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UN Backs Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign
mdsolar sends this report from The Guardian:
The UN organization in charge of global climate change negotiations is backing the fast-growing campaign persuading investors to sell off their fossil fuel assets. It said it was lending its "moral authority" to the divestment campaign because it shared the ambition to get a strong deal to tackle global warming at a crunch UN summit in Paris in December.
The move is likely to be controversial as the economies of many nations at the negotiating table heavily rely on coal, oil and gas. In 2013, coal-reliant Poland hosted the UNFCCC summit and was castigated for arranging a global coal industry summit alongside. Now, the World Coal Association has criticized the UNFCCC's decision to back divestment, saying it threatened investment in cleaner coal technologies.
The move is likely to be controversial as the economies of many nations at the negotiating table heavily rely on coal, oil and gas. In 2013, coal-reliant Poland hosted the UNFCCC summit and was castigated for arranging a global coal industry summit alongside. Now, the World Coal Association has criticized the UNFCCC's decision to back divestment, saying it threatened investment in cleaner coal technologies.
You are not even close to correct with regards to energy payback for photovoltaics. They recover their energy inputs in 1-4 years
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_energy_gain
You seem to have made a mistake about solar energy payback times, which are about a year. http://cleantechnica.com/2013/...
They should mandate that all UN organizations stop all live meetings and switch to video conferencing only. The amount of jet fuel currently burned from these meetings and conferences would be immense. If not, then they're a bunch of hypocritical SOBs.
10 myths about fossil fuel divestment are put to the sword here: http://www.theguardian.com/env... Yours is #5. "To sell a stock you have to have a buyer. But the amounts being divested are too small to flood the market and cut share prices, so they won’t be going cheap. Also, the buyers of the stock are taking on the risk that the fossil fuel stocks may tank in the future, if the world’s nations fulfil their pledge to keep global warming below 2C by sharply cutting carbon emissions. If these stocks are risky, then the public and value-based institutions primarily targeted by the divestment movement should not be holding them. The argument that owning a stock gives you influence over a company leads us neatly into the next divestment myth."
Wow.. If using fucktarded repeatedly didn't show how fucking stupid you are, using USian as if it was an actual word most certainly does.
Here is a hint, the accepted term- even internationally is American. It is because the country is the United States of America and is the only country in north or south America that ends it's country name with America. Other countries have America in their official names, but they do not end it with America in neither their official language or the English version of the name so no other country has claim to the usage.
But it is not just the US who doesn't do anything about AGW concerning coal, natural gas, or oil (which it actually is, per capita GHG emissions in the US was 19.1 metric tons and in 2010, it was 17.6 which is a greater per capita drop than Canada, Japan, China, Italy, Australia, and only 2 tenths of a metric ton less than France). China, India (who both have surpassed the US in raw emissions), almost all third world countries, simply do not give a shit as much as you think they should either. In fact, Most of Europe who put arbitrary limitations on themselves ended up moving production over seas (off shoring) to eliminate accounting of carbon more than eliminating the carbon emissions itself. And Germany, they plateaued and seem to be increasing their emissions now, but they had the added benefit of combining two separate systems (East and West Germany) and doing away with redundant pollution sources with news more efficient sources which explains most of their reductions.
Here is another hint. Perhaps you wouldn't be afraid to post real posts and even use a real moniker if you actually paid attention and knew what was going on rather than jerk your knee so hard that you hit yourself in the head and can only speak from emotion.
The reality is that the smart money is now with those who divest in fossil fuels first and put their earnings in alternative energy stocks will be the big winners and those who are left holding fossil fuel stocks until they finally collapse the big losers, which rather than a complete collapse will be like a leaky tire, loosing its value steadily over time, while production costs continue to climb. State investment funds, universities, and trusts in progressive states are already lightening up on fossil fuels, so their shareholders will come out ahead. When things are going south, as they now are for the fossil fuels industry, its always best to be out the door before the other guy figures out what is happening. By the time the negative outflows reach about 5% it will probably be too late for most to divest.
With the price of crude set to fall, some like CITI Bank say into the $30/barrel range, as current inventories increase to maximum capacity in about 3-6 months forcing excess supply onto the open market, alternative energy stocks will also take a hit, but unlike fossil fuel stocks, it will be an excellent opportunity to buy them as they will increase at a relatively more rapid pace than fossil fuels will recover, if they ever recover. At the current rate of increases in efficiency in production and operation of solar and wind, look for 2017-2019 to be the time when it solar and wind to be be cheaper than fossil fuels, no matter how much crude is on the market.
Get out of fossil fuel stocks while you still have a profit and leave others holding the bag.
There is every reason to consider the cost of the power inputs that are required to produce green energy.
Overly optimistic calculations made ethanol from corn look like a great thing because they did not consider the energy that is spent creating the farm equipment, sowing and harvesting the corn etc
Anybody coming to the table with a 'new' power source that seems to ignore these costs should be sent packing to do their homework
Wherever You Go, There You Are
>. The reality is that the smart money is now with those who divest in fossil fuels first and put their earnings in alternative energy stocks will be the big winners
To be a bit more specific, the journal Nature has called Nanosolar "the poster child for Silicon Valley's interest in solar power". That sounds like an interesting stock. You might want to consider putting some of your money in that company.
Six years after Nature started pumping Nanosolar, in 2012 they announced they planned to actually start making solar panels pretty soon. I understand their stock is _real_ cheap right now.
Also, I heard Obama is backing two other promising companies, Fisker and Solyndra. He says they'll do great, so you might scoop up some of their stock.
All of the fossil fuels run on science. There is geology and chemistry and pollution control and how to make oil flow in a pipeline. If you school won't invest in fossil fuels, there is a chance you won't consider working for them either. The engineering and science may not get done as quickly and the industry may slow as a result of moral objections.
Of course it must be lie. It can't be getting hotter, which explains why all the world's glaciers are simultaneously melting faster than at any time previously recorded.
Makes one wonder, if its not getting hotter, why is all that ice melting? Why are sea levels rising? Surely those who believe that catastrophic man-made global warming is just a big lie, must have some explanation. One that has a shred of credibility to it. Of course, that would be asking too much.
The reality is global climate change is very much an energy issue and one that will fundamentally change how humans use and produce energy or it will end humanity for sure, primarily by making the environment they take for granted disappear before their eyes.
Wikipedia cite FAIL. If you did this in a paper, you'd fail the class.
This isn't academia. This is Slashdot. Wikipedia is an acceptable citation here. If you think there is inaccurate information on the cited page, then point it out. But whining about other people's citations, while presenting none of your own, is childish.