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THE WITNESS
The levels of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached 400 parts per million for the first time in human history. The last time levels were this high global average temperatures eventually reached 3 or 4C° higher than now, the polar regions were up to 10C° warmer than today the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets were smaller and Sea level ranged between five and 40 meters (16 to 131 feet) higher than today. Continue reading
Jim Rogers has a choice between clean and dirty energy.
“We must move at ‘China speed’ to combat global warming.”
That’s what Jim Rogers, CEO of the largest utility in the country and one of the world’s biggest carbon polluters, Duke Energy, said once upon a time. Now Rogers, who has agreed to retire at the end of 2013, has seven months left to prove he meant it, and determine how history will judge his climate legacy: as a leader who helped start a clean energy revolution, or a polluter who told a nice story about global warming, but never acted to stop it.
That’s why Greenpeace and NC WARN, one of our allies in North Carolina, published an ad today in the Charlotte Observer challenging Rogers to stop talking and start acting, by directing his company to invest in solar energy, wind energy, and energy efficiency throughout the Duke Energy service territory. Continue reading
A coal ash impoundment at TVA Kingston Fossil Fuel Power Plant in Tennessee failed in 2008, spilling five times the volume of the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster. It was the worst in US history. The next year, the EPA, overseeing the clean-up operations, shipped 4 million tons of toxic coal ash by rail to an Alabama landfill in a region called the Black Belt. The Black Belt, birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement, has “the richest soil and the poorest people.” Continue reading
A Pennsylvania family shows their tap water from their contaminated well due to fracking
Even the heads of fossil fuel companies read the polls.They know the majority of Americans see global warming as an imminent threat and a clear sign that the way we use energy must change. But instead of offering the solar and wind choices America wants, fossil fuel companies like Shell, Exxon and Duke are offering what might be their most disastrous bait and switch yet: natural gas.
The bait? Burning natural gas is “clean” because it produces less carbon pollution than burning oil and coal. The switch? The catastrophic pollution caused when companies like Exxon fracture the earth — commonly called fracking — to get natural gas out of the ground. Continue reading
Greenpeace's 5kw solar roof top project at its warehouse in Beijing. The project will be grid connected.
At 10:48 am on 17 April in Beijing, Greenpeace made a bit of history: we joined the first batch of around 50 rooftop solar PV projects that connected to the grid in China.
And to our surprise, we learned that our modest five-kilowatt solar system is actually the biggest rooftop solar power project currently in Beijing.
Our “system” is 65 square meters of solar panels at the new GP China warehouse in Shunyi, on the outskirts of Beijing. At full capacity on a day with clear weather, these panels will generate around 25 kWh of electricity. To give you a sense of scale, an average urban Chinese family consumes less than 10 kWh per day. Continue reading
I’m walking away from the Greenpeace Semester program saddened to say goodbye, but empowered by all the skills now under my belt. The program aims at giving students an in-depth understanding of environmental campaigning and strategy, organizing, messaging, and non-violent direct action, a peaceful tactic to protect our natural ecosystems.. Through the course of this program, we’ve had the chance to talk to many of the people at Greenpeace working directly on environmental issues. In March, our class traveled to Raleigh, North Carolina to help with a campaign that Greenpeace is running against Duke Energy, the nation’s largest utility company and gobbler of dirty energy including coal and nukes. You can see all the action from our trip on our Tumblr. Continue reading
Greenpeace has dramatically stepped up its campaign to stop Australia’s biggest contribution to climate change from getting any bigger. This morning six volunteers boarded a bulk carrier filled with thermal coal, leaving Australia bound for Asia. Continue reading
The race to be the cleanest and greenest in our virtual world is definitely on. Facebook announced today that it is building another data center, a big one, this time in the windy state of Iowa, which currently leads the nation in electricity generated from wind with an eye-popping 25 percent! Continue reading
Zhong Yu, a marathon runner, is one of the volunteers who had her personal air pollution exposure tested. She was shocked to find out that her samples contained arsenic levels exceeding the national standard X-fold
You have seen air pollution before, but not in this way. Beijing’s hazardous air is changing the energy outlook of the country, and sending a warning to other countries on the human cost of heavy reliance on coal. Continue reading
Thanks to some pressure from Google, the largest utility company in the U.S., Duke Energy, now plans to offer renewable energy to its major customers. This will allow Google, who also announced plans today to double the size of one if its largest data centers, an option to power its cloud with clean energy. Continue reading