I’m running a panel on cleantech investing later this week, and I’ve
generally been doing a fair amount of reading/talking lately on such
stuff, so here are a few books I’ve read recently that I can recommend.
I’m not saying I agree with everything in ‘em, but they do stake out
eclectic positions around some of the issues/controversies:
- The Weather Makers (2006)
- Useless Arithmetic: Why Environmental Scientists Can’t Predict the Future (2007)
- With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change (2007)
Related posts:
Your event should be called, “If there’s such a thing as ‘man-made global warming, why is Mars getting hotter?”
or
glbl wrming=Y2K (’90s)
glbl wrming=killer bees (’80s)
glbl wrming=the coming ice age (’70s)
or
Did Gore ‘invent’ global warming like he ‘invented’ the internet?
or try
If ELF=Terrorist
does Environmentalist=Fascist
or
Plants don’t need Co2 to grow,
do they?
or
Buy your Carbon Offsets at snipehunt.com
or
if sea levels are supposed to rise 10-20 centimeters every 100yrs, why did they only rise less then 2 centimeters last century?
or
(show a map of the world)
5% of the world’s 140,000 glaciers may be melting.
The world needs fresh water. Kedrosky Venture Capital will fund your new bottled water co. 100% if you can find the glacier that’s got the most abundant flowing future profits. GO!
or
Clean energy…no emissions…clean energy…no emissions…
Nuclear?
NO WAY! That Chernobyl-thing killed 50 people!
And that is just 3 books with 3 different positions. so how can someone like divinity school flunky Al Gore, tell me that their is absolute unanimity amongst the scientific community that there is global warming and that it is man made? also the media, et al needs to stop this consensus business – science is not a show of hands.
from a market test perspective global warming certainly does fall into the emotional/fear camp.
I think this whole thing is getting way over the top. its to the point that my young son can do the math on the amount of time it takes to melt millions of cubic tons of ice with nominal temperatures. and it ain’t ten years.
that said i am a child of the seventies – i went through the first paul erlich scare regarding birth rates, famine, pollution, & ice age (remember that?) don’t forget, “soylent green is people!”
and another thing…
cleantech is a good thing. making money by cleaning up the environment and (hopefully) reducing our foreign energy requirements is fine. Cleantech should be viewed as a national security issue. i think much of the cleantech businesses like the ones that provide “carbon offsets” will turn out to be nothing more than snakeoil. there is one very sophisticated firm that starts with a T that provides no audit of their activities other than a report from some small consulting firm in SF that “certifies” their activity. this is an area that is ripe for scandal.
Surely we should stop the pollution at the roots. Stop burning coal and oil and switch to nuclear power its the only answer that makes sense to us.
that is a way. but it is a way that leaves out the energy requirements of the developing world. I am not sure if this is true but i read that a small to medium size coal fired generator comes on line in china at the rate of one per day.