Climate Change

The Economist’s Technology Quarterly - This has got some interesting items with high-flying wind generators and an ingenious system of drawing cooling power from lakes for air conditioning.

Energy in the Senate – Following up on my last post, on the energy debate in Congress, there were a couple of interesting developments yesterday.  In the Senate, an amendment offered by John Warner of Virginia to allow offshore drilling was narrowly defeated.  More importantly, an amendment offered by the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Pete Domenici, to allow for a “Clean Portfolio Standard” that would have included nuclear and some coal technologies, was effectively defeated by tabling it.  (For our friends outside the U.S.:  “tabling” here means setting it aside, taking it out of immediate consideration and “laying it on the table,” as opposed to the meaning in most other legislative bodies in the world of bringing it forth for a vote.)  Energy Committee Chair Jeff Bingaman, however, could not find the 60 votes necessary to bring his amendment requiring a national 15% true Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) by 2020 to a vote.  See this story on yesterday’s activities from “Environmental Finance,” a British publishing concern. 

Bingaman will be back next week to try again.  Will the 39 voters for Domenici’s amendment, all of them Republican, serve as the core for a filibuster effort?  It seems unlikely but possible.  The argument being made against Bingaman’s 15% RPS is that some states, mostly in the South, couldn’t meet it.  I’m trying not to scream here.  What it’s about is that most Southern utilities are so wedded to coal and nuclear that they don’t want to see renewables.  Renewables could cut deeply into their considerable profits.  This whole country, very much including the South, could hit way above 15% by 2020 if the right incentives were in place.  Bingaman’s approach is precisely what’s needed for industries and the financial markets to make the shift.  If you want to find energy offshore, Senator Warner, why not start with windfarms?  Bingaman said the South has abundant resources for this standard, including plant materials for biomass.  Why not slice down all that kudzu for energy?  How about tidal power and run-of-the-river hydro and solar PV and geothermal, etc., etc.  Sen. Bingaman asked the federal Energy Information Administration to produce a report on the impacts of a 15% national RPS and they found, not surprisingly, some very positive numbers, including greatly increased biomass, wind and solar energy production and reduced costs for coal and natural gas, not to mention a 6.7% decrease in carbon dioxide emissions.

Southern Baptists – Meanwhile, the annual meeting of the 16.3 million member Southern Baptist Convention “… approved a resolution on global warming Wednesday that questions the prevailing scientific belief that humans are largely to blame for the phenomenon and also warns that increased regulation of greenhouse gases will hurt the poor.”  See this from the AP via the “Houston Chronicle.”  The Baptists’ concern for “vulnerable communities” in this flies in the face of the IPCC and the Stern Commission both of which document a continuing and deepening crisis precisely for those in the world least able to adapt.  I wrote about this in early April in “Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability”.  Reuters had this to say then:  U.N. panel issues stark climate change warning, and the BBC had this informative interactive map by region and by area of concern.  I also wrote here, in late March, about the sharply countervailing view of the National Association of Evangelicals. 

Climate Savers Computing Initiative – The heaviest hitters in computers and the internet have launched an ambitious scheme to reduce power consumption.  The goal is “…to save $5.5 billion in energy costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 54 million tons per year” by 2010.  See Google backs green computer plan from the BBC and this press release.  (I referenced IBM’s $1 billion upgrade program in my post More Climate Summit.)

By the way, the “NY Times” had this little item yesterday, Putting Energy Hogs in the Home on a Strict Low-Power Diet, which, in a nutshell, tells you to use the power-saving functions on your computers.  I do that and I turn mine off at night.   

National Association of Manufacturers – Meanwhile, NAM, representing 11,000 large and small manufacturers in every industrial sector, comprising over 200,000 facilities throughout the United States, and the US Department of Energy have signed an agreement to boost efficiency.  See
NAM’s press release.  This builds on a successful partnership, the 2006 “Save Energy Now” campaign which had some pretty impressive results, including hundreds of millions of dollars in energy savings just for this relatively small pilot.

I have repeatedly hit here on the theme of efficiency.  It addresses the demand side and that’s the side from which consumers and manufacturers can agree are where immediate and tangible benefits can be found.  I wrote about this under “Markets” from April when I talked about 3M pathbreaking “Pollution Prevention Pays (3P)” program.  I wrote about this in my last post from Wednesday, referencing the graphic from Vattenfall, and the work of the RMI and USGBC. 

All we really need to do is to wake up and smell that coffee.

American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment – Last item today and it’s sweet:  Meeting this week in Washington at (yet another) “summit,” 294 higher education presidents signed on to an ambitious program “… in pursuit of climate neutrality.”  This initiative, aided and abetted by the student-driven Energy Action Coalition, is incorporating green design as defined by the LEED standards from the USGBC, and seeks to use ENERGY STAR products when and where universities can.  It seems to me that this particular thrust is hugely important because it institutionalizes the sort of progressive thinking on energy and the environment that university students, our future leaders, will now be seeing every day of their lives during their time in higher academia. 

My colleague, Derek Catsam, has been doing some great work on Africa. One of his latest posts is on Africa and Climate Change. See some of the important themes he’s developing, including Capetown as a “green” city. While you’re visiting, read up on some of the many important issues associated with Africa and Derek’s astute take on them.

On Wednesday, L.A.’s mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, announced his city’s Green LA plan, which incorporates a commitment to 35% use of renewables by 2020.  The Green LA plan is not unlike “PLANYC” in emphasizing energy efficiency, renewables, mass transit and alternative fuels for surface transport, etc.

The afternoon session, “Cities Can Thrive in a Low-Carbon Economy,” was led by Steve Howard from The Climate Group.  They launched a new publication, Public Private Partnership: Local Initiatives 2007, that day and it was highlighted in the session.  Two panelists, the mayors from Berlin and Mexico City, both had initiatives in the publication:  Berlin’s partnership with Johnson Controls on energy efficiency in buildings, and Mexico City’s partnership with the World Resources Institute on transportation.  (For other case studies, see Climate Group’s publication above and the website of the Summit.  Some really, really innovative projects.) 

The big news of the day, of course, was the announcement of the Clinton Climate Initiative putting together a group of banks and industrial corporations to underwrite and perform a $5 billion program of retrofitting buildings to maximize energy efficiency.  Here’s a clip of Bill Clinton talking about the program.  Ken Livingstone said later, that when this is further funded and all up and running, the energy efficiency program could reduce carbon emissions by 10% globally.   Meanwhile, also on Wednesday, the heads of thirteen national Academies of Science, issued a statement, in advance particularly of the forthcoming G-8 Summit (see my post on “Meetings”), calling for an intensified focus on energy efficiency.  Beyond that, the 13 national leaders of their academies of science called for further efforts on reducing deforestation and also increasing technology transfer to the developing world, particularly of “leapfrog” technologies. You heard this expression often at the conference, from Ken Livingstone and others.

In a similar vein, IBM last week announced their $1 billion plan to upgrade their data centers and radically reduce energy use.  “Project Big Green” will address IBM’s needs at more than eight million square feet of data centers in six continents.  See this video for more. 

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On another note, I had the pleasure of talking with Mayor Rocky Anderson of Salt Lake City about his city’s approach to solid waste management.  Here’s their webpage on “Salt Lake City Green.”   I got a moment to discuss with him my thoughts about solid waste management and how productive a holistic approach can be.  I articulated my ideas, gleaned from the best concepts and practices in urban sustainable development, in a comprehensive proposal for New York City’s modest 25,000 tons a day of municipal solid waste a few years ago and called the plan, Urban Gold.  The heart of the strategy is to co-locate a materials recovery facility (MRF) and other waste disposal facilities, such as pyrolysis or gasification plants (mentioned by London Deputy Mayor Nicky Gavron at several points this week, I might add), with industries that would use the recycled materials as feedstock for their manufacturing.  Mayor Anderson was good enough to say that he’d look at the strategy.  

The Summit started in earnest yesterday.  Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, and Chair of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, had some opening remarks, including these which are very direct indeed.  (The C40 is in partnership with the Clinton Climate Initiative.  I’ll have more to say about President Clinton and the CCI in a later post.)

In a separate panel later in the day, Livingstone gave considerable heart to NYC Mayor Bloomberg and other supporters of congestion pricing.  (I wrote about congestion pricing and New York’s big plans last month in Mike Bloomberg’s Earth Day.)  Livingstone cited the considerable success of the program in London and the acceptance by the public. 

It should be noted that in one year, the congestion charge has brought about a 38% drop in private cars entering London—twice the anticipated figure. There has also been a more than 80% increase in cyclists and a rise in bus passengers from four million to six million. This modal shift has been accompanied by substantial emissions reductions, including a 20% reduction in carbon emissions.

Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, the Vice-Chair of IPCC Working Group on “Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability,” reported on the state of the science and the good news and the bad news:  we are in very rough waters already with climate change and it’s going to get worse before it gets better, but we have the tools at hand to deal with the threat, if we apply the will and the energy.  I said it was up to political leadership and the publics they represent to address the problem.  He quoted Montaigne:  “Politics is the art of making possible what is necessary.”

George David, the CEO of United Technologies, had some fascinating things to say about using energy and the potential for radically reducing the amount of power that New York City consumes.  One chord that he struck that I heard later in the day is that the overall efficiency of power generation is 30% for central power stations and 70% for distributed generation.  You simply get much more energy output per Btu input when you locate the consumer close to the source of the power.  On the same panel, Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daley noted they have three million square feet of green roofs and they have a “green technology permit system” to help expedite new and retrofitted smart green buildings.  (See my last post and the discussion of green building.)  Both Daley and Toronto Mayor David Miller emphasized the message that there is economic opportunity – I do love that word –  in green tech, and also that there are tremendous savings to be made by government, commercial interests and consumers in all of this. George David again came back to the idea of opening up power generation to small suppliers and suggesting that the federal government needs to promote net metering.

So, in the panel discussion I attended later on decentralized energy, there were some interesting tidbits.  Nicky Gavron, a deputy mayor of London, led the panel. Rotterdam and Copenhagen’s mayors talked about their district heating systems that are hugely efficient and comprehensive.  New York’s electric utility, Consolidated Edison, was represented by its CEO, and he talked about the highly efficient steam heating system we have.  Not incidentally, steam systems can also be engineered to provide cooling and are used this way.  The CEO of Britain’s largest electric utility, EDF Energy, also spoke.  They’ve got a considerable investment in renewables and are working with London to promote distributed generation through its new Climate Change Agency (LCCA). There were several folks in the audience who also spoke at Gavron’s urging, one of whom, Allan Jones, is with the LCCA, which is developing a number of important pathways for low-carbon energy.  Jones pioneered Woking’s innovative energy project where they’ve had nothing but success in saving money and cutting carbon use.  Tom Casten, head of Primary Energy, spoke rather passionately and well about local generation of power.  George David of UTC had earlier cited a number of 70% efficiency for local power.  Casten said 80%.  Here’s a convincing slide show from Casten that backs up his assertions.  See also this from the BBC on microgrids.  Finally, a consultant to Mayor Bloomberg on energy, Doug Foy, said that the City could be doing much more on locally generated power, as much as 2,000 mw or more.  Foy has had a distinguished career with 25 years as the president of the Conservation Law Foundation, and then he brought a new level of environmental thinking to Massachusetts, but resigned last year.

Thinking outside the box - or outside the grid - is what’s going to get us to healthy, low-carbon economies. 

The C40 Large Cities Climate Summit kicked off on a gorgeous spring day today in the Big Apple.  Thirty-two mayors are here with their delegations.  There are 46 cities represented, from six continents. There’s been considerable press on this, a couple of hundred by Google’s count, including this from Reuters “London mayor says cities lead on climate change” and this from one of our local radio stations, WINS “Clinton, Bloomy to Host International Climate Summit.”

JPMorgan Chase is the lead sponsor for this event and they made some news of their own with the announcement that they would make their climate change research publicly available.  Check out their climate change investment page.  This is good, solid, serious research that they’re putting out. 

I enjoyed going out today on the Swiss catamaran “Sun21” which just made the first transAtlantic voyage of a solar-powered vessel.  For a land-locked country, these Swiss are pretty good sailors!  You can go to the sponsoring organization’s website to see, among other things, a great little video.

But wait, there’s more:  The same folks, Transatlantic21, have created the “World Clean Energy Awards.” The jury for these awards, to be given in seven categories with the winners to be announced at the tenth annual Sun21 Energy Forum in Basel on June 15, included such luminaries as Amory Lovins from the Rocky Mountain Institute and Nicky Gavron, a deputy mayor of London and one of the organizers for the C40 group.  London, as you know, has been going full-tilt boogie to avert a climate change crisis, along with the U.K. government, and the rest of Europe for that matter.  (See my post from March 14.)  For a further look at what the Swiss have been doing, see information at SwissEnergy, such as this on renewables, and, from a consortium of companies, Solar Impulse, an attempt to go around the world in a solar airplane!

On the boat ride, I had the distinct pleasure of talking with Kevin Hydes, the current chairman of the board of the World Green Building Council. Their mission, among others, is to help foster the creation of national councils all over the world.  Kevin is the past chair of the USGBC.  They are the parent of the LEED Green Building Rating System which is the national benchmark for high performance green buildings.  LEED stands for “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design” and has become a critically important tool in the green building movement.  The American Institute of Architects also has a Committee on the Environment (COTE) that has done, and is doing, pathfinding work.  I mentioned Randy Croxton (who I interviewed many years ago about the NRDC building in New York) and Kevin talked about Bob Berkebile, founding chairman of the AIA Committee on the Environment and a driving force.

Here’s Kevin in front of the Solaire which bills itself as America’s first environmentally advanced residential tower.  Kevin, when he was president of the USGBC, presented the LEED plaque that adorns the entrance.     

We were taken on a tour of the building, including seeing the photovoltaic arrays, the water reuse system, the apartments with all Energy Star high-efficiency appliances and low-emissivity windows, and the green roof where water is captured and filtered and which also diminishes the ambient heat.

All in all, I had a hugely informative and enjoyable afternoon.  More to come tomorrow on the C40 Summit.

Bonn - The UNFCC has big meetings going on now in Bonn.  The scientific and technological advice wizards as well as the policy wonks, aka the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI), have been hard at work since May 7.  There are 2,000 participants from governments, business and industry, environmental organizations and research institutions.  Next week, along with the other meetings and workshops, delegates will convene to talk about further commitments under the Kyoto Protocols.  Today, there are in-depth presentations from the three working groups of the IPCC that have been promulgating their Fourth Assessment Report this year. (If you haven’t done so, you should consider reading the Summary for Policymakers on the “Mitigation of Climate Change.”  I reported on this last week.)  Anyway, here’s a good story from the “Washington Post” on these meetings.

A workshop has taken place on urban planning and development, including transportation, and there will be ones next week on energy efficiency and power generation. There are some cool powerpoint slides on the “ecocycle model” (#20 through 34) at “The Sustainable City” presentation from Sweden. This is very green building.  (Check back next week for the completed powerpoint and pdf versions of all of these workshops’ presentations.)

This coming December, in Bali, a further major international meeting will be held on what happens after Kyoto expires in 2012.  See this and this from Reuters.

New York – The UN’s Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) concluded its fifteenth meeting yesterday.  Again, about 2,000 worthy delegates convened over the course of two weeks to “focus on energy solutions that can fuel development and cut poverty, pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.”  You can find a wealth of information on the CSD and these meetings here, including fact sheets and links on such topics as cleaner cooling and cleaner energy for poor households.  The emphasis in the latter subject is on switching from firewood and charcoal to liquefied petroleum gas for cooking and heating.  On this, I have been wondering for years why solar cookers haven’t taken off.  They seem to be an ideal solution for many environments and eminently practicable.  See this powerpoint show.  For more information, go to Solar Cookers International.  They’ve got everything there, including their excellent Solar Cooking Archive.

Heligendamm - June 6-8, this German seaside resort will host the G-8 meetings. Climate change is going to be a big-ticket item on the agenda.  There’s a lot of buzz now about how the U.S. is going to try to dilute any pronouncements on climate change at these important meetings. Stay tuned.

Further, Japan has announced that they’ll host a major climate change meeting of the G-20 major nations next year.

Plus New York, Again – I’ve been noting that I’ll be covering the C40 Large Cities Climate Summit this coming week.  Also, if you’re interested in carbon finance and investment in this area, you might want to come to this event, May 21-23.

Since billions of people live in cities, with more coming every day, the infrastructure needed to support them needs building, rebuilding and rehabilitation, expansion and enhancement. There’s power generation and transmission, the delivery of drinking water and the treatment of waste water, housing and parks, schools and hospitals, transportation, and commercial and industrial development. All this activity requires energy and energy, as we know, is primarily carbon-based throughout the world. As I pointed out in my post, “Mike Bloomberg’s Earth Day,” the Big Apple’s carbon dioxide output is on a par with that of Switzerland, Norway and Ireland. New York City has 8.2 million folks with probably 800,000 more on the way in the next several years. The OECD reports that “60-80% of worldwide energy consumption occurs in urban areas.”

The fascinating event I attended yesterday, the Regional Plan Association’s annual assembly, focused on the problem of global climate change and how to address it. Robert D. Yaro, RPA’s president, said that climate change will influence planning for the foreseeable future. Former New Jersey Governor Jim Florio spoke about the imperatives of minimizing our carbon footprint and said that economic advancement and environmental sensitivity were not incompatible. The present N.J. Governor, Jon Corzine, was to have given the morning’s keynote address but, because of a recent terrible car accident in which he was involved, was replaced by Gary D. Rose, the Chief of N.J.’s Office of Economic Development. Corzine has an ambitious energy master plan that’s being developed now that will require a 20% increase in energy efficiency and 20% of electricity from renewables. This echoes the plan proposed by N.Y. Governor Eliot Spitzer recently. Rose, like Florio, emphasized the opportunity in developing a “clean and green tech economy” and that this sort of activity could “support the next great wave of economic growth.”  (See my last post - opportunity is what I’m seeing, and I’m sure glad that I’m in the company of folks who know their way around high finance, venture capital, and economic development. See also my post from March 9 on “The Business of Green,” and the mention of venture capitalists and their enthusiasm for renewables.)

The Assembly Chairman, Theodore Roosevelt IV, is an investment banker and certainly knows his way around these matters. He’s also the Chairman of the Lehman Brothers’ Council on Climate Change. John Llewellyn, a Kiwi with an impressive track record as an economist at the OECD, and now the Senior Economic Policy Advisor to Lehman Brothers, gave a stunning presentation on the realities of climate change and their implications for corporations. Llewellyn tells CEOs that the science is sound, the climatology is too, that the economic analysis shows that no matter how bravely and well we address global warming, we are going to have impacts:  2 to 3% of global GDP is going to be destroyed by the impacts of climate change annually. (See the Stern Review from the U.K. and its analysis of economic consequences as referenced in my post from March 30.) You can find much of Dr. Llewellyn’s compelling presentation on The Business Of Climate Change - Challenges and Opportunities here. (There’s that word “opportunity” again.)

There were six breakout sessions:  on carbon markets, protecting water resources under the pressures of climate change, transportation options, siting, green building, and the one I attended, “Tilting at Windmills? Opportunities for Green Power Generation.” One of the panelists was Jim Gordon, President of the Cape Wind project. He reported that NRDC has characterized Cape Wind as the largest single GHG reduction project in the U.S. He also reported that in the six years that the project has been going through the regulatory process, 20 offshore projects have been built in Europe and 25 more have been approved. He gave us a heads up too to a book that’s coming out next week:  Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics, and the Battle for Our Energy Future on Nantucket Sound.

Another panelist was Dr. Stephen Hammer from Columbia University’s Center for Energy, Marine Transportation and Public Policy. He’s been running the Urban Energy Project there and they’ve been looking at the renewable energy potential for New York City and have found four main sources:  landfill gas, tidal, wind, and solar photovoltaic. I asked him after the session about whether or not they’d been looking at distributed generation, fuel cells, microturbines and the like, and he said they were working on this now. He further mentioned “microgrids” – “Small networks of power generators in ‘microgrids’ could transform the electricity network in the way that the net changed distributed communication.” See this from the BBC. Finally, I asked him if they were looking at geothermal and he said no. I mentioned this new report on geothermal from M.I.T. and the fact of a landmark geothermal project in downtown Manhattan. Maybe I’ve put a bee in his bonnet.

Mike Bloomberg was the luncheon keynote speaker, promoting PLANYC, and he promised that New York City was going to become the first truly sustainable American city in the new century. He said the stars were aligned and that it was time for action. As I said once before here, quoting Winston Churchill:  “I never worry about action, but only inaction.”

Cities for Climate Change is doing a lot of important work. I think this is a compelling thought from the mayor of Charlotte, N.C.:  “We are the ones building roads, designing mass transit, buying the police cars and dump trucks and earth-movers. We’re the ones lighting up the earth when you look at those maps from space. Together we have huge purchasing power and if we invest wisely, that can have huge implications for the environment.”

I’m going to another exciting event in ten days:  the C40 Large Cities Climate Summit. Much more soon on how cities are approaching the climate change crisis.      

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as I write, is finalizing its report, “Mitigation of Climate Change.” (You can watch the webcast of the press conference from Bangkok when it goes online on Friday, and read the summary for policymakers and the speech from the IPCC’s head.) There will be a ton of news stories, neither will we lack for analysis and spin.

What we’ve been hearing all week from the closed-door sessions of the scientists and governmental envoys who’ve been meeting to finalize the draft report is that, for one thing, China, and its partners in the developing world, are fighting strong language on the requirements for action. See this story from the “L.A. Times.”  This is a replay of the recent UN Security Council debate – see my post from April 21 on this. The developing world actors, India, Brazil and China, chief among them, make the argument that the industrialized world has caused the havoc and it should bear the brunt of the costs for the solutions. I have to wonder at this, not only because the developing world but also countries like the U.S. and Australia are missing the boat, or at least the point:  opportunity abounds here, there’s fruit begging to be picked and eaten. We can make money, jobs, and save the natural environment – it’s been proven over and over again. Why would we want to squander the opportunity to live smarter?  Okay, there, I’ve gotten a little of it out of my system. (Actually, I am a pretty serious student of psychohistory and political psychology and have all sorts of thoughts regarding why societies injure themselves and others. But that’s for another venue.) 

There are, of course, vital issues of costs – those to be incurred and those to be avoided by mitigating global climate change. If you look at the outline for the report, you will see that economic considerations are front and center. Sections have been written on “cost and benefit concepts,” macroeconomic effects,” and “economic and other generic policy instruments.”  There is some very heavy economic lifting indeed in this report.

The IPCC’s judgment is, in the end, a critically important factor but not the final word in any of this. There are, as has been pointed out here, many factors including national and local government actions, the role of business and finance, how science and technology are brought to bear, and public opinion for that matter. These reports this year from the IPCC are, however, a great body of information, nutrient solution for growing good policy at the international level. How the various national actors play all this out bears considerable further attention. This blog will necessarily delve into the roles that China, India, Brazil and other important developing world countries will play. Let’s see how tomorrow plays out in Bangkok and pick up the thread again soon on what we are likely to see from these massively important countries.

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Media Notes:

Betsy Kolbert, the eminently eloquent author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe, writing in “The New Yorker” about New York City’s proposed congestion pricing plan, reports, among other things:  “The value of time lost to congestion delays in the city has been put at five billion dollars annually. When expenses like wasted fuel, lost revenue, and the increased cost of doing business are added in, that figure rises to thirteen billion dollars.”

“Sierra” (from the Sierra Club, of course), has a special section in their latest issue:  “Climate Exchange.”  In it, a panel of top experts and policy makers discuss where we are in grappling with the challenges of global warming. The worthies assembled by the Sierra Club include one of the founders of Sun Microsystems; one of the world’s leading climatologists; Sen. Barbara Boxer, the chair of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee; as well as her senior advisor on climate change; and some others. Coverage at the website includes video clips from the panel discussion.

See this video from the BBC on HRH the Prince of Wales’s “mayday” alert on the climate crisis. “The crisis of climate change is far too urgent and discussion simply isn’t enough,” said Britain’s Prince Charles at the first May Day Business Summit on Climate Change. More than 1,000 businesses, convened by Prince Charles, made concrete commitments to reduce carbon emissions. He gave several speeches at the event. Here’s the welcome, given on the first day of the summit. (Links are here also to other of Charles’s speeches and articles, including on organic farming, historic preservation, and sustainable business.) Charles has been a quiet, forceful, progressive voice in Britain for years. He’s also hugely influential. We don’t have anyone like him in the
U.S. In any event, it’s great to see him so outspoken on climate change.

See my colleague Cassandra Clifford’s recent two articles on Children and Climate Change.  These, along with the rest of her material, are hard hitting. Start here.