An Inconvenient Truth was really good– totally not preachy, and not overly technical. Al Gore comes across as 1200% more personable than he ever did on the campaign trail, and even cracks a joke at his own expense, saying of himself “I used to be the country’s next president.” The movie even includes a clip from Matt Groening’s TV show Futurama.

It seems to be wildly popular here in New York (probably no surprise) –my friend Eric and I showed up 15 minutes before showtime and had to sit in the front row. This was over a week after the movie had opened here!

One aspect that was somwhat hokey was a short passage recapping Gore’s 2000 defeat (what does that have to do with Global Warming, again?) but that was only a minute or two of the total film. It makes me wonder if Al is thinking of running again (maybe in 2012?)

Despite the “scariest movie of the summer” trailer, the movie itself is surprisingly upbeat, listing a number of things that can already be done to stop the Earth from heating up, and making the point that there is already enough technology on hand to get the job done– it’s merely a question of political willpower.

A multinational team of scientists has found evidence of a prehistoric tropical swamp with alligators and ferns in the Arctic:

Scientists have found what might have been the ideal ancient vacation hotspot with a 74-degree Fahrenheit average temperature, alligator ancestors and palm trees. It’s smack in the middle of the Arctic. [...]

What’s troubling is that this hints that future projections for warming, several degrees over the next century, may be on the low end, said study lead author Appy Sluijs of the Institute of Environmental Biology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

Also it shows that what happened 55 million years ago was proof that too much carbon dioxide — more than four times current levels — can cause global warming, said another co-author Henk Brinkhuis at Utrecht University.

Also, there’s a theory that a fern called Azolla (still around today) expanded its range southward, sucking down CO2 and returning the climate to present-day conditions… after about a million years.

read more | digg story

Lots of weird things you can do with bacteria, including boost a fuel cell, or get more oil out of the ground.

Good, quick article that explains some of the problems with replacing our gasoline economy with Ethanol: Ethanol: Myths and Realities

Here’s a novel approach being taken by a power plant Upstate in Dunkirk, NY: grow algae using captured CO2 from burning coal, and then in turn make Ethanol out of the algae.

I’m more than a little skeptical about this, because it seems to me that the CO2 from the power plant is only being captured temporarily– eventually it’s released again when the Ethanol is burned. (This is in contrast to Ethanol brewed from crops, which absorb CO2 out of the air.) Still, if it helps us burn less coal in total, then I suppose the net effect is positive. Always nice to see New York State leading the way in testing new techniques.

What would be really incredible is if we could use that CO2 from power plants to make something non-fuel-related, say fertilizer for crops. Then that carbon from the coal would truly be going back into the earth.

Cowardly PSAs that try to convince people that increased CO2 in the atmosphere is A-OK: “Carbon Dioxide: they call it ‘pollution.’ We call it ‘life.’” [link]

The ads are producted by The Competetive Enterprise Institute, which has this to say about themselves:

Called “the best environmental think tank in the country” by The Wall Street Journal, the Competitive Enterprise Institute focuses on the development and promotion of free market approaches to environmental policy. We believe that where individual property rights exist in environmental resources, the environment is most likely to be protected, and that market institutions more effectively allow for the realization of environmental values than political agencies and bureaucracies. As a leading proponent of free market environmentalism, CEI’s program includes both an overall effort to reframe the environmental debate and a series of targeted projects to reform specific policies, ranging from risk regulation to global warming.

Sad that our “best environmental think tank” is encouraging people not to worry about Global Warming. They are funded, at least in part, by ExxonMobil.

PS: The Antactic ice sheet study they cite found that the ice was getting thicker, but the surface area of the sheet was getting far smaller (increased evaporation in the Tropics causes more snowfall in the Antarctic.) found that parts of the ice sheet are thinning, and other parts are thickening. I don’t recognize the Greenland glacier study mentioned.

Again, from the could-this-possibly-be-true department… an Italian company claims its cement can reduce vehicle emissions (NO and CO2) by as much as 40%. No word on what it costs vs. normal cement.

New kind of cement absorbs pollution

This is cool news, but I find it a little hard to believe– apparently the TLC (that’s the Taxi and Limousine Commission, for you non-New-Yorkers) is considering rolling out all-electric PT Cruisers in the taxi fleet next year. The article claims that the vehicles get a range of 150 miles– that seems a little bit low to me, considering what long shifts taxi workers work, and the fact that many of them share the cabs in shifts. Maybe these taxis will just be for short hauls, like the La Guardia airport circuit? At any rate it’s cool to see the city trying to save gas.

Also, I’m gonna be a piss and point out that electricity in the US generally comes from coal-burning power plants, so it’s a little misleading to call these cars “green.” But, it’s a start I guess.

Treehugger: Electric Taxis Coming to NYC

So since I heard last week that we’re getting an Ethanol plant, I’ve gotten really excited. I’ve also done some reading and discovered some dirty little secrets about Ethanol:

• Ethanol is expensive to produce: To brew ethanol, you need a plant that’s high in sugar. In the US, the obvious crop to use is corn. However, corn-brewed Ethanol currently only puts out about 1.2 times as much energy as is put into its manufacture. In Brazil, where E85 has already become a standard fuel, the yield is closer to 1:8– that’s because they use sugar cane, which doesn’t grow here in the US. [link] Also, much depends on the technologies involved; older ethanol plants may actually be putting out less energy than they take in, while newer plants may achieve a ratio closer to 1:1.7.
• Ethanol gets worse mileage than gasoline: Estimates vary, but the Dep’t of Energy claims that a gallon of E85 has only 72% as much energy as a gallon of gasoline. “A Chevrolet Impala equipped with the 3.5-liter V-6 engine is rated 21 miles per gallon in town on gasoline and 31 mpg on the highway. On E85, it’s rated just 16 in town, 23 on the highway.” [link] Environmentalists will probably not mind the hit, but it’ll be a harder sell to the rest of the nation.

On the other hand, here are some plusses:

• Ethanol may be brewed from garbage: Research focuses on brewing ethanol from cellulose, a plant fiber that’s found in pretty much anything that grows. Cellulose-brewing plants could use native grasses as fodder (cheaper to grow than corn) or even cellulose harvested from our solid waste (farm and industrial.) The new plant in Fulton, NY will start off brewing corn and move to cellulose as technologies improve. [link, link]
• Ethanol is a “net-zero” emissions fuel: Burning ethanol releases CO2 into the atmosphere in exactly the same way as burning gasoline, but growing the crops required to brew ethanol absorbs CO2. Therefore, the more ethanol you mix with gas, the less it contribues to Global Warming. [link]
• Ethanol reduces smog: Some ethanol skeptics claim that, because of ethanol’s higher volitility, it may product more smog than gasoline. It may also be that a small amount of ethanol in gas decreases smog, but a large amount increases it. However, the jury seems to be coming back in favor of the less-smog scenario. [link]
• Republicans loooooove ethanol: Under the banner of “decreasing our dependence on foreign oil,” the White House has started pushing ethanol aggressively this year. Keep in mind that this is totally a political move, and does not in any way imply that the Government admits Global Warming is a serious problem. Also, be prepared for the onslaught of stomach-turning propaganda that will link ethanol production to “homeland security.” [link]

So, the upshot is that ethanol is far from a silver bullet, but it’s promising. It has supporters on both sides of the fence, because it makes sense from both an environmental and political viewpoint. An ethanol economy is also a lot closer to reality than the “hydrogen economy” the President spoke about in recent years. And increased R&D will probably bring efficiency gains as industry begins to make money off the stuff.

Eliot Spitzer once again demonstrates the super-lawyer powers that will probably win him Governor of New York later this year. He’s leading a pack of 10 states (plus NYC, DC and the Sierra Club) in a lawsuit against the EPA over Global Warming. The charge is that since coal-burning power plants generate 40% of current greenhouse emissions, the gov’t should step in and reglulate. (Apparently a similar case was lost last year.) The EPA’s defense is that they don’t have the authority to regulate emissions (which kinda makes them sound more like the Coal-Burning Power Plant Protection Agency.) I’m just surprised that I didn’t hear about this in the local news, since both my state and city are involved.

I worry about how this will play out in the rest of the country; will it be seen as just another radical “blue state” stunt? Considering that Time Magazine thinks 80% of Americans believe global warming is real, it could go either way.