Climate Change

“More with less, save the rest.” The three key concepts set forth in this phrase have been at the center of many recent domestic and international conversations about the future of agriculture. The discussion regarding the first concept follows the logic that food production will need to double by 2050 to meet demand. This will be due to an overall increase in the global population coupled with increases in the consumption of animal protein, fruits, and vegetables as the standard of living, especially in developing countries, steadily rises.

At Santa Rosa's Regional sewer plant, ponds covered with fast-growing aquatic plants are being used to help clean toxics and pollutants out of the water as part of the wastewater treatment process. But there's another, very different benefit those plants can offer as well. While showing off the FAB project at the treatment plant, Caden Hare explained that the effort to develop on site energy generation was driven in part by the needs of the facility itself. Read the story and hear audio clips

We are a “Sunshine Nation” too often manipulated by the experts and stakeholders of an outmoded energy technology, bellowing mightily, “Solar energy isn’t feasible.” Yet, given that the amount of solar energy hitting Earth exceeds the total energy consumed by humanity by a factor of over 20,000 times, it’s a simple matter of technology investment – a qualitative, not quantitative approach to societal need – and not any pre-ordained impossibility as suggested by these prognosticators with a coarse commitment to their industries’ bottom li

New investments in China and the Middle East have demonstrated a developing strategic interest in renewable energies. Yet every country still faces obstacles: be it legislation in the United States or enforcement and rapid development in China. Kelly Sims Gallagher of the Fletcher School at Tufts University sits down with IP to talk about the future of energy policy and its effects on foreign relations. Read the full interview

The Titanic hit an iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland, but it probably didn’t hit one the size of Manhattan. As oceans warm and global ambient temperatures rise, glaciers in Greenland and ice sheets in the Antarctic are calving bigger and more numerous icebergs. One the size of Manhattan floated free from Greenland in 2010, as seen in this video.

Last week, yet another high-level report on a topic of global concern was published by yet another group of eminent experts – this one on food security and climate change. The eminent experts – the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change – were assembled by a group of donor countries and the World Bank for the one-year task of producing the report and its recommendations. Read her full analysis

Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) representative Dustin Mulvaney, an Assistant Professor at San Jose State University, works with SVTC to see that materials in computers and solar panels are safely handled and recycled. Mulvaney said First Solar is required to handle PV modules in a way that minimizes any accidental cadmium leakage at other sites. Most likely, he added, the biggest occupational hazard First Solar has encountered on the AVSR1 site is “workers being cut by broken glass.”

For 2011 Switzer Fellow Jeannette Laramee, it all started with designing a school in Zambia, Africa. That led to building systems that make biogas, which can save up to 10,000 pounds of firewood a year for a family in Africa.

Although strategies to prevent global warming – such as by conserving energy, relying on solar and wind power, and reducing motor vehicle use – are well-known, societies have proved unable to implement these measures with the necessary speed. They have also been unwilling to confront underlying issues such as overconsumption, overpopulation, inequity, and dysfunctional political systems.