Today, UC Berkeley and most institutions are financially invested in destroying our future. This may sound a little bit surprising to some — even unfounded. Let me explain. When it comes to climate change, the scientific community has presented a clear, unambiguous message: Human burning of fossil fuels — coal, oil and natural gas — is putting our world at risk. And this, in fact, is a needless risk. By…
“If it’s wrong to wreck the climate, then it’s wrong to profit from that wreckage,” Bill McKibben Though I had been living in Berkeley for two years prior working at Lawrence Berkeley Lab, when I enrolled in the ERG Master’s program this fall, I looked for additional ways to get involved in the Berkeley community as a student, not as a scientist. Fossil Free Cal was one club that immediately…
A few weeks ago, I joined more than a hundred other students in San Francisco for the sixth annual EDF Climate Corps Training event. I had no idea what to expect over the five days of intensive energy efficiency training. What I found were hours of fascinating conversations with people who are just as passionate about energy efficiency and sustainability as I am — not to mention a group…
We generally complain that action on climate change is mired in polarized partisan politics and thus nothing can be done. True to an extent, but lets hold on a bit. In terms of generating important discussion about the clarity that exists around the conclusion that the scientific debate over climate change as an anthropogenic process is over, the political bully pulpit can be incredibly powerful. A case in point…
Cities are full of dark surfaces that absorb and capture energy from sunlight, creating islands of hot, hot heat.