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Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the US transportation sector by 80%-90% over the next 50 years or less is a huge problem. Yet it must be accomplished in order to minimize dangerous interference in the climate. S-clusters can help point to a solution. Let's look at the characteristics of the problem of GHG from transportation.
Continue reading "Profile of GHG Emissions from Transport" »
Calculating the true cost of our existing transportation system is the first step to using s-clusters to create the lowest cost, most efficient path to zero carbon transportation.
How does the s-cluster (sustainability cluster) help with climate protection? The s-cluster is a pattern that is extracted from real world examples of sustainability. One of the characteristics of the s-cluster is that it is zero carbon. An s-cluster provides a product or service, essential to life, without increasing the atmospheric CO2 concentration. The s-cluster allows us to identify levers or changes to existing systems that lower total GHG emissions.
Continue reading "Why S-Clusters? How does this help Climate Protection?" »
An American friend living in Japan pointed out a feature of his neighborhood, near Tokyo, that highlights one of the most important aspects of the zero carbon S-cluster: Local use of locally produced goods. Local food production, of regionally appropriate foods, using sustainable farming techniques, is an integral part of a sustainable, zero-carbon community. Food production should also use local, renewable energy sources for irrigation and farm equipment.
Last Friday, 1/13, I attended a debate hosted by Stewart Brand's organization, Long Now, on nuclear power and climate change. The debate addressed whether the threat of climate change justified aggressive development of nuclear energy, along with renewables.
A sustainability cluster or "s-cluster" is a system of services that has general characteristics. It can interoperate with other s-clusters to provide the services essential to sustain life. There are seven basic types of s-clusters:
I'm beginning exploration of a concept I call the "climate protection bootstrap". "Bootstrapping" is the process of bringing a diverse collection of components to a state of functioning together synergistically. Local action on climate change can be started up by focused action on leverage points, or "sustainability clusters."
Due to a glitch in the email subscription system, the notice did not go out for this post, Connecting the Dots - Wind, Nuclear and Local Action on Climate Protection.
Also, I have been having an exchange with Per Stromsjo on his blog, hereon the recently announced "Oil Free Sweden" initiative. Per is a Swedish citizen who thinks these efforts miss the mark, and feels that Sweden should go nuclear.
The tragedy at the Sago coal mine in West Virginia starkly reveals one of the externalized costs of coal: the danger to the lives of the miners. The ratepayers who buy electricity from the coal-fired power plants do not pay for the cost of human lives lost in this tragedy.
Shepherd Bliss has contributed an essay titled, "The Four Horsemen of Industrial Society: War, Over-Population, Climate Change & Peak Oil". In it, he examines the threat of climate change and peak oil to human society and the planet, and possible responses. He compares the effects of climate change and Peak Oil on the motivations of humans to change the way society operates.Download four_horsemenshort1.doc
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