Bleeding Edge

Climate Change has it’s adherents…

Sunny Seattle is one of them.

With the warmest winter on record in Seattle and diminished rainfall — it becomes sweeter to be there.

But being in the East and in the other Washington is rather bad with the freak snowstorms and the New York arctic frost winter.

Forget about Boston… and New England, where the polar bears are set to move in now that their Arctic home is trashed.

SHELL is going to be drilling in the Arctic and in the Chuckli sea — so we have to round up the polar bears lest they get in the way of development.

The SHELL people might have to shoot the white furry beasts — if they interfere — and since this is not something we want to see… — we’ll gather all of them and put them on an ice rink inside the Boston Zoo.

At least that is a plan…

Some plan.

So let’s get all the polar bears and transport them to New England for their winter habitat and at least get them out of the way of SHELL in order to give the oilers, some room to drill-baby-drill.

But it is not the polar bear habitat that is worrying me.

It is the Human Habitat.

With all this Nonsense, it seems an eminent understanding, that doing something to stop Global Warming is needed.

And as it turns out, some people have been connecting the dots.

They have been seeing the patterns, and reading the writing on the wall.

And instead of reacting like Noah and going out to built a big wooden boat to have a floating zoo for the rising tides, and gathering along all the polar bears along with the Seattle Zoo Elephants, and all of creation — to move them to a higher place — they are simply moving on to a better mental place.

Others say Change is imminent and leave it at that.

And the smartest men in the room are buying up Real Estate high up, in Mount Ararat…

Yet it appears that amongst some intelligent Life-forms in America — there is some measure of agreement that the movement away from fossil fuels and towards renewable resources of energy, might be the the way to reduce our carbon footprint, to manage the CO2 we place on the burdened biosphere, and to give us room to breath and survive.

These intelligent life-forms, see how our atmosphere is ravaged and our runaway global threat of an unstable climate and fast rising temperatures competing with faster rising seas is under way — and are scared shitless.

And they also see that as fossil fuel resources get cheaper and cheaper by the day, as air pollution worsens, and as concerns about climate instability cast a shadow over the future of Man — we are finally waking up to smell the roses, and are making our plans to move on to Mars.

My friend Elon Musk is really planning this trip and we might have to built the new “Noah’s Ark” big enough with booster rockets to escape gravity, and big-ass solar sails to sail through Space — so that the space faring Animal Zoo gets to Mars unscathed.

But what about the rest of us?

What about You, your ex, and your Mother in law?

Would You want to stay behind?

Especially if Earth’s temperature and atmosphere goes the way of Venus?

Coal, oil, and natural gas, at their lowest prices in decades are giving a new MEANING to the world “energy economy” and runaway Climate Change.

With temperatures rising above the 2 degree threshold already — we are looking at 7 degrees of warming by 2030 if not sooner.

Yet not all is bad news, because some hope is emerging.

At long last we will be able to sunbathe and swim in downtown Seattle. The whole of Puget Sound will be opened up to summertime tourism development and the pink palace of Oahu will be moved to Alki with the everlasting pink daquiries served under pink umbrellas on the beaches of Seattle.

Who wants to fly to Hawai when the paradise is upon us right here?

The tropical economy of these islands will collapse and they might have to go back to Taro root agriculture and bananas — but that is another story.

There will be other changes too.

Some of them more serious than others…

People might miss the Winter months.

[ I don’t believe this… ]

Thailand as a tropical vacation destination will become overrated and people are going to stay home and swim again in the Boston Harbour.

Another Tea party will ensue…

Finally, the coal, oil, & gas economy, fueled largely by coal and oil, is eventually going to be seen as the source of our problems.

And people are going to be asking for it to be replaced.

Replaced with what?

Maybe replace it with something cleaner?

And then simply as the old infrastructure falls in disrepair…

We might change it with better, cleaner, newer stuff.

The future is uncertain.

And uncertain as it is — it might at least be powered by Clean Energy.

Maybe by solar and wind energy and not by “Clean Coal” — that is if we have our way.

There is a glimmer of hope there…

And this hope rests on us.

We like to create a Future for All.

And we see this as a Good Goal.

If we can also get all of you reading this to jump on the bandwagon of Renewable Energy — we might just create a positive future and a virtuous trend.

And if we create a positive trend — others will see this.

When people start trending this way, and further reinforcing this movement, then we have won.

This then becomes an evolving trend.

A positive upwards spiral of virtue.

A thermal lift…

It’s a good thing to dream…

But in order to create this trend we have to focus.

We need to focus on meeting not only the needs of the people — but also meet the falling prices of fossil fuels.

We need to meet these low prices of coal, oil, and gas — for all renewables.

Conditioning of economic values of New Energy, at par — is the only solution.

Rising adoption for renewables with fast falling prices, coupled with the certainty of maintaining these low prices for renewables longterm — is the start.

Removal of all Fossil Fuel subsidies is another element in this strategy.

Making the dirty oilers pay for their pollution is mandatory. Carbon Taxes will come into view. Cap&trade will appear in front of all the legislatures. And some might pass it — not like Washington state’s comedic efforts, but more like New England and British Columbia…

Polluter-Pays mandates will become common.

Adding up the costs of the pollution to the fossil fuel energy is going to be mandatory.

After all these are economic costs, and what you measure — you manage.

We’ve got to built a traditional Darwinian green field for the Energy resources to compete.

That’s how You built a level playing field where the best Energy wins.

Because only when the wind, solar, sea-electric, geothermal energy, tidal&wave, and energy efficiency management movement; meets the countervailing trend away from coal, gas, oil, and nuclear power — we stand to survive.

And maybe  we can pull this off…

Because Hope dares to imagine and the facts are on the ground for a few exciting trends:

The price of solar photovoltaic panels has declined 99 percent over the last four decades, from $74 a watt in 1972 to less than 70 cents a watt in 2014. Between 2009 and 2014, solar panel prices dropped by three fourths, helping global PV installations grow 50 percent per year.

Over the past decade, world wind power capacity grew more than 20 percent a year, its increase driven by its many attractive features, by public policies supporting its expansion, and by falling costs. By the end of 2014, global wind generating capacity totaled 369,000 megawatts, enough to power more than 90 million U.S. homes.

National and sub-national policies around the world are shifting to support renewables and put a price on carbon. These include 70 countries with feed-in tariffs; two dozen countries with renewable portfolio standards (RPS); 37 countries with production or investment tax credits for renewables; and some 40 countries implementing or planning carbon pricing.

U.S. coal use is dropping – it fell 21 percent between 2007 and 2014 – and more than one-third of the nation’s coal plants have already closed or announced plans for future closure. Meanwhile the Stowe Global Coal Index – a composite index of companies from around the world whose principal business involves coal – dropped 70 percent between April 2011 and September 2014.

For the world as a whole, nuclear power generation peaked in 2006, and dropped by nearly 14 percent by 2014.

In the US, the country with the most reactors, nuclear generation peaked in 2010 and is now also on the decline.

In China, electricity generation from wind farms now exceeds that from nuclear plants, while the growing coal use — appears to be peaking.

Yours,

Dr Kroko

PS:

Old Infrastructure is being replaced all over.

The massive restructuring of the global economy along new energy generation is under way.

Initially this energy transition was driven by government incentives, but now it is also being driven by the market.

Still Fossil Fuel companies turn their biggest profits ever and with low prices of their dirty energy they seem to preclude the renewable future.

But the “NEW” is rising.

With the creation of new and agile capital markets today, that are favoring solar and wind energy in many locations, the trend is becoming visible and the growth of renewables is accelerating.

Our Climate is warming up much faster than anticipated — and this might be coupling and reinforcing the moving trend away from fossil fuels.

After all, everyone who breathes cleaner air, drinks cleaner water, and benefits from a more stable climate will come out on top as the energy transition proceeds.

PPS:

For the Activists amongst you and for the strong swimmers — please keep on reading.

Should You be in Seattle and interested to join the Environmental Parliament to help along this nascent trend — join up here: http://www.meetup.com/Environmental-Parliament/

What do you guys think about a flotilla of kayaks?

This Summer we are going surfing in Puget Sound with our boards, kayaks, canoes, and maybe a flotilla of Noah’s Arks to blockade the SHELL oil drilling rigs from leaving their Seattle berth to go to the ARCTIC to destroy the polar Bear habitat even further.

Your sea-kayak is needed along with you, to become part of, and manage this giant flotila of protest against a fast warming planet and the unequivocal Climate Change.

Come Along and Be Counted, because when there is warm sunlight, clean sea, and easy nature, it is easy to be a friend to all and here is where it all starts if you want a career with the Environmental Parliament, but above all — if you want a future for the Human Race.