Planet Earth Needs You

  The  Eiffel   Tower  was illuminated green, using a  Toyota  fuel cell powered generator.   International hydrogen expert   Michael Liebreich, founder of energy research group Bloomberg New Energy Finance, slammed the display as one of the “stupidest things” he’d witnessed because of the light show’s gross inefficiency. By Michael Coppola and Nancy Lazar “Green Hydrogen” The Fossil Fuel Industry’s Grand Deception The fossil fuel industry joined up with Toyota to light up the  Eiffel   Tower  with a hydrogen fuel cell to show that fuel cells can make green electricity. Why are petroleum companies promoting fuel cells? They don't sell hydrogen. But, they do sell methane, coal and oil which are used to make hydrogen. By applying super heated steam to any of their three products you can get hydrogen. All commercially available hydrogen today is produced this way. The problem with this method is that it produces tremendous amoun...

  Planet Earth Needs your Help Need a break from “Breaking Bad”?   Try the new Netflix documentary “Breaking Boundaries. A very accurate and scientific presentation of what our planet and our civilization are headed for in the very near future. Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet | Official Trailer | Netflix - YouTube https://youtu.be/Gb6wQtNjblk   All Previous Articles https://planetearthneedsyou.blogspot.com/

  Earlier this month Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, made a little quip statement about owning an electric vehicle to a reporter. His question was, " Obviously, we have the acute issues with the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack.  But looking more holistically in a macro view, how does this speed up the efforts at DOE to move in more of a renewable direction since this is going to have an impact on people at the pump?" Her response was, " Yeah, I mean, we obviously are 'all in' on making sure that we meet the President’s goals of getting to 100   percent clean electricity by 2035 and net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.  And, you know, if you drive an electric car, this would not be affecting you, clearly." I honestly do not see the connection between a gas shortage and the development of a green energy infrastructure.   But, that aside, I was not surprised that the conservative media immediately put forward their argument against electrifying al...

             Fukushima daiichi nuclear disaster So many news articles on the climate emergency are showing up on line. I just saw one titled “It’s Crunch Time and Biden’s Climate Gambit Faces Steep Hurdles.” I want to share some thoughts on some of its main points.   I am not going to comment on the political statements in this article and leave that to the political pundits. But I would like to make counter arguments to the scientific and economic arguments presented by the various groups mentioned in the article. Let’s start off with this statement from the article:   “Republican leaders on Capitol Hill say forcing utilities to turn away from coal, oil and gas will mean higher electric bills.”   At the very least this statement is false because coal has been priced out of the market by all other sources of energy. So saying that to ‘stop burning coal’ is going to make electric bills higher is ridiculous. It’s akin to sayin...

  Methane gas is a significant greenhouse gas, roughly 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide.  Agriculture and in particular animal agriculture is a large source of this greenhouse gas. The key sources of methane in animal agriculture are the belching of methane from ruminant animals and the decomposition of their waste. Digestion alone produces 30 to 50 quarts of carbon dioxide and methane gas, per hour, per animal! T remendous quantities of farmland are also needed to support the meat and dairy industry for grazing or for the growing of feed. In developing nations land must be cleared of forests which if left intact would capture carbon dioxide. Furthermore nitrogen fertilizers used to grow the feed puts nitrous oxides into the air which are almost 300 times more potent than CO2. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates about 14.5 % of GHG’s or 7.1 gigatons of CO2 equivalent, can be attributed to the livestock sector annually. This is broadly equivalent to...

  NOAA National Weather Service Hillsborough County has designated this April as water conservation month. As everyone knows, we are in short supply of clean drinking water, so governments, national and local work to conserve this important natural resource.   So, what does conservation of water look like in areas like Hillsborough County , Florida ? It entail things like low flush toilets; water restrictors in shower heads; restrictions on days and times yards can be watered; low water use washing machine; downspout water barrels; and reclaiming waste water.  On a more regional basis, governments have set aside land for water management and flood control. All of which have done a lot of good to help to conserve a very necessary resource. Yet the problem continues to get worse.   In light of the United Nations recent declaration to work with nature to solve our problems rather than going to war with nature we should consider looking for water conservation practi...

   The United Nations Environment Programme, UNEP, synthesis report, titled “Making Peace With Nature: A scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies” was published and announced February 18 this year. It was released to set the stage for the fifth United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-5). The overall theme of UNEA-5 is “Strengthening Actions for Nature to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, (SDG)”   “The theme calls for strengthened action to protect and restore nature and the nature-based solutions to achieve the SDGs in its three complementary dimensions (social, economic and environmental). UNEA-5 provides Member States and stakeholders with a platform for sharing and implementing successful approaches that contribute to the achievement of the environmental dimension of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs, including the goals related to the eradication of poverty and sustainable patterns of consumption and production. UNEA...