Recently in United Nations Category

CNN's Jenny Wilburn emailed

Hi there! I’m wondering if anyone from The Evangelical Ecologist would be interested in joining CNN.com/Live today for a segment about Pres. Obama’s speech to the UN today on climate change. The segment will take place around d12:15p ET today. Feel free to call my cell to talk more about it! 404-xxx-xxxx 

Thanks, Jenny

CNN's live link is up via their homepage. China's president is speaking now. Nothing new from him. Prime Minister of Japan next. 

Will update this post with any interesting bits. Would also expect Mr Obama's speach to be up here by tomorrow.

UPDATE: Got pulled away and missed his comments, which happened about an hour early. Gore, on the other hand, sitting on a panel, is "optimistic" that global warming legislation will be passed before Hopenhagen. Says that even if it doesn't, the Supreme Court has already ruled that CO2 is a pollutant, and thus EPA can already regulate it. 2nd Court of Appeals also ruled last night that large CO2 emitters in the US can be sued under common law. "So even in the absence of legislation, existing law through the courts will require reduction of CO2."

Translation: Use courts to end-around the electorate. LOL! Of all people, I'd think Gore would decry that...

UPDATE: Q to Gore: "Disappointed in lack of specifics" in Obama's statement? A: "He was recognizing the reality of the situation that legislation was still pending...."

UPDATE: CBS is on the trail of some rather large carbon footprints in NYC today.

UPDATE: World leaders kick climate policy into the long grass. Preparing for still more disappointment at the Hopenhagen site. The more they talk, the further away they get from a concensus. And Denmark is a mighty chilly place in December. 

Bumped: I heard an outstanding lecture Monday night here at the College by Mr. Amory Lovins, cofounder, Chairman and Chief Scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute. The topic was “Military-  and Business-led Solutions to Oil, Climate and Proliferation." Hard to absorb everything, but what stuck with me the most was his info on the amount of energy we could save through re-engineering induced conservation.

For instance, only a tiny fraction of the energy in a gallon of gasoline is used to actually move the people in it. Most is lost through heat/friction or the energy it takes to move a couple thousand pounds of steel. He figures composites not only simplify and reduce the cost of constructing cars but an 800 pound car would get 75+mpg easy (smaller engine too). As far as safety, his video of a driver walking away from the crash of her composite racecar hitting the rails at 200mph convinced me we are over-whining about this.

Second example was whale oil use dropped off long before we ran out of whales because people discovered petroleum and found it a better product.

His bottom line was it's much easier - and profitable - to approach energy and climate change from a conservation perspective. Problem is the government wants to impose conservation (the way the UN is trying to do) rather than back off and afford the free market and engineering entrepreneurs with the chance to innovate.

Great stuff.