onlynaturalenergy January-March 2020

Issues January 9, 2020

January-March 2020 (ONE)

Articles Climate Change Policy & Strategy

What Joe Biden’s US election victory means for climate change

Joe Biden’s US election victory has been hailed as a significant turning point in US policy on everything from racial injustice to the Covid-19 pandemic. But there are few areas where the president-elect differs from his predecessor more than climate change, a topic that…

Articles Climate Change

Warmer climate and Arctic sea ice in a veritable suicide pact

Their ‘death spiral’ is a vicious melting-warming feedback, leading to more melting of snow and ice and still more warming, an ongoing cycle. Think of it as a suicide pact on ice – global warming and Arctic sea ice in…

Articles Biomass

Are forests the new coal? Global alarm sounds as biomass burning surges

The forest biomass industry is sprawling and spreading globally — rapidly growing in size, scale, revenue, and political influence — even as forest ecologists and climatologists warn that the industry is putting the planet’s temperate and tropical forests at risk,…

Articles Nature & Environment

The plastic myth and the misunderstood triangle

Of all the plastic we’ve ever produced, only 9% has been recycled. So what happened to all that plastic you’ve put in the recycling bin over the years? Hands up if you grew up thinking that recycling plastic waste is…

Articles Power to X Renewables

Hydrogen: where is low-carbon fuel most useful for decarbonisation?

Is hydrogen the lifeblood of a low-carbon future, or an overhyped distraction from real solutions? One thing is certain – the coal, oil and natural gas which currently power much of daily life must be phased out within coming decades.…

Articles Nature & Environment

Wildfires’ toxic air leaves damage long after the smoke clears

When researchers arrived in this town tucked in the Northern Rockies three years ago, they could still smell the smoke a day after it cleared from devastating wildfires. Their plan was to chart how long it took for people to…

Articles Climate Change

Climate literacy is essential for effective change

We need to make it easier to understand basic climate science and emissions reductions. We know less than we think we know about climate. And we know even less than that about our carbon footprint. This doesn’t mean we’re all idiots.…

Articles Climate Change Green Tech Sustainability

China’s new carbon neutrality pledge: what next?

Experts react to President Xi’s statement that China will up its climate ambition by striving for carbon neutrality by 2060. In a virtual address to the 75th UN General Assembly on 22 September, Chinese President Xi Jinping said China would…

Articles Innovation Policy & Strategy

Ring out the old, ring in the new

Now is the time to plant the seeds of innovation. The pandemic has been too global and too prolonged to be considered just one of those temporary situations. Better to forget the let’s-get-back-to-2019 prayers. They are filled with hopes of…

Articles Coal Renewables

The green and the black

As the profound global impact of Covid-19 continues to unfold, those whose job it is to forecast the future have had to scramble for their calculators. This has proved just as true for the widely cited projections of global energy…

The Lost Bayou: Grand Bayou

Grand Bayou, LA. At one time, it was a lively community of close-knit families, until they were forced to leave. ©2020. Garde Voir Ci magazine. Nicholls State University Department of Mass Communication.

World Rainforest Day

Rainforests cover only 2 percent of the planet’s surface area but are responsible for more than 25% of all Western medicine and house more than 50% of the world’s plant and animal species.