Planet Earth Needs You

By Michael Coppola When it comes to the climate emergency there are two allegories that exemplify what has gone on in the USA for the past hundred years or so. For the citizens it is that of the frog slowly being cooked in the pot of water and for the political leaders it’s Nero fiddling while Rome burns. If one looks at the headlines in the media, we see the Epstein scandal; the war crimes in Gaza and Ukraine; the death of democracy; the tariff policy of a deranged president. Rarely does one see even a footnote mention of the climate crisis even after the reporting of wildfires; hurricanes and massive flooding destroying neighborhoods. If we do not stop the politicians from fiddling and the citizens don't begin to feel the heat, business will continue as usual and we will lose the last opportunity to save ourselves. The science tells us that we have less than 5 years to dramatically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Currently we are increasing our emissions. The ...

  By Nancy Williams and Michael Coppola Greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase in the United States.  If we want to keep the increase in global temperature from rising to the level that will make it very difficult to survive, shouldn't we be spending taxpayer money on the most cost-effective solutions; the ones that are already available and can be implemented the fastest?  We have to question the government spending $808,000,000 in grant money on a technology that will not be commercially available for almost a decade and will contribute little to the reduction in GHG emissions. The Federal government is offering that $808 million as a grant to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) for the development of a nuclear reactor known as a Small Modular Reactor (SMR). There are several types of SMR's that are being investigated today. Some are designs that were rejected in the 1970's. The type that the TVA is betting our tax money on is a modified design of the reactors b...

  by Michael Coppola and Nancy Williams We are stuck in a world of two battling tribes. One believes in man-made climate change and one that denies it. Even when storms repeatedly destroy a person's home, often that person, if he is a climate denier, will come up with some reason to continue denying the existence of the crisis. They will say such things as, we have always had storms; it's God's will; man is being so arrogant to think he could effect a change in the climate. Are they reacting this way because they have to support their tribe? The other tribe believes that these events are happening because the climate is changing. Human activity has been putting greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere at a rate that far exceeds anything the planet has seen in the lifetime of humans. They cannot understand why people would deny the evidence and conclusions of climate experts.  The tribe believing in climate change may fail to see that some of the climate deniers have a legitima...

By Michael Coppola and Nancy Williams The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has stated that not only must we immediately stop burning fossil fuels that add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, but we must also remove them to get the level back to pre-industrial levels to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. They say that once removed these gasses must be stored so they are not released back into the atmosphere. Planting trees is one of the ways that we can remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Most people know, and what we often see in the media, is that trees take in carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas and give off oxygen, which helps in the battle against global warming. However, there are other ways that trees battle climate change. What is rarely talked about is that trees cool the environment in other ways. They take in water and move it through the whole tree; ultimately sending the water out via little holes in its leaves to the atmosphere using the ...

Time is running out to solve the climate crisis. Energy policies that encourage nuclear generation, hydrogen fuel for transportation, and direct carbon capture and storage, are not proven technologies, nor economically viable solutions. By Michael Coppola and Nancy Williams Where We Stand Solving the Climate Crisis Under the Paris Agreement adopted in 2015, virtually all the world’s nations pledged, “…to limit global warming to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels and also, if possible, pursue efforts to cap warming at 1.5C.” In the absence of large future emissions reductions, according to the latest generation of climate models used by the United Nation’s International Governmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, that goal will not be met. Time Is Running Out The world is now about 1.2C warmer than it was in the 19th Century - and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by 50%. There is no way to undo the effect of that much carbon in the atmosphere anytime soon....

                                                                 Paramount Pictures Corporation Electric vehicles and green electric generation are working together to help reach the Paris agreement goal of keeping the increase in global temperature to 1.5 degrees  Celsius. By Michael Coppola and Nancy Williams All the reliable sources monitoring the climate crisis seem to agree that we are not doing nearly enough to hold the planet’s average atmosphere temperature to just 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial period. This was thought to be an acceptable increase which could allow us to eventually reduce back to a pre-industrial level. The Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan organization of the US Federal Government, published a report in December, 2022 entitled “Emissions of Carbon Dioxide in the T...

By Michael Coppola and Nancy Williams Many people ask me questions about my new all-electric Vehicle, a Ford Mustang Mach-E. They stop me in parking lots, at the beach, or even on the road! This is a breakdown of the main points of owning and operating an EV and the impact I believe this market will have on Climate Change. One of the first concerns I hear is about charging the battery and the car’s miles of range. Charging both at home and on the road has worked out well, however an understanding of the battery technology currently being used will help keep your EV running at its best. It's really no different than knowing what keeps your ICEV running its best. All batteries are degraded by heat, both by an external heat source and self-generated heat from charging and discharging. Just like your cellphone, you must protect your car’s battery from overheating. What that means for an owner is deciding how you charge to protect the battery while achieving the results you require for ...