Ed Ring

There is a writer for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Marlo Lewis, whose work we republished (with permission) in December 2006 as an EcoWorld feature story.  In his report, "Al Gore's 'Truth:' One-Sided, Misleading, Exaggerated, Speculative, Wrong," the author skewers the global warming alarmists.  We find Mr. Lewis's style to be a bit confrontational, and by no means are all of his assertions beyond debate.  But we run work by people like him because it's frightening and offensive that anyone might say we shouldn't.  We don't think much of anything having to do with global warming is beyond debate, and even if it is, debate should always be permitted in a free society. There is no doubt that people are going overboard with all this global warming hysteria.  It is being used to justify anything by anyone.  Most of the practical impacts so far are completely useless from a climate standpoint, if not catastrophically flawed, such as European carbon offsets...

In many cases it's that stark:  Either you preserve and expand forests, or you deforest in order to grow biofuel.  If you believe, as we do, that tropical forests are far better for the global climate than biofuel plantations - in terms of all three popular measures; global warming, extreme weather, and droughts - then this choice is one with epic consequences.  And over the past ten years, with accelerating momentum, the tropical forests of this world have been ripped away, in order to plant sugar cane for bioethanol, and oil palms for biodiesel - while environmentalists look the other way. Our concern for what we consider to be a global catastrophe is well documented, in posts such as Deforestation Diesel, Brazilian vs. Californian Ethanol, Biofuel Monocultures, Biofueled Global Warming, Biofuel is NOT Carbon Neutral, Biofueled Deforestation, Ethanol & Water, Biofuel or Biohazard?, When Green is Brown, Is Biofuel Water Positive?, and many others.  Check all our posts in the Biofuel category, or the posts in our Global Warming category.  We haven't wavered. Hopefully others are starting to wake up...

Everybody's seen them; homes crammed so close together you can't park a car in the driveway, you can't put a trampoline in the backyard, and forget about planting a tree.  This is the "smart growth" that Californians are having shoved down their throats, and there's nothing smart about it.  By contrast, in the rural communities north of the American river and east of Sacramento, streets without sidewalks wind through rolling hills, and homes on acre and half-acre lots are set well back from the road.  Mature trees provide shade, and deer and wild turkey come up from the river to invade well-tended gardens.  Nobody minds. Want a yard with a garden? Well thanks to...

Last week General Motors announced they will co-develop a lithium ion battery for their "Volt" electric car in partnership with A123 Systems, one of the leading companies in the world developing these next generation batteries.  In the announcement, GM stated "A123 is a forerunner in nanophosphate-based cell technology, which, compared to other lithium-ion battery chemistries, provides higher power output, longer life, and safer operations over the life of the battery." The GM Volt parked in front of A123 Systems headquarters. This announcement signifies GM is moving forward to bring the Volt from concept to reality.  Last week GM Vice Chairman for Product Development, Robert Lutz...

A PHOTO GALLERY OF ELECTRIC CARS, FROM PRODUCTION MODELS TO FANTASY ANNOUNCEMENTS How can we introduce nine electric car models that exist today or could exist in the very near future? This photo essay is one good manner, and the message the EV industry is sending the world in 2007 is "electric vehicles are here to stay." Nothing is ever going to be the same. Among the samples to follow, every vehicle relies exclusively on an electric motor for traction. Every one of them has a battery-only range that permits various uses. For an affordable car for a short freeway commute, the NMG (which means "no more gas"), a three-wheel all-weather motorcycle from Myers Motors. For a short-haul...

Interview with Tom Gage, CEO of AC Propulsion: AC Propulsion has been around since 1992.  Would you say your company is where the modern era of EV's began? Alan Cocconi founded AC Propulsion after working on the project that developed the General Motors Impact EV. GM went on to produce and then crush the EV1. AC Propulsion developed the AC150 drive system, the tzero, and now the eBox, so yes, we were there at the beginning and we're still here. Your "tzero" provided propulsion technology being used on the Venturi Fetish, along with several other prototypes and concept cars, including the DWRA "White Lightening" which was clocked in 1999 at a top speed of 254 MPH.  How would you summarize this technology? The key factor is high efficiency AND high performance. Electric power for cars is unique in this regard - you can have performance and still have very high efficiency and of course...

We caught up with Ian Wright last week to ask him about his "X-1" prototype, an all-electric car that ought to be getting a lot of attention.  After all, this car has already been around a few years, long enough, for example, to have beaten the Ferrari 360 Spider and the Porsche Carrera GT in drag races.  The X-1 does zero to 60 mph in 3.07 seconds.  Only the Bugatti Veyron - packing 1,000-horsepower with 16-cylinders - can do better.  The Bugatti does zero to 60 in 2.7 seconds.  But the Bugatti Veyron costs $1.25 million and gets 8 mpg. WRIGHTSPEED'S X-1 PROTOTYPE Zero to sixty mph in 3.07 seconds. What Ian Wright wanted to talk about was not the...

With over 50% of the world's population now living in cities, and with that percentage increasing, along with at least another two billion people projected to be added to global population before it levels off, megacities are destined to rise to complement existing cities.  Some will rise in the middle of empty open space, perhaps offshore or in a desert.  Others will rise from redeveloped sections of exisiting cities.  These new cities will have towers of composites and steel and pervasive photovoltaic and thermal architecture.  The ocean will supply saltwater feedstock for desalinated fresh water, and all waste water will be cleaned and the surplus will be piped to neighboring...

No discussion of environmental policy should ignore the inevitability of an elderly population, but they do.  The interconnectedness of the size of the human population of the planet and the health of global ecosystems is apparent to all, but environmental policy debates treat the population issue as a sideshow, instead of granting it centrality. Only then can the crucial nature of human population demographics be analysed from an environmental and a cultural perspective.  And from that perspective, there are two ways that nations of the world are coping with the aging of their populations.  One is to import new citizens, the other is to automate society with armies of robots.  These are utterly distinct ways to demographically manage collective aging, and the only sustainable way is to automate - because as humanity achieves zero population growth, eventually every country is...

Back in 2004 it seemed like a Brown / Schwarzenegger regime in California would be an odd pairing.  But why?  Both are intelligent, pragmatic yet outspoken politicians.  Both are lampooned; the Moonbeam, the Terminator. Now Moonbeam and the Terminator are California's Governor and Attorney General, not in that order.  And this week, in any case, they are both fundamentally wrong on environmental policy.  Bravo to any politician in Sacramento who won't pass a budget in a year when the State is going to sue and prosecute land owners at a whole higher level. Already favored with nonprofit status, tax-deductible contributions, and settlement payoffs, environmentalist financial interests are now beginning to get reconveyance fees.  And adding to this power, our Attorney General now enacts a law to require environmental impact reports, "EIR reports," to include global...