Cowpower

Most of the world's fossil fuel reserves will need to stay in the ground if dangerous global warming is to be avoided, according to modelling work recently published in Nature journal by the University College London. In fact, according to lead researcher Dr Christophe McGlade of the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, over 80% of coal, 50% of gas and 30% of global oil reserves are "unburnable" under the goal to limit global warming to no more than 2^oC.

Extreme weather events fuelled by unusually strong El Niños are expected to double, according to new research from organizations including the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (CoECSS), the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).

Climate-engineering is the deliberate and large-scale intervention in the Earth’s climatic system with the sole aim of trying to reduce climate change. Roughly divisible into two broad categories of carbon dioxide removal and solar radiation management, climate-engineering has been proposed as a potential third option for tackling climate change, alongside mitigation and adaptation.

The price of west Texas crude oil fell last month to below $70 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange for the first time in five years. This fall, which saw prices more than 25% lower than prices just this past summer, is likely to continue well into 2015 according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

As one of the wealthiest countries in the world and with the second-highest human development index, it has been some time since anyone referred to Australia as a ‘wide cultural desert populated by man-eating sharks, poisonous snakes, spiders and men in shorts’. After all, any country that ranks highly in international comparisons of quality of life, health, education, economic freedom, and the protection of civil liberties and political rights must be doing something right.

The challenge of ensuring future food security as populations grow and diets change has its roots in soil. Without good soil we simply cannot grow the food that will be needed to feed the hungry mouths that are predicted to be around in 2050. However, despite this obvious correlation between soil and food, globally humans continue to degrade the earth’s thin skin, threatening to push up food prices and increase deforestation.

Generally in the form of alcohols or gas, biofuels are derived from recently living organisms or their metabolic by-products. Unlike their fossil-fuel counterparts, biofuels are both renewable and carbon neutral. Because of this, biofuels are seen by many as an important piece in any sustainable strategy and an inevitable part of our future transportation fuel mix.

Supporting renewable energy production in BC is what we do here at Cowpower. Anything that can help make BC more environmentally, social and economically sustainable while keeping the lights on is without doubt a good thing. One such renewable energy technology that is thriving in BC is hydroelectricity. Building dams to make clean energy is what we do in BC, and for this we should be proud. Or should we?

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the philanthropic association of the Rockefeller family, has recently announced its decision to join a coalition forged to reinvest in clean energy. While this announcement might not seem that surprising based on current investment trends away from fossil fuels, it is surprising when you consider that the Rockefeller family made its vast fortune from oil.

As the largest traded staple, larger in fact than all other staples combined, wheat is serious business. Globally, wheat provides around one-fifth of all calories and protein. More food products are made from wheat than from any other cereal. In developing countries wheat feeds around 1.2 billion people a day; for every three rice consumers there are two wheat consumers.