"Three Middle East countries have the biggest environmental footprints in the world, putting the region on the brink of ecological bankruptcy, according to a new report."
Via Willy De Backer
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Rescooped by
Stephane Bilodeau
from The Great Transition
onto Développement durable et efficacité énergétique |
"Three Middle East countries have the biggest environmental footprints in the world, putting the region on the brink of ecological bankruptcy, according to a new report."
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Efficacité énergétique. Pourquoi ? Comment ?
Pour faire la différence dans votre organisation, économiser et faire un geste concret pour l'environnement, tout en réduisant le gaspillage et les excès.
![]() San Francisco and Oakland want to hold fossil fuel companies liable for sea level rise costs. In an unusual move, the judge ordered a climate tutorial for the court.
Stephane Bilodeau's insight:
2 Examples of the Judge's questions and the short answers suggested by the reporter: Q1. What happens to all our direct heat—from cars, radiators, furnaces? A1. Is this part of the problem? Again, it's trivial—about 1/100th of the greenhouse effect. Raising it in a climate change liability case would be a red herring. Q2. In school we learned that humans exhale CO2 but plants absorb it and exhale oxygen. True? And why haven't plants solved the CO2 buildup for us; and is our growing population's breathing part of the problem? A2. Let's take this from the bottom: human (and all animal) breathing is pretty much carbon neutral because the CO2 it returns to the atmosphere was already there very recently. As for plants soaking up the excess, forests and other vegetation are indeed major carbon sinks that can absorb lots of carbon—in other words, healthy forests could offset some of our global warming pollution. But we have been laying them to waste, especially in the tropics. Razing and burning forests releases stored carbon, making the problem worse. This short Q&A speaks for itself... 2
![]() Every new year seems to arrive on the heels of another unfortunate climate record set. And 2017’s is among the most startling: Climate-related and other natural disasters caused a staggering $306 billion in total damages in the US, making 2017 by far the most expensive year on record for disasters in the country. Is climate change really making weather more extreme? And can we really do anything about it? Get the facts in @ClimateReality’s free e-book: http://bit.ly/2ENYbna 1
Stephane Bilodeau's insight:
Climate change increases our risk of both heavy rains and extreme droughts. But why – and how – is that? Aren’t the two contradictory? Science has shown that climate change touches every corner of our planet’s ecosystem, and the water cycle is no exception. Specifically, as global temperatures have increased at their fastest rates in millions of years, this rise has directly affected things like water vapor concentrations in the atmosphere, clouds, and precipitation and stream-flow patterns. Because the processes involved are highly dependent on temperature, changes in one have consequences on the other. 1
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Experimental solar and water desalination facility inaugurated in Egypt | ConstructionWeekOnli
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Rescooped by Stephane Bilodeau from Solar Energy projects & Energy Efficiency |
The 7.9 MW array will supply 30% of the airport's electricity needs at a price 2 cents lower than the going utility rate.
The project was made possible through a partnership between airport officials, Borrego Solar (which built the project) and NRG Energy (which will purchase the electricity produced over a 25-year period under a power-purchase agreement (PPA)).
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Scooped by Stephane Bilodeau |
Experts say the American West is full of geothermal reservoirs whose energy could power millions of homes. But extracting that energy isn't easy.
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Rescooped by Stephane Bilodeau from PERFORMANCE ENERGETIQUE |
Enter the search term "100 percent renewable energy" into Google, and you will find fierce debate. Is the possibility of 100 percent renewable energy a myth? Or is the world already close to achieving this goal? This debate tends to underemphasize energy efficiency. But recent research makes a case that energy efficiency is important in any discussion about 100 percent renewable energy.
In August, International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) published a working paper, "Synergies between Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (PDF)." IRENA finds that energy efficiency can enable a more rapid shift to renewable energy in all countries and sectors.
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Pour atteindre 100% d'énergie renouvelable, le monde doit surmonter les défis techniques, politiques, culturels et financiers. Le rapport IRENA constate que l'efficacité énergétique peut aider à surmonter bon nombre de ces défis.
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Scooped by Stephane Bilodeau |
Don’t let the scale of the problem paralyze you!
The threats that climate change poses to business, markets, and, indeed, capitalism are peculiarly hard for most top teams to spot, let alone act on.
Our brains evolved to respond reflexively to immediate threats but ignore or downplay systemic crises that creep up on us. Such market dynamics behave like vortices — a whirlwind in the air, or a whirlpool in water. When a vortex is just beginning to form, it is virtually invisible unless you have extremely good peripheral vision and happen to know what you are looking for. In this stage, things move at a deceptively slow pace. Even the best-designed vessels — or ventures — find themselves drawn inexorably into the danger zone. Then, suddenly, there’s a point of no return.
Such slow — but ultimately exponential — dynamics characterize what I call the carbon vortex. Picture the three major hurricanes photographed from space in the autumn of 2017 in a single, unparalleled NASA image. Think, too, of the forecast that carbon dioxide emissions, instead of declining, will probably have spiked by 2% in 2017, in part because much economic growth in China is still fueled by coal.
Ce mercredi 17 janvier, le World Economic Forum a publié son rapport annuel sur l'évaluation par un millier d'experts, des risques globaux pour 2018.
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Scooped by Stephane Bilodeau |
Longer, harsher winters may be in store for the portions of North America as the polar vortex continues to weaken and shifts, according to a new study.
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Rescooped by Stephane Bilodeau from Performance energetique |
La réalité de la consommation des hydrocarbures (pétrole, charbon, gaz) suit le chemin exactement inverse des ambitions climatiques.
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Rescooped by Stephane Bilodeau from Sustain Our Earth |
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Scooped by Stephane Bilodeau |
The "ecodistrict" project required cooperation from the city, architects and a corporate neighbor.
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Scooped by Stephane Bilodeau |
ON THE EVE of the first world war a young Winston Churchill switched the Royal Navy from coal to oil. As Daniel Yergin put it in his book “The Prize”, the reliance on doubtful supplies of oil from Persia rather than Welsh coal turned energy security into a question of national strategy.
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Scooped by Stephane Bilodeau |
When Arctic temperatures spike, extreme winter weather is 2 to 4 times more likely in Boston and New York, while the West tends to be warmer, a new study shows.
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Scooped by Stephane Bilodeau |
Understanding how extreme weather and temperatures are changing helps relief organizations like the Red Cross determine where to stockpile emergency supplies.
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Scooped by Stephane Bilodeau |
The leading lobby for the electric utility industry and a prominent environmental group today issued a joint statement in support of an "accelerating" clean energy transition that is defined by energy efficiency, reducing carbon emissions and empowering states and customers.
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Scooped by Stephane Bilodeau |
Americans are paying a fearsome price for global warming. The federal government's National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration reported earlier this week that the three powerful Atlantic hurricanes of 2017 -- Harvey, Irma and Maria -- cost Americans $265 billion, and massive Western forest fires another $18 billion. Scientists have shown that human-induced climate change has greatly increased the frequency and intensity of such disasters
Jeffrey Sachs says New York City took key steps this week in announcing that it was divesting fossil fuel stocks and suing major oil companies to recover damages from climate change.
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Rescooped by Stephane Bilodeau from RSE et Développement Durable |
Eminent Arctic and Ocean Physics scientist, Dr. Peter Wadhams, and Dr. Maria Pia Casarini discuss the possibility that it's 'game over' for the climate. Hosted by Stuart Scott, at COP22 Marrakesh.
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Scooped by Stephane Bilodeau |
Since 1990, Americans have cleaned up their climate pollution — per person — twice as fast as Canadians. Americans have come from well behind in the climate race to catch up and current estimates show they have probably passed us already.
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Rescooped by Stephane Bilodeau from RSE et Développement Durable |
Last year there was significant movement by the financial community to push companies to look harder at climate change in particular, but also at other factors that matter to long-term performance, such as LGBT rights, economic inequality, and boardroom diversity. Then 2018 started with a bang — one that could indicate a further shift in investor priorities.
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Scooped by Stephane Bilodeau |
What's behind the record-shattering cold heading our way?
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Rescooped by Stephane Bilodeau from @The Convergence of ICT & Distributed Renewable Energy |
Almost half of the electricity customers in Puerto Rico lack power, according to officials on the island, 100 days after Hurricane Maria hit the island.
Government officials on the island told The Associated Press on Friday that only 55 percent of Puerto Rico's 1.5 million electricity customers have power.
Before Friday, the only official figures from the Puerto Rican government concerned the amount of electric generating capacity that the island-owned Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) had running.
As of Friday, the generation figure stands at 69.8 percent, the utility says.
Click headline to read more and access hot links--
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Rescooped by Stephane Bilodeau from Smarter Sustainable Innovation |
The 4th Industrial Revolution : Cambium LLP Associate, Richard Lanyon-Hogg, asks "Is it time to step out of your cocooned intellectual echo chamber?"
The 4th Industrial Revolution : "Is it all in the mind?"
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Scooped by Stephane Bilodeau |
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Scooped by Stephane Bilodeau |
New York City’s public housing authority is taking bids in a plan to lease its roofs for community solar projects that could power thousands of urban homes.