Per Capita Davis: Some good news in a time of anxiety
I’ve been thinking a lot about “sustainability” the last few weeks and intended to write about it. But that would take me down a sort of dark road, and in these strange times I feel a need for something positive, lighter, hopeful. So here is some…
Per Capita Davis: Putting gas guzzlers in the rear-view mirror
So how’s it going with efforts to turn the auto industry into makers of primarily electric vehicles and getting drivers the world over out of their fossil-fuel cars and trucks? There are many moving parts to making such a huge change and to date it’s…
Per Capita Davis: More pieces of the puzzle
I’m continuing to clean out my inbox and I don’t mean that to diminish what I conceive to be the value of this and other similar columns that don’t address a single idea, theme or thread. The items below are pieces of the puzzle of…
Per Capita Davis: Keeping up with the news on the climate crisis
So much is happening in the world that relates to the climate crisis. It’s hard to keep up, much less figure out whether more of the news is positive or negative or whether we should look at the aggregate as a glass half full or…
Per Capita Davis: Big changes are coming our way
When I approached The Enterprise 12 years ago about writing a column on what was then referred to as “climate change” I struggled to find an appropriate title for the column. While watching Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” I was struck by how many times…
Per Capita Davis: The year 2020 and 20-20 vision
It’s easier to accurately judge past actions and decisions looking back than when taking those actions or making those decisions. As they say, hindsight is always 20-20. We are on the cusp of a new year and a new decade. Looking backward, it’s clear that…
Per Capita Davis: From the mailbag
The expression “from the mailbag” never anticipated emails, for which there’s no bag, and though a few suggestions for topics for this column still do come via snail mail, most arrive as emails or texts. Here are a few topics that came my way recently…
Per Capita Davis: New report on world energy outlook
There are several highly reputable organizations tracking the science of the climate crisis and issuing regular reports. Probably the best known of these is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change at the United Nations. Another, right up there at the top in terms of reputation…
Per Capita Davis: Taking stock at the end of 2019?
Another year is ending, and another is beginning. Typically, New Year’s Day is when we can all reboot, put the past behind, make resolutions, and look forward with bright optimism. I confess I instead feel a significant trepidation about the future. In some very important…
Per Capita Davis: A small but sticky issue
It seems a little weird and awkward to write about small things influencing the climate crisis and sustainability when so many huge events are happening all at once. Consider: the Amazon is aflame, scorching millions of carbon-absorbing trees to make more room to grow more…
Per Capita Davis: Small changes can be complicated
The topic of population is a fraught issue, with some folks identifying it as a key element of the climate crisis, while others see the risk of the issue being used against developing countries with high rates of population increase. I have thoughts about this,…
Per Capita Davis: If seeing the world helps ruin it, should we stay home?
The last column was the third of three about money, investments, and spending moving capital towards support of a sustainable future. It touched on the subject of “carbon offsets,” payments made to any number of projects that reduce (“offset”) CO2 emissions at least equal to…
Per Capita Davis: Big money and climate change
The previous column was the second of three addressing money and the transition to a fossil free future and it featured the actions of several billionaires to identify and support game changing new technologies. Incredible as it may sound, there are also trillionaires in the world, and…
Per Capita Davis: Billionaires invest in radical solutions
The last two columns were about money and the climate crisis. One was about how shareholders are pressuring the world’s largest companies to be leaders in sustainability. The other was about how some companies are doing just that. Frankly, I get tired of reading about…
Per Capita Davis: The business of the climate crisis
For most of the world, and for most of history, perhaps the greatest single driver of human activity and behavior has been money: getting it and then getting more. Of course, for many, getting some money or something worth trading is a matter of survival….
Per Capita Davis: Money talks; a lot of money shouts
This and the next couple of columns focus on money, specifically money spent or committed to mitigate or adapt to the climate crisis. How do companies, investors and others whose profits or losses could be affected by the climate crisis plan to allocate their resources…
Per Capita Davis: A change is coming in how we talk about climate
Climate scientists, even a half-century ago, predicted adverse effects from “climate change,” including sea-level rise, an increase in global temperature and melting of glaciers, to name a few. But right from the get-go, they predicted that among the first and most obvious “changes” would be…
Per Capita Davis: Headlines sum up the story
George H.W. Bush wrote a book, after he was CIA director but before he was president, about his time as director and how he tried to improve the efficiency of the agency. I remember that one of his main recommendations, one he returned to in…
Per Capita Davis: It’s time to think about building decarbonization
“Decarbonization,” a word so new my computer keeps trying to spell check it to something else, defines what some have called the next frontier in California’s fight against the climate crisis. The focus for reducing greenhouse gas emissions has been largely dominated by discussions over…
Per Capita Davis: How big is the battle?
“Dire” — an adjective describing an extremely serious or urgent situation or event causing great fear or suffering. Synonyms include horrible, atrocious, shocking, outrageous, unspeakable, alarming and grim. The front page, above the fold, headline in the May 7 edition of The New York Times…
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