{"id":2,"date":"2008-12-17T14:18:35","date_gmt":"2008-12-17T21:18:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/envirobeat.com\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2021-09-05T10:38:09","modified_gmt":"2021-09-05T17:38:09","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/envirobeat.com\/?page_id=2","title":{"rendered":"About Our Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to Envirobeat, a environmental news service covering climate change and global energy developments.<\/p>\n

Our news roundup contains links to relevant stories of the day, while our field reports feature in depth video coverage of important speakers, events and conferences, both internationally and within the United States. Examples include:<\/p>\n

\u2022 COP21 Paris Climate Change Conference (Dec 2015)<\/a>
\n\u2022 COP15 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference (Dec 2009) <\/a>
\n\u2022 Copenhagen Climate Congress (March 2009)<\/a>
\n\u2022 SEMI\/SolarCon India 2009 in Hyderabad<\/a>
\n\u2022 SEMI\/SolarCom Intersolar in San Francisco, 2011<\/a>, 2012<\/a>, 2013<\/a>, 2014<\/a>
\n\u2022 World Social Forum in Belem, Brazil<\/a><\/p>\n

The San Francisco Bay Area could aptly be described as an important green metropolis, with frequent presentations by visiting specialists in both alternative energy and climate policy. Envirobeat reports on many such events in San Francisco, often at the Commonwealth Club’s notable ClimateOne<\/a>, an excellent ongoing climate forum led by Greg Dalton. Across the Bay at the University of California, Berkeley, we cover presentations by guest lecturers and local scientists.<\/p>\n

Climate change is an issue of such breadth and magnitude that it draws countless other environmental, social, political, and economic issues into its wake for reconsideration. And the climate change story is far from over. Despite two decades of international climate negotiations, global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are still increasing. China’s dramatic emergence as an industrial powerhouse has come with environmental costs, including increasing global coal consumption. Coal has a higher carbon footprint than other fossil fuels, and China has of course surpassed the United States as the world’s greatest annual GHG emitter, while the US remains highest as the leader in cumulative historic emissions.<\/p>\n

Despite notable climate derailments during the Trump administration, the Biden administration supports steps to address climate change at least rhetorically, thoughit is unclear whether the democratic party’s razer thin Senate majority will allow for meaningful steps, such as the 3.5 trillion dollar infrastructure bill. Dramatic and destructive weather events continue to bring intense focus to the climate cris, while political divisions and economic constraints may continue to limit policy options.<\/p>\n

The story of energy of course is key to the story of climate change.\u00a0 Climate scientist James Hansen has made dire warnings about the exploitation of the Canadian tar sands, not just because this extraction is expected to be dirtier than other fossil fuel sources, but because the introduction of these resources represents a vast increase in the worlds overall fossil fuel supply. From a long term climate perspective, the eventual destination of the carbon in fossil fuels is not the refineries, the countries that import them, or even consumers who use them – carbon fuels become carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere and carbonic acid in the oceans.<\/p>\n

On the bright side, these are exciting times for renewable energy development – the green energy revolution continues to unfold rapidly, with ongoing technological innovations and increasing deployments of wind and solar energy around the world. India, for example, has set an ambitious target of one hundred gigawatts of solar energy by 2022.<\/p>\n

Going forward, Envirobeat will continue to explore climate change issues and events, and hopefully raise the quality of the conversation in the process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"