energy. Particulates that fall to the surface also reduce snow’s reflective qualities, causing even more radiation to be absorbed.

In the Northern Hemisphere, spring-time snow cover is unique because of its widespread distribution, and because intense incoming solar radiation during that season amplifies atmospheric aerosols’ effects.

Because higher concentrations of organic matter and black carbon are typical in the atmosphere and on the snow-covered surfaces in Eurasia, Flanner and his colleagues hypothesize that those aerosols might account for regional snow-cover differences. By including black carbon and organic matter aerosols in climate models, the researchers hypothesized that the models might more effectively match spring-time observations.

To test their hypothesis, the team first ran a number of modeling scenarios to see if the inconsistency might relate to ocean-based effects. If oceans proved to have a leading role, the aerosol hypothesis would likely be incorrect. However, after constraining the oceans’ effects, the models continued under-predicting land-surface temperature trends. The findings indicated that a land effect had to account for the discrepancy between observations and models showing warming and melting trends.

Having eliminated ocean effects, the researchers enhanced the models with snow-darkening characteristics, mimicking the impact of dark materials deposited on top of pristine snow. With this adjustment, the models correctly indicated increased springtime warming in Eurasia.

Next, the researchers incorporated human-produced carbon dioxide, or CO2, into the models.  The scientists found that over North America, CO2 had more of an impact on springtime snow cover than black carbon and organic materials, but in Eurasia, as hypothesized, the particulates were far more influential, having as much of an effect as CO2.

“While this research does not fully explain why springtime land temperatures and snow cover are changing so much faster over Eurasia than North America, it does suggest that snow darkening from black carbon, a process lacking in most climate models, is playing a role,” Flanner said.

Ultimately, Flanner continues, the magnitude of Earth’s climate response to CO2 and other human-generated products depends on feedbacks. Changes in snow cover amplify initial climate changes and constitute one of the most powerful feedbacks. Because snow covers much of the Northern Hemisphere during spring, Flanner and his colleagues expect to see some of the strongest climate change signals in northerly regions during local spring.

Editor’s Note: This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the federal agency charged with funding basic research and education across all fields of science and engineering. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Source: www.livescience.com

New Hope For Ultimate Clean Energy: Fusion Power

Imagine if you could generate electricity using nuclear power that emitted no radioactivity: it would be the answer to the world’s dream of finding a clean, sustainable energy source. That is the great hope raised by researchers, led by Heinrich Hora, who believe they have found a radical new path to the ultimate goal of solving the world’s energy crisis through nuclear fusion power, as detailed in a paper published in the journal Energy and Environmental Science.

By Bob Beale at UNSW (9 April 2010):

Imagine if you could generate electricity using nuclear power that emitted no radioactivity: it would be the answer to the world’s dream of finding a clean, sustainable energy source.

That is the great hope raised by researchers who believe they have found a radical new path to the ultimate goal of solving the world’s energy crisis through nuclear fusion power, as detailed in a paper published in the journal Energy and Environmental Science.

The international team of researchers – led by Emeritus Professor Heinrich Hora, of the UNSW Department of Theoretical Physics -has shown through computational studies that a special fuel ignited by brief but powerful pulses of energy from new high-energy lasers may be the key to a success that has long eluded physicists.

The intense laser beam would be used to ignite a fuel made of light hydrogen and boron-11. The resulting ignition would be largely free of radioactive emissions and would release more than enough energy to generate electricity.

The amount of radiation released would be even less than that emitted by current power stations that burn coal, which contains trace amounts of uranium. In another plus, the fuel source is plentiful and readily accessible and the waste product of ignition would be clean helium gas.

“This has the potential to be the best route to fusion energy,” says Steve Haan, an expert in nuclear fusion at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, in a news report in the Royal Chemical Society’s Highlights in Chemical Technology.

Both Haan and Hora caution that the study only demonstrates the potential of the new process and that much work would need to be done to demonstrate it in practice.

The conventional fusion process uses highly compressed spheres of deuterium and tritium as fuel. Hora says the proposed new process overcomes previous objections to hydrogen-boron11 fuel because it would not have to be compressed and therefore need much less energy than previously thought to start the ignition.

“It was a surprise when we used hydrogen-boron instead of deuterium-tritium,” says Hora. “It was not 100,000 times more difficult to ignite, as it would be under the usual compression process. It would be only 10 times more difficult, using the latest generation of lasers.”

As it happens, a unique new laser capable of producing the required amount of ignition energy is in its early stages of testing in the US at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Another extraordinarily powerful US laser known as the National Ignition Facility has been built at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory: “It is the largest laser on earth and has cost about US$ 4 billion,” he says. “The laser pulse of about few billionths of a second duration produces 500 times more power than all US power stations.”

Professor Hora, who founded the UNSW Department of Theoretical Physics in 1975 and has been an Emeritus Professor since 1992, is known for his work on the theory of  fusion energy with lasers.

Source: www.science.unsw.edu.au

Electrified Plants from Stanford; Grid-scale Batteries from MIT

In an electrifying first, Stanford scientists have plugged into algae cells to harness a tiny electric current that could be a first step toward generating “high efficiency” bioelectricity that doesn’t give off CO2 as a by product, while at MIT researchers have come up with a battery able to match the output of those used in cellphones from 1/20th of their electrode area. Its inventors hope it will provide much-needed storage capacity for electricity grids.

Released by Stanford University (13 April 2010):

Stanford researchers find electrical current stemming from plants

In an electrifying first, Stanford scientists have plugged in to algae cells and harnessed a tiny electric current. They found it at the very source of energy production – photosynthesis, a plant’s method of converting sunlight to chemical energy. It may be a first step toward generating “high efficiency” bioelectricity that doesn’t give off carbon dioxide as a byproduct, the researchers say.

“We believe we are the first to extract electrons out of living plant cells,” said WonHyoung Ryu, the lead author of the paper published in the March issue of Nano Letters. Ryu conducted the experiments while he was a research associate for mechanical engineering professor Fritz Prinz.

The Stanford research team developed a unique, ultra-sharp nanoelectrode made of gold, specially designed for probing inside cells. They gently pushed it through the algal cell membranes, which sealed around it, and the cell stayed alive. From the photosynthesizing cells, the electrode collected electrons that had been energized by light and the researchers generated a tiny electric current.

“We’re still in the scientific stages of the research,” said Ryu. “We were dealing with single cells to prove we can harvest the electrons.”

Plants use photosynthesis to convert light energy to chemical energy, which is stored in the bonds of sugars they use for food. The process takes place in chloroplasts, the cellular powerhouses that make sugars and give leaves and algae their green color. In the chloroplasts, water is split into oxygen, protons and electrons. Sunlight penetrates the chloroplast and zaps the electrons to a high energy level, and a protein promptly grabs them. The electrons are passed down a series of proteins, which successively capture more and more of the electrons’ energy to synthesize sugars until all the electron’s energy is spent.

In this experiment, the researchers intercepted the electrons just after they had been excited by light and were at their highest energy levels. They placed the gold electrodes in the chloroplasts of algae cells, and siphoned off the electrons to generate the tiny electrical current.

The result, the researchers say, is electricity production that doesn’t release carbon into the atmosphere. The only byproducts of photosynthesis are protons and oxygen.

“This is potentially one of the cleanest energy sources for energy generation,” Ryu said. “But the question is, is it economically feasible?”

Ryu said they were able to draw from each cell just one picoampere, an amount of electricity so tiny that they would need a trillion cells photosynthesizing for one hour just to equal the amount of energy stored in a AA battery. In addition, the cells die after an hour. Ryu said tiny leaks in the membrane around the electrode could be killing the cells, or they may be dying because they’re losing out on energy they would normally use for their own life processes. One of the next steps would be to tweak the design of the electrode to extend the life of the cell, Ryu said.

Harvesting electrons this way would be more efficient than burning biofuels, as most plants that are burned for fuel ultimately store only about 3 to 6 percent of available solar energy, Ryu said. His process bypasses the need for combustion, which only harnesses a portion of a plant’s stored energy. Electron harvesting in this study was about 20 percent efficient. Ryu said it could theoretically reach 100 percent efficiency one day. (Photovoltaic solar cells are currently about 20-40-percent efficient.)

Possible next steps would be to use a plant with larger chloroplasts for a larger collecting area, and a bigger electrode that could capture more electrons. With a longer-lived plant and better collecting ability, they could scale up the process, Ryu said. Ryu is now a professor at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea.

Other authors of the paper are Prinz, the senior author,; Seoung-Jai Bai, Tibor Fabian, Rainer J. Fasching, Joong Sun Park, and Zubin Huang, all researchers in the Rapid Protoyping Laboratory at Stanford University; and Jeffrey Moseley and Arthur Grossman, both researchers in the Department of Plant Biology at the Carnegie Institution and Department of Biological Sciences.

Source: www.eurekalert.org

By David C. Holzman in New Scientist (9 April 2010):

A BATTERY able to match the output of those used in cellphones from 1/20th of their electrode area may have you dreaming of more talk time.

But putting it in your pocket would be a bad idea – it’s full of molten metal. Instead, its inventors hope it will provide much-needed storage capacity for electricity grids.

Grid-scale batteries would boost efficiency by allowing solar energy to be used at night, for example, or excess power from a nuclear plant to be stored for later.

Engineers led by Donald Sadoway at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were inspired by the way aluminium is smelted using electricity. They created a similar but reversible process that can either consume or release energy.

Their batteries are simply tanks filled with three separate layers of liquid at 700 °C that float on top of one another: the top one is molten magnesium, the bottom antimony and the one in between a salt containing magnesium antimonide, a dissolved compound of the two metals.

When the battery is being charged, magnesium antimonide in the middle layer breaks down into the pure elements and so the upper and lower layers deepen. Discharging the battery reverses the process and releases electrons to provide power. Once heated up to its operating temperature, the battery generates enough heat on its own to keep the liquids molten.

A small prototype provided up to 20 times as much current as a lithium-ion battery – the kind used in portable devices and electric cars – from the same area of electrode, says team member Luis Ortiz. The materials used are much cheaper than lithium, making scaling to up to grid scale feasible, he says.

“Cost-effective storage is the holy grail of the electricity grid,” says Matthew Nordan, a specialist in clean technology at venture-capital firm Venrock in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who has not invested in the technology.

The MIT team calculates that a battery the size of a shipping container could deliver a megawatt of electricity – enough to power 10,000 100-watt light bulbs – for several hours.

A battery the size of a shipping container could deliver a megawatt of electricity.

Source: www.newscientist.com

 “Lead in Your Pencil” Could Provide Cheaper Solar Solution

Carbon, in the form of a graphene – a thin version of graphite – shows promise as an effective, cheap-to-produce, and less toxic alternative to other materials, currently used in solar cells. The Scientists at Indiana University are in the process of redesigning the graphene sheets with sticky ends that bind to titanium dioxide, which will improve the efficiency of the solar cells.

From Indiana University (9 April 2010):

Closing in on a carbon-based solar cell

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — To make large sheets of carbon available for light collection, Indiana University Bloomington chemists have devised an unusual solution — attach what amounts to a 3-D bramble patch to each side of the carbon sheet. Using that method, the scientists say they were able to dissolve sheets containing as many as 168 carbon atoms, a first.

The scientists’ report, online today (April 9), will appear in a future issue of Nano Letters, an American Chemical Society journal.

“Our interest stems from wanting to find an alternative, readily available material that can efficiently absorb sunlight,” said chemist Liang-shi Li, who led the research. “At the moment the most common materials for absorbing light in solar cells are silicon and compounds containing ruthenium. Each has disadvantages.”

Their main disadvantage is cost and long-term availability. Ruthenium-based solar cells can potentially be cheaper than silicon-based ones, but ruthenium is a rare metal on Earth, as rare as platinum, and will run out quickly when the demand increases.

Carbon is cheap and abundant, and in the form of graphene, capable of absorbing a wide range of light frequencies. Graphene is essentially the same stuff as graphite (pencil lead), except graphene is a single sheet of carbon, one atom thick. Graphene shows promise as an effective, cheap-to-produce, and less toxic alternative to other materials currently used in solar cells. But it has also vexed scientists.

For a sheet of graphene to be of any use in collecting photons of light, the sheet must be big. To use the absorbed solar energy for electricity, however, the sheet can’t be too big. Unfortunately, scientists find large sheets of graphene difficult to work with, and their sizes even harder to control. The bigger the graphene sheet, the stickier it is, making it more likely to attract and glom onto other graphene sheets. Multiple layers of graphene may be good for taking notes, but they also prevent electricity.

Chemists and engineers experimenting with graphene have come up with a whole host of strategies for keeping single graphene sheets separate. The most effective solution prior to the Nano Letters paper has been breaking up graphite (top-down) into sheets and wrap polymers around them to make them isolated from one another. But this makes graphene sheets with random sizes that are too large for light absorption for solar cells.

Li and his collaborators tried a different idea. By attaching a semi-rigid, semi-flexible, three-dimensional sidegroup to the sides of the graphene, they were able to keep graphene sheets as big as 168 carbon atoms from adhering to one another. With this method, they could make the graphene sheets from smaller molecules (bottom-up) so that they are uniform in size. To the scientists’ knowledge, it is the biggest stable graphene sheet ever made with the bottom-up approach.

The sidegroup consists of a hexagonal carbon ring and three long, barbed tails made of carbon and hydrogen. Because the graphene sheet is rigid, the sidegroup ring is forced to rotate about 90 degrees relative to the plane of the graphene. The three brambly tails are free to whip about, but two of them will tend to enclose the graphene sheet to which they are attached.

The tails don’t merely act as a cage, however. They also serve as a handle for the organic solvent so that the entire structure can be dissolved. Li and his colleagues were able to dissolve 30 mg of the species per 30 mL of solvent.

“In this paper, we found a new way to make graphene soluble,” Li said. “This is just as important as the relatively large size of the graphene itself.”

To test the effectiveness of their graphene light acceptor, the scientists constructed rudimentary solar cells using titanium dioxide as an electron acceptor. The scientists were able to achieve a 200-microampere-per-square-cm current density and an open-circuit voltage of 0.48 volts. The graphene sheets absorbed a significant amount of light in the visible to near-infrared range (200 to 900 nm or so) with peak absorption occurring at 591 nm.

The scientists are in the process of redesigning the graphene sheets with sticky ends that bind to titanium dioxide, which will improve the efficiency of the solar cells.

“Harvesting energy from the sun is a prerequisite step,” Li said. “How to turn the energy into electricity is the next. We think we have a good start.”

PhD students Xin Yan and Xiao Cui and postdoctoral fellow Binsong Li also contributed to this research. It was funded by grants from the National Science Foundation and the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund.

Source: www.eurekalert.org

Lucky Last – Addicted to the End?

Is the Sun Finally Setting on Climate Change Scepticism? We would like to think so and so would Todd Tanner, who writes about conservation and the outdoors from his home in Montana’s Flathead Valley. Maybe that is too much to expect. But when Todd describes climate change deniers (not sceptics) as addicts, he says “they’re addicted to fossil fuels. Of course they’re going to deny that they–or we–have a problem. That’s what addicts do.”

By Todd Turner on NewWest.com:        

Over the last few years I’ve noticed something interesting about our ongoing climate change discussions. It used to be that logic and knowledge were the keys. We looked at the best available science, weighed the predicted costs of action versus the predicted costs of inaction, and then considered the most appropriate alternatives. Businesses use this kind of approach all the time. It’s called a “cost-benefit analysis.”

Recently, though, our climate discussions have slowed and even stalled. Not because of the science, which remains irrefutable, or because of the proposed solutions, which are generally still feasible, but because so-called climate sceptics are doing their best to muddy the water and raise doubts about the issue.

Let’s be clear. By its very nature, scepticism implies a reliance on reason, logic and empirical data. A true sceptic will say, “I’m not sure you’re right, so show me why I should believe you.” That’s not cynicism or negativity, that’s a healthy approach to most any controversial issue.

As Congressman Willard Vandiver of Missouri said all the way back in 1899, “I come from a country that raises corn and cotton, cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I’m from Missouri, and you have got to show me.”

You can’t argue with that kind of statement. It makes too much sense.

But what doesn’t make sense–not even for a second–is when climate skeptics refuse to accept the overwhelming preponderance of scientific evidence. That isn’t scepticism; it’s denial. And it’s the same kind of response we hear time and again from people who’ve fallen into alcoholism or drug addiction.

“No way. I don’t have a problem.”

Or in the case of the climate deniers, “No way. We don’t have a problem.”

Here’s an interesting anecdote. Not long ago a bright, well-informed “sceptic” e-mailed me an essay that disputed conventional climate science. When I responded, I told him that my opinion wasn’t set in stone and that I’d be happy to alter my views–just as soon as the scientists modified theirs. Then I asked him two simple questions: What would it take for him to change his mind?  What would have to happen before he’d agree that we have a major problem on our hands?

You’d think he’d be able to offer a reasonable answer, something centered on a near-unanimous scientific consensus, or dramatic new empirical evidence, or people he trusted changing their views. Nope. Nothing. He has gone radio silent. As best as I can tell, he’s simply not open to anything except denial.

Nor are most other “sceptics.” They’re past the point where scientists can convince them or where logical arguments can persuade them. They’ve become ideologues, and whether they’re driven by religion or politics or their distrust of the science is ultimately irrelevant. They’ve hardened into intransigence and their scepticism is nothing more than a thin veneer of respectability plastered over an otherwise indefensible position.

Not that we can fault them. They rely on fossil fuels. They’re addicted to fossil fuels. Of course they’re going to deny that they–or we–have a problem. That’s what addicts do.

But we need to realize that this isn’t a normal case of addiction. There’s more than one life, or one family’s well-being, at stake.  Our collective future is on the line. Our kids and our grandkids will live well, or poorly, or not at all, because of the decisions we make over the next year or two. Which means it’s our responsibility to make the best possible choices about climate and energy legislation.

Here’s what we need to know. The science is clear and unequivocal. We are dumping huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, and all that carbon is warming the planet and making our oceans more acidic. Our dependence on fossil fuels has created a worldwide crisis that threatens every single aspect of our lives.

Fortunately, there’s hope on the horizon. Green energy development (such as wind and solar) has the potential to drive our economy and create millions of high-quality jobs–jobs that can’t be shipped overseas. Energy conservation can cut our carbon emissions while it saves us money on our utility bills and at the gas pumps. And if we stop sending our petro-dollars to the Mid-East, we can stop funding rogue regimes who promote international terrorism. It’s a win/ win for America. We have the ability to strengthen our economy at the same time we protect our security–but only if we pass strong climate and energy legislation.

Real skeptics figured this out a long time ago. And now they agree with the 97 percent of climate scientists who insist that climate change is a real threat. They agree with the 76 percent of Americans who are worried about global warming and want the federal government to address the problem. They agree with the 55 percent of Americans who want the USA to sign a binding global treaty that would require significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

In short, they side with the science–and with common sense.

As for the climate change deniers who are shouting down the experts and telling us not to believe our own eyes, well, they’re addicts. And we all know what that means.

Todd Tanner writes about conservation and the outdoors from his home in Montana’s Flathead Valley.

This article first appeared on New West, a next-generation media company dedicated to the culture, economy, politics, environment and lifestyle of the Rocky Mountain West. Its core mission is to serve the Rockies with innovative, participatory journalism and to promote conversation that helps us understand and make the most of the dramatic changes sweeping our region. New West Publishing LLC, headquartered in Missoula, Montana, was founded in 2005 by Jonathan Weber.

Source: www.newwest.net

For those who would like a chat or buy a book, author/publisher of “The ABC of Carbon” will be back (by popular demand) at Angus & Robertson, Toowong Village this Saturday 17 April from 11.30am to 2.30pm. On Sunday 18 April, you’ll find the undersigned at the University of Queensland’s centenary day at St Lucia where the focus of attention will be on the Global Change Institute series of talks in the Abel Smith Lecture Theatre from 9am to 4.30pm.

The Waiting Game: Waste Not, Want Not

New Zealand is in the spotlight in Express 103, not just because the undersigned has been tramping around old and new haunts, but because officials and scientists from 28 countries are meeting in Wellington right now for the kiwi-driven initiative, the Global Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases. That’s previewed and we also take a Lucky Last look at new research which shows the real carbon footprint of a lamb chop whether consumed at home or abroad. On matters consumable and wasteful, there’s a report from the UK on the horrifying amount (and cost) of food and beverage that goes down the drain or to landfill. Waste not, want not, but time doesn’t seem to be essence when it comes to the status of trans-Tasman politics in getting emissions trading schemes up and running? Are things moving apace in the US with its proposed new clan energy bill? Carol Browner in profile has something important to say. Green Chip in the US says there’s already some smart investing going on it in renewables, while Green Chip in Australia reports that a German industrial giant says we should get our energy act together big time.  There’s news from the Philippines and Peru on green and clean energy, and the low down on what’s happening to the soil with all the bio-fuel and bio-mass talk.  The Great Barrier Reef gets a mighty polluting hit again when a coal carrier runs aground and the Sydney Morning Herald unveils the new National Pollution Register. Let’s come clean!

Ken Hickson