Green Jobs

The pursuit of so-called “green jobs”-employment that contributes to protecting the environment and reducing humanity’s carbon footprint-will be a key economic driver of the 21st century. “Climate-proofing” the global economy will involve large-scale investments in new technologies, equipment, buildings, and infrastructure, which will provide a major stimulus for much-needed new employment and an opportunity for [...]

Goofy Golf

Bob Smiley, an ESPN sportswriter, wrote this….I enjoy remembering pleasant times playing golf during my school years….WARNING, this is not about green anything, except maybe fertilized golf courses….
Some of you might be under the impression that major golf news tends to slow as the season winds down. If so, you clearly missed Monday’s announcement that [...]

Recent Carbon Prices

The carbon market’s resilience in the face of the global financial crisis has collapsed in the last week with sharp falls in prices for the leading carbon instruments.
For an article:
http://ecoassetmarkets.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post-new.php

Heat

A colleague, Brandon Faneuf, reports that the PBS Frontline report HEAT is worth watching.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/heat/view/

Socialism and Income Re/Distribution

I find it interesting that the Republicans are bantering around the “s” word with respect to Mr. Obama’s tax platform…referring to it as income redistribution. Look at the following graph….then let’s discuss income redistribution!

If you want to see tax-based income redistribution, I suggest you look at the Bush Administration tax policy over the past eight [...]

Ethanol Plants and Carbon Emissions

From Terry Beeman in the Des Moines Register:
Ethanol plants contributed 7.6 million metric tons to a total 52 million metric tons of greenhouse-gas emissions found in the state’s new inventory of major manufacturers, businesses and power plants.
The largest share of emissions came from fermenting grain at the plants, not from burning natural gas or coal. [...]

Snow

It looked like it was going to snow this morning so…. I found this article interesting….evidently some clever Japanese engineer has determined that the Chitose Airport will use collected snow to provide 30% of their cooling energy.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/10/snow-used-to-cool-hokkaido-japan-airport.php

Changes

I’ve begun developing a new website for the blog….and am attempting to learn more about WordPress so that I might create better information tools….including templates and educational materials on ecosystem services, ecomarkets, and community-based economic development.
Look for changes before the end of the year!

Criticizing Market-Based Conservation

At IUCN World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, Global Forest Coalition managing coordinator Simone Lovera said: “The report provides a number of fascinating real-life stories on how these mechanisms work out at the community-level. It forms an important addition to the increasing number of studies that focus on the potential benefits of these mechanisms for [...]

Financial and Commodity Market Volatility

My friend John Phipps posted over the weekend about big swings in the financial markets in the past couple of weeks…particularly in the last hour of trading. I’ve noticed the same things…and he also notes the same volatility in commodity markets (around 1 pm). He’s suggests that traders begin ‘to plan on and for’ the [...]