LA Times Says NO to Deniers; Economic Impact of
Climate Change; Challenges to EPA Carbon Regulation, and more…
GlobalWarmingisReal contributor Anders Hellum-Alexander wraps-up
and comments on the climate and environmental news headlines for the past week:
Debate is healthy, but to be of any real
value it needs to be based on fact. Ignoring facts makes a real debate impossible.
Climate change has an economic impact, and a large one at that. The Asian Development bank did a study and
found that climate change could reduce the GDP of Asian countries.
Fighting climate change involves more technological development. We have the tools to do some mitigation, but the full effort to avoid climate change involves the continued development of technology.
It seems like a trap though, the more we develop technology the
more we can deal with the effects of past technologies, but the more we are
able to hurt ourselves in the present. I hope it’s not a paradox that humans
get caught in.
Environmentalists want the EPA to regulate carbon emissions as a
pollutant thus allowing them to reduce carbon emissions. There is a challenge to the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon that
will be decided in the Supreme
Court.
SunPower produces the world’s most efficient commercially-available solar panel. They have been in business for 25 years
and it has been a hard fight, especially with the rise of Asian manufacturers.
SunPower is surviving and weathering the storm of low Asian prices. Now it is
the Asian solar companies that are struggling to stay afloat.
The strength of an industry can be shown in the number of new
patents it is creating. Solar is creating many new patents and hopefully the
innovation will pay off with a future filled with inexpensive, well-built and
efficient solar panels.
Nuns are allies to the environmental movement. Their voice should be elevated so
church-goers are more sympathetic to the good cause.