By: Br. Jack Ratschmidt, OFM Cap. and Chandu Visweswariah “I hate funerals, Chandu,” a friend whispered as we were leaving church. “They are sad,” I said. “Not sad enough,” my friend persisted. “Omar overdosed on fentanyl, and no one even mentioned the horrors of addiction and the opioid crisis. Felt sad and hollow.” No one wants to speak ill of…
By: Chandu Visweswariah The sky is never empty. Between 1.2 million and 3 million people are flying in airplanes at any given time [1]. Less than 10% of the world’s population flies in any given year [2]. In fact, less than 20% of the world’s population has ever been in an airplane. You won’t be surprised to learn that 1%…
By: Chandu Visweswariah [Lead image courtesy ChatGPT] Science helped us win WWII. Science helped us build the world’s most dominant economy. Science helped us survive measles, AIDS and COVID-19. Now are we willing to sacrifice science in exchange for a campaign contribution from the fossil fuel industry? The U.S. Environmental Pillaging Agency (EPA) is attempting to repeal the “endangerment clause.” …
By: Chandu Visweswariah Key Take-Away Energy systems of the world are facing steep challenges including urgent growth in electricity demand, limited grid resources and decarbonization imperatives. Thanks to improvements in solar panels and battery storage, pairing solar farms with batteries is now the cheapest, fastest and cleanest way of ramping up electricity generation. Best of all, this energy can be…
By: Chandu Visweswariah The last few centuries have seen dominance on the global stage by Britain, and then the United States. It is no surprise, therefore, that English has become the world’s lingua franca. In the remote villages of Africa and India, parents tell their children to learn English because it opens up a world of opportunities. Alas, global energy…
By: Chandu Visweswariah Lead image: Based on 2023 emissions, courtesy of Visual Capitalist. Source: Carbon Majors Introduction For anyone who cares about our planet’s climate stability, things are not going well. CO2 in the atmosphere continues to rise, the clean energy revolution is facing significant headwinds, extreme weather events are becoming more common and violent, and we are edging ever…
By: Chandu Visweswariah Executive Summary The dire, urgent and existential climate crisis we face is well-understood, with a concomitant desire to reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions from transportation. California has replaced nearly 65% of its diesel consumption with Renewable Diesel (RD). UPS has been transitioning a significant share of its nationwide fleet to RD. New York City now uses RD…
By: Chandu Visweswariah The oil giant Saudi Aramco recently published an article on Carbon Capture which got my attention. Is Carbon Capture the holy grail to solve the climate crisis? The fossil fuel industry is pushing carbon capture as a panacea to our greenhouse gas emission problems. Fossil fuels are wonderful and essential to our way of life, they say….
By: Chandu Visweswariah [Mount Rushmore image acknowledgment: By Thomas Wolf, www.foto-tw.de, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=90107110] Dear Mr. President, If this letter gets to you, I hope you read it because it describes the single most important thing you can do to boost your legacy. More on this a bit later in this letter. Earlier today, I received a renewal notice…
By: Subbu Upputuri, Dr. Chandu Visweswariah, Dr. Thomas N. Theis, Dr. Anjali Sauthoff Executive Summary The transition from fossil fuel vehicles to electric alternatives is a critical step towards reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and combating climate change. However, the localized impacts on air quality, specifically fine particulate matter (PM2.5) emissions, are more nuanced. In some electricity zones of the…
