Planetary Ruin

In his recent State of the Union address, President Obama called upon an America built to last, "an economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers, and a renewal of American values." Today, the Heat is Power Association is ready to answer this call in this country and beyond. A coalition focused on the wide-scale development of a robust Waste Heat to Power (WH2P) market re-launched today as the Heat is Power Association to bring together everyone with a stake in clean energy and industry to capture an opportunity we're wasting every day—waste heat. And we're not alone. From the White House to the campaign trail to state houses across the country, almost everyone can agree on two things: that the way to spur the global economy is through manufacturing, and we must shore up clean energy supplies to power and protect cities and towns everywhere. Alongside President Obama's call for a renewed manufacturing sector, he touted the thousands of jobs that have been created at the hands of clean energy investments. By expanding our focus on the output of energy resources – emission-free electricity – we can grow those numbers exponentially.

PHILADELPHIA (February 7, 2012) -- EPA Regional Administrator Shawn M. Garvin is encouraging all schools in the mid-Atlantic region to get recognized for their environmental achievements by entering the Green Ribbon School Competition. The deadline for the new pilot award program, created by the U.S. Department of Education and supported by EPA, is March 22 but all applications must be sent to the individual state Department of Education by February 23, 2012

A recent study discovered that many Tel Aviv wells are polluted beyond suitability as drinking water sources. Data collected by the Health Ministry and Water Authority showed that 96 of a total 166 wells in the Tel Aviv area were closed due to contamination. Nearly two-thirds of the wells have been shuttered since 1980, when all 166 were in full operation.

Rwanda has raised the price of a permit to see mountain gorillas to $750 per day starting June 1, 2012, up from $500. While the price is steep, the program each year raises millions of dollars in revenue for gorilla conservation, including $8 million in Rwanada alone in 2008, according to a 2011 study published in PLoS ONE.

Evidence that jellyfish are taking over the oceans is currently lacking, according to a new study published in Bioscience. Complied by a number of marine experts, the study found that while jellyfish have been on the rise in some regions it is likely due to a natural cycle of jellyfish populations and not a global boom. Researchers, including a number of marine biologists, have warned for years that jellyfish numbers may be exploding due to human activities, such as overfishing, warmer oceans due to global climate change, and the rise of oxygen-depleted, so-called "dead zones."

Amid all the negative publicity that Solyndra's failure has brought to the Administration's cleantech efforts, one cleantech program has received broad bipartisan support: DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-e). In 2012, ARPA-e will receive $275 million, a 53% increase from the prior year with both the House and the Senate supporting significant funding for the agency's third year of operations. ARPA-e is modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which for over 50 years has funded early-stage research projects that show the potential to develop technologies that could yield disruptive advances for the military. DARPA's projects have resulted in major leaps including, but definitely not limited to, the Internet, stealth technology and the Global Positioning System. Both agencies operate by soliciting proposals from companies, universities, and labs within broad thematic areas and select the most promising proposals for grant awards. Readers of my blog know that I am not a big fan of some of the Administration's cleantech efforts. ARPA-e is at least one exception. Authorized in the last year of the Bush Administration and initially funded through the Obama Administration's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the ARPA-e program may be one government program that can help seed the disruptive advances needed in our energy economy.

Pointing out the similarities (and differences) between slavery and the use of fossil fuels can help us engage with climate change in a new way, says Jean-François Mouhot, visiting researcher at Georgetown University, USA. In 2005, while teaching history at a French university, I was struck by the general disbelief among students that rational and sensitive human beings could ever hold others in bondage. Slavery was so obviously evil that slave-holders could only have been barbarians. My students could not entertain the idea that some slave-owners could have been genuinely blind to the harm they were doing. At the same time, I was reading a book on climate change which noted how today's machinery – almost exclusively powered by fossil fuels like coal and oil – does the same work that used to be done by slaves and servants. "Energy slaves" now do our laundry, cook our food, transport us, entertain us, and do most of the hard work needed for our survival.

A new research study has found that malaria is killing twice as many people that previously believed. However, as efforts to combat the deadly steam have picked up, the total number of deaths is declining. In 2010, 1.2 million people died of malaria, twice as much as the last survey suggested. Researchers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington believe that the discrepancy is due to the previous studies assuming that malaria only kills children under age five. In actuality, 42 percent of malaria deaths are people aged five and older.

London faces an uphill battle if it is to deliver on the target of 100,000 electric vehicles on the streets of the capital, a new report from the London Assembly warns today. Charging Ahead?, by the Assembly's Environment Committee, says progress has been made since 2009, when the Mayor committed to making London the electric car capital of Europe, but he faces a formidable challenge ahead to achieve his targets.

In recent years, media reports of jellyfish blooms and some scientific publications have fueled the idea that jellyfish and other gelatinous floating creatures are becoming more common and may dominate the seas in coming decades. The growing impacts of humans on the oceans, including overfishing and climate change, have been suggested as possible causes of this apparently alarming trend.