Year: 2007

The Revenge of Gaïa by James Lovelock

I read this month The Revenge of Gaïa, the latest book from one of the major ecological thinkers of our time, Dr. James Lovelock. This book is not optimistic as the author believes it is already too late to work on sustainable development and that we have to operate a sustainable retreat. I truly enjoyed …

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US federal government begins to tackle energy efficiency

In the past week two events showed that the USA begin to tackle climate change in a serious way. This is really good news. To do so, the US federal government enacted two laws that will increase the energy efficiency of vehicles and light bulbs and lead to huge savings of greenhouse gases emissions. Both …

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Difference between behavioral change and efficiency

In my article on the clean alternatives to coal I was mentioning that the first thing to implement before any other was behavioral changes and energy efficiency. Indeed, I believe we need both as they are complementary and very different. Indeed one has a sociological approach when the other refers to pure economics. Energy efficiency …

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My selection of books I read in 2007

As we are now near Christmas, and as I am willing to do a best of of what I read in the past months, I will outline in today’s article my favourite readings of 2007. From science fiction and comic books, to serious readings on sustainable development and astrophotography, I recommend you a dozen articles, …

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Algae, the best solution to make biofuels

I have never been a great fan of traditional biofuels (nor the World Bank and the OECD) as their yield is quite small and as they require a lot of by-products (pesticides…). However, some alguae like Ulva lactuca (sea lettuce, pictured left) have a much superior yield than cereals and aren’t as much eaten as …

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A record breaking electricity consumption in France

The current temperatures in France are six degrees below average and this led to a record-breaking electricity consumption. Last night the level of energy consumption rose to 88 960 MW, compared to the previous record of 86 280 MW in January 2006. It is estimated by the Réseau de transport d’électricité that when temperature decreases …

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A minimal agreement on climate change in Bali

As the Bali Conference of Parties within the IPCC finished on December 14th, it is time for me to sum up the situation with what took place during those days. The least I can say is that the official position from the United States seriously endangered the negotiations and led to an agreement with minimum …

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Oil producing countries to export less fossil fuels

The IHT proposed on December 9th an interesting article on the future of the oil market which brings even more gloomy prospects. The article strongly reinforces my opinion that we (France, Europe, the entire world…) should work fast on energy efficiency in order to consume less energy. To the journalist, oil-rich countries like Mexico or …

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Toward a new world war because of climate change?

This is the question asked by Le Figaro [Fr] as the United Nations released a report that should urge ALL world leaders to make climate change mitigation their top priority. According to the UN, many countries in Africa, Asia and Americas might be seriously threatened by wars as their environments deteriorate in many ways. But …

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The fairy of Eagle Nebula and star trails at dawn

My daily browsing includes having a look at the Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD). Sunday’s one is as often with NASA’s images, absolutely fabulous. I really appreciate this photo because of the strong contrast between the left and right parts of the image, the black colliding with the white, the dark red versus the …

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