Archive for the ‘Climate Change’ Category

A friend of our CEO, Jeff Wolfe, sent this cartoon to him and boy does it speak volumes. Click on the picture below to see the full image size or Follow The Link.

“Only when the last tree is cut; only when the last river is polluted;

only when the last fish is caught; only then will they realize that you cannot eat money.” -Cree Indian Proverb

Some of you may have already seen the image below – it shows the surface area required to power the world with solar power. The image was originally created by the Land Art Generator Initiative and has found its way across many solar blogs, news sites and green websites.

Take a look at the image. There will be around 8 billion people in the world by 2030 and it will still only take a relatively small  land area to provide power for our needs. Just think if everyone did their part by putting solar on their roof to provide for some of their own power…

Saw this tweet from Sarah Palin:

Extreme Greenies:see now why we push”drill,baby,drill”of known reserves&promising finds in safe onshore places like ANWR? Now do you get it? – June 1 at 6:07 pm

So instead of “Drill, Baby, Drill” at groSolar we’re saying “Sun, Baby, Sun“!

Check out a recent op-ed piece from one of our employees in the La Jolla Light.

It’s Earth Week (Earth Day is officially this Thursday, the 22nd) and we, at groSolar, are doing many things to celebrate the 3rd rock from the sun. Things like biking to work, carpooling, swearing off bottled water and buying locally or not buying at all.

I plan on line drying all of my laundry and am planting some herbs and raspberry plants. What are you going to do? Leave a comment below to tell us what you are doing to celebrate the earth today and every day.

Global Warming.

Climate Change.

Global Climate Change.

Atmospheric Physics.

Atmosphere Cancer.

Greenhouse Gas Warming.

Climate Crisis.

Global Weirding????

In a NY Times Op-Ed by Thomas Friedman (Hot, Flat, and Crowded) posted yesterday, Friedman suggested a new term to define what’s happening to our earth and the climate: Global Weirding. As Friedman says:

I prefer the term “global weirding,” because that is what actually happens as global temperatures rise and the climate changes. The weather gets weird. The hots are expected to get hotter, the wets wetter, the dries drier and the most violent storms more numerous.

The term ‘global warming’ has gotten a pretty bad PR wrap. People tend to think that if it’s cold outside then global warming doesn’t exist. ‘Climate change’ better describes what’s actually happening but lacks the ‘take action now’ fear from the word. So is it ‘global weirding’? Post your thoughts using the comments link above.

Our friends over at 350.org have done a great job with the grassroots effort to get people to take action on climate change to bring us back down to the magical number of 350 parts per million of carbon in our atmosphere. They have created some cool videos to recap the year. We really liked one in particular but you can see all of the videos here.

If the climate is keeping you up at night, we totally understand. We have had one too many nightmares about carbon monsters. If it’s not maybe you should check out the article, “Top Ten Reasons the Climate Should Keep You Up at Night“. Some of the worries are not what you would expect.

By Jeff Wolfe, from COP15 in Denmark:

Business As Usual – an archaic illusion. Business As Sustainable (BAS) is our only path forward.

Background: Business as usual (BAU) is the term used to describe how companies and people have conducted business over the past 100 years. It’s the set of actions which has resulted in the climate change we see today. But the assumptions underlying all models of BAU have fundamentally changed due to the effects of climate change, making BAU an archaic illusion.

Commentary: Whenever climate change mitigation is discussed, it is typically discussed against a BAU scenario, as in: ‘Versus BAU, implementing renewable energy for electric generation would cost us $XXX more.’

What is never discussed is that the BAU scenario no longer exists; we are not living in the time referred to by the BAU scenario. We’ve spent the past 150 years using limited resources wantonly, impacting the Earth in ways we only truly started to understand 20 – 30 years ago, and now find that we cannot continue that way of life. Like a childhood lost, we are seeking to hang onto that way of life, to insist that our current options continue to include wanton resource use and disposal, to continue acting like a child where actions do not have consequences.

If we could continue a BAU-like set of actions, we would find that the costs associated with them are far higher than previously thought. These costs include weather disasters, crop failures, water shortages, electrical disruptions, low-area flooding, and more. These costs change the calculation of the historic BAU analyses, making a BAU-like path far more expensive than a path that transitions to Business As Sustainable (BAS).

And perhaps most child-like, we act as if we do not understand that a BAS path can result in a better life, that adulthood can be fun, rewarding, and fulfilling.
In the face of the truth of science and the availability of technology, and the belief in a greater being, it has become an illusion to speak of any business as ‘usual’, when all business must now change to meet the present reality. To cling to a false belief that BAU still exists, to compare possible future options for climate action and BAS against a now mythical BAU, is irresponsible and negligent. It is time we grew up and accepted both the pleasures and responsibilities of adulthood, and accelerate ourselves toward BAS.

Watching world leaders speaking at COP15 Plenary. One thing is crystal clear. 95% of world leaders believe that climate change is not only real, but is a grave threat to the world. If wide public opinion in the US does not change, the American public will find itself ostracized on the world stage.

The Solar Bill of Rights, introduced by SEIA’s Rhone Resch at Solar Power International ‘09 in October, is gaining traction. Follow the link to the website to sign the Solar Bill of Rights.

http://www.solarbillofrights.org/