Global Climate Change: "How business is starting to tackle climate change" - The Economist

This week's Economist features a cover story on "How business is starting to tackle climate change, and how governments need to help."

These days businesspeople are falling over each other to prove their greenness. That's partly because the politics of climate change have moved so fast in America. Five bills in U.S. Congress would introduce federal controls. Most of the serious presidential candidates for 2008 favour them.

California now has binding targets to cut CO2 emissions, and other states plan to follow. Many chief executives have come around to the view that federal controls would be better than a patchwork of state laws. And if federal regulations are coming, companies need to support them, in order to be involved in designing them. Hence the need to be seen to be green.

But companies are not driven purely by fear of regulation. Cleaner energy means new technologies -- and new money to be made.

Read more: The Economist: Cleaning Up

Global Climate Change: John Doerr on Climate Change

A friend of mine sent the following link to a video of John Doerr's absolutely moving talk about climate change from the TED conference.

Doerr and his colleagues at Kleiner Perkins expended a lot of CO2 investigating the climate change issue after his 15 year old daughter challenged him to do something about this problem our generation created. But what Doerr found in his travels gives him hope, despite the fact that he is afraid we can't make it. If you are not moved to action by this video, then you are not human.

A must see: Doerr on Climate Change

Social Entrepreneurs: Vote for Ending Corruption at Changemakers

Changemakers, an initiative of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, wants you to join the search for innovative solutions that enhance the transparency and accountability of societies throughout the world.

Prepare to vote on June 6, 2007

Read all 80 entries: Ending Corruption

Global Climate Change: Can Nanotechnology Be Good For Climate?

Can nanotechnology be good for climate? by ZDNet's Roland Piquepaille -- The UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has recently released a long report stating that nanotechnology might offer hope for climate change. This study has focused on 5 specific areas: fuel additives, solar cells, the hydrogen economy, batteries and insulation. The conclusion of this report is that nanotechnology could contribute to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 20 per cent by 2050. The largest reduction would come from using hydrogen as a source of energy. Unfortunately, this might be very difficult and will take years.

Here are a few quotes about the five areas where nanotechnologies could be used to improve our environment.

Fuel additives: Nanoparticle additives have been shown to increase the fuel efficiency of diesel engines by approximately 5%. This could be implemented immediately across the UK diesel powered fleet.

Solar cells: The high prices of solar cells are inhibiting their installation into distributed power generation, reducing energy generation from renewables. Nanotechnology may deliver more benefits in significantly decreasing the cost of production of solar cells.

The hydrogen economy: Hydrogen powered vehicles could eliminate all noxious emissions from road transport, which would improve public health. [But] the technology is estimated to be 40 years away from universal deployment.

Batteries and supercapacitors: Recent advances in battery technology have made the range and power of electric vehicles more practical. Issues still surround the charge time. Nanotechnology may provide a remedy to this problem allowing electric vehicles to be recharged in less than ten minutes.

Insulation: Cavity and loft insulation are cheap and effective, however, there are no easy methods for insulating solid walled buildings. Nanotechnology may provide a solution which, if an effective insulation could be found with similar properties to standard cavity insulation.

Download the report here: Environmentally beneficial nanotechnologies

Innovation: Negroponte Updates on "One Laptop Per Child" Project

Worldchanging features an update from Nicholas Negroponte on his "One Laptop Per Child" project:

"Despite the enthusiasm of countries like Rwanda, Libya and Uruguay, all of which are entertaining the idea of providing laptops to every schoolchild, no country has yet written a check to the project. That includes Argentina, Brazil, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine and Thailand as well, all of whom Negroponte lists as first-stage adopters of the project. It’s a big check to write - nations are being asked to invest in the laptop one million at a time. That’s $176 million for the machines alone, at current pricing, plus money for distribution and Internet provision - the actual price tag could be closer to a $200 - 250 million investment. As the project scales up, the price drops - possibly as low as $100 per unit in 2009, possibly to $50 per unit in the next decade. Quanta, which manufactures the machine, is ready to scale to a million laptops per month by year’s end. That doesn’t sound like much, Negroponte tells us, but global laptop production is only 5 million a month."

Read the full article: OLPC

Read The Green Skeptic's original post on this project: Green Laptop

Environment: Is Water the New Oil?

YaleGlobal Online this week features an article by Rohini Nilekani, chairperson of Arghyam, a charitable foundation that supports a safe and sustainable global water supply, on the future of a world facing increasingly scarce fresh water. This from the YaleGlobal intro:

Water is more vital for human life than oil – and environmentalists, corporations, communities and governments increasingly recognize its unequal distribution around the globe could lead to severe environmental degradation and intense conflicts in the years ahead.

Less than 3 percent of the world’s water is potable – and climate change is already rapidly diminishing the vast stores of freshwater stored in glaciers and polar ice. Nilekani suggests that individual awareness combined with some global leadership must focus on sustaining life on the planet rather than modern lifestyles – and could reduce waste, overpopulation and unsustainable practices. Otherwise, warns Nilekani, the conflicts over water will make the oil crisis “seem like the trailer of some horrible disaster movie.”

With water already in short supply for more than 20 percent of the world’s people, no person can afford to take freshwater for granted.

Read the full article: Is Water the Next Oil?