According to Marshall Loeb, global warming is starting to attract investors who always see opportunity in change. This is not a bad thing as it indicates that the markets now believe we have a problem and they tend to be a lot more pragmatic than politicians with their vested interests.
When the markets jump on a subject like climate change you can be pretty sure the world will follow.
Another financial indicator: the rapid rise of venture investing in so-called ‘cleantech‘.

There have been rumors going around that the Bush administration is going to do a turnabout in their policies on global warming. Not surprisingly this was denied yesterday while they reiterated their belief that ethanol is the answer. This is not an energy independence policy- ethanol is the route the oil companies want us to take:
- Ethanol based on plant material is extremely dependent on fossil fuels for its production, requiring oil for farm equipment and the production of fertilizers
- An ethanol economy would require the exact same distribution model as gas, keeping the oil companies firmly in control of their cash cow
- Very few cars burn ethanol and it is extremely corrosive, creating all kinds of problems with delivery and usage, not to mention the potential for environmental damage
The conversion of farms to grow plant materials for fuel will have a major impact on food production worldwide. Currently it is very inefficient to grow plant material for ethanol production and we will see there being a choice, in the new future, between feeding the world’s poor and driving.
What we are not hearing from Bush is any conservation requirements whatsoever. If we required automakers to build 50MPG cars in two years, which they can easily do, we wouldn’t need this ill-conceived ethanol boondoggle (which, BTW, we are paying for via farm subsidies).

Check out the Cyclean, a bicycle-powered washer/dryer invented by a Brit named Alex Gadsden from parts scavenged in a junkyard. Clean your clothes, help the environment and get fit at the same- or as he says (after demoing it at a festival),

"…you could say I had a laundrette running in a field in the Mendip hills, I was a stone lighter when I got back from the festival."

A stone is Brit for 14lbs.

BTW, that bike looks a bit like my beloved 1987 Bianchi Grizzly mountain bike, the only mountain bike I’ve seen with a lugged frame.

There is a growing car hacker movement that has local inventors and tinkerers making changes to hybrid cars to improve their mileage drastically. Basically, (check that link at the beginning of this post for a good FAQ) they add the ability to plug the car in and recharge the batteries from the grid. Additional batteries are added and the car is set to run on electric only for short trips under a certain speed. Over that the gas engine kicks in. It is also available if the batteries lose their charge.

The savings come in because the car runs on electric only for local trips, the vast majority of drive time. Electric is cheaper than gas and actual gas usage drops.

This is a simplistic explanation, however it begs the question: Why don’t the car makers embrace this if it’s easy enough for an individual to build? An unholy alliance with the oil business perhaps?