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“China Says Arable Land the Size of Belgium Too Polluted for Farming”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-31/china-says-arable-land-size-of-belgium-too-polluted-for-farming.html

More than 2 percent of China’s arable land, or an area the size of Belgium, is too polluted to grow crops, the government said, offering new evidence of the environmental cost associated with 30 years of breakneck growth.

“Energiewende” is German Economic Policy December 31st 2013

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-30/merkel-says-balanced-budget-energy-take-priority-in-third-term.html

Merkel Says Balanced Budget, Energy Take Priority in Third Term

Germany is committed to “Energiewende“. The policy must pay for itself by being budget neutral. This is the most radical economic policy of the 21st Century by any major global advanced economy. If Germany can achieve its objectives it will have solved the major economic challenge facing advanced industrial nations.

Good luck Germany!!!

Go “Levy” Walkabout

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/hunter-gatherer-humans-join-insects-sharks-and-other-animals-in-doing-the-levy-walk/2013/12/28/c807769a-6fde-11e3-a523-fe73f0ff6b8d_story.html

Hunter-gatherer humans join insects, sharks and other animals in doing the Lévy walk

“There’s No Smoke Without Fire”

http://www.drexel.edu/now/news-media/releases/archive/2013/December/Climate-Change/

New Drexel Study Reveals Funders Behind the Climate Change Denial Effort

If you want to understand what’s driving this movement, you have to look at what’s going on behind the scenes.

Doesn’t all the money spent on denial of Global Warming somehow confirm it?

“Where There’s Muck, There’s Bitcoin”

Bitcoin has a dark side: its carbon footprint

http://pando.com/2013/12/16/bitcoin-has-a-dark-side-its-carbon-footprint/

Bitcoin may be making a few people wealthy, but it’s killing us all. The crypto-currency that’s caught the world by storm has a dark side: its carbon footprint.

One way for Governments to kill Bitcoin is through Carbon Taxes. Maybe that’s what they are already doing with stories like this.

“UBS: Utilities face ‘perfect storm’ from renewables, storage”

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/ubs-utilities-face-perfect-storm-from-renewables-storage-75876

A new report from leading utilities analysts at investment bank UBS suggests that energy utilities in Europe, north America and Australia are facing a “perfect storm” from the falling costs of renewables, energy efficiency and falling demand, and may not be able to sustain their business models.

The perfect storm has been created by Taxpayer funded clean energy subsidies. It’s a question of who goes broke first; the Taxpayers or the Utilities. Taxpayers are also electricity consumers, so what they lose in subsidies should come back in terms of cheaper electricity. Taxpayers therefore seem to have the edge over the Utilities.

Aloha……. “A Solar Boom So Successful, It’s Been Halted”

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-boom-so-successfull-its-been-halted

Photovoltaics proved so successful in Hawaii that the local utility, HECO, has instituted policies to block further expansion.

The new struggle on Hawaii foreshadows what the rest of the country could face as solar moves closer to the mainstream, several involved in the debate said.

It looks as though the solar subsidies have worked too well and created a surplus of electricity that the energy companies can’t make any money from selling to consumers. It pays to be an early adopter of subsidized clean energy investment; but now the technology is so good that there is no incentive for later adopters. Market forces always balance out over time. If this is a real example of how things will happen in other countries, Governments should be paying close attention to the lessons learned in Hawaii.

“Cows’ Role in Global Warming Seen Overlooked in Climate Talks”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-20/cows-role-in-global-warming-seen-overlooked-in-climate-talks.html

Cattle and other ruminants are probably the biggest human-related source of methane, a gas adding to global warming, and climate negotiators have paid too little attention to livestock, a team of researchers said.

Pigs and poultry, which have different digestive systems, produce less methane than ruminants, according to the report.

Beef and dairy products look as though they will have to rise in price, to reflect the environmental impact of ruminants, but chicken and pork are less challenged.

“Cows might fly”

http://aeon.co/magazine/nature-and-cosmos/what-swiss-flying-cows-tell-us-about-the-environmental-future/

…the mindset that combines biodiversity and agriculture makes a great deal of sense for Switzerland.  As it might for the rest of the world in times to come. From some perspectives it comes down to what you do when there is no more room left…

In Switzerland the big picture political decision has been made to subsidize uneconomic mountain farming because it has a much higher societal and environmental value to the Swiss than the lower global price of milk products says it has. Small countries, or countries with little space available for human activity, have higher value judgements than market prices. As global population grows and puts pressure on the land available for development, the Swiss economic model may become more important.