[GWSG] Mosaic; MD adaptation; WEF warning; WalaWakas; 31 wedges; film's failings; World Bank warning; Tropic of Chaos

[Tilley, Al]

1.  Mosaic provides crowdfunding for solar projects in California and New York.  Investors get a fixed 4.5% annual return for a minimum $25 investment.  The company is dealing with the Securities and Exchange Commission about expansion to other states.  The article mentions other companies involved in solar leasing.  http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Mosaic-offers-solar-crowdfunding-4171525.php

2.  Maryland’s governor has issued an executive order instructing the state to take sea level rise into account which planning construction.  The order excludes roads and bridges until completion of a study of the issue.  http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-12-28/features/bs-gr-omalley-climate-order-20121228_1_sea-level-flood-damage-climate-change

3.  The World Economic Forum has urged policy leaders to deal with the three top threats to financial integrity: severe income disparity, excessive government indebtedness, and greenhouse gas emissions.  Not to deal with them risks intertwined economic and ecological collapse.   http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jan/08/climate-change-debt-inequality-threat-financial-stability

4.  A WakaWaka, or Firefly, is a solar lamp which will replace kerosene lamps and, soon, charge a cell phone.  James Hansen describes how to support them and laments the state of climate science in Holland.  http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2013/20130107_GalileoFireflies.pdf

5.  In 2004 a study by Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala estimated that achieving a stable climate would entail employing 7 wedges—units of greenhouse gas emission avoidance.  A wedge avoids a billion tons of carbon emissions each year after 50 years.  A current study by Ken Caldeira and others estimates that it would now take 31 wedges to achieve the same result, and warns that it will require new and disruptive technologies to avoid emissions from developing nations in the second half of the century.  http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-01/ci-pcc010713.php  Further comment on the study:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130107100053.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29

6.  The film Promised Land presents the water and land contamination problems of fracking, but ignores climate impact and other ills of natural gas development.  http://ecowatch.org/2013/promised-land-doesnt-mention/

7.  The World Bank warns that countries in the Middle East and North Africa face markedly higher temperatures and desertification from climate change by mid-century.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/08/middle-east-temperature-rise-climate

8.  You may be aware of the Pentagon studies identifying climate change as the greatest threat to our security.  I have just read Christian Parenti’s Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence (Nation Books, 2011) which traces a pattern of destabilized and failed states around the world in the subtropics.  Droughts, floods, and compromised agriculture are partly behind the pattern, along with the aftereffects of colonialism and cold war diplomacy and military interference.  The book brings into focus the kinds of changes indicated in items 3 and 7 above, and conveys to me the necessity of community building, not least in my state of Florida, threatened with destabilization by sea level rise.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.unf.edu/pipermail/gwsg/attachments/20130108/014d4616/attachment.html