Philips has received an award for its new HDTV because it’s said to be “efficient” with electricity. Yet what these industry driven awards fail to mention is that the new sets are less efficient than the ones they replace. The average power consumption of a 27″ cathode ray tube color television is still less than the celebrated “Eco TV” of Philips, which consumes 192 watts when calibrated, according to a CNET review. Far more impressive are the new displays coming to market that use less than half the power required by the Eco TV.

It’s great that money is beginning to flow to universities to solve climate problems with technological innovation. But this is only part of the solution because carbon levels need to be reduced immediately rather than at some future date when technology may become available. Since the 1970s when the Carter administration began pushing for energy alternatives, it has been the oil sector that has bought many promising patents, only to sit on them and continue their enormous oil revenues. It is with some skepticism, therefore, that one must view the launch of a new climate research project at Stanford, paid for by Exxon-Mobil.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/progressive/2003.03_exxon.html

For example “Due to inconsistencies in G-CEP and Exxon research project goals, a management committee formed by the sponsoring corporations can approve or reject research topics proposed by Stanford researchers.”

Is this science or an offshoot of Exxon-Mobil engineering? If scientists are not permitted to follow directions that may not be profitable for Exxon-Mobil, the value of this initiative begins to enter into the terrain of greenwashing.

These clowns have been advertising in the New York Times and elsewhere that fossil fuels are “advanced” and “new” solutions for our 21st century energy challenges. Right. The coal industry wants us to believe “clean coal” is a smart energy solution. They don’t have anything to say about global warming, though, since fossil fuels produce the carbon dioxide that causes the greenhouse effect. While the highly publicized coal industry sites hype “clean coal” even their own best examples of the potential of carbon sequestration admit that they are years away from “A full-scale system” because “developing such a system is likely to be very expensive.”

The coal industry front “organization” called americaspower.org features a blog by “balanced energy” flak Joe Lucas, who cautions his readers about over-dependence on wind power (http://www.americaspower.org/News/Behind-the-Plug/Gone-With-The-Wind, 3/15/08)

This is the same man who, in an interview with the Advocate, said carbon dioxide — also the gas that humans breathe out — isn’t a contributor to global warming because if it were, he rationalized, “the government would have to ask us all to stop breathing.” (http://www.greenwashing.net/, 3/15/08)

This raises the question of titles. Technically Lucas is “ABEC’s vice president of communications.” Or according to another bio online, he’s “the Executive Director of Americans for Balanced Energy Choices.” Should citizens who are interested in exposing the industrial propaganda of the greenhouse gas emitting industries also adopt impressive sounding names and titles? Would it lend authority to their work?

This film combines G-rated animal adventure with a relatively soft environmental message. The film ends with a CODA about the dire predictions of the imminent disappearance of summer sea ice in the arctic, necessary for the survival of the film’s animals. The estimated date when sea ice would be gone is 2040. But NASA’s James Hansen revised this figure down to 2012 only a few months after the film’s release. Yipes.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/12/11/arctic.melt.ap/index.html

An Inconvenient Truth

This documentary featuring Al Gore and has won an academy award for the best documentary of 2006.

The award is clearly a gesture of support, and a signal of alarm, rather than a declaration that this particular film is brilliant. While informative, the film begs the question why Gore’s call to action was relatively muted in his years as the Vice President?