Investments in green technologies keep growing.
Venture capitalists invested a record $2.9 billion into North American companies active in clean technologies in 2006, a 78 percent increase over 2005’s $1.6 billion, according to the Cleantech Venture Network.
They invested $613 million in the fourth quarter, 22 percent more than the amount invested during the same quarter last year, or $502 million.
Notably, investments in 2006 doubled or more in the sub-categories of energy storage, recycling and transportation, when compared to 2005.
Wonder if this will help offset the effect caused by the number of new Chinese car buyers, which jumped 37 percent last year? Evidence suggests global warming may be accelerating.
2 Comments
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Martin said:
Not to bad, the average chinese car is still 200% more effective MPG wise than the average American one.
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Mark Wendman said:
Aside from the large growth in automobiles in China, is the considerably larger problem of coal fired power plants and the schedule of their increased buildout in China.
Despite the huge amount of pollution and greenhouse gases the existing number of coal power plants in China emits - contributing on a massive scale to world pollution and acidification of the oceans and air, there is the not so minor issue of another 50 - that is FIFTY more coal fired power plants the Chinese have scheduled to build in the next few short years.
I think this detail is important.
It was also indicated in the late December / early January? London Times article that recently highlighted the unabated rapid growth of coal fired power in China and its actual devastating effects on both China’s air quality and acidification of waters worldwide, that the Chinese central government has meekly requested that the coal fired power plants not be built out further. The response of the local party officials is that they need the profits from the low cost power. And it stopped there.
What is duplicitous is that apparently for the duration of the 2008 Olympics in Bejing China, the Chinese government has edicted that many of the coal powered plants be shut down in vicinity to Bejing to provide a better false impression of the actual pollution to visiting foreigners during the Olympics.
This also was detailed in the recent article in the London Times.
All of this is beyond worrisome, as if the rest of the world (or most of it) gets the imperative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce pollution, China might alone negate all the good done in the rest of the world. And on massive scale of further accelerating global warming by China alone largely.
It must also be remarked that there apparently are numerous reports about unsual new large “natural?” methane releases from the ocean that may well be an indication that we are perilously close to a tipping point in global warming. Ocean methane releases from organic material on the warming sea bottom.
Lost upon many folks, is that when the worlds northern permafrost is destroyed, the worlds climate warming might well be hugely irreversible, due to unprecedented releases of methane trapped in the permafrost but released upon melting. The effect will be feedforward, from large initial permafrost destruction will come even greater permafrost destruction with unthinkable results.
This key point of impending risk of massive scale permafrost methane release is swept under the rug by many and the press.
The criticality of large scale permafrost destruction and massive unthinkable methane releases to the atmosphere is far greater than mere icepack melting as to the potential impact on irreversible out of control global warming.
If we end up with many of the worlds coastal population centers flooded, then the imperative of what should have been done, will hit home far too late.
My sense is that global politics and notably Chinese politics is a critical aspect to halting the relentless advance towards what might be a mega scale calamity in the making.
Pray it does not come to pass, but we approach the precipice with our eyes largely closed, and hands largely twiddling in the face of this real challenge.
