Carbon Retirement
July 18th, 2008
Dan, colleague and top eco blogger, launched Carbon Retirement this week. It’s a new twist on carbon offsetting - you can actually buy (and then retire) carbon credits and from the official EU exchange. As the site explains:
Carbon Retirement uses your money to purchase carbon allowances out of the EU Emission Trading Scheme. This is the EU’s central tool for cutting carbon emissions. It works by giving heavy industry a fixed number of allowances to emit greenhouse gases.
Each time we buy an allowance, we retire it. Retiring permanently removes allowances from the market so they are unavailable to the industries that would otherwise use them as rights to pollute. You buy emissions out of the system.
The logic of cap-and-trade is that as the price of carbon credits goes up, it gets more attractive for polluting firms to reduce their emissions and invest in cleaner ways of doing business. Under the EU scheme, the price will go up because over time, the number of permits will be reduced.
By offering people outside the scheme (like you and me) the chance to buy credits on the ETS, Carbon Retirement reduces the number of permits on the market, so polluting becomes more expensive more quickly. Which should mean that emissions are reduced. Which is a good thing. Their site is available at: www.carbonretirement.com
links for 2008-07-16
July 16th, 2008
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Interesting prediction: Oil under McCain falls to $125/barrel. Oil under Obama falls to $95.
links for 2008-07-03
July 3rd, 2008
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Global survey of cultural values. Denmark is the happiest nation, ZImbabwe least happy.
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Mark Lynas, Climate Change author/campaigner
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Cap Gemini report into global wealth. Include research into green investors and BRIC wealth.
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Strangely, this unsophisticated economist article on the logic behind donating to animal v. human charities is taken from their magazine called “Intelligent Life”.
The best article yet about Barack Obama’s fundraising
May 21st, 2008
This article in the Atlantic is another good overview of the formidable Obama campaign machine, describing it correctly as a political campaign run like a high-tech startup. If you haven’t played around with my.barackobama.com yet, do it. It challenges lots of the received wisdom about fundraising, not only for political campaigns, but also for more traditional giving. In February, the Obama campaign reported that 94 percent of their donations came in increments of $200 or less, versus 26 percent for Clinton and 13 percent for McCain.
We’ve tried to bring two principles to this campaign. One is lowering the barriers to entry and making it as easy as possible for folks who come to our Web site. The other is raising the expectation of what it means to be a supporter. It’s not enough to have a bumper sticker. We want you to give five dollars, make some calls, host an event. If you look at the messages we send to people over time, there’s a presumption that they will organize.
Finally getting Twitter
May 16th, 2008
I’ve been reluctantly persevering with Twitter for a while now. I’ve never been into blogs that say “having a cup of tea” or “waiting in the airport” but this seemed to be the bulk of the content on Twitter. It certainly wasn’t stuff I felt I needed texted to my phone.
But I was fairly sure I was missing something, as so many other people seem excited by it.
Today I discovered the updates from twitter.com/bbctms are just about the best way for someone to keep up with the latest in the cricket.
A few more score updates would be good, but it’s the first thing I’ve come across that’s a genuinely new and useful use for Twitter. It’s never going to be Test Match Special(listen to this clip to see what I mean), but it’s very close to its spirit.
Robert Rauschenberg
May 14th, 2008
From the Robert Rauschenberg obituary today:
“Screwing things up is a virtue. Being correct is never the point…. Being right can stop all the momentum of a very interesting idea.”
(Robert Rauschenberg. Killdevil Hill, 1975 from the Moma website)
links for 2008-04-29
April 29th, 2008
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Great article from Clay Shirky
links for 2008-04-26
April 26th, 2008
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Blog tracking corporate claims to environmentalism
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Obama spent $93k on web consultants. Clinton spent $3.5m on ad and media consultants
links for 2008-04-21
April 21st, 2008
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helping their asian supply chain with energy efficiency
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There is “a huge drop in demand for traditional, private, enclosed spaces”
links for 2008-04-17
April 17th, 2008
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Research from the Guardian
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