Posted on 12/02/2007 1:24:30 PM PST by Coleus
To stop climate change, the nation must "stop coal," a top environmental architect urged during a speech at Ramapo College's conference on climate change. Edward Mazria, who has led efforts nationwide to build more-energy-efficient buildings, said the only way to control global warming is "an immediate moratorium on all new coal-fired power plants in the United States" and a phaseout of older coal plants.
"Climate change is the greatest challenge we have ever faced," he told an audience of more than 400 at the conference. "Either we get it under control or we face very dramatic consequences." Mazria is the author of "The Passive Solar Energy Handbook," considered the bible of solar design. He said the use of coal must be stopped because coal is the only fossil fuel left in the massive amounts necessary to generate enough greenhouse gases to cause catastrophic rises in temperatures and sea levels.
To compensate for the energy lost by erasing the 151 coal-fired plants currently on the drawing board nationwide, Mazria called for intensive research efforts on solar power and an overhaul of how buildings are constructed and older buildings are renovated. According to Mazria, the building sector can achieve huge energy savings because it currently accounts for almost half of the nation's energy consumption and resultant greenhouse gases.
Ramapo Professor Michael Edelstein, the conference's organizer, praised Mazria's plan as "by far the most specific suggestions anyone has made anywhere" on climate change. Edelstein said the changes in building construction needed to drastically cut regional energy use would be a major challenge in New Jersey. "New Jersey and New York are home-rule states, and every municipality sets its own rules," he said. "Basically, if you want to start to shift this immediately, you have to get them in a room now and start changing your local approval process now."
Jeanne Fox, president of the State Board of Public Utilities, said in a panel discussion that New Jersey was working on new building codes as well as new energy standards for appliances. The one-day conference also featured speeches by former New Jersey Gov. Jim Florio and noted environmental author Bill McKibben, as well as sessions on how New Jersey will meet its ambitious goals to reduce greenhouse-gas emission by 20 percent by 2020. Florio laid out some of the tough and complex choices on global warming that the United States must make in coming years, pointing out ruefully that "democracy doesn't deal with complicated ideas very well." McKibben was scheduled to speak Friday night on the societal changes required to make the planet sustainable.
Attending the conference were environmental professionals, local government officials, college students, lawyers, architects, engineers and interested citizens from the tri-state region. A green expo held in conjunction with the conference continues today at the college's Bradley Center from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
They know they must destroy the U.S. (and Israel) in order to accomplish this. Unfortunately, our government (with the exception of maybe a couple of people) is handing them our freedom hook, line and sinker!
It's time the American people realized it is Democrats who are causing these ridiculous prices.
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Credibility of whom? This is no challenge to credibility except as affirmation of lack by GWers.
It’s the planners, most of whom are Ds or Enviros.
No, it is bovine flatulence!
What about the EVIL SUVs?
Coal is about 1/5 the current price of oil in BTU terms, and the USA is the Saudi Arabia of coal. At current prices, there is no need to import any oil at all, once coal liquification is ramped up.
These enrivonmental extremists are a greater danger to our country than Osama bin Laden and all his men. Personally, I refuse to vote for anyone, at any level of government, who buys into Al Gore’s insanity. It must stop!
If it were really a threat they would have used the N word.
It’s time to start ridiculing them.
Environmentalists are the Greatest risk to our Climate
Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters
Start tomorrow on 100 new nuclear reactors. Problem solved, other than paying for it.
“Coal use called greatest threat to our climate”
Coal use called greatest threat to our freedom.
Fixed!
A reporter from Discovery channel came by last summer looking for Global Warming damage to the permafrost. I showed him where the aspen and paper birch were invading the black spruce forest as much as 100 yards in the past 30 years. He left with a look of despair on his face.
Sounds like Florio is not yet satisfied with the outcome of WWII.
Paper birch or white birch. My impression was the paper, or brown, birch trees (of which I have several dozen) were not very tolerant of the dryer air at the higher latitudes.
That was last week.
Or was it last month....?
It's hard to keep up with these loonies.
At any rate, fine...ok.
When do we start construction on the nuclear power plants?
Having said that, I would rather have this pollution than not have my air conditioning in July and August. I look forward to a day when the vast ocean of hydrocarbons we are blessed to have in our coal reserves can be converted into useful forms of liquid fuels as well as electricity without having this pollution.
Since today 52% of our electricity is generated by burning coal, battery powered cars = coal fired cars.
Coal plants produce a lot of CO2 and NOx (nitrous oxides).
However, algae just loves to eat both of them. And some of the kinds of algae that do so are about 50% vegetable oil by weight. Vegetable oil that can readily be turned into biodiesel.
For maybe 6-8 months out of the year North of the Mason Dixon line, and 10-11 months of the year South of there, there is enough sunlight for algae to grow. And with CO2 and NOx bubbled through their tanks, they grow a LOT.
So instead of waste that is expensive to dispose of, we get not just electricity, but FUEL, from coal burning industries.
The icing on the cake is that biodiesel is the BEST of the alternatives to petroleum fuels. It has about 96% of the energy of petroleum diesel, it works very well in powerful automobile engines yet diesel engines are scalable enough to be used to power railroad engines and ships.
And biodiesel even smells better than petroleum diesel.
That means we get lots of cheap electricity from the coal plants, we get easy to process fuel out of the deal, and we can even recycle the water the algae grows in.
How many megawatts will your "intensive research" generate senor Doctor?
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