Our Diminishing Carbon Budget

Our Diminishing Carbon Budget

By: Chandu Visweswariah Summary With each passing year of under-achievement in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, our planet’s carbon budget is dwindling. To avoid truly catastrophic and irreversible damage from climate change, this blog argues that the world now has to achieve net zero by 2034, if not sooner. What is a Carbon Budget? A carbon budget is an amount…

Greening of the U.S. Grid

Greening of the U.S. Grid

By: Akhila Golla†, Yuting Hu†, Vishnu Sai Teja Kondamudi†, Chandu Visweswariah‡, Sai Subhash Reddy Yarram†, Venkata Subrahmanyam Upputuri† and Jinjun Xiong††State University of New York, Buffalo‡CURE100.org According to the National Academy of Engineering, electrification and the electric grid constituted the top U.S. engineering achievement of the 20th century. But now it is already time to reinvent that same engineering marvel…

Seven Common Myths About Heat Pumps

Seven Common Myths About Heat Pumps

By: Chandu Visweswariah The two biggest sources of carbon emissions in our part of the country in the Northeast are transportation and building heating. Most homes and buildings are heated with a fossil fuel furnace, burning fuel oil, gas or propane to produce heat. To decarbonize rapidly, we urgently need all new construction to incorporate heat pumps, and all existing…

Global Timetable for Fossil Fuel Phase-Out

Global Timetable for Fossil Fuel Phase-Out

By: Chandu Visweswariah A timely solution to our climate crisis can only be achieved by a rapid global phase-out of fossil fuels. Therefore, we urgently need international agreement on a timetable. Mankind has historically dealt with dangerous poisons like leaded gasoline, freon, carcinogens like PCBs, asbestos, and now it is time to firmly and permanently close the spigot on fossil…

Climate Change in Our Face

Climate Change in Our Face

By: Chandu Visweswariah [Author’s note: this blog is adapted from CURE100’s August newsletter’s “opening banter.”] Sitting here in New York, it’s easy to think of climate change as a “faraway” phenomenon. Hurricane Sandy filled our subway stations with water in 2012, and there was much talk of building sea walls and reducing emissions. We did neither and Sandy slowly faded…

Conservation vs. Sustainability vs. Decarbonization

Conservation vs. Sustainability vs. Decarbonization

By: Chandu Visweswariah Every Town and Village has a potpourri of governmental environmental organizations like a Sustainability Committee, a Conservation Advisory Council and a Climate Smart Community. There’s even a NY State Association of Conservation Commissions. There’s also typically a grab bag of local and national environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs). With all this fervor and well-meaning effort, you would think…

Double Standards for Fossil Fuels

Double Standards for Fossil Fuels

By: Chandu Visweswariah The fossil fuel industry has defiantly projected that we will need their products till the end of this century or beyond. They are wrong. And if there’s any chance we will burn fossil fuels for another eight decades, God help our children, grandchildren and generations to come who will inhabit the planet at the turn of the…

The Sunny Side We Also May View

The Sunny Side We Also May View

By: Chandu Visweswariah There’s a dark and a troubled side of lifeThere’s a bright and a sunny side tooThough we meet with the darkness and strifeThe sunny side we also may view. — From a song by the Carter Family Over the years, many of you have read my blogs pointing out the dire consequences of climate change. I recently…

Close Bitnami banner
Bitnami