Nidhi Jamwa focuses on a recently started green Sierra Club initiative in India that will try “to explore other ways of creating a robust dialogue on developing a green economy” and to “network, collaborate and share information”:

“There it goes again. It is always India and China that are the two emerging villains of climate change. The developed world has built their infrastructure and created wealth, based on technologies that are high on carbon emissions. Even now, it refuses to deliver on its promise to bring down carbon emissions. Yet goes about patronising the developing world on the need for green economy.

To quote Pope: “The US has to get rid of old stuff and India has to create new stuff. The Sierra Club can help India make that transition…India does not have fossil fuel to run a carbon economy, so it should leapfrog to low- carbon economy and switch to renewable sources such as solar, wind power, etc. And all this is available in plenty in India.”

By the same logic, California should be leading in the switch to green technology as it has plenty of both sun and the sea. If switching to a low-carbon economy was indeed so simple, what was keeping the industrialized world from making the transition?”

We are all in this together. That is for sure. But why should the pressure be on the developing countries to “leapfrog” and create a green and sustainable society when the developed (mainly western) countries are the ones that has the highest per capita carbon emissions?

It’s like blaming climate change on our children and the younger generation when it’s actually the older generation who are to be blamed.

Via Arbetarens Klimatblogg.

Is that statement true or false?

What about this: “Constantly shutting down and restarting your computer during the day would consume more energy than just leaving it running.”

Is that true or false?

If you are a bit unsure you might want to check out the Sierra Club’s “How Green is My PC” quiz. The quiz will ask and tell you about ten different questions related to your computers energy usage, environmental impacts etc.

Thanks to Tedd Riggs for the link.

Likewise, on infrastructure, I will continue to push for action. We have a water system built decades ago for 18 million people.

Today we have 37 million people. In 20 years, we will have 50 million people. We have to get going.

Already homes and businesses are facing mandatory cutbacks. Farms are unable to irrigate crops. Building permits are being denied.

And yet raging flood waters run wasted into the sea because they can’t be captured. We must expand water storage. We must build new water delivery systems. We must fix the Delta and restore its ecosystem.
We will also continue to make California the world’s environmental leader.

We are leading on climate change, low carbon fuels, energy efficiency – and on clean, green technology. When it comes to cleaning our air, preserving our oceans, protecting our environment, California will continue to be the foremost advocate for change.

And if we have to sue the federal government to get out of our way, we will do so.

Bill Magavern, senior Representative of Sierra Club California, gives his perspective and views of the speech over at CaliforniaProgressReport.com.

While we had hoped that Governor Schwarzenegger would use the State of the State to roll out important new programs regarding green chemistry and better fire planning, the speech was largely devoid of details.

Image credit: D_vdm. Image licensed under a
Creative-Commons Attribution-Share Alike license.